The '09 Confederations Cup run was what really turned the tide. It was still pretty brutal around here prior to that.
Goals from Luca de la Torre, Quinn Sullivan, and Patrick Agyemang brace so far... any call ups who fail to score today will be replaced on the Gold Cup roster
Realistically, not winning this is going into the WC is going to be awful for morale and the vibe around the team.
For reference, here is every player that has started for the US in a competitive game since the beginning of 2024 (plus the most used sub), along with their status in this camp. GK: Turner - called up (9 starts) RB: Dest - called up (1 start) RB: Scally - left home (8 starts) CB: Ream - called up (7 starts) CB: Richards - called up (6 starts) CB: McKenzie - called up (3 starts) CB: M. Robinson - called up (1 start) CB: Carter-Vickers - left home (1 start) LB: A. Robinson - health/asked to be left off roster (7 starts) LB: Arfsten - called up (1 start) DM: Adams - called up (6 starts) DM: Cardoso - called up (1 start) DM/CM: Tessmann - left home (3 starts) CM: McKennie - unavailable due to CWC (9 starts) CM/DM/RB/RM: Musah - personal reasons/asked to be left off (5 starts) CM/AM: M. Tillman - called up (1 start) CM/AM: Reyna - unavailable due to CWC? (4 starts) AM: Luna - called up (1 start) WF/AM: Pulisic - workload/asked to be left off roster (9 starts) WF: Weah - unavailable due to CWC (7 starts) WF/CF: Wright - called up (1 start) CF: Balogun - called up (4 starts) CF: Pepi - injured (2 starts) CF: Sargent - left home (1 start) CF: Agyemang - called up (1 start) Sub: B. Aaronson - called up (only non-starter with more than 2 sub appearances) As noted, that's 1 player who's injured, 3 players who asked to be left off, 4 players left off based on the manager's decision, and 3 players unavailable due to the Club World Cup.
And I'm fairly certain one of those who asked to be left off is going to have surgery, so while I suppose he could have played, that feels a lot more like injury to me. If we assume that it really is more about asking to be left off, that's almost punishing Jedi for his toughness in playing hurt.
Yeah I get that. I just couldn't really quite say he was left off due to injury, since he is starting at this very moment in a mostly meaningless game for Fulham.
Plus Fulham was in position to play a hand in who made top 5 and UCL. If he didn't play fans of Chelsea, AV, and Newcastle would have screamed bloody murder.
And those opinions on whether Jedi plays or rests are more powerful than ours. So saith the book of association football.
Maybe the most interesting thing in all of this, is that we're all fixated on how they looked on the field in the ---- show that was the March window, but perhaps just as important, maybe more so, and something that we never see, was how they looked in training. In that subtext of the presser, hell in the text itself, is a criticism of how seriously they take tranining itself. A lot of this roster's weirdness may flat out come down to wanting to find serious players that give a ----, and approach training with dedication. I wonder how many of the guys who missed this camp due to CWC, might have missed it anyway, regardless, if any?
I thought the big Euro leagues might try and finish earlier next season with the World Cup in mind but nope, Serie A and EPL finish on May 24 with the UCL final on May 30. World Cup starts June 11.
Everyone put the guns, sleeping pills, ropes, and razor blades down. We will be scoring goals in bunches this GC. We are in a group with T&T, Haiti, and Saudi Arabia. It will look like 2023. Enjoy!
For that reason goals scored in the first round should be greatly weighted down and goals scored in the elimination rounds count triple.
Exactly. And you know for sure that a number of players in the UCL final will be headed to the WC. This is just so stupid.
Yeah, the January camp guys played with a real sense of urgency and intensity, even if we know that on average, they're not as skilled as the Euro-based guys. I don't think that the guys called in for the March window don't care about playing for the US or anything along the lines of the most extreme takes, but it seems clear that the urgency and intensity wasn't as high from that group. Pochettino obviously saw that too and knows how that manifests in training, and this GC roster might be closer to what he thinks of as his A-team than we might think (excepting obvious unavailable A-teamers like Pulisic, McKennie, Robinson, and Weah).
La Liga and the Eredivisie also end on the 24th. The Bundesliga and Ligue 1 ends May 16th. I just find it completely insane that the season is playing all the way to the 24th, just insane.
Yeah, I think Sargent specifically is being dropped because of that window. Not because he didn’t score, but because he never showed any fighting spirit. He’s supposed to be a good presser, I saw lolligagging. And he refused to fight for loose balls, 50/50’s, he wasn’t going after everything, even no hopers like I expect. Watching Diego Luna, that’s what you want to see, he’s not waiting for something to happen, he tries to make it happen. Not really a point to this other than to say I’m over Sargent and he has only himself to blame. Gotta play like you want it.
Maybe so but intensity simply isn’t enough unless your main objective is moral victory. I want to win a World Cup in my lifetime, though. To do that someone needs to figure out how to get the talent to perform consistently. That’s the job.
I'm not sure who would be on the list. Some of the references to golfing could be with Pulisic's group of buddies. We already know McKennie runs hot and cold in terms of dedication. I think Weah's on point, but honestly I don't really know. It would not surprise me if a ton of guys we think are safe, aren't. As good as they may be professionally, with club, in the shirt these guys have ---- their pants against T&T twice in the past 18 months, and against Panama twice in the past year, as a USMNT player, the vets really don't have a leg to stand on for an auto 23 selection based upon those performances alone, I'm not even adding the fact that they were beaten, at home, by Jamaica in the NL Semifinals, and only escaped with a win due to gratuitous extra time, and an own goal in the final seconds of a far too long gifted period of ET (or that they were beaten by Canada in that consolation game). I think pretty much everyone's job should be on the chopping block other than the injured guys (Pepi, Balo, Dest, Jedi-i think).
It is far more likely you find a player who wants it than you motivate someone who doesn't to do so. I'm not sure how many people on here have managed or coached larger groups of adults -- kids are different -- but most of effort and motivation are driven by the person. If you need an outside person to do it for you, it will fail in any kind of long run. So leaving Sargent home could be as simple as (a) looking for that person who has talent and will work and (b) sending Sargent a stronger message than words ever can. It's now up to Sargent to respond, if indeed effort was the reason for the drop.
Good point. I can’t argue with the Sargent omission. But I also would be extremely unhappy if the current roster represented us at the WC, no matter how much they want it.
I mean, sure. There's a lot of talent missing, but most of that missing is actually hurt or have CWC duties. But we're not doing anything at the World Cup if we don't get strong performances from our best players, either way. You need talent and grit to do well; it will look better on the page but if the talent isn't exerting effort, we're not going anywhere anyway. Frankly, you are actually better off (in the immediate term) playing with a try hard lineup that has a gameplan suited to it than playing with a talented lineup who is getting outworked and out-executed. At least then you muck up the game and hope to get lucky. As for the roster quality ... I think that fans have elevated certain parts of the player pool above other without real justification. Christian is our best player, and he's proven it with the US. Both in production, commitment and skill. McKennie is less skilled and he's been inconsistent for the US, but he's performed many a time, and it didn't take 7-8 games to see. When you are that much better, it shows. Oh, you might have a bad game here or there, but the quality is apparent. What we seem to have here is a fanbase who looks at club results -- often in second tier leagues -- and elevates a guy to Christian's level despite them not actually showing it on the field for the US. I understand that USMNT matches are a very small sample size for basically everyone, and there are reasons why a guy might struggle to be integrated. I don't think some of these guys' failures mean they should never get another chance, etc. I just don't think that their club record puts them into that proven core that gets the benefit of the doubt. Everyone should be in competition, of course, but guys like Sargent and Tillman should be fighting for their spot with Whites and Lunas until they prove it with the US. Frankly, if they were on Pulisic's level right now, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We'd know it. So Josh got his shot in Nations League and didn't deliver. I don't just mean didn't score; he wasn't particularly good at anything and as we know from forever, a striker that isn't dulls the effectiveness of everyone behind him. You have to try someone else. Same with someone like Scally. Yes, he's playing in the Bundesliga. But it's clear we don't want an all-defense, no offense player that actually hasn't been all that consistent on defense. So we need to look elsewhere, even if we come back to Scally and Sargent later. People can talk about gameplan and coaching and whatever, but he's struggling to pass a ball forward -- this isn't a momentary lapse here or there or a lack of dynamism ... he needs to be competing with other guys. He's also, frankly, one of the guys who has said things publicly about veterans getting called up over young guys playing in Europe, etc., and that's exactly the kind of mindset that needs to get eradicated. He's young, so I'm not holding it against him, but if he still thinks his shit doesn't stink because he's in Germany after being poor for the US over and over ... I'm not sure he ever learns. I mean, I remember watching a fullback from T&T who plays god knows where stonewall Tim Weah (who does play hard and well for the US), son of George Weah and Juventus-employed, over and over on one on ones. These guys have to realize the margins on talent and athleticism are thinner than they think. That every opponent deserves respect -- and every teammate. And that if they don't fully commit, they will get beat. We seem to have a player base that really struggles to get this. After the first WCQ match in El Salvador, Tyler Adams said it was a "wake up call" and that the young US team clearly didn't understand how hard the Salvadorans would fight and how hostile the crowd would be. And I can't say this team has ever seemed to actually internalize that lesson.