not sure if you're agreeing with me, but just to be clear....mikey shouldn't be starting over rico. pablo shouldn't be called in. i was being sarcastic as to bob using pablo to provide leadership.
Michael Bradley plays for a half-ass dutch side which will bow out of the UEFA Cup soon enough. He shows great potential but that is it for the moment. Can someone point out an MB performance (a specific game) that was spectacular? His accolades are all generic. If he wasn't the coach's son he would be no where near the national team. Adu and Szetela on the other hand had stellar performances at the U20 which led to transfers to relatively big clubs. I would take either of these over MB any day.
My take - and this applies to the fullbacks ('Dolo, Simek, Spector, Pearce, Bornstein) and the central defenders (Onyewu, Bocanegra, Conrad, Demerit, Califf) as well - is that he should rotate them for a while until someone stands out clearly above the others. And I think Mikey has been a mixed bag while Bornstein has been a disaster. I think one could play him as a lone destroyer in a 4-4-2 Diamond or against South American/Latin style teams. He's useless against the teams that use the long ball more (Czechia, Sweden, Germany, etc.), though that clearly did not stop Arena or Bradley from putting him in there. More sarcastic than moi ... is that really possible?
Mastroeni and Clark have played the most minutes against the USA's biggest rival. So it's obvious that they are Bob's first choice central mid pairing. Cherry picking data is fun.
This one is unknowable because Michael was ineligible to play the final against Mexico due to his red card in the semis against Canada. I would note that in the quarters and semis of the Gold Cup, when all four central midfielders were available and presumably the criterion for selection was to maximize the chances of advancing in the tournament, we had the following distribution of minutes: Quarters: Bradley 90 minutes, Mastroeni 90, Clark 2, Feilhaber 0 Semis: Bradley 89 (would have been 90 if not for the red card), Mastroeni 89, Feilhaber 10, Clark 2 Kind of hard to conclude from this that Clark is part of a first choice pairing.
what's funny is that prior to mikey transfering to hereenveen, only the dutch bigsoccer posters would know it was a soccer team. i would've guessed it was a bus made by saab. suddenly, the dutch league is no longer a 2 team league, but rather strong from top to bottom. taking nothing away from mikey, he certainly hasn't warranted his minutes for a national side....and as sidefoot said, to the exclusion of others. right now, rico will be 27 or so when the world cup starts, which is the ideal age for a dm who would have gained experience reading and playing the game. i can understand bob giving his son a chance, but not the starting position.
I think you should resist the temptation to chime in unless you have something to base your preference for Szetela other than what you read on those threads. Second, the issue is not one of nepotism. It is Bradley's ability to evaluate players he knows from prior coaching jobs versus those he doesn't have similar familiarity with. The focus of this thread has shifted mainly to Michael Bradley, but I think ultimately the issues at the other positions I've mentioned will become more important. For example, by 2010, I expect the Adu versus Beasley issue to the become the mostly hotly debated one around here. That issue will get at the heart of what kind of a team we want to be.
Have you heard of the expression thread drift or heard of a thread being bltleoed? Let's not have that happen please.
You are making a huge unfounded "unknowable" assumption that BB was deliberately choosing his top 2 c-mids in any of the first 5 gold cup games. It clearly didn't matter which 2 of the 4 played until the final. The USA were given an easy path to the final and that final against Mexico is the only match that we can guess that Bob went with the best that were available. It's pretty clear that Mastro was going to start against Mexico regardless of player availability because Bob has started Mastro every time he's been available for a call-up. I don't see anything that would lead me to believe that Bob was going to start his son over Feilhaber. It's my opinion that Bob's goal was to have had a fairly even look at those 4 cmids by the end of Copa America while still winning the Gold Cup. He certainly succeeded at doing just that. I don't believe that any of the matches after Copa America were confirmed while Bradley was developing his roster strategy for the gold cup and copa america. Clark is basically the victim of MLS' poor scheduling. I fully expect we will see much more of Clark when there's no club conflict. The schedule favors the players with time off. BTW, My last comment that you quoted wasn't serious, I was just showing you how pointless cherry picking data can be. The problem with this thread and your posts in this thread is that you've come up with an unfounded therory and then have gone out of your way to twist and cherry pick the data to fit your preconceived notion. That's not analysis and IMHO doesn't belong here.
I would partly agree with this. I do think he had an overall plan for playing different players in the Gold Cup and indeed throughout the summer. When he sat Feilhaber down in the quarters, it made sense to me. Give the guy some rest and save him for more important matches. But when he sat his again in the semis it made a bit less sense. Sitting Clark down for both the quarters and semis (as well as the previous match) made even less sense. None of us are mind readers. We can only try to infer Bob's reasoning from what he actually does in a match and from interviews he gives. But I do think from the overall distribution of minutes in the Gold Cup and the declaration that this was the tournament we would try to win that it can be reasonably inferred that Bradley and Mastroeni were his first choice midfield pairing.
Stop taking posters word for anything, even mine, and start looking at the data. You also need to realize that MLS doesn't follow the international match calendar and that our Fed doesn't force MLS clubs to release players for friendlies even if they are on International dates. I personally prefer Clark to M Bradley but I clearly understand why Clark wasn't chosen for the Sweden match or the Brazil match and it has nothing to do with favoritism. M Bradley had only played a total of 3 minutes more than Clark before the Sweden match. Where's the favoritism in that?
But it clearly didn't matter which of the four c-mids played in the gold cup against anyone but Mexico. To me it's completely unreasonable to infer that BB was playing his first choice players in any game but the final. Right now M Bradley is the worst of the 4 and I still didn't care that he played against Panama or Canada because it just didn't matter. He got more time against teams the USA were going to beat anyways because he wasn't available for Copa America. Looking at just the Panama and Canada games and ignoring the greater trends is cherry picking. You've got a beef and you're trying to make the data fit your beliefs.
i see mastroeni as being a factor once wcq begins next year, BUT by 2010, i suspect guys like bradley and szetela and clark to supplant him... bradley isn't as bad as some post, altough i do see him having the mastroeni streak..... longterm i do see szetela being better than bradley, but that doesn't mean the young kid is crap...... and the notion the kid bradley gets time due to nepotism is so funny... if people really believe that one....
Take a look at the lineups for the quarters and semis. Guys like Donovan, DMB, Dempsey, Gooch, Boca, Bornstein were not "rested" in those matches. The only selection that would support the thesis that he went with anything other than the first team in those two matches was having Keller in goal in the semi. As I said I'm not a mind reader, but I think any reasonable reading of the personnel choices during the Gold Cup would lead to the conclusion that Mastroeni and Bradley were the first choice central midfield pairing.
i agree mastroeni with bradley is 1st choice... as i expect BB to go 1st choice on sunday, this pairing might be confirmed
Do you ever say anything besides "fcuk bradley" and make the frowny face? Proof that "no child left behind" isn't working. Your middle school should teach more vocabulary.
yes, just caught the mastro news, have been away for 3 weeks and didn't catch up with all the latest intelligence, making me more the dummy than anything!!
don´t worry about it...i also missed many information...was often away and could not follow all news here....so you are not the only with the latest intelligence..not everyone has a time to follow all the flood of information..welcome back!
Yeah and that's because none of those players you mentioned except for Bornstein were available for Copa America. This is simple but you're so committed to your preconceived notions that you would rather divorce yourself from reality and cherry pick two games to fit your conclusion. Feilhaber was the only c-mid to start all 3 gold cup group games. Benny and Mastro are clearly Bradley's first choice C-mid pairing. Cherry picking is fun.
clark played in the copa, mikey didn't. mikey was playing with U-20's in Canada at the time. Also, during the Gold Cup, while the U-20's were in camp, Mikey was called into the senior side instead. The only U-20 I believe to have been called into the senior side. Had Mikey been available for the Copa, you could be assured that his minutes would have far surpassed rico's. like they did at the gold cup.
I guess this fact flew right over your head. If logic was your friend, clearly it's not, you might understand that this had an effect on each player's Gold Cup minutes.