The big margins were one of the weirdest things about that campaign. In both the semifinal round and the Hex, the team had a real Jekyll-and-Hyde quality to it. It was mostly the same players who handed Honduras their worst loss in over 90 years and lost to what mostly amounted to a T&T U-23 team.
I think that an underreported aspect of this failure was that the relationship between the players and fans had deteriorated from what used to be one of unity and support to one of petulant criticism over player choices. That stuff can effect players in these kinds of situations where the players don’t necessarily make their money; where they sacrifice to be a part of it. Who wants to entertain a bunch of bitchy knowitalls?
CONCACAF was a shambles after 2014 and only Mexico kept playing at a decent level. And even they had their hiccups, like the loss to Jamaica in GC17 semis (although that was a Liga MX team, except for Cubo from MLS) and their demolition in the Copa quarters by Chile. We had a surprisingly good game beating a highly-ranked Ecuador in Copa, but it was an aging team already showing signs of rot (for the 2018 cycle they finished only above hapless Bolivia and crisis-ravaged Venezuela in the C-BOL quals). This cycle we have a Caribbean push with Jamaica looking dangerous, and Canada having some good players. Overall I don't think C-CAF has recovered though: I'd only expect Mexico to survive their group in Qatar, and even that is going to depend on what group they get.
Jamaica is looking dangerous but then so is Haiti believe it or not and can't forget about Canada especially Canada with them coming now into a golden generation
Haiti and Curaçao are playing some nice soccer of late, but they're still far from being contenders to go to Qatar. Teams like Jamaica, Panama, Honduras and Costa Rica are going to be trouble for us, but in the grand scheme of things, if they go, they'd be fighting for #32.
Luck and injuries is such a huge factor in a WC. The 2010 could realistically have gotten to the semis if we had Holden, Davies and Jones.
We just had a 21 year score again in the premier league. He is REALLY good. As of right now, he's Chelsea's 2nd leading scorer this season. Worth noting he's scored 7 goals and has only had 13 starts. This is the caliber of player we currently have in the USMNT. And yet..................the inferiority complex, the negativity, the pessimism persit. Pulisic's second goal in as many games has us in front at half-time! 👏#CHEMCI pic.twitter.com/JxoyAC2fOa— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) June 25, 2020
Well, his goal/game rate with the USMNT is higher RIGHT NOW than Dempsey, Donovan, and McBride for their careers. Pulisic hasn't been the problem with the USMNT. He's one of the few that we can say isn't the problem. He also has the best tattoo on the USMNT at the moment. Remember when folks were worrying about him choosing to represent Croatia?
Yep, Puli is very good, Adams is good, and Reyna has the potential to be very good, and Dest to be good. That's four players who wouldn't be out of place in a World Cup R16 match. It's a good start. LB, CB pair, keeper, striker. Those are the tough areas.
Shrug. Sometimes the most talented players don't make the best captains. Donovan says he admittedly struggled in the role for the US. Dempsey didn't seem to enjoy it either. Sometimes you want the flair players to be free from that responsibility. The best captain the USMNT has had in recent years was Carlos Bocanegra, who was nowhere near our best player (although a Premier League caliber player). In terms of the U23s and leadership......................McKennie and Adams are probably ahead of Pulisic. McKennie has been a captain at every team he's played on. He actually captained the USMNT at the 2019 Gold Cup final. At the start of this club season he was reportedly in the running to be named Schalke captain. https://en.as.com/en/2019/07/13/football/1562984351_416015.html I'm also a big fan of Reggie Cannon's leadership abilities that I see at FCD. We'll see how his club career progresses as he's likely to move to Europe at some point soon. He's got significant competition at RB in order to be a full-time starter for the USMNT (Dest, Yedlin, etc.) Based on our situation at the #6 position, a player like Adams seems destined to be a key component for the USMNT for quite a while. I hesitate to say Adams is the "next" American player to really move up into that real upper echelon where Davies and Pulisic are. I say that because he's already at a Bundesliga Champions League club. I just see him as the type of talent that could move to a top, top club within 3 years. He's gotta stay healthy as a starting point, because he missed a lot of this year. Its why this whole thread makes no sense. I see no reason to think this group of American players can't accomplish what previous groups did. We just need some patience. They're still young. Same with Canada and Davies/David and friends. Patience is required. You can't snap your fingers and be World Cup quarterfinalists.
They're on their way to forging better careers at far bigger clubs so that's a plus. Again in 2002, there was a lot of luck for the US and some bad luck. It was 5 games. Our current guys just need some luck in additon to their talent and I can easily ser them getting us to the QF (if managed properly).
Or Brooks they could decide to give it to him because of the fact that he is a veteran of that 2014 squad
I would say that folks sometimes underestimate the quality of players on that 2002 team. There were 11 guys on that roster in the Premier League, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, and the Eredevisie at the time. John O'Brien was AWESOME. Landon Donovan has said that he was the most talented player he ever played with on the USMNT. And that didn't include the youngest players on that roster.....................Donovan & Beasley. Or the best #9 in our history, Brian Mcbride, who would start his Premier League success shortly thereafter. Yes................this 2022 group has a CHANCE to overtake the 2002 group. But they haven't done it yet. Steven Cherundolo played 423 games in Germany. Tyler Adams has played 26. Probably the most important component of that 2002 team was that we had two Premier League keepers. Friedel and Keller (who was at Spurs at the time). In that early-to-mid 2000s era our goalkeeping was a huge reason why we got results that we maybe shouldn't have. We took it for granted, and thought it would continue forever. It didn't, and was a big problem for us in the 2018 cycle. Guzan was a "good" keeper, but not one that made the difference between winning and losing. And it should be noted that our goalkeeping well seems really dry right now. Steffen is about it, and he's suffered a string of injuries. Horvath is #2 I guess, but never plays. We'll see where he goes this summer. If you ask me who our U23 Olympic keeper is going to be, I have no idea. Our CONCACAF U23 championshs roster had Matt Freese of the Union, Marcinkowski of San Jose, and 19 year old David Ochoa of RSL. Maybe David Ochoa will develop into a great keeper.. Other keepers called up to U23 camps were Andrew Thomas of Stanford, Drake Callender of Cal, and Brady Scott of Koln. At one point I had hopes for Brady Scott, but this years he's only played 11 games in the German 4th tier. Its an uncomfortable reality that our goalkeeping situation right now is a real problem. We have some prospects we like at the U20 and youth levels, but they're pretty far from being USMNT possibilities.
The number of people you've said should be the US captain is now longer than a 23 man roster at this point. I don't get people's obsession with the captaincy anyway, but this is kind of silly.
Goalkeeping has been such a strength for the USMNT but now I would say it is a weakness but you guys make up for it in other areas
Its not really our biggest weakness, but it hasn't been a strength either. I mean, Brad Guzan was a premier league goalkeeper last cycle (he's since returned to MLS of course). Zack Steffen isn't chopped liver. He's a 25 year old Bundesliga starter (on loan from Manchester City.) He's the best young keeper I think we've had since Tim Howard. But its "too be determined" how his development will go. Having an elite goalkeeper can make a couple of saves each game that make the difference between winning and losing. Folks can watch the 2002 World Cup and Brad Friedel as exhibit A. We've had two goalkeepers finish in the top 10 in the IFFHS Goalkeeper of the Year voting. That's not a pro-US organization. So we can say that we've had goalkeepers that for at least one season were recognized as one of the 10 best keepers in the world. Friedel finished as high as 6th in that voting. Howard as high as 8th (2003 when he was the PFA keeper of the year in the premier league). Both Friedel and Howard were voted in multiple times. It's been a decade, though. THe last time we had an American keeper finished in the top ten in the voting was 2010.....................when Tim Howard finished 10th after his fabulous WC performance. [By the way, Keylor Navas of Costa Rica finished 3rd in 2017 and 4th in 2018.]
Really? Keeper, sure. A good keeper can save you while a bad keeper can kill you. However, the defensive line is an area which has less variance in talent. The most that you can say is that a great defense can keep you in the game so that you can steal a point. Striker is a little more important and they can certainly vary more in talent. But, it's the midfield which separates the great teams from the rest both defensively and offensively. With McKennie looking like he's jumped up a level after the quarantine I am feeling much better. If Anderson, Pomykal et al keep developing then we are looking at excellent cover as well.
I belong to the school of thought that in soccer, you build from the back forward. If your defense is weak, you'll have to pull midfielders back to help, and that isolates the forwards. In the modern game, fullbacks are more attacking players than defensive ones, so teams often have a defensive square in front of the keeper: two CBs, a DM, and a second DM/defensive CM (or even one of the fullbacks coming to help near the midddle). Our best CBs are Brooks, a guy who is great on the air but cannot mark a dribbler; Miazga, a guy who can often mistime his runs; Long, who is not exactly top level in distribution and as a tackler only MLS quality; and everybody else is not international grade. So you're going to have two CBs with glaring weaknesses protected by a single guy (Adams) because we're going to need Wes more in transition and connecting defense with attack. Probably good enough for CONCACAF, but we're going to have trouble beyond.