Blind Expectations

In the future we will be eating soylent orange.

 

If you would concentrate on an Atlantic and a Pacific Conference and leave the "empty" states aside, you might have the opportunity to adopt a unified style

 

If you only included Atlantic and Pacific you'd exclude our 2nd, 6th, 7th and 10th most populous states.

 

Irony?

 

I obviously mean by that the rim from Canada to Mexico.
But for the inland states, they're free to make an interior conference.

 

I just want for "failure" to become to the same standards that our women's team has where not making the finals of a World Cup is considered a failure.
The athletes in the USA are plenty numerous enough and athletically plenty good enough where the question should be, "Is there any team in our way to the final" not "which team will we lose to."
Admittedly the two teams are at very different points and world soccer is also very different for the two sexes but there is no reason why fans of one should expect/want a finals appearance while fans of the other should be satisfied to "get out of the group."

Of course with proper worldwide balance the "expatiation" of making the final every time is unrealistic but it should become what is considered a success.

 

At least for one of those, it's really the Pennsylvania Deustch(e).

 

I'd settle for a nationwide emphasis on skilled, team play and then a bit of consistency at the national team level.

 

I suggest you to make a list of countries that have won the World cup since it got televized and as such got global impact, so since 1966.
Add to that the countries that made it more than 4 times into the semi finals without winning one title.
Count the number of countries you have, the serial top performers, and I guess you end up with about 10-11 countries.
So you're actually claiming aspiring to be a semi finalist, while never ever going past the last 16 mark, if being ranked 11th is beneath you.

Did you compare the pedigree of the nations in stars fielded to get to the last 8 to what you have atm available, as that matters with expectations. Do you have a list of undisputed stars to fulfill the aspirations you have?

If one cannot stand to have a national team incapable of delivering results good enough to be a first tier nation, my suggestion is to look for another sport to love. Having expectations of them being a first tier nation and then make eleborate reasonings they actually are a first tier nation, but an incompetent coach/foreign discriminating clubs are the only obstacles to keep the USA from that first tier status, based on make believe arguments, isnot going to cut the cake.

Right, so make a list of USA players capable of beating first tier nations, when it matters.

 

Does any nation really play a unified style? Germany? Portugal? France? England? Brazil? Argentina? Italy? Spain is always recognizable in what they try to do I guess.

 

I miss the old US fanbase. People say it got nasty because of Couva, but I just think popularity and the internet start to bring in more and more of the negative.

US fans are entitled -- of course we are, we expect to always win. And we've always hyped our guys up a lot.

But I actually think the missing thing is that it's simply a lack of knowing other teams or being able to properly evaluate the opponent.

I don't think people overrate our players nearly as much as they underrate other teams' players. This really hit home when we played Morocco over the summer, or played The Netherlands.

There are still a TON of US fans who think it's a clown on Gregg Berhalter that he said we didn't have a proven international goal scorer like Memphis DePay.

It's like they listen to twitter smack talk or something and think that DePay is a bad player because he wasn't consistent first team at Barcelona (and then claim Dest is the greatest for getting run out of there).

DePay has 44g in 88 national team games. He has 15g and 7a in WCQ. He's 29, coming off a 13 goal season with Barca. He's not "World Class" but it is just apparent that no one watches these guys play.

 

Germany, France and Belgium for instance adopted in 2000 the Dutch development style and modified it to fit in their national circumstances. That means all players from these countries have a common ground. Spain, influenced by Cruijff, decades ago already had that unified approach.
Italy, etc. I've no clue.

 

I agree. on the Dutch foundations. I am very familiar with Germany. I also am familiar with Claudio Reyna's 2011 initiative which was adopted by USSF from top to bottom.

I just don't see any real distinct national style. Everyone does have the same Dutch inspired principles. Germany tends to play like its Bayern core players in a 4-2-3-1 framework. Spain plays like its Barca core players in a 4-3-3 framework. France plays the way Deschamps wants them to play which is often more defensive than their player pool.

 

If you think your higher expectations are why you have to have a 10 name long ignore list, we’ll, that’s just more of the same from you now that I think of it.

 

I think there's a national style. You see it at most MLS clubs and from most American coaches.

 

As long as 80% of kids who participate in sports choose other sports we are at a bit of a disadvantage, particularly as they're often the best athletes.

And you have other structural disadvantages such as schools and parents pushing kids to do other sports; the lack of certified high school coaches; the desire to hang on to college eligibility for as long as possible.

Then there's the lack of options for kids to play outside of school. In Europe there's usually a professional team with an academy just down the road, or at the opposite other extreme there are 14 and 15 year-olds playing for Sunday morning pub teams.

There's also helicopter parenting, which means you don't see many ten year-olds and walking a mile and a half to the park with a ball under their arm to play 3 and in with a bunch of mates, like I used to.

Despite our huge population I think in footballing terms we should be comparing ourselves to Ukraine, Morocco and Japan rather than Brazil, Germany and Spain, for now.

However there's no reason we can't become a Netherlands, Belgium or Uruguay by the end of this decade.

 

I Don't want us to become any of those. I want the USA to be better than they (the other teams) are now. Of course we will get better, even under Gregg, and so will nearly everyone else. I don't enjoy the fact that so many international teams look just about the same all the time with the only real difference coming in breaks and a very few innovations and, in some cases (fewer than most people think), better personnel. It has been quite a while, since about the 1950s or so, since there has been any real innovation in soccer (that was not forced by rule changes) and it would be fun to have the USA make that step.

I watch soccer, mostly, to have fun and many matches, even in the top leagues, are becoming quite boring because there is nothing new.

 

I think it has to do a lot with the rise of USMNT content creators. I was always hoping something like that popped up to garner interest and growth for US soccer. Boy was I wrong! It's a freaking echo chamber! They say something and everyone like parrots start repeating the same thing. We have some of them here repeating the same stuff. DePay is a great example you brought up.

 

The USMNT is ranked #11 by FIFA (a bit generous and flattering IMO) but even I would rank the US among the top 20. That is still slightly better than how the USMNT would rank based on the quality of its players individually.

This may be America's most "talented" squad on paper, and the technical abilities of this USMNT was indeed superior to past ones in many ways, but the overall talent level on the US team is still as a good 2nd tier side. America's best players, despite playing for some of the top leagues and clubs, are still far from being household names. In fact, even reasonably informed football fans internationally, except those who follow the USMNT, will be hard pressed to name any of the US players other than perhaps Pulisic. And even Pulisic will not be nearly as well known as a dozen or more players from other countries which even rate below the US in terms of their overall ranking (e.g., Salah, Egypt; Son, S. Korea; Haaland, Norway; Lewandowski, Poland; etc). In fact, in terms of overall transfer market value, the US ranks somewhere around 28th in the world despite quite a few advantages in placing its players with clubs compared to many other countries outside of Europe. While most of the countries whose teams have higher transfer market value are from UEFA, there are almost a dozen non-UEFA sides that outrank the US on that metric as well (e.g., Japan, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, not to mention Brazil or Argentina).

There is nothing wrong and plenty good in aspiring to be the best. But that is not the same as justifying expectations that are over-bloated. The USMNT had a reasonable showing in World Cup 2022 and no one can begrudge US fans for hoping to have a much better showing in the next World Cup the US hosts. With a squad that by that time will have added greater experience and maturity to what would still be a reasonably young team, as hosts, the US could reasonably aspire to finishing rbrn among the top 4. But the US isn't anywhere near, in talent or quality, the top 5 teams in the world. It is isn't even close to the top 10 in those aspects of the game. (Just recall that right above the US at #10 is Spain).

Last year, heading to the World Cup, I wouldn't even place the US among the top 20 and would have ranked more along the lines of a #20-30 team based on its results and performances. The improvement in its stature and rating since then is in no small measure due to the fact that, after missing out on qualifying from a weak confederation in 2018 (behind Honduras which lost the AFC-Concacaf playoff and Panama which finished #32 in WC18), this time around it not only qualified but also advanced from its group playing good football where it was able to basically deny most of its opponents too many quality scoring chances. Against Holland, it has the best chance to take an early lead but instead fell behind early and that meant it had to chase a game with a somewhat tired squad against a team well suited to play from that script. So the US ended up outclassed and lost the match without looking great.

 

I agree that we often act like we have an inferiority complex when it comes to this sport. It is understandable given how poorly the sports broadcasting establishment treated it for so long, how dominant EPL is on US TV, and how hypersensitive English fans are about American owners/players.

But I for one am embarrassed and discouraged by the themes that Gregg adopts as a motivational tool for the men’s team: first “changing the way the world thinks …” and now “transforming soccer in the U.S.” Both sound defensive. Neither is necessary. Neither seems useful or helpful to maximizing the probability of a good outcome in tournaments the team enters. It’s part of having a coach that isn’t as big time as the player pool.

We have players playing on top teams in top leagues. National biases and stereotypes have always permeated the thinking of soccer people, particularly commentators. Thankfully, data analysis and high $takes$ are making those biases less important everywhere (except English supporters groups, who wet themselves at the prospect of an American owner). We should just get on with it and enjoy the ride. I really hope that this next cycle becomes less about “my tactics” and more about putting our elite players in positions and systems where their particular talents can shine.

 

I'm not sure how much is Gregg's influence but 2022 World Cup changed the perception of the MNT from plucky underdog defending under pressure and hitting on the break, to a team that can actually keep and pass the ball. They just can't score goals.

Some of this may just be down to our players getting professional coaching from an early age rather than playing amateur high school and college soccer throughout their formative years. Our US based players are better technically than they used to be.

I don't want to give Gregg too much credit because this may just be part of the country's evolution as a soccer nation but I don't have a problem with a coach having ideals.

I think my main issue with Berhalter is the he sticks to his principles when sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and win dirty.

Luke Williams at Notts County is the same way but he got us promoted last season and we're top of League Two, so I can't complain too much. This talk of "principles" seems to be a fashion among younger coaches internationally.

 

Qatar was only a failure in the eyes of people who's expectations were way too high to begin with.

Optimistically:
Regularly ranked in FIFA's top ten by 2030.
Top 6 team by 2050.

But those really depend on finding two or three world class players per generation, and by world class let's say in the top 100 globally (see Alfonso Davies).