Review: Start criticizing and holding players accountable

It's an old saying, but still true. Soccer is a player's game. Kilnsmann, Bradley, whoever... We're not anywhere near as good as Argentina. No coach is going to change this. That's the funny part about the whole Klinsmann kerfuffle. Of course, Klinsmann hasn't come in and suddenly made the US world beaters. No coach would. He's gotten results pretty close to what other coaches have gotten because that's where we are with the players we have. Maybe a good coaching job beats a team a spot or two above you. Maybe a great coaching job along with a few of your players having the games of their lives occasionally lets a middling team beat one of the real heavyweights on an off day. But, no matter who is in charge, the US does not beat Argentina if they're having a good day. That's a simple fact that has 100% to do with their having guys on their bench better than anyone in a US jersey. They had Sergio Aguero and Angel DiMaria on their bench. We can get petty about which mediocre players whoever is in charge should trot out there or not, but the differences are negligible compared to the differences between the squads of top teams and the US squad regardless who you select.

So yeah, I can get behind criticizing the players instead of the coach if you want to talk about why we continue to lose these games. But, I also think it's kind of silly to think if we bitch more on the internet our players are going to someone magically transform. I always go back to the whole lack of a soccer focused culture thing, frankly. We start caring more as a country about soccer and we'll get better. We care more now than we did decades ago and we're better than we were decades ago. But it is a slow process and we're still not there. We may never get there.

We are what we are and have been for a while, a solid team, top 20-30, World Cup regular who will likely continue to get out of their group more than not, who can spring an upset on a good day. I love watching and rooting for this team. But, we are not contenders and it's because of the coach, it's because we don't have the players.

 

No one stepped up for JJ because JK kept bad experiments. Was DWill or Mix at DM a good experiment?? No!! It was an idea doomed to fail just like using Rasta in the GC and earlier this week. We still don't know if Nagbe can fill that role because he wasn't given the chance. This is what I mean!!

As for Zardes, again I underline the fact the regardless of form, he gets to play so those numbers are misleading. After the GC there was Zardes after Con Fed and trouble in qualifying there he was.

JK has afforded certain players the luxury of bad games while others are played out of position then forgotten about when they don't perform out of position.

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I made my earlier comment on the topic and it was ignored. Like most conversations things evolve. Vexco defended Zardes, I disagreed and it lead to why he was on the team.

As to your first point, JK has chosen guys who are past it but alleged provide defense. Like Rasta and Wondo. If his whole idea is about guys who can defend then why carry Bradley? Why is Kitchen glued to the bench and so on.

It is Chicken or the Egg. Should the players get more heat yes. But should those players be out there in the first place? No. Also as pointed out, the players and coach are unapologetic about their performance!! Shouldn't they be contrite or is that the fans job too?

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Players who contribute are afforded the luxury of having a couple of bad games. No one has contributed as much as Zardes recently outside of Clint. Absolutely no one.

You sidestepped the question. I'm asking you who do you think can replace JJ. JJ is an athletic freak who runs all day, can tackle and can spray the ball around all over the field. Nagbe is not that type of player. Nagbe is a possession oriented mid who I'm HAPPY to have on the team and wish he would start but he's not a JJ replacement. We just don't have that player in the pool right now. I do think Danny Williams COULD be that type of player if JK plays him ahead of Bradley instead of at dmid but we'll see if that actually happens.

 

I'm sure this has been replied to already, but confusing youth team accomplishments with producing players who can make a significant contribution in the future are two different things.

The issue with your optimism now vs your 20's is all about your views on things and nothing to do with the players. Players I have been the most excited about that I have seen play a youth international game for us are Keller, Reyna, Donovan, Beasley, Wynne, Feilhaber, Gaven, Adu, Altidore, convey, Johnson, Agudelo (it became much easier to see after 2000). I could easily come up with 12 players under 23 right now I'd we willing to take over each of those players.

 

please do.

 

Well said. We weren't horrible when we lost to Colombia, great after the three wins, and horrible now. We are slowly getting better and hopefully make a real jump in next five or ten years, which is very well possible with the youth coming through.

 

Part of the problem is that not many players have been given the number of opportunities that Zardes has, especially in terms of looking for someone to fill the Beckerman role.

As for Jones, I agree with you - we don't have anyone in the pool who can replace him. So the question then becomes, what do we do if he's injured or suspended, especially since you know he's an intense player who sometimes lets his emotions get the best of him. You know, like assaulting a referee for not giving his team a call. Any intelligent coach works on figuring out what to do if he's not there, because you can't rely on him.

 

It's already been done in this thread. Quickly off the top of my head...

GK: Horvath, Steffen (Keller)
D: Brooks, Yedlin, Miazga, CCV, EPB (Wynne)
M: Hyndman, zelalem (Reyna)
W/AM: Pulisic, Akale, Perez, de la Torre (Donovan, Beasley, Convey, Gaven)
F: Morris, Rubin, Wright (Altidore, Johnson, Agudelo)

I think each of these players are ahead of where the equivalent player was and/or has potential to have more successful careers, with the only exception being the forwards.

 

That's the thing, though. We've had lots of players in camps that people keep saying were ignored or aren't given chances. Feilhaber, Nguyen, Finlay, Tchani, whoever but it's not really anyone's fault but theirs if they failed to impress in camp. Zardes took his chance and ran with it. Maybe we need an up-and-coming midfielder to do the same.

 

Oh come the ******** on. JK plays Nguyen wide right and then drops him? Or Mix at DM same for DWill. You live in a world where these guys got fair breaks!?!

How many bad games has Zardes been allowed to have while others haven't. Rasta had a whole bad GC but was called back for CA, while Kitchen and Trapp are sitting and watching from the bench or at home.

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You win, I am tapping out. I see what others are driving at. You guys won't even yield that their is a bias by the coach which has helped cause this situation. 2019 can't get here soon enough

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Trapp was run off the field against Colombia's u23's, he doesn't deserve to be there. Dwill has been played at multiple positions and so has Mix. So has Nguyen, for that matter. I think DWill will eventually play a big part in this cycle.

 

Out of all our wunderkinds, only Beasley and Donovan panned out in the end.

 

Wood replaced Jozy in the lineup and the different things Wood brought to the team helped us. The US's best performance ever featured a squad with two 8's more in line with what Nagbe brings than what Jones brings. The small minded insistence on a certain set of uniform qualities is a hallmark of this regime. Heck, that kind of thinking is what led to Findley starting all those WC games in 2010 as the Davies replacement.

Nagbe doesn't get stuck in or play macho mind games. Jones doesn't pick his passes well and isn't creative in the final third. Criticize them all you want for what they don't bring, it's not likely to change much at this point, but don't forget what they do bring.

 

I understand what both bring but Jones might be our most important player right now. Jones does try more high-risk passes than the rest of the team but it's something I do wish some of our other players did at times. Our best performance ever probably had a prime Donovan and prime Dempsey as well, though, so it's not really apples-to-apples. I feel like if you replace Jones with Nagbe then we don't have a midfielder with that defensive bite at all since Bradley is pretty soft.

 

I am gonna quote this from another poster on the game thread, because it is good point.

If you take it a step further every member of our U-20 team in 2015 was the first group that will have been born into an America with a top level pro soccer league. It is a sign of how far we have come and how far we have to go. Think about that when you think about player development.

 

Vexco that is the problem. Bradley and Jones need to go. Bradley is out of form. We need to look at GC at DM since we have depth at CB in Besler, Ream and etc. I would look at Dax but he plays in a double pivot at NYRB and the USA uses as single but he deserves a look. Also there is Kitchen and Trapp. To replace JJ, you have Kjlestan and DWill then to replace Bedoya, I would look at Nagbe. I also think Finlay could work just as hard as Zardes. He has made his midfield too comfortable.

 

Zardes was run off the field quite a few times before he started producing. Wondo got a ton of chances and didn't start producing even against CONCACAF minnows until more than a dozen caps in. Wood was awful in his first five or six caps. Why does one bad game kill Trapp's chances?

 

As the person who posted that, I'd add: the MLS academies are also much newer than people realize, and most of the HGP signings so far have not been true academy products as they entered the academies when the youngest age group in them was U-16. MLS only began to require U-14 academy teams in 2012. MLS's very first cohort of U-14 academy players are still 16-17 years old right now, and players who have been in any younger age groups that exist in MLS academies are not even old enough for the U-17 national team.

Also, as recently as 10 years ago, there were still players being drafted into MLS who had never seen a professional match before.

 

When you try to instill chaos, Jones is your most important player.

 

Here is Donovan's retort to your clearly uninformed post:

Which U.S. players have impressed you the most in this tournament?
“John Brooks was a little bit of a revelation in that I haven’t seen him play a ton. He looks like he has matured so much in the way he handles himself and carries himself. That was nice to see. The way Jermaine [Jones] and Clint [Dempsey] still perform for this team is really impressive. It’s hard to get to the top and stay at the top, and when people are constantly saying, ‘Jermaine is past it, Clint is past it. They shouldn’t be part of this team. We need young blood,’ they were the two guys, more than any other, who led them on this run. It makes me think they absolutely have to be part of the team going forward.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...donovan/?postshare=3701466805828855&tid=ss_tw