27-man roster for June matches

While I'd like to believe he would have sky rocketed to the top of the Forward options chart, the evidence is sketchy at best. He didn't get a lot of minutes with the 1st team at all pre-Gold Cup of B/C and lesser teamers, he seemed to be behind multiple guys who have since fallen off the chart entirely. If there's any evidence that he could have jumped to the front it's whats happened to the guys who were in front of him a year ago. If he had stayed healthy it's hard to imagine he wouldn't have gotten chances at least when Pepi's play fell off during the winter. That's the hope to me. The lack of call ups in the fall, combined with the 3rd or 4th position in the pecking order last spring and early summer always made me think Berhalter just didn't rate him as a good fit for his system, but even w/that knowledge in tow, eventually he was rolling out guys like Pefok and Ferreira by winter, so it's definitely a shame that the timing of his injuries was the worst imaginable to make in roads into a potential starting or at least roster role.

 

This is an example of a perfectly plausible fill-in narrative that may or may not be true. We can debate the ability of other, more talented players to be good complements to the core talent. We have done so ad nauseum. I am not interested in repeating all that. I am only interested in challenging attempts to define other narratives as implausible. Roldan May or may not be a net team positive compared to an alternative in his spot. I doubt he is, especially because he could be on the sideline regardless. But I don’t claim to know definitively, or that he necessarily is not.

 

It's all guess work. All coaches tell you what they feel like imparting. We don't see actual practices and don't know what instructions are and if a new player is doing well or bombing. We can read the tea leaves but that's all it is.

 

Again, "coach knows best" stands in contrast to some of Gregg's coaching record. And some coaches "impart" more frankly and plausibly than others. But you're right, we don't know.

 

Fun article if you like Adam Snavely.

https://www.backheeled.com/the-anti-analysis-usmnt-june-roster-analysis/

 

My basic feeling is that every coach will pick 90% the same best players but the margins of the NT will be very different depending on the coach. That's absolutely normal and there is no established method of picking those guys. I have absolutely no idea why we are arguing so much about Roldan and not who the starting CBs or 9 will be.

 

"Agree to disagree" is hard for some people to get to. Yes, I agree that different coaches would pick many of the same people, and some different people, and that that is "normal." Trying to close out a discussion by suggesting the illegitimacy of a POV on a subject about which reasonable people can disagree does not actually put a bow on the discussion. It prolongs it.

 

The whole post you are responding to is quite clearly framed as my personal view. I kept out of the Roldan discussion for a while until it got (IMO) silly. Just to be clear, all the above is quite clearly labeled to be my opinion. Feel free to have your own opinion, keep posting and do not be surprised if my opinion (again, very much labeled as my opinion) is that some things said are just wrong. If your opinion is that my opposition is wrong, well then both opinions will have to live as uncomfortable threadmates side by side.

 

I'm not thinking he's likely to have leaped to the top.

But he's:

• A big body and good in the air
• Good at stretching the field vertically
• Is young and improving seemingly pretty rapidly

With a healthy year, where would he be? I'm glad to see Wright get a look, but I think that a healthy Dike is probably a better bet than Wright or Vazquez to make an impact. All percentages, of course.

 

Hard to say as Wright is a much better Wright just recently. Forwards get better sometimes slowly and sometimes a light goes off. Really looking forward to see if the light has gone off for Wright. At one time he was highly regarded and he's sort of the prodigal son returning to make good.

 

Yep, hard to say. I am not particularly certain about any of this. I think Dike has substantial upside, though, and his age, tools + lack of previous experience spoke to a potential big bump in performance.

But nothing's guaranteed, of course. And same on Wright. There's real tools and real skills, but the performance is fairly recent and he wouldn't be the first guy to have a hot streak well above his permanent performance level.

 

I'm actually pretty bullish about the next cycle. Most of these guys will have a lot more experience and be nearing their prime. It's a shame none of the prime age strikers are doing anything right now. Zardes is the best of that bunch? Altidore aged out or injured out ...

 

1. All of the guys you listed will be on the roster if healthy 2. At least one will be hurt, it’s in the middle of the freaking club season. So yeah in the fantasy land where all those guys are healthy he’s out. But that’s never once been the case and there’s an extremely low probability that they’ll all be healthy, meaning he has a pretty good chance of being guy 23-26 on the roster.

 

Lot of positional versatility on that list and Roldan is a utility guy. I don’t particularly care for Roldan but I am confident if one was hurt the other 6 will all be on the plane. I would prefer someone else jumping him obviously, especially if it were only a 23 man roster. I don’t really care if he’s guy #25 on the roster.

 

I don't think he's up against those guys, he's more up against Busio. Who does GB trust in a situation where one of the MM's goes down? Probably DeLaTorre and Acosta, but what if Adams gets a red? Acosta goes back and it's either Roldan or Busio.
Greg trusts Roldan over Busio, and so do I if I'm being honest.
I agree with you in that there is no place for him on the wing depth chart, barring injuries.

 

ROSTER UPDATE:@SeanJohnGK has been added to the #USMNT roster for June.

Zack Steffen has had to withdraw for family reasons.

— U.S. Soccer Men's National Team (@USMNT) May 27, 2022

 

Hope all is ok with his family. Steffen needs to rebuild his confidence someplace where the manager will have patience and he can experience success.

 

Agreed. he seems to always have something to deal with either health, being rusty from being a backup or now family issues. So first I hope the family issues are minor and will go away quickly, next is to be completely healthy and then find a spot to actually play in the run up to the WC.

 

Here's some Brooks background

"Sources have told me that something broke on their personal relationship, on the environment subject, on what Berhalter wants in the locker room inside that team... something else that is not just related 100% to on-field performance"
- key reporting by @MicheleG3 on John Brooks https://t.co/oDMxiOFDBI

— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) May 27, 2022

 

I imagine it's more than just the clip from the Canada game, but hard to judge without knowing more about the specifics.

 

Coaches always say it is performance related, no different than Klinsmann claiming Donovan was just a little behind other options when it was clear there was more to the story.

 

The thing with Donovan though is that there doesn't seem to have been more to that story that wasn't already apparent at the time. When Donovan was asked about it recently, he speculated that his sabbatical might have caused Klinsmann to question his commitment to the team, or Jurgen might have still felt burned for going out on a limb by bringing him in at Bayern and having the move not pan out, but it basically sounded like his guess was as good as ours. It's not like there was some big rift or event that only those parties were privy to.

On the other hand, there obviously was more than met the eye when Harkes was dropped from the team, and the public did not learn about that until 12 years later, so who knows.

I think it's always been reasonable to speculate that there was something more going on with Brooks and Berhalter behind the scenes, because normally veteran starters who are playing regularly at a high level don't just disappear from our national team all of a sudden. But without more reporting, there's just not a lot to go off there -- some strained body language in a single clip I guess? And the Donovan example in my mind actually argues against speculating too much further, because sometimes there just doesn't end up being anything specific anyone can really point to even years down the line.