Good start for him. If he goes to Europe and proves himself he could be on pace for a full time U.S. hire in about 20-25 years.
Agree with the implied sentiment, although I would also agree with most posters that the result was relatively meaningless. Still, if we had been beaten down by multiple goals (by that Portugal team), we would have excoriated Sarachan (and Gulati et al) - meaningless result or not. So I'm willing to give credit where credit is due. However, if you are proposing that the Portugal game was something greater than it was, a springboard of some sort for Sarachan, I hope you are wrong.
portugal hasnt beaten the us in 24 years...people expecting a beatdown overrate portugal and underrate the usmnt. the result is more damning of arena/jk than worthy of praise for sarachan, imo. it shows the usmnt is capable of way more than arena or jk were able to produce. in fact, the us shouldve won that game easily...portugal created NOTHING. the us was way too conservative and dropped way too deeply -especially for a meaningless friendly - and was the reason they tied instead of won, imo.
I want fair assessment. I don't like to see somebody like him get trashed. I don't want Sarachan as coach. My radical, trollish statement would be: I've seen worse. Pretty recently. And Klinsmann's results in European friendlies - complete with 12-subs-on-field, garbage time comebacks - are still factoring in our blackboard-wide equation, as we try to work out what we need going forward. And yes I do think we need to go forward. But Sarachan might be fine as "interim guy" if we're waiting for post-World Cup options.
But I thought, you know, because of MLS and American coaching we didn't have the talent to beat Trinidad & Tobago?
coaching and talent are 2 separate things. a bad coach can make all the talent in the world look bad. look at bayern munich under ancelotti....he's a clueless dinosaur...and his teams sucked....a new coach comes in and shazzam they are world beaters again...SAME PLAYERS, SAME TALENT. people sayng USMNT doesnt have talent are the same people who thought bayern didnt have talent early in the season when they were losing.
What exactly is your point? Did we beat T&T? Did coach Dave qualify us for the World Cup? Do you have an alternative theory to MLS coach Bruce, his MLS Core and MLS Captain Bradley completely shitting the bed in T&T and embarrassing themselves and their country? Was it really Chandler and JK on the Grassy Knoll?
Sorry. Did we fail to qualify simply because of some fluky ass shit on the last day of qualifying? No. We failed because of some extremely fluky ass shit on the last day of qualifying. But also because this generation of US players got confused and lost their motivation. And I absolutely blame Jurgen "You aren't shit" Klinnsman for this. And there wasn't much "grassy knoll" to it - what JK did was pretty damn public. He wanted to break down our squad and program and identity but he did not have the wherewithal to build it back up - let alone raise our level. The players who went through all that were focused on being professional, but they were uninspired once the rush of the 2014 World Cup itself passed. Arena tried to put the leftovers back on the old track with mixed results. There was not time to rebuild the program. I.M.O.
BA didn't try to put the leftovers back together - he tried to do the exact opposite of what JK did by shunning Big 4 European players in order to explicitly favor MLS. I'm also not sure I'd call it fluky - we didn't come to play that day.
Arena didn't have to rebuild the program. He didn't call up the best players available and the ones he did call up were not motivated. Arena didn't do the basics of his job.
Tell me where you're coming from with this. He was supposed to play Weston McKennie? Or wait, Ethan Horvath over Howard? Or was it that we were supposed to play Geoff Cameron over Besler, because Europe. Even though Besler played pretty well and our Cameron ********ed us against Costa Rica. Cameron vs. Costa Rica was far worse than what did Gonzo vs T&T.
Bruce did a shitty job on that game. But extremely flukey things had to happen for us not to qualify, including goals (including a non goal!) and results in other matches. It was a cascade of fluke. And IMO, that's a big reason why the guys were not motivated for the game. They had a 93% chance of qualifying or something. The universe was telling them they'd qualified. Getting that out of their hearts and and heads would be a challenge for even the greatest motivational brainwasher (or pan crusher/telephone book-ripper.)
His reliance on MB and Nagbe (MLS poster boys) was our downfall. That being said, he could have (and probably should have) picked a totally different MLS lineup and still tied that game. It was a deficiency of heart, not talent, that led to our loss. Ironic in that BS often believes that it's the dual nationals who aren't committed to the USMNT - hopefully we can put that to bed (e.g., anyone can lack heart) I think we need our coach to bring together our better European players and our MLS guys rather than publicly castigated either side (which both of our last two coaches managed to do to our huge detriment.)
Well I think it's criminal that Feilhaber didn't get a real chance to make a difference but I've been really on the outside looking in the past couple cycles. And really, our squad had the talent on hand to smear T&T. Everything just worked against us, and Bruce made a terrible mistake fielding the same lineup from the prior game.
A bunch of Benny's F*** You attitude is exactly what we could've used. I don't think it was a bunch of tired guys issue but rather a lack of passion/intensity.
I know we’re in the middle of a poo-throwing mess right now but Dave Sarachan is perfect for the very specific job of caretaker. He’s a good soldier and a good man. And he gives a good pregame speech: https://instagram.com/p/BcDhQUoDGp1/ Now back to it ya primates.
What are you going on about? I'll take McKennie over a loafing Bradley. Who wouldn't? I love Howard and think he's had a great career but his time was up. He's not even a top ten keeper in MLS. Why was he on the field? At no point has anyone blamed Besler. Gonzo was atrocious the first two games of the hex and should have been benched after his jog in Costa Rica. Bradley was poor the first two games as well and Nagbe is useless. Altidore is lazy and has the first touch of an elephant. This has nothing to do with Europe, it's that we valued experience over desire and skill.
I do think Bruce overreacted to Cameron's awful performance against Costa Rica, but he did have an awful performance against Costa Rica, and Omar Gonzalez who replaced him doesn't play in MLS. Fabian Johnson loafed like Bradley and Jozy did against Trindad the entire cycle. For me he was the single most disappointing player this cycle. Chandler maybe deserved another shot, but I can see how he wore out is welcome based on his past performances. Horvath appears to be kind of awful. Tim Ream is kind of bad, but got his shot against Costa Rica and failed badly. Jones has broken down. Lichaj is ok, but not a difference maker. Wood and Pulisic were featured players, Brooks was hurt and Yedlin was hurt for a while. The one Euro based guy I think they really could have used though was Williams, I think he would have made a real difference in place of Nagbe. He could have provided toughness and fight that was lacking.
OK so go back to September when you had to devise your US squad for the last two do-or-die games. We need four points out of two difficult games, World Cup qualification is on the line. Name your starting lineup versus Panama: Remember, we kicked Panama's ass with Howard, Gonzo, Bradley, Nagbe and Altidore.
I posted this in the post-match thread and wanted to repeat it here... Hat tip to Sarachan. On the range of possible outcomes against Portugal, that went about as well as anyone could have imagined. Good callups Good tactical approach to game Good starting XI selections Played the youth in positions where they could succeed Good subs And a captain's armband selection that sent a clear message to every dual national for the coming cycle Well done to the interim manager. Doesn't mean he needs to be our manager for the next cycle, but he deserves the compliment.
BA explicitly went out of his way to shun Big 4 starting players (FJ, Chandler, Williams, Cameron) in order to promote MLS. That was clearly a mistake and pointing out USMNT games where individual players have stunk it up as a disqualifier means that we cannot field a squad unfortunately). To be fair, I don't agree with all the criticism about trying to win the Gold Cup - winning the Gold Cup should mean we qualify from CONCACAF and developing a team that can beat that level of play was the goal. How the team that won the Gold Cup and beat Panama lost to a B/C T&T team is beyond me - other than there was a palpable lack of urgency/fight/defensive shape. I also think that BA and the team clearly looked past T&T and just assumed that they would win the game. I've also stated that this isn't really a MLS vs. better leagues issue - we could have (and should have) fielded a different all-MLS lineup that would have at least tied with that semi-pro T&T team. I'd posit that preferring minor league players over major league players has a noticeable effect on the mentality of the team. It's one thing to believe that we can look at individual cases where a minor leaguer could be better than a major leaguer but as an across-the-board standing bias? Sheesh.
I wouldn't say he shunned those guys except maybe Johnson. Williams had not been very active pool in 2016, so that is not an Arena specific or MLS-driven. Now, you can criticize him for not selecting Williams, but it is not Arena specific or related to MLS. The same for Chandler who played in the first two cycle losses against Mexico and Costa Rica and only had three appearances total in 2016. Cameron played in the following Arena-coached matches: Honduras (W); Venezuela (D); T&T (W); Mexico (D); Costa Rica (L); Honduras (D); Johnson played in these matches: Venezuela (D); T&T (W); Costa Rica (L); He probably should have played Geoff in the last pair of matches. First match we obviously did not need him. Second match, blech. Of course, he was also just returning from injury. Johnson battled injuries much of the time, including from March to May. We should not conflate not starting the last match as the same as shunning throughout the cycle.