Roldan and are you watching the game? 2021 Thread bump

It's not that hard. Roldan is a better player four years later. Acosta and LDLT are worse. Musah is arguably worse but it's hard to say without minutes. Adams and Mckennie are, of course, absolutely in. Tessmann and Cardoso are arguably better. So he remains on the bubble competing for that fourth, fifth or sixth spot - who knows how many CMs Poch will take - against Berhalter and Morris.

 

Got CR6 on the roster! Adams, Johnny, Tillman, Berhalter, Roldan are the CMs. McKennie will play dual-10/cam role.

 

100% on Roldan. He has been consistent in every way...including his improvement. He has improved consistently for four years. I haven't watched Acosta much but will take your word for it. I have only seen Musah with USMNT and see a player that hasn't improved his weaknesses but some have said he has shown great improvement at club level...so who knows? I don't. I haven't seen LDLT much...except for his little time with USMNT. I have to say that I never rated LDLT. In some ways, I saw him as a "Musah light" player. He could hold the ball and progress some in midfield against weak teams. I definitely do not believe it is an obvious case of him getting worse. I see mostly the same player as I did before. Of course that is my view.

 

Video clip from interview w/ Howard & Donovan:

Roldan is bringing a "nothing to lose" attitude to the USMNT

 

If there is nothing to lose then there is also nothing to win and that is the attitude that the USMNT often displays so Roldan is brings nothing to the USMNT. But he, and others like him, assure that the USMNT will remain mediocre and proud of it.

If you have nothing to lose then there is also NOTHING to win.

That kind of attitude is one reason the USMNT seems stuck as only the best, or near the best, in CONCACAF.
If the USA wants to ever excel in world football then every loss should be a huge disappointment and every win should be celebrated as a major victory.
But we are content to just play OK.

 

Lalas level take here.

One, a lot of high level athletes go after the nothing to lose mindset, as it allows them to play their game without (as much) pressure.

Two, the US' attitude has historically been a strength and really isn't anywhere on the list of reasons why we're "stuck" as a CONCACAF power. It begins and end with talent at this point.

Three, while Roldan has plenty of detractors ... I doubt anyone but you would question his attitude. In fact, if the US had an attitude problem this cycle, it was the guys who played at Copa América and in Nations League. Roldan is a part of the group who came in committed and helped change that.

 

Well, having nothing to lose doesn’t mean there is nothing to win, so yeah, that’s a bad take all around.

 

"In for a penny, in for a pound" just means you're poor. And English.

 

Not only does it not mean nothing to win, it is often (usually) used to indicate there is a low risk to high reward ratio... Many would complete the expression by saying "there is nothing to lose, but everything to gain"

So, yeah.....definitely a bad take. That being said, not the worst I have seen.

 

Maybe English isn't the first language of the poster.......................

...................because it comes across as twisting yourself into a knot to say something bad about Cristian Roldan for no apparent reason.

 

The reason is MLS. Because pro-rel and grocery store confrontations. Plus also SUM-MLS and the old boys club. And Pep Guardiola managing Barcelona without any Designated Players, and also how MLS holds players captive in the basement and won’t sell them to Preston North End even when PNE offers a full $2.99 as a transfer fee.

In summary, mediocrity and some stuff from X by people who almost understand what gegenpressing is.

You’d get that if you weren’t part of the mediocrity conspiracy.

 

You forgot Jay Berhalter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

There’s no such thing as Jay Berhalter. He’s a human suit worn by the true masters of the pay-for-play Old Boys Network.

 

Since a common criticism of Roldan is that he's untested against elite competition, I wanted to see how he fared on FotMob against current UEFA club champion Paris Saint Germain compared to other USMNT roster contenders:

2025.06.23 CWC group stage Sounders vs. PSG 0-2 Cristian Roldan 6.7
2025.06.29 CWC round of 16 Inter Miami vs. PSG 0-4 Benjamin Cremaschi 6.4 (entered at 75')
2025.08.30 Ligue 1 Toulouse vs. PSG 3-6 Mark McKenzie 5.3
2025.09.17 UCL Round 1 PSG vs. Atalanta 4-0 Yunus Musah 5.7 (exited at 75')
2025.09.22 Ligue 1 Marseille vs. PSG 1-0 Timothy Weah 7.4 (exited at 78')
2025.11.09 Ligue 1 Lyon vs. PSG 2-3 Tanner Tessmann 4.6
2025.11.29 Ligue 1 Monaco vs. PSG 1-0 Folarun Balogun 6.0 (exited at 85')
2026.01.08 French Super Cup final PSG vs. Marseille 2-2 (PSG wins on pens) Timothy Weah 6.1 (exited at 77')
2026.02.08 Ligue 1 PSG vs. Marseille 5-0 Timothy Weah 4.1

With his 6.7 rating, Roldan achieved a better rating than all other national team contenders except for Tim Weah's 7.4 in Marseille's home league match against PSG. (However, Weah also had the worst rating of 4.1 in the return match last weekend, and he had a middling rating in the French Super Cup.) More importantly, Roldan's central midfield competitors performed badly, as Musah had a 5.7 against PSG in his Champions League start, and Tessmann had a 4.6 when Lyon hosted them in Ligue 1.

If Roldan is recalled in the March international window and gets the start against Portugal, it would probably be a rematch for him in the middle of the park against Vitinha (#3 in the Guardian's recent top 100 footballers ranking) and Joao Neves (#17 in the world ranking, and who had an identical 6.7 FotMob rating to Roldan's after the Sounders-PSG match).

 

Anybody who watched MLS (CCC, CWC etc.) last season knows that Cristian Roldan was one of the best players in the league.

Even before he was recalled by Pochettino, folks were talking about it. There were posters saying "You know what? Roldan deserves a shot based on his caliber of play."

There aren't actually that many people complaining about Roldan's inclusion. Just a very vocal, very small minority at this point.

Cuz all it requires is eyeballs to know Roldan's deserves a place. Will he start? Probably not. He starts for the USMNT when a guy like Adams hasn't been available. I actually have Roldan comfortably into my projected squad. You just have to watch the games and then listen to Pochettino talk about him to know that's the case.

Its Sebastian Berhalter that I have as my "last man" in on the bubble. Slot 26. If a guy like Johnny or Musah takes off over the next three months, then its Berhalter that I have being cut.

[Of course, I still have Reyna in my squad. May need to revisit that soon.]

 

Roldan's arc is similar to Beckerman's.

 

thats a interesting comparison. I hadn’t thought about that. Both are under appreciated. (Even now, I don’t believe many give Beckerman the credit he deserves). Of course I don’t think Beckerman ever had the same vitriol directed toward him but that was just because he was ignored../I don’t know which is worse

 

I screamed at him through the television many, many times. "What the f*ck are you doing you stupid f*cking hippie!" was a common refrain anyone in the vicinity would hear. I'm sure there are a slew of vitriolic posts from yours truly in some threads from way back when. And then at some point he became the metronome of that team, and the yelling stopped, and I apologized to him and started singing his praises. Nowadays I hold Beckerman's USMNT career in the highest regard. He's one of the top (maybe) 5 most important players, historically, for me on the USMNT (since 2002, when I really first got into the NT). I don't think Roldan will ever be so important, but he's definitely underappreciated and is much, much better (and more important) than many fans will ever give him credit for.

 

I love that you apologized to him through the TV. Respect.

 

I apologized to him on here as well! Not that he heard any of it, good or bad.

 

the two most important aspects of his play (imo) were
1) his link/distribution between cb’s and cm/playmakers.
2) the way he was able to reliably protect the central area in front of the cb’s.

Adams now does a better job of protecting the area in front of cb’s but I don’t think he is as effective at distribution and linking. Fortunately, that is less of a need than it was.

my opinion is and was that we would have qualified in 2018 if we had Berhalter or even a low budget version to make up for Bradley’s weakness in that area. Nagbe had some very good qualities but we needed Beckerman or (at least) Beckerman light.

 

You're talking about Beckerman, but the 2 strengths you point out can be applied to Roldan as well IMO. It's a mystery to me why Adams is considered an automatic starter if his link/distribution work is as suspect as it sounds. While watching the Uruguay match that ended the USA's Copa America hopes, I was wondering why Adams was disconnected from the backline so often, as it forced Tim Ream to attempt low-percentage passes that were intercepted on a few occasions. Roldan plays in front of MLS's best passing centerback in Jackson Ragen, but even Ragen's distribution would suffer if Roldan didn't show and make himself available as a passing target on a consistent basis.

I know, but whenever somebody takes a swipe at CR7 it gives me a chance to throw out a few data points in his favor. It might be a small minority of posters dragging Roldan right now, but ESPN's USMNT game reviewer doesn't appear to like him very much, either. Though I don't know how much influence reporters like that have these days.

 

Outside of a dog a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read.

 

I don't particularly disagree. I think much of my opinion is based upon Beckerman's play with USMNT. With USMNT, he played a very specific role, imo, and that was to do those two things. While I believe that Roldan could play that role also, I haven't seen him do that. I have seen Roldan given more freedom and cover more ground than Beckerman. (I didn't see Beckerman much with RSL but I believe he had more freedom with them as well but I'm not really including that in my comparison.

Roldan, on the other hand has played further up the field. If Beckerman was playing Adam's role, Roldan is one of the players that would be receiving the ball from Beckerman. He also isn't being asked to cover the back line in the same way that Beckerman (or Adams) was being asked.

Could Roldan play Beckerman's role? Yes. Would he be as good? I have no real idea. They both were/are good players with abilities that are superior to the other. I didn't mention the strengths of Beckerman because those were areas of superiority but because they were two of his strengths that I noticed the most.

As for Adams, I am one that believes he is an automatic starter if healthy. That is doubly true if we have a weak link defensively in our back line. I don't remember the Uruguay game and won't go back and watch it, so I have to take your word for it.

 

Adams is considered a fairly lock starter because he's an elite destroyer. I don't think he's quite as lock as some, but while we can focus on weaknesses, strengths are just as, if not more, important. And Adams is a step above everyone defensively when he's healthy.

I like Roldan more than most, but I will say this about the US' build out in general: the improvement is far less player dependent to my eye and more a result of Pochettino's tactics.

That's not to say players aren't performing in the build out, but Pochettino both brings more numbers than most coaches and definitely is known for drilling patterns and movements to create more space there. He also strongly encourages players to take risks and simply counter press hard to deal the consequences.

All that to say is that guys like Adams, Roldan, Morris -- guys who have not looked good in the build out all the time under someone like Berhalter -- have all looked much better in the later days of the Pochettino era. I don't think he's playing Roldan because he's some amazing passer; I think he's playing Roldan because he will run all over the field, counter press, cover guys and he believes enough in his passing that between the numbers and patterns, it's going to work. Roldan DOES do a great job of moving to get open. For the US, he also does a good job of making the smart decision. He can make an incisive pass but most of his passes last window were very quickly getting the ball to the obvious CAM nearby. Which is exactly what Poch wants.

I think he probably thinks similarly of Adams. I think Roldan is a better passer than Adams, but I suspect with more time in the system, Adams will look a lot better than he does in a conservative system. Both he and Roldan will make mistakes, but both of them are pretty good at cleaning them up.