Pre-match: 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup Group Stage: USA vs Trinidad and Tobago

And now I'm going to the Trinidad game tomorrow after a friend texted last minute to say he had an extra ticket. So, now I'm even more invested in them not laying an egg.

 

I think that is generous. But, heading is not really Pulisic’s thing. As Holden said, he “turtled it” by ducking his head in and not really looking at the ball resulting in a fairly weak header towards far post. Kind of overjumped as well. It went into the ground which can be good but if he was going far post, he needed to hammer it. Instead it went into the ground closer to him than the goal. Obviously, there was a lot of room on his near post.

 

Enjoy! Can’t say I’ve ever been to a soccer match in Cleveland.

 

He was five feet from an open goal, the keeper 10 feet away. He heads it not on goal and towards the keeper.

That's not quality anywhere.

 

please explain. It did not look like he meant to do it and iirc he didn't look happy afterwards.

 

That's about what I remember.

 

if you want omelet, you have to break Egg !!!

 

[puts on flame suit]

Ya know, if you slide CP wide the guy on the current who fits that puzzle piece sized opening to play as a pure CAM is probably Djordje, who might be worth a shot against T&T...

[ducks out of thread and goes to bed]

 

yes, of course. At Dortmund, the opposing keeper would surely be protecting the near post so instinctively he heads the ball to the teammate who is sitting centrally in front of goal with every option. It hits him in the feet and he fails to finish (Zardes?). I only saw it live but that is how it struck me. I haven't gone back to look at replays. I could be wrong.

 

It's the greatest failure in US Soccer history. It was a product of arrogance and stupidity. Poor risk management, no plan B, and good old fashioned laziness. It set US Soccer back for years. it's no small matter, and I do think this match is important.

 

Elo Ratings by Group, right now:

Group A:
MEX : 17
CAN : 61
MTN: 89
CUB : 138

Mean = 76. SD = 44.

Group B:
CRC : 41
HAI : 73
NIC : 141
BER : 155

Mean = 103. SD = 47.

Group C:
HON : 63
JAM : 65
SLV : 69
CUR : 131

Mean = 82. SD = 28.

Group D:
USA : 37
PAN : 60
TRI : 103
GUY : 166

Mean = 92. SD = 49.

Groups by Strength : A, C, D, B.

Groups by Parity : C, A, B, D

GoD = C, due to the much smaller SD (=much greater parity) plus being the second overall stronger group.

 

Remember, last time T&T had help in scoring their goals from the US.

 

Me too. I’d paygood money to see THAT game

 

“Struggled against Guyana” aren’t words we want to see

 

Shouldn’t winning the damn thing be the goal. The finals is the minimum

 

They’ll have Gonzalez

 

i agree 100% with the first part- though you could have gone much, much farther condemning everything that contributed to our failure to qualify.

the bolded though i completely disagree with. this game means nothing to me. less than nothing.

ideally it would only mean nothing in the sense that its just who we happen to be playing in this particular match.

but we havent done anything to correct the myriad of things that went wrong. we didnt turn the team over any more than we literally had to, and in fact are holding on to contributors of our failure.

bradley shouldnt be in the team, full stop. not because he jogged to the corner, but because he is a shadow of the player he used to be (and no, hes not "still" better than alternatives, hes just not). and yet this team is built around him.

i dont even blame gonzalez to the degree most do, but we have clearly better options (including zimmerman, who is a very similar player only a better, younger evolution of omar). not to mention there is ZERO redemption to be had (even if anyone outside soccer house believed that that were on the table).

how would a decisive, even dominant win change a damn thing about what happened?

we elected the vice president of us soccer as new president, hired the next branch down on the coaching tree- what has changed?

structurally? nothing. philosophically (in coaching, front office, player selection)? nothing.

player pool- bradley, gonzo, ream? experience, leadership? i dont want to keep THAT experience. i dont want guys who know what its like to not make the world cup out of freaking concacaf, for petes sake (and anyone who wants to say "but pulisic was there too" can shove that disingenuous nonsense directly up their ass).

sometimes youve got to say the water is filthy BECAUSE of the baby, and if the baby is still filthy yes- throw it out too.

we have two players in their prime in yedlin and brooks, playing in the epl and bundisliga. we have a trio of 20 year olds starting in those same leagues (pending pulisic at chelsea). weve got two young keepers, one with about 3 champions leagues under his belt playing at a decent level and another whos stood out in his international appearances and was bought by city (though obviously thats a level you cant argue hes at).

we have young, quality depth at cb (miazga, zimmerman, long, ccv, epb, richards) either ready or on the way.

we have passable domestic talent and a ton of kids making their way though youth academies in leagues around the world.

please, PLEASE someone explain why we rebuilt around a 31 year old who is CLEARLY not as good- by any measure other than being old enough to have done things more often- than any of pulisic/mckennie/adams?

and even more please's and PLEASE's someone tell me why we wasted a year and a half not even bothering to hire a coach to be building around the (relatively, for us definitely) incredible young talent we have?

and i have to sit here and listen to our coach and gm talking about taking our knocks now while INCLUDING "experience and leadership" that should- if that were paired with any high level of quality at all- soften those knocks somewhat? get the f out.

we should have had two years now building around our young players, with just MAYBE one or two new ideas (sorry- im just not counting "the system") at the very least.

oh, robinsons not ready? is tim freaking ream getting beat any less? sargents not ready? hes got as many goals as zardes in 7 matches (at this same level, same coaches, same system) as zardes (unbelievably our primary st) has in the last three years- both of which were entirely flukey.

that team that failed to qualify- the ONLY thing keeping us from fielding those exact players this saturday is the fact that most of them are 40 now. "we" (meaning us soccer) havent changed ANYTHING.

so again- big picture- this game means nothing, nothing other than what it is. our next gold cup match.

but hey, what do i know? go go usa, right?

(mariokempes, obviously none of this is directed at you- the subject just set me off)

 

Owen Goal is a nasty poacher. Him plus the washed GK did us in

 

Yep!

 

@rgli13

I only disagree in that every official game is important to me. I want the US to get back to being the king of concacaf. I remember when the US was clearly the class team. San Zusi wasn't that long ago.

The first step of retaking the top spot is boat racing all bad teams. The boys need to send a message that, if you are not Mexico, you should be playing to avoid embarrassment.

 

obviously every match is important, but not in some context of a sending a message we're back, or redemption or whatever.

this match isnt any MORE important (again, to me) than if it were el salvador or honduras is my point.

 

Really interesting, but numbers and rankings aside would anyone credibly make the claim that Canada, Martinique and Cuba are a more stout set of opponents than Panama, Trinidad, and Guyana? From the perspective of the seeded team the real question is the ranking of the three remaining teams, which are imo much weaker in Mexico's than our group. They have zero teams in the last hex, we have two. Plus Mex having by far the lowest ranking skews the overall average.

 

Actually, right now, I do consider Canada more dangerous than Panama, and I believe that if Martinique was a stand alone nation, and so allowed to be part of FIFA, it would be comparable through the years to TnT. Cuba and Guyana both are a wash, equally crappy.

 

Or a deflection off Omar Gonzalez's leg.

 

That's right. But for the existence of Omar the arrogance and stupidity would have led us to Victory!