The Ocho

That would have definitely affected Altidore at Sunderland. After living in Holland he was probably expecting to understand what the locals were saying. Poor kid!

 

I’m ok with basic minimum guidelines….even 3000 min as long as it is not a rule. You still have to look at the player. If a young player has a relatively low number of minutes, perhaps a better approach would be for the coach to select him (assuming he deserves it) but treat him a bit differently in terms of how he manages him. If we had applied it as a rule, we would have lost out on pepi’s goals. Now he seems to be struggling, which may be due to his inexperience….perhaps he needs a different type of support than a seasoned pro Would need

 

I don't really have issues with Berhaler's record of calling up young players. We all have this or that guy we'd like to see get in sooner but overall that's not been much of an issue overall. But, I do think it is a bit misleading to say he is more open to it than other coaches. I think given the player pool and the complete lack of prime age players who are any good means just about anyone who coached the US team would be fielding a larger than typical number of young players. If anyone would coach this team and not rely on a ton of youth, they would be absolutely incompetent considering the gap in quality between our prime age guys and the younger players coming up. Our team is extremely young not because of aggressive coaching choices but because of a very unusual player pool to pick from.

 

Ha! I spent my teenage years a few miles from Sunderland. Despite being exposed to Geordies and Mackems every day for five years during my formative years there were still some older people I couldn't understand. And I moved there from Merseyside, about 3 hours away.

 

I want to be very clear here since it seems my words are on the verge of being taken to mean something they're not: I'm not arguing that you can't call a guy in before he's got 3000 minutes. I'm saying that that seems to be roughly a threshold where most young players seem to become more consistent. "Consistency" can viewed as both the player becoming less prone to errors AND the respective coach giving them more regular playing time--which would presumably be largely due to the former being more true.

When you've got our current player pool, which skews remarkably young, there's often no way around accepting this inexperience. But it doesn't mean that you say "F*ck it" and just put out 11 guys with this same issue.

 

That sort of thing has been odd to me too. We've had multiple guys go from starters to not even in the squad and guys come out of nowhere and get starts. He's certainly not shy about mixing and matching. I do sometimes fear this isn't always great for team cohesion. It's been a wild one so far.

 

I don't know that you're correct about it not happening with any other coach (I know you note the WNT, which I don't follow, so I'm thinking about the MNT here), but my sense is that you're correct. However, no other coach has had such a wealth of talented yet unseasoned players to choose from (and so few veterans) to try to make a team. The lack of faith in Zimmerman prior to 21 GC was somewhat surprising, though he was first choice in the GC last year (and clearly was the dominant CB next to Miles, who was also very good). Zimmerman is a guy who just has the Jay Demerit factor of really, really fricking wanting to play for the NT and gives his all all the time. Eventually, his zeal conquered Berhalter's hesitancy in playing him. That's just how it is sometimes.

I think it's a good motivator for guys on the periphery to know that--for whatever the reasons--they need to excel to get in when they get their chance.

 

How do you get that from Zimmerman? He had 13 caps under Berhalter before he started playing well in qualifying. I am sure those guys on the periphery who got one short camp are super motivated with how this has played out.

 

Zimmerman was a peripheral option until after GC 21. He was either not called in or didn't play in the competitive matches in the year prior to that tournament. He didn't see the field in the first window. Since then, he's taken his chance and he's run with it, and most people on here would say that he's probably the first name on the sheet amongst CBs. This is most definitely NOT where he was a year ago today, and I doubt anyone expected that would be the case.

 

He went into 2 GCs as a starter. Yeah, his rise has been surprising, but don't see how it motivates anyone. It sure looks like a situation of a player not excelling but staying in the mix and then just dumb luck. It also wouldn't be surprising for his play to revert to the mean, so id pencil his name in. He actually isn't in my top 3 CBS, but j expect more out them playing out of the back.

 

Disgusting scenes in the Liga MX tonight, The Queretaro vs Atlas game has been suspended due to the home team fans of Queretaro assaulting the visiting team fans of Atlas, Early reports are indicating that there are some fatalities. We will see how it impacts Mexico's final home games

 

Something like this doesn't happen out of the blue.

The game was 0-1 with about 30 minutes to go. The Gallos Blancos had a chance to tie it. There was no controversial call.

Something happened in the area behind one of the goals where the visitors were. There was a small group of locals nearby, something was said, and a fight ensued.

Then, the big Queretaro "barra" that was on the other side, near the other goal, ran across the stadium first, across the field after, and attacked the visitors who they thought were beating the small group of locals.

The security of the stadium was controlled by a private company that used pretty women in pink to act as "guards." It was more a stunt than actual security. The three girls of that outfit who tried to intervene got hit.

So it was an accident waiting to happen. No real security, no real separation of the visitors from the locals. But something else must have happened, because much of the violence followed outside. In fact the dead were killed outside La Corregidora, by groups that had chased them there.

--

 

It appears there are lots of dead both inside and outside the stadium. Brutal. One video shows a police officer opening a gate so that Queretaro fans could get into the Atlas section. BBC is currently reporting "22 injured", but it seems like there might be 22 dead from what I've seen.

 

There will be no FIFA or CONCACAF punishment toward the Mexican Federation. Or at least not that means anything.

 

Unless it affects a FIFA or CONCACAF match it will probably be left to the Federation.

I don't think the Egypt national team suffered any CAF sanctions after the Port Said riot. The national fed shut the league down for two years.

 

And although English club teams were banned from European competitions for five years after the Heysel disaster, the English national team played matches on the continent as usual.

 

Right. Heysel occurred in a UEFA match.

 

The scenes from that game are insane. Fans were being hunted down and beaten to death. I've witnessed drunk ultras getting in fights in the streets after a CSKA/Levski match in Bulgaria when walking home but never seen scenes like the one from last night.

Don't know what FIFA does but as the governing body in this sport you must be able to protect the safety of fans in attendance. The worst clips were the women/children running/hiding for safety. And it seems a few cops were in on it.

International matches aren't league matches but how does the Mex Fed respond if asked, how are you going to protect visiting NT fans vs Mexico?

 

The latest I heard is that there were no deaths but there are 3 people on life support.

According to Mexican ESPN it started when Atlas fans attacked a family section of home supporters. You can see that in the early scenes and the pictures of families running for cover.

That doesn't excuse what happened subsequently.

 

I have seen entirely too many videos of scenes from that...event...to believe that none of those people are dead. There's no way. No way in hell. And it's not going to be just 3, either, unless the government tries really hard to cover it all up (which is entirely possible).

 

Statement by the state governor.

No vamos a ocultar nada. Sé que las imágenes del estadio son perturbadoras y que se han difundido nombres de personas que, supuestamente, han fallecido; pero hoy confirmamos que afortunadamente están VIVAS y recibiendo atención médica. pic.twitter.com/QoPYjEwqMi

— Mauricio Kuri (@makugo) March 6, 2022

According to my tourist Spanish he's not going to hide anything. After the disturbing images from the stadium there are reports of deaths. This is false. There are many injuries and two people in life threatening condition.

 

Seem Mexican Twitter says at least 17 dead but government is trying to cover it up.

The vids would suggest many dead.