Pre-match: Concacaf Nations League Quarterfinals @ Jamaica (Nov 14) & v Jamaica (Nov 18)

Especially considering nearly all the games are draws (at least that's my memory).

 

i mean, there is this thing called "performance." or failing that, "national team numbers." does anyone remember those things? like expecting people to play well to earn a spot? like that the numbers that mattered were did anything ever happen on the NT when they played?

we do not get extra credit someplace for starting juve ACM ACM PSV etc. and then losing on the scoreboard......

 

Miles was actually the top rated US CB in MLS this year by most metrics (including G+) if you don't include the two guys who played half a season or less in Ream (who played LB, actually) and Walker.

So he's not exactly out of form.

I also simply don't count anything at Celtic as in form. We've seen people calling CCV the best CB in the entire league by far and then have him come into camp and be ... CCV. Maybe Trusty's in form; maybe he's not. I have no idea how we'd tell when Celtic has a 31 GF and 3 GA in 11 matches in the Scottish League this year.

That's FIFA on rookie type numbers; he's not being challenged in the least.

I don't know how Poch will adjust, but I expect to see Pulisic in one of those roles for both matches, and the other could very well be McKennie. Maybe it'll be a more engaged Tillman -- or a Tillman with Pulisic next to him will also be improved. Or a Tillman against a pretty mediocre Jamaica midfield.

Either way, it should work better this time around even without adjustment.

 

USA record in Jamaica:
3 Wins
6 Draws
1 Loss

and 2 of the 3 wins were Friendlies

 

you clearly do not understand how NT work. you get some caps. you do something or not. if not, you get a rest a while.

i never said permament. you can fight with straw men all you like. but after 15 caps i think we can do better. or does an AM get to go 20, 25, 30 caps without ever being involved in a goal somehow? the normal process is a year or two off while we try the several other guys playing in europe and doing things, or kids in MLS putting up 10G 10 A type years. he is not the only AM in existence and we need either goals or defense and he's doing neither for us.

i wouldn't keep a job in NCAA if i went the equivalent of a season and change with zero chip-in. i probably wouldn't last 10 games if we were losing often and nothing happened when i played.

but go on ranting with your TV fanboy " but but but what he did in UCL" stuff. we keep running in these same circles over and over. list of players getting called on "club form" who never do a thing in the shirt.





you talk like this team is undefeated all year and not like it's won 1 friendly since last fall.

 

Jedi as a defensive liability is an argument that suggests the poster stopped watching the team in 2019.

 

We would have won in Jamaica in WCQ if not for an Antonio worldie. He may not be as good as Bailey anymore, but he's showed up far more for Jamaica and his physicality has been an issue for us.

 

Pochettino isn't evaluating Malik Tillman or Brenden Aaronson or whomever for their entire national team career with the program.

He's only had one camp with the group.

And yes, guys who continue to not perform will be on the chopping block for a guy like Pochettino. We expect that.

But seeing as POchettino spoke glowingly about Tillman during that first camp, we knew with 100% certainty that he'd be at this one. 100%. He needs to translate talent into impact. Its Pochettino's job to figure that out.

 

it's fun either being ignored or getting dissed by a bunch of status quo fanboys who given the choice would literally glibly recreate the same lineup we're doing THAT'S NOT WINNING. and then call you an idiot for disagreeing with what we plainly know DOES NOT WORK. already. waste of time.

like there is proof your thing doesn't work right in front of your nose but you have to flex about who you watch on TV. "oh but did you see blah blah on fox the other day wow." gets called next window, 0G 0A, maybe twice hit a diagonal to let the wing try to do something, got beat a few times in transition. wow, i am glad we played him

 

I have a drinking game where I take a shot every time Clint mentions the Pochettino quote on Malik's talent without mentioning the other really important part of that quote.

It's 9:51 west coast time and it's becoming a problem.

 

there is zero evidence poch is winnowing ANYONE. this is a xerox give or take some regulars got healthy.

oh btw just a reminder, the regulars just got the coach fired.

he had a camp with the group and we got smashed like a bug by mexico. does that factor in any way into your passivity?

that and most NT managers are out scouting new players, watching tape, catching them live, actively pushing it someplace.

and you can pretend poch is picking the people but these are standard US picks going back to GB for years. no one watching US keepers right now is like steffen over schulte celentano etc. zero. that is a USSF obsession.

just like there is no way you look at all the AMs and wings we have and go hmmmmmm i want zendejas who the next good game he has ever will be his first. after like 10 caps when dude is like 26.

 

to be clear, surely you got from watching poch's team play that we are not engaged in some massive jump from GB? whole idea is he's fairly similar but supposedly -- not that i saw it much -- into pressing and transition.

in which case, you get games, not years, to show me we weren't stupid.

and since the look should be somewhat similar, your big initial contribution should be change of personnel. if you play similar and start the same people, ummmm.................

 

Names @juvechelsea

To your credit so far you got, Pulisic, Luna, 2 injured guys, massive USA success story Julian Green of the German 2nd divsion, and a 14-year-old.

 

personally, i see the regression of recent years as the undoing of the spinal solution GB arrived at in about year 4 of his glacial tenure. he peaked in roughly summer 21 with a spine of

pepi
reyna
adams
richards miles
turner

pepi got cut for world cup. reyna got benched for world cup. turner can't find consistent club time. the others cannot stay healthy.

at which point by mexico i am watching the utterly inferior

sargent
tillman
busio
ream/miles
turner

to me the spine is all important. we have regressed the spine back almost to B team or U23 level. the finisher is weaker to score goals. the AM is weaker to create goals. the D is weaker to stop goals. the backs are weaker to mark opposing players. and the keeper is not top of his game.

get some good spinal replacements.

they. are. not. the. same. old. crap.

 

koleosho pulisic musah campbell gressel vazquez pepi
green sullivan ferreira luna mckennie castaneda maloney
jedi bello fossey weah dietz richards trusty CCV
schulte celentano turner

 

You can always tell which posters you can take seriously by their proposed rosters.

What the hell is that?

Not worth having the argument any longer.

 

I would pump the brakes on this narrative that he called out Malik's talent to any great degree. He was asked to compare Malik and Dele Ali by a reporter, he did not draw the comparison himself.

 

clint, you understand we probably have a shelfload of US team tape with most of these guys where we do not have to go through the lame exercise of letting the new coach go down the same empty rabbit holes the last guy tried? at glacial pace? spend the whole fall "evaluating" or "teaching" the same guys who just got the coach fired with a sprinkling of the ones he didn't even believe in.

to me it's like, let me save you some time, here are a half dozen lousy zendejas caps. here is steffen costing us the away costa rica game. here is the part where steffen messes up his knee and is never the same. here is every ream game in recent memory besides whatever magic happened in qatar.

we can then move on to evaluating in person the guys who haven't sucked for years. i can understand your argument if it includes actual fresh faces and not a mix of past rejects plus a core selection that couldn't win lately. if he wants to do that, here's a stack of 2 years of tape of too many losses.

 

Not worth having the argument.
Your roster indicates you're not serious.
Just an argument for the sake of an argument.

 

That's all time?!?!?! (I had assumed we'd at least played them 15-20 times away, not 10).

 

Yep. Surprised me as well. But when you think of it we just don't go on the road. It's WCQ and that's about it.

FYI:
Home record - 16 wins, 4 Draws, 2 Losses

Also, we played one game in Austria where we won 4-1 back in 2021.

 

oh, come off it, you can't even substantiate your critique. if you want to talk crap then at least tell me what i am doing wrong.

campbell can ball.

vazquez, sorry, if we plan on rotely whacking lofted crosses into the box, he's the one guy to head them. if we want to play the usual strikers, it needs to be more of a play behind the line game. hmmmm which one have i usually seen us play hmmmmmmm

push musah up to wing.

we need technical mids, not scrappers. put differently, the quality of service needs to improve

i see gressel as similarly someone who could come off a bench and hit a cross where he means to.

we need to look at some new 6s, it's not johnny or busio or morris, are you kidding me.

weah as RB.

fossey was the best RB in recent camps, good defense and knocking balls in. scally got whooped up all spring and summer. including last time we played jamaica.

try someone besides the usual suspects at LB. lund was awful and i like him.

personally i think anyone who xeroxes the current regulars is not just a normal idiot but one who mimics bad coaches. so the disrepect is mutual. any jerk can xerox the coach astatus quo and pretend he's profound. thing is, we lose a lot.

i don't even know if mine is the perfect lineup, WE NEED A DARNED SHAKEUP. i do not believe you run the current bunch through more conditioning and some drills and get much more than before. i believe primarily in personnel -- and this is not it.

 

it's not complicated. roughly when we became obsessed with 433 type formations and risk taking, this became a team that could put up a big number at home but also loses more on the road. which has meant more couva type disasters when we're cutting it close. the formation itself no longer grinds out results. as a result our ppg has actually dropped since roughly 2014. worst was 2018 cycle but 2022 isn't anywhere near the peak years.

along those lines, holland at the world cup was the most abject performance i have seen since the 1990s. it is what happens when a team with no business opening up the game does so. and for the jedi fans -- they ate your dude's lunch.

you need a style and formation that travels.

that and you need a schedule that isn't 95% home games.

there was a point 2000s where the only regional teams we would lose to were mexico and CR and that was only on the road. and half the time we might even tie at their place. and we could beat spain and have brazil on the ropes.

but that's when tactics were more counter-punch jujitsu designed to punish the other team taking risks.

as opposed to, we now seek to push bodies forward, don't do so very effectively or efficiently, then get countered in the biggest matches.

we need to go back to the drawing board. how do i score goals. how do i stop good teams.

this remains mostly an athletic, scrappy team. it should be playing counter soccer from a more stable formation. in which case, fine, put mckennie in to box crash.

but if you want to play halfcourt 433 soccer, your midfield cannot be a bunch of sloppy hustle players. you will break down no one. you will get your only goals off blood and guts or the rare play you catch someone on transition because you don't follow coaching instructions, which under GB were, turn the ball back around and let them get back.

it tells me what i need to know about soccer intellect when you want jedi out there whacking in hopeful balls but no concern for a target striker to head them in. which if we're gonna do hopeful, is vazquez. just like if 20 years ago we were going to whack balls in its mcbride.

if you want cuter, more technical soccer, then call my more technical mid suggestions. get some ground ball service in the game. mckennie is not hitting the 30 yard accurate quick transition ball you want. and not even winning that much defense either. he could but he doesn't concentrate and stay in position.

 

and i recognize the resistance to anything novel on here, which pretends to be sharp evaluation but is really a conservative fear of change. i remember it because i encountered it every time i proposed weah or richards or reyna during the 2018 cycle. people you would now reflexively defend.

if you have seen campbell play, he's that level talent. he just doesn't have the "tons of b.1 minutes" stamp of approval. but reyna barely ever got to that point with the same team and he's a game changer. i believe in getting ahead of the curve rather than waiting for someone else to tell me my instincts are correct. way to do that is ignore numbers and focus on what you see. the kid is fast, technical, and can finish. he is a wing baller. i cannot believe he is U20.

so it's not that you know who's better. you just defend the last lineup even if mexico beat it 2-0. which is how no real coach operates, is keep sending out the lineup that lost them the last one. which is a good way to get fired.

what it is, is a way for half informed internet fanboys to act like they know something. if you advocate the same lineup the coach gave, few will call you an idiot, and you can pretend the lineup validates things, but you have "snapshot support," which will disappear next changes, and you might be making dumb choices if you repeat a losing squad. but you'll quietly shift to where-ever the coach goes. without ever admitting you were wrong.

 

Since I have been one of the people "discussing jedi and scally in the abstract", I will respond. (actually, that is inaccurate because we have been discussing the possible options of one or the other being unavailable given the current roster but whatever...)

I hesitate to ask, but since you are criticizing my lineup, what is your lineup if Jedi is out? GIVEN THE CURRENT ROSTER. It's actually an honest question.

Second question: Reyna, of course is injured, Puli is in the team, but are you really calling for Sullivan and Green right now? If not, why mention them?

I get at least giving Luna a chance and don't think it wouldn't mind seeing him in camp. I have always liked Ferreira but don't believe he is the answer up top...maybe he would be fine further back but definitely not at all convinced...if Poch wants to see him (he might), then Jan camp is a good spot for that.