I'd say the last time you earned a point in the World Cup was before Claudio Reyna was on his mother's nipple...but you've never done it so that doesn't really work. You don't act like you've been here before, because you haven't.
USMNT interim coach Mikey Varas didn’t mince his words in the press conference 😳“The mentality is on the players. Sorry, they know it.”“That mentality to fight and to run and to sacrifice, I can’t do that for them. I can’t do that for them. That’s on them.”“The trainings… pic.twitter.com/xRcqYP4eiu— GOLZ TV (@golz_tv) September 8, 2024 About time someone on the US coaching staff said this. Long, long overdue.
My eyes are too bad for me to read long, I get bad headaches after just a few minutes of reading text from a book, computer screen is OK but paper printing is just too difficult for me. However i do have an extensive library of audiobooks and I will add that book to my "wanted" list and, if I find it at a reasonable price" I will acquire it and add it in. I have a whole house audio setup that allows me to listen to and control books from anywhere in my house. I told my kids and the players on my teams that the "Pictures are better in books" but only a few ever believed me. My 1600 audiobook library is a great comfort to me. And no i have not, yet, listened to all of them.
USMNT interim coach Mikey Varas criticized the players' mentality after the Canada loss. “Mentality is on the players. They know it. … The mentality to fight and to run and to sacrifice, I can’t that for them. That’s on them." (h/t @TWDTV1) pic.twitter.com/kxW0W94bCv— USMNT Only (@usmntonly) September 8, 2024
Keep drinking the coolaid my friend. I am proud of what you guys have accomplished, I have waited a long time for a strong Canadian team in Concacaf. I live close to the border so I have spent a lot of time in Canada and love the country like my own. I am not yet convinced that Canada is better than the US. You won a nations league match in 2019 and you won a WC qualifier in 2023. Those are the only competitive win vs the US that I can remember in my lifetime. It's not yet time to crown yourselves the Kings of Concacaf because you bossed a friendly. When you can consistently beat the US more than you lose to the US, that will be the time. This was never a golden generation, just the first batch of academy players.
Pulisic didn't perform. He just gets a pass because we all can imagine him begging to play the full 90 and trying his best, but he was poor. The only guy from this generation I have in my Best USMNT XI Ever is Jedi. Dest and Adams have had too many games where they looked poor. We're remembering them better than they are. Give me Jones and Dolo any day.
We're sounding more and more like Mexico when we beat them: "this was a molero, who cares, but for them this was their world cup final, they cared. We didn't play X, Y, Z and our coach sucks."
san diego made a poor choice to begin with, if i see that quote i pull his contract before he can sign it.
If Johnny doesn't pan out we're going to be in a world of trouble. I doubt Adams will be back to who he used to be. We need a DM, and we need him now.
With the US team's players looking this disinterested on the field, they've all but forfeited at this point. Going into a home World Cup, that's a terrible look for the program and the men's game in this country.
Again... another great post but I just don't understand how you end w/ Tillman wasn't creative enough. He was literally the only creative player for the first half... including that play where he turned with the ball at the top of his own box and led a box-to-box counter for a scoring chance. He also had another nice line breaking pass and the clever backheel in the 2nd that led to a clear shot on goal... each could have been scores in the end. I maintain that if we are playing a 4-2-3-1 then I don't think Tillman should have the same responsibilities on D as a traditional 8 in a 4-3-3. In short, if Varas sent him out to play like a 10 in a 4-2-3-1 then I think he did pretty well... if he was supposed to play like a pure 8 then I think he deserves some criticism on D and I would expect him to continue to underwhelm because he doesn't have that profile.
The only guys your depiction are accurate of are possibly Pulisic and Reyna. Almost everyone over there either went and fought for their place very young, working their way up through the youth teams, or earned the transfer from their performance in MLS. Who amongst those guys were gifted anything? Hell even Pulisic and Reyna had to actually produce as kiddos first to earn promotions and minutes. That's the problem to me. None of these guys were BMOC from the moment they arrived in Europe. Aaronson went to RBS, Richards went to BM, and then was loaned out, Jedi struggled, Dest earned his role at Ajax and then had Barca and Bayern fighting over him, fell off a cliff and picked himself up at PSV, McKenzie went to where in Belgium? Adams toiled in NY, earned a move to RB Leipzig and was a key player for them. McKennie and Wright worked their way up from the bottom at Schalke, earned moves elsewhere. Weah sounds a bit like that: NY to PSG after all, but struggled afterwards at Lille, and in Scotland with Celtic (I think Celtic early on was probably the highest club period for him), Sargent struggled at Bremen, then struggled at Norwich..... I don't think these guys got gift wrapped anything in Europe. They weren't Brazilians, nearly all of them had to earn their promotion to the big club from the youth teams, or earn minutes as starters. I do agree they are playing like self-satisfied, entitled idiots, but this is a weird thing because most of them worked their butts off to get where they have, and are suddenly entitled because they what? Got rolled by the Netherlands and could barely score any goals at a WC? Just like the '10, '06, and '98 teams?!?! It's utterly bizarre. It would be one thing if they showed this all the way up but really other than Reyna and maybe Dest, none of them really have.
Look at the bright side. There’s a decent chance most of Europe will boycott the WC in ‘26. So we will have a better shot to make a deep run.
Don't feed the trolls. He's the opposite coin of the idiotic takes people had making fun of Canada post WC '22 (hating their coach, and media and fans and team lead a lot of posters and twitter fans to argue absurd takes post WC '22 about Canada's performance).
Just some thoughts: 1. When this game announced (pre -Copa), people here like “what a waste of time to play garbage team…” 2. If I am the coach, I would start Aidan Morris (or Maloney if he is not injured and Morris isn’t called up). Why? Because the midfield anchors need a bite. Tyler Adams has the bite. Morris and Maloney, even Tessman have the bites. But both Musah and Johnny don’t have — they are more like fine players who are doing artful and graceful things and both of them are passive players who go along the winds. Kind of like Aidan’ partner Nagbe. You got what I mean. 3. Don’t downplay Johnny’s talent who actually can make the Brazil team if he didn’t capped by us. But his previous game vs. Colombia was also a disaster like this one. So there are definitely a misuse or mismatch issues need to be addressed. 4. With two passive, fine midfielders go alone with the waves, you have another passive, fine midfielder in Tillsman who started in front of them. Now you have real problem here. You have a midfield has no BITE at all. You may put Aaronson here or Puli here, whatever, but you don’t combine three no bite players same time. Understand? Like someone said about Colombia team in this board, they used to have 11 piano masters on the field, but NO ONE carries the piano for them to play. 5. Just with the right combination, maybe things would not get so bad. But aggressive play making in the mid is not a good way to do business — if you lost the control of the ball, then probably two or three passes later, you give up a goal. That is why aggressive attacking are done at the wing — like a Yamal, a Mbappe, a Puli, a Sakka, etc, they attack relentlessly from the wing, if turn over of ball here, maybe a foul or an out of bound would give your defense the time. 6. Canada did have a fast Bombito to play a high risk line but if you kept attack on that one-vs-one line, it could break. Also Jessy’s high pressure game cannot keep for 90 minutes, about 65-70 minutes mark, it would start to lose the steam. That is the time you capitalize, but of course, don’t so foolish to let Jessy puts 3 or 4 goals on you before that time mark. 7. I am still very optimistic about our team, and most of problems we experienced today are all-fixable.
If one of our past managers had said that the knives would have been out, sharpened, and stabbing away. How times have changed?
Anyone wanting to see Ream again should not only look at his passes to Canadian players but look at the ease in which Tani waltzed by him 1v1.
LOL Yea, I remember the dismissiveness about the usefulness of this match because of strength of opponent. I argued w/ those people. It's amazing how elitist some of our fans are & quick to dismiss half the exercises as a waste of time. I also agree about the finesse across so much of the team, especially in midfield, where most games are won. I saw a lot of people advocating for that exact midfield & I argued with them about that too at the time. There's a place 1 (Musah), but you need complements. I had Morris next to Musah in my starting XI beforehand. I bet w/ Aaronson in there they'd have provided the necessary fight, ability to close, in addition to progress & committed less TOs at least w/out a reaction.