I don't know. I don't know what has been reported but I do know that foot stuff is not to be messed with. Emeka shared a little with me when I saw him in his boot before he was headed to get checked out. I just told him don't mess around with it. Get it fixed right the first time.
I hope in a good way. Your welcome. The episode almost had a glory hole reference in the intro but we'll save that for another day. lol
With LAFC now playing in the Club World Cup, our home game against them on 25 June is postponed until September. Makes sense. Of course it was the one I was able to attend. Ah, well.
It’s funny / interesting to listen to various podcasts and by extension (since I don’t have any social media) the fan opinion of this team and club I have found that, just like in any sport, there is varying degrees of understanding how the sausage is made. Blame that is entirely focused on Pablo and the players tends to be ignorant of what role Pablo actually plays in constructing the team. It’s pretty common that, any fan that has an understanding of what a front office is and who is involved where, associates some to most, if not all, of the blame with that body. I tend to agree. It’s also funny/interesting to hear how few people are fully in the “Pablo out” train, but how many are in the verge of it. I think that spells exactly why the club shouldn’t renew and it actually plays into the favor of the club in general that sentiment isn’t full blown negative and he has to go, but few if anyone would be sad to see a new coach in 2026. what needs to be more transparent is just how long of deals various folks in the front office are on (eg schmid, Beltran, Kreis, etc) and when the club could time out the least “impactful” reorganization. the rsl show guys had a bizarre podcast recently, but one part really rang true to me: it’s time for a full reset. I agree whole heartedly
I invite you all to look at this ESPN list of the top 15 US players at each position as we enter the Gold Cup, and check out how many players RSL has on the defense depth chart: https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...art-ranking-top-15-position-gold-cup-analysis
My initial thought is that the presence of Hidalgo and Junqua reflects a pretty bad depth of talent in the national pool at their positions.
I thought that Luna played really well and the US would have been well ahead if they would have worked the ball through him more. The were much to passive in the back and paid the price.
This group of US players are so underwhelming Even when they’re “good” they’re bad watching this nations league final between Spain and Portugal might as well be a different sport than what the usmnt plays. The gap to close by next summer is nearly immeasurable. Poch goal should just be final 16, honestly
To be fair, there were only a couple of A team USMNTers in this game, in Adams and Richards. And Adams didn't start. Although, if the backups can only perform this well, then the team will have to sacrifice a group game to keep from running Adams and Robinson into the ground before the knockouts.
I’ve long defended the talent of this generation But this shit with the gold cup withdrawals has lost me. They really think they’ll just show up in 12 months and be fine
Moving to this thread. Yes, to an extent, but we've now got a roster full of young, mostly unproven players at key spots. I was concerned about the level of the talent before the season started and it's played out. I still don't know why Russell wasn't brought in before the season started. Cabral has been great, but there was a clear lack of MLS vets on the roster Haven't we complained for years that Pablo doesn't play the kids? Now he pretty much has to and we're seeing that he can't get more out of them like he does vets. It's probably more of a talent level issue at the end of the day though (still not a fan of rigidly putting players into the game model that the assistants he didn't want brought with them). Transfermarkt has RSL with the second lowest avg player value in the league and the youngest (tied) average roster. To be fair, they have 12 (of 38) guys (average age ~18) with a total market value of $400k, so the average comes up to $1.38m/player if you subtract those, but I'm not doing that for every team and they're probably still near the bottom of the league. I wonder what the Millers are wanting to get done with their first transfer window. Sounds like the club is trying to have some guys in town ready to go like Chicho was in 2023.
Ok but past rsl rosters weren’t loaded either MLS veterans either. If we narrow this down to Pablo’s tenure the turnover of players has largely been around international players without MLS experience. A well known wildcard I have complained a lot about not playing the kids. It’s why I get genuinely excited, even in games we lose, when Gozo and Hidalgo are out there together. It’s a different marker of success: local growth. It sucks to lose though. that said - Josh from rsl show said it well: being young doesn’t mean you’re inexperienced. There are a lot of early 20s on this team that I wouldn’t call “young” from an experience perspective. He also rightly called out that there is a double standard with those players where they are lauded as being part of a roster that is deeper than ever before but suddenly are too young to expect more than a mid table team. It can’t be both. I don’t like transfer market. In the absence of anything else it’s the best we got, but it’s very flawed. I wouldn’t expect rsl to have a high value. It would be bizarre if we did and even more damning to the performances. It also becomes self fulfilling in underperforming teams.
In lighter news, I recently found out that Cabral's full name is Rafael Cabral Barbosa. I need to see a TIFO of "Captain Barbosa" at the next home game that isn't honoring Rimando.
The team must truly have a couple of days, or more, off. I was on a flight to Portland yesterday and sat a few seats from Phillip Quinton. Dude is so long
Two weeks until the next game and you just broke a winless streak. Even though it was against a bad DC team, I'd still give them a good 4 days off. Also, read that this break is mandated by labor agreement. Didn't know that.