I'm not going to do the count but here is a decent thread to judge. It's a thread that started before the groups were announced and ran through yesterday.
But even in that case it's at best uninteresting. The article then should begin, "While most fans are stupid and have unrealistic expectations, there is a very strong argument to fire Bob Bradley...." But it doesn't matter. Most fans aren't making the claims you attribute to them. Some is not most. And it is the coward's way out to focus on the obviously bad in hopes that doing so will keep the good hidden.
First off, thanks for all the comments and insight, emails and banter. Now, let's start things off by saying that a 4-3-3 in Costa Rica is beyond any sort of logic I can comprehend. I don't get it. I understand the idea that if we're playing a lot of long balls out of the back, a 4-3-3 gives us targets up front. Seriously, I understand it, but with the midfield Costa Rica has, it just doesn't make sense. Secondly, the criticism of DMB is fair and on point, but I'm not sure who else we can start. To me, it's almost like Eddie Lewis being trotted out in all those friendlies in 2001 and 2002 when he was riding the pine at Fulham. You give him the games so he stays sharp. DMB has more splinters in his rear right now than an army of termites would know what to do with. I'm not neccessarily opposed to running him out in the Confederations Cup to stay sharp and maybe catch an eye during the summer transfer window. Unfortunately, that eye may be Frank Yallop's and the Earthquakes. Third, my only point really is that the United States is weak, very weak in certain key positions. We've got some strengths but not enough and we're average at best on the wing, at the wing back position and in central midfield from an attacking perspective. That lack of quality and development hurts Bradley's ability to select a lineup that really can compete with Brazil and Italy, and even on the road in Costa Rica and Mexico. Quite frankly, those holes might not be plugged till 2014. Fourth, the point on being in the Confederations Cup - if Bradley doesn't win the Gold Cup in 2007, we're not here. Most didn't think it was enough of an incentive to send a strong team to the Gold Cup, wishing us rather to focus on Copa America. Now that we're here and not performong up to snuff, it's fire Bradley. There is some irony in it all - if he loses in the semis of the Gold Cup in 2007, he probably ain't having a thread like this right now. And I see this tournament as a chance to tinker and see what works and what doesn't. If the same madness is repeated over and over again, then there is a valid point to all this talk. Until that time, I see this as only glorified training against world class players. Fifth, I still can't get over that 4-3-3 in Costa Rica. Sixth, on and off the record, every player I've ever spoken to at the club and national team level raves about Bradley. These are guys who bash other coaches both in public and private, but have nothing but good things to say about Bob. The idea that he doesn't motivate or get the players fired up isn't true. There isn't a player that I've spoken with who hasn't had great things to say about their time in the national team camp, even when they could have bashed him and no one would have ever known. That does say something. Seventh, I think we all agree that this Gold Cup might be telling. I'm hopeful that the young guys will gain confidence against some lesser opponents in the opening round and be ready to step up in qualifying and put pressure on Dempsey, Beasley, et al. Holden, Clark and even Adu should all be taking this opportunity. Si se puede if you will. Eighth, I think we all also agree that we want Bob to succeed and we want to qualify and do well in the World Cup. I'm not so sure that we have the talent to go far in the tournament, and I think an international coach can only take us so far. I do think Bradley has maxxed us out to a certain extent, and he's also built a pretty nice pool of talent if need be. Ninth, remember that coaches like Arena (ABMOD) and Sampson (Wegerle) had their pets too. Each coach has players who fit his need(s). Now it's a Beasley and a Klejstan. The positive to me is that these players are still relatively young and can learn and develop from these experiences. Tenth, go USA. Let's get a win against Egypt and make a statement. Eleventh, are the results in this tournament much different the last World Cup? If we don't get a bogus red card to Italy, can we duplicate a 1-1 tie (I say yes). The Czech Republic loss, a lesser team than what we faced on Thursday, is similar to the Brazil loss (and we at least hit post twice on Thursday). Ghana and Egypt will be comprable. I don't think we've regressed, we've just plateaued. KD
Maybe the expectations of crazy people are too high, sure. But that's ultimately not a very enlightening point to make. Crazy people are crazy. The end. To my mind there are two worthwhile questions to be addressed in this conversation. 1) What is the reasonable expectation of performance from the USMNT, given its levels of resources and talent? 2) Has the USMNT met, exceeded, or fallen short of those reasonable expectations? Going into this tournament, I said to friends that I would be satisfied with 2 points, and wouldn't be too disappointed with 1 point, provided we created chances and made our opponents earn their victories. I feel like that is a reasonable set of expectations. Given the deficiencies in talent, sure, losses against Italy and Brasil are understandable. However, as the last 20 years in US Soccer have shown us, there is no reason why the USA can't get results every so often, and at the very least be difficult to defeat. I think it also reasonable to expect that the US will regularly, though not always, take points from matches against 2nd tier teams (say, within the top 50 but outside the top 15). That is to say, at this point we cannot expect to win a world cup group, but we can expect to compete for a 2nd place finish and occasionally advance. The 2003 Confed Cup, for example, we lost to Brazil 0-1, lost 1-2 to Turkey (a consistently underrated team coming off a 3rd place finish at wc2002), and tied Cameroon 1-1. That was a disappointing tournament because we could have done better, but it wasn't outside reasonable expectations for the team. That may have even been a tougher draw than the current confed cup group we're in, btw. To me, it is perfectly reasonable to look at the performance of the USMNT in 2009 and say "this team is not performing up to its ability" while having perfectly reasonable expectations. And, to be frank, the fact that so many in our soccer press and culture seem to want to dismiss fans' disappointment as "warped expectations" is part of the problem. Sure, you can focus on dismissing the opinions of crazy people if you want, but it doesn't really tell us anything about the current state of the USMNT or world soccer.
Just watching Fox Soccer Report, and the co-anchor Bobby McMahon was basically saying the same thing - that expectations are too high, the team is workmanlike but not technical, and that making 2nd round in the World Cup should be the maximum objective. Almost like he was reading the Dyer article. I really disagree with the notion, and I think that people aren't expecting us to beat the Brazils and Italies of the world, but give them a good challenge and either tie or make them work hard to beat us. There are many teams out there, including some world-class teams, that are more workmanlike than technical, so this in itself is not the issue. I believe it would be perfectly acceptable to most U.S. fans to have a good team that is workmanlike, athletic, and disciplined, and marginally technical. The problem is, the current squad has that potential but is not living up to it, it's having trouble defining its own style, and the criticisms of Bradley are well-placed because that type of decision has to be implemented by the coach.
Also, a pet peeve: it's pointless to say "take away the red card and it was a good performance." The red card is part of the performance. We don't need to get into the debate over whether or not the card was warranted, let's at least acknowledge that it's part of the match and not some weird aberration that can be left out of the account--particularly when it happens over and over.
I agree. I would also add two things about the Dyer article: 1) While he is correct that the U.S. team is not filled with players who are stars or in some cases not regular players in the top leagues in Europe, we have more players playing at a higher level consistently than any other time in history. So, the idea that somehow Bradley doesn't have the players that the Arena 06 or Arena 02 or Sampson 98 teams had, is completely off-base. Over the last four World Cup cycles (including this one), the team has had a mixture of MLS starters and players who play in various leagues in Europe--some who play regularly, others who don't. 2) While I think everyone realizes that the trajectory forward will include high points ('02) and low points ('06), the idea that a team with as much talent as the U.S. shouldn't expect to do better is also odd. One only has to look at a manager like Guus Hiddink and his repeated success at taking teams with players of a similar caliber as the U.S. and creating a system where the players can succeed. Even if you discount South Korea's finish because of home-field advantage, the team still looked organized and the players played as if they knew what their roles were and what they were trying to accomplish. When I watch the U.S. play under Bradley (especially the last 4-5 games), it just looks like the players and the coaching staff are on two different pages. And to somehow poo-poo fan frustration as unrealistic expectation misses the point entirely.
Nice article, with a lot of good perspective for us fans. The only thing I take exception to is his characterization of the team's performance at the 2002 WC. This was the absolute high-point of my career as a long-suffering USMNT fan, and to denigrate it in any way is akin to telling a small child there's no Santa Claus or something.
And if we get a point against Egypt, would you then say it wasn't "outside reasonable expectations for the team?" My guess is that most people wouldn't be happy with it, not because of the point total, but because of goal margin in the earlier games. And yet if we're talking about goal margin, we have to take into account the effect of the red cards, which is a stretch to blame on Bradley.
First, props for writing an op-ed article and having a willingness to come back and discuss the commentary on that article in a open forum. A few thoughts here. If this is his motivation, it reeks of favoritism. His job isn't to play pseudo agent for Beasley & it was a miserable failure, he hurt Beasley in the attempt. As to who else he could have played, based on Beasley's performance any one else in the extended pool would could not have not done worse. Perhaps it's because we select central midfield players based on defense, then offense. This argument is like a farmer planting soy beans in the spring and complaining when he does not have corn come time to harvest. Regarding the other weakness perhaps if we weren't burning up game play minutes with 33 year old midfielders from Argentina who have lost a step or three, we would have a better pool of talent developed AND experienced. This is where you loose me. If the magic don't beat the celtics in game 7 they don't make it to the finals, does that make it any better to give up a 3 with 4.6 seconds to go? This also contradicts the your previous point on DMB. If it was time to tinker, the question of "who else to play" is moot. You play a young player and tinker, not a known out of form quantity, who you play out of safety. Will come back to this response to point 8. No, I don't care if Bob succeeds, I want the team to succeed, with or without Bob. Going back to the previous point on players discussion with you. If I'm a player and know you have a bias to Bob's success, I'm not sharing my concerns with you, on or off record. Their unwillingness to share those concerns with you might say more about their perception of your agenda than their relationship with Bob. I don't mean this in a conspiracy theory kind of way, I mean it in a Fox News vs. MSNBC kind of way. People will seek to speak, on and off the record to where they believe they have a sympathetic ear, it's just human nature. I'm not suggesting you sugar coat your reviews on the team or Bob to retain access or any of the other stuff that gets thrown at people. But it is clear you would not be sympathetic ear to a player who wanted to share their bad experiences (if they had any) with Bob. They would not go to someone like you, they would go to more fertile ground, someone who was already on record not thinking he was the right coach. Props on the honesty, he needs better pets. Bogus red card, we hit the post? That's not a convincing argument, that is the game. The reality is quite the oppsite, the final score didn't reflect the thrashing we took, Brazil could have scored 3-4 more goal, easily. Anyway, despite disagreeing with your opinions, I really do respect your willingness to come and discuss them.
Look, I'm not saying Bradley is a great manager, but is Guus Hiddink really the standard we're going to hold our coaches to? Because if that's the case, then our expectations are too high. If there were a lot of Guus Hiddinks, then every team would have a Guus Hiddink for a coach. Of course, then every team would overachieve, which means that all teams would be the same, and so Guus Hiddink wouldn't be anything special.The reason Guus Hiddink is special is that there are not a lot of him around. At this point, Hiddink has moved beyond us. What we need to do is find the next Guus Hiddink, that is, a coach who is exceptionally good but that other countries do not yet appreciate. We can do this, or course, because the USSF is known worldwide for its deep understanding of soccer development as it applies to the international game.
Are you making the argument that our losses in the 2003 Confed Cup are the same as the losses we've taken in the current one? They're not, and not just because of the goal differential. The red cards (which we deserved) are no excuse, as they are part of the performance of the team. Maybe you don't see the last 6 months of performances as any worse than can be expected out of US Soccer over the last 20 years, and that's your prerogative. But to me, that simply hasn't been the case--our recent form has been considerably worse than can be reasonably expected. And this is coming from someone who was absolutely fine with the losses to England and Spain last year, not some "Fire Bob" maniac. And I'm just going to bang this drum a little more-- stop talking about "blame." It's not about blame, it's about responsibility. When you take the job as national team coach, you assume responsibility for the program's performance for the length of your tenure. Bradley didn't have a gun pointed to his head, he accepted that charge of his own free will. He's a professional, he knew what he was getting into, what resources were available to him and what expectations were. Let's not pretend that all of a sudden he's had the rug pulled out from under him.
To more directly answer your question, though-- If we draw against Egypt (and that's a huge "if"), yes, I will still be disappointed in the team's overall showing in the tournament. Because I think this tournament was not so much about results but about the quality of our performance, which has so far been qualitatively as well as quantitatively poor. If we win vs Egypt I'll be encouraged by the final response, but still really concerned with the trend of form over the past 6 months. If we lose but perform well, I'd be disappointed, but hopeful that the young players that I assume will play tomorrow may blossom. If we lose but perform poorly, play with no cohesion or spirit, then I'd simply feel more certain in my stance right now, that the program is regressing and that someone needs to take accountability for it.
I will take the time to rebut all this if you can answer the following question in the affirmative: Can you tell us what was his explanation when you asked him why he did not use the third sub Vs Brazil? And if you don't have the access to ask him or did not do so, then with all due respect, you are just another BS poster who happens to have a column.
No, my point is that when I read Dyer's article, it seemed like he was saying, "Hey, we're not very talented, so we shouldn't expect more than what we've seen in the Confederations Cup." My point is that there are other coaches (at least one) who has taken the same level (or lower) of talent and consistently put a team on the field that is organized and plays like all of the players know what is expected of them. When I look at the recent 4-5 games by the USMNT, I see a coach (Bradley) who is constantly tinkering with formations, using players who are out of form (to put it mildly), and placing players in positions where either they don't know what they are supposed to do or they can't do what he wants them to do. To me, it doesn't take the second-coming of [insert successful coach's name here] to address some or all of these shortcomings. I agree with your second comment, and your last comment made me laugh out loud.
Coach Bob will not have a handy explanation for "forgetting" to make his third substitution. Becoming lost during/in the match can only mean that he does not know what he is doing there. THAT is serious. Kinnear would have been better. Klinsmann would have been better. This feels like both 2006 and 1998. Not good.
OK, but do a search for the Los Tecnicos thread. See what people thought about Bruce's tactical approach. One particularly brilliant poster predicted that the US wouldn't score a goal from the run of play unless it was a set piece or unless Clint Dempsey got in there. EDIT: OK, here it is. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=342926&highlight=tecnicos In other words, citing the World Cup in 2006 is, to me, a very, very poor defense of BB's tactics. As to your other point about our weak points on the field...OK, let's name them. LB, RW, striker. One solution to LB would be to play Bocanegra there. As I've written a dozen times, hey, I see the problem, too. Boca may fail due to lack of pace. And he's not gonna get to the endline and whip in crosses. That's OK; Rennes use him as an outlet in the attack, to take a back pass or square pass and then reset the offense. Has Bob ever tried this? RW...here, I give Bob some credit. He's tried different things, and had sort of settled on Clint Dempsey. But Clint's play of late has been poor. And Bob has tried Feilhaber there a couple of times, and that hasn't worked. But I wonder why, after Bob used Hejduk at RB and he played well, and with Wynne in the wings, and with Spector in the wings, he's never tried Cherundolo there. Now, as to forward. For a long time, I've been advocating going to some variety of the 4-4-1-1, since we're ass deep in AM types and very short of strikers. In this context, Bob's been "meh." He's toyed around with it. A big criticism, in my mind, is that he's tried Freddy there and Freddy has produced but he's still relegated Freddy to being an afterthought. I'll give Bob credit that he's found a home for Landon at LM, when I would have thought he was a natural for this role. But when I'm giving credit to Bob for occasionally being smarter at this than ME, well, that's poor. That's really poor. If he was any good, he'd be surprising me in a good way on a semi-regular basis. Let's put it this way...by this metric, Tom Soehn is a better tactician than Bob Bradley.
what a stupid stupid article...kind of like Ives' (the worst soccer journalist in america. he's a goddam reporter NOT a journalist. If I wanted his "bend over for the USSF" mindset, I could talk to Primetime).
A few times in 2007. Against Mexico and Ecuador, I believe. I'd be curious to see Spector tried there now, although again Bob tried that a few times in 2007. We just don't have quality wingers at the national team level, and relocating the most traditional fullback we have won't change that. (Actually, I did some research on this a year ago, and it turned out that we had less Americans starting in MLS on the wings than we did at any other position on the field, except maybe for AM depending on how you define that position.) Given those realities, I don't blame Bob for sticking with AM's or CM's like Donovan, Dempsey, and Kljestan on the wings. I don't believe Cherundolo has ever played RW at any level before (although I may be wrong), and there are several reasons why. I'd expect a RW to be able to beat his man down the line, whip in a cross, show creative movement and passing in the opponent's half of the field, and possess the threat to cut inside and attack the net so that defenders can't simply force him inside to contain him. Cherundolo can whip in a cross, but I haven't seen enough of those other qualities for club or country to expect him to be an upgrade in the midfield.
KD, you're a good man to keep coming back here, and adding to the discussion. i want to address one general theme of your posts/article: you seem to be WAY too hung up on results (even in the CC, which we've established is a glorfied, friendly mini-cup tournament). some of us longer serving US fans are a bit burned out on over-emphasizing results in friendlies, as fodder for an argument. Reason being, we just lived through 8 years of the "Result Master", Bruce Arena. he almost always managed to get a favorable result in friendlies (and often used that record to boast about how good a job he was doing). But really, at WC 2006, we found out that none of those (meaningless) results mattered. They, in of themselves, weren't a true gauge as to where the US team was. Speaking for myself, I've learned to look at each game critically and form my analysis, not independent of the result, certainly, but from an overall perspective (with the result in mind). As to how a lot of BigSoccerites are viewing Bradley's performance of late, I think I summed it up well in this post (which you quoted but have still not responded to .... althought you did re-state my final sentence, sorry about that ): https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=18012634&postcount=28 My argument the whole time is that this is not just about two games, it's about a pattern of mediocre play and mediocre tactics. Here's the 2009 schedule (way to go US soccer for not updating): http://www.ussoccer.com/common/stContent.jsp_16-2009MNTSRL.html Taking the Gold Cup out of the equation, because there are no stakes for that and it will be experimental, take a look at the USA's performance in our 7 consecutive "big" games: 3/28 - at ELS 6/3 - at CRC 6/6 - vs. HON 6/15 - vs. ITA 6/18 - vs. BRA 6/21 - vs. EGY ... ?? 8/12 - at MEX ... ?? You may argue that I'm distorting the sample size, but I don't think I am. Evaluating teams is all about evaluating trends, and this is certainly a sizeable trend. And the two things I left out are the GC and the TnT home game (because if you can't get 3 pts in that game you don't deserve to even 'say' the word 'World Cup', much less manage a team there. Anywho, back to the analysis: it is hard to find a lot of positives in this 7 game stretch. Assuming we lose to Egypt and Mexico (which, admittedly, is a strawman, but going on available data, recent history and long-term history, it has a strong likelihood of happening), we could be looking at a period where we played two good halves of football, out of 14 halves (2nd half against HON and first half against ITA). If we slaughter EGY and MEX I will come back here and eat my crow. But I don't think I'm going out on a huge limb saying we'll likely be outplayed in both games. You spent an entire article summing the situation up as "2 bad results at the CC... don't freak out about it." But it looks to me like, anaylsing the current trends, Bob Bradley is having real trouble with tactics in big games. Also, despite what you said, he's CLEARLY having problems motivating the lads for these games. I know you think otherwise, but I've watched all of the games this year. I've watched the effort and body language in this bad stretch. You can't tell me that BB is getting the most out of his players ... my eyes disagree. Anywho, that's my take on the situation. I would love to hear your thoughts. Cheers. And thanks again for continuing to come on here...
Actually, several posters who keep track of this stuff (voros is the one who immediately comes to mind) have stated that for most teams there is very little variation between friendly results and tournament results against similarly rated opposition.
I think Arena's results in friendlies really topped out in about 2003 or 2004. Things started sliding after then. I think you can make a really strong argument that the results in friendlies and other tournaments from 99-2002 gave the US a lot of confidence and grit that they'd use in the world cup that year. That team may have lucked out here or there, but they weren't afraid of anyone.