A healthy Adams, Arriola not away on family leave, and maybe healthy Yedlin effectively keeps Trapp, Baird and Lovitz at home
I'm not sure the site that was used for ranking but I thought I'd take a look to see the highest ranked MLS team. On fivethirtyeight (don't know the site one way or another) I found LAFC ranked at 97. Take it for what it is worth, but that is higher than quite a few teams from B1, Ligue 1 and Serie A. The lowest EPL and la Liga teams were a few places in front (spots 91-94 were all taken by teams from EPL (2), La Liga (1), and Serie A (1). also, fwiw, there are a lot of championship teams in the top 100. Like I said, take it for what it's worth but I did think it interesting. I was quite surprised that LAFC would be ranked so high and I wonder how they can pretend to accurately compare teams from Europe with teams from the Americas. Edit: forgot link.... https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/global-club-soccer-rankings/
My 11 would be... Pulisic———Sarge———Boyd ————Wes——Pomykal—— ——————X——————— Dest—Brooks—-Long—Cannon ——————Steffen————— The X is the question for me. Part of me wants to see Wes there and insert Lletget. The other Morales or Yueil. Just please no Trapp/Roldan.
Roldan had 2 good sub appearances playing outside in about 15 caps. I don't think that's worthy of continuous call-ups when there's other players we could test out at that position. Parks, Hyndman, Holmes, etc. I think we've seen enough at this point. Not to mention Mix, who has been better for the US than Roldan.
for sabbi i would say its strictly that weve seen plenty of our mls based wingers. hes also shown to be a scoring option where others arent (league comparisons aside). im not remotely interested in comparing the strength of mls vs the allsvenskan (if for no reason other than who wants to type that more than once?), but ill give you two factors i give varying weight to. first is simply the competitive stakes (relegation/promotion) mls simply doesnt have (also not an argument im interested just, just noting it as a factor). its inarguable that a sabbi has to push harder to produce every day than baird does. the worst that can happen to baird is getting benched with every opportunity to get back into the team, whereas if sabbi doesnt get the job done that put the team itself in danger of HUGE loss. thats not a matter of apples vs oranges, but a very shot vs very long leash. if i rated the two as equal (which i dont- baird is subpar athletically in mls, much less the nats), thats still a fairly small distinction. but malmo play champions league games, and i dont believe thats a small thing. so gall i would put clearly ahead of a relatively equal mls counterpart. playing at malmo rather than the timbers might not be a deciding factor- but playing against an ajax, a roma, a galarassary (vs whatever mexican team at best) is. and just to nip this in the bud- gall isnt playing a whole lot of anything. im talking gererally why a player in denmark, or the 2 bund should/shouldnt get as much consideration of our domestic players- whichever league you feel is stronger. there really is more nuance to "euro" vs "mls" than a lot of us like to think. its not all "england good, usa bad", and thats a pretty weak ass argument to try to boil it down to.
Gall has scored 1 goal in 9 games this year according to Wiki and Sabi has 5 goals in 29 games in the most recent season. Corey Baird has 4 goals in 25 games. Statistically they aren't that different and again, Baird is playing against better teams week in week out and that includes Malmo's Champions League games last year where they played a Kosovo team, a Hungarian team and a Romanian team. Maybe both are better than Baird but there's no real reason to think they would be playing in a weaker league and scoring at a very similar rate. To me the level of competition matters when it comes to who should be considered for a call up to the National Team. Scandanavian leagues just aren't up to par and if we're honest the 2nd German league really isn't either in the vast majority of cases. MLS is simply a better league and players who can succeed there have a better case to be called in.
I like Hyndman but he's not a regular starter and Holmes is injured. Parks is at least starting but is he really more impressive in MLS than Roldan? I don't think many would agree with that. He probably has more potential but he's not playing better.
Why am I not shocked at all the negativity? We got Dest (and a comment from Berhalter that he can play LB and RB), Sargent, Pomykal and a call-up for the elusive Alfredo Morales! Berhalter called up both Brooks and Morales, so can we confirm he doesn't have a xenophobic hatred of German-Americans? Tyler Boyd is back, so he's not in an unending doghouse. Berhalter even gave hints that Pulisic may play the wing. While I don't care about that, for many of you that should be a big deal! (For me, it was nice to Jesse Gonzalez get called in -- I think he has upside most of our GK don't.) I do think people should be prepared for some disappointment on who plays. It's clear Berhalter values continuity and people who can consistently do what they are asked -- it's a big reason why Zardes gets so much PT. And it's clear he's going to make players earn PT. But folks are in camp with the chance. If Bradley was gone, Trapp was going to be there -- there's no way Berhalter goes into a Mexico game without a player who has played the 6 for him before. Same at striker. With Jozy out, Zardes was coming. It was inevitable. Berhalter isn't the type to take a chance with Sargent and Soto and watch neither of them understand what to do and leave a hole. And Baird ... Baird is here because Weah hurt himself like three days ago and Arriola just pulled out. Baird is close, available, and knows what to do. Don't worry about Baird's long term viability here. As for Jordan Morris ... he's just a better player than you think.
Is the question really is he playing better in MLS than Roldan? Roldan has had his shot with the national team over the past 2 years and has done nothing. If you take a player who's playing just as well as Roldan, what's the harm in trying him out at a similar position? Parks has more potential than Roldan as well. IMO, of course.
Roldan, morris, Arriola and zardes have shown enough to warrant inclusion in camps. They’re not great but they've flashed enough not to have disqualified themselves in my mind. They’re not automatic selections but I don’t complain about them. Most importantly, they aren’t the biggest issues in this roster.
I want to see some of the kid from the Quakes, Yueill. From what I have seen at club level, he has the potential to be the real ball circulator that we haven't had since Reyna. I don't know how good he can be at the international level yet, but I like the system the Earthquakes play, and he is very good in the center of the park for them. He is the kind of experiment I want to see in friendlies at this point in the cycle. A couple of people mentioned Mix. He, like Chandler and Fab Johnson, seem to be in the USMNT doghouse. There is no doubt those 3 could help this squad, but I am not holding my breath for any of them to be called up anytime soon. BTW, I do think with Atlanta, the 2 LA teams and Almyeda's San Jose team, that MLS is getting a lot more interesting to watch. Earthquake games in particular are turning into a shot a minute! Their spacing in attack is outstanding. Their man to man defense is something I haven't seen in a while and it is high intensity/high risk ....... and fun to watch. So was the LA Derby. BTW, Lima plays on the left for San Jose, so I don't know why 3Gs hasn't tried him over there for the nats since that spot has been a black hole for so long. Good to see a couple of new faces for outside back like the kid from Ajax.
I'm pretty sure he'll be back with the group soon enough. Seriously, being left off of one friendly roster isn't a sign of anything……………………. Maybe Berhalter already decided that he's going to start Steffen in both of these games. So no reason to fly Horvath over from Europe. Give some domestic guys a chance to impress in training this time. Next game it'll be somebody else. Not starting games certainly DOES NOT help Horvath's case, though. That's as true for a goalkeeper as it is for a forward.
Jozy should be on the roster. MLS choosing to not respect international windows isn't a good enough reason not to call a player.
Yup. One does expect that Toronto doesn't give a rat's ass about the USMNT, though So there's a balancing act to play. Let domestic players stay there now so that you can ensure their availability for when the games really matter. Its all a negotiation, and the USSF/USMNT does want to maintain good relationships with clubs. TFC presumably talked to the players about this beforehand as well. They don't want to risk alienating players. If this was a younger player that desperately wanted a USMNT look, perhaps the outcome would have been different.
Sure. But clubs request their players not be released during FIFA windows all the time. We typically accommodate those requests when it comes to friendlies. We did call up these TFC players already for an extended period during the Gold Cup. Just like with all clubs, there are discussions going on behind the scenes.
That's it for me too. I put Morales in at "X" and roll it out, but I imagine we'll see Trapp there. I also think we'll see Ream in front of Dest and Morris in front of Boyd.
They can ask away. And we can grant it if we want. I have no prob with that. Vets don’t need to be called in for a money making friendly. Especially when their not on their prime and shouldn’t play a role in the WC or team for that matter going forward. My comment is more so that we don’t need to have some great relationship where we need to concern ourselves with making concessions to the club so we can have the players for important games. Important games are on FIFA dates. Clubs don’t have a say.
I’m looking for the first lineup that doesn’t have Trapp or Bradley as the regista. It would be a huge step if he gave a real runout of several games to an alternative CM pairing/trio. Conversely, if one assumes that Berhalter will always have at least six MLS starters, here’s what I’d go with Obvious major league starters - Pulisic - McKennie - Brooks - steffen - Morales (but probably won’t start) Here’s the MLS contingent 1. CD spot to either Long or Zimmerman 2. RB to either Cannon or Lima 3. CM spot to Pomykal Here’s the stretch 4. Lletget as AM (if pomykal is playing, either Morales or Weston has to sit) 5. Morris as winger 6. Zardes as striker I don’t want to see Trapp, Baird or Lovitz but am interested in Yueill and Robinson.
I think the key additions of the roster are good and that greatly outweighs the bottom of the roster dreck in importance; I don't really care about third stringers who are only going to be play token minutes at best. More important is if guys like Dest, Pomykal and Morales are given good chances. My only real disappointments are Trapp, because he should be a fringe player at best, but seems to be treated as more important than that and our left back options. Hollingshead in particular deserves a call as a left back/utility player. If Dest plays on the left at all though, I'll be happy because we have a lot more depth on the right, especially when Yedlin is healthy.
Somehow I feel a lot of people would have been more positive of this roster if it was only 23 and not 26. Drop Gonzalez, Baird and Lovitz and half the complaints would go away.