Agree with Mahtzo. It's not an either or and in my opinion the youth factories have a gig advantage if they'll use it. Look at what HG's you have and will have in the next few years and then pick three great players at your weakest spots. Really quite simple in concept. Execution is harder because no player is an automatic great player. But lets say Philly and FCD both sell more players and have 10-15 million to spend on replacements if they choose. Some will go to the academy (Guessing) but FCD had two of their DP's on the bench in a playoff game and they never entered the game. That's the nightmare DP scenario. Dump them and use some of that money for substantially better DP's. As Mahtzo says combine your great youth academy with great DP's and some good draft picks and league reclamations. A lot of other teams even with great DP's won't be able to hang if your DP's are close to as good as theirs.
Not-so-secretly hoping Orlando loses today so we can get Dike into camp. daryl dike is crazypic.twitter.com/H9gFedjYWe— Sanjiv (@USMNTvideos) November 28, 2020
But if New England win, then Matt Turner won’t be able to start in goal! Do you really want to make Matt Doyle sad?
Yeah, he’s so physically imposing that he’d be tough to deal with between Pulisic on one side and Dest essentially on the other.
How about that save on Nani's pk attempt......tt talked about it on replay. You can actually time how long it takes for Turner to get down vs. other keepers like Steffen. I wonder what it would show? I doubt anybody cares cuz....you know....Pep....EPL....oooooo
I wonder why Il Bruce is playing in his own 20 when he is up a man? One slip and it's a pk. Xtram man comes into play in other areas where one can play keep away
Revs are up a man, their midfielder recovers in midfield and sends the ball to a guy covered by 4 defenders without even so much a glance at any other player on the pitch. Really poor coaching. Couva level. p.s. edit: And I've loved watching Revs recently for the first time since Nguyen and Jones were running things to the MLS cup final - which Bruce won with Gals (Donovan, et al)
Nice game from Polster. He has added a silvery technical finish at Rangers with Steve Gerrard as Manager. Polster was always a game winner. Schweinsteiger got him, along with Gerrard and now Arena. Schweinsteiger used him at rwb and set up switches where Polster would get the ball in space and turn at goal. I'm in favor of getting more players to Rangers and we owe him one. Pomykal, Tessman? Unfortunately I don't know how long Gerrard stays with R'gers.
Massive save. I thought that was the game slipping away from the Revs but Turner came up big. He wasn’t nearly strong enough on the goal allowed, but didn’t have a wrong step after that. Took a big knock as well and got on with it. Pretty solid performance in a chaotic game.
Zardes is almost universally under-appreciated here. He has worked on his game a lot and is still a fantastic athlete and very intelligent with his runs. Keep an open mind!
Zardes also has 56 caps. We know what he can do. We have so few friendlies before games that matter that I think we need to take these chances to test new options.
The December camp is going to be a largely young roster that isn’t going to feature most of our presumed starting XI. It’s more about preparing for the Olympics, the U20s and seeing if any standouts can emerge for the full national team. Thus I don’t think it’s all that important to see how Zardes fits in with this group. I bet Zardes will be at the January camp though so we’ll see how he stacks up with a lot of these guys. And the next time the full senior team is together (nations league?) I bet he’ll be there too.
I think Berhalter will want a couple of veterans to mix with the group. Maybe Zardes and maybe others. Remember #9 is the biggest ??? on the team.
Zardes is fine. He’s a solid CONCACAF player. I want to see who’s possibly going to surpass him from MLS. This is a chance to see some of these young MLS guys like Mueller, Dike, Aaronson, and the like. Therefore, if it’s a choice between Dike or Zardes, I pick the former. If it’s between McKenzie and Long, same thing, I want to see McKenzie.
Yeah if I were Berhalter I’d call in a few vets. Lletget figures to be there. Zimmerman if Nashville loses tonight. Berhalter likes Long and Yuiell who are both out of the playoff (I don’t care for either but at least they’ve been there before). And yeah, if Columbus gets knocked out, Zardes will probably be there. I’d just rather see a new face like Dike.
If you're going to have two camps, in a vacuum I don't have a problem w/ the first one being heavily skewed toward the younger group (even most being u-20). But you still need a few vets to keep the machine moving & not insult El Salvador by having it be a glorified youth team against their seniors. That's not good diplomacy.
I watched my first MLS game in a while... I didn't see much from Mueller. Was this an off game? Thought Turner heavily to blame on goal. Made a decent PK save. It wasn't the best shot but git down quick. Dike is intriguing, but didn't see a complete game. Some nice hold up play, some turns, and drawing the PK, but still has a long way to go.
Outside of Morris, the MLS vets arent good enough. I dont know what crappy machine they would keep moving and not sure I would be afraid of upsetting el salavador, or for that matter, telling them our intentions up front.
As opposed to the even-younger teams we just sent out against Wales and Panama? Start the best players. If the best players skew young because the camp skews young, too bad. And if El Salvador doesn’t like it, they can just beat us then. Besides, playing young players isn’t dirty. El Salvador gets kinky and bites people’s nipples, maybe they should consider cleaning up their play on the field (and perhaps not match-fixing off of it), before worrying about the age of their US opponents...