New USMNT motto: "Limping Along with No Accountability"

The rubes, like quoted above, repeatedly said thanks to the USWNT, the men’s coach couldn’t make more than Emma Hayes. It was a ludicrous assumption backed by zero facts. But that gangs’ life is fueled consuming and repeating lies.

 

As I said technically US soccer may be paying equally which would be correct and the donors paying the overage. We also know that the donors helped to payout Poch from his Chelsea contract.

 

It fact, Matt Crocker said at the beginning of the coaching search that this wasn't the case.
People just believed it........................

I have no idea if this is the "new normal" in terms of what the USSF is going to pay the USMNT coach. I personally think they've gone above-and-beyond in this case due to the impact the 2026 WC could have on soccer in North America. Everyone involved sees it as a golden goose.

We have the USSF's tax returns. They're public. We know their financial position. That's why people said we could never afford to pay the salary a guy like Klopp or Pochettino or whomever would demand. They were right. We just got help from outside sources in this instance.

Just like we know the CSA's position. They found a way to pay Marsch's salary due to the importance of WC26. You wonder what happens post-WC26. MLS ain't going to pay Canada's coach in perpetuity.

 

Limping along is an entirely apt description. The team has become so stale and disinterested. A new manager can only do so much. Who are the young guns that might realistically break out in the next year? The pool needs an infusion of both talent and bite.

 

Once the federation was convinced that their approach of hiring somebody's brother and treating him nicey-nice was not going to work, Crocker rolled his sleeves up and did for the men what he did for our women. We should send him a singing telegram of "For he's a jolly good fellow".

Congrats to Canada and Jesse Marsh for leading the way. Thks to Ken C Griffin for discovering the joy and global significance of soccer and making it all possible with a big donation.

 

I remember a lot of reject chants at supporter's sections. I'll take our current coach thank you very much.

 

I'd like to believe that opening up a competition for spots in the 11 and in the 23/26, will naturally force players to wake the ---- up. It may not, in which case we're totally screwed, but I'm very hopeful that Poch basically treats this like a 2-14 trash team that is an open competition everywhere. Only guys that have really consistently earned their spot during this Fall '23 to Fall '24 downturn have been Pulisic and Jedi, that's it period. All other starting spots, and bench spots should be open to competition (and honestly, even there's).

 

One other piece of good news:

We know after Crocker came in, he let Ando crash and burn the '23 WC with that wretched 4 year run, afterwords he ---- canned him, replaced him with one of the best coaching options in the world and she managed to win/steal (felt like a little of both at times) a first place finish at the Olympic and a Gold Medal this summer.

Just as exciting for me has been the turn around with the U20's. I used the U20's and u17's decline over the past few decades as a signpost for why the women went into decline after the '15 WWC (they won in '19 but there was abundant evidence by then that they would struggle to win a WWC ever, again after that)...

Part of my evidence was how our youth were doing:
U20 WC:
'02: Gold
'04: Bronze
'06: 4th
'08: Gold
'10: Quarterfinals: (Lost on penalties in first knockout round Quarterfinals to silver winning Nigeria)
'12: Gold
'14: Quarterfinals: (Lost on penalties in first knockout out round Quarterfinals to 4th place North Korea)
'16: 4th
'18: Did Not Advance from Group Stage (3rd)
'20: Cancelled due to covid
'22: Did Not Advance from Group Stage (3rd)
'24: Won first knockout game, advanced to Quarterfinals against Germany (on Sunday).

What's exciting to me is that they've basically clearly fell from their dominant heights of 15-22 years ago in the early years of this tournament when they dominated (making and winning the final of 3 of 5 tournaments, making the semifinals in the other 2). Their play clearly fell off last decade with only a superlative performance in 2012, and then fell off a cliff after 2016. But this tournament they played Spain, UEFA U20 Champs, tough in a 0-1 loss, beat Morocco 2-0, and then Smashed Paraguay in a game to decide 2nd place, 7-0. Their game with Mexico was a revenge match, and was back and forth with the US taking and giving up leads twice before finally winning in extra time 3-2, and missing a penalty in extra time too.

Germany finished silver at Uefa U20 WC Championships, losing to Spain on Penalties, and just smashed Argentina 5-1 to advance to our game. I have a hard time seeing us beating them, but for me, the good news is that they appear to have begun to right the ship a little bit at the U20 level under Crocker. This is their best U20 tournament performance in a decade, and in some ways, better than '14 considering the '14 team played in a smaller tournament and the Quarterfinals were their first knockout match, which they immediately lost. I have hopes this is a sign that they're getting things a bit more on point there, I hope. We'll see.

Since the U17's translates even less to the national team level, and has only been around for about 15+ years instead of 22 years, like the womens U20's, I'm less invested, but it is worth noting we've been utter crap at that level,

'08: Silver
'10: Failed to Qualify
'12: Crashed out in Group Stage (3rd)
'14: Failed to Qualify
'16: Crashed out in Group Stage (3rd)
'18: Crash out in Group Stage (4th)
'22: Advanced to Quarterfinals, lost to third place Nigeria on Penalties.

For those, even me, that consider the U17's irrelevant, it's worth noting, Spain, the new dominant power of women's soccer, has finished Silver, Bronze, Gold, Gold at the past 4 U17 WC's, and at the U20 level, they made runs to back to back finals, finishing Silver, and Gold.

So hopefully Crocker's work is already paying dividends, even when we likely lose on sunday, it's still an improvement for our U20 Women. If we win, WOW. Fingers crossed.

 

Interesting side note on the women's U17 team's performance in concacrap U17 championships:

'14 cycle: lost in semi's to Mexico

'16, '18, '22 were all 1 goal wins by the US in the fnal.

What's interesting about the '24 tournament back in February of this year: the US smashed EVERYBODY, 21-1 GD in the group stage, then wom their knockout games 7-1 over Haiti, and then beat Mexico 4-0 in the final.

Finished with 32 goals, 2 goals against, for +30. They did all this in Mexico.

So maybe the U17's are straightening up too?

 

Okay, if you didn't see it, you should watch the highlights. Regardless of what happens. The US Womens U20 WC team played Germany, 1 of the 2 best UEFA teams tough, fell behind on a penalty late, but played them even up, Germany added a 2nd halfway through injury time to win it 2-0.

Except they didn't. The Crocker/Hayes effect? We score a late goal with 1 minute left in injury time to make it 1-2. And then on the last throw in/play of the game, we bundle the ball in to tie it in the 9th minute, of 8 minutes of injury time. INSANE. 2-2 now in extra time.

 

And the US U20s won it on penalties. Germany hit the post on one, I'm not sure about the other one, and then our keeper palmed away their 4th penalty for the victory. It's honestly the most shocking victory in the history of US soccer in terms of the odds of having achieved it and I see largely no press coverage. I get that the U20's are obscure, the Women's U20's even moreso, but my god.

It was Germany 2-0, in the 97th minute of the game with 8 minutes of injury time to be played AND WE WON. It's the most Matt Crocker/Emma Hayes/Poch "THIS IS THE NEW US SOCCER" thing imaginable. What were the odds of a team winning down 2 goals, with 1 minute of injury time left to play?!?! I have no idea, but it has to be astronomical, and we won. I'm equal parts ecstatic for the women, and annoyed for our soccer press that I saw nothing from Men In Blazers last night, nothing from the usual twitter types, and still nothing from ESPN. It was astonishing. If you haven't seen it, watch.

One of my core bits of reasoning for why the US Women were in disrepair summer of '23, and had zero chance of winning the WWC, was both how much they sucked under Ando '19-'23, but also the rapid decline of the team as an U20 juggernaut circa 2002-2012, to a craptacular mess the past 12 years, with only 1 quality U20 cycle out of 4. I was hopeful they could make a run to the quarters this time, win a knockout game maybe. Instead, they've made a run to semifinals. Come on soccer press, tell the story, it was one the most incredible finish to a soccer game ever, for the US, yes, not as big as WC '10 obviously, small stakes, but it was against Germany and they scored 2 freaking goals in the final minute and won on penalties. Its INSANE. Watch it, if you did not. It will make you have hope again . And as I say that, I figure they probably lose to this odd North Korea team trying to win its third WC in 18 years (2 titles, 1 runner up and a 4th, how do they do that?).

 

Kudos to Tracey Kevins, who is the coach of the team. However, she was also the coach of the last ill-fated squad, which did not do well.

It's worth noting this is a VERY young squad -- there's only 11 2004s on the roster, and 3 of those are still 19.

They probably cheat, TBH.

 

Yeah, I imagine you're right. I can't conceive of how North Korea would do it. Little access to quality coaches, exposure to the game in general, lock down with players, all that, but they're aiming to lift the trophy for the third time in 9 tournaments? Strikes me as ridiculous. But they have been heavy favorites in the group stage and against their opponents for a reason, so I suspect it could be a problem for us, especially exhausted after chasing this game for an hour after falling behind, but honestly, just forcing extra time was a win to me last night, that they had it in them to win on penalties was a cherry on top. I'm still stunned. I just checked flashscore after they fell behind 2-0 for an update to see if they could grab a late goal, saw 2-2, and nearly did a spit take. Thankfully I was recording.

 

Some more good news on this front. The US U17 Women are following in the footsteps of the U20's from this past summer in kicking --- and taking names. This is a huge reversal as I previously mentioned, the U20's had been straight trash since 2012 until this summer (the one exception being a run to the QF's in '16, but in the other 3 tournaments until this summer they ranged from subpar to outright hot garbage), then had a run to the semifinals which was their most impressive run since 2012, wrapping up a 3rd place finish back in September. The U17's have been horrible ever since they finished runner up in the debut tournament of 2008.

The twin terrible runs of the U20's and U17's served as kind of signposts to me suggestive of an eventual decline for the national team (it wasn't just that the rest of the world caught up, it was also that we started doing a worse and worse job over time in terms of our own development).

As an example: the US U17 Women:
2008: Runner Up
2010: Failed to qualify entirely (this is flat out ridiculous)
2012: Out in the group stage (understandable, there was a 3 way tie for 1st place and we finished 3rd on goal difference)
2014: Failed to Qualify (Ridiculous)
2016: Failed to advance from group (embarrassing)
2018: Finished Dead Last (embarrasing)
2020: Cancelled
2022: Lost to Bronze Finishing Nigeria on Penalties in First Knockout match

You can see the trend lines here.

However, the group stage just wrapped up, and after giving Spain a good fight in their opener, losing 1-3 (but the game was 1-1 with 20 minutes left and Spain's opener was an own goal), the US kicked the crap out of Colombia, and humiliated South Korea by a combined 7-0, leaving a lot of goals on the table against Colombia due to their goalie's heater (unfortunately for South Korea, their goalie had a horror show with two terrible goals given up)....So the US Women are advancing to the knockouts for only the second time in 16 years, and the second time in a row.

Is it deeply meaningful? We'll see. We're playing Nigeria who finished 3rd at the 2022 U17 WC, and won their group (New Zealand, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic)....but while its probably giving a little too much credit to Crocker and Hayes it is hard not to notice that after a year in the job, the US Senior Women, the U20's and the U17's have all equaled or significantly bettered their prior performance to Crocker's arrival (which was basically stinking it up at the Olympics in '21, getting knocked out in the group stage or worse for the 3rd time in four tournaments in '22, and being complete and utter crap in 3 of the previous 4 U17 tourneys).

I'm excited though, it's hard not to think they're straightening things out. The U17's look fluid and dangerous consistently, just like the U20's and the senior team did. Very hopeful the women can kick some butt this weekend when they face off against Group winner Nigeria.

 

I think the women are seeing results of expanded academies like the men did say ten years ago. A lot of the MLS clubs have women's teams too and that added to what was already there has expended the pool. I'll guess that coaching has improved too as their early start advantage was being erased by better coaching overseas. They have to be getting similar level coaching now to so improve. Maybe Emma is playing a big role. If so may it continue over to the boys with Poch overseeing.

 

I'm hopeful, in fairness, the boys have been great at the U20 level but more spotty at U17. But even the U17 angle is weird:

'15 U17 team was stacked but landed in a group of death in the tourney and underperformed.
'17 U17 team was also pretty stacked (Weah, Dest, Sargent, infamous Carleton etc), made a run to the QF's before running into the England Buzz Saw (England dominated virtually all tournament competition internationally and in UEFA in '17).
'19 That U17 squad was good in qualifying, unlucky not to beat Mexico who were later superb in the '19 U17 tourney, but the team just fell to crap after qualifying wrapped that spring.
'21 cancelled by covid, the evidence is they would have been pretty good that cycle, as a U20 squad two years later they were dominant in qualifying, made a deep run at the U20 tournament and lost to in the quarters to the eventual champion if memory serves.
'23 Very up and down group, did good enough, even in losing to Mexico in the U17 confederation championship, and were up and down at the U17 WC, but its interesting to note that their final two games of the tourney were against the two finalists. France killed them, and they fought Germany heads up, and were unlucky not to push the eventual champions of the tournament to extra time.

So for me, it does look like the U17's have been pretty okay with '19 being a bit of a weird ugly blip. Worth noting that as the U17's evolve into basically the U19/U20 team of this next cycle they've been fantastic thus far. Really interesting team, and that's with Keylor Figueroa fading in importance which has shocked me. Really interesting youth team performances going forward. Will be super interesting to see how the '25 youth tournaments go, especially if Cavan and the kid at Dortmund form a core of the U17 team this coming cycle (not sure if they are going too or not).

 

I personally think that measuring the health of a national team program based on the U17 level is fraught with challenges. These are mostly raw materials that are being developed. Not finished products.

The U20 level is better, but many of the best players never play at the U20 level. Christian Pulisic never played a second with the U20s.

Youth teams are a means to an end; not an end unto themselves. If we lose every U17 game until the end of time, but our program is developing players in the right way to be high quality adult professionals...................then nobody would care. That's probably how the nations with the best pools view those youth levels. Sheer results are nice but not the primary goal.

 

I don't disagree, lol, with all of that, I just look at performance trends with U17's and U20's because they seem to have had downstream foreshadowing significance for both the men (2007-2013 U17's and '09-13 U20's stunk) and the women. The downstream effect was a developmental disaster that wrecked the depth of the senior team circa 2014-2022, the women's U17's and U20s have largely sucked since 2010 and 2014 for the U17 and U20 levels respectively until this current cycle, the downstream effect was a hideous performance trend for the senior women between 2020-2023.

So for me, while I think u17's definitely translate less (its just too much of a leap for age 15/16 players to age 20+ professionals, whereas its easier to tell whose likely to make it once they are 19 to 20), if you look at trend lines with the youth teams, for the US anyway, and to some extent for others too, you definitely see downstream impact (as an example Chile's run was built around it's '07 U20's, Costa Rica's renaissance was built by its '07-'11 youth teams, Uruguay's run at the youth level started in the early aughts, and they've consistently qualified for tournaments ever since, something that did not happen consistently before those youth teams which started doing really well after the '02 WC disappointment. There definitely seems to be some downstream connection for certain teams and regions where you can find consistency of approach. Europe's just weirder and harder to evaluate because UEFA countries don't consistently take it seriously, and the qualification process produces less than half as many qualified teams as for the senior WC, so its just harder to spot trends in general, whereas with CAF, Conmebol, Concacrap, and the AFC, we send relatively proportionate supplies of qualifiers so its easier to find like for like trends.

I think its helpful to evaluating if something is wrong in the problem, it seems to be consistently reasonably predictive of that. It has been predictive for Costa Rica, Mexico, Uruguay, and the USA and even England (their '17 classes). It kinda works as a tool.

 

I was trying to edit it and clean it up lol and failed. Oh well. I'll just add that we can see foreshadowing in Conmebol with the rise of Uruguay, to a lesser extent Brazil and Argentina's up and downs are slightly predictive at the youth level, same with Chile's golden generation that did well 15+ years ago at the '07 tourney, in the AFC we have seen it with their powers, in CAF we saw it with Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana and I think Ivory Coast, and in Concacrap we saw it with the US, Costa Rica, and even w/El Tri, where those paying attention noted a fall off at the U20 level which began in 2015 and continued all the way through 2022 (not so sure if its continuing, they won their first confed championship at the U20 level this past summer, but we all know that these days, a ton of our best U20 talent is not available for these things whereas theirs typically are).

So let that underline it. I spent a lot of time wasted trying to figure out why some UEFA powers take it seriously and others did not (and I still think that was historically true, though less so in recent years), and only realized recently that I had failed to notice the most basic of things, that UEFA performance would be impacted by the fact that the proportion of UEFA slots available is basically cut in half at the youth level versus senior, so no matter what, UEFA teams will always look worse than they actually are because there are simply far fewer tickets available than for the senior WC. Typically, 4-5 tickets for the kids at the U17 or U20 level, whereas at the senior level the # has typically floated between 12-14 if memory serves.

 

The US U17's got their revenge on Nigeria for their '22 U17 Knockout penalties defeat, beating them 2-0 today. They'll take on the winner of the North Korea Vs Poland match on Wednesday, and w/North Korea looking damn good at this level again, it could be a case of the U20's redux, w/the run ending due to the superiority (doping?) of North Korea's female youth teams.

 

For anyone wondering, the historical oddity of the US Women's youth teams both going down against North Korea at the U20 and U17 level in back to back months did indeed happen. North Korea downed the US U17's 1-0 in the Women's U17 World Cup. Looks like they had the better of the chances and were just the better team but I can't say for certain having just seen highlights that tilted their way. Hopefully the U17's can do what the U20's did and grab the bronze this coming weekend, but regardless, like at the U20 level, this was generally the best the U17's had performed in more than a decade. Hopefully the sign of the women's youth programs getting back on track after a long, long time in the wilderness of just truly craptacular performances both in qualifying and at the major tournament level. Could be just a burble of randomness, but with the Olympic success, U20 success and U17 success all taking place over back to back to back months, it has a certain successful feeling rhythm to it.

 

The NK team was relentless in their attack, defense & pressing (4-4-2). They didn't slow down for a second. The USA had very good possession and attacks, but could not hardly get a shot off. Any USA player that received a pass in the attacking third was immediately double/triple teamed, and the ball taken away. They were faster and quicker to all 50/50 balls, too.

 

I would like to know how they're doing this lol. It's North Korea. Like, how? Seriously. Because part of it is that they're just ridiculously on point in terms of maximizing what coaching can do, and what their athleticism can do, but in a broken country of that scale, it just seems its impossible to do that on the up and up.

 

I would bet those North Korean girls (both U17 and U20) train full time in a residency program together..............................

There is a full time women's professional league in North Korea.
And the women's senior team has lost only twice since the start of 2023. Both to Japan. One in the final of the women's AFC Championship.

So on the women's side they're not a doormat.

 

Without any first-hand knowledge, I would agree with @Clint Eastwood. I would put money on them being/practicing together 24/7/365.