Did not look out of place in only his second 1.BL game. I’ll take that all day coming from MLS and the off-season. He had some nice touches, took his disallowed goal very nicely. He’ll battle for goals all season long with this Augsburg team, and may not score a bunch, but at least he doesn’t look at all out of place to my eye.
I have a feeling with the way he plays that unless he’s on the score sheet he’s going to have a lot of those. He’s ungainly to watch, and a bunch of the things he tries don’t come off, but I hope he keeps playing that way as that one out of 10 times his back heel pass across the top of the box comes off, the result is dangerous.
WS had Pepi as 5th highest score of 15 Augsburg players, 3 of those ahead of him were in the back line and the 4th was the goal scorer Augsburg 1-1 Eintracht Frankfurt - Bundesliga 2021/2022 Live (whoscored.com)
The kicker rating is ridiculous. I thought he was an overall positive for Augsburg out there. He already looks like he belongs IMO.
Again, do not care about Kicker ratings. They are given by a kicker "reporter" who had a bratwurst and bier and "watched" the match. They probably saw that Pepi played a lot and didn't score, hence a 4.5 rating.
Didn’t score. Huge money signing. American. Hmm. I see a way that I can maybe get kicker a lot fot attention and hits.
Unfortunately for my kickabout league, that's me. Personally, I blame the target of my back heels. They never seem to be able to get there. It has absolutely nothing to do with my technique. None whatsoever.
Kicker's ratings are subjective so you can bet that the $18MM transfer price had something to do with expectations for Pepi.
David Blitzer gives a (non-)answer as to how involved he was with the transfer. NEW: US investor David Blitzer asked directly by @GrantWahl on his podcast if Blitzer played a role in the transfer of Ricardo Pepi from FC Dallas to FC Augsburg. Blitzer‘s quotes will follow below.— Derek Rae (@RaeComm) January 20, 2022
You really do have to care about what Kicker says, because more than any other source,it shapes perception. Perception does not dictate the actions of the manager,but it does influence them. A couple more ratings like this and the "Is Pepi a bust?" questions begin and people will turn on him. Now, maybe those people are fans and fans are fickle. But it's a dead cert that everyone in every club front office studies what Kicker writes.
Also, has to be said, this is not the time Pepi needs to leave Germany for a Nats appearance. Hope for the best but this has really stupid call up written all over it. He needs to get focused, settled in and comfortable with his new club. Now he returns in after the callup back at day one.
I mean this is a super critical World Cup qualifying window, of course he was going to get called up. There are times when you leave players with their clubs to get established, but this isn’t one of those times. This is when you pull out all the stops.
A tough opponent. Hopefully Ricardo gets off the mark today, but boy, Augsburg was dominated in the midfield last week. I hope they are better today.
And that time is never. A player's career is what matters most. Without it going well, he's never going to be a part of a national team set up, so as a national team manager, you only have the right to think short term gain when you're actually in a World Cup, which is off season. but even then, it's irresponsible to think short term (managers will, but they shouldn't).
I mean do you think Ricardo Pepi wanted to be left behind? I’m sure he very much wanted to be on the roster. And I don’t think Augsburg is shocked that he’s getting called up or that this is unexpected. Players don’t turn down call ups for World Cup Qualifying. It’d be one thing if it were say Nations League (and I expect Pepi to get the summer off from this), but this is probably the most critical window the USMNT has. And I don’t think this is going to have a drastic impact on his career one way or another.
Dude, this isn’t a window for friendlies. We are trying to qualify for the World Cup. Any marginal benefit for the USMNT in letting him stay in Germany to get acclimated is just not in the same zip code as having a proven goal scorer available. I see this perspective often when discussing yanks abroad, namely that one small thing like where Pepi is this window as a career defining moment. It’s not. It would be mildly helpful for his club career. But my goodness, he’s only missing training with the players who ain’t called up. How much is really being lost here?
Twellman now doing Bundesliga games? The first Pepi game I’m able to watch and there is Twellman. He even referenced the Kicker rating just now as I’m writing this. LOL
I guess I agree, but do you think that Kicker grades also reflect public perception? Like when someone is widely perceived as a bust, kicker is likely to give him a lower grade (cough Bobby Wood cough).