baird is on there because we are taking far too seriously the notions of "system," "Zardes is a striker," and "we need a specialist right wing." otherwise 4G 3A so far in MLS is pitiful, and he has zero history of converting something hidden for the NT either. joke selection. odd obsession and there are several other options, either older players who can play different places, or kids who deserve as much a look. this is really not complicated. Pulisic and Arriola wide left, two out of Wood/Sargent/Soto central, two out of Zardes/Jozy/Boyd for wide right. Pulisic, Zardes, and Jozy can all double as central strikers. way it was instead done, i assume one or more of Morris/Boyd/Baird will also/instead play left as a sub for Pulisic.
why do people act like sargent is unproven? he has 2 goals for the NT in 7 caps, both nice and not of the deflection-off-face variety. the deal is those were under the interim and GB pretends like they never happened. that's not factual. now, i could understand a more parsed argument like, well, we don't know about mexico. but if you wanted proven mexico-bashers where are jozy and wood? because beyond them it's like zardes' high water mark in terms of qualifying goals is something like st. vincent. save christian, jozy, and wood, most of the choices with some NT goals have a lot to prove in terms of who they can be effective against. like i've been saying, it's a bruce-arena-type mentality where you prove yourself as a pro and then come back for your NT chance. i think that's kind of goofy when some of the veterans have had limited success themselves and would solely be riding the fact they have found their club ball happy place. it's why despite a talent boom in U23 and down we have mostly 24 and over age players.
I'll take a short but solid resume over someone who has only proven to be poor any day. But relax, he's there. And really, with a game in St. Louis I don't think it was ever really a question.
it's almost like he can't do a call sheet without about a half dozen glitches. i'll be like that works and this works and then there'll be a corey baird, and several of the mids and backs. corey baird in particular that's like how long do you perseverate about some camp cupcake idea that has never worked.
i am a big fan of strike rate as a stat. if you look at weah and sargent, both have NT goals from last year plus a decent strike rate when used. weah is like down near a goal every 100 club minutes and sargent around 200. that suggests the problem is not form but simply getting them on the field. which we can do if PSG/Celtic/Lille/Werder won't. the odds are then decent that given a game or two you get a goal. we need to learn to distinguish between out of use and out of actual form. to be fair, that would not help bobby wood because he is simply slumped, goal every 400'. but that wanders into the role of the NT and its coach, whether it's an all star team for form players, or instead the team for the best talents. a place where we might sometimes "reclaim" some talented players being mistreated by their clubs, because they are perceived as, on their game, better than the next guy. (it's oddly passive to let club coaches and form dictate value to us, can't you have your own talent opinion???) before people dismiss it, we used to ride out a jozy or dempsey slump when they made a bad transfer move. it recognizes the player didn't suddenly change just because the club coach benched them. i kind of felt like we were doing that for pulisic last year. i watched dortmund's games and he became an irregular bit player. but in that case we trusted we knew what we had. to be fair2, weah is hurt, and sargent included, but i'm talking about this summer too, as well as some of the odd, baird-type decisions. are you telling me there is no nova or amon or sabbi we can try? or that we wouldn't be better off just moving Zardes back where he belongs? heck, jozy used to play out there. are we really saying he is the best wing option left after selections and injury? impossible. kind of like before i'd ever bother with zardes central i'd move pulisic to striker. the idea is not to be cute but to put 3 effective strikers on the field.
I think not judging strikers on goals is criminal or comical, take your pick. But, I also think the sample size is too small to make too much out of it with Weah and Sargent. I'd still take them as attackers over just about anyone in the pool not named Pulisic, but it's not because of stats. Maybe Jozy would edge them out for the moment, but that moment isn't likely to last long.
"sample size?" sargent got 7 caps and 2 goals. weah 8 games and 1 goal. besides, my premise is try people out and then put the ones who keep producing back out there. if they have scored and looked decent to complain about the sample size nullifies the value of the games. "well, still not enough games to really know." we don't play 25 games like the women. it takes most of the cycle to make a statistician happy. we don't have that long. a further irony is that someone like zardes would surely have sample size but then have a much lower goal scoring rate. zardes scores a goal every 5 games. that's not good stand alone. that compares poorly to historical options at forward since 1990. but does he get a pass as a "regular?" it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling mechanism that protects the incumbents no matter how they do. could almost be seen as an excuse to keep out younger options. personally i think it's absurd to weed out the kids on "track record" or "form" but then not hold jozy and zardes accountable to zero goals in the gold cup knockouts, because their "sample size" is bigger.
half the midfield is a mess, at least. and by virtue of 2 games some of them will see significant time. roldan. trapp. yueill. morales i have said give his shot, although i think he's been anonymous in the caps given. i think that will prove a waste as well, though it's less of a usual suspects pick that is laughable on its face. but it's like there was no green/gall/holmes/mendez/saief/etc. we could try? i thought those mid picks were as bad as the ones you're mentioning. i just didn't want to harp on it on a striker thread. it blows my mind because i think if you put together the Gold Cup defense with a more turbo charged offense -- and i think we have plenty of talent even if not a bunch of world class guys -- we should compete with anyone in the region. top 2 team easy. but you have to call the right people first. his choices are so goofy and the thing will be that it will be LoN and the straight to Hex qualifying. you are not going to get the early warning signs like last time in Guatemala. you're going to jump in the deep end and if it's misguided we will be rapidly put in the same situation as last time with less chance to react since the pattern will be less obvious. i hope this is a short fuse because the short qualifying run will quickly show this is either genius or has put us in a world of trouble.
Sabbi got a broken nose. He wasn't going to make it for this one. The player I was hoping to see for this one is Cappis. I like that kid.
Baird is clearly there because two wingers have opted out in the last four days. There's no reason to get worked up over it. Especially if, as Berhalter hinted, we may see Pulisic on the wing at some point this break. Sargent, Pulisic, McKennie, Weah, Pomykal. Cannon, Dest and Miles Robinson are all 23 or younger and most of them are 20 and younger. Weah and Adams are not here because of injury. Can we not act like Berhalter is afraid of youth? Just because the coach wants some experience and cohesion ... do people really think any coach in the world would roll out a U23 roster or something?