The manager/coach is the Top Dog same as your boss or supervisor etc. Even if you're right, they can't be wrong. That being said, has Johnson played once since the past three years of Berhaltter being in charge?
Yes exactly, and that was a terrible decision! I never liked Klinsmann as a coach but that decision is when I went from 20% on board to 0.0%... It was just completely inexcusable to not call up the best USMNT player ever who was still in his prime (see friendlies like vs Scotland, 2013 Gold Cup where LD was the best player in the tournament, 2014 MLS regular season where he had 10 goals 19 assists, and MLS playoffs where he had a hat trick on his way to another MLS Cup victory) and instead bring (pick your LEAST favorite) Julian Green, Brad Davis, Aron Johannsson, Mix Diskerud, Chris Wondolowski, even Graham Zusi. And what any reasonable person could have seen coming was proven when Aron didn't do crap (being already injured when Klinsmann selected him!), Mix didn't even play a single minute (with the #10 shirt!), Julian Green wouldn't have played except Klinsmann had to protect himself from post-tournament criticism by putting in Green after the US was already effectively eliminated down two goals to Belgium, and Wondo with the infamous miss... Now we have Miles Robinson already missing the World Cup, and we're trying to go through that again at center back by taking some CB who is "a little bit ahead" of Brooks? Not ideal!!
Do you mean Fabian Johnson? He essentially retired from professional soccer years ago. If you mean Sean Johnson, he's made a few appearances in the past 3 years or so, but games are hard to come by when you're a third string keeper.
Player comps are meaningless, he didn't do it because he thought those guys were better he did it because he felt Donovan was not a 100% buy in to his program, and in order to lay down a marker, to stamp his impramatur on the team (I never spell that right), he kicked the poster boy for the program off it to send that message. It had ----- all to do with what value Donovan brought to the field, vs the other guys, and everything to do with what kind of chemistry, and what kind of program he wanted to build. He wanted buy in, and doing that to Donovan was the best and most perfect way he could think of to send that message to every man 1 through 23, that unless you were fully on board, you could get booted too. It was idiotic, and moronic, but there was a reason he did it, and the reason was sound for what he wanted to accomplish for the team as a whole from his point of view, for performance on the field, of course, it was 1000% idiotic, and self-destructive, but long term it served his purposes for what he wanted to do with the program. Far too often people think of it as a player evaluation decision based on performance, and try to compare to other obviously inferior players to Donovan, and that's a pointless endeavor. No matter what he said to the press about it (kind of like JAB, but even more blatantly obvious x10000), it had ---- all to do about performance or ability. It was Mick McCarthy kicking Roy Keane off Ireland right before the World Cup back in '02 sorta deal.
Well as long as we're agreed that it was "1000% idiotic, and self-destructive"... Call me crazy but since the USMNT is not absolutely stacked like France or Germany I would simply take the best players possible to the World Cup unless they were "Richie Incognito" level locker room cancers.
I don't disagree, for the most part, but coaches do it all the time, you just need to look at World Cups to see the dust ups over it. France in '10 imploded over a player coach problem, then Benzema didn't make France's team during his prime because of some seriously evil as ----- criminal ---- he did to a teammate. In '06 I think it was Togo that imploded, same with, was it Cameroon, I forget which (before failing to qualify in that instance), right now its Morocco, hell El Tri is leaving 2 of its top 3 forwards off its roster for very little justifiable reason throughout the past year or more, one can go on and on, it happens all the time. In terms of the team, I think tiebreakers w/players are often about chemistry, and it is underrated. It's not a coincidence that the most together team was the team that was the most successful ('02) and the least together teams ('98 and '18 cycles) were the teams that failed spectacularly.
When people are debating the merits of something, how frequently that something is done doesn’t matter. It’s not relevant to the normative question.
Well let me help then: Chemistry matters, pretending you can roll out the 23 and 11 most talented period, and their mental make up, and chemistry with teammates is immaterial is a fools errand at best.
First boots on the ground in Cincy. 👋👋👋 @jjscally_10 pic.twitter.com/DbdLg4abIN— U.S. Soccer Men's National Team (@USMNT) May 27, 2022
I always figured that GB reached a limit with Brooks that surfaced in in the first qualie window. Brooks rested first match against El Sal. Makes sense. GB and Brooks do a pre game presser together before Canada game. All good. Brooks looks lax letting Larin get by for Canada goal but has a part in US goal. Probably bigger is the arms out and eye roll walking away from Berhalter during game. Not a good look for vet and someone who said he wanted to be captain. Hondo game and Brooks does the ole’ just outside own penalty area in middle that starts Hondo sequence leading to goal. Yeah, Bello should have done better at end but what CB lets someone go free in front of their own goal outside of the box? If you listened to HT talk by GB, at end he tells the team to “Go out and play like men!’” He then says ARob on for Bello (this was a planned sub from beginning) and Mark McKenzie on for Brooks, not a planned sub. Hmmmm…. Nevertheless, Brooks is called up for next window but backs out for back problems. Not called in after that for form which Brooks quickly goes out and makes a statement kind basically agreeing with GB. Kind of odd, I thought and made me think something else was going on. I watched Brooks for Wolfsburg and he was mostly fine but I would notice that as a LCB in back three, there would be times he would drop deeper by a couple of steps than the other two CB’s as opponent got closer to goal. This can be disastrous as offside line is typically off guy in center and can catch everyone off guard. Made me wonder that he just might want to do things his way and GB isn’t going for that. Manuel Veith was on with J Davis today and when it came to Brooks, he remarked how weirdly silent it was as far as possible signings for out of contract Brooks. Like, nothing. Heck, Sule was going to be out of contract but his destination was decided like over a month ago. Seems odd with Brooks and makes me wonder if maybe there is more with him that makes coaches hesitant? But, maybe nothing and he will be snapped up soon enough. My thinking is that there is something with Brooks that GB doesn’t trust or thinks it just isn’t worth it. We’ll see.
If Brooks is one of the 5-6 best in the backline for the US and he's left out because the coach doesn't like him, then that's stupidity. If he's a locker room cancer, then it's a good decision. He is one of the 5-6 best and I can't see a legit argument against that. This is his last cycle more than likely too. A real motivator for some players.
I think things probably came to head with Brooks sometime during that first window. He still called him up during that second window, though he pulled out because of his back. I think in the intervening time, what probably made Brooks expendable in Berhalter's eyes was the emergence of Zimmerman. The relationship was probably already not in a great place, and I think having another center back step up like Zimmerman probably cemented him being out. I do think we should hear something soon on Brooks in terms of his club.
Team culture/chemistry does matter. It's hard to know in this case because we really have no idea at all as to the specifics of this case and likely won't for years (maybe once Berhalter is gone and Brooks is retired).
Brooks has issued at least two statements that were reasonably construed as humble, “I want to help the team“ olive branch type statements in recent months. It has been met with a litany of different weird explanations from Gregg of why he’s not getting called in. Perhaps Gregg has been in private communication with Brooks to explain himself more honestly and fully. I’m not aware of anyone who actually works in the field of professional soccer or used to describes Brooks as a locker room cancer, though people have speculated that that is the case. I wonder if there’s an element of defensive rigidity on Greg’s part as well. He’s very exacting when it comes to the defensive performance of players with primary defensive responsibility. The pictures of him reacting to the positional Brooks mistake were telling. He runs to look at the video and he’s looking for something very specific, and you can tell he is upset. Meanwhile, forwards could whiff 1000 sitters and his face remains impassive.
Something's up and it smells poorly from the outside looking. Egos are tough to manage, let alone understand when it's someone else you're trying to analyze. And when a coach's ego gets in the way of decision making it's at least a yellow flag.
Certainly not in the BuLi. In fact the opposite, Wolfsburg complaint is that JAB is too shy and introverted in the locker room and with the press. They have wanted him to be more of an approachable figure with the media and with to work with the PR folks but he is just a laid back unassuming kind of guy.
Again until I hear credible reports that John Brooks is the Richie Incognito of the USMNT I'm going to assume his case is more like Donovan than Harkes John Brooks in 2022. Landon Donovan in 2014. John Harkes in 1998. Who else in US national teams history falls under this category?— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) May 27, 2022
Is Brenden Aaronson wearing a Philadelphia A's hat? Touched down stateside. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/k1y1nL20i8— U.S. Soccer Men's National Team (@USMNT) May 28, 2022
And we still not completely recovered from that. And Brooks is a remaining piece of Klinsmann boys and carries that stink with him.