I read your over the top sarcasm, kind of funny. Beyond that what do you expect? I want us to win; we have won the last 2 friendlies against Germany home and away. Both victories gave our players confidence and were good benchmarks as to the progress the program was making. Given our improved player pool from those squads, '13 and '15, and the corresponding fact of Germany's lower pool quality I may even have expected us to win. However given that this is Nagelsmann's first 2 matches in charge and against two of the WC2026 host nations I believe we will see a focused and determined German side. Will be a quality test for both squads. I'm looking forward to this fixture.
All that means is France sux more than the Germans. France is lucky they aren’t playing us. They just don’t have the players like we do. We’d probably beat them by double digits.
I’m excited for our players to have a chance to see how they match up. It’s an opportunity like the England and Holland games to go out there and compete with some of the better players in the world. As to my expectations, I really have none for friendlies as far as results go. I hope GB can get some useful data, and our players can continue to build an understanding with each other.
Among all the field players the worst is Alan Pudilo, in the bottom five are Josef Martinez, Wiley, and Velasco, right behind Cremanschi is Ebobisse, slightly ahead are Kreilach and Lodeiro. One valuable metrics.
Shrug. That's recruiting for the U20s and U23s. It's like a program callup, and we'll see how he develops. I have no issue at this point in the cycle for the USMNT staff to bring in a couple of kids for the back end of each friendly roster. Give them a taste..................and see how they develop. We did it when we reopened from COVID. Dual-nationals like Otasowie, Soto, etc. A bunch of them didn't pan out. But a couple did. Musah was a big win. We might not do it in this window because we're having U20 and U23 camps. There will likely be a couple of new faces. Maybe Maloney. At this point in the cycle there SHOULD be a surprise or two on a roster. Lund on the last one. Another callup that might have had the U23s in mind. Let's face it. We've got a lot of weird question marks with the USMNT. One thing we do quite well is integrating young players and dual-nationals, though. Better than just about any nation on Earth. [A chief question mark for me is: What the hell is going on with Joe Scally for club and country? Something's not right.]
I haven't watched him this year with club. What do you mean? He left US camp because his grandfather died, which is more than enough to put someone in a slump.
My news feed laid out the call up in a way that struck me in terms of how Berhalter operates. It just gave me the feeling that Berhalter's selections are more about creating narratives than building a team. The actual way it was laid out was more clear in my news feed. Sry, it didn't copy so well. The figures are caps/goals. If you take out Cuba goals, Brenden Aaronson is actually ahead of McKennie in terms of goal scoring. Brenden also tracks back and defends like a demon (disclaimer: he actually needs a coach to tell him how we want him to play). Berhalter calls him a forward. otoh, Gio and Tilman are classified as mids. McKennie and Weah play WB at club but they are mid and fwd respectively for Berhalter. Pepi has 9 goals in 18 caps. Wright was called up to the WC because he was part of the "group" (that played with CP and McK with youth teams) acc to some media commentators. Dest doesn't start when everybody's healthy at PSV. Richards doesn't start for club and has been not ready for prime time at club when called upon to perform. Gio got injured v. S.Arabia in 2022 and couldn't perform at the WC. He got injured in his next call up for USA and couldn't perform for club to this day. Now we call him up again for a friendly? Why? Media narrative, ofc. Cade Cowell doesnt need to develop at USMNT camp. He needs coaching so he starts to play soccer with teammates. He can/'t learn that in Berhalter's paint-by-numbers art class. All those old, old, old school fullbacks - can't we do something more cutting edge, more contemporary? I wish Sands would be called up as part of a 3 man line where he moves into mid in attack, e.g. to complement Musah's dribbling. I mention that because people always ask "who would you call up instead"? As far as Richards is concerned, what I would say is that we could use this early cycle period to find an MLS cb in the Zimmerman vein, who could play for us in USA in 2026 if the Euro candidates all disappear. No, we can't call up MLS players in the last minute and tell them to adjust to international play. They have to be developed. We could spend way too much time discussing Malik Tilman here. I'm not 100% opposed to the guy but the short way of criticizing the call up would be to point out that Paxten Aaronson seems to be valued at one of the better outfits in Europe, Eintracht Frankfurt, while Malik can't get a bid in the Bundesliga. Paxten is not in the call up and he needs development in the goal scoring department. Giving him some new ideas in a new environment while we tell Malik to work on getting into the starting lineup at PSV would be a better use of time and opportunity for me. How does this selection change the way the world looks at US soccer? That narrative has to one of the most fanciful fairy tales to come out of US Soccer ever. Players I would have called up in bold: (Ream is "sentimental" pick at this point. Scally is borderline). DEF Sergino Dest PSV Eindhoven (NED) 28 2 DEF Kristoffer Lund Palermo (ITA) 2 0 DEF Kevin Paredes Wolfsburg (GER) 1 0 DEF Tim Ream Fulham (ENG) 52 1 DEF Chris Richards Crystal Palace (ENG) 12 1 DEF Antonee Robinson Fulham (ENG) 37 2 DEF Miles Robinson Atlanta United (USA) 27 3 DEF Joe Scally Gladbach (GER) 6 0 MID Johnny Cardoso Internacional (BRA) 7 0 MID Luca de la Torre Celta Vigo (SPA) 17 0 MID Lennard Maloney Heidenheim (GER) 0 0 MID Weston McKennie Juventus (ITA) 46 11 MID Yunus Musah AC Milan (ITA) 29 0 MID Gio Reyna Borussia Dortmund (GER) 20 4 MID Malik Tillman PSV Eindhoven (NED) 6 0 FWD Brenden Aaronson Union Berlin (GER) 34 8 FWD Folarin Balogun Arsenal (ENG) 4 2 FWD Cade Cowell San Jose Earthquakes (USA) 8 1 FWD Ricardo Pepi PSV Eindhoven (NED) 18 9 FWD Christian Pulisic AC Milan (ITA) 62 26 FWD Tim Weah Juventus (ITA) 33 5
I dont really know what "meaningless" means. I dont buy that excuse. It was a decent French side and they lost. So clearly things are turning around for Germany. They are easily a top 20 team, probably closer to 10 than 20. Nobody should EXPECT to beat a top 20 team. It's always gonna be a fight.
They certainly have a top 20 player pool. As a team I’d probably put them around 25, give or take a few spots. We shouldn’t steamroll them, but we also shouldn’t lose to them at home right now. I’d feel the same about losing to them as I would about losing to Ukraine or Serbia. aside from beating a disinterested France, what on earth have they done recently to be considered a top 10 team? I doubt any German fans even think they are top 10 right now.
Higher than that, no? I get that Germany has a lack of absolute star power and not a ton of depth, but they can still put together a team that, talentwise, has minimal to no holes and dwarfs ours, right? Ter Stegen, Rudiger, Musiala, Sane, Goretzka, Adeyemi, Wirtz, Brandt, Havertz, Kimmich, Gosens, Muller, etc. Yeah, they couldn't put the ball in the net at the World Cup but did everything else, then slumped a bit with a rather extreme gameplan after a disappointing World Cup. I agree they weren't clicking at all pre-Nagelsmann but the talent is still there, if kind of concentrated at attacking mid and winger.
When teams are evenly matched as USA and Germany are (I can't believe I'm typing that right now), it could be a win, loss, or draw and it wouldn't be surprising. To that end, I don't "expect" a win. I expect a win against Oman, Ghana, and the like.
So you are a USMNT fan and you don't expect to win at home against an evenly matched opponent. Is this some kind of semantic debate on the meaning of "expect"?
The German National Team in whole might be a dysfunctional mess right now but they still have a boat load of talent. We can win but I think the idea we "should" win means if we don't, we failed. Which seems ridiculous. We don't beat Honduras or Ohman at home, yeah, we failed. But Germany. I'd say no.
Yeah, Germany's results haven't been good recently outside of that win against France, but they have more talent than the U.S., even if the gap has closed from where it was traditionally, and they have a better coach (I hope that's not opening up a can of worms to say that). On top of that, they might get a "new coach bounce." So, I don't expect a U.S. win. I guess the case for expecting a U.S. win is that maybe it will take a bit for the players to acclimate to Nagelsmann's system, and they won't be going all-out in a friendly on the other side of the Atlantic.
The last 3 matches we have played Germany we sandwiched a L 0-1 at WC2014 between 2 victories in friendlies. I EXPECT to beat them but won't take much away if we lose. Its not that complicated, how we perform is more important than the result. We beat Germany in a friendly at home in 2013 4-3. We beat them in a friendly in Germany in 2015 2-1.
man, you guys are bending over backwards to lower expectations here. how are we supposed to be competitive/make a deep run in the copa next summer if we will be lucky to hang with this germany team in a home friendly? of course they have a ton of talent. and the change in manager should (continue to) help a lot cause they were in a pretty rudderless slog for a while there- meanwhile we (the team, i should specify) have been bought in and happy and productive through his copy, his copy of a copy and now again under gregg- wheres the faith in his/our team spirit and winning mentality? "expect to win" is all semantics, but the idea that we are underdogs here is even more of a stretch (in the other direction) imo. as noted we have a ton of talent too. we have a better team spirit, or culture- however you want to say it- at the moment. and its a home match. why wouldnt you expect a strong performance with a win some tiny degree of "likely" here? down adams and reyna at least (and having no clue any key players they will be missing, though i imagine it will matter less in their case) in a friendly leaves a lot in the air, but whats interesting for me is the idea that a manager makes very little difference that gets floated around here to a pretty dumb degree, when in fact its a pretty significant factor. do we put out our "best" team in the "please dont hurt us, mighty germany" sense? do we have the belief to get after it as hard as our second interim? is this a final exam for our fringe 11 guys? do we treat it like any other friendly, just part of "the process" (hopefully not to a mexico beatdown degree)? gregg says he wants the big tests, the bright lights. well, here they are. how he approaches this match/this window means something, cause you never know when calendars are going to change and youre gonna end up with oman, or romania. i sure hope hes not as insecure as a whole lot of you. id rather come up short moving towards what we want to be rather than playing for an acceptable result in a freaking friendly. thats the only meaningful loss to be had.
It is so very obvious but it is not clear to me why exactly are posters doing that. I am trying not to be cynical but I'm trying to wrap my head around this quote from @RossD : "We can win but I think the idea we "should" win means if we don't, we failed. Which seems ridiculous".
In a vacuum this game is pretty close to a "Pick 'em". It's a Friendly with a new German Manager, so that means the variance is wide. Will new coach be experimenting or trying to lay down the hammer? We'll see.