Take some old chicken bones and cast them on an iron forge. If the resulting pattern looks more like a River than a Mountain we play New Zealand. But if two or more bones crack on the forge when thrown and the air smells like poppies, we play Nigeria even if there isn't a Mountain. Naturally, that's if it is NOT raining when you cast the bones. If it IS raining and zero bones crack but one falls off the forge and the pattern looks like a dragon.....
I believe you will play New Zealand. For the rank of third places was D, A, E, B. US vs New Zealand, Nigeria to play Argentina. Both very good games on paper. Brazil to play Tunisia and Colombia to play Slovenia.
No. The bones must be completely dehydrated at the very least. Unless you cast the bones one the second Monday in of a month in an odd numbered year...
If France beats Honduras (3-0) does it come down to fair play points in comparison to Slovakia? Or chicken bones? 4-1 I think France passes Slovakia
On why people might be selling them short I'd say its because England and France A teams steamrolled us in March and we didn't win either Revelations Cup, the only competitions we played in against quality opponentes. We still haven't by the way, we played the worst team in the tourney, the worst team out of UEFA, and the worst conmebol side, so not sure how much it means. The positves are everything you say for the most part about the relative strengths, it's a very high floor group with some high ceiling guys on defense, and at keeper and moderate ceiling attackers. It's not the '19 side, and before the tournament I argued that compared to tournament peers past, it was probably not quite at the level of our '03 and '07 and '17 and '19 sides compared to their competition, but better than say the 2005's, the awful '09-'13 groups, and the '15 quarterfinalists, but you're right, they're playing at a higher level than that for the most part. In retrospect, they're probably better than '15 and '17 and hell, maybe '19 too, and positional cohorts are damn good period. Before the tournament I kinda felt like a voice in the wilderness arguing that the D has the most potential of anything beyond Sln the other hand, who did we shut out? Nothing too special. So I'm not sure how good they are but I'm impressed by the scouting pedigree. The proof will really come in the knockouts because we haven't played anybody yet. Last time out our U20's played and beat the tournament favorites, traditional power Nigeria (who I think were okay but not as good as they usually are), played the eventual champions Ukraine, even up falling only due to a Dest error, before falling to Ecuador. And its important to note, this Ecuador is not that Ecuador. That Ecuador won 6 qualifiers, and only lost 1 and were champions in Conmebol qualifying. The current Ecuador won 2 matches total out of 9 in comparison and stunk out loud, qualifying by the skin of their teeth. Theya ren't the same by any measure. That Ecuador finished 3rd at the 2019 tournament. By any measure that team was just way, way better. And they also didn't house us. It was 2-1, their winner was on a flukey play that most of the board (and our players) thought was an offsides play but wasn't due to some technicality I've forgotten. The counting stats from the game were: Shots: Ecuador wins 13-11 Sogs: Ecuador wins 5-3 Corner Kicks: USA wins 5-4 Offsides: 1-1 Basically, it was damn close, and they won and were the better team but not by much and most of us called the loss the second we saw Ramos was going back to the pathetically weak central midfield pairing of Durkin and Mendez (who proceeded to get owned on Ecuador's opening wonder goal, crazy echoes of Bob's butchered #6 decision against Ghana 9 years earlier), but if you review, we came within a whisker of tying the thing midway through the second half (although they also hit the crossbar late).
It's not a good game on paper for us. We beat them 6-0 and 4-0 in recent cups. And in group, we ran the table w/ a +6 goal differential. They accrued 4 pts w/ a -4 GD from an even weaker group. We should throttle them. But it's a match-up we earned. The following round should be a good game on paper.
But all the "competitions" you mentioned are foolish to be used for primary evaluation. One wasn't competition at all. We were tinkering on the doorstop of the real one. If you used the same criterium, you'd think the US would bomb at the senior WC. And the Revelations' Cup, namely the first one, was a Mickey Mouse tourney designed for Mexican recruiting purposes. The first one was put on a crappy field, our players hadn't played together, and many for a while period. And at the 2nd one, we looked like the best team btw. The most translatable competitions, like it or not, were the CCAF Championships where we steamrolled everybody, the first round here where we crushed it, and maybe you could throw in the 2nd Revelations Cup, during which, again, we looked like the best team, on Mexico's homefield. The quantitative sample is only positive. If you want to look at the US as moderately proven because they didn't face elites, then fine. But there was some respectable comp, and you can only beat who you play. They're teens & there's high quantity of quality. A couple will likely prove to be outstanding, even in the front 4-5. People aren't the master scouters of individuals they believe they are. It's more about having a lot of bullets in the gun. They may not be quite as good of an Ecuadorian version, but it's absolutely revisionist history to claim we didn't get hammered in that game. I remember feeling it was pretty hopeless the way they were manhandling our players. The stats you're using are deceiving. There's no xg calculation. In that thread vs. this edition's, the tone was night and day. So that's another indicator we're better. I don't think we'll have a match in this tourney where we get ran off the field, and if we do, it won't come against a sub-elite side.
On Point #1: I can kind of get that. I thought we basically sucked at the first rev cup, but were better and the best team at the second one, for sure. And I'm a performance over results guy anyway so the second one was good. But that was really my issue. Before this tournament we basically had those 3 tournaments and we did poorly in 2 of 3, and well in 1 of them (and I would agree w/the argument that we were far better than the scoreline indicated against a vastly superior France squad to this tournament one). I think the U20 Concacaf qualifying tournament was an abject joke. To be fair, our performance was a tour de force we played literally everyone we faced off the field, even the 2-2 tie vs Canada was a dominating performance where they scored to crazy fluke goals but were otherwise smashed (underlying stats illustrate it: Dominated shots, sog's, corners, we just couldn't finish and they got some flukes). The problem though is as hard and serious as our opponents might have been, they sucked and because Mexico choked in the quarters, the toughest teams we faced were Costa Rica and Honduras, we got to play the Dominicans in the Final after all. It was absurd, a final four where only 2 of the 4 teams have any history worth a ---- the last 3 decades (us and Honduras). It is what it is, and I took pride in the fact that in Central America we produced our best ever qualifying performance, beating the ---- out of everyone save that Canada fluke game, but it was also pedestrian at best opponents and usually far worse (3 of our 7 opponents were Caribbean sides and not even good Caribbean sides at that, a 4th was Nicaragua, a 5th was notoriously god awful Canada who we tied, on flukes). As for my view of the players, coming in I kinda viewed them as High floor, with few high ceiling guys, and mostly depth types for the senior team, but w/these exceptions: Keeper, and the Defensive back line. I saw 3-4 guys there with a chance to break through as regulars by '26-'27. The attackers I was more skeptical of. No proven strikers, the wing forwards were high floor types, other than Cowell who has a ton of volatility. I've had a hard time deciding on Central Mids, not sure what they'll be, Vargas blew up his back and I worried about his career, McGlynn's athleticism issues make me wonder, but there is potential there, it just felt like a lot of AAAA talent, other than the keeper and the back line. The tournament has reminded me of their ceilings, but I keep trying to remember that we had an easy as pie draw, so we haven't really played anyone other than an okay Ecuador yet. As for comparing this Ecuador with the '19 one. Again. It's just not comparable. The one in '19 won their confederation title with 6 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses. This one managed to win 2 games out of 9. Not the same at all, especially when you add that Argentina sucked at this one, unlike the last one. As for unbiased observers. I don't know what to tell you. 2-1 game. Statistically to their advantage, but only by a little. They were very good and went on to finish 3rd overall, they were better than the team we put out there, but I do believe if we'd rolled out the same lineup as we did against France, we take that game to extra time or win it. Instead he started the weak Central Midfield pairing of Mendez/Durkin which was overrun at times by all our group stage and they immediately failed to close down Ecuador's attacker on their long range opener, like literally exactly the two players the pbp thread was bitching about starting before kick off. The game itself, as I mentioned before was close, but Ecuador won and were probably deserving winners but they didn't kill us, house us or even convincingly outplay us. They were a little better than a line up Ramos shouldn't have started, heck the highlight package fifa produced echoes that with 4 chances for us and 3 for them in a game they won, the stats backup the idea as well, it is what it is. I remember the game. Mendez came close early, than they scored first with Mendez and Durkin loafing from distance, we equalized off a corner, they scored on a play literally everyone felt was offsides and was except for the technicality, we had a chance to score via Soto in the box pass play and he botched it, they hit the crossbar on a flick on header, Weah whiffs on a backwards header in the box, hitting it too soft and right to the goalie. It echoes what I remember. The first half they lead 2-1, second half was largely them killing the game with both teams having chances to put it away, or tie it respectively but they won. Damn good team. We'll just agree to disagree I suppose, I do think they were better, but it never felt like Czech's 3-0, or Spain's but kicking us other than '09, Brazil's hammer blows, that first half against Slovenia, the Belgium game etc. It felt like a close game they won.
There's still a theoretical chance that we could get Nigeria. That would take a blowout in the Tunisia game (either way) plus an unfavorable result in France/Honduras. Both are so unlikely that the chances we play NZ are at least over 90%. But that's what people said about us qualifying for the 2018 WC before Couva, so until I see it happen I won't be counting any proverbial chickens.
Yeah, I can't see it at this point. even how it would technically seem possible. One bummer from that last result, man, if Tunisia had snuck a decent win against them, what would it have taken for them oust Uruguay out of our side of the bracket. That could've been sweet, then the only real monster in there is obviously Brazil. But now it appears it will be pretty balanced, with Brazil and Uruguay on our side, England and Colombia on the other with more information to come. We get ourselves a legit intense QF if we make it there and then a SF against Brazil if we take that. Very interesting.
R of 16 is NZ. If we win what will be a difficult game, our next opponent would be the winner of Uruguay vs. either Gambia or S Korea. (That part of the bracket we don't know yet.)
Yep now NZ is locked in as the R16 opponent regardless of the Group F result. The result still affects us though because if we advance to the quarters we’ll play the winner of Group F (South Korea or Gambia) or Uruguay. No easy matchup there. As you’d expect for a WC quarterfinal.
Gambia was great in CAF qualifying. South Korea was okay in AFC qualifying, they upset France in a game France was technically statistically better in, then lost to freaking Honduras, so South Korea's really unpredictable. Gambia was great in CAF qualifying and pretty good so far at this tourney. I'd probably rank those teams for this tournament: #3 Uruguay #4 or #5 USA #9 Gambia #13 South Korea #18 New Zealand
I watched this one verrrrry delayed. So not gonna add much but just that really like what I saw from Vargas in this match. Impressed. And Cowbell, just....more Cowbell? Or less Cowbell? Just need to figure out just how much Cowbell.
welp colombia blew the doors off slovakia....the US group was trash.....and NZ was too hopefully the boyz are ready for some real comp soon