Both PK's were very questionable, imo. He was also calling every little fall/dive by the Morrocan players. It was silly.
I loved the quote from one of the announcers that the area around the Morrocan player must be an "exclusion zone." Morroco has a fantastic team, but I can't cheer for such wildly dishonest players. Go (whomever Morocco plays next).
2009, absolute high water mark 2010: kicked out in the first elimination game by Ghana 2014: kicked out in the first knockout game by Belgium 2016: yes, we got past Ecuador in the knockout round I guess we beat Mexico in our first knockout in 1995 and 2002, too So, we have once won a knockout round in the World Cup, twice in a Copa America, once in a Confed Cup (THAT was Spain, holy cow. Biggest upset ever) so not never, but for that 2002 WC, there is 1994, 1998, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022 so, not great
What’s wild is that there’s so many takes like these. Yes the men’s program is getting better. We failed to qualify for three consecutive Olympics, this time we made it to the round of 16 which is our first indicator of progress. Second is we handily won two games within the group stage which is something we have never done at a u23 or mens event. We not only won those games but did it purely by being better at soccer than our opponents, not by out hustling them or luck. We dominated our opponents and did things with the ball that very few teams at the u23 and older levels did in the past The other major indicator that we are growing is that we advanced out of the group while winning twice with a very depleted player pool. We have already graduated Gio Reyna, Yunus Musah, Ricardo Pepi, Folarin Balogun, Johnny Cardoso, Malik Tillman, Joe Scally, and Kristoffer Lund to the senior team. We had preferred options such as Rokas Pukstas, Bryan Reynolds, and Aidan Morris not get released as well. This is a larger number of players who could have but were withheld to play at this age bracket than we have ever had before. Yes, the men’s program is growing. With those players it would have been a much different game against France and Morocco. Stop being intentionally pessimistic and reactionary because we lost a game, things are getting better year by year.
Funny people remembering the 2000s as glory days when I lived it and everyone in places like this complained constantly about Bunker Bob and the USMNT negative play style to grind out results getting goals on set pieces and counters. There was very much a, "I'd rather lose trying to play progressive soccer" energy in those days and now we do try and play progressive soccer and lose and people, of course, still complain. Pretty amusing.
I don't think the first one was questionable - it was unlucky but not questionable. Harriel needs to keep his hand down on the second - that gets called sometimes but I can't get worked up about it in a 3-0 game.
I also remember the drop off from the full national team being huge as well. Guinea and NZ were poor, but we also played some soccer that would not have often been seen in our youth teams. I remember Eddie Johnson and 10 bad players.
Well, giving a whole goal to the opponent, when they were up 3-0 already, is a gift, & indicated the ref had an axe to grind. Even before that, Howard (not someone known for biases), criticized the ref for making the game about himself. It was after a phantom foul call. He had a tough whistle for the US, which was 1-way. Did he make a 4-goal difference? Of course not. But it was worth 1-2, which is worth plenty of discussion, and criticism, still, as an aside.
Or work harder to get players released. What happened with Vasquez/Pepi was particularly god awful. Vasquez Pepi were almost certainly chosen the way they were based upon the expectation that we had the Vasquez release (Pepi being in Olympic marketing shots after all) and instead, we get neither and take a striker instead we choose to sit for 2 of 4 games....Just asinine. I don't want this. I know we're doing it anyway, but it's preposterous that we basically just have to pray that we produce an ungodly amount of U23 talent to have any hope in hell of qualifying due to release problems, let alone fielding a team at the actual tournament. Whats worse, this dumb --- olympic debacle might cause us to pass on playing in Copa America '28 due to these release problems. <expletive, expletive, expletive after that>. I just HATE it.
If we can't get releases, what is the point of this? If we aren't taking the dual nationals to the tournaments in the first place (no Guti at U20 WC or U23 Olympics, no Luna at this) we will lose them anyway.
I don’t know we have power to get guys released if the club doesn’t want to. With Pepi I think it was more a choice by Pepi versus a release issue.
I disagree. First, the one Morrocan player came flying in with a high boot, which could've easily been called for a dangerous play, and then the other Morrocan player came in from behind Harriel just to stick his leg out there. They were both going for the ball. It was even a foul, imo.
I gave you one huge one he was inaccurate on. The one Timmy remarked after was an off ball phantom foul where the guy took a dive off little to no contact (which would have had no impact on the play anyway) & the ref decided to give them a free kick from about 30, instead of a break the other way when we had the ball. These things have significant impact on the scoreline. What calls did we get the other way to argue the ref was by and large even-handed?
We need to either be able to take legit teams to qualify, and legit teams to tournaments or what is the point? The fact that we couldn't get any of our top 5 attacking choices for this tournament released was absurd. The fact that we struggle to get releases to qualify in the first place is equally absurd. If we can get releases, sure, I'm in, but if we're gonna get knee capped by clubs going in (qualifying) and going out (the tournament itself), it loses a huge chunk of its value, and --- kickings like this actively hurt the growth of the game in this country as well.
Because it's fun to watch soccer at the Olympics? Boo-hoo some players weren't released - happens to most countries for the Olympics.
The rate of talent production is SO HIGH now, it's awesome. But we're still failing to create cohesive teams. IMO, some of that is caused by the "cohesive identity" mandate which was designed to get us to play "progressive soccer" but has been implemented at the expense of tactical sensibility / flexibility. I don't know what the fix is other than keep-on keepin-on. Eventually, some of the guys learning good things from the MLS academies will get their coaching licenses and help the sport evolve at the coaching level.
That's my point. Are we really trying? Are we? MLS and some US affiliated clubs in Europe are actively knee capping these efforts. Look at the roster we had for qualifying in '21. You know why we qualified for this? Because we qualified as an U20 team rather than an U23 team due to covid issues two years ago. If we'd actually had to qualify as a standard U23 team, there's every reason to imagine it would have gone to ---- just like it did in '21 due to release issues. I'm all for this if we can actually use our players, if we're gonna get hosed by our own club teams, and those in Europe including those run by Americans it defeats the purpose. We will need to produce an absolutely mud slide worth of U23 prospects to qualify and perform well in '28, and the evidence from the U17 WC in '23, and U20 WC qualifying this summer is not terribly compelling (hopefully they can turn it around, they've looked pretty awful of late, needing a PK save to advance over freaking Guatemala).
If you thought he was accurate, do you think he was consistent? All of the pushing/jersey pulls that he called against the US, he ignored the same type of call when it occurred against the US, in the box. I don't think the ref decided the game. The US lost because of the US. I'm just saying, the ref was poor, imo.
That play Z had a hand on his shirt and pulled him back - I have no problem with that call. You think it was hugely inaccurate - I don't. I dislike that call but it ain't like the VAR in the Spain Japan game - that call makes me insane.
If you look at the level and style of play of the YNT’s MLS is significantly helping the YNT pool. It has more depth than ever with professional level talent which during the residency era wasn’t a thing. We had college players in our u20 YNT’s and u23 qualifying teams in the not so distant past. Now we have experienced professionals who can actually play possession influenced soccer which is what our fan base begged for years to see