There really hasn’t been a successful period of performance for Pulisic and co. since before the 2022 World Cup. These guys are playing like crap (when they actually show up) and deserve criticism six ways from Sunday.
Who cares if Pulisic doesn’t like what Donovan says? It’s not like either of those guys play for the national team.
They had a 3 month run from March '23-June '23 where they played 3 great games in 4. Admittedly 1 of the great games was against a team that was utter ----, but yeah, they've been horrible for now, 3 months shy of 2 years straight. Utterly confounding run. And let me say, I don't think just because Poch rolled out an incomprehensibly moronic lineup against Switzerland, that we should run away from putting most of the First XI on blast. They've been coasting for nearly two years and their jobs should be at risk. The only players to me having largely done the business in the shirt even during the past two years have been Pulisic, for the most part, and Pepi in terms of the attack. I can't remember how well Jedi has played, but I'm assuming he's been fine. In general, I'd have pretty much every single spot in the roster and lineup open to competition with the only guys for sure locked in to starting, Pulisic, Weah, Jedi, Dest, Adams and we clearly have a top 2 at striker. Beyond those guys, everything is open: GK, CB1, CB2, 2 CM's. 5 positions in the 11 should have an open competition to me, same with the depth chart beneath whatever 11 emerges, although Striker 1 and Striker 2 are of course, patently obvious.
I mean Howard said he gave Pulisic his number and told him to call him to talk it through and he never did. Pulisic is better off trying to solve in private as opposed to publicly.
Pulisic has no choice but to work it out in public given how poorly the team has performed over the past 3 years and how he has handled USMNT commitments leading into the World Cup. If he doesn’t like carrying the torch for all of us who have played and contributed to the growth of soccer in this country, then he can take a permanent vacation from the national team, because that’s why he is where he is and that’s what it has been about since the 1970’s. If you don’t appreciate it and treat it with honor and respect, then don’t take someone else’s opportunity.
I would open every spot for competition. Dest, Adams, Tillman, Balogun, Pepi, Richards, LDLT, and Luna are front runners and I think that Tim Ream is in the mix as well given how badly the team needs leadership. But I give that group the benefit of their commitment and their performances. The rest of the guys need to earn it on the field, period.
Yep, I was more impressed by the effort against Turkey than anything I saw from the A team for quite a while.
but he does- hes doing it right now. and youre all acting like a bunch of personally spurned little bitches.
Pretty ironic or funny - anyone go back and look at the lineup from Couva in 2017? Pulisic Howard Dempsey Beasley (sub not played) https://www.backheeled.com/revisiti...last-world-cup-and-whats-been-done-to-fix-it/
Imagine thinking that Ream's or De la Torre's place in the team should be more secure than Pulisic's.
Yeah, I mean why attend to your medical needs when you can risk your health to please some guy on the internet?
No, the CWC is a FIFA competition. You can't change that by wishing otherwise, and your continued insistence that players should have gone AWOL from their actual jobs is deranged.
I personally think that the Pulisic dad drama is not drama at all…what he said and how he said it was not controversial. However, doing so invited this public response. They asked for it. What Pulisic and his dad should have said is something to the effect of: “We understand that we have not been getting results on the field. We understand that people are losing confidence in us and our ability to deliver results. I personally take responsibility for my own contributions to our underperformance. I also realize that it doesn’t look great to take this period of time off before the World Cup. Given our poor performance over the past 3 years, this compounds the perspective that we don’t care about the team or the advancement of soccer in the US. We are aware of that and are working to correct it. With their dedication and effort, the guys in 1994 created the league from which many of us received our professional training and opportunities that those before did not have. Our primary goal is to help build on the success of the generations of players who made it possible for us to be in the privileged positions we are in, those people include Landon Donovan and Tim Howard. Rest assured that when I return to the national team, it will be my priority. I understand the unique opportunity that our team has to contribute to the sport in new ways, similar to the ways 1994 team did. We are focused on making our people proud and winning over people who may not have been interested before. We understand our responsibility and are preparing to deliver. I am personally making myself accountable to you for this. I will make myself available publicly for the tough questions. See you on the field.” Instead, we got some defensive finger-pointing from the Pulisic camp. We are likely to see the same thing from all the guys in their friend group, the Golf Crew. These guys should have a communications professional available to them through the USMNT and clubs, who could have helped them sort through a public statement that helps to acknowledge the state of things and to reassure folks that they concerned about them as well.
The surgery was scheduled in advance for that period. I can’t help you understand how adulting works.
Fulham owes nothing to the USMNT or it's fan base. They made the decision when this needed to happen. They pay Jedi's paycheck.
They didn’t make the decision, Jedi made the decision. He could have had the surgery during the winter break or after the Gold Cup. People make these decisions all the time in all kinds of work scenarios. Anyone who has managed people has dealt with this kind of thing time and time again. It’s also commonplace among those who have played high level sports. So and so will play with niggling injuries that can potentially be improved with surgery. People schedule surgeries. They PRIORITIZE and make their decision based on what they believe to be important. Jedi, like Pulisic, did not prioritize the US national team a year out from the World Cup. They prioritized their clubs. Now, a person may think that’s okay, but I would argue that those people perpetuate the culture that we see in the team right now where guys do not put in the requisite effort to beat a team who is willing to play them physically. It’s the same mentality where they shy from tackles and are not up to the challenge of Panama, who have kicked their ass for a couple of years now because they know our top guys are mentally weak. Heck, Tim Weah got carded in the 18th minute against Panama in a major tournament because of that very mental weakness. The idea that these guys are not up to the challenge of situations that put them to the test is becoming the narrative of this group of USMNT players. They have, through their behaviors, given themselves this persona. It has become the perspective of this group outside of the circle of USMNT followers and fans. It is the subject of conversation in broader sports talk culture in the US. Where people used to be proud of our plucky underdogs, now they make fun of our mental weakness.
You do know that Fulham will likely sell him this summer. No buyers will want a damaged product. They will want him healthy and in camp ASAP.
agree whole heartedly ... which is why I had hoped the entire federation would have learned after Couva to do a serious internal evaluation and set up a structure and approach and a set of key parameters - to position the USMNT in a better place than they are today .. to wit: 1. having agreements with clubs about when and how to decide to release players. 2. having a coherent coaching approach. 3. having a evaluation and a leadership process - so that when crap hits the fan (as it always does) the solutions are implemented f2f and not out in the open. 4. having a plan to fix key deficiencies ... we have a major keeper issue and we still have a striker issue and also a defensive backline issue. 5. having a well defined plan for who the captain is and why ... maybe we don't do this by committee? 6. having a well publicized (Federation) set of parameters about how and why coaches choose the rosters. I just don't think we are any better off right now than we were in 2017 ... that is what really shocks me. Pulisic and Donovan bickering are just a symptom of a deeper set of problems. Keep in mind Canada, Mexico, and Panama are all performing better than we are right now - that is just the way it is. Think about that for a moment - given almost 30 years after the formation of MLS. We did better in the past with an arguably less talented roster, but with more cohesion and passion and grit and leadership. Has any of that changed since Couva?
Philosophically I'm totally fine with that. I just happen to think it's patently obvious the depth behind Pepi/Balo at Striker, Pulisic on the Left Wing, Weah on the right Wing, Adams at the 6, and Jedi and Dest at fullbacks isn't really close to approaching their talent level and in general their performance. The places where we clearly should be having competition to me anyway are GK, CB1, CB2, and two CM positions, but competition everywhere? Sure? If Mathis Albert pulled a full Lamine Yamal from November '25 to May '26 could he jump Pulisic or Weah? Sure, but I don't really see that happening and the WF's behind Pulisic and Weah are orders of magnitude less effective at least as of the past four years, same with Jedi's backup, same with Dest's backup options, same with Pepi/Balo at Striker, same with Adams. We have a lot of depth (I don't really buy the argument that we don't, just because our coach is indulging in idiotic call ups and XI's), but the depth we do have is still not nearly at the level of our top end guys, its just miles better than the backups we had to positions circa 2017, 2013, 2009, 2005 etc. But is it near the level of Pulisic, Weah, Balo/Pepi, Jedi, Dest, Adams? No, it isn't, for now. I think we'll see significantly more competition, particularly in the attacking spear and CM by '27. We've got a lot of interesting attacking players in the program age 15-19, as we just saw at the Friendship Cup where we actually won it (a tournament with France, Argentina, Portugal and other powers in it), our U20 team is an absolute powerhouse that probably will be limited by players not getting released in the fall. We've clearly got an uptick in talent rolling up from what looks like the '07's, '08's and '09's after a slow down probably due to covid with the '04's to '06's. But I imagine the impact will be felt more in relevance to a potential Copa America '28 roster competition and WC '30, then WC '26. For now, I think it will be nibbling at the edges, although, as we've seen, Poch has no idea what he's doing with the roster, so anything could happen.
One of the real consequences of players missing this period is games is that it creates doubt in their commitment down the line. That creates uncertainty around how much benefit you will get from their integration with consistent players vs how you structure the team without them. Pochettino doesn’t know them very well. Some of these guys he has seen once. How can he depend on a guy who has been to camp once and skips out when he can? The team we see at the World Cup may not include some of the guys who we would have thought are shoe-ins for these reasons. Landon Donovan was left off the 2014 World Cup roster by another international coach. Pochettino is capable of leaving guys off rosters who do this kind of thing.
I think that would have been more likely if the kiddos had shined against the odds like they did in Gold Cup '21, and not stepped in elephant ----, like they did in Gold Cup '23. This performance seems more of the elephant --- '23 variety. We'll see: we have to play the Saudi's, probably Costa Rica, Canada and El Tri, if the stronger ELO teams do what's expected, that is a very hard road for a roster this messy. On the plus side, the roster has a legit 6, an interesting pair of strikers, some decent attacking options for the wings, and adequate CB cover, but its terrible at keeper (if Turner starts), weak at FB, and terrible at striker (if he starts the wrong guys of the four, and he started the wrong guys in both friendlies) and could be weak centrally depending upon how he fills it out. It has more potential than the '21, and '23 teams in my view, but he's not inspired confidence with how he's used the roster, or the roster he's chosen in terms of depth and particular positions here and there.