Meh they've aged out quite a bit. Much like Honduras, The Ticos are always going to be a factor in this region because they're really tough at home, but on a neutral field I would actually consider picking both Jamaica and Canada against Costa Rica
so, here are all the Mexican players at a major league level who have played since March: Majority starter @ top 50 team: Jiminez (29) @ Wolves (ranked 15th): 4/4 games with 4 starts, 355 minutes, 2 goals Tecatito (27) @ Porto (ranked 31st): 6/6 games with 6 starts, 509 minutes, 2 goals and 2 assists Guardado (33!) @ Betis (ranked 40th): 6 / 7 with 5 starts, 409 min Araujo (28) @ Celta de Vigo (ranked 45th): 7/8 games with 5 starts, 537 minutes Scrubs with less than 200 minutes on a top 50 team: Herrera (30) @Atlético Madrid (ranked 10th): 5 out of 8 games with 2 starts, 181 minutes, 1 assist chucky (24) @ Napoli (ranked 26th): 4/4 games with 0 starts, 84 minutes, 1 goal Lainez (20) @ Betis (ranked 40th): 4/7 games with 0 starts, 121 minutes, no goals or assists I'm sure it's not a big deal to have the majority of your team not playing any competitive soccer for at least four months. No wonder that MexNat fans are so busy following USMNT players. Majority starter @ top 50 team: Adams (21) @ RBL (ranked 8th): 9/9 games with 5 starts, 554 minutes Pulisic (21) @ Chelsea (ranked 9th): 6/6 games with 5 starts, 467 minutes, 2 goals Brooks (27) @ Wolfburg (ranked 30th): 9/9 games with 9 starts, 786 minutes [missing Dest] Majority Starter for teams between 51-125 Sargent (20) @ Bremen (ranked 79th): 12/12 games with 7 starts, 664 minutes, 1 goal, 3 assists Weston (21) @ Schalke (ranked 121st): 8/9 games with 8 stats, 669 minutes, 2 goals Rotational Player with over 300 minutes on top 50 team Reyna (17) @ BVB (ranked 13th): 7/8 games with 2 starts, 304 minutes Chandler (29) @ Eintracht (ranked 38th): 8/11 games with 4 starts, 370 minutes Rotational Player with over 300 minutes on team between 51-125 Morales (30) @ Fortuna (ranked 119th): 8/9 games with 3 starts, 321 minutes Players with less than 200 minutes on teams between 51-125 Yedlin (26) @ Newcastle (ranked 83rd): 3/5 games with 0 starts, 34 minutes Vassilev (19) @ Aston Villa (ranked 94th): 1/5 games with 0 starts, 5 minutes Minor league starters ARobinson Holmes Palmer Brown Miazga Carter Vickers Mexico's top players are all in their late 20s and by Qatar only Tecatito will be younger than 30....I'm guessing Chucky and Lainez will be in MLS pretty soon which will only help the USMNT.
Latest report out of Panama https://www.tvmax-9.com/somoslasele/ventila-formato-eliminatorias-Concacaf-Catar_0_5620687983.html The "Oct" would happen. Top 5 would qualify automatically, remaining 30 would take part in preliminary rounds. No specifics on how the preliminary rounds would work. Hard to see how you go from 30 to 3 in only a couple windows, but we'll see
I know I'm a bit out of the loop with this. Is there any talk or estimate as to when the next meaningful matches will be played? Obviously it's Covid dependent, just interested in whats being discussed.
I think it will be very hard to get any friendlies scheduled and even qualifiers are going to be difficult, especially for games in the US. Until this country gets COVID under control, I think it will be a lot to ask for teams to allow players to travel to the US to play and then come back and risk infecting others. Would players have to quarantine upon returning from the US as many travelers currently have to do? Would teams allow them to come? Could neutral sites end up needed? I know the thing these days in the US us to pretend we're past it, but COVID is stronger than ever here and this is going to take some time. We're in a worse place today than we were months ago with no plan in place. There is no reason to think the US will be safe to have athletes travelling here from all over the world anytime soon without great risk.
i think we have a real question of whether our core players (all based in Europe) will return to play in any USMNT matches in North America. their clubs could rationally put up a real fight if they were required to miss games upon returning due to Mandatory quarantine.
I'd also worry about teams being willing to come play here. Teams would have a pretty solid reason to ask for games in the US to be rescheduled elsewhere unless/until things change.
For fun: what would an all-Concacaf lineup look like? I’d start with the three best players: Davies, Jiminez and Pulisic. In central defense, looks like the core would be Araujo and Brooks. In central midfield, the group includes Guardado, Adams and McKennie outside backs/wingers would be Tecatito or Dest on the right attackers are more unproven and would be led by David goalie: navas over Ochoa. thoughts?
I don’t know if any of you have been keeping up with Mexico but it’s terrible at the Mexico-Texas border right now. Many people in Mexico can’t afford tests and aren’t very educated on distancing among family members. To complicate things it has rained a lot and west Nile is big there right now too. Not sure if the rest of Mexico is troubled but lots of countries will have problems getting games in if this keeps up.
Not sure where the best place to post this is (but decided that we don't need a new thread). Just saw on the ESPN ticker that Mexico has announced a friendly vs Netherlands on October 7 in Amsterdam. https://www.fmfstateofmind.com/2020...-mexico-vs-netherlands-amsterdam-october-2020 There's no telling if the game will actually happen, but clearly those two federations think there's a possibility. Mexico isn't really in a much better boat than the US right now, so could we see the US schedule a game yet this year? It obviously wouldn't happen in the US, but could conceivably happen in Europe. Further, if the ban on American travel to Europe holds (I'm gonna guess it will) then this could be the European Camp Covecake a number of people have been wanting.
We could probably put together a pretty decent all-European roster for something like this if we had to. The only limitation is that we'd be a little thin on center-forward options after Sargent. Though I suppose Weah could probably still play there.
Is Mexico doing an all euro squad? If they aren’t we should take our best players they haven’t played in NC a long long time and fate willing maybe most of the starters will be healthy and get to actually play together.
Well the article mentions that on the one hand "there is still a travel ban by the European Union against people from Mexico because of the COVID-19 emergency" but on the other hand there doesn't appear to be enough Mexican players in Europe to make this work for them without some domestic players. It doesn't sound like anyone's addressed how Mexico can make that work. We have the same first problem, but not so much the second, which I think is why people are entertaining the idea of an all-Euro roster if we were to attempt something similar.
The way I look at Timo now is the same way I'm approaching social security here in the US (and I'm only about 10 years out from collecting it). I'm assuming that he won't be available, and if he is, it will be a pleasant surprise.
You can enter Europe with a valid negative COVID test. At least, that is how American youth players like Rotundo have entered.
Continues to sound like the Americans, at least, don't want any radical changes to the qualifying rules. Gregg was in the media basically laying out the same logic that Earnie had: the rules were set, there is plenty of time for a Hex, so why change? If the Hex starts in 2021, there is room, and there would be two windows for friendlies to make up for missing March and June 2020. Gregg expects an announcement soon.
I figured this was only for students and workers. Are they making this allowance for visitors as well?
Well I mean specifically I figured the exception would only apply to people who are or will be working for a company or institution based within the European country.