This is serious. 1. Winning anything is good for players confidence. 2. Beating Mexico. 3. Fifa points, Confederation tournaments worth more than friendlies. 4. Possible movement to a seeded team for WC. Others ... I understand all the negative aspects, but what are the positive ones?
Clubs play in their league, for national "open" cups, in regional tournaments, etc... National teams play in their regional qualifying, hopefully in the World Cup, and in regional championships. Are some competititions more "important" than others?! Sure.....but I'll take watching the USMNT in the Gold Cup over a regular-season MLS match every time. A good level of talent with national pride on the line almost always make for an entertaining game, and this will be the best soccer played on US soil until August 17........
Reasons to watch: John O'brien Reasons not to watch: Same (the prospect of him getting injured again is scary...)
If this tournament is ever going to grow - and Lord knows, it needs to - the bigger teams in the region have to take it seriously. If the US doesn't take it seriously, this thing has no chance. Some may say the Gold Cup packing up and going way is not a bad thing, but I think every confederation needs a championship and it should be a big deal and well run. Right now, the Gold Cup doesn't meet the bill, but for all it's troubles, it sure as hell isn't going to get better if the US starts bailing on it.
The reasons to watch: JOB Dempsey Davis Quaranta Noonan Conrad Gooch The reasons not to watch: Sanneh Armas Wolfe Pope Vanney Hedjuk Casey
If he gets hurt, it'll be at practice. He never makes it to the game. I don't understand how in the world he played in every WC02 game.
True, but at the same time, to be taken seriously, it will need to be re-designed. No guest teams and hold it every four years opposite the WC would be a start.
I will boldly predict that you will want to switch Casey to the other list after this tournament. I hope I'm right.
Reasons to Watch: Because its the US National Team -- no other reasons needed Reasons not to Watch: because unless you live in one of the top 30 metro areas in the US, you can't.
Besides the obvious "watch my nation's players in action" "see us win something": -To watch young players grow up at NT level and perhaps show they belong and/or deserve further chances.... UNfortunately, out of this particular group/roster of US players, I do not see too many players to do that.... (maybe Dempsey and Quaranta - the latter honestly would not be in my five top forward callups, despite his youth-) If someone mentions it's about FIFA WC seeding points... one then would have to wonder why no Copa America, no serious try in Confederations 03, etc... So to me that reason is BS.....
Yes, I agree, I really want to see Casey get a chance as the man in terms of goalscoring. I like his physical play and hope he can take advantage of his opportunity.
I think we should just cyrogenically freeze O'Brien to preserve him until the World Cup. Then we'll unfreeze him the day before our first game. He'll spend the night in a padded room and he'll be ready to go the next day. In the meantime we'll hire Orlando Bloom to pretend to be John O'Brien and play for ADO Den Haag.
It needs to have qualifying too. Then if a team doesn't take it seriously they will get knocked out early on and the actual Gold Cup will have the teams who fought hard enough to get there. Europe makes all their teams qualify for the Euro Cup and look how that goes, everyone sends their top teams because they spent so long fighting to qualify, there is no point in sending a B-team or whatnot. Asia and Africa also make their teams qualify for their cups and they are a lot more competative and taken a lot more seriously than either Copa America or the Gold Cup. I'm not sure how the Gold Cup is set up right now, but I think only a handful of small Caribbean teams have to go through qualifying to get into it. All the Central American, North American, and Guest teams get in automatically. Put all these teams (even us and Mexico) in qualifying and I think we will see the competition taken more seriously, because the teams actually had to earn their place there. We could even keep the guest teams, but make them play qualifiers against each other. Tell South Africa if they want to participate, they have to beat South Korea in a home/away aggregate. Same with Colombia, they have to face Brazil, or whatever, to get in. Then the guest teams will take it a little more seriously as well, since they also had to do a little work to get in.
What a bunch of whiners. The reason to watch is because it is soccer. If that is not reason enough, ...
If the media took the Gold Cup as seriously as the took a missing kid or the Michael Jackson trial or Tom/Katie, then we'd take it more seriously. Some how we need to convince the fans, teams and media that this is just as important as Tom and Katie!
I hear you but in the middle of WCQs? Against a collection of B teams? Who are Tom and Katie, btw? I'm serious.
All the Caribbean teams have to go through qualifying through the Digicel Caribbean Cup, and all the Central American teams have to qualify through the UNCAF Nations Cup. The only teams that don't have to qualify are the North American teams (Canada, Mexico, USA) and the guest teams (Colombia, South Africa)
I would think Casey has more in common with the reasons to watch than the reasons not to. He certainly is not a known quantity on the wrong side of the hill in his career like the other reasons not to watch.
Potential matchups that would have been great in World Cup qualifying that didn't get to happen in group play: Honduras v. Panama, Honduras v. Trinidad & Tobago (Honduras has to have a major chip on their shoulder being stuck in the same group at Costa Rica and Guatemala in the real thing), Panama v. Costa Rica, United States v. Canada, Jamaica v. Guatemala (Jamaica's got a lot to prove too). And those are just the confirmed ones. It's like filling in the gaps of the "what if" scenarios.
Reason to watch US national team semi finals and maybe the finals if the US is in it Reasons not to watch most of the Concacrap teams are involved its a concacrap event univision and telefutura Pro mexican attitude South africa.. The gold cup is really a sad sad friendly cup.. I am not at all excited about the gold cup I love the US national team but I will not watch its group stage matches or any game until the semi finals and the finals and thats only if the U.S. are in it if they are not then no need to bother with this no prestigous cup.....