That's not really a fair comparison. It's not as if he completely stepped away from the sport entirely. And he was also injured during alot of those windows. More broadly the games he missed we were ones where we weren't sending our A team guys at the time and very deliberately trying out experimental squads. But more broadly I'm sure that missing the World Cup really hurt and he need time to get over that. I saw this clip too and it didn't look great, but it's also possible that they had already spoken and said hello and the cameras just missed it. It's hard to know.
First, let me say that I hope Gio turns things around with the National Team in terms of his behavior and play. He’s a very talented young player who can really help the team win in the present and, especially, future. His parents, on the other hand, were a complete disgrace. I don’t take pleasure in saying that because I was a big Claudio Reyna fan decades ago. The problem with Gio, though, isn’t just what happened at the World Cup. In multiple games and in multiple instances, he seemed to behave like a jerk to his fellow teammates…yelling and gesticulating that someone didn’t pass him the ball and those sorts of things…like he wasn’t a team player. It’s likely that his parents’ arrogance and entitlement influenced him even before the World Cup. A little bit of arrogance can be a good thing for anyone who fights in competitive conflict, but this is patently too much and detracts from the team effort. This has got to change with the National Team. He’s still young, and I hope it does. Does he behave that way with Dortmund? I doubt they would tolerate that kind of behavior from him…and neither should we.
Part of me feels like they're taking forever, and part of me is reminding myself that we all need to acknowledge that often there's been a dead period of about 5-6 months before the new guy is hired post WC, but this time its different because He skipped November, March and Summer windows from '17, and '18. 3 Straight full international windows. He didn't skip bogus windows. The November '17 Portugal game was the turning the page to youth game w/the Horvath howler. The March '18 window was full international, ditto June. The only windows he skipped that weren't full international windows were the cupcake window in December/January '17-'18. I suppose I should double check to make sure the September/October '18 windows were full international, but they aren't being discussed anyway since he was injured and couldn't have played even if he'd wanted too. I'm not arguing that it's like for like, it aint, but if we're talking about effort here, he was literally out of the program for a year. And only September/October of 2018 was a period impacted by injury. It was his choice to take a break after the devastation from Couva, I understood it at the time, and still do, but it was stil a walking away from the program for a year. It was still A CHOICE. Reyna was basically almost certainly beginning to fear for his entire career. A whole lost year, would he ever play again? There's a lot of whatever'ing his mental state as an 18/19 year old dealing with this injury since September 2021, and as a newly minted 20 year old in November. I'm just calling attention to the fact that nobody critiqued Pulisic for walking away for a year in part because of an emotional devastation over Couva, but with Reyna, a far more serious personal issue has been largely waived away. I go back and forth on this because I have never seen it as simple as a player not hustling, and a player being an entitled ---- as so many seem to view him, it's way more complicated than that, even in the moment of November (You're hurt, but hey, you're not going all out, you're not hurt, take the test because you weren't hustling: so much mixed messaging, by everyone). It just feels like a lack of nuance from every one on all sides and a lack of understanding. I'm not terribly sympathetic about Pulisic calling things out. I've seen his dad ----- about his playing time, I've seem him have melt downs in the middle of games w/the coach as well, I've seen him walk away from the USMNT from November '17 through Summer of '18. He's a glass house figure to me in a way. There are better examples than him to take issue with Reyna's act. What about Steffen? Shouldn't he be upset, having the World Cup yanked out from under him (even though I was happy about it?), LDLT? Ferreira and Long, seeming starters for no good reason over the summer and fall, then demoted to nothing by the WC? They all ate their ---- sandwiches quietly. Musah and Adams etc I can see them, Weah in particular who went through the same position and played the same position too but Pulisic, it doesn't really fly to me. At all. And again, i don't see it as equivalent, as Pulisic obviously has always given 100% when he's there, but he doesn't have a clean CV either. Guys like Adams, Weah, Musah, seem to as far as Im concerned, and guys like Long, and Ferreira, or hell Ream who vanished for what a year...they work much better as guys to handle that situation or speak to it, w/o having a glass house issue. As for the twitter clip, I agree, but then, I kinda waived away Reyna's hotel room walk w/the headphones on after the Iran match and later that did seem to mean something.
There's a big difference between what Reyna did at the World Cup versus Pulisic not playing in meaningless friendlies where we were playing experimental teams (and there was a very determined effort to not call in frontline players). Trying to equate the two is very much false equivalence. It's not even close to Pulisic walking away from the program. I don't understand the effort to excuse Reyna for his actions. He was in the wrong, it was addressed at the time, and hopefully there won't be any similar issues going forward. It's as simple as that.
Ughh, I'm not drawing an equivalence, I'm arguing that he's not in a great position to talk about effort, or to be the most incensed about it considering that he walked away from the program after Couva and didn't set foot in another camp until a full year later. I'm not excusing Reyna either. I think he acted like an entitled, teenage, ----, which is more or less what he is in the first place (just a touch older now), I'm wondering why there isn't nuance, or any kind of empathy for the guy's perspective from fans, and from some of the players too, but it's clearly far too much to ask. I hope it's done too, but I find the takes from some people just as tiresome as they find mine. I am utterly perplexed at the inability from some to empathize, at all, condemn the crappy behavior, the self-absorbed narcissistic b.s. for sure, but also have some understanding for a guy whose been to hell and back since he got injured 18+ months ago and had an absolute avalanche of set backs every time he tried to get back on the field and had his world cup dreams flushed down the toilet before the tournament even started. But again, instead, he's just an entitled ----, case closed. Regardless, no point in trying to engage in dialogue about it, move forward and hope there aren't any other set backs injury related, or entitled jerk related.
You're literally drawing an equivalence. No one cared one whit about Pulisic not participating in meaningless friendlies post non qualification. They didn't matter, at all. As for your prior description of that time for the program as "desperate", it wasn't. Desperate moments for the US were when we needed a goal against Slovenia, Algeria, and TnT in WC games or qualifying, when results actually matter, not in friendlies in the months after missing the cup while we're resetting after a down cycle.
This is......awesome. The anti-Danielle Reyna. Jordan Pefok's mom sounds extraordinarily trill https://t.co/AZ0cxireCz pic.twitter.com/vFQHFoEjl3— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) March 29, 2023