Well he is, still. But for Gibraltar or Aruba. I think people thought Trapp had the potential to be an international player. People thought Aidan Morris has the potential to be an international player but for some reason the Europhiles have only just noticed.
i want to mention two things and ill see myself out... 1 i dont think its entirely fair (in a vacuum) to compare the number of chances/camps/caps some guys (now exiled) got and the gc (better, more virtuous people, according to bs), because the gc (and the friendlies that preceded it) was an 8 match chunk 2 the try-hard brigade were called in both before and after that extended gc window, so the continued excuse of "experimentation" is wholly a fabrication to cover for the fact that poch doesnt want to manage our best players (cause they cant magically become the kind of players he wants) and has outright refused to manage the next tier. the problem is argentina has three, four, maybe five usable tiers of players that he could discard on a lemon-infused whim and still have a world class team. we have 2 tiers (each being 15, 16 players at most). im not a math guy but, uh, feel free to explain how that equation works out. thats just the truth. and bottom line- he can say whatever he wants. lapdogs can do what they do best and lap that up. but things actually happen. you can either recognize those things or pretend they didnt happen.
This isn't EA FC 25. You don't pick "the best players" by looking at a rating and plugging them into your roster. So you're begging the question, and as a result your question is illogical. It's always the guys who don't get the minutes. It's incredibly easy to explain, he's looking for answers in friendlies. You don't need to be a lapdog to take things as they are in a measured, non-hysterical way. Everyone will always have a problem with some specific selections from a coach. You don't make horrible points about some omissions, but all managers have their idiosyncrasies which I know you know, and while I know the WC is 9 months away he's also less than a year in.
I would agree with point 1, if we then saw reasonable call ups to the September window, having already seen all those guys more than enough to know the truth about the bulk of them from January, March and June. Instead, we got the Cupcake Brigade+a few others again in September, so the excuse that they automatically piled up minutes and caps falls short for me because the lessons he should have learned, he clearly did not.
Tessman and Scally are clearly part of our top 25-30 players, to say that is obvious gaslighting. They are starters for top 5 teams, something well over the level of Berhalter and Arfsten. It is not even a close call.
let me put it this (though we arent going to come close to any middle ground) "experimentation" is looking for equal or better alternatives (fully accepting the logic of "lesser" pieces creating a better whole). poch is- in practice, as evidenced by the rosters/players he has called and used- filling spots with unreasonably inadequate players to keep more realistic options hes discarded (for reasons i gave before), not to improve/challenge/motivate anyone. harriel, zawadzki, etc arent remote possibilities for improving the team in any way, shape or form. you have to recognize that. we can pretend, or blindly trust, enough for seb or arfsten (though i dont think using him in his actual position would be insanely out of line), but cmon.
completely agree. but add this to the idiotic, widely-embraced fallacy of managers being complete non-factors... tesserman hasnt translated his club form to the nats- i dont think anyone, anywhere is arguing that. he hasnt been in the bottom 3 players in any match hes played for us either. but dismissing him after 8 caps/383 minutes is a manager refusing to do his job (that does, in fact, have some responsibilities). all while tesserman is continuing to improve and growing even further into his role at lyon. oh, but all of a sudden poch takes rest/workload/club issues very, very seriously not to mention this is the same lyon that would have instantly made matt turner our undisputed #1 again (according to bs, after a whopping one camp of not being that amid two years of non-activity) before they changed owners and said nah, we arent completely sold on him as a backup... there should be zero expectation of rational discussion here.
i didnt catch this comment the first time- and its completely irrelevant to any discussion here- but in fc26 blackmon has 90 pace (while richards, for example, has 68). thats just a mind-boggling tidbit i dont have anywhere else to really bring up. so hey, maybe its poch thats making gamer decisions (kidding. almost completely).
Top 30 is not the same as being one of our best player or clearly part of the core group. Definitely not gaslighting. Also neither has really shown that much in the opportunities they have gotten. Doesn’t mean they can’t improve but they aren’t surefire stars. Arfsten btw had top 5 teams trying to buy him. If Columbus had let him go to France would that have changed your opinion of him?
And those guys didn't play. I'm not going to defend every move he makes, I never will. Mostly because I don't care enough to and those players won't impact. But for you to seemingly pretend there's not some logic at play, especially at the start of the European season and with all these injuries/unavailabilities, that means we'll always have to agree to disagree. I mean I like Tessman, I hope he's involved too, but again these decisions happen for many many reasons. And whether you agree with the entire roster or even the overall approach, I mean... was it you who said you would have fired Poch as soon as this Sept roster was announced? You just undercut your own credibility with that kind of cringe, was it an exaggeration? I'd expect a junior high student to say that kind of thing, it's the kind of statement that is just completely devoid of nuance and naive of reality. But you're much smarter than that from what I can tell. Perhaps I'm misremembering and it wasn't you. Anyways, you obviously don't have to care what I think. And regardless of any disagreement we do have, I think and hope we would agree that without the many extenuating circumstances over the past few months these rosters likely look considerably different. Makes sense to me.
All that time with Venezia for Tessmann was in Serie B at a level that’s probably lower than MLS. But generally based on how some of the players mentioned have played with the national team there’s not been a huge distinction in terms of say Freeman and Scally. The problem is they haven’t demonstrated themselves as head and shoulders above other options. Which is why Pochettino is desperately casting about for alternatives. I think the key is also none of those guys have been permanently exiled and we’ll likely see them again at some point. You also got to remember alot of this has coincided with injuries. If Jedi were healthy for instance Arfsten has way less playing time. Similarly Pepi and Balogun missing time is what opened things up for Agyemang. And I’ve long been a Sargent supporter but I was really let down by his performance against South Korea. Because of what an immediate difference it was as soon as Balogun got on the field. More generally I view the core players of this team as Jedi, Dest, Richards, Adams, Cardoso, Adams, McKennie, Tillman, a healthy Reyna, Weah, Pulisic, Pepi, and Balogun. Those are locks for me. Maybe other guys play themselves into that group but I don’t know that anyone else in the pool should consider themselves a lock for the World Cup team.
Musah I thought was good for us last cycle but he’s definitely regressed it seems and hasn’t really improved as a player overall.
He's been in multiple camps. I thought he was fine. Showed some things, didn't do great on defense. I really struggle to compare him to Berhalter because they are completely different players. You're putting a lot of weight on dynamic that the Gold Cup has more games. Tessman had been seen. Pochettino wanted to see others. The next thing was the GC. If Tessman had played better in march or if Berhalter had been the first look, the games could have gone to Tessman. Berhalter was bad yesterday, but he was not bad at the GC. He created a decent amount of offense even in the run of play. He was not a disaster on defense. My only real complaint on calling him in this window given everything is that the role he played Saturday is not a good fit for him. I would not say Gold Cup Berhalter played worse than Nations League Tessman. I don't think either was bad, but there's no clear differentiation there. I just think they play clearly different roles. I tend to give rope based on talent and performance. Europe is meaningless to me; the league can be context but I really don't think Aidan Morris has improved all that much in the Championship -- he looks very similar to Columbus Aidan Morris for me. No bonus. I don't want to give up on either Tessman or Morris. Not because Europe is harder, but because Tessman has a really nice long ball and because Morris has strong anticipation and speed. But they both have weaknesses as well -- Tessman struggles with defensive aggression and bite, and he's not a box to box type, and Morris is really lacking on ball progression and passing. Both have an edge on Berhalter on athleticism, but I don't think they've outperformed him. Tessmand has six caps under Poch. Let's not act like the guy got one look. Berhalter is now at 8. I don't actually think the level of comp is as varied as you say -- there was no Martinique in the Gold Cup. T&T and Haiti aren't great, but they aren't complete fluff. And yes, Poch is aware of different levels of difficulty. I also wouldn't act like Tessman is somehow out of the pool or even behind someone like Berhalter. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. Maybe he was but isn't not after that poor game. Or maybe this was the last camp focused more on domestic options and October will be more Eurocentric. I wouldn't assume any of that. We'll see who's coming in going forward, but I neither think it is nearly apparent the difference in level nor is that actual playing time or comparison nearly as drastic. Like I said, they have no gottend 1/4 to 1/6 the reps. Tessman has 400 minutes; Berhalter 600. Freeman's played 650 minutes; Scally 500. Even Sargent literally only missed a window where he was hurt and the GC. For all the talk of him not getting a chance, he's been in three times with Poch. What is he doing? He's clearly broadening the pool. I think there was a real intent to leave guys just out of pre-season or in new spots in Europe for the September window and I think there's probably some intent to leave MLS guys with their teams for the playoffs / playoffs push. I have NO idea where all these guys are on the depth chart, by the way. I am not certain one of these guys has not been exiled for attitude, though I don't have a ton of reason to believe they are. But while they have less minutes primarily because of the Gold Cup dynamic, they generally have more camps, more call-ups, and the minutes really aren't as off as you'd think. And if you actually think that Poch isn't weighing things like the Trinidad that highly, they might have more "real" minutes. To be clear, I don't get some of the picks, but I absolutely see what Poch sees in Arfsten and Freeman, obviously Luna. Berhalter wouldn't make my picks personally, but he's been a better player than people like to portray and I understand why a coach likes Poch likes him. Who are the 8, 9, 10? I don't really understand. I'm not picking 10 guys from MLS for my roster, but there's a number of guys I have no issue with getting a look and who haven't gotten repeat looks. I absolutely see why you try Agyemang or Blackmon or Celentano or Schulte or pretty much any keeper. I didn't have any real hope for White, but I think he deserved a shot. Do I get Nathan Harriel? Nope. But I just think the vast majority makes sense and much of this comes down to non-on field items or differences in what the coach is looking for rather than pure insanity.
Yes, but even with that, he's a great floor in my opinion. Good defender, ball secure, but asking him to play an active role on offense might be a mistake. If Poch chooses to try to get more out of him, great. I suspect he makes the roster on pure athleticism. But yeah, the guy has basically been a defender + one good offensive play a game. His inability to quickly distribute the ball on offense is probably a net negative for Poch.
Tessmann had 20 appearances in Serie A, and played Atalanta in the Italy Cup, and Frosinone as well (a relegation fodder Serie A/B regular). Again, I think I'd agree w/your take if they and those other guys got a balanced amount of mins and caps, but they haven't. Whatever they did pissed Poch off, probably because of the result in the window, and he exiled them, and then after getting a long look at those guys I mentioned, who largely sucked, or worse, he called them right back in September. I don't know if Tessmann will hold up against International caliber sides, he can do it with club, same with Scally, but can he do it in the shirt for us? I don't know. I know Berhalter can't because he already showed us that other than set pieces he couldn't hold up against sketchy as hell sides in the Gold Cup, and in friendlies against the Swiss and Turkey. Now he's a turnover machine against South Korea....not surprising. He isn't at this level, and even if say, Arf is, where are you putting him? Are you going to make him Left Wing Forward #2? Do you honestly think he's Jedi's understudy when he can't defend a lick (I'll concede he wasn't awful, he wasn't a problem this past weekend)...and I could go on and on, we saw them this summer, they weren't good enough for a B Gold Cup, how in hell are they good enough for the WC? I don't know if Tessmann will ever get it in the shirt, but I know he was good enough to draw a move to Lyon and the attention of Milan and plenty of other very good teams, and he's won a starting job here, so while we shouldn't warp our structure crazily to accomodate him, we certainly should figure out if we can use him because he has been seen as good enough for Serie A and Ligue 1 quality teams. Is Seb Berhalter that? Of course not. I'll take his set pieces sure, but I can't live with the other 85 minutes when he's playing in the run of play.
Most of the disparity in caps is mostly just the Gold Cup and being on it or not. More generally it’s not like any of them are exiled forever or anything. It’s not as if the current roster is the World Cup roster. And you’re right on Tessmann and his time in Serie A. I forgot about that.
Some good comments from Tata Martino here (who is a former Pochettino teammate). https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/66...tino-mauricio-pochettino-usmnt-mls-world-cup/
its cool how you guys totally recognized the imbalance of chances/windows with the gc and just forgot to mention it until now, when i threw it out on the stoop. its practically been the basis of the arguments youve been planning to make for weeks, im sure
I don't respond to superfluous words like surefire star? Undefinable and exaggerated. I don't care if they are surefire or star......it's irrelevant to calling in our top and most talented players to play well and win games which Pochettino is presently not doing, and one of those obvious examples that you presented is calling in Arfsten and Berhalter over Tessman and Scally and US losing in a terrible performance led by those two players by the score of 2-0 on home soil.