An announcer on Gol Tv's 45/45 was saying how Bruce Arena showed no respect by bringing reserves to a WCQ v Guatemala. If your not familiar with the show it has 4 south americans discussing soccer. It was interesting to hear the discussion about the subject because they spent most of the show discussing the south american qualifiers and in the US you never hear any debate period( other than BS). The other announcer disagreed with the first gentleman stating they have qualified already and they are breaking in players and they pointed out that Landon, Hejduk, and Twellman played. As if to say look these first teamers were there. At the end of the debate he made a joke and said panama will bring the reserve team next game because they are out of it.
Did any of these fellas in the debate bring up the fact that the Man City, Fulham, PSV and Leeds managers would have flipped out if their boys had to play in a second, meaningless game clear down in Central America? Clearly, this is a case of not being able to please everyone. And I'm thinking Bruce would rather have some south american talking heads be pissed than his euros' managers.
I don't know about respect, but one of the guys I work with brought up the point that maybe Arena should have swapped maybe only a couple of the guys on the first team. His idea was to continue to let our first team play together and get better. I think maybe he was just giving our A-team a break?
Um, almost every country does this once they clinch. The US has EARNED this right. So has Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and the Ukraine. If the other teams didn't want the US to be in a position to use reserves, they coulda prevented us from doing so by keeping us from clinching. All five teams had a chance to do so. Only Mexico slowed us down.
No respect? Arena isn't getting paid to care about any other team other than the USA, and that's how it should be! Screw their opinions. Arena is doing his job of managing his players and preparing for the WC. It's not his fault other teams may be depending on the USA for results.
what do they want from us? they know Guatemala is not on our level. if Guatemala would have won, these guys would not have played up the fact that it was our reserves, i don't think
It could be taken as a sign of disrespect for your opponent. Funny it reminds me when a team in youth soccer blows out a weaker team. People say don't bury the team. Then if you run the game like a practice session and keep the game close other people say you did not give the opponent respect.
it is about nothing except allowing our first teamers a break, esp the Euro guys.They are juggling alot so all breaks are appreciated by players and clubs.
In the rest of the qualifiers I think Mexico will win the qualifiers over all because they want to come out in first place especially against us they will be in first place over all because of that. They think doing that shows they are the best team and not us even though they lost against us. If we win over all qualifiers which we won't because of all the experimentation I would not be surprised if their coach was sent packing that would have been good for us.
well, i'm not going to say we won't win the hex, I'ld surely like to very much, but there is the issue that Mexico doesn't have to pull their starting xi from Europe, where as we do as well as the fact that Europe will put more pressure for their players to stay than MFL. There is the experimentation thing, if we start our B lineup against CR and Pan. I don't think we will win the hex.
I don't think that the Mexicans are as naive as some would have us think. The true fans in Mexico and CERTAINLY the powers that be in Mexican soccer KNOW that the US has called off the dogs for the rest of qualifying. Winning the group after being clinched on by the US is not going to make them feel any better.
Exactly. Respect? Bwahahahahaha! All these Latin-American and South American clowns do is disrespect US soccer. Now that we can send "B" teams and still hold our own they just can't stand it. Screw 'em. You want our respect? Beat us chumps.
Many sports talk shows run on the premise that a topic is given, one person takes one side (point-of-view) and another takes the other side (most of the time he's playing the devil's advocate), and each gives their argument. I wouldn't doubt it if any of the announcers gave a flip about the topic, but it was a subject that they were given to talk about.
Any of them point out the squad that Argentina put on the pitch against Paraguay? I can't remember them ever losing to Paraguay and I know they blooded their young star, Messi. If its okay for the goose . . .
Imagine what they would have said if we had won. Besides, putting on the B team is not disrespecting Guat, if anything it was being nice.
why the hell do we care? I don't even care that they found time in their busy schedule to discuss our team. I just don't give a sh!t. They suck, we don't, and they can't deal with it. End of.
Your damned if you do and your damned if you don't. SCREW EM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They want to kick us in the arse when we get a losing result or they want to kick us in the arse when we bring our b-side. To hell with them. You can't please people all the time. But it's easy to pick on us because we are the USA.
Isn't it true that the FMF will give their players a bonus if the finish first in the hex? Maybe that's their motivation. Ah but there can only be one Gold Cup champion!
Few Latin Americans play abroad, so within CONCACAF, this isn't an issue that most fans and commentators in the region would be familair with. Bruce not only has to manage his squad, but a host of club coaches. While domestic leagues tend to be extremely cooperative, these elite European clubs get a bit upset if call-ups are rather pointless. Bruce will need to call these players in for a number of friendlies to prepare for the World Cup, and if he can gain a bit of favor by allowing these players to get back to their clubs for a full week of training, why the heck would he not take that option?! Bruce has bigger things to worry about than this pettiness......