Jedi was injured all season, wasn't he? Or most of it? And Adams can be a one man wrecking crew in most games, like say a refusing to attacking and bunkering for their lives Paraguay. But he can't do a job like that against a team the caliber of Belgium. He needed help, and all the other midfielders were attack only basically.
Exactly. I don't think any one player could have flipped last nights game, but I would have rather watched more Berhalter than McKinnie or Pulisic. All that talent and they never show up when it counts. I'm excited for the next generation of midfielders and attacking players. Think there are some dawgs. McKinnie, Pulisic, etc are good for their club teams but when they played on the USMNT against top competition, they don't do @#$@.
Very young players. Due to covid, we are missing players aged 19-23. Taha is one of those, and we can see hes not a world beater. Mathis, Cavan, Adri, Hall and others are all fairly good players coming up. They are younger than 19. McKennie, Adams, and Malik should all be around for the next cycle. They all played very well until last night. If Johnny can actually show up in the shirt, he might be very good for 2030. 2034 could be very good, but who knows. Europe could keep advancing. The big reason we are seemingly stuck in this top 16-32 ranking is europe and south america never used to do the health and food science stuff that was prevalent in american sports. Now they do. So the athletic or perceived effort advantage we had in the 2000s has been reduced. Other teams now have the fitness to go with the tactical and technical ability.
Cavan and Hall are two guys I think can help us in 30. Zavier Gozo too. I thought he might make it this year. Hopefully Noahkai Banks commits to the US. He'd help a lot. I think Cole Campbell might take a big leap and be established for us by then. Maybe Damion Downs progresses at Southampton. Other guys I could see helping us in the 20-24 range: Neil Pierre, Luca Bombino, Tate Johnson, Peyton Miller, Frankie Westfield, Mathis Albert, and Dylan Borso Balogun, Freeman, Reyna, Morris, Berhalter, Scally, Richards, Luna, Cardoso, Tessmann, Pukstas, Dest, Slonina, Tillman, Arfsten, and Pepi will all be in their primes. We have some dawgs in that group. I'd keep Adams in the squad but let McKinnie go. Freese should never play for us again, even if he was solid until last night. There's no coming back from that. Pulisic is 50/50 for me. He's clearly a good player but is invisible when we need him the most. I'd probably keep him but he certaintly would not be the focal point of the attack for me in 30. I'd probably use him as an attacking sub.
We could always take over a worthless country and steal their soccer players. We are close with Venezuela, but they are more baseball. Same with Cuba.... I know. Belgium!
Free tickets would have to be distributed at the stadiums on game day. If that's what it takes, then maybe. But then they run the risk of angering people when those free tickets end. The big problem with charging 2000s prices is that people would buy as many as possible and scalp them to fund their own game experience. "I can afford a trip to see the game in KC because I bought 20 tickets at $35 each" type of stuff. I remember paying something like $15 for a USMNT ticket circa 2004. I think it was $10 per ticket plus $5 in fees per order. Ten tickets would have been $105. Those days are long, long gone. The players get paid a lot more than they did 22 years ago and I'm absolutely ok with that. OSU ticket prices come to mind. For years and years, face value never was higher than $80 or so. Once OSU realized they could actually charge what the guy on the street was charging, people got pissed off. Strangely enough, there's a group of people that don't mind paying the scalper $320, but flip out when they have to pay $280 to OSU for that same ticket. How many people will be reselling Twenty One Pilots merch and tickets to be able to afford to come to Columbus? "I'm not a fan, but you should see what this stuff goes for on eBay" said by locals who spend hours in merch lines only to buy "that entire box and I don't care what's in it" to put hoodies up for $100 and posters for $399 with an additional $75 in postage. If the organization doesn't sell the item for as much as they possibly can, the hurt comes back to them. In summary, free tickets would have to be extremely limited and very controlled. Even then, there's a risk.
There are bunch of ways to do free tickets with local community partners. It's honestly not that complicated and there are plenty of people at USSF to figure out the details. Broadly making games a lower barrier to entry is only good for the long term health of the game. Profits in the short term are not more valuable than growing interest base in the team.
5% or so of the stadium (in the upper corners) for local youth leagues. That money could easily be made up by charging a slight bit more for premium seating. Honestly, I think another part is what was plaguing Crew games 20 years ago: Those youth teams start playing at what, 7am? 8am? There's kids who play 2-3 games a day. By the time 4pm comes and it's time to go to the stadium, the kids have been up since 6am or whatever and many of them are just too damn tired. And that's for the evening games. It'd probably honestly be better (maybe?) if it was a rare weekend the kids didn't play, but Chelsey can tell you how rare those weekends are.
U.S. men, women get equal split of $16M World Cup prize - ESPN https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49301582/us-men-women-get-equal-split-16m-world-cup-prize That 40% equates to $6.4 million per team, and $246,153.85 per player. And yes, there will be kvetching about the women needing to share with the men when the women are heavy favorites to win "the world cup". But hey, the women won their lawsuit for equal pay so... um, be happy? Winners: $51 million Runners-up: $34 million 3rd place: $30 million 4th place: $28 million 5th-8th place: $20 million 9th-16th place: $16 million 17th-32nd place: $12 million 33rd-48th place: $10 million
When we play good teams,Adams is not enough as a shield.We need to adjust tactics and pull in a second 6.Either Wes or Seb or a healthy Cardoso.Yes,this means playing a different tactic and formation ,but our CBs are average to poor and need the cover.
You seem like a pretty bright guy, so I refuse to believe that you think the boys were sitting around the locker room after practice one day and somebody said "Hey, I've got an idea; why don't we give half of all the money we earn to the ladies?"
Yeah, it was not quite like that. Its been too long, and I'd have to review some podcasts with inside info/rumors about this about how it came about behind the scenes Per the athletic, "If that holds, and the USWNT achieves what its predecessors achieved [winning the Women's World Cup], the USMNT could be looking at a $25 million payout for its female counterparts’ success."
So, it this scenario, the women actually earn less because a combined winnings of $41 million divided by two is $20.5 million. Yeah, those evil women getting less money, and those stupid men getting more money. What idiots!!
If I may, without dragging myself info the deep.weeds on this topic, I would beg to point out that the Champions of the 2023 WWC was Spain. The US lost on PK's in the round of 16. I have no idea what the payout is for, essentially, 16th place (or 9th) but I feel confident in opining that it wasnt much
Could someone do the math on money won since 1999 between the two? Would love to see those numbers. Or hell, even just the math since this 50/50 deal went into place.
Eh, I just like to see them squirm every June 1st when they wonder why military members don't have a special month.