Since this collection of poor players is all the A squad has to beat out in order to be called the A squad, it casts real doubt on what you can reasonably believe about the A squad.
We should be long past the point where we are getting stomped on, no matter what level we send. There is no excuse. I'm sorry, there has been no real progress in the mens' program for 30 years, in terms of national teams. In fact they are arguably worse, given the amount of money and attention they get compared to years ago. I retired from work after 30 years, and after Copa I decided to retire from following soccer, because one tunes in to be entertained, not watch a bunch of players look like they can't play the game. I had a little hope after they won a couple games here, but in the end its the same old crap; once a team presses them, they got nuthin. I shut it off after the PK because it was obvious this was going to be a blowout. And it was.
Agreed. Didn't we hear from Eric Wynalda for years that US players needed to go to Europe and battle it out with seasoned pros and hungry prospects from around the world just to get scraps of playing time? Well, US players are doing that now. (On this team, granted, a lot are still in MLS, but they've been in professional environments for years and are battling for their futures.) They just don't have the quality. They're naive. As tempting as it is to want to see a Tessmann or a Zimmerman pound a showboating Moroccan player into the turf to demonstrate his competitiveness, no good can come of that.
I just don't know how you have a little, quick, front line, dependent on the press; then behind them play a finesse CM 3. That's totally mismatched personnel to not carry out a necessary tactic, unless you think you're totally going to boss this game in possession, which I wouldn't get. Maybe that was indeed the thought. It was treated like a directive through this cycle. Got us tooled by Japan the 2nd time. We were competitive w/ France, even in the 3-0 loss. But that may have been fool's gold. They haven't looked at the level of the top teams, in spite of their name.
You retired from watching soccer 3 weeks ago and unretired two weeks later to watch the very next tournament? lol. C'mon man.
I'll be interested to see if the refs in the ref forum agree with your take because you seem way more emotional about this ref than I personally think is warranted.
We've seen that exact same PK given a lot at the professional level. It's unfortunate but it's regularly called. People in here are extremely emotional.
That's not the president's job. Which is why Carlos Cordeiro was almost reinstated by the state and national youth and adult associations. Also, the women hired a person who may well have been the best available coach in the world. I'm still shocked that they got her. If they lose, it's because the USA has had years of coddling talented women's players and letting their egos run wild, and Hayes hasn't had enough time to fix it. Cone steadied the budget before it fell into deep trouble. She settled the women's suit, albeit for more money than I would've preferred. She brokered labor peace with the MNT and WNT -- again, with more money than I would've preferred, and they're now paid far more than any of our peer countries that we know of. (The players union often tries to say otherwise, but they shut up when asked for specifics.) She led a pro-active effort to get out in front of SafeSport issues that have bedeviled other major sports federations in the USA. If she has faults, it's at the grassroots. It ain't selecting 11 players who are overmatched against Morocco.
I think it means a lot to our players, and I'd like to give them some rope from the perspective that: #1 No, this wasn't actually our A U23 team, unlike theirs. #2 This game, they were controlling, but was comfortably 0-0 until a ghastly penalty. #3 I think our players care and have plenty of fight and I think our coach put them in a bad position with some terrible choice. Those of us screaming about the Mihailovic inclusion and the absence of an x factor like Luna had their points totally validated in this performance and the France match. While they were out crowing over a penalty and a couple of set pieces, we were right about Mihailovic doing zilch actually in the run of play. How much would it have mattered to have a better RB, to have a Luna, to get a Vasquez released or Pepi, instead of the utterly useless McGuire, so bad, we decided not to start a striker in the final matches at all.... As I mentioned earlier, Morocco was better period, and was always gonna be better, but guys like Paxten, Griffin, maybe Booth, Zim, Tessmann etc are good players, but you simply can't afford to have enormously weak links in the chain like Mihailovic, and Harriel who are so so much worse than "replacement level". The team needed to be better built. It was super, super telling that as the game got out of control, he had no subs to pick, and when he did make offensive subs, they were guaranteed to make the situation even worse (griffin off, McGuire on, keeping Mihailovic on), as I said, and immediately did so (gave up a goal minutes later, and never came close to being threatening afterwards). Really frustrated about so many things. I think you're right in general, but I also think it would be easier to lose games to great teams like Morocco if we did our best, coaches, and players all the way down, rather than just give games away w/silly decisions on rosters, subs etc. We were always gonna lose, but at least we could have had a chance w/better roster management, and perhaps more luck with releases, and in game management. Alas we failed across the board with all of that, and Morocco were also damn good (obviously the #1 factor), it's just when we lose, I want to feel like I felt in 2002 against Germany, or 2014 against Belgium, when I knew, they left it all on the field. Instead, I feel like they threw away this tournament, and sunk American interest to even lower levels. This summer actively hurt the game in this country and Crocker and Cone better realize that.
Massachusetts Ref believes the first PK call was fine. I can see it. The rest is basic mechanics that he failed. As others have said, it's not why the US lost. Schulte should've saved the third goal. The US created virtually nothing. A good ref wouldn't have changed the result. It wouldn't have been 4-0, but maybe 2-0 or 3-0. But he just fell apart on basic things.
I understand why people take issue with the 2nd PK, but the first wasn't in question after I saw the replay from the reverse angle. Maybe it was a little harsh because Harriel couldn't have seen the attacker making a play for the ball, but regardless, he went through the opponent's leg in the box... you can say other refs wouldn't call that, but it's not an incorrect call.
You are saying the ref is totally terrible and indefensible. That is a pretty surprising take to me. That last PK was soft - but why is his hand out like that? It's naive.
Re: Luna, I've come to a place where I feel like if a guy doesn't want to play for the US, it's ok. You grow up in the US, want to play for someone else? I'd rather have had Diego in the squad than Mija. But, if he'd rather play for someone else .... go for it.
It is absolutely the president’s job to be involved in putting the personnel and systems in place to oversee continuous improvement at multiple levels. She should resign. Weird take, but you do you. The US Olympic Soccer teams reached out to me soliciting donations for this tournament. You call that a “steadied budget”? “Labor Peace”, the Womens lawsuit CBA, the Berhalter/Reynas clash at the World Cup, etc. etc. Those are all failures, not successes. Now we do not regularly compete with high quality European teams and we have continued failures at tournaments. Cone should resign.
I rarely resort to this, but I think what you're saying here reaches the level of absurdity to which it no longer requires a rational response, and I've been researching federation issues and budgets for decades now, so I'll just close with this ...
What I said was not against the rules of this forum. Not sure why you are policing my soccer opinions. Have you cleaned up that “absurd” political Antifa “nonsense” on that other thread yet or are you just targeting me here?