People who know about qualities of players in the Eredivisie tell Tilmann is atop quality player. So if he's not producing/contributing in the national team in a manner in line with his club football level, one should take a good look at that situation and find out the how and why. Is it the coach/tactics of him? Is it the interaction with team mates/level of rapport with them? etc.
Altidore was great in Holland, too. But he produced and played well for the US team, for a long time. Tillman doesn't. It's fine that he's young and it's a puzzle to be solved, I doubt anyone disagrees? But in talking about what to expect in the short term... I mean, I'm not expecting Tillman to do anything. When/if that changes, I'll say great and good for him. But what any of that has to do with JJ -- a player who is so much different, came into the US side in almost completely opposite circumstances, and also happens to be a player I loved -- I have absolutely no idea.
I don't know JJ. Altidore wasnot considered a great player over here. He scored alot, true. The way Tilmann is talked about by coaches, who won European finals and by former Dutch stars however is considerably different from how Jozy was talked about.
It seems to be that defensive intensity and error rate are more at a premium for the USMNT. That's not coaching or rapport. It's just his style.
That's fine. The larger fact remains that looking good/producing in Holland doesn't necessarily mean anything... not in terms of moving to other/better leagues, and not in terms of national team success. And I don't really care much about what a bunch of legends say about the play or potential of a player in a mediocre league if when that player goes to his national team he's mediocre at best. If they're right and he's so noteworthy... I sure hope he shows it for the US team! Because potential or not, he sure hasn't done that yet.
And CL performance/experience I find to be vastly overrated unless it's happening in the knockout stages against top teams. Again, especially if when the guy goes to play internationally he's not good.
What if a key reason behind his failures has been the coach and the system itself? You shouldn't care what people say, if his performance isn't translatable to the USMNT, but if it is, it would be the height of foolishness to ignore said potential. It needs to be noted that two things are equally true: 1.) Tillman has done little with the US and has generally been below average or worse in virtually all of his call ups. 2.) The USMNT as a whole was total and complete --- during virtually the entirety of the time Tillman has been called up. Nobody w/just a handful of exceptions (Reyna, Pepi in the attack, maybe Pulisic) has been lighting anything on fire since Tillman arrived in mid '22. He was available essentially for the Summer window of '22 for a handful of minutes, a handful more in the disastrous fall of '22 window, and then didn't play again until the fall of '23 a year later, missing the one spell of good form the USMNT has had since the WC (spring/summer of '23). So while he's been garbage, the whole attack around him has largely been total trash too other than Pepi and Reyna, and Balo when Reyna was available. Everybody has largely sucked. That's how we ---- the bed against the Uzbeks, Germany, T&T in both sides of a home and home, Jamaica, El Tri, and the summer from hell this past year. Thats also part of the story here. I'm not denying he sucked, he largely has, but if he's been good elsewhere, and he has, and the euro scouting community is buying, and it is, then we probably need to look into this and figure out how to use him, rather than assume we know better than them, particularly at a time in which the entire team hasn't been functioning at all to begin with. It should be a truism that the USMNT hasn't been this bad since 2019, it's been god awful. He's been a part of why, no doubt, but a small part all things considered. I imagine Poch is watching and trying to find solutions to all of this as '26 depends upon him figuring out how to turn this mess back into a workable unit again and maximizing tools like Tillman to accomplish it.
Regardless of what's going on with the US side recently, the bar isn't for Tillman to be "on fire"... it's for him to look like he even belongs on the international level and deserving of minutes for an injury-ravaged US side. Which he hasn't. So we can talk about the need for US/Poch to get the most out of him, but again as with most of these issues it's going to be mostly about the player. That's the refrain that constantly demands repeating on BS... it's about the players. The greater success will come not because of manager or tactics, but the player performances. If Poch is really relying on tools like Tillman, there's no reason to think there will be success in '26... hence the refrain, it's about the players. If the US has first 11-level options, that means some success is possible. And from where we currently sit, that also means Tillman will be largely uninvolved.
Goal 1853865233611121059 is not a valid tweet id Throw in assist.. McKennie influence? 1853860759345717456 is not a valid tweet id
So far a goal and an assist on the evening........................ I do like that his assist was to a guy named Ryan Flamingo. Love that name.
Malik Tillman is the first USMNT player to record three goal contributions (1 goal & 2 assists) in a UEFA Champions League match... he did so against Girona from La Liga not some Dutch league
To be fair this Girona team is not as good as last season (12th in the table but probably competing for one of the last European places) and took a red card. That said, before the red this was probably Malik’s best performance against a big league team. His best CL appearances against a big league team have been his last 3 outings (2nd leg against BVB, PSG, and now Girona). This was his first strong showing against a big league team on the offensive end (with BVB and PSG being more about two-way or defensive play).
He was good -- the first real game in UCL that I saw where he looked a positive. I didn't see most of the second half, though. I wouldn't make too much of the first two goal contributions, though. Girona was pretty awful on both of those. I'm not saying he didn't play well -- the throw was nice and the shot was effective and overall he was better than I've seen ... but also both those were painfully bad defending.
And now today he adds to his 3 assists from last year in the CL (that some services count and others do not) with a tour de force performance against Girona, who were great in La Liga last year, but only average this year. I believe 1 goal, 2 assists, and another assist that was blown by LDJ. Again, I gotta ask, why on earth shouldn't Poch be trying to figure out how to use a guy who could have easily walked away with 4 goal contributions today in a CL match against a La Liga side? That just strikes me as nuts. If his step on a banana peel moment against Ajax was a legiit criticism of him this past weekend, well, what of today's performance? I'm a large sample size guy, so my only take away from this will be that like I've suggested before, his low production #'s in CL, particularly in '22-'23, were largely due to playing with one of the worst qualifiers for CL in a decade in that Rangers group, and even w/them he still added two key goal contributions to qualify them for the tournament. Last year he collects a trio of assists, counted by some, not by others, and today he adds to said tally with this performance. I came in assuming Girona would win the match, even an average side in Spain I imagined would be able to play with PSV, no such luck, Tillman kicked ---, as did most of his teammates. It's not in the US shirt, but it sure as hell is a reminder that a guy that can do these things, should probably be under consideration for caps and for a coach and his team to "figure out". Not denying he's generally been below average and worse, but again if games like this are in his tool kit, at this level, and they are, then we need to figure out how to get this talent to sing on the field, in our shirt too.
I'm sure you've got better arguments than that. If he can do what he did today, and he clearly can, maybe the coaching staff AND Tillman, should figure out how to bring out his best for the USMNT, because if not, it will be the biggest waste of talent for the US since the days of guys like Clint Mathis, and Steve Snow a decade earlier. Again, both the coaching staff AND Tillman, need to figure this out.
I don't think I need a better argument. I'm focused on the US team, as I said I don't have time to follow the Dutch league even though I would like to... Either way, YOUR argument (or suggestion) that his inability to have more impact with the US is coaching/tactical is left wanting, for me. As soon as he is good for the US, I'll happily say "ok those guys were right". But the next time that happens will be the first time. And that's not an "argument" as much as it is a fact. Nobody said Poch shouldn't "be trying to figure out how to use" Tillman. What I said was I have no reason right now to think that significant use of Tillman, the "tool" in question, will lead to success in 2026. But there's a long time till 2026 so hopefully that gets turned around.
A poster over on the yanks abroad thread mentioned that he basically had a beautiful perfect moment kinda sounding (I didn't see it) like Pulisic's pull down assist against Morocco 2.5 years ago. Apparently LDJ butchered the finish, and so no assist. Okay, I just saw it, that's exactly what it is. Tillman pulls it down beautifully in the 49th minute, just like Pulisic did, dishes it, and LDJ butchers the finish, kicking it into the post w/a gaping goal right in front of him. So yeah, Tillman absolutely should have left this match with 3 assists, so even if one of them is discounted, he served that perfectly to LDJ. you can see it on the CBS Golazo highlights up on youtube.
That's not my argument. What I'm saying is: "I concede he has had little demonstrably positive impact on the US national team (baby steps secondary assist last window not withstanding which is a crumb of a moment), but a player whose done what he's done for Rangers and PSV the past 3 seasons as a 20, 21, and 22 year old, is well worth the investment of time, and effort to extract something from." This is not Yueill, or Jonathan Lewis, or Roldan, who got call ups on and off for years, and always had very limited ceilings and middling floors. This is a guy who can play, and give you a star turn in CL against a La Liga side (again, great last year, mediocre this year), this is not an Aaron Long who was a disaster for years post injury and kept getting rope. This is a guy who had 25 goal contributions in his age 21 first season in the Eredivisie, and has hinted at being even better this year. We owe it to the USMNT, to figure out if there is anyway possible to tap his abilities for the better of our team. It simply doesn't make sense to simply look at 16 caps, and 500+ minutes and walk away, and as I mentioned before, the vast bulk of those minutes (I think close to 85% of them) came while the entire US system was falling apart under Berhalter in '23-'24. We need to figure out how to utilize him. We are simply not good enough to pretend a player with his skills is of no use to us. That's ludicrous to me. I get why people are tired of giving him caps with little noticable result. I get it, but today's a reminder of why he keeps getting said call ups. I'm hopeful Poch can get the job done, in terms of both motivating him if thats a problem, and also figuring out how to best put to work what he brings to the table because goals and assists are things that few guys in this pool consistently produce beyond Reyna, Pepi, Pulisic and Jedi. From UEFA.com: "PSV's Tillman has been named the Player of the Match. UEFA's Technical Observer Panel said: "He was involved in PSV's first three goals, setting up two and scoring one himself, and almost provided another assist for De Jong with a fantastic piece of play."
I'm not one of the guys who said drop him or anything.. I'm just saying, I'm disappointed. And CL assists doesn't make me feel all that much better, personally.
Okay, I get half of that. I'd be disappointed to with him in the shirt, he's mostly just sucked. CL assists absolutely do make me feel better as it's illustrating his ability to lay an imprint on a match against legit competition. People wrote off his excellent #'s with Bayern Munich's youth teams. People tried to write off his SPL youth player of the year performance in '22-'23 because he didn't do anything of note against Celtic/CL opponents. People tried to write off his PSV numbers because the Eredivisie sucks, and the CL assists are contested stats depending upon platform. Each step of the way goal posts have been moved concerning what counts and what matters, usually the strongest counterargument being that "he's doing it against noone". I countered the arguments with the SPL, noting that his goal contributions lacking against Celtic, were also negligible against the worst clubs in the league and seemed more a sign of erratic production, than feasting exclusively on crap sides (the bulk of his goal contributions in '22-'23 seemed to be against the second tier middle of the road sides, and against 1 or 2 of the worst 5 sides in that league), last year, he went from 0 goal contributions after he was the key in sending Rangers into the CL at all (those don't count because they were in qualifiers, even if those were the two biggest results in Celtic history over the previous decade in terms of European competition), to 3, but the goal posts were moved to "those assist's don't count on my advanced stat platform I use," same with the Eredivisie, where the league is crap, even if Tillman actually played well against the bulk of the best teams in the league (7 of his 20 goal contributions were against top 4 sides in the league), and now it's "Well, Girona sucks this year compared to last." To me it isn't so much that the criticisms are wrong, I think there's some argument there, that's worth considering, it's more that there's nuance to every bit of those concerns, AND that he's progressing consistently. I know that you don't care about any of it because it isn't in the shirt, but as he continues to grow as a player, the likelihood that Poch will figure out a way to use him as a weapon continues to increase in potential likelihood. It may not happen, but I look at Poch, and I struggle to imagine he watched Tillman today, and just assumed the true Tillman is the one whose got 500 minutes in the bag with zero goal contributions. I think he's licking his chops thinking he's got a weapon that we haven't even come close to using effectively yet, and if we can, it can be a skeleton key to getting more production from every aspect of the attack. That's probably a stretch, I'd agree, but I do very much imagine in watching Tillman on tape, he's gonna be very excited about the possibilities with guys like Reyna, Tillman, McKennie etc healthy and available in CM.
Tillman seems comfortable coming in from the left. If I was Poch, I’d look at him there first. As a sub when you need a goal, with little responsibility other than go get us a goal, that’s a good starting point for him. Hopefully, he can affect the outcome and can build on his game with the US from there.