I don't think it was the founders of MLS who said that, but USSF who commissioned Carlos Queiroz to write the Project 2010 report (which you can read here https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~clc5q/Project2010.pdf). It was always a fantastical goal to win the World Cup in 2010 however. We could indeed be super talented and winning a World Cup would still be difficult. Spain of all people didn't win won till 2010.
And yet the US has been getting a ton of praise from non-US sources both in terms of how we are playing and Berhalter's coaching. We still have lots of room to grow and get better, but this has definitely been a positive World Cup so far. The answer isn't to just copy a random country though. It's to figure out the deficiencies in our own developmental pathway and continue to address them.
Hahaha.... I wonder what is different about our pool this cycle vs the past. We all know the USMNT players sacrificed their careers and USMNT performances to come back to the league in 1996. Then our highest potential player decided waste talent to hang out in MLS. Then in 2016, little Christian Pulisic broke out in Dortmund and inte interest in American players blew up in Europe. There are multiples more American players abroad, but our team has a similar number of MLS players.
Sounds reasonable. Unfortunately, I havent seen Berhalter do much in this area. He favors athleticism and work rate over technical ability. Besides the first half against Iran, this has looked more like Bora ball than progressing us forward. His two favored CBs over the cycle can't playnout of the back.
I bet any amount of money that Moriyasu didn't waste near as much time with J-League players as Berhalter did with those MLS scrubs. I personally really like the way Japan plays and seems like a good fit for their culture. I domt see low scoring Berhalter ball as being something this country can really relate.
Can you do us a favor? If you are going to troll, can you at least make your posts somewhat coherent?
What don't you understand? More than happy to explain. Edit... not sure what is trolling about that post or how you think you can make that claim if you can't understand it.
France won their first one at home in '98, despite having a pretty good legacy of top players, including an all-timer in Platini. Netherlands still have never won one. Project 2010 was always a pipe dream that underscored how naive we were about the sport at the time. No country has ever gone from being nobodies to being real contenders, let alone champions, in any length of time, let alone in a single generation.
Pretty amusing that about the time of 2010 was when MLS started gaslighting its fans into believing they would be a top league by 2022. They didn't even need a report to mobilize all those clowns to start comparing MLS to every league around the world. The culture is strong!!!
I think you're projecting, friend. People that follow MLS don't need it to be the best league in the world to feel good about themselves for being a fan.
They have roughly the same number of J League players (7) than we do MLS players (9). Do you think things would really be different if we flipped Johnson for Steffen and Yedlin for Cannon? Guys who play in top leagues tend to be better because those leagues are a higher level, but the problem is the attitude that someone is inherently a bad player because they play in MLS. Lots of MLS players have done well in the World Cup over the years and it’s not a bad level. The problem is this idea that any player in Europe is automatically better than the MLS guy. Berhalter spent so much time on MLS players early on because he didn’t have the European options we do now. Adams and Weah were injured for large parts of his early tenure, Reyna, Scally, LDLT, Musah, Wright, and Dest had yet to break out, Turner and Aaronson had yet to go over, Horvath wasn’t playing, and Jedi, CCV, and Sargent were ready yet (but were getting callups/opportunities). Ream, Yedlin (then in Europe), Pulisic, and McKennie were his main European options and he called them regularly, Meanwhile Berhalter has been getting a ton of praise in how he’s set up the team. See for instance this thread USA have been *SUPERB* in the World Cup. Berhalter has done a fantastic job & his tactics have given his team the best possible chance of winning in each game.Below, in this in-depth thread, I break down how he did that & how the USA match up against Netherlands.THREAD! 🇺🇸🇳🇱 pic.twitter.com/WkRENMOyui— EBL (@EBL2017) December 2, 2022
Michele Gioannone said in his opinion, Gregg Berhalter will leave the USMNT 🇺🇸 after the World Cup regardless of what happens. As far as I remember, his “reporting” “in my opinion” has been 100% accurate. He is either a genius or has inside sources, or a bit of both.— Tactical Manager (@ManagerTactical) December 2, 2022
Project 2010 wasn’t that far off. We should have won the Confederations Cup in 2009 and, if Charlie doesn’t break curfew, we very well could have been a Quarterfinal/Semifinal team in South Africa. That 2009 Confed Squad was the best/most entertaining group we’ve ever had.
The people talking about Project 2010 on this thread don’t understand Project 2010. The goal wasn’t to literally win the World Cup. The goal was to look 12 years ahead and chart the best course for creating a plethora of top players by then. I would also point out that if Rossi had chosen the US, enabling us to start him instead of Findley (or if Davies hadn’t gotten into that car) and Jermaine Jones had been healthy and replaced our worst player Rico Clark, we would almost certainly have made the semifinals at that cup. Then we have a puncher’s chance against the Netherlands and a potential rematch with Spain. Just sayin
I wouldn't put much stock in foreigners saying good things about how well coached we are. That's what they say when they think your players suck. It has a v3ery low baseline.
But also Jermaine Jones was committed to the US, but hurt. Imagine if he had been playing instead of Ricardo Clark. John O’Brien would also have been 32, young enough to play a role if his career isn’t injured plagued. And then you also have the two biggest dual nationals we’ve lost in Rossi and Subotic. They were never really interested but just imagine adding them to all the other mentioned names. And as noted, they had as good a path into the semifinals as you could ask for.
Lots of strawmen and good ole narratives in here. MLS fans worry more about leagues than any other fan. Since I have never not wanted an MLS player on the team just because they were in MLS, no need to comment. It is the MLS fan that doesn't want a player from a place like Denmark to get a shot because MLS is a better league. There are little pieces of truth in here, but it was Berhalters choice to focus on MLS players. Even if you didn't think some players were ready in 2019, they were all better than the ones chosen. Weah, Sargent, Robinson, and CCV were all rejected by Berhalter. The reason our top guys don't have a ton of minutes together is because Berhalter chose MLS players for much bigger roles than they should have had. The reason our depth is so poor is z erhalter never looked for it and played Acosta, Moore, Yedlin, Morris, Roldan, Arriola, lletget, etc way too much.
I know and hang out with a lot of MLS fans. No one I know thinks MLS is a top 5 league, or however you want to define the best leagues in the world. But, we are pleased with how far MLS has come in a relatively short period of time. I’m not sure if you have any comprehension of how bleak the American soccer landscape was before MLS. And guys like you have never come up with a better path that could have been taken back in 1996 to create a professional soccer league in the US.