No, I’m pretty confident in saying that we as a society have devolved into petty, vindictive tribalism. If you haven’t woken up to that yet, then you are assimilated into the borg, brother.
Yes, and the place in the vent diagram where youth and experience overlap is called “prime years”…lets hope that our young guys have long careers like Landon or Bryan Ruiz.
Well, my question would be, "who then?:" Of all our players, he's the only possible candidate. Unless you want to crown McKennie or Adams. Or play without one, which is what we have been doing, with all its attendant disadvantages. Pep in a lot ways has both revolutionized the game and ruined it in a paradoxical sense because in his view there is no Pirlo or Modric needed. You don't need these sort of guys anymore, but only if you've got a slew of great players such that everybody runs the show by turns, but nobody "orchestrates." Of course that requires players with a deep understanding of positional soccer, spacing, and dynamic situation by situation decision making. I remember going to a Fire game, and the team was bogging down, and Bradley, who rarely yelled out anything, and even rarely stood up to admonish or tell his players what to do, yelled out at one point -- "Play with Peter!!!" The ball was moving around aimlessly and things were going nowhere, because Peter Nowak, a traditional 10, was seeing none of the ball. No top level coach does that any more. Pep's rules rule. What position does Kevin De Bruyne play? Is he an 8? a 10? He'll wind up on the wing...is he a 7? He is all of those things, and none of those things. Of course, it works great if everybody is ALSO great AND seasoned--but who has that? Man City does, but we don't. Anyway, we shouldn't worry. Pulisic is going to play where he plays at club because that's Berhalter's MO.
Pulisic does not have the vision to be a #10. Last season he managed 2 assists in 1,735' played, and a good chunk of it as a wide AM who cut inside.
I agree with this. I love Pulisic, but I don't see him as that type of "field general", "quarterback", or whatever you want to call it. He is at his best like how he was playing for Chelsea during Project Restart. Not only was he Chelsea's best player during that time, but he was probably the best attacker in the Premier League during that stretch. He's fast, direct, and at his best in space one on one. I don't see him as a central, tempo-controlling, "string puller". That's much more Reyna's game or even someone like Busio. In terms of "field general" related to the captaincy, I think the US has it right with Adams as the permanent captain. Pulisic's already the face of US Soccer, and he's more of a quiet leader. Adams has much more of the "captain's mindset", and I think this also takes some of the burden that I know Pulisic feels. I think having the armband on Adams frees Pulisic of that weight and lets him just go out and play.
This is a cautionary tale for Scally. Both Clark and Cowell were anointed when they started the season on hot streaks. For various reasons both have stumbled. If Scally takes a knock and the injured outside backs return and play well does he get off the bench? I think part of the reason he wasn't called up was to fortify his starting spot with his club. Once entrenched he will get called up. Would either play the kids? I think we all know Jose wouldn't so therefore we'd look a lot more like Costa Rica did without even having older players who were once good but Pep likes having the best and does the best include young players who aren't ready? Don't want to pick on you specifically as I see those two trophies being mocked a lot now. If Berhalter had not one either of those then those same mocking him would have been calling for his head. So is the object to win every trophy available and qualify for the WC or get GB fired no matter what happens to the team? Didn't Berhalter used to get criticized for not playing players where their clubs played them?
Scally needed to be called up. He is playing at a WAY higher level right now than any of our backup outside backs.
I think Zimmerman has been quite good and consistent and would have no problem starting him against Mexico.
As an aside, I like that Berhalter was hesitant to say anything bad about Ruiz. We all know he's old; the pbp guy pulled out some quality age jokes. But Ruiz was a PHENOMENAL player. Always used to scare me to death.
Ha! I’m much more excited about this team than I was a year ago or a year before that or a year before that and so on and so forth. That’s the basis of analysis.
I'm more excited by the talent that continues to develop. But as far as the performances? We just put in the worst match since Couva 2 games ago. Yeah, it wasn't our A team, but it wasn't far from it. And while we got two wins other than that, they were ok, but hardly totally dominant. We're only winning games when our talent is so dominant it's nearly impossible to lose. Jamaica/CR were very bad. That said, Egg has beaten Mexico twice. If you're excited about this team, and this talent, I would assume you'd expect a win in our next match against them?
I wonder if Steffen could have done better. He tough the CF was going to touch it but he didn't because the CF though he may be call offside. Would Turner done better? To me, Turner has better instincts to react to those split second decisions. Dest, had an excellent game, but let's be honest, sometimes he will mail it in a game when you least expect it like the NL finals. I suppose a happy Dest is what we want. MRob is still a work in progress, but his upside is too much to ignore. I don't think we have anyone with his athletism that can play CB. I'll let it slide for now. Richards, looked fine for me. Did he make any errors? I do remember seen him make a bad pass in the game but nothing really in the MRob category. His slide block to save a shot inside the 6 took nerves of steal. Richards is the future. As to the aerial defensive game, I wouldn't put too much weigh on it. We still lost crosses in the final minutes of the game and we also had Zman in there. ARob, looked ok, his dribbling need refining to be an elite FB. I did see an improvement in his defending. He tracked back a lot, not only to his man but also to help out the CBs when they are forced to shift. Adams is Adam. He is our general of the midfield. Musah, his weighted passes didn't come across to me as being underperforming, he even did a couple nice switches using his left. His strength in retaining the ball and his flat-out speed is going to make him be an elite player. He is only 18 and he already possess all the physical tools to move up to the next level. McKennie, I originally gave him a below grade to his usual game. When I watch the game a second time and homed in on him I realized he did better than my first impression. I don't think he is playing with the same fire as before, perhaps he wants the GB to think he taking things more serious. Weah, He played his usual game that he plays for club. His 1v1 game is not that strong, is not at the level of a Pulisic or Konrad, but he does have a stronger shot. Is he better than Arriola? of course, but try to convince GB on that. It was just our luck Arriola got injured, otherwise, we will been frustrated all game long. E
In your opinion how much time or games would he need to be "entrenched" before GB calls him? As it stands, I think Scully is better than Bello.
Going to quote Ironbound from a different thread on how the CR goal was a team effort of failure and not just down to Steffen: I don't think Steffen is the "least" to blame because I think he would be the first to say he should have stopped it, but goals against are seldom down to one or even two or three players.
There is no doubt a drop off, but there's also a question about when and where he recognizes talent. Arriola and Roldan combined over KDLF is freaking moronic. No Scally when he's the second best performing fullback in the pool and the next window is just 2 games including the Mexico heavyweight match was moronic. Not calling Julian Green is borderline. Never calling Wright in no matter what he does in Denmark, and Turkey is kinda nutty. Leaving Siebatcheu, the guy with nearly 25 goals in Europe the last year, and nearly half a dozen Champions League and Europa League goals since last winter for Zardes is at best questionable. There are tons of decisions here that don't make a lot of sense. We see over and over again that there are some guys that get a thousand mulligans, and other guys that get few if any (see Vines, McKenzie (a europe guy!), Yedlin (another), Roldan, Yueill, Arriola, Zardes etc, while other guys can't scratch up a call up. Others will argue: He's blooded a million young guys, and has called in anybody, and everybody. Well, I'll counter with that minutes tweet that heavily tilts towards MLS, and just Egg favorite low ceiling moderate to low floor guys that should've been abandoned years ago, and instead keep getting rolled out, over and over again. We'd have a much better idea of our depth if guys like Ream, Roldan, Lletget, Zardes and Arriola etc weren't swallowing whole massive minutes on the defense, in midfield and at forward. Instead, he now can continue to argue window to window why "the group" is what it is, and this isn't the time to tweak things, and that's a problem. When you rig the process to evaluate talent, you get results that will be unreliable. I am very happy that he's blooded a million guys, I am very happy that he figured out, after nearly two freaking years, that it was the kiddos, and not his favored MLS lifers, that really should be starting alongside the written in ink guys (Pulisic, McKennie, Adams), but he has more work to do, and needs to realize how to rotate intelligently, and not like a sloppy drunk at some Boston bar, and how to utilize his depth and young talent properly window to window. He just wasted a window where he could have given Scally training reps so he could be used in November, now AT BEST, what we're probably going to see is either, more positive words about Scally and no call up, or a call up but no PT because he has no experience until that camp with Egg's glorious system. Ergo, why he should've been called up in October. It's beyond frustrating. And none of this takes into account the fact that his assistants are garbage (or Hudson anyway), that his attack is putrid other than the magic the players can do inspite of him, and that these problems continue to persist after three years in charge.
Pretty much, and it was predictable in a lot of cases. Bello has lots of upside, but is an inconsistent mess, if you're gonna roll him out, better at home against Jamaica than at home against Panama, fewer mistakes. Ditto McKenzie. Zardes is the conservative play against Panama, but I felt the team would need Hoppe as an aggressive, dgaf, fighter in a game where the chances would be few and probably sloppy (also why I wanted Siebatcheu for that one), Arriola after he gassed out in a mega effort against Jamaica was pure lunacy, that's why you bring a KDLF, or even just roll out a fresh Roldan (I know, not a fan, but at least he's fresh), and while I get Lletget centrally for ball security, if you've got two fullbacks who lack reps at this level, and insert two defensive, negative football guys alongside Musah, and a tired Arriola on one wing, why would you expect ANYTHING to work. I was okay with rotation for Panama, but it needed to be smart rotation. Put a fighter in who has something to prove at forward, w/a dgaf attitude, or a poacher like Siebatcheu, if you're starting that central midfield, you need weapons at fullback, and we didn't have weapons on either side....it was a scheme designed to lose the ball and not generate chances and that's exactly what they did. It looked like he was playing for 0-0 and hoping subs could steal a win, why is that ever, a good strategy when you already wore out your best sub options in window 1, or matchday 4? What great supersubs did we freaking have?
We have an incredibly young team. No idea why posters expect consistency out of them. They are growing into the tournament and getting better. There will be bad games, it comes with the territory of a young, inexperienced team. Part of the excitement is seeing 18 and 20 year old kids play really well. But the flip side is there will be times when they don't. Can't have one without the other.