The ultimate first world problem: who do you start….. adams or johnny and why

Well, here's the thing: keeper is the most impactful position on the field. If Jedi Robinson is X amount better than "anyone can play LB" and Tim Howard is the same amount better than Matt Turner ... the impact of the latter difference is significantly higher in terms of winning or losing.

And it's not just keeper. There are other positions -- CB2 for example (or, dare I say it, CB1?).

There are other positions where the current position has an advantage at the top end -- say Balogun over Jozy, probably, but it isn't a ton. But if Balogun is injured, the gap is merely depth? RB is actually a lot closer than anyone would want to admit, and if Dest is injured ... well, it's a freaking landslide for the old days.

Clint, Donovan and Bradley are all going to hold their own. If their counterparts have edges, they aren't huge.

Some of this definitely is that our group seems to be unusually fragile. So many injuries.

Last cycle, the team had what I would say were expected results and everyone blamed the coaching staff. Now we have a new coaching staff, and the results are no better (and cycle for cycle, worse).

Is it the coach again? Or perhaps the relative evaluation of talent is missing something.

 

I think the talent pool is far deeper than it has ever been and I expect it to get even deeper over the next decade... But all the talent in the world is not going to win you games consistently against good Intl Competition if the players are not leaving it all out on the field. And that will to give everything for the crest has been missing since the WC. No one is going to say that our talent approaches a country like Argentina... but I think they won the WC and Copa because their players go into beast mode and hustle for every ball for their NT. In short... even with all that talent they are willing to win no matter how it looks on TV. I also think that a lot of the talent increase we have witnessed from our pool has been from a technical perspective.... and less so from a physical one. We really don't have many (if any) physical freaks.... Canada on the other hand has so many physically impressive players and when it is coupled w/ their will to bleed for each other it translates into a better squad than ours. Lastly.... I would be remiss to not mention that while the talent pool is far deeper now there are a few key positions where we have been found wanting... and that is a GK and CB. If we just had one stud GK to rely on and an elite CB we would probably be a lot more successful. Unfortunately, I am not sure there is a GK or CB that will come in and make a difference by the time the WC comes around.

 

But you already had lined up Dest and Cherundolo, so it doesn't make sense to then compare Scally and Cherundolo. Compare Scally to the SECOND RB in the depth chart behind Cherundolo. And then after Scally we have Bryan Reynolds, Marlon Fossey, Nathan Harriel, even Richie Ledezma who often plays RB for the best team in the Eredivisie when Dest isn't healthy and yet can't make a 60 man preliminary roster and for good reason. Then you have young MLSers like Alex Freeman and Frankie Westfield who are just emerging. Reed Baker-Whiting. Prospects like Leo Duru, Wesley Okoduwa, etc. Who were the 2-6 options at RB behind Cherundolo?

And that's at RB which you cherry picked because we had Cherundolo as the reliable starter there for a dozen years. What about at LB? There we have Antonee Robinson now so it's just that "the Cherundolo" has switched sides, and by almost every conceivable measurement is actually far better than the previous model (including ability to stay healthy if we're going to ding Dest for that then ARob >> Dolo). And behind Jedi we have Caleb Wiley, DeJuan Jones, Max Arfsten, John Tolkin, and on down the list Lund, Bello etc. And young MLSers like Peyton Miller, Tate Johnson, etc. Dominik Chong-Qui. Prospects like Prince Forfor, Christian MacFarlane. And that's before taking into account a top dual nat like Nathaniel Brown who could change everything. Who were the 2-6 options at LB back in the Cherundolo era? Hell who was the #1 LB, Bocanegra who we can't double count so if he's at CB who does that leave, Jonathan Bornstein followed by like Eric Lichaj?? Jose Francisco "anyone can play LB" Torres for one game lol

As for your final question, we can't compare them for the USMNT because Dolo was a lock starter when healthy and Scally is a lock #2 when everyone (Dest, Jedi) is healthy which means not actually playing. How about in their club careers where they did both play. Wikipedia says Cherundolo had 370 appearances for Hannover 96 from 1999-2014. Scally has 119 appearances for Gladbach from 2021-2025, if that's been updated. Was Hannover even in the Bundesliga for all those years, I'm assuming not. We know Gladbach has been, and likely will stay as they're usually mid-table. How many Bundesliga games had Cherundolo played at age 22 which is how old Scally currently is, when he's already 1/3 of the way to matching Dolo's career appearances number? I am going to assume "0 games"...

 

Agree that the US talent is vastly deeper than that of previous cycles. Also agree that this is blunted by the weaknesses at keeper and in the attack.

 

I understand why you say that, I do, but here's the rub. If Cherundolo is available 95% of the time and Dest is available 50% of the time ... first string / second string doesn't make sense.

From a playing time standpoint, it's 95% Cherundolo / 5% backup versus 50% Dest / 50% Scally.

And people beyond those guys in the depth chart are only so relevant as they actually have to be played.

Cherundolo played long enough that he had tons of backups, but around 2010 it would have been Bornstein or Spector.

This is where the hype comes in. Guys like Reynolds and Fossey simply aren't that good. People want to assume that Bryan Reynolds is better than Jonathon Bornstein, but I'm really not so sure.

Is it cherry picking when you say that you are only talking about when the older generation is better? I wasn't trying to deceive anyone.

I have no interest in litigating the very nitty gritty here because I don't really care if the modern era has slightly more talent than 2010 or if it has more talent in numbers 4-10 on the depth chart or whatever.

The claim(s) I'm responding to are basically that we have a LOT more talent now; look at all the Top 5 / UCL minutes, etc.

And the reality is that in terms of talent-minutes, if that makes sense, I don't think the gap is huge in large part because (a) people ignore where we are weaker and massive depth at other positions can't overcome that on an actual field and (b) there's hype over performance for a lot of the depth based on Badge FC.

For that second point ...

Please tell me, since you've presumably watched both these guys, that you think Joe Scally is as good as Steve Cherundolo in terms of winning games. Scally is a weak spot that we have to hide on a team performing worse than most of Cherundolo's teams.

Irrelevant. When Joe Scally is 26, we can talk about Joe's performance then. The evaluation of the team now is performance now, not potential.

Real talk here: how many coaches will we have to go through before you question this assessment of talent. The lack of performance was all on Berhalter and now this ultra-talented team is totally failing because of Pochettino, clearly.

A team with the talent advantage that people are positing should be overcoming these terrible coaches, right? I mean, if Joe Scally is better than Steve Cherundolo because he's been in the Bundi this whole time, why does he play worse? If you think it's yet again the coach, how many consecutive coaches would it need to be before maybe we note that current Joe Scally just isn't that good?

The talent that people hype up and the results don't reconcile. There has to be a reason for that. As we see it occur across variables, the most obvious one is that our players are not as good as they are made out to be.

And for the record, I though the 2022 World Cup cycle was roughly to our talent level as I see it, once you factor in injuries. I do think this we are probably overall more talented than ever from a broad, high level basis.

But I don't think we're super deep, and we definitely are lacking in talent at key positions relative to the past. I also think that people weirdly underrate guys like prime Dempsey and Donovan here.

 

Some folks may be confusing team balance for over talent level. The current team lacks the balance of the best teams of earlier cycles. But the overall talent gap is plain to see.

 

I have seen plenty of both Cherundolo and Scally but I never saw Cherundolo at age 19-22 (wouldn't he have been in college then? I'm guessing even the best team in the "West Coast Conference" wasn't quite Bundesliga level). Same goes for Scally at age 25-30 obviously as I don't have a time machine lol

 

I am one of Dolo's biggest fans but Dolo was a good RB on a bottom 3rd BuLi squad for the 12 years Hannover were in the BuLi during his time there. He was never considered exceptional enough to go up the pyramid to a bigger club.

Scally is only 22 and has 120 BuLi appearances. He could also end up a BMG lifer. Chandler did 4 years at Nurenburg they was bought by Frankfurt after relegation and now has 12 years there.

Dolo is overall better than current Scally but not by much.

 

But it's not "who's going to have the best career" or "who is the best at this age" it's the level right now versus a fixed point in time.

We play the games now. If we have clearly and by far the best talent now, we can't play 26 year old Scally.

If Scally isn't as good because Cherundolo was 30 and very experienced and unlikely to make dumb mistakes, that's not Scally's fault so much as it means the pool lacks an experienced and rock solid defensive RB. And that's a part of the talent level of the pool.

If the talent is so clearly heads and tails above, and it's also really deep ... why aren't we better? I know I'm big on fit and the such, but if there's an overwhelming talent edge, that should matter less and less.

 

Jedi Robinson is in a similar category with Fabian Johnson, who was also rumored to be headed to a major club for years (Real Madrid, etc). Tony Sanneh and Frankie Hejduk were also exceptional players for the national team who were contributors at the highest levels. The distance between them and Antonee is much tighter than anyone will admit, and also much tighter than the gap between Turner and Howard, Keller, Friedel, Guzan, Meola, Hahnemann, etc. Not to mention Rimando, who I believe would be an automatic starter today.

 

Okay I thought I was the biggest Nick Rimando fan out there but we're talking about a goalkeeper who was 5'9" a career MLSer and never even won goalkeeper of the year in MLS... for the few years Matt Turner was in MLS he had better seasons by the advanced stats than any GK in league history so if Rimando would be starting over him today it's only because Turner is so rusty at the moment.

 

You are the one cherry picking, evaluating talent disproportionately and not taking injuries into account properly.

Jozy never factored in a World Cup as he always had his hamstring problems when it mattered most, he was the original Pirate of the Caribbean.

‘Dolo had far worse knee problems and many more surgeries and missed time than Dest thus far.

You are taking Bradley and these other players at their peaks without injury, but Bradley was ruined by his ankle injury and he and Jozy in their prime age cycle were the focal points and leaders of 2017.

This pool is far more talented at the top and deeper than any other beforehand and judging them at the lowest ebb during an ultimately meaningless period in a cycle during significant injuries at the end of a grueling Euro schedule is how one would do it if they already had a conclusion they were trying to justify.

 

depth?
Steffen/Turner/Who? vs. Howard/Freidel/Rimando/Guzan.

Start there and keep going. The delusional types don't get that globalism raised all boats, not just ours. The question is not how good we are against the past, it's about how good we are against our contemporaries. Rimando would start for the current crop. Musah and McK would lose their jobs to Jones and Bradley. Fab would play over Dest. Who would you start against Holland: Jozy or Ferreira? Good grief.

I think the problem we face currently is in not understanding how bad we really are. We enabled a bunch of bad players with egoistical agendas and shiny badges to replace guys with the real stuff. We have some battlers in the ranks a la Sands, Paredes, Johnny. Poch found some more in Jan camp. We need to keep going in the Gold Cup. We lack depth for a 48 team WC 2026. As we look for that depth we will inevitably find new starters.

For those who want to make the case that Berhalter > Poch due to results: Please remind me why Berhalter lost his job?

 

Oh, we're off to a great start. Nothing about this statement here sounds like you've bothered to read any of my posts.

No, I was not laying out every position, spot by spot. I said that, then said it again. And I think again. So shouting cherry picking is weird, dude. Try reading and comprehending someone else's argument instead of posting angrily.

I didn't do a full lineup because I wasn't addressing that -- I'm simply saying that the gap is not as big as people think because of several reasons. And one of them is that people ignore injuries and another is that people handwave away our shit awful GK and CB issues right now.

However, I both lay out my argument below and the lineups, so you can address as you like.

Jozy didn't score in the 2010 World Cup but actually played pretty well. Since the team era I was comparing to today as around 2009-2010, yeah, he gets included.

Around that World Cup?

So? Again, I'm comparing to a shorter period of time. 2017 is irrelevant to what I am trying to say. And bizarre to include in the argument since we have no idea what our players will be like in 2034 or whatever the equivalent age is.

Statement without support. Great.

Once again, I agree that is you take it very top level and don't adjust for availability, that's right.

However, across thirty seven posts now, my very clear point is:

1. The standard I was arguing was not our most talented team but clearly and by far our most talented pool. If you want to line up and pick nits that we're slightly more talented putting our XI on the field, okay. But if you want to act like this is massively more talented, I'd like you to address the below points and the record.
2. When you have to put a team on the field, our overall depth currently is less functional because it's lacking relative to prior teams in key positions like goalkeeper. In addition, striker has been weak which means much of the midfield strength doesn't manifest as well in goal differential.
   
3. When you have to put a team on the field, our overall talent is currently less functional because this team gets hurts more than most. In our 2022 WCQ cycle, we had our core for only about 50% of possible minutes. Even this relatively healthy last window we were lacking our #1 and #2 striker, our #1 RB and our #1 CAM looked apparently like a shadow of himself to the point that we're all questioning whether they will ever be the same. I'd argue that 4 of our top 10 players, right? Not great, and that felt like a healthy window in a lot of ways.
4. Yes, I also think there's a bunch of players overrated because they play in Europe now but if someone like Busio, for example, came up in 2010, he would have gone to like Belgium at best instead of being in Serie A.

This may be their lowest ebb -- we hope so -- but we also saw a first cycle that was good but hardly a giant leap forward, so we're going on seven years. This ebb is also a year long at this point.

In terms of having a conclusion they are trying to justify, since you failed in your long, ranting post to address even a single item I mentioned, I would say this is the pot calling the kettle black.

Including availability, I'd say this for basically the last year versus 2010 World Cup Squads, doing my best to separate for the different formations.

I'm also adjusting for how much we have to play the subs somewhat.

Howard & Guzan >>>>>> Turner & Pick 'em
Cherundolo & Bornstein <= Dest & Scally
Onyewu / Boca / DeMerit => Richards / McKenzie / Ream / CCV (Who are our CBs?)
Bocanegra & Cherundolo <<< Jedi
Bradley / Torres / Clark <<<<< <Adams / McKennie / Luna + Depth
Donovan & Dempsey >> Pulisic & Weah*
Jozy & Findley << <Balogun & Pepi & Grab Bag**

*(Yes, Pulisic is the best of the four, but Weah is clearly the least impactful and Donovan and Dempsey are ********ing stone cold killers)
**This is a decent size edge solely because of Findley. Balo's probably the best of this group. I love Pepi, but let's not pretend Jozy wasn't tearing up the Eeredivisie at this point, either.

So yeah, an edge to now. However, not nearly as big as you'd think, and I was probably pretty generous to a couple of the positions.

If you disagree, fine, address it. And then if you think the gap is massive, let me know why you think results have been so poor the last year as well as why, though I think the 2022 cycle was a success, it wasn't commensurate with the talent gap people want to hype up.

If it's coaching, address the fact that we've changed coaches.
If it's injuries riddling the team ... address the fact that that's my point.
If it's a weak back central defense hamstringing much of the rest of the roster, address the fact that that's my point.

 

You're not supposed to bring up Fab. The discussion is arranged to be Dest vs. Dolo just as the problem is supposed to be Johnny vs. Adams to avoid Johnny + Adams (which means dropping one of the MMA "group"). Fab could stone high level players. Dest gets beat by old men.

 

In my desperate "cherry-picking" I was trying to stay consistent with a very specific comparison time period, which was before Fabian Johnson.

But yeah, Fabian was great.

 

Jozy’s average goal and assist have come against teams substantially better than Pulisic’s.

 

Not in World Cups where it matters most.

 

This is not about cherry-picking a bad moment and then comparing it against the heights of the past. It’s not about comparing this specific pool against everyone from every other pool. If you look at the long term results there is no evidence of a meaningful increase in on-field ability (the only on-field ability that matters is the ability to influence results). Of course talent ≠ present ability to perform. So it is eminently possible for us to have more talent and similar results. We’ve made some improvements but it’s not as much as some think.

We are into much of our core’s early prime and that’s when one would expect talent and on-field ability to perform to converge (as much as it tends to). This core has been exposed to a much better environment for converting talent into ability than any past generation of American players. I would say that a higher % of talent has been converted into on-field ability than the past. The Pulisic U17 generation had a lot of talent as a cohort, flamed out at that youth level, got to those good environments, and then had a very high hit rate. People thought that was the new norm but I think it was a 2010 WC driven domestic bump + increased domestic baseline + good fortune on the conversion rate into pros. The new domestic baseline has been heavily supplemented by dual nationals (which may fall off as the American empire has withdrawn troops from Europe since the end of the Cold War, among other policy changes). Still, overall, this is going to produce a higher talent baseline (relative to where we stood compared to the rest of the world) than the past. Still, that’s not going to be as high as some think.

Having a higher baseline for inputs into our process is good but they still need to be processed into high quality end products. I think there’s a pretty good case that our past players had a good deal of undeveloped potential that they could tap into when facing a higher than normal level challenge. When a player is well developed they are more consistently able to access more of their ability and that’s a good thing. That’s where our players are now. However, if one is used to a paradigm where unpolished players are able to “overperform”, then a new paradigm where polished players just simply perform might feel like a disappointment.

The greater disappointment is the failure of Badge FC ideology to understand where we stood and where we are now. Our talent baseline has made some improvements while our domestic developmental path and the integration of that into the world market has made greater strides. All that means is that we’ll have a bit better talent who will be more likely to be in or move to good environments. Right now our Badge FC points are going to more closely match our talent and ability to perform. One can’t expect the “overperformance” of the past to reoccur because the conditions that caused some to set an incorrectly low expectation for performance are no longer present. To make real, meaningful improvements our talent baseline and our developmental practices will have to improve. Our pool is about as integrated into the global market for players as it can get so there isn’t any real low hanging fruit left there. If the MLSNext era is better than the DA, which was better than what preceded it, then those players will accumulate even more Badge FC points and be better.

 

Dunno what badge FC or comparing Jozy specifically during May 2010 vs Balogun really has to do with any of this.

Yes we are marginally more talented now across the board but deficient at keeper, etc.

More than anything however we are attempting to play less reactive soccerball with primarily athletic donkeys route 1ing it to a few great players and are instead trying to dictate play with more cultured players playing more technically and tactically evolved soccerball.

That was true under Gregg as it is under Poch. Getting the balance, tactics and cohesion right to play effectively this way is orders of magnitude more difficult that previous iterations.

In the short term injuries have further derailed us. With more of the A squad available for an extra time we will perform as expected in the GC, particularly due to replacing Scally and some schmuck, with Dest and AR, the +\- player comparison that truly matters.

 

There are no ********ing style points in this game. These aren’t kids playing MLS Next. These are full adult pros. If they are better the only measure of that is the quality of results they get. Teams that are actually better get better results over the long term.

 

Where have you gone, Mike Sorber?
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you

 

The overall combination of technique/athleticism/tactical nous is just significantly superior in the current group. That is plain to see. The older generations didn't have the today's level of environment in which to develop. But no amount of 'development' was going to make a Cobi Jones into a Kevin Paredes or a Pablo Mastroeni into a Tyler Adams. A player like Moises Bombito went from community college to uni to USL to MLS to the 4th placed team in Ligue 1. He didn't have advanced youth developmental opportunities. What he did have was ability that the Alexis Lalas's of the world didn't have.

Being able to excel at UCL level, in the EPL, or in the Top-5 does matter. The vast majority of teams that do well in the big tournaments almost always loaded up with the players who had excelled in those environments.

What does the current team lack? Experience and balance. Veteran leadership will be available by the '28 Copa. In the meantime, Poch will need to find a competent GK and a working CB pairing. He'll also need to sort out the depth chart. I'm not sure how committed he is.

 

The kings of small sample examples have disproven all my points, oh no, what am I to do?!?

 

There are ********ing style differences in this beautiful game. Long term they unequivocally impact results, try crunching your numbers harder.