Striker Call-Ups for the Fall

Discussion in 'USA Men' started by gogorath, Aug 16, 2019.

  1. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    JK's getting off to the 'worst start' is misleading. Losing at CR was per usual. And Mexico is the best team in Concacaf.

    W/re to Altidore, others should be given a chance because he is 29 and hasn't gotten it done in the Hex.

    Toye, Morris, and Sapong all have good per 90 minute records at striker. Sargent is making the gameday roster at a B1 team.
     
  2. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    Listen, I think other players should get run ... Sargent in particular. But Toye is mostly coming on as a sub, Morris is playing winger (and is playing that on the USMNT) and Sapong is 30 and on a per minute basis is HALF as productive as Jozy this year.

    My point was that is the idea is that players need to prove it at the club level and be in form ... Jozy is pretty much the ONLY American that would even make the roster.

    And Zardes would actually be pretty close behind.

    I don't subscribe to that idea, but acting like Jozy is starting because the staff is gifting him the spot is kind of a joke. If you are evaluating based on actual performance, absolutely no one has stepped up to stake a claim.
     
  3. LouisZ

    LouisZ Member+

    Oct 14, 2010
    Southern California-USA
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Let me spin it around. Jozy for all of his goals was never successful in a top 4 league, Sargent just needs minutes. There is a reason why Jozy will retire in MLS. Now, Sargent is younger, faster, has more attacking moves, has a better aerial game and probably stronger. What Jozy has over him and others is time at the position. I remember there was a stretch of about 10 months that Jozy didn't score a single goal for club, yet, JK kept giving him a chance to get out of his funk. What other national coaches would select a forward that hasn't scored in 10 months!.

    And your final reality check, do you think Jozy would get any interest from BL teams? not even the bottom dwellers.
     
  4. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    I'm not sure who you are arguing with.

    I'm actually someone who thinks Sargent is better than Jozy right now, minutes or no minutes (and I think Jozy is better than most here, I think).

    I was just responding to someone who put forward an argument that I've seen a lot -- that Jozy and other USMNT players are gifted theor spot and needs to compete for it. And that players need to be playing first team minutes for their club, and be performing -- they've got to be playing well.

    The irony of this statement is that Jozy is just about the only American striker doing that. If you actually believe the above, Berhalter should probably keep calling in not only Jozy, but Zardes!

    These kinds of maxims are great for teams that have multiple choices at top leagues. We're not that. We need to try out alternatives to Jozy, but if we only called in folks getting it done at the club level ... we're in trouble.
     
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  5. zhe fulano

    zhe fulano Member

    Real Madrid
    United States
    Jan 31, 2010
    Florida Keys, USA
    Club:
    Everton FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    McBride did stints at Columbus Crew and then Preston North End before taking the step up to Fulham. Jozy was disappointing in EPL (mostly Hull), fantastic in Holland (AZ_Alkmaar) and then seems to have lost some edge in his Toronto MLS days. Different style players, I know, but my concern is that Jozy may already have peaked while McBride was just getting better at this stage of his career. Even towards the end of his international days, teams had great respect for "Air McBride."

    That said, I'm optimistic enough to believe Jozy can still be a legitimate threat if Berhalter gives him the support from the midfield that he needs for that to happen. But it sure would be nice to see Sargent emerge into the player many believe he can be.
     
  6. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    In his 5 starts at forward, Morris has 4 goals.

    Sapong has 6 goals in 10 starts at forward. He played very well in the Portugal match.

    Toye has 6 goals and 3 assists in 400 minutes of League and Cup action.

    These players have been very productive at the striker position.

    Wood got a shot when he was in the 3rd division. What has Sargent done? Morris got a shot when he was still in college. Lewis got a shot when he was a super-sub for NYFC.

    MLS play gets a foot in the door. These players have done enough to get a foot in the door, given the talent pool.

    Altidore has failed to produce in the Hex. What does continuing with him accomplish? He's a great MLS player. Great. This isn't the MLS forum.
     
  7. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    Does anyone actually read what people are responding to?
     
  8. LouisZ

    LouisZ Member+

    Oct 14, 2010
    Southern California-USA
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Sorry, I didn't mean to respond to you specifically.
     
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  9. rgli13

    rgli13 Member+

    Mar 23, 2005
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    im all for sabbi getting a look, but he plays straight right mid with hobro.
     
  10. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #35 juvechelsea, Aug 22, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2019
    sargent, soto, and jozy for the friendlies. soto needs to be cap tied so he can't go play for chile or whatever. the standard of jozy and zardes at GC was crap. they didn't score a goal in the knockouts. i don't know on what basis we pretend they can score on mexico (didn't last time) or uruguay. who might be capable of that is the kids. jozy is then included as the most potent of the throwback options.

    i don't get "playing to win" with people who don't win or score the first time. and then we create a logical circularity trap that we can only trust the ones we've seen. except, not to interject with practical information, but we played mexico B, they went scoreless, and we lost. and how the 2018 cycle went. you know, this might all be somehow relevant to "dancing with who brung us" all the time, and then dancing poorly.

    at some point people will get that the only way out of our "trap" is finding new options more effective than the frustrating past and present. they are not necessarily going to be the ones we want them to be, but you won't know if you don't try.

    at some point we need to get that you can treat some of these non qualifier games as throwaways to test something other than the same ol same ol that isn't working. every selection doesn't have to be the veteran 23. every game doesn't have to be played with winning as the lead goal. i think that while we have brought in a more continental style passing approach, we have regressed on selecting for the 4 year cycle and not today, and also on the practical coaching and playing to get a result to a whistle.
     
  11. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #36 juvechelsea, Aug 22, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2019
    "Misleading?" You either get the results or not. That's as factual as it gets. I grant historically we lose at CR, but not at home to Mexico. That "flip" alone qualifies us. Even one point and that should have been a tie managed properly.

    Wood and Jozy are actually the two forwards who have scored in qualifiers consistently on good teams.

    But I would go with Soto and Sargent because it's not a qualifier for probably a year and we should plan ahead and experiment. We are becoming a horrifying "status quo" mentality team that wants to pretend it's getting production from the veterans it's not, to keep down its prospects. I could understand if striker was productive and reasonable age. It's a 27 and 29 year old who couldn't score in the knockouts including on the team that beat us that's actually on the schedule. And the tournament is in 3 years. So we are setting ourselves up for a Bruce Arena-special where we either qualify and suck, or don't qualify at all, riding the coattails of 2 old strikers who already aren't good enough. Because youth are scary.

    And then by the time Sargent and Soto are established and deemed worthy, they will be 23 or so and have burned a cycle sitting around so we could delude ourselves once more on Jozy and Gyasi. Ever notice how an Arena team*** is mostly 24-35? So you burn the front part of the careers of the prospects to give the back end of career players an undeserved last lap.

    I am at a loss.

    ***I feel like I am watching a 433 extension of Bruce. We're back to Bradley and Omar and if the ship is going down it's going down with familiar names. Thing being Bruce's best team was 2002 when Beasley and Landon were brought into the team young. His veteran 2006 and 2018 teams were no good.
     
  12. puttputtfc

    puttputtfc Member+

    Sep 7, 1999
    We are becoming or are we already there?
     
  13. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #38 juvechelsea, Aug 22, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2019
    also, one concern i have about our attitude on prospects is why have a U20 team only to tell everyone on it go prove a veteran pro career up before i look at you? whole point to such teams is a pipeline of identified high value prospects you already like. if you instead are going to rely on adult pro league scouting, why bother with a youth system? the idea to U20 is here is a pre-packaged set of youth stars to consider a little more than the next one.

    i know they don't all turn out -- and that seems obsessively part of our outlook now -- but you should be fast tracking the best 5 or so off such teams to at least get a look. and this maintains the career momentum for those players as opposed to leaving it entirely in club hands.

    kicking tires doesn't mean they get into the starting lineup and shown the secret handshake.

    i don't get how you can be the best U20 team in the region over and over and then blow it by senior age teams. i realize it's a percentage game of who turns out but you should be starting that game with a head start and we're ending up 5th when we round up the adults and play. i think at least some of it is treating U20 almost like a pro playpen instead of a bridge. we then assess players more on the pros than on U20 or U23. we don't buy our own system's products. friend of mine is on another Olympic sport's national team. before that she was on the training residency. the idea of the training residency is not producing signable professionals. the idea of the training residency is creating the next wave of national teamers.

    i grant there should be some breakage along the way but that boils down to the basic coaching task of telling richards from dest and keita, pomykal and mendez from durkin, soto and sargent and weah from the others.
     
  14. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    fair enough.

    crazy part is we aren't getting the results to justify the incumbency arrogance. a team that qualifies for Russia and makes the knockouts, and wins GC, can afford to say, "woah, the onus is on you, whippersnapper, to prove your worth to us." i think that's where our approach comes from, is decades of that.

    a team in our spot should have leveled the playing field and be retaining the people who show well on the field each time. regardless of age. if anything, the old guard should be fighting a track record. who cares about "experience" if this is where it gets us? how can you say our best chance at winning is the same people who just lost to Mexico?

    this is the attitude of either a team that thinks it's great, or the sad sacks who go out in the qualifying semis saying "this is as good as I can do" because they don't have much. it's not the proper attitude of a marginal team.
     
  15. LouisZ

    LouisZ Member+

    Oct 14, 2010
    Southern California-USA
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    To me, he looked more like a winger than a true right mid. He uses his speed to unbalance defenses. In his last game, he did come more inside.
     
  16. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    forget where hobro plays him, where does he project at in our system? i mean, what happened to independent judgment?

    what the US needs is players on the right wing capable of creating their own separation and hitting a precise ball in, or a placed shot if open.
     
  17. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    There were vastly easier 'flips' than Mexico.

    Wood, sure. Jozy, not so much.
     
  18. Caulfield

    Caulfield Member

    May 31, 2004
    Club:
    Atlanta
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That would be a shame, because all three of those guys were better players than Jozy-who wouldn’t make anyones top 11 all time US team. Wouldn’t even make my second.
     
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  19. Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood Member+

    Dec 23, 2003
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    No. Not really a shame. What it speaks to is that since 2010, very few of the other forwards in the pool have developed.

    Who are the top 5 ACTIVE goal-scorers for the USMNT.

    Jozy Altidore 42
    Michael Bradley 17
    Christian Pulisic 13
    Bobby Wood 13
    Chris Wondolowski 11

    That tells us the state of USMNT goalscoring. 2nd place is a holding midfielder. 3rd place is a non-forward who's a baby. 4th place is a player that Hamburg couldn't give away this offseason. 5th is Wondo.

    [By the way, I didn't include Beasley there as he's officially retired from the USMNT.]

    Jozy Altidore also currently sits 2nd amongst active USMNT assists leaders. I wonder if people realize that Jozy Altidore has the same number of career assists as Tab Ramos.

    It is sorta odd how a player as influential as Jozy Altidore is treated the way he is by US fans. People do realize Jozy Altidore has a higher goals/game rate than Landon Donovan. Right? Only two players in modern USMNT history have a higher goals/game rate than Jozy Altidore. Dempsey and Pulisic. And Jozy has maintained that goalscoring rate thru 115 caps.

    Jozy Altidore has an extremely high chance to get to the rarified 50 international goals mark. Currently only 57 players have done that in the history of international soccer [including Donovan and Dempsey]

    As folks have said, his career has lacked that signature WC moment. That's it. 2014 was his moment. In his prime and ready to shine. He was in good form heading into it, scoring really nice goals in the pre-tournament friendlies. And then whamo, hamstring injury early in the first game. Such is life, though.
     
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  20. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    Jozy has a nice goal scoring rate. Unfortunately, in competitive matches against decent sides, and on the road in the Hex, his goal scoring has been crappy, actually.

    He has had a nice international career. This is a new cycle. It's time to move on.
     
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  21. puttputtfc

    puttputtfc Member+

    Sep 7, 1999
    It's five years past his moment and prime. It's time to move on.
     
  22. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    You said it was unfair to critique JK for the first two games. I left out how he lost to Guatemala and was already limping through tournaments to 4th place finishes and playoff losses. But the pertinent response was, dos-a-cero memes aside, Mexico at home qualifying has been a consistent win for about 15 years. When that changes you are substandard (relative to the past few coaches) and can't blame the schedule.

    It is fair to say CR at home is usually a win and TnT away is marginal for a tie or rarely a win***. But in terms of JK that's hand-waving. He played the Mexico game and dug the hole. He had 1-1 with minutes left. You tried to make an excuse for JK that doesn't hold water. You're just trying to distract.

    In terms of my other argument, it stands on its own two feet quite fine, thank you. Wood, a forgotten man these days because we imbue club form with too much seriousness, scored on Panama, Mexico, and Honduras in qualification conditions last cycle. But in our infinite wisdom it's more important if he played for his club team last week. Jozy has scored on TnT (2010 cycle), Honduras, Panama, and Jamaica (2014 cycle), and TnT and Panama again last cycle.

    In comparison, Zardes has 1 qualifying goal in his career, against St. Vincent. I didn't know she also played soccer. How versatile and creative a musician.

    Under Gold Cup conditions he does no better, with goals on Cuba and TnT. I find it amusing that he is considered as anything but some mix of subpar or not proven at any higher a level than the prospects he keeps off the field. If you care about demonstrable production history against the right type of teams, that's two guys, and Zardes isn't one of them. And one of them is unfashionable despite being the right age to avoid us chasing qualifying next time behind old farts (Jozy will be 30 next year and Gyasi 28, and by the tournament they'd be 32 and 30).

    ***I think we should do better against TnT away, but the reality is we were starting from a 2-0 home win. The margins on that game were always going to be tight.
     
  23. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #48 juvechelsea, Aug 22, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2019
    Since we're bringing up Wood, it's worth pointing out that is your simple solution to the old and frustrating vs prospective and unproven dilemma. He's about 25 and can do the job well if de-rusted. We used to be in the de-rusting business when club form wasn't elevated this high. There is talent, and then not-talented.

    If we had a brain he would have been camped for the summer, which would have gotten him in shape and sharp. Him and Sargent with Jozy or Zardes as a "slash" who can also play right forward. Pulisic with Arriola as his sub, and then Weah and Boyd make a case for RF along the slashes.

    See, part of the fallacy is narrowing the striker choices, but part of it is also ignoring we have some "strikers" who either are probably better at RF (Zardes) or could play out there just as well (Jozy). You can then carry several "strikers" for experimental purposes and move around the versatile ones if the experiments don't take.

    Or we can pretend Roldan is a swiss army knife, treat Zardes like a striker, and cut the striker prospect. That did not kick the ball down the field one inch. If the idea is we don't know what Wood can do in his funk, or what the kids can do at all, how is that worse than having strikers who can't score the whole knockout round in a regional tournament?

    At least one thing that amuses me is after GC mess we are still talking about the same two veteran forwards. You'd think it would be, ummm, you didn't score after the second game of the tournament, and you had one goal the whole time, and neither of you scored in the knockouts, or against mexico, we're shopping this spot. If the bar is nothing or next to nothing, Wood or the kids wouldn't have to jump high to clear that.
     
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  24. dams

    dams Member+

    United States
    Dec 22, 2018
    Jozy will be a Hall of Famer...but if we actually are going to rely on him to carry us through the next WC cycle at striker we are so screwed. Dude already looks old and slow and it won't get any better two years from now. Bring on the young blood and let them sink or swim. At some point it gets silly to even argue about this stuff.
     
  25. comoesa

    comoesa Member+

    Aug 13, 2010
    Christen Press's armpit
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yep the Jozy slander is ridiculous.
     

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