I couldn't figure out a proper place for USA fans to discuss the Olympic soccer matches. (MODS - please move if there is such a beast). I have one quick observation that caught my eye and should give us a little chuckle. S Korea vs Honduras. There was a tangled up going on near midfield off the ball. A Honduran player was kicking the legs of the Korean guy. The Korean guy turned and shoved him away. The Honduran dropped like he had been shot. Welcome to soccer, CONCACAF style, S Korea. The ref wisely ignored his antics.
Well the two teams that knocked out the U23s, Honduras and Colombia, made the knockout round with Honduras making the final 4. Defending champs Mexico did not get out of group play!
Yeah...........there was a whole lot of consternation about the Honduras loss. Seems like they have a lot of good young players, the majority of whom play their club ball in Honduras. MLS front offices should be on high alert.................... American fans tend to dramatically under-rate their Central American competitors. They view a loss against Honduras or Panama or Costa Rica or even Guatemala as an afront to common decency. These teams DO have talent.
I'm not sure this is the case. I think most longtime US fans expect to lose in Costa Rica and expect them to give us a tough game anywhere, and also expect tough games from Honduras and Panama. Guatemala shouldn't be put in the same category; the current Guatemalan NT is the weakest it's been in the two decades I've watched CONCACAF qualifying. Similar with El Salvador: they were good in the 90s but have been awful since Diaz Arce and Cienfuegos retired.
That's definitely not true about the current Guatemalans, when it comes to having talent. We lost to them by 2. That's shameful, anywhere. Since Oct. of '14, other than us, their other competitive wins have come against: Bermuda, Antigua, and St. Vincent. We also lost to Honduras by 2, on our own homefield. We're not playing these games on the road, or even a true neutral field. They've also been frequent losses, and terrible performances in wins even, with the fortune of playing on our own homefield often, lately. These are the problems with them. You're not remotely providing context about the dissatisfaction, both on a micro, nor macro-level about these types of performances.
Here's the thing. Mexico won the most recent 2015 U17, U20, U23 Championships. [And also the Gold Cup for that matter.] At the youth levels of CONCACAF which nation is 2nd best to Mexico? Its not the United States. Its Honduras, who finished better than us, or tied with us at all three levels. U17: Mexico Honduras Costa Rica (tied for 3rd) United States tied for 3rd) U20: Mexico Panama Honduras (tied for 3rd) United States (tied for 3rd) U23: Mexico Honduras United States Canada Losing to Honduras isn't losing to Andorra. They've got a strong youth program right now. Its not a surprise that their U23s beat us. Its not a surprise that they're doing well at the Olympics. They did well at the last Olympics for Pete's sake (beat Spain and gave Brazil everything they could handle). When we lost that game against Honduras U23s in 2015, folks started acting like the sky was falling. This included Klinsmann who lamented a "lost generation." Hello? We cruised thru the group stage and then lost a tough game against a good team. It happens. Those U23 games are often a poor barometer of the health of a program anyway. Our defense struggled against Honduras. Of course, Brooks and Yedlin weren't released by their clubs. Slot them in there and then maybe the result is different. You look at the fullbacks on that U23 team, and we weren't using Desevio Payne or Kellyn Acosta or Brandon Vincent or Keegan Rosenberry or any number of viable options (in hindsight). Very strange lineup choices. If we want to lament WCQing losses to Guatemala, that's one thing. [Keep in mind our U20s failed to beat Guatemala at the U20 Championships as well.] What I'm saying is the gap between the United States and even Guatemala is much smaller than some fans think it is.
In the ELO Ratings with a 100 point adjustment for home field for the Central American teams, USA would be worse than Costa Rica (who is above USA), almost even with Panama (who is 99 points behind USA), and over 100 points better than the other five Central American teams. I don't know if and when the USA last played a WCQ at Belize or Nicaragua, but for the five Central American teams who normally reach the WCQ Semifinals, it's disappointing that the USA has only 4 points from their last WCQ at those countries, and the USA trailed after 79 minutes of all five of those games. The USA won their last WCQ at Panama; drew their last WCQ at El Salvador (a comeback from down 2:0 to a 2:2 draw on March 28, 2009); and lost their last WCQ at Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala. Mexico and Costa Rica could finish ahead of us in any Hexagonal, and if the Honduran Olympians make Honduras do better in WCQs it could become hard for USA to qualify for World Cups.
Road WCQers in CONCACAF are always hard. They're hard for Mexico. By the way, Central American countries have a dismal record on US soil in WCQers. Everybody should be able to remember the last time a Central American nation won in the US in a WCQer................ Honduras seems to be one of these nations that's "getting it right at youth level," but their senior team hasn't been doing so hot. They're a schizo team at the Gold Cup. Always are. They finished bottom of their group in 2015, failing to win a single game against Haiti, Panama, and the US. They're in a precarious position in WCQing. They're in another must-win game against Canada in early September. Or its at least must-not-lose. Of course they were in this position last cycle and absolutely demolished Canada. What we know about Honduras is they seem to have plenty of talent on the way. And as I said.....................U23 results can be deceiving. And that's because the US can only get a portion of its players released for those events.
Sure they do. And they did the past quarter century. Strange that we then could beat that talent with regularity. But, hey, ....Progress!
I think people underestimate Honduras. Its a soccer-mad country with a population larger than Denmark, Croatia, or Uruguay. There have been other factors holding it back from advancement on the soccer world stage (geopolitical, etc.) We're a better national team program than Honduras right now. I just think the gap is smaller than some think it is. I believe Arena, Bradley, and Klinsmann have all lost games to Honduras. Its never an easy game against them, Costa Rica, and Panama.
Whether the game is "must win" or "must not lose" for Honduras depends on if Mexico will use their best players against Honduras on Matchday 6. If all teams used their best players, Canada would be expected to get more points hosting El Salvador than Honduras would be expected to get at Mexico. In that case Honduras needs to beat Canada. It would be something if Honduras won an Olympic medal and got eliminated from WCQs a few weeks later. Arena managed us for the 3:2 WCQ loss hosting Honduras in 2001. Bradley managed us against Honduras 5 times in under 8 months from June 2009 through January 2010. We beat Honduras four times in 2009, twice in WCQs (including when we clinched qualification) and twice in the Gold Cup. Then we lost a friendly hosting Honduras in January 2010, but I'm assuming that wasn't with our best players.
By the way, is that 2001 loss the last time the USMNT has lost a home WCQer against a Central American team?
To be competitive with Honduras and Mexico, at U-23 level, we need more young players getting more minutes at the professional level.
Then it's "To be competitive with Honduras and Mexico and Costa Rica..." Then it's "To be competitive with Honduras and Mexico and Costa Rica and Jamaica...." Then it's "To be competitive with Honduras and Mexico and Costa Rica and Jamaica and Panama....." Soon enough the Jurgenistas will be wondering how could any one possibly expect the Yanks to compete with Canada, because "we need more young players getting more minutes at the professional level." .......So, how, before the coming of the magnificence that is Jurgen, were we able to consistently be so much stronger? Our U23's were bringing it to the Olympics even in the "Dark Ages", when we had basically almost no young players getting minutes at any professional level. I can hardly wait for The JK Hive on these boards to swarm with indignation at those benighted critics who can't see that it is really too much to ask of the Jurgen era to match up with powerhouses such as Haiti.
As an American soccer fan who is of German ancestry, I cheer for Germany in international play. As someone who follows Bundesliga, Im familiar with most of the players anyways. Beyond that, Im just hoping for some great, hard fought games with lots of drama.
Before the "coming of Jurgen", Honduras didn't have U-23 teams full of experienced professionals. And considering that Costa Rica, Jamaica, Panama, et al did not make it, to me indicates more of a Honduran U-23 surge than a US failure, although we certainly contributed to it. If Honduras weren't consistently a top CONCACAF youth side for the last decade, maybe your ramblings could be taken seriously. And part of the problem is your strange insistence on conflating Senior NT results with youth success/lackethereof when convenient. The Senior MNT is competitive with Costa Rica/Mexico (e.g, the top echelon of CONCACAF), from rock bottom in 2015, to the recent Copa. The YNT program right now is significantly less-competitive, across the board. But, we're seeing a surge of US prospects right now that are playing both at home and abroad, so I'd hope that this changes soon. The lack of talent, as well as the surge in individual talent, are both in a sweet spot of not being attributable to Jurgen, although Herzog and his player selection/tactics should still be considered poor.
By the way, Honduras playing OK right now against Nigeria in the bronze medal game. Honduras has never won a medal in any sport. Let's root for them to do this!!!! USA 2681 Honduras 0 Prior to this Olympics 75 nations had never won a medal of any type. That includes a whoooooooooooooooole lot of CONCACAF nations. El Salvador, Nicaragua, etc.
Arena lost to Honduras at Home and drew Guatemala. Bradley did not lose to Honduras that I know of but he did lose to Panama at home and drew a game in El Salvador that we could have lost. So let's not make it seem like We always seem to dominate central American teams before the current coaching staff came along.
"Beat that talent with regularity" becomes in Homie Speak "always seem to dominate" Another misadventure in English, from the Land of Homie.
So drawing and losing are the equivalent of beating with regularity in English? I guess your English is different than American Standard English.
As I already posted in this topic: Bradley managed us against Honduras 5 times in under 8 months from June 2009 through January 2010. We beat Honduras four times in 2009, twice in WCQs (including when we clinched qualification) and twice in the Gold Cup. Then we lost a friendly hosting Honduras in January 2010, but I'm assuming that wasn't with our best players.
Honduras has a population of 8 million. The US has a population 40 times that size and vastly more financial resources. That USSF and Klinnsman can't parlay that into a competitive program is astonishing at every level.
Silly population-based argument is silly, especially when Youth team success =/=. Nigeria has major success at every youth level. So does Germany. But only one of those countries is going to win a WC anytime soon. China has a population 170 times that of Honduras, and vastly more financial resources. The fact that China can't parlay that into a competitive program is astonishing at every level . Fun fact, China has qualified for the WC once, since it rejoined FIFA in 1979. Honduras has qualified 3 times. Costa Rica, which is about half the size of Honduras (or 325-ish times smaller than China), has qualified 4 times and progressed farther than either China or Honduras. Be mad that we're losing to Honduras at the Youth level, that's fine. Don't throw that stupid "muh population" argument out like it means anything. Uruguay, the Netherlands, Chile, and Argentina (with populations ranging in size from Connecticuit to California) can all field top 10 teams in the world. And they'd likely wipe the floor with us at both the Youth and Senior levels.