We can literally make a highlight package of any of our CBs getting beaten for goals. I can make a pretty long one with Noahkai Banks from this season alone if folks want. ...........................actually, you can do it for any player at any position you feel like dumping on them for some reason.
And you can make a mediocre striker look like Pele with a highlight package too. People who rely on that kind of stuff don’t fundamentally understand the sport of soccer, they don’t know how goals are scored or conceded. Me, I was struck by Ream’s ability to get back into the play. He’s got wheels.
That is just a strawman argument. Nobody with any sense relies on a single highlight or even a series. it is just a single illustration of a specific limitation of Tim Ream; He has always been, is, and will continue to be a poor 1v1 defender. Now he has other good qualities; he is good on the ball, for a CB. He is a also a good passer, for a CB but pretending that he is a good 1v1 defender, for a CB is just blind or stupid. Maybe blind and stupid?
You're right of course, but then if some guy had a 10 second lowlight along those lines while actually playing for the USMNT, plenty of people would say that they never want to see him again. Also this is 10 seconds from one game. Ream has had plenty of other not very impressive 10 second moments over the last three years. This is not an outlier from someone who has otherwise been a great player worthy of national team call ups. Ream has been an average at best CB ever since he got to MLS (I would say he's consistently below average post-WC), a league from which Poch has 300 American players to chose from to make up like 6-10 guys on a roster. Also seems worth nothing at positions like CB and GK "just ten bad seconds" is all it takes to completely ruin your team's chances of winning a game. Because in case you haven't noticed the game of soccer has VERY LOW SCORING.
You’re right about Ream this season, IMO. I’ve probably watched more of Charlotte than any team except DC, and he has seemed “MLS good.” My view of MLS is that players who are “MLS great” all need to be looked at. Not saying they should make the team, but they should be in the pool. “MLS good” players shouldn’t be under consideration unless there’s a lack of talent at that position. Which brings me to our center back situation. I’d classify it as a position of need, where MLS good might be good enough. I don’t rate our Celtic players, Banks is awfully young for that role, so once we get past McKenzie and Richards, there’s not alot there. My point is, I’m worried about Ream too but maybe we can’t do any better. He does pass the ball awfully well. Last point: he’s looked a lot better in Poch’s 3 ATB than Charlotte’s back 4. If I were the coach, I’d put Ream out there in the friendlies but have him under a microscope, looking to see if he’s still beating Father Time or he’s finally lost that fight. Poch has a higher opinion of him than I do. I’m keeping my fingers crossed; what else can we fans do?
We literally just talked about how he was a thousand years old, and hadn't looked up for it in '21-'22, before finding the fountain of youth for one last 7 or 8 month run in '22-'23, and now he hasn't looked up for it since '24. It's not some anti-Ream crusade, it's the dude turns freaking 39 next fall, and he hasn't been in great form in 3 years. It's really simple. Even Cannavaro hung it up at 36, Maldini hung it up at 34. But freaking Tim Ream can get humiliated at 38 but who cares, we're just being unfair, really? Of course all players get smoked, have moments of horror, vividness bias style, but Reams been blech all year, and its simple logic that when you're closer to Bill Clinton's age in the '92 campaign, than Van Dijk's in '22, well, what do you freaking expect? It's over. But we're not gonna accept that as a national team, until it's too late.
So, either (1) Poch thinks Tim Tillman is ahead of Musah and McKennie, or (2) Poch did not think through his backup plans in case of injuries well, or (3) Poch was fine taking the chance that the last window of '25 against some decent competition would feature a midfield of Berhalter, Tim Tillman, and Roldan. Too harsh on Poch? Maybe the possibility that both Adams and Zawadski would withdraw was too remote to plan for.
I mean, yes? For one, he's stated why McKennie isn't here and it has nothing to do with quality - he's leaving him to bed in with his coach so he keeps his minutes. You can disagree with the idea, but it has nothing to do with "Poch think[ing] Tim Tillman is ahead of ... McKennie." I don't even know why anyone would even think that's a possibility. This is clearly a late-stage injury replacement because we just lost 2 CDMs from the roster. There's clearly some other dynamic with Musah, but generally we do not see injury replacements pulled in from Europe. Adams just got a concussion this last weekend. Even without those two players, we have Tessman, Morris, Roldan and Berhalter largely for two spots on the field. Now, maybe Berhalter was going to play a bit farther forward and maybe Zawadski was backup at CB ... but we were pretty overstocked at the position. I imagine Tillman is coming in because some of these guys will have minutes restrictions and he needs some backup for another injury in the next week. It'd be nice to have another player who's actually more of an actual defensive midfielder, but I also think that Tillman is unlikely to get any real minutes.
He's a high work rate, high energy CM who is tough in the tackle and at his best pressing forward defensively and forcing turnovers. He's defensive, but not a CDM, if that makes sense -- so more like a Morris or Roldan than an Adams. Offensively, he's ball secure but lacks the offensive repertoire of his brother. He can make a few plays, but he's more solid than spectacular. I know he was very good in MLS a couple of years ago but that was largely being played as a pressing 10 which got him a lot of goal situations. He's had a drop in goal production but that's more a function of shifting him around the field and rejiggering the attack around counters for Bouanga and now Son. He's not going to embarrass you, for sure. Very solid is probably the best description.
Slightly smaller and much less goal-dangerous version of his younger brother Malik even though Tim came up a one of the most promising #10 in Germany as a young player. Highly skilled, highly technical and very good with the ball in tight spaces, very press-resistant and almost impossible to dispossess. In many ways Tillmann is LAFC's version of Nagbe, he is the player they give the ball to to retain and start the attack. Great at through balls but has not scored a goal this season! He did get US Soccer's MOTM in his only cap a couple of January camps ago.
Noonan, Cherundolo, and Mikey Varas making their claim to next USMNT manager after Poch, based on performances in MLS playoffs.
All three are still relatively young managers. I can see the wanting to continue cutting their teeth at the club level. On top of that, Cherundolo is moving his family back to Germany at the end of the year. I don't see any of the three being realistic candidates to succeed Poch.
I think Noonan and Varas are very realistic. Cherundolo - I'm not sure if he wants the USMNT job or prefers a club in Germany, but if he did he would be a top 3 candidate.
not to take this completely into "next manager" territory, but one big thing poch is showing (some of) us is that club manager maybe isnt the managerial pool we need to be looking at. on that note, ive had a lot in interest in dolo for a long time primarily due to his varied experiences over his post-playing career. outside of the ussf pipeline, working up through different youth levels, and now time in mls. problem being that makes the step "down" to intl youth teams, or an assistant at the sr level a little trickier. even varas (who im not a fan of at all) has youth intl experience (and one token/flukish windows with the nats) arguably lends itself better to a potential usmnt coach than the most impressive american club manager (which is too often simplified to best american mls club which is a pretty big leap and jump from even concacaf level intl play. that all, of course, assumes an "american if at all possible" priority (to whatever degree). we simply dont have the quality of club managers for that to be the pool "period", nor do we have more than a handful of "american+" managers (matarazzo, wagner, possibly dolo depending on his next gig, alternate timeline marsch). and obviously we managed (no pun intended) to miss hurzellers playing and managing boats. i really, really hope we learn a lesson about strictly "gun for hire" types, both passing like renard or incidental like poch. even then i think we are at least a couple of cycles away from our spectrum being any better than "best mls guy available" to "heavily american positive" (and 100% crapshoots) like klinsmann or whats his face (googling his name...) martinez. as much as it sucks, our managers are a long, long way behind our players at this point. and our players (beyond the top couple of handfuls) are a long way behind a poch (arguably) or an ancelotti being able to just sort through guys and do what they do with zero regard for our pool or national team beyond the moment theyre hired and the moment they leave.
Crocker is going to have his work cut out for him. Almost any hire may seem like a downgrade from Pochettino, provided we don't flop next summer. But I don't know that we'll have the cash or ability to go as high profile. Which definitely leads us more to an American coach. Just making an assumption that everyone will want the job not because that's necessarily true but more for discussion's sake ... everything is going to feel like a compromise somewhere. Cherundolo definitely has an added pedigree both as a player and with his German coaching experience. He has the demeanor. I would say that if Crocker is interested in continuing a clear US Soccer tactical plan that is similar to Pochettino, Cherundolo would seem like an odd choice. He dismantled the MLS Cup winning possession offense of Bradley to push the team more and more to a pure counter-attacking team. He's still had success ... but his only real trophy win was really with Bob's system, and one could argue that he's lost at the end of some of these tourneys precisely because he's made the team too one dimensional. I have them as MLS Cup favorites right now but even if you don't, it's still going to feel a disappointment if they don't at least get there with Bouanga and Son. Noonan is a pragmatist at heart, I think -- where Varas seems more to the Berhalter/Poch side on possession and Cherundolo the other way, I think Noonan is much more of a grit and grind guy and whatever works. Which I like, but it is worth noting even as they advance that Cincy's underlyings this year simply weren't very good. They've gotten by largely on individual brilliance on offense in close games -- we have players better than Evander but we don't have players at Evander's level in an MLS context. Handing the ball to Christian or whatever and telling him to score is a not a strategy and I'd want to understand more. Varas has the national team experience and runs a tactical plan that fits what we've been doing like a glove. He knows the players. But his head coaching experience is youth teams and one year as SDFC coach (and whatever interim games he had). The US coaching ranks are littered with guys who had a couple good years in MLS and were rising stars and then turned out to perhaps like most coaches -- they road some surprisingly good talent but struggled in other contexts. Oscar Pareja, Greg Vanney, etc. That's not to say they are bad choices, but a longer track record is needed usually to judge. Jason Kreis was not a good coach at all but he won an MLS Cup.
A point in Mikey Varas’ favor is that getting an expansion team up and running and playing connected soccer is the closest a club coach can come to a pre World Cup camp. I’d be OK with the USMNT manager living in Europe. It might even be preferred.
I have a feeling Crocker isn’t going to stay past next summers World Cup. If Poch does well, he can leave with his head held high, and move to a club. If Poch falls on his face, Crocker will be one of them taking the blame.
This is false you don't watch LAFC. Your description of Tillman seems to be from a couple of matches in his first season to early 2nd season. This season we are way much less a counter team than previous years when Denis was our sole attacking threat and certainly less reliant on the counter once we added Son. The loss of first Long then Igor caused Dolo to fundamentally change how we play in midfield often moving to a 3-4-3 which changes Tillman's role, in addition Delgado has provided more of the goal production load than prior seasons.
Crocker has done nothing to indicate he’s on the way out. It’s also the case his remit is larger than just the USMNT and he’s done some good things in terms of getting the youth teams for every age group active nd playing each window. There was also an article recently about the work he’s trying to do with the develops system overall (which is very difficult). I don’t think he’s planning on going anywhere for now.
Varas needs more seasoning (BJ also falls into this camp). Noonan seems to always score well in terms of the CSO surveys the Athleric does. Cherundolo I think would take the job in a heartbeat. If he’s still in Columbus Nancy is the MLS coach I’d approach first though. Matarazzo I think also a candidate if he doesn’t have a job as I think Jessie Marsch if he has a good World Cup with Canada. I’m guessing we’d also look at international candidates but impossible to know which wokod be interested or not. There’s also Fabian Hürzeler but I doubt he’d leave the Brighton job for the US job. Longer term someone like Michael Bradley could be a candidate but he’s still so early in his coaching career we’re probably talking 2034 at least.
Any choice will enrage part of the fan base. That's mostly the shock fan base that hates everything unless we win a WC and even then would find something to gripe about. We heard for years we needed a top foreign coach and it took one game for them to turn on him. Most of us are more nuanced and will give any new coach time although of course being fanatics all of act that way at times with a bad loss.