I don't know what you're watching if you think he was analogous to the others. Sargent played solid to well in two appearances. Wright was below average at best, but still managed to put himself into positions to score at least twice, and did so once. Ferreira was a total and complete ---- show who disappeared entirely except when he was giving the ball away including on a goal. If you want to argue that none of them were great, I wouldn't disagree but if we're grading their performances, there is a distinct difference between Sargents C+/B- play, Wrights D/C- play, and Ferreira's "F" level play.
To be honest, I'm not convinced any of those guys do any better. I mean, Pepi and Pefok didn't do much in 2022 against lesser competition. Pepi failed to scored against the likes of Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica, etc. since he's double against Honduras. He hadn't scored for the USMNT in over a calendar year. So what guarantee is there that he'd score against Holland?
Point and Point. It's also worth acknowledging, Wright, Pefok, Sargent and Pepi are scoring all over the place, even Ferreira, but none are scoring w/the national team. So? It's either a problem for the USMNT, or just their role, but it's definitely how we play more than anything. Scoring against Bundesliga sides, Turkish sides, Swiss sides, Championship sides, Dutch club sides etc isn't elite, but it is not vastly inferior to our Ocho level competition and yet even against them our strikers were utterly toothless. This is a part of the design of the attack as much as anything else, and considering that not only do our strikers fail to score goals, but everyone fails to generate a lot of chances or goals as well, it's a system wide issue.
1 - Aaronson isn't a 9 2 - Reyna has played like 20 club matches over the last 2 years and I'm pretty sure he never played the 9 for club or country That you think Greg should be fired because he played Jesus instead of those two as a 9 shows how little you know (not that I know more either but I'm not calling for the coach to be fired for player selection.) All of our 9s aren't good international goal scorers. That's not on Greg and whoever the next coach isn't going to magically turn any of them into one either. Pepe and Pefok couldn't score against CONCACAF level opponents so please explain why you think they would have done any better. Our 9s are terrible and that's not changing for a very long time, no matter who the coach is.
Sometimes its OK to admit that there's a talent gap between every forward in our pool and the defenders we have to go up against in order to go to the Quarterfinal of a World Cup. There's a reason that the CONMEBOL and UEFA powers are dominating the Round of 16. [Fingers crossed on Morocco right now.] True story. Virgil van Dijk is a superior defender by a wide margin to any forward in the history of the USMNT. And its not like Ferreira was our only problem against Holland. He doesn't play defense, does he?
That of course being something I explicitly rejected in what I said. And duh, Weah would be the auxiliary 9. He doesn't have the ideal qualities to deliver what's needed from that position within the tactical setup. Well guess what? None of the available options against the Dutch did.
He was a turnover machine which basically makes any defense worse than its natural state, especially when they're already tired. There is a talent gap across the board, I wouldn't deny any of that, which is also, btw, why I'd argued Pepi and the other guys made a lot more sense than Ferreira because of his size issues alone. Add the talent and its even worse. There were a million reasons we lost, Ferreira was one, not the only one, but definitely one, and he showed in the game why using him and taking him was a mistake. He's not ready for this, at all, and it's on a scale, orders of magnitude worse than with guys like Sargent, Pepi, Pefok and Wright. As for Conmebol/UEFA dominance, its more or less what I suggested in the game thread. That this was a tournament that looked far more likely to mirror say a 2010, than a 2014 or 2002 where there were some legit big time surprises. The shake out of the bracket meant the only teams w/any chance at all to make surprise quarterfinal runs were likely to be the US, Japan if it advanced, and Morocco/Canada (whichever one advanced) and that nobody was making a shock run to the semi's. There have been some shockers, but in the end, Japan lost on penalties, the US exhausted its upside in the group stage, and Morocco is here and now w/the only chance left. SF's will all be big dogs, no upsets whatsoever in QF's if Morocco advances (or if we or Japan had).
Serious question: What is everyone's expectations for goals from our 9 and why? If you expect our 9 to score 3 goals in the World Cup, why do you have that expectation? Only Mbappe has more than 3 and the next 10 are the Who's Who of international soccer. No idea why we expect our striker to be in that echelon.
Shrug. I'm just not as convinced as others that any of these other options would have gotten the job done either at this level. I mean, Sargent plays in the Championship. Wright plays in Turkey. Vasquez plays in MLS. The list goes on. There's a talent gap between all of them and the Dutch (and there would have been against any of these other Euro/SA teams too). Its a fun thing to say "these guys would have done better" when we have zero evidence that's the case. Just speculation. Most of these alternative options people are mentioning failed against much lesser competition in CONCACAF.
Who was our last great 9? Jozy? Pretty sure his nickname was Anti-score. It's not like we've had a plethora of strikers. If we did then all the sudden it dried up under Greg then yeah, I'd blame him too. But we never have. I just think a lot of you guys are setting yourselves up for even more frustration when the next coach has the exact same problem. Also, any offensive minded coach will thus lack a defensive mindset. All coaches will have their strengths and weaknesses.
its crazy how popular that logic- better to stay with whats proven to suck- is around here. we dont know that reyna could do as well as morris, whos to say scally is any better than moore, hur de dur de dur, two trophies!
[According to goals per cap..........only three players have a higher figure than Altidore amongst regulars. Donovan, Dempsey, and Pulisic.] I remember back to the 2014 WC. Jozy got hurt in the first game. Johannsson apparently also had a minor knock. So Klinsmann was forced to play Dempsey up top, which sorta weakened two positions. [He brought Wondo on as a sub, but we know how that worked out.] So what happens against Belgium, a top 10 team? Just anemic. In that case we had Tim Howard set a WC record for most number of saves in a match. He kept us respectable.
Which is why he was 3rd string. And if Sargent wasn't hurt Jesus probably would have never seen the field. Are we seriously expecting our 3rd string 9 to score a couple goals? That ain't happening. And I remember guys screaming about Wright walking around the field and that he wasn't even trying.
You bring up an excellent point. It took Dempsey three World Cups to score 4 goals while it took Donovan three World Cups to score 5 goals. Rooney's only scored 1 goal in 3 World Cups while Zlatan has 0 goals in 2 World Cups.
Checking out the back line and keeper from the match, we have-- There's obviously Van Dijk Timber plays in the Eredivisie. Though currently with ManCity, the last place Ake was a consistent starter was at Bournemouth Noppert plays in the Eredivisie. Pefok had UCL/EL goals against some pretty good defenders and pretty good teams. Pulisic has had top UCL performances at forward. Weah can also play the position. Van Dijk didn't play all four positions. As for Ferreira, I continue to maintain an Almiron type positional change might be best.
But like, a young inexperienced false-9-y ball playing guy who will be the single least in-form guy on the team due to how long it's been since he's played is a bad choice for a role which by definition will be "score a goal in a pinch" if used at all. That's why people thought he would be the starter. Why else take him?
Players from the Premier League have scored almost twice as many goals as the next best league represented at the World Cup 🤯 pic.twitter.com/KkOpJVe1r5— Transfermarkt.co.uk (@TMuk_news) December 8, 2022 The only goals scorers from MLS are two big Euro stars that recently came over... but how many goals do they have against Grenada? Oh and the only fully MLS-product player on the list is Alphonso Davies... MLS lagged behind LigaMX and even the Australian league in that regard.
honestly the mood and aura around this forum is odd and depressing. it IS crazy...and you are one of the minority of posters who isn't illogical. I get the feeling perhaps some of our "brethren" are paid actors/bots/etc
I'm pretty much the biggest Ferreira doubter out there, but just because he shouldn't have even made the 2022 roster doesn't say anything about where he will be in 2023, 24, 25, 26, etc. Most players don't peak at 21, no reason he can't improve, perhaps significantly. Ferreira will be 25 at WC26, 29 at WC30, 33 at WC34... that's 12 years of potential national team relevance, at least being part of the pool.