Ream suffered his injury sometime AFTER the Forest match.* The Bassey(out of position at RCB)/Ream pairing was forced on Silva because both of Fulham's other CB's were injured. Once Tosin was back and ready to go 90 (the Forest match), Silva was finally able deploy his preferred CB pairing of Tosin/Bassey (with Ream on the bench). *“Tim felt something after we played against Nottingham at home. He felt something in his calf. Let’s see. We have to keep assessing him, keep recovering him. He’s doing rehabilitation with the medical department.” https://prosoccerwire.usatoday.com/2023/12/15/tim-ream-injury-news-fulham-defender-calf/
I think with Ream it just depends on where he is with Fulham and how much he’s playing between now and 2026. The chances are good that he’ll be phased out ultimately, but you’ll have plenty to go off in terms of his club situation before every upcoming window post Copa America. And if the World Cup roster does go to 26, he’s not a terrible guy to have around as a veteran presence who will be a good addition to the group and probably ok if he doesn’t actually play much.
Correct. Even though both are left-footed there was a period where they paired up in the center of Fulham's defense. With Tosin leaving, I'm guessing Diop and Bassey will be first choice. They will probably bring in another CB. But Ream will get his share of PT, possibly in cup matches. Plus Bassey can play LB. There are lots of scenarios under which Ream would get a decent amount of PT.
Exactly. If his legs hold up, he’ll be in the mix. He’s smart, positionally aware, a good passer, mentally strong. If his legs go out, of course he won’t be considered. If they hold strong, who knows?
....................plus clearly a leader in the group. All people are saying is: Don't let age be the determining factor on whether this is his last tournament for the USMNT. Let performance be. People have been saying "this is the end" about Tim for years and years now. We thought we'd left him by the side of the road in 2021. Centerbacks can play longer into their late 30s. Half of the top 8 oldest players in the Premier League this season were CBs. The oldest in the league was Thiago Silva, who played at a high level for Chelsea at 38/39.
Who says we're gambling? Ream has played in half the USMNT games during Berhalter's 2nd tenure. So other guys are getting opportunities. Right now, all we need to worry about is Copa America. Then after that, we renew evaluation of guys over the next period as we head to the 2024/2025 Nations League this fall.
We all know that Father Time doesn’t move the same way for everyone, but we also all know he’s undefeated. Team has been a real outlier so far; Pope was cooked by the time he was 33. If I had to bet, I’d bet on Ream getting phased out pretty quickly, especially if he doesn’t come to MLS. (Travel affects fitness.) But if he’s playing well the next time we get to the quarterfinals or so of the NL, and nobody has surpassed him, yeah, play him.
One would think St. Louis and coming home would be a good place to finish his career but he’s been very clear he wants to finish his career with Fulham. I think we are more likely to see him coaching in MLS one day versus returning to play in it.
I’m sort of neutral on it, but a part of me feels the time should go to an upcoming player who needs the reps to prepare for 2026.
That’s really the crux of it. In order to prepare for 2026, we ideally should be giving games to a player who will be in their prime then. Experience counts to ready a player to excel in the National team game.
........but its not like we haven't been giving game time to others. In fact, Ream only returned to fold in 2022 when both Robinson and Richards had long-term injuries. We have 5 freaking CBs on this pre-Copa roster. In the past calendar year alone, we've called up 14 centerbacks. 14!! I'm not sure any of those 14 are definitively out of the picture. Maybe Aaron Long. But if Aaron's play warrants it, he may get a callup again. He's only 31, which isn't old for a CB. Last we saw him was the 2023 Gold Cup semi against Panama. But his time with the "A" group is probably over. Probably.
I guess that’s sort of my point. With Nation’s League, we don’t have the same amount of friendlies versus strong competition as we did in the past… So we don’t now have the opportunities to blood new players we once had.
can i mention the gold cup could be a very useful event for us to evaluate and clarify our pool/depth without anyone losing their mind and claiming i just hate mls? rather than arbitrarily separating our domestic/abroad pool we could say- for example- richards and robinson are first team locks, lets take the next 4/5 guys so we can give them more opportunity. at meaningful matches/minutes, with higher level teammates, etc. continuing our pattern of a fully established framework/core and outside fringe players only perpetuates the lack of data on guys who will be in contention for world cup spots. no offense to a neal or a sands, but wouldnt seeing ccv, mckenzie, trusty be more beneficial for the team? is the managers- any manager- evaluation in training during friendly windows (vs actual matches) really as good as it gets? re "aging" players (who arent lock starters- no one is claiming any of these guys are vital to the nats which is kinda the whole point) let me ask this- have yedlin, or zimmermans post-world cup minutes helped or hindered our rb and cb pool? my entire argument re ream coexists with a general problem for any national team (but one i think we handle pretty poorly)- how to best utilize the entirely too few opportunities at actual minutes available to sustain our growth/improvement at the top while cultivating the "tier" right behind that. im not saying domestic-based players should get less opportunity than others (an alex mendez, for example) simply by virtue of being in "magical" europe. im saying i believe theres a better balance to be found than primarily domestic/mex rosters (in dec, in jan, most gold cups) "balanced" by up to two "all euro" friendly windows which are used as first team camps- including all first team, domestic-based players. i want to see lund and i want to see tolkin. i want to see maloney and i want to see morris. in actual matches. what i dont want is nonsensical gap between dest or yedlin/gressel. we dont have many age-related concerns in the team, but ream is one. post-copa i want him involved to whatever degree his play merits. not his play in 22, or even the last window. ive said multiple times he shouldnt be immediately shown the door- but the current circumstance is that he is a rotational starter behind richards and miles. so in matches that we arent exclusively using our first team he shouldnt be included. and the next "tier" for minutes shouldnt be neal, or sands.
Player growth occurs almost entirely at the club level. Has there been a national team player whose growth has been stunted by the lack of games with the national team?
im not talking about player growth- club play and nt play are two distinct things. we have guys playing in different systems, different roles, on different sides, etc. dest never quite works on the left for us while he thrives at psv. luca looks pretty impressive as the deepest mid against a team with zero interest in attacking, but can be physically taken out of competitive matches as an 8. what is so hard to understand about saying we have to actually play guys to know what they can do and where they fit with the nats? but since you asked how would reyna be doing if he werent getting caps? what if we hadnt carried puli, wes, any number of guys when they were out of favor at their clubs? or let me put it another way- what if we hadnt played musah, or weah, "over" what their club play indicated? again, thats a completely different discussion from integrating depth into the national team. trusty shouldnt play for the nats to can improve his individual ability- he should play to grow and develop the national team. club play to national team play is. not. a. straight. line.
We play enough friendlies and other low pressure matches that I can't think of a single player who has shown a pulse at the club level who hasn't been given a shake with the senior team. Just to pick a rando CB: Mark McKenzie has 13 senior team caps. Should he have more? I would say we have a pretty good idea of what he brings to the table. Is it possible he will improve? Sure, and the place he needs to show improvement is with his club if he wants to move up the depth chart.
To answer the main thread question. Yes. This should be it for Ream. We have a relatively young CB combo in Richards and Trusty that need more time to develop. Ream provides leadership and his control passing in the back is valuable. He won’t probably start every match but I could see him switching with someone throughout the tournament.
i absolutely agree- mckenzie has had a very healthy number of matches/minutes. you could argue too many considering thats only 3 less than ccv. can you say the same about trusty? henry kessler and donovan pines have as many caps as he does. the difference is trusty has a stellar year in the colaship and a tough one in the prem under his belt. dismiss the latter all you want, but he kept his starting spot for most of the season- something ream has only done a couple of times over his 56 year career. youre trying to make a blanket statement about individual decisions, all while ignoring a substantial percentage of us rosters are dictated by geography and calendar. james sands also has 13 caps- is he another shining example of how we are getting it right?
Yeah, I would say the same about Trusty and Pines. When up against high caliber opposition they have a deer-in-the-headlights aspect to them when they are on the ball. They are young enough to improve and have the game slow down for them. But I don't need for them to have more games with the national team to know they aren't ready. I'll know they are ready when they show requisite improvement with their clubs. Kessler is a more composed player. He's had some bad injury luck. If he has a run of good form and good health he should be considered for a senior team callup. Sands has stagnated a bit during the past season and a half. But I'm not a believer that players improve in a linear manner. I keep an open mind about players like Sands. But he has to show something with his club first. In terms of raw tools, I do like Trusty and think he has a chance for a significant senior team career. But he aint there yet. When he is ready his club play will tell us. CBs have a different developmental arc and we need a bit more patience with them.
Pines is OK. We gave him a bunch of caps as a young player to see what he had. He's in League One with Barnsley, who finished in the playoff places. Lost a tight home and away promotion playoff to Bolton. So he was a whisker from the Championship. We all know how this goes. We have the group of CBs that get caps when the games matter. Then we have another group that gets caps from domestic camps and "B" tournaments. Sometimes, often actually, players advance from that B group to the A group. Sometimes they don't. Trusty has never really been with the A group. And he really didn't do a lot this season to change that dynamic. It wasn't all his fault, but he was on one of (if not the worst) defensive teams in the history of the Premier League. The videotape doesn't look good. Is that fair? Meh. Probably not. CCV is playing against much worse competition most weeks than Trusty.