The forum is getting a little stale and trying to think of something fun, especially for the elders who have been around awhile. You guys generally have a good idea of the "almost" moves and what could have happened.......what are some of your favorites that never came to pass? 1) Clint Dempsey to Liverpool: This one was so close but at the time Liverpool were financially constrained. I truly believe he could have been a critical node to that team and been a legend instead of moving to Tottenham and being somewhat forgettable. I have to assume this rumor had legs because it was talked about all offseason in the papers. 2) Jedi to AC Milan: A failed physical was the only thing that undid this move, but hes had a nice trajectory since then. No one can debate that.......generally speaking.....AC Milan would have been a more prestigious move. 3) A coach who believed in Jon Spector at CAM: This is one of the ones I would die on. Avram Grant giving him a run out in the FA Cup out of desperation at West Ham because he didnt have the bodies.........and absolutely lighting Sunderland up. He had a few absolutely solid games after that. I wanted to see that experiment continue so bad, but Grant ended up getting sacked. 4) Oguchi Onyewu to Chelsea: Poor guy could never stay healthy but there was a winter transfer window where Jose Mourinho really wanted him badly as I recall and Roman Abramovich would absolutely not open up the purse strings to get it to happen. 5) Omar Gonzalez not getting injured by Tim Chandler prior to Nuremburg move: So theres a case to be made Omar was the finished product, and only went downhill after the training session assassination carried out by Chandler. I had belief in him to be better, but at this point, it was abundantly clear that that he was never gonna be the same guy, and we found that out in the most difficult of ways afterwards. 6) Gio Reyna to......literally anywhere but Forest: Okay......deep down we knew this one was always going to happen, but when Marseille, Seville, and Real Sociedad are on the board, it absolutely makes you face palm on what could have been in terms of money being equal 7) EPB to Venezia: I think this one is more of "keeping him in the picture". Initially I think we were all frustrated with the stringent methods of Italian physicals........and failing his physical was frustrating. Turns out that they were dead on though with the horrible career sidebar that he had to undertake. Would have been nice if he could have stayed healthy, but completely understandable why Venezia didnt go through with it. Hopefully he stays healthy enough in Greece to get a good run out. Thats all I got for now and Im sure Im overlooking some previous situations.
i think dempsey would have gotten even less minutes at liverpool than tottenham. he still had a couple of peak years at the time, but bigger teams only saw him as a sub. a more impactful what if for him might be what if he had a 3 season stretch with the same manager? holden (like job) was just decimated by injury so i think thats beyond a "what if"...but what if steffen hadnt gotten injured during his breakout season in germany? and this is a bigger picture one, but what if we had transitioned from howard to guzan @2020? timmy was a legend, but he was as directly responsible for the key goals we gave up in our collapse as anyone. we never had a guzan era. it was never going to be long, but we hung onto tim too long, and then brad sorta backed into the spot before almost immediately being thrown out with the bathwater.
What if Nick Taitague stayed healthy? I think he was built up a bit because “what could have been” outweighs what actually was, but at the time people said he was as good a dribbler as Pulisic if not better
Going farther back, what if Ben Olsen hadn't had his ankle broken playing for Nottingham Forest in 2001? He was one of Forest's best players as a winger prior to his injury. He eventually made it back to the field and went to a World Cup as a holding midfielder, but when he went to England he was establishing himself as the USMNT's starter on the right side of midfield. In 2002, we started four different players in that spot in five games.
I still think that Joe Gyau is a great one. He was had made his way into the Brussia Dortmund 1st squad, left to play two matches for the US, Started vs Czech Republic and then "tore his lateral meniscus and suffered a bone bruise" per Wikipedia. He never recovered to the dynamic player he was prior to injury.
Also in the 2000s, what if Jean Tigana had given Eddie Lewis a chance at Fulham? While Tigana was managing Fulham, Lewis averaged an utterly insane 1.7 goal contributions per game for Fulham's reserves -- more than Messi in MLS. Despite this, the only time Tigana ever played Lewis for the first team was apparently to justify not releasing him when Arena tried to call him up for a non-FIFA-date friendly.
What if Charlie Davies has a normal career. What if Johnny Evans doesn't ******** over Holden. Critical losses for the program.. especially Davies just because how badly we struggled at striker at that time and was EXACTLY what we needed... it was manna from heaven when he broke through.
What if Mathis’ knee stayed intact? In retrospect, he probably didn’t have the personality to support his immense talent, but at his peak he was probably the most talented USMNT striker ever.
Add Ben Olsen [Nottingham Forest/Ankle] and Jonathan Spector [Man U/multiple injuries] having career altering injuries. They were still able to continue on but they weren't anything like they were before the injuries sucked the athleticism out of them.
What if Feilhaber hadn't gone to Derby County? He did fine in the first half of the season, but at midseason they signed several "proven" veterans to try to stave off relegation, and everyone under 24 got few or no minutes the rest of the season.