Are you expecting Jesus Ferreira to score goals at the World Cup?

No.

Hopefully he doesn't start.

Why do we use our fastests guy (or one of them) as a false 9. Stretch the D some.

 

I don't expect him to score, but he will get an assist or two.

 

Roster numbers are out. Fereira has #9.

 

Sargent wears 24 for club so it makes total sense.

 

Starting Jesus up top alone would be setting him up to fail. He's no physical enough nor is he clinical enough a finishier to make up for it. I hope Egg starts Sargent; who plays and against Egnlish dudes weekly and has shown improved physicality and finishing ability or Wright; who is a big guy who has shown clinical finishing while also being able to get in behind slower defenders.

Only if Egg wasn't so insistent on the 1 striker formations...

 

mix diskerud: americas #10

 

Ferreira has worn the 9 for FCD (it's been 2 years, though). He's also worn the 9 for the USMNT and the u-23s (it's been his shirt number for the last 2+ years for the Nats). You can see his whole shirt number history here.
Given how much he's played for the USMNT over the last 18 months or whatever, it's not surprise he got first dibs on jersey number over Sargent and Weah (and Morris, for that matter). The real surprise is that Reyna got the 7. Aaronson has worn the 11 for the US for a while, but he wears the 7 for his club and I would have expected he'd get first choice over Reyna. But, maybe he did and still chose to stick with the 11. In the end, can't tell a whole hell of a lot from jersey numbers other than who has seniority (but I'd bet the GK numbers were established by the coach). And, that Scally definitely has the least seniority of all.

 

I mean he wears the 10 for his club and I don’t think they are going to give him that over Pulisic.

I don’t think we should read too much into the jersey numbers. Ferreira is definitely going to play this World Cup, but I also don’t think he’s starting all 3 games.

 

Ferreira wore #9 last year for FCD. After signing his designated player contract, he switched to #10 to honor his father. The first father-son designated players in league history.

[FC Dallas didn't have a player wear #9 last season. Jara was #29. Pomykal wears the most prestigious number at FCD, which is #19. Bobby Rhine's number always worn by a homegrown player.]

Nice mural of Ferreira up in Oak Cliff recently.

 

I'm not confident of Ferreira getting goals necessarily but I do think this question is framed all wrong. It's not a matter of whether a specific player can score goals against whatever team you want to talk about. Anyone on our roster in the right situation can score a goal. Just because you are facing a good opponent it doesn't mean that you are not going to get a clear chance and you can play a poor opponent and the ball never quite breaks your way and you get nothing. Do I think Ferriera is likely to create a chance on his own against a top team playing good defense outside of a mistake? Not really. He's more likely to create a chance for someone else which is why I think he's a bit miscast as our 9. But he can absolutely score a goal against anyone if the right chance comes to him and the key will not be, can Ferreira score? But, can the US create enough chances that we get a couple that are likely to result in goals? And do a couple of those come to Ferreira? Just because you are playing a top team does not mean the actual chances that emerge are all going to somehow be more difficult. It will be more difficult in general to get chances against top teams, but the actual quality of chances and the difficulty they bring when they come around is way more random than this idea good teams mean your chances are going to be difficult and somehow a specific striker has to be at a certain level or he has no hope of scoring because of the quality of opponent.

 

I'm not confident in any of our #9s scoring goals.

........................didn't people watch the USMNT the last 4 years? It hasn't mattered who we've started up top. Sebastian Lletget and Brenden Aaronson were our joint leading scorers in 2021. If we take out the Grenada game against a woefully inferior opponent...........the ONLY player with more than one goal for the USMNT in 2022 is Pulisic. Walker Zimmerman has as many goals as any of our #9s.

None of the #9s has been scoring goals. So I don't know what the deal is with impassioned cases for any of the forwards that did or didn't make this squad. People can make a case for Pepi. He has zero goals and one assist in his last 10 USMNT games. So what are we talking about here?

Look at Jesus Ferreira's heat maps for FCD. For heaven's sake.........he's not really a #9 anyway. He sits very deep a lot of the time. One suspects the idea is for him to play the same role with the USMNT. Its what Berhalter wants to do. Ferreira has started 3 straight January domestic camps in almost this false 9 position. The idea is for him to sit deep and to combine/play in the most dangerous attacking players in the squad. Those are Pulisic, Weah, Reyna, Aaronson, etc. We don't have a playmaker in the group if the midfield is McKennie, Musah, Adams. Ferreira is actually playing more of a #10 role than a #9 role. If we're going to judge him on goals at the World Cup, then he'll likely fail.

If people want to see what Berhalter thinks a USMNT goal will look like, see Weah's goal against Jamaica in the road WCQer.

 

Goals in the Berhalter era against Elo-top 50* opposition (not counting January Camp friendlies):

2019: vs Ecuador (Zardes)
2019: vs Chile (Pulisic)
2019: vs Venezuela (none)
2019: vs Mexico-GC (none)
2019: vs Mexico (none)
2019: vs Uruguay (Morris)

2020: @ Wales (none)

2021: @ Switzerland (Lletget)
2021: vs Mexico -NL (Pulisic, McKennie, Reyna)
2021: vs Canada-GL (Moore)
2021: vs Qatar-GL (Zardes)
2021: vs Mexico-GL (M. Robinson)
2021: vs Canada-WCQ (Aaronson)
2021: vs Mexico-WCQ (McKennie, Pulisic)

2022: @ Canada-WCQ (none)
2022: @ Mexico-WCQ (none)
2022: @ Costa Rica-WCQ (none)
2022: vs Morocco (Aaronson, Weah, Wright)
2022: vs Uruguay (none)
2022: vs Japan (none)

*Going by the ranking of each opponent at the end of each match.

Final Tally
Pulisic - 3
Aaronson - 2
McKennie - 2
Zardes - 2
Morris, Lletget, Reyna, Moore, M. Robinson, Weah, Wright - 1 each

Anyway, my answer is no, I'm not really expecting this.

 

How many times are people going to freak out about numbers before they realize it doesn’t really have any correlation on how or who plays? Jesus is #10 for Dallas, he plays the 9, Pulisic is #10 always. Sargent has worn 24 for his club and for country before. Can people stop griping about anything and everything? We’re talking about numbers people!!

 

I don't know about anyone else, but I am not "expecting" any of our players to fail in their roles. There are a few players that I definitely would have left home, but I am going into this with hope. I have seen enough players step up and perform far above what I would have expected and then there have been those that have underachieved.

I am choosing to be optimistic this time around. It isn't a logical choice I know but it is a conscious choice and I'm going to stand by it until I'm wrong.

So, assuming Jesus gets time on the field, I am expecting him to score or at least play an important role. If Sargent, or another plays, I am expecting them to step up as well.

 

“I don’t want him score 5 goals. I want him playing like a forward in the system.”
This is the comment Gregg said about Pepi before last game. But it may answer why he took Ferreira instead of Pepi.
Yes. Ferreira doesn’t score the goals but he plays like a forward in Gregg’s system. Pepi is just opposite that he scores the goal but not playing as forward in the system.

 

The Americans that you can bet on to win the golden boot: Weah (200 to 1); Aaronson, Pulisic, Arriola (!), (250:1); Reyna (300:1)

https://www.oddschecker.com/us/soccer/world-cup/top-goalscorer

 

Wingers - 8
Center mids - 3
Strikers - 3
Centerbacks - 1
Fullbacks - 1

Total Football™

 

High comedy. What were they thinking? I guess, best chance to start at striker, maybe score some goals.

It's just wild they'd choose him of all people, so silly.

Hoping he makes it to Europe in '23, but right now, he's behind a gazillion 23 and unders on the roster, his spot there is pretty ludicrous.

 

No. I do not expect Ferreira to score goals. In fact I do not "expect" any US player to score (at least on the field) to score any goals.
I keep hoping there will be something, almost anything, that will make it seem possible that we will score but all the news and all the platitudes spouted by people at US soccer seems to reinforce the lack of production that I expect from the current US squad under Berhalter.

I will be VERY surprised if we score and I will be even more surprised if we score more than 1 or 2 total in the entire tournament. Further should we actually win a game that will be more surprising and if we advance from the group my level of surprise will nearly max out.

If we win a match in the knockout rounds that will be all it takes to make my surprise meter peg its little hand and even wrap it around the post that shows maximum.

I have zero expectations, except poor performance, for the US side but I think my heart might survive a trip as far as the final four but any further and I will probably need medical supervision.

 

Frankly, I don't know who I would choose as the US' top U23 player, but it wouldn't be Ferreira...and I like him more than most I think.