Bad egg is getting the headline, but the thinly disguised bad egg wasn't on the field against T&T. More interesting in Arena's excuse barrage was that the pressure "broke" some players. Nagbe an obvious candidate. Gonzales too. Altidore throwing his hands up and stomping away probably indicative of a break mentally.
I still suspect there were profound divisions in the team along political lines. There's a reason why players had been given their opinions in public, that doesn't happen when they don't talk about it in the locker room. Some day it will be known, but a team reflects the country it represents.
It doesn’t matter. Time is up for those players anyway and Bruce is out to pasture. The consequence for losing like that is being remembered for it. It’s done and forever. The young core and the kids that develop is all I care about. We don’t play anybody for two years.
as the most experienced MLS coach in hstory, there's no excuse for not having the right players on the field.....he should know the pool so well that he would make no mistakes with player selection....especially after many games back on the job....he picked rosters and lineups like he was a newbie who was barely familiar with the player pool...which is just baffling to me...... ....no sympathy from me for arena's hackjob.
You mean like pro-Trump vs. anti-Trump, or Republican vs. Democrat? Or do you mean political in the generic sense, pro Jurgen vs anti Jurgen (or Arena)? I guess anything is possible, but I can’t think of the former ever happening in the US, in any sport. In the 1980s a baseball team had a number of pro-Bircher pitchers (Eric Show, Dave Dravecky, and a couple of others IIRC) but they didn’t divide the team. The rest of the guys just thought they were weirdos. I haven’t heard of any NFL teams this year having internal problems due to the anthem protests. That’s why I’m dubious. It’s NEVER happened here that I know of, and I can’t believe such an enormous secret with so many knowing of the secret (how many different players have been in camp in th last year? Well over 30. Throw in coaching staff, administrative staff, it’s gotta be at least 50 people) would stay, well, secret.
that's an interesting question isn't it? I don't know that the John Birch society applies here because it truly was a fringe group and fringe groups tend to be easier to ignore. The anthem protests, of course have been much harder to just ignore and there are very strong feelings on both sides. Definitely seems like there should be potential to tear apart team cohesion. All that being said, I don't remember a time when feelings have been as strong and dividing as they are now with Trump. Right now, both sides are angry. For Trumpies are angry at the "fake news and dems" while against Trumpies are angry about fox news and everything else Trump is associated with. If Hillary were in power, the Trump supporters would still be angry but the Hillary supporters would likely find it easier to ignore them. Still, your point stands as Trump hasn't caused any rifts in other american sports that I am aware of.
It’s not just that, but I just got done re-reading Nixonland, and this didn’t happen in the late 60s either. You may think things are divided now, but 1968-1970 was much much worse. If it didn’t happen then, it would be amazing if it happened now. I know social media makes organizing easier and public dissent/consent easier, but still. There’s just something in the American sports culture that makes such a thing well-nigh impossible. Think back to what Jurgen said about how in Europe, players tried to improve so that they could move to a better team, whereas Americans would sublimate themselves for the team. Something like that.
In trying to save face, Bruce is only entrenching his legacy as a villain in USS. If he'd have only shut up afterward and shown a little accountability then in time maybe he could have been remembered as a combo of good and bad: the guy who both helped us to our best run in the modern WC ever AND the one who helped steer us toward his disqualification. Instead he's going to be known purely as the latter. Somehow he's making Jurgen Klinsmann look classy and humble in the aftermath of his tenure.
The U.S. was not disqualified. Debatable, though, if that would've been preferable to not qualifying.
So when he was hired he said this was the best and deepest American player pool ever. Now he says Pulisic is the only player who could have started for the 02 team and our players essentially aren't good enough and can't handle the pressure of getting a point against T&T. He also famously said we have nothing to learn from Europe yet now says we have a lot to learn to improve the game here...although he also said no changes were needed. Dude's all over the place. And lastly, the chemistry issue and suggestion of bad eggs while pointing to the loafing Michael Bradley as a leader who set the right kind of example, the same guy who couldn't be bothered to put a little hustle into his game with the WC on the line and the same guy who was more than happy to see Pulisic get the shit hacked out of him and do nothing in response. But in general, poor chemistry is a result of something and the elephant in the room once again were his anti-foreigner comments which probably turned a number of players off to him before even playing for him, as well as the pro-MLS preference. Pulisic and Williams have commented on this. For Pulisic to come out and attack it so pointedly suggests the anti-foreigner stance was a real issue in the locker room and within the team. And Arena was largely responsible for it. Arena didn't even care enough about Williams to scout his game and even worse said "well we have others in MLS who play his position". And some might have various opinions on how good Fabian and Chandler are in a NT shirt but they are both clearly top 23 players for us, backups at the least and neither were even called for the last set of matches. Somehow Acosta and Nagbe became regulars yet McKennie couldn't even get a look. Cameron was dropped to go with homeboy Gonzo. We saw his anti-foreigner stance on full display after the CR loss where he cleansed the first XI of any Euro based player outside Pulisic. The result was getting thoroughly outplayed and needing a Bobby Wood miracle at the end to even snatch a point. After failing to qualify he blamed the foreign based players yet again and suggested the GC squad is what he should have went with, a GC squad devoid of all our Euros aside from Miazga....who he nailed to the bench and didn't call for later qualifiers at all. Guy is a figure head for division and then appears clueless to why the chemistry was lacking. The arrogance of a guy who finished last in his WC group in '06 and couldn't even qualify and get a point vs T&T is pitiful to watch but sums up so many of our issues.
Arena needs to take accountability. In the end the buck stopped with him as coach. That said I supported his appointment at the time and looking back still say it was the right thing to do. We were in panic mode and Arnea is the closest thing in the US to a soccer coaching legend.
That's too theoretical and not evidentiary enough. About a year or two before he was actually hired I tentatively advocated for him because he was a counter to Klinsmann's philosophy, his previous success w/ the program, and it being during the cycle where some experience may help. But his last year or two in MLS, and really examining his performances as a prospective boss like Gulati should have, you could really see the decline in his abilities that comes with age even in the coaching profession. Terrible at scouting as his lineups were incredibly old and some of his tactical plans made his teams D.O.A. at times. Ultimately they needed to take a little bit of a risk on an unproven international coach but proven club one like Marsch or Vermes.
So few people want to acknowledge that - it's been my assertion for over a year - certainly not the gutless, politicized soccer press. Bradley is at fault, for he was the captain and the instigator, seemingly more concerned with qualifying for the Preciousness Olympics than with leadership. Claudio Reyna never would have put up with such crap. Never. I'm tempted to challenge your final assertion, yet it's accurate, cogent, resonant. I'm thus almost happy that we didn't qualify.
Arena saying that "Mexico owes us one" was the most embarrassing moment in the history of US soccer. The protagonist becomes a supplicant. Pathetic.
You mean the Reyna who didn't want to be called up and play in the hex games against weaker opponents but grabbed his 10 shirt for the Mexico games? The same guy whose dawdling on the ball knocked us out of an actual World Cup? Come on, lets not rewrite history. Reyna had some of the same faults ... or do you not remember Reyna in 1998 as well? Let's just move on at this point.
They kind of did, but he shouldn't be the one opining that. He was always looking to pass the buck, starting with the 2nd to last camp when there were public complaints about the fan support in New Jersey, before finally turning the attention to the field before the T&T match. To protect his ego which he's demonstrating now is huge, he wanted to set up a situation where they couldn't lose even if they did on the field. That led to the toxic attitude where they could lay down easily. I don't buy that about the political divide. SuperDave made some good points about it. Also, why wasn't it an issue through the middle of last year? The climate was the same. Cameron was in the locker room. Cameron wasn't in the locker room in mid 2015, and the election wasn't going on, when the team embarrassed themselves against Haiti, Panama, Honduras, and Jamaica in the Gold Cup. Then he was in the locker room, but the election was in the primaries, when the team lost by 2 at Guatemala. Just another desperate excuse by Bruce. It wasn't a golden generation, Jurgen killed the depth and some top options by being a league/country snob, Bruce didn't fix it because he thought he didn't have to turn over the roster at all even with the b-team GC at his disposal, the tactics of both managers were incompetent (which I was saying before some of Bruce's club and country matches but I didn't have a bat phone, so he can stuff it), and they both created poor mindsets with Jurgen's public alienations and Bruce's aforementioned culture. It's probably nothing more nor less than those actual documentable reasons.
Ummm.....a New England Revolution defender, supposedly injured, told me at a Colombian-American event in Rhode Island, where there was much dancing involving lateral movement, that Claudio was a tyrant when it came to shutting down political and linguistic shit. I don't have a link. If only Bradley were so tough.
Anyone who knows soccer and has been following our YA for the last couple of years cannot fail to note how poor most of them are. Pulisic is the one guy there who fits a NT aspiring to be a R16 regular. After him, McKennie and Brooks are likely to fit, but nothing certain yet. JAB has been very inconsistent for the NT, Wes is just starting. The rest is a sea of mediocrity. Even Yedlin, Miazga and Cameron are players no team aspiring to a Top 16 showing would start. That people here praise Danny Williams as a lock for us is sad, the guy is a very limited player who belongs more in the Championship. The "best generation ever" talk was a mirage but there was a time in 2014-2015 when it seemed reasonable, with several young guys signing in good academies and others already playing in decent clubs. The former are for the most part still looking for a club to land; the latter have gone down rather than up in their career. We had achieved a lot more before with players just as mediocre, though. And that's where the coaching has failed us, in not imbuing a sense of unity in the team. There must be external factors for that; it's fairly obvious at this point that Cameron was excluded for political reasons, he gave his opinion after others had already given theirs, but he should have kept in mind the makeup of the squad --that Gonzo was given the start over him was symbolic, and it was brutal that it was Gonzo who scored the own goal, no wonder he was trying desperately to score after that, further leaving our defense line open to their counter. Anyway, even I, who have often been critical of the spazzing, fell into the "best generation ever" mantra here. You all were repeating it, don't play innocent now. That the players are mediocre does not excuse the poor tactical setup by the coaches though. And that Arena is washed out and still living in 2006 tactically (something I remarked the moment he got the job, having followed the Galaxy for years) doesn't excuse the poor tactical decisions by Klinsmann. There's a reason why Bruce couldn't sniff a Supporters Shield with the team with the biggest budget, and why Jürgen is not wanted by anyone and is sitting on his couch.
It wasn't the best team ever. I don't think I ever personally said or thought that. They were considerably worse than 2002 and 2010 in terms of high level talent. But what it was, and I think I said at the time, is it was by far the deepest team ever with the least holes. Those previous iterations we were always concerned if just about anybody in the starting xi went down because of the meager alternatives. This pool had them in spades, but they just often weren't used when they were on the roster and instead guys like Zusi, Beasley, and Wondo were. Or they weren't even capped because of the much discussed fact of Jurgen's unwillingness to call up new MLS players to use their talent and give them a bridge to Europe, and Bruce's unwillingness to integrate new guys period because of the excuse he didn't have much tinkering time even though he did have Jan. camp and a full Gold Cup (also had biases, like against Cameron). So outside the middle of Copa America or early in Bruce's tenure when the team had close to their full starting xi, when they did live up to our normal standard and maybe even a little more, they tended to collapse. That just shouldn't have been happening. The level should have been close to maintained. Chalk that up to terrible integration, tactics, and man management of the two managers. Gulati failed miserably in the hiring process both times.
You may be right about Reyna in the locker room. But we didnt lose for those reasons. We were bad on the field. Anything to the contrary is just people trying to cop out for their poor play.
Chandler was truly worthless for us: he just didn't give a damn. Fabian at first played well for us, but by the last couple of years of JK's tenure he mailed it in consistently.. his play with the USMNT being a farcical version of his play in the Bundesliga. Bruce can be faulted for all sorts of arrogant dunderheadedness in last few qualifying matches, but had he relied on the kindness of Fabian and Chandler he would have been a stranger to reason on the order of Jurgen.
Wut?....YOU of all people were overly optimistic? Well I for one never said best generation ever. I did think we had enough to qualify and honestly believe you and I could have coached them into the WC. I doubt either of us would have had Bradley a lock starter or Gonzo even on the team. Football is a weak link sport, and the two weakest links on a team being, in the middle, in front of goal, is a recipe for disaster. Bruce the MLS puppet, USSF and SUM failed us by tying the USMNT fortunes to MLS. Regardless of how mediocre our talent is/was we have enough to get a result against T&T on the road in a do or die game. Disunity, political differences or even screwing each others wives, this loss falls squarely on BA and MLS, and no amount of deflection will ever change that.
So according to this thread nationalist, anti-foreigner Arena allowed his captain to implement a progressive agenda that blacklisted Trump-approving Cameron and replaced him with an American of Mexican descent based in Mexico. Here's an even crazier theory: Arena stuck with the lineup that completely routed Panama. But in the end fatigue plus some fluky luck (in the other games as well) worked against the U.S.