Pepi did more in World Cup qualifying, than Landon did, before the 2002 World Cup. Pepi 3 goals 3 assists Landon 0 goals 0 assists
I don't know, I like the Dutch squad a lot, especially now that Mane is injured. That Netherlands vs Senegal game is gonna be weird as hell. Senegal plays tight, defensive, low scoring games, and the Dutch, well, do not. What happens? Probably 1-0 Netherlands, but who knows. Anyway, the biggest problem the Netherlands has is that they'll be on the harder side of the bracket if they win their group (if things play out as expected). But if they finish behind Senegal or Ecuador in the group and take runner up, well, they still end up likely getting Argentina in the quarters, so pick your poison. No matter what, Netherlands gets a real hard out by the quarters so long as they advance (Argentina if they win their group and then take out the Group B runner up side in the knockouts, if they finish runner up, they probably get England in the R16's and if they make it through that, they get France in the quarters. Ouch. Anyway, I like Netherlands a lot, but they have no route to the semifinals that isn't hard as hell. Either play a favorite or 2nd favorite in Argentina in the quarters, or face off with probably England and France before they even get sight of the semi's in the likely other side of the bracket. Yikes.
I am as well, except I think the Donovan exclusion made more sense based on Klinsy's objectives at the time (not that I agree w/them at all). There's just more logic to Klinsy's approach: Reject Donovan's sabbatical and how it impacted Klinsy's approach and message, stick a finger in the eye of MLS and the Fed. There's reasoning behind it, its just self-defeating. The Pepi exclusion is just pure 100% stupidity, no sense in it at all. Donovan had briefly retired, took a sabbatical to find himself, basically did a tour de force of rejecting everything that Klinsy stood for in terms of his approach. It was surprising that Klinsy decided to shoot himself in the foot w/the stupidity, but not unusual for a coach to basically "cap" a favorite, to enforce his own messaging. It was a Hernan Cortes, burning his ships, moment basically. The reasoning behind it, is clear. My way or no way, w/the program or not. Wheras no pepi, is just flat out, moronic, period. Full stop. No messaging in it, its just stupid. Period. So yeah, they can both join a wing w/the WTF decisions over the years, alongside Harkes '98 as well (even though we get that one now). Now TOAzer, save my post in the "edit" .
It's funny whenever we have a yank doing good for a team and they say he should be on our NT, or even WC team (e.g. Auston Trusty) - the people saying that pretty much have no idea about our team or player pool. They just know the guy playing for them and think he must be good enough 'cause it's the USA. Of course Pepi has an argument, but it just didn't work out for him this time with the other options and GB's ideas.
Well we’re done with the group stage and Haji Wright has looked like dog doo, Jesus Ferreira hasn’t played a single minute because surprisingly we’re not facing Grenada, and meanwhile Pepi is watching from home while the US prepares to play Netherlands where he has been scoring goals for Groningen… As the USMNT prepares for the Netherlands I'd just like to note that Ricardo Pepi has been scoring at a higher rate than Cody Gakpo in the Eredivisie this season.— Steve Fenn //\\ Mast: StatHunting@skrimmage.com (@StatHunting) November 29, 2022 NoRagrets.jpg
I really wonder if this changes things in regards to him playing the U20 world cup. It would be huge for him to play for us there, we could really make a deep run if he was our 9.
I mean......................are we ignoring the fact that Pepi hadn't scored for the USMNT in more than a calendar year? Berhalter cycled thru a bunch of forwards, and none of them consistently delivered. All of a sudden we're at the World Cup, and Josh Sargent started 2 of the 3 games in the group stage. The people trashing Wright now are the same people that were trashing Pepi & demanding Wright 6 months ago. The people criticizing Berhalter now for not using Ferreira are the same people that were questioning why he should get a spot on the roster at all. You know me. I'm a huge Pepi guy. But let's not pretend like we know he'd be performing better than others.
Are we ignoring the fact that Pepi had been in really good form for a couple months, about the same stretch of time as Haji, and he was much more integrated into the team than Haji? Maybe you’re right. Maybe we don’t know that. But what we do know is that it doesn’t get much worse than how Haji has performed. What we know is that Haji was a Hail Mary selection that hasn’t worked out. What we know is that we can criticize decisions without the need for people to swoop in and rescue Berhalter from a little bit of criticism. I’m sure Gregg can handle people calling him out for a bad call. He’s a big boy. We can call balls and strikes, and he’ll be okay. The Mothers of Big Soccer don’t always have to defend every decision he makes.
Leaving Pepi off was a big mistake. But I don't view this as Pepi v Wright. There is room for both. Roldan and Morris are useless. Sorry if that sounds harsh. Pepi in place of one of them is a no-brainer. I also think Arriola is a more useful player than either Roldan or Morris. Tillman is also more useful than Roldan or Morris. We could have also made room for one more useful attacking player by taking only one of Moore/Yedlin. It remains to be seen how these decisions play out over the course of the entire tournament. The way I look at it Roldan and Morris were each individually poor choices. Including both on the team was a major error.
By saying 'the same people' over and over doesn't make it true. I wanted Pepi (and many of us) just because he hustles and at one point we know can score with US. Never wanted Wright because I have watched dozens of games where he has no soccer brain, and never makes the right play. Him not running into the corner and taking an off balance shot with a weak foot to end up slipping is what he always does. He never hustles or finishes a tackle, he always stops no matter what the player is doing. A few times the CB was struggling to control the ball but he always stops 3 feet from the player like he doesn't want the responsibility of causing a turnover.
Good teams have good players that don’t make it. I wanted Pepi there but I can’t say I’m hugely bothered.
I get it. I get it. You know I'm a big Pepi fan. I would have picked him over Wright. [I may have picked Pefok over both of them. But there's clearly something going on behind the scenes with Pefok.] By the way, Haji Wright has 2.5 years of good performance in club soccer. A year in Denmark, a full year in Turkey, and now a half of a year in Turkey. Maybe he hasn't been great yet at the World Cup, but he's not a donkey. Anyway, my point was kinda that ALL of the #9 options have had ups and downs, ups and downs. Literally nobody took the bull by the horns, and demanded a spot based on consistent performance in a USMNT jersey. That includes Pepi. He shot out of the gates like a cannon, but didn't do much after that.
The Gregg System: Gregg knew Netherlands were our most likely round of sixteen opponent, Gregg left Pepi off the roster in favor of guys like Ferreira and Wright, Gregg then had the US pumping crosses into the box all tournament... As the USMNT prepares for the Netherlands I'd just like to note that Ricardo Pepi has been scoring at a higher rate than Cody Gakpo in the Eredivisie this season.— Steve Fenn //\\ Mast: StatHunting@skrimmage.com (@StatHunting) November 29, 2022 Crossing the ball 93 times without Pepi and Pefok is wild. pic.twitter.com/mTslr30q5x— Daniel (@DanielSmith1022) December 3, 2022
Honestly, even with Pepi and Pefok it would be wild. With 2 8s you would expect to be making late runs into the box, and 2 goal dangerous wingers who you expect to be best when making driving the ball to the endline and cutting back, it's amazing that our gameplan in the end was so unsophisticated. Kinda shows that even with all our patient possession and "our FBs will always provide width, its ok guys" style, we kinda just resorted to the least common denominator.
Well Pepi knows the next manager will be calling him up. He just needs to keep up dominating the Dutch league.
Apparently Pepi is the opposite of the typical Netherlands forward How does Ricardo Pepi's data compare to the average of all strikers with 450+ minutes played in the 22/23 Eredivisie?*Striker as primary position.#Eredivisie pic.twitter.com/BE4W9SIoVC— Marc P. Lamberts (@lambertsmarc) December 19, 2022
It is actually strange that Gregg as a player who played in both Bundesliga and Eredivisie. But he was very reluctant to play our players from those two leagues. Bundesliga players — JAB, Reyna, Pefok, Scally, Parades. Eredivisie players — Pepi, Booth, Ledzima.
Very reluctant seems more than a bit overstated. Ledezma's been injured all the time. Booth has started for top-division leagues maybe 1.5 seasons by this point and is a few weeks removed from being benched. Pefok and Pepi are in the 3rd and 13th percentile of forwards in expected goals + assists. Brooks can barely get off the bench for a Portuguese Liga team -- and at any rate Gregg's teams have nearly always featured good CB play. Paredes has less than 200 career minutes at the Bundesliga level and has trained with the USMNT, so if anything Gregg is accelerating his path. Reyna got compared to Maradona by Gregg in the not-so-distant past, so, again, "very reluctant" is an awfully presentist view here. Probably the only one that's legitimately puzzling is Scally, so one of seven ain't bad I guess. Then there's the examples that *aren't* cited, like Sergino Dest and Luca de la Torre, who both got into the team as Eredivisie players.
Then explain Moore who failed to make the Spanish 2nd division. Or Long who was also been injured all the time.