An absolutely rubbish performance in a knockout game. That was men versus boys. Don't we teach tackling in this country without fouling ? So many players that are weak in the britches on the tackle or trying to run through a tackle. Our midfield was absolutely horrendous both offense and defensively with a negative impact from the overage guy... Harriel was absolutely exposed and pantsed throughout the whole game! 95 or so minutes where our only attacking idea was a long diagonal to the opposite wing. Do we have any coaches in this country that can teach offense? And it will be largely forgotten due to the final score, but you can't have an overage player badly miss a sitter that would've tied the game. However, do you know what pisses me off more than our performance, which was as bad as any in recent memory? The fact that Morocco had their most famous player Hakimi, star of their World Cup team, who plays for Huge team PSG playing against us. And our most famous player Pulisic, star of our World Cup team, who plays for Huge team AC Milan is playing money grab Preseason Friendly's in the US rather than playing for us… There's something really wrong with that picture!
The mens game has grown tremendously in the United States since 1990. We went from being a program that hadn't qualified for the WC from a weak region in like 40 years to pretty much qualifying every tournament [absent 2018] and often advancing to the knock out stages. Making the jump from the second tier where we currently sit to the one tier is the most difficult step of all and a step not often seen. The majority of teams in that tier have consistently been in that tier for 100+ and sometimes a team will drop in or out but not often. We've never seen anything like a country first getting a serious professional league in 1996 break into that tier. Not even close. The most sensible countries to look to to compare the United States to in that regard would be Japan/Australia/Canada/South Korea - relatively wealthy, developed countries that got into soccer in a meaningful way late. None of them have broken into that tier before.
Overall we look better but lose more. At least at the main team level. We used to score more in away quals. Today, though, we looked poor. The passing was bad, the ideas were not there, and Morocco was toying with us.
In the interest of full disclosure, when I made that remark, you're 1 of, if not the first, guy(s) I thought of. People who are extremists, think others unaligned are extremists. That's the way this works. In this case, you're acting like Pepi, as a 21-yr old #2 striker, should be ahead of our #1's like McBride who was still in college and didn't break out until his late 20's. It's not rational. I suppose Rico's no Robbie Findley. As for our current youth+ group, Zimmerman is a major over-age. That shows how maturation matters, like it should for Pepi, or whoever from this squad. It's also easier as a tight space defending CB when you're pinned back to just do your thing destroying everything. A terrible MF is going to kill your attack (especially in conjunction w/ the false 9 approach), & put more pressure on defenders in space, especially if that's not all they're bringing to the table (so there should be a higher standard for Harriel, who caused multiple breakdowns himself). Speaking of the MF, Tessmann I thought sucked today. He was a step behind the play on o & d. Late to close, took too many touches, played behind guys. Our mf was the main issue. He was both a victim & a culprit of the cascading problems. So that's not some sort of proof you can overcome a collective failure. It's hard to evaluate, outside of your McGlynn's & Mihailovic's who caused the problems and did so from the France game too. Everybody ought to be looked at from a broader sample of games & situations, plus take into account their attributes. From this squad there are going to be significant contributors for the future, as there practically always are, in addition to the players outside the squad who could have been here, which you don't seem to know or care about, leading to this cynical broad dismissiveness about practically every player and group like usual.
I think this game -- even though it's just one game -- says more about the pool than you do, and therefore I think it's more of an indicator about the state of the program than you appear to think. But that's why it's relevant to the senior team. Surely you agree that if the players a couple of steps from the seniors (i.e., over half the team had senior caps) are poor, it's harder (a lot? a little? we can argue) to expect the seniors to progress. I suppose that sums it up.
I did a double take there. Ah ok. For a second I thought someone was calling these U23 guys a Golden Generation. No, that is not it. Our "Golden Generation" is basically Pulisic, who's 25, close to 26, at this point.
There will be contributors from every age group. Even the lost generation had contributors. Just simply because players age out and need to be replaced. The question is whether the replacements will raise the level of the senior team. Sometimes in age group tournaments it is the youngest players who don't play much who have the potential to raise the level. I think Wiley and Cremaschi fall in that category. Among the older players, Paredes is clearly and easily the best. Of course, for this particular age group the main contributors are guys who have already graduated to the senior team: Reyna, Pepi, Musah, Balogun, Tillman, Cardoso, Scally. I also think there a few with significant upside who were left off the team: Neal, Cowell, Luna, Reynolds. It is actually quite an strong cohort when looked at from a broader perspective. Doesn't take the sting away from today's loss. But a little perspective never hurts.
While this is true... Japan: 124 million pop, $6.7 trillion GDP S Korea: 52 million pop, $3 trillion GDP Canada: 41 million pop, $2.5 trillion GDP Australia: 27 million pop, $1.8 trillion GDP Combined: 244 million pop, $14 trillion GDP United States: 335 million pop, $28.8 trillion GDP We also have a 30 team first division league with probably the wealthiest set of owners of any soccer league on the planet. Even back in 2010, the World Cup television rights for the US market were greater than for any other country. Would love to know how total number of youth soccer players compares between US and those other countries, but not sure how to find that info....
We have to hope one of Jalen Neal or Akimboni or Banks or Wynder accelerate their growth. Which could happen. Just one of them.
No, they aren't. I agree with you on this; potential is not performance. However, they are also both 21 years old. The big question for the new wave of talent that seems to be there is how good will they individually and collectively become. In 2010, we had a 31 year old Howard, a defense that was 24-31, peak Dempsey, Beasley and Donovan, and just two really young guys in Bradley and Jozy. And by really young guys, Bradley was the second youngest on the team and was still older than Scally and Pepi. We had a somewhat unexplained talent drought we are still fighting through. There is zero guarantee that guys like Reyna, Musah, Pepi or whomever will reach their potential. The fanbase has absolutely made an assumptive point there -- even as certain guys like Adams have plateau'd skill wise and been hampered by injuries. I love Tim Weah -- but the dude has come nowhere near his scoring potential. On the other hand, young players do tend to improve and peak later. Some peak early; some never peak. But there's also the McBrides, who keep improving. I happen to agree with you -- I think there is an amount of hype here triggered by Pulisic and McKennie's success getting Euro teams to buy up Americans as a hot deal. And a lot of our guys are potential. There's also the concern that improved skills might be offset by less fire, work ethic, etc. The team has to start winning soon -- they are beginning to reach the ages where you generally do stop improving (McBride and Ream excepted). Who's the oldest in that core? Jedi, Pulisic and McKennie. Who are our best performers at club and for the national team (McKennie's awful Copa excepted)? Jedi, Pulisic and McKennie. Musah, Reyna, Scally, and Pepi are still 21. Hell, Tim Weah Sergiño Dest and Chris Richards are only 24 still -- and Qatar was over a year and a half ago. Let's see if they develop and reach a good portion of their potential. Christian has made massive leaps in the last two years. A big part of our team is about to get to that age.
It's a strong cohort looking from our past perspective. But is it a strong cohort looking from the modern game perspective? Everybody is improving constantly. The sport accrues theory, the physical training methods are optimized, game analysis now is a different dimension compared to what it was 15 years ago. If you're improving at the same speed as everybody else, are you improving at all?
What are you trying to convey in this post? Because we are a rich country we should have a good soccer team? Or because we are a populace country we should have a good soccer team? I don't understand the point. Plenty of rich and populace countries don't have good teams and plenty of poor countries with small populations do and everything in between.
True everyone is improving. We need to use benchmarks that take that into account. The number of starting jobs in Top 5 leagues is fairly constant. This gives us a pretty good benchmark to use.
Who cares about other countries? Those are the countries you said the US should be compared to: "Japan/Australia/Canada/South Korea - relatively wealthy, developed countries that got into soccer in a meaningful way late" Well the US does have some advantages over those countries. It has a larger population than all four combined. It is wealthier than all four combined. Soccer has more money being thrown around here than in those other countries. The league here is bigger with wealthier owners than in those other countries. Like I said I would love to see figures regarding youth soccer participation.
Telling me I am broadly dismissing every player and group like usual doesn't sugges to me that I am the one being extreme. I didn't bring up Pepi! Reconsider that and we can have a conversation. I am saying that the group of players in this game indicate that the pool is not progressing like I keep hearing others proclaim it to be. That is not cynical, broad dismissiveness. These are fine young players that beat Guinea and New Zealand in the Olympics. What I am pushing back on is the idea that because some better players were missing from this squad, we should conclude that all is fine and trending upwards. You picked out some names as examples of how the youth movement is raising the level of the program in a steady way. But they aren't really good examples of that. Reyna could be, but the jury is out. The others seem much more like solid contributors (maybe, see, e.g., Yow) but that aren't raising the level of the program. In other words "significant contributor for the future" apparently has inconsistent meanings. Do we mean someone that will get 5+ senior caps? Sure, by natural process of age and availability, some of these guys will be significant contributors. Do we mean players that are as you said leading to steady gradual improvement in development? That's a different kind of contribution, and I didn't see that. I don't think that's dismissiveness or extremism. This game was either irrelevant or it was evidence of something. If it was evidence of anything, it was of a lack of depth in the pool. What conclusion can you draw from that? Well, one thing you can't draw from it is that the program is steadily improving. You can list other evidence that you think outweighs what we saw, but what is that evidence? It's not the recent performances of the senior team. It's not the other Olympic games (which are evidence of a solid top 30 program but not of improvement). So what is it? That Pepi and Scally might be better than McBride and Cherundolo one day? That sounds like a stretch.
there was a play early in the 2nd half - the us was down 1-0 - where the us had pressure in the morrocan final third....the ball was cleared to the center circle....to tolkin what did he do? with space and time to bring the ball down and control it he kicked it directly out of bounds THIS is why the USA sucks at soccer these little small things are not little small things yes tolkin has technical quality and made some nice plays.....but this kind of thing is unacceptable at the top levels. it shouldnt even cross his mind to do that.... but its probably coached into him! this is probably what mitrovic told him to do...what many us coaches would want him to do... and a thing that many observers and fans in the us wouldnt hold against him these details are everything this us olympic team and backline ....cleared the ball to no one a hundred times in this tournament....and it is not what good teams do.....they might do it once in a while...not as a rule. its all mentality fear-based soccer will never win.
Ranting that the US is not culturally any one of these countries is pointless. Does Nico Cantor think there's going to be a movement to government fund youth soccer? Scotland gets massive funding from the government -- it'd be like if the US Government gave $500M a year to US Soccer. The few pro academies we have have absolutely lost money across the board on the pro academy, at least, even the ones who have sold guys. And fields aren't free, travel is a reality that many other countries don't have in volume, and insurance, coaches, etc. America looks at everything like a business, and if I were to change that for ANYTHING, it'd be something like higher education or health care, not soccer. Oh, and guess what, the rest of the world is monetizing, but they aren't preserving it so well.
I don't care if we got the full team starting for Real Madrid. What matters to me is the results they actually get in games that matter: qualifiers, World Cup, Gold Cup, Copa, and Nations League a bit less.
That's great data. I think I would make a small additional adjustment to remove relegation teams from the data. Trusty playing for Sheffield United for example.
It is easy, and I am guilty of it, to lose sight of the possibility of improvement from younger players. I do think the world evaluates talent so much more efficiently now than when McBride came up that the possibility of a guy improving his game much after 23-24 has become more remote. Add to that the game seems so much more geared toward younger players overall given the speed and, more, quickness requirements that the "prime time" for players is probably shifting earlier. So, combined, I have some doubts about big leaps from players in their 20s. But yes it's possible.
There are far too many other factors interfering with a fair equation "more players in top clubs = faster improvement than other countries." Availability of passports, improved scouting in the country, bringing in more dual nationals born/raised abroad and local to the big clubs, and having the owners/financiers of the big clubs being American are factors that can influence it, without meaning there's actual improvement.