When did club play start mattering? Why don't you rate actual play with the USMNT? What compelling case did Ream make this season to keep his spot? CCV was considered our third CB at the WC and based on play was one of our best two. He has played consistently well over the last 1.5 seasons. I dont see why he isnt considered for one of the starting spots. With Zimmerman finally and rightfully dropping out of the picture, I would think it would be natural to move this guy up the depth chart. Id say from number 3 to 2.5 and based on Richards ascent and Ream's age and drop off, id put Ream and CCV in competition for the second spot.
sample size i didn't say i didn't rate play with the national team...but the sample size tends to be so small relative to club matches that it needs to be given a relatively small weight
That only makes sense for one of those questions. Club didn't matter for our CBs last cycle. If you are dinging CCV for where he plays (basically saying nothing he does there matters), you should at least contemplate the reality of Ream career falling off. Assume you meant sample size with the USMNT. If this is the case, then we are continuing to be hampered by Berhalter's atrocious decisions in the past. CCV's involvement with the team until now has been significantly lower than it should have been based on who we have played. In his limited minutes, I dont recall a poor game and I dont wave away an extremely solid performance at the WC. I wouldn't push Ream aside, but would manage the old man's minutes and make sure to start really testing the next guy in line. I think if that happened, it will be obvious that CCV is ahead of Ream in six months, if not now.
I don't think national team play is irrelevant. I just wouldn't accord it a large weight given the small sample relative to number of club matches where we can assess a player. We need for our assessment to be flexible enough to account for the small number of players who consistently play better for country than club. Even when not receiving much playing time with their club. I wouldn't say anything CCV does is irrelevant. But I do think it should be assessed in the context of the competition he is facing.
The players pushed for Greg. It’s was widely reported. He’s not a great coach and shouldn’t have come back for a second cycle. The players power is what won out.
CCV has also had a number of minor injuries that have kept him out of camps he otherwise would have been in (as Berhalter has called him whenever he’s been available since the summer of 2022 and clearly rates him as one of the top four centerbacks in the pool).
I'm not holding Brooks against you. I think he should totally be considered. Just pointing out some faulty reasoning. Not going to get better with age (though youngers), big mistakes against a weaker opponent, not really getting much more minutes at the club level... To quote/paraphrase you, we've seen his best and it wasn't good enough. And yes, who cares? If you've read my other post, the answer is simply play the best now. Is that Ream? I think so but feel free to disagree. A stinker (though I think you might be part of a minority thinking it was a stinker) 2 years ago has little bearing on today.
two years ago absolutely still factors in today. so do 5 and 6. people act like every camp begins with a blank sheet of paper, an empty roster waiting to be filled in when thats not remotely true. we have a core of roughly 15 players who have been in the picture from well before the last world cup and will be well after the next. there are two smaller pools/profiles of players that fill out rosters- guys genuinely emerging/breaking in (pepi, richards to cardoso, tillman) and old standbys (ie shaq moore and sean johnson, still living off a b-team gold cup five years ago). we have core players from before berhalters start that he completely dismissed before he was forced to use them (weah during qualifying, ccv in the leadup to 22). thats the level of "evaluation" we are talking about- not drastic change to the pool. our pool was, and is, very young but its not as volatile as people make it out to be. our 18-22 yos are our 21-26 yos. the upper end of that- puli, wes, tyler- theyre gonna be there 6 years from now. this idea of constant change is purely fictional. and before any of you want to argue that puli, wes and/or tyler may be pushed out by anything other than an act of god i would just point out this thread is about tim freaking ream.
If your using a game from 2 years ago (much less 5 or 6) to justify a player being on or off a roster, you’re telling me you have nothing since that game to make the same justification? Those games are irrelevant. It’s not a clean slate every camp, but it’s still “what have you done lately”, generally going around 6 months at best.
so youre saying sean johnson play over the last 6 months have earned a spot in the national team? his play? over six months?
I'd note that people were saying this about Tim Ream in 2020 ... two years before that World Cup where he was our lead CB. Of course, Tim himself is even older, and it doesn't look like his great 2-3 run of form is going to return ... but I think it's a good perspective that projecting progression for individuals based on broader trends is an inexact enough science that we shouldn't be picking teams now based on that. Or at least wholly.
I agree with those saying you play who is best and let the chips fall where they may as to age. If a 38-year-old Tim Ream is one of our best 2 center backs, then he should be on the field in 2026. However, I do think some planning ahead makes sense and that we should be working to get other options some games both at the Copa and in the lead up to the World Cup because an older player can absolutely decline rapidly. We don't want to get into a position where we have Tim and Chris playing all the minutes of all the big games but need to make a change down the stretch because suddenly the year running up to the Cup sees Tim sitting on the bench for his club and looking slow and rusty when the US gets together but our other options have barely played with the first team. On more of an overall note about players and age, I do have to wonder if the improvements we've seen in diet and exercise habits will see mor players play effectively longer in time or will the increased physicality of today's game cancel out those potential training benefits in terms of longevity.
Right, it's just a bit of common sense. If someone can help us win now, I'm not assuming he'll be bad in two years because he's old and benching him or leaving him home. But also, plan a bit for the future for sure. That said, we are going to have a decent number of games -- these might be our toughest, but there will be some level of time to work up a partnership. In terms of diet and exercise, I think we've seen a lot of that bump already. We don't have guys smoking at halftime anymore, and while I don't think most soccer players are quite there with the Ronaldos on training ... I think we've seen most of the benefit. Where I do expect some increase is in medicine -- less guys losing years to injury or permanent declines based on it. It's worth noting that some sports have declining on the aging curve due to PED testing. While soccer is probably less benefiting from PEDs than sprint sports (although EPO, cough, cough), a number of these drugs do basically slow the aging. It's not just getting buff; there's a huge benefit to aging players to just hold across athleticism. I have no idea what testing is like, but when baseball started testing more rigorously, the age curve went right back to normal.
He’s saying he would take lots of things as evidence, with more weight in recent things, which is eminently reasonable. You’re the one trying to find The One True Ring or bind them all. One reason I know Berhalter is a better choice than his critics is that for all his faults, GB realizes this is complicated stuff. Multi faceted. People who attack him want to pull out one factor (age, or the league one is in) and make it the single metric. That’s silly.
In part, the wording of the title, and the first post, derailed the topic by asking the wrong question. The only good answer to the actual question is, it depends on how Ream plays going forward. If the first post was Asking what signs to look for in his play to show it’s time to move on, that we could talk about, if the first post was about possible succession plans, that we could talk about. This specific question, as written, set us off in a bad direction.
It’s not much of a leap when everyone was reporting that the players wanted him back and that’s what pushed him over the top for a renewal. It’s fairly clear that he’s back because the core wanted him back. USSF may have had other financial constrains but that would be a leap as it would be tied to speculation around legal fees from the time.
"ambition" yeah ambition to participiate and stay integrated NOT ambition to win championships world cups, copas, etc, imo
Ream’s last hurrah should occur when he is beaten for CB by enough players to merit his exclusion from the roster. If he is 50 years old and beating out the other players, then he should be included. We should have already learned the Ream lessson: never ever ever ever ever ever ever count a player out.
of course, theres a third possibility- with two cbs injured, ream is yet another example of gregg falling ass-backwards into a player he wasnt able to evaluate worth a damn in the first place.