Blind Expectations

There’s competition everywhere. Some American fans complain when MLS clubs choose foreign talent over domestic options.

 

Do you have any notion how Dutch top clubs operate?
Players, especially young ones with little experience, have to convince the coach in training their progress in development warrants learning time in the first squad. They're not going to think...mwah..let's drop Cole on the pitch, let's see what he does. Time on the pitch is the result of progress shown in training, where Slot is a coach with a drive to improve players. He has said in interviews in what parts of play Cole needed to make steps up. Do you really expect Slot to play Cole while he in the midfield has top players (Orange/Polish/Norwegian?Turkish national team players) running around? He has gotten minutes to show he's up to it, when there was no pressure performance wise. But all in all, it turned out not enough quality.
You make the weird assumption that a player bought automatically has to play. Cole was signed as a development project for the first team. Not as a starter. So how is that stupid? Cole got his chance in a top developmental environment and didnot deliver.
To show what happens when you do have the qualities under Slot's coaching the Wieffer story. He was a young player at Excelsior in our second tier. When he joined Feyenoord his progress was so fast, he in no time became an Orange Squad player. When the quality is there, it will show.
Just today Gimenéz said after the Ajax confrontation how tough Slot has been on him. Gimenéz was a sub player when he arrived and had to earn his spot by improving himself where Slot told him he needed to. He said he worked hard with the help of the staff and now Gimenéz said he is far better in every aspect of play then when he came in.

So there's no blaming someone, the player just wasnot up to the standards set.

 

Youth level competitions mean shit.
The Dutch were U20 Euro champions and iirc Olympic finalists.
Not one of them became an Orange Squad player.
Just a reminder how youth competitions compare to pro level competitions.
Young AZ are the youth CL winners, trashing clubs like Barcelona and Real Madrid. They battled with South American Youth champions Boca Juniors for the world title and only after a penalty shoot out lost the World title battle.

Young AZ, with Young PSV and Young Ajax play in our second tier against pro teams.
So after their epic international Youth run simply lost 4-1 against iirc ADO Den Haag.
To put Young team achievements in the right light....it means shit.

 

He doesn't understand much to be honest. He doesn't understand that players have to earn their place in a team and keep it. He seems to think that if a player isn't given first team opportunities then the coach has no idea how good or bad he'll be.
I saw a stat that says 80% of 16 year-olds under contract at Premier League clubs drop out of the professional game completely by the time they are 21. Obviously their stupid coaches don't understand that they need to be playing in the first team to determine if they are any good.

 

And Dutch top teams are very considerate and understanding towards young players. When the coach thinks you're up to it you get minutes and donot expect from the beginning you're going to be performing impeccable. You have to show growth however.

 

Except that Feyenoord did NOT in fact purchase Cole Bassett. They took him on loan with an option to buy when the loan expired. They chose to end the loan early, and Bassett is now back with the Colorado Rapids.

 

Also a lot of the top European teams buy players they never end up playing. How many games did Miazga play for Chelsea?

They just want an extended look at players hoping they'll work out, or they can sell them on for a profit. Look at Auston Trusty.

It's almost like a discovery process.

A lot of mud is slung at walls and when something sticks it all works out.

 

Ledezma is on loan. He didn't get the chance to play much because every time he got regular playing time he picked up a major injury. I assumed he was loaned to NYCFC as part of his rehab.

Unfortunately despite being fit he's not become a lock starter under Nick Cushing.

If they were good enough to start every week they'd be starting regardless of nationality. What happens when you go to a big club is that you have to compete for a place.

He wasn't good enough for Serie B apparently.

Yes you want every single player to start every single game, we know.

But they can go to Europe at 18 like Keaton Parks, Brooks Lennon, Haji Wright and Emerson Hyndman. So your gap is one year.

Did I post the article that suggested that 80% of 16 year-old Premier League pros drop out of the game by the time they are 21?

 

All this just proves my point that the current wave of USMNT fans are very delusional. Now blaming coaches for not giving opportunities to US players? Lol

We just have about 2-3 good players, that's it. Zero elite players and a bunch of mid players. Pulisic, our best player, is good but not great in the world stage. You need a very good starting 11 with a very good bench (that quality won't drop much when a starter is replaced) if we really plan on going deep on a WC. Or just have luck on our side like in 2002. We are still far from having what top teams have. Only reason we rank so high on FIFA is because of the Gold Cup and Nations League that are played so constantly and weigh a lot on points for the rankings. That's why Mexico is so high too and we are just mid like them.

 

I think the biggest mistake is looking at an over-performing 16 or 17 year-old and assuming the player will continue to develop at the same rate. In reality 80 or 90% of great looking 16 or 17 year-olds don't mature into great players. The ones that do are the exceptions.
It's always been that way, it's nobody's fault, some kids just develop physically or mentally faster than others. I was the opposite. When I was 17 I looked and sounded about 12.

 

I am, I guess, a bit of an exception in that I do not think the player choices made by our "Clown in Charge" is at fault for what I see as poor performance.
When you place even top players in an excessively complex or limiting play system you will get, at best, average play. On top of that we do not have more than 3-5 really top players and that is stretching it. The system needs to be designed to maximize the strengths of what we have rather than trying to find players to fit a predetermined system. Gregg did adjust from his original "system" that was much too complex to play in an international match but he did not go far enough. The system he has the USA playing in might work for a club team but it will not work for players playing all over in systems as diverse as LA in the MLS and Milan in Italy. (I could use just about any European side as they play, mostly, systems that look nothing like Europe.

When I see players having to slow down and think about what play they are to make rather than just doing it I feel the system is to blame. If it were only one or two players having problems the it might be the players at fault but when something around 2/3 of the players look lost it almost has to be something wrong with the system, or the way it is taught/presented to the players.

For the USA to look as bad as they have, even against VERY weak teams, the coach must be screwing up big time.
It is not a good sign when even comfortable wins look bad.

 

Yup. The huge benefit each Orange Squad coach has is the fact every Dutch reared player is submerged and soaked in the 4-3-3 system the Dutch way. From that base it's possible to tweak into formations derived from that and our players have excellent tactical smartness to merge into that tweaked one. However even our players have a difficult time when they have to play in an alien system, like van Gaal did with 5-3-2/3-5-2. As that doesnot go by instinct, the players need a bit more time to process what to do.

 

Its amazing that the US is now up to 11th in the World based on results and "fans" on this board act like they're a disaster.

I think there's a group of USMNT fans that vastly over-rate the quality of our squad versus the top 5. We're right now talking about how much we miss Tyler Adams. As if he wasn't on a relegated Premier League team last season and is surely on a team in danger of relegation this year. France is bring midfielders from Real Madrid off the bench.

I think Keyrol Figueroa is a great current example of that. He's scored against bad CONCACAF U17 teams and in the U18 Premier League.

................and yet I saw a depth chart in our forward thread in which somebody had him above Jesus Ferreira RIGHT NOW. And you're sitting here thinking........WTF. Jesus Ferreira literally just won the Golden Boot at the Gold Cup. Figueroa has done nothing against anybody. He could be out of the game in 3 years.

 

The tactical intelligence is really something that the US squad is lacking. Your point on the Dutch squad basically building it in by focusing on a style of play for years so the players know the permutations collectively is well-taken. We neither have that, not do we really see our guys able to react to an opponent all that well. There's a reason we don't see any real adjustments until halftime and it's not entirely on the coach.

I know folks will say that because Berhalter tells them not to, but we've had this aspect long before Berhalter and none of our players are tactical savants at club.

The ability for a group of players to make the small positional adjustments or move to a different option on their own, without screwing up the whole (or have the whole shift with them) is super valuable. National teams are inherently at a disadvantage already on this, but some are much better than others.

People say the US is too large for a style of play ..., but Brazil is pretty large and there's clearly something there. Perhaps not as defined as the Netherlands, but still, a style. I do think we can develop a bit more of an identity. And I do think it is not a bad idea for the national team to start to come together on basic set ups and adjustments. You can build on them over time so there's more in your toolbox, but if a substantial portion of your team has been reacting, say, to a surprise press by the opposition for years in youth teams, then it's going to be a better reaction at the senior level.

 

Beckenbauer once in a tv interview (at least 20 years ago now, I'm getting very old) said if he has the opportunity and the time to watch a match of Dutch teams, he will do so, he said, just to see what they're doing tactically.
Klopp once said on tv about Wijnaldum in a press conference after a question about Gino being placed in a different position, that Gino is Dutch, so he's tactically capable of doing it.

 

What is "Dutch courage"?
What is to "go Dutch"?
What is "Double Dutch"?
What is "Pennsylvania Dutch"?
Which is Dutch, Holland or the Netherlands?
Why was Ronald Reagan's nickname "Dutch"?

When I think about how soccer is the world's game, and then I wonder if there is some sort of conspiracy uniting all of these so-called "facts," and I'm pretty sure it the deep state is working with Johan Cruyff to enslave us all. I have no evidence. It's just a theory. A very very likely to be true theory.

Wake up sheeple.*





*This concludes my latest piece of performance art

 

I don't believe that anyone would question the influence of Total Football on the beautiful game. There is a reason that the official style of the US Soccer was defined in 2011 by then Youth Technical Director Claudio Reyna et. al. as an attacking 4-3-3.

I would argue that what Van Gaal had the Dutch play at WC2022 was not Total Football but something that the great Italian sides would have been proud to call their own.

 

Yup, I mentioned that:

 

Dutch means German but the Dutch don't like to admit that

 

Brazil is big but most of the population lives on the Atlantic Coast in two distinct areas, so there's really no comparison.

 

Actually our national hymn text we sing says "I'm of German blood"