Just don't mention that in the USA forum. I merely suggested it has been a poor 2023 for our YA and good lord that got a reaction. But apparently Puli, McKennie, Reyna, Musah, Dest, Aaronson, and Weah have done well...... Reyna at least racked up goals/assists when he got time. Best YA 2023 has got to be Pepi who did it at for a club relegated in the Ered. But he'll be at a better club soon. The good news is it can't get much worse. So the backend of the year in the Fall should be pretty good. All for reasons I won't discuss on this corner of BS, better to have 2023 be a poor club year than 2025.
I know we're crazy off-topic, but Phil Hay claims that BA was actually a Bielsa acquisition, but Red Bull didn't want to let him go during the winter window. That tracks with what I remember about BA's transfer saga timeline.
Ya everything is pointing to Italy. Would be a good fit for him. Biggest thing is going to a club he'll start more often than not and a league where he's regularly available and not injured. Do that and produce for a couple seasons and at 26/27 he can still rebound back up to a legit UCL club. But he's gotta take a step back and start producing and make his stock rebound. Good thing is plenty of players have hit a wall at Chelsea, only to rebound on the continent.
And Kovacic, whom the CFC supporters claimed is not good enough for them, is on the verge of joining City.
There is a clear correlation between the posters who despise, bashed Berhalter relentlessly, and those who can’t admit our talent wasn’t top ten WC caliber, Pulisic wasn’t a Baloon D’Hor candidate, our players were being wasted, etc. I called them out for being ignorant and dumb then, and viola, many are still proving it. Admitting they were off in their assessments would mean admitting their footballing IQ is low/inexperienced/naive, so double, triple, quadrupole down and bash away. It can’t be them. They have to protect themselves more than anyone.
I'd love a W-L on Athletic transfer reports for the past few weeks, tho. But the "if clubs like" still stands - if any moneyed clubs with aspirations a bit above their current performance come in for CP, and if any of the big club Italy interest is real (and if the 20 mill transfer fee is accurate) CP will get paid fine. That's 3 ifs and I have no idea if he's hit all 3, but my guess is he will. People are talking crazy money for a number of players. At some point that trickles down.
I just like sharing that factoid because knowing that a young Yank was on Bielsa's radar blew my mind!
there can be worse things in life than Naples for the work week and Amalfi coast on weekends and during breaks. plus those Puma boots have the right colors lined up.
That sounds kind of ideal since they will have so many games. Rotate three good wingers is what Chelsea should have been doing but they like to muddle through ten or so none of they have a feel for their teammates.
What is your goal here? To feel like you are some soccer whisperer and the pied piper of USMNT fan base? “Kneel before my grand intellect and keen foresight you dirty plebs!” People are stoked about our guys and project hope onto them. They want to feel joy from their success. It is literally the whole idea behind the circus portion of the equation. Moreover, who fvvking cares? Didn’t you throw a fit and storm of a couple mo this ago because the forum was filled with people less than you? Maybe it still is and you will find happiness at some elitist forum in England.
In response to you and Jond, I'll just add that their asking price is supposedly in the 20 mill area and transfermarkt has him pegged at 32 mill and he had an excellent WC. Clubs know that Chelsea moved on this year. They didn't play him, hence the few goals. In fairness to Chelsea, he wasn't worth their paid price, in general, and in some years, he was nowhere even close to that level. Otoh, he tended to produce at a level w/their best players that they valued at nearly twice his level and they preferred those guys (English guys and the others as well). Regardless, it's not us that are pegging him at 20-30, Europe is. We'll see if he goes for that or less. My guess is most clubs will low ball off the stats but if the rumors are correct (Milan, Juventus, Napoli) then yeah, he's perceived as an elite player, but I think after the last couple of years he's more a 20-35 mill range than anything close to what he went for 4 years ago.
I don't know, I think the vast majority of us know that the bulk of the first XI guys had disappointing years, but that a few didn't, and a ton of the bench/2nd and 3rd tier guys actually had great years. Sargent, Wright, Pepi all did great. That's basically 3/4's of our Euro strikers. In Midfield: Adams, Tillman, Tessmann and Booth were great off the top of my head. At Wing Forward: Everyone sucked except Zendejas. At CB: Brooks bounced back, CCV and Trusty and McKenzie all had career seasons off the top of my head. Editing in Ream. Can't believe I forgot his fantastic season. AD FB: Jedi and Scally had very nice seasons. At Keeper: Horvath and Steffen became starters, but that's the best of the good news for them (and LT's promotion). So it's a weird kind of thing to evaluate, you have a ton of first teamers who did awful, but plenty of guys in that 10-40 range who had great seasons. So it's basically a two sided coin season. All the big name guys you mentioned were disappointing, though Weah's season was weird more than anything else, he played a ton of minutes, but was brought into a new position so how do you evaluate that? I'm not sure. It's complicated. It wasn't a horrible Yanks Abroad season, it was more a half and half season.
He's not wrong. I 100% recall that while RBS wanted to move him on for a hefty price tag that was nuts even then, they also wanted to bring their full team to the celebrated R16 encounter with Bayern Munich. I believe it was the farthest they'd ever gotten in CL, or the farthest in years and years and they wanted to keep him for that home and home with Bayern Munich (and his sort of assist (did he mean it, or not?) helped RBS secure the famed draw at home with Bayern Munich before they were ripped to pieces in the road leg.
And I just posted, you know, the nuance, instead of the straw manning. You guys are half right on the '22-'23 season. Are you completely right? Not close. As I mentioned above: all our yanks abroad strikers anyone cares about had great seasons in Europe except Pefok (Wright, Sargent, Pepi). A bunch of central mids did as well: Tillman, Booth, Adams, Tessmann. Some of the defense: Jedi, Scally, CCV, McKenzie, Trusty, Ream (who I completely forgot above), Brooks wrapped it up well (I probably should pull back my great season comment on him, it was more great 1/3 of a season or whatever). How do you evaluate that fairly? I'm not really sure but calling it a half and half or glass half full/half empty is probably pretty fair, and maybe a little harsh considering more had quality seasons than bad, it's just more of the guys who were bad were XI guys (McKennie, Musah, Pulisic, Aaronson, Weah (sort of), Dest, Richards (not first XI but probably would have been if healthy and having a great season).
Everybody forgets Boyd, who with 13G/2A also had a good season. The problem is our players at the highest level didn't have good seasons.
Haji and Pepi I'll give you, but Sargent? He scored 4 goals in like 22 games after the World Cup for a mid-table Championship team. First half was great, second half was kind of ass, overall was...fine.
Tyler Adams, Jedi, and Ream are the only guys I can think of in big 5 leagues that had great seasons. The rest of them were in lesser leagues (Belgium, Netherlands, Turkey, Serie B, Championship etc). So mostly agree on that criticism. Not quite sure what to think of Boyd's season. Suffice it to say, going back to Europe and playing for lower level German leagues has lead to a kind of renaissance for him. '19-'20: 14 and 11 German 3rd '20-'21: 18 and 6 German 3rd '21-'22: 15 and 1 German 3rd '22-'23: 13 and 3 German 2nd I don't know what to think of it. It's better than nothing. I can't decide how much is league quality and how much is finally being healthy. All the seasons were basically 2500 to 3000 minute type seasons. Good Production. But he's 32 and we've moved on and yeah, it's probably 80/20 about league quality and 20/80 about health and fit. But it does suggest what he could have been if he'd ever been healthy for extended periods of time.