I would too. It’s always interesting to see stuff like this but I like being able to dig into the numbers and see whether other comparable countries rank.
The World Cup was definitely a bit of a disappointment, but the team beat one of the best teams of all time in Spain in a competitive tournament setting. That's not a might have been. Since our discussion has a bunch of "played hard but lost" coming up as our best games, how about one where we won. Where we stopped a historic winning streak of a team in the midst of a Euro-WC-Euro streak? Beating a B team Brazil or Colombia on an own goal are nice, or almost beating Belgium or Germany, but this is the undisputed Best Team in the World, with their A team, in a competitive setting that they absolutely wanted to win.
I would definitely have us higher than 30 myself and I’d take our pool over Columbia in particular. I would not rank Uruguay ahead of Brazil and Argentina. Both those teams have the high end players to match Uruguay and much more depth across the roster by comparison. Uruguay has the ability to produce world class players but is always going to lack for depth given how small a country it is. It’s just one data point and like any other metric it has its flaws. For instance Gio Reyna who is clearly a talented player doesn’t give us much under their system since he didn’t play a ton this season. And it’s definitely a problem he had a lost season, but it doesn’t suddenly mean he’s devoid of talent. But every one of these metrics has some flaw and none of them are definitive.
Ronaldo was very injured in Brazil. Not peak at all. The Ghana team was distracted by an enormous pay dispute. It was a tougher than normal group. But Germany drilling Portugal on MD 1, plus Pepe (I think it was him) getting a red card meant we were in very good shape to make the next round if we beat Ghana. We did. That was a good result. And that’s typically the key for us…we perform vs. Ghana in 2014 and make the next round. We screw the pooch against the Czechs in 2006 and don’t. We’re at the point where it’s one or two moments in one match that separate us from getting out of the group to not.
I will always view 2010 as a combination of bad luck and a missed opportunity. That team had guys who could have been key contributors who missed out for various reasons but they also very much should have beaten Ghana. And would have had as winnable a quarterfinal as you could ask for against Uruguay (though absolutely would have been underdogs) in it. 2006 even if we made it out of the group we would have gotten rolled by Brazil just as Ghana was (A Brazil team that featured Kaka, Ronaldo, and Ronaldinho among others).
Mathis had the potential to be a superstar. He is one of the best forwards the USA has ever produced, but injuries took their toll and a perceived lack of drive prevented him from going higher. He blew out his left ACL in 1995 and his right in 2001. What a player he was! He could have been bigger than Wynalda.
That game featured two of the best individual defensive performances by two of our best individual defensive players: Tim Howard and Oguchi Onyewu. Spain was absolutely launching everything they had for 90 minutes and came away with nothing. Those two guys were in the zone and disrupting everything Spain had.
From the rest of the interview, it sounds like Bruce's approach may have been too lackadaisical. The team certainly played in a way that could be described as lackadaisical.
2002 is a very weird tournament for a number of reasons. 1) It's the first World Cup held in multiple nations (SK and Japan) and the first held in Asia. 2) The favorites under-performed greatly (Figo's Portugal and returning champions France didn't escape the groups) 3) Several "smaller" teams ALSO over-performed greatly -- USA, Senegal, South Korea and Turkey all made the quarterfinal while England, Italy, Sweden and Denmark all failed to. Korea and Turkey made the semis. To put that in context, Senegal, South Korea and Turkey were among the 10 lowest-ranked teams in the 32-team tournament. 4) Many stars of the era arguably under-performed as well; it's the only World Cup where a GK won the Golden Ball as Best Player Taking nothing from the US, it was an odd tournament where most of the traditional powers under-whelmed and smaller teams inexplicably did exceptionally well. The US result is probably the most credible of those upsets (we were a lot higher ranked than those other squads but met the wrong opponent).
When we think about what might've been had we not lost Davies and Holden before that tournament -- imagine being Ghana who lost Michael Essien before their World Cup!
Also Jermaine Jones who was ready the play for the US at that point but was injured. Imagine if you gave him all Ricardo Clark’s minutes. That doesn’t even count dual nationals who didn’t pick us like Rossi and Subotic. Rossi’s agent in particular has said that he regrets not picking the US. And had he not had an injury plagued career John O’Brien would have been of an age where he could have been a contributor to the 2010 team as well.
England fyi did make the quarterfinal (where they went out against Brazil). That Turkey team was also surprisingly good.
IMHO it's definitely skewed if they use minutes on CL teams and minutes in top 5 leagues. The countries who've teams in CL and in top 5 leagues have a big advantage on other countries. Many limit the amount of players not from the Euro or their country. Brazil has a back door into Portugal and Spanish speaking countries from S America a back door into Spain. Results against other teams is a mess because so few games are played against other confederations and most of those are friendlies. Even if you go by salaries of players for nations there are still skewed by those same reasons and English players are very overvalued because they are from England (and because of this they really leave like Mexicans in Mexico for the same reason). So it's very hard to quantify this but I'd say we are better than 30. More in 20 to 12ish range where lots of teams are and the differences are minute.
So I think the thing is in terms of total minutes in top 5 leagues and in Champions League we do better than 30th. But their methodology looks at more than that. Specifically how many minutes a player plays, how good his team is, and how much he contributes to defense and attack. So you are looking at total minutes in any league, how good that team is relative to others, and your total contribution to that team's success. Where it might fall short is if a guy is hurt and missed a big part of the season or if they were in a bad situation and didn't get to play a ton, etc. And none of these things are foolproof. It's just another data point. I think the biggest flaw with the transfermarkt values if that's what your going off is that it underrates older players who may still be good but don't have alot of transfer value left.
I think we have some players in MLS who could and would be in top 5 leagues if they lived in Europe. They now make too much and teams always go young when purchasing players and especially those from faraway places. Miles, Thor are two right off the top of my thinking.
There are definitely players in MLS good enough to play in a top 5 league who aren't doing so for a variety of reasons. And also players who will soon be playing in a top 5 league and haven't made the move yet.
Yes and if that's part of the rating it favors countries that have top five leagues and those close by. They have to use something though and it's not an easy task.
I think that’s also probably true of countries that are close to us in terms of talent in terms of a Japan or Columbia.
I don't know how many S American countries have an easy or easier time getting into Spain and Portugal to know the answer to Colombia. Japan, Australia, S Korea are in the same boat as we are.
So with England there are two changes that have made moves much easier. The first is MLS has moved up in the league band meaning under the points system it’s possible to qualify without any international play. The second is each team is now allowed a certain number of expectations in terms of players who don’t otherwise qualify for a work permit. Germany also has not many restrictions in terms of non-EU players. Italy has rules which aren’t too bad and allow you to bring in two non EU players per year. But there’s not an overall limit on the team. I believe for France the limit is five but it doesn’t apply to former French colonies. I believe Belgium and Netherlands don’t have a strict limit but a minimum salary. I believe Portugal the limit is five but only Brazil has a back door (and other Portuguese speaking countries). Spain has the strictest rule in that you can only have a set amount three non EU players on your match day squad (and five on the roster). The main back door is through the Cotonou Agreement but that is primarily African and Caribbean countries (not South American ones). So basically I think South American countries are in a very similar position to us in terms of limitations in terms of what leagues they can go to.
The Brazil --> Portugal pipeline is very common. Argentina also has a lot of players with enough European heritage to get an EU passport, I suspect as well. Though we have a lot, too.
Yeah the Brazil thing is the exception. But I don’t think countries like Uruguay or Columbia have any sort of advantage over us in terms of ease of moves to Europe.