The Coming ‘Golden Generation’ Will Not Accomplish What the 2002 Team Accomplished

I have no concerns about the current generation.

The 2002 generation really struggled thru qualifying. For those of us around to watch it happen, anyway. Advanced to the hex by 1 point in the group over Guatemala. In the Hex we only finished 3 points ahead of Honduras for the last WC spot. Squeeked thru. [Honduras lost their last 2 matches. Luckily for us.] Where was this great mentality then? Then they were outplayed in 2.5 group games at the World Cup. Held on for dear life in the second half against Portugal. Friedel saved our butts against South Korea as we were the inferior team that day. Poland blew us out. We were inches away from being eliminated as Portugal was throwing the kitchen sink at South Korea in their last game.

But hey, I get it. If you squeek thru, people think you have a great mentality for some reason.
If you don't...............you don't.

 

Honduras and Costa Rica were very strong that cycle. Honduras finished 3rd in the 2001 Copa America and Costa Rica went 1-1-1 in the World Cup with 2 semi finalists in their bracket and they also won their Copa America bracket over Uruguay. That was the all time best Honduran and US squads, 2nd best ever Costa Rican side and a great Mexican side.

It’s sad for the people to not respect how good some of the concacaf teams have been at times.

If you were picking a World Cup all time team from the US just from modern World Cup performances you probably have the best attacker (Donovan), midfielder (JOB), defender (Sanneh), and keeper (Friedel) performance of all time all in the same tournament. (Unless we are counting 1930…)


But concacaf actually had 4 good teams at that time. All teams that could beat anybody on their day.

 

Fair enough, I would agree with most of that.

I sure hope that there will be some soul searching within the squad because I think there is a lot of fight in the pool, most of them show it week in and week out with their club/club situations.

 

Given all the dysfunction in USSF, I'm not really surprised players simply did the bare minimum to get through games and navigate Berhalter's incompetence.

 

You think that's how professional soccer players work?

 

Does anyone wonder where the player's potential entitlement attitude could come from when there are fans like this basically encouraging/ excusing an entitlement attitude?
Our players do NOT deserve a 'better" coach then Greg. Saying they do puts the players on a pedestal, which they 1 - Do not deserve and 2 - Aren't good enough to be put on. Seriously!! What has any US player done at the club level in the last 3 years to justify some ridiculous attitude that they were a better player than Greg was as a coach?

 

Not sure I would call it entitlement, but an expected response by a group with continued poor leadership.

I am still working on my thesis, but I suspect these young professionals spent the last 5+ years trying to fit into the "culture" the federation pushed on them. They are beginning to talk about how that environment wasnt optimal, but no idea if just figuring out or when they knew. It will take a while to unwire all of this.

This second paragraph is such a bonus. I will answer the the odd question with... they have played at level higher than Berhalter ever came close to playing and his coaching experience is well off that. Being above Berhalter doesn't put a player on a pedestal because Berhalter is as low as it gets. The obvious question which people have been asking since all this started... what has berhalter done to deserve the job or even what does he bring such that he could be successful in the job? There is no sufficient answer. These players are above Berhalter (which says virtually nothing about them). The guy is hack.

 

Undoing what Berhakter and Arena have done will be a big task. It is amazing how much those guys fucjed up outside lines, inside the lines, around the lines, etc.

 

Well said.
That Costa Rica also won the HEX and still holds the all-time points total for a Hex. In the "modern" era, Costa Rica has produced the best Hex team (2002) and the best WC team (2014)
in all of Concacaf.

 

Bet.
Also, speaking of how class Costa Rica was in that era, when our guys played Costa Rica in the Hex there at Arrowhead Stadium in April of 2001, that was hands down the best atmosphere in such a large NFL Stadium that all us fans were able to create up to that time! The Portland home match versus Costa Rica back in the '97 Hex is still my all time #1, it came through on TV so well much less actually being there that day, people still talk about that late golazo from Ramos. A shot that is still traveling! Then of course all those Hex matches versus El Cry in Columbus and all those classic beatdowns they endured. Both Portland and Columbus were smaller venues however, packed no doubt, but nothing like the 45,00 to 50,000 in house that day versus Costa Rica at a massive NFL arena in Kansas City. That 1-0 win over the Ticos at Arrowhead had a sold out lower bowl and folks in the second Tier as well. Just incredible home support for our boys that night!!!
The tailgating was top notch, well done by the K.C. folks. Dudes from Minnesota drove down and brought white somkerz with them. After that Wolff goal very late on to seal the 3 points, us standing under the giant Sam's Army U.S.A. flag, everyone going nuts, we pulled pins and it was the first time our guys had some of that soccer smoke love! Jack Edwards with the commentary on it.

 

Berhalter did start a WC quarterfinal, which is beyond any of our current squad, as well as captaining a BL side. It isn’t like he was some slouch who never played the game. At the same time, past playing experience isn’t a consistent indicator of managerial capability. But at an international level, he definitely had experience on par with the guys he was coaching for the US

 

IMO... we're lucky we don't have to qualify.

 

I always felt like Portugal had a melt down the game prior, got sent off, and South Korea beat them (and sent us through) after blowing a million chances w/one of the harder chances. So that was one Euro Finalist pissed about a legit Red Card. Italy had kind of 50/50 to 40/60 kind of calls that went South Korea's way and were either toss ups, or slightly beneficial to them (to me anyway). Then the Spain game happened, and that was patently obvious total bull----. That was the one that got people to toss in the Italy match, and the Portugal match with it, and then the ref turned out to be the South American Coke Mule when he got caught moving the stuff in, I think NY and that made Italy even more pissed.

But honestly, I always felt the only game they clearly and emphatically benefited from ref stupidity and/or intimidation was the Spain game. The Italy game is just not at the same "certain screw job" level as say, the Frings incident against Germany, or Spain getting jobbed, or the 3 yellow card Croatia game 4 years later.

 

It wasn't really a European low point, it was more in keeping with the tradition of European powers sucking whenever they had to travel. It happened in '02, to a lesser degree in '10, and to a much heavier degree in '14. In '22 it seemed to effect teams equally because it was in Winter, so there wasn't as much weirdness (although Morocco making the semi's was weird).

Anytime the WC's in Europe, you see European domination: happened in '18, '06, '98, '90, '82 etc, like clockwork. The Europe vs not Europe is a real thing, and when you add what happened in '02: where it's after a long, long Europe Club season, it kicks off unusually early for a WC (I think early in the first week of June), and then you have multiple European powers with preexisting problems (France and I believe England were hit with injuries), no Zidane etc....then you have legit African powers that went, the best US team ever, if not the best Mexico, one of the best Mexico's etc...it was a recipe for a traditional UEFA let down, made worse by the relative strength of the outside powers. The truth is, if multiple non-UEFA powers hadn't knocked eachother out, it might have been even weirder (USA knocks out Mexico, Turkey knocks out Senegal etc). and then you have the bs too: the us gets hosed against Germany for instance.

What I'm wondering is if the US will be weird or not in '26. It wasn't that weird in '94 other than the non-UEFA powers making runs (Sweden, Romania, Bulgaria), but the heat and humidity in the US could really prove absolutely brutal in the WC unless they play the games really early and really late in the day. That could just prove super punishing to cold weather nations in Europe. So it's really interesting to think about, and w/the format change, youre gonna see some teams from CAF making it that are more athletically dangerous than the defense first North African teams. Otoh, Nigeria has ---- their pants so thoroughly in qualifying, they may not even make it to a playoff, let alone grab a ticket. CAF is looking really, really odd right now.
Otoh, a lot can change with the '25 windows really fast, so for the weirder stuff (Nigeria 1 point above dead last, Senegal trailing Sudan, Ghana tied with Comoros) probably will sort itself out when they start kicking the ball around again, but still, Nigeria has dropped some seriously idiotic points at home, and 3 of the 4 teams ahead of them (Rwanda, South Africa, Benin and even Lesotho) have reasonable paths to staying ahead of them, that I find inexplicable w/all their talent. Anyway, we'll see. We are only in the the first 1/3 to 1/2 of qualification in many regions and some have barely even started, so a lot can happen in the next year.

 

Damn.

 

To you guys who wanted to get he's literally the 2nd best option. You will ahve fire or not be playing.

 

Hold on a minute. Berhalter was a club captain in the German second division, never in the Bundesliga. He did play one season at that level, but only as a part-time starter on a last-place team.

 

Yup. He was 2nd division at the time of the 2002 World Cup. He played decent. But he picked up a second yellow card against Germany and would have been ineligible for the next game. (At that time yellows weren't erased after group play)

 

The 2002 guys were pretty veteran group.
The starting lineup and ages from the opening match against Portugal--

Agoos(34)
Hejduk(27)
Mastoeni(25)
Pope(28)
Sanneh(30)
Beasley(20)
Donovan(20)
O'Brien(24)
McBride(29)
Steward(33)

US could have a similar age structure by 2030. The 2002 group is more comparable to the 2014 bunch, a similarly veteran heavy group in the starting lineup.

 

Yeah, he he was a "slouch" as a player and apparently lower as a coach. He was always a fringe player on the USMNT.... maybe that is why he loved those MLS lifers so much???

 

Indeed. We had the 2nd youngest squad at the 2022WC.

History will judge this current generation on the 2026WC, when many of the core players are in their primes. Maybe we'll have a new generation by 2030, but who the hell knows.

This current generation of players did lift four CONCACAF trophies (2021, 2023, 2024 Nations League and 2021 Gold Cup). These types of trophies weren't easy for previous generations. How many regional trophies did Eddie Pope win in his whole career with the USMNT? One. 2005 Gold Cup. They didn't have the Nations League, of course. Nevertheless, my point is that there were people on these boards who forgot to celebrate these regional trophies due to some insane anger about Berhalter and interims. As if they meant nothing and were a given.

How many trophies did Claudio Reyna ever lift with the USMNT?
Serious question that people should think about.

So when people say "this generation won't achieve what previous generations did"..................I do think there's some sort of nostalgia for a time that didn't actually exist.

Yes, the 2002 group scratched thru qualifying, got incredibly lucky in the group phase after getting their doors blown off by Poland, and then beat Mexico in the round of 16. That round of 16 opponent wasn't Belgium of 2014 or Holland of 2022. For Pete's sake, that Belgium team was friggin' loaded.

 

Gold Cup has a lot less meaning after the discontinuation of the Confederations Cup.