Consider this alternative: The talent was always missing and has been missing since 1994, or from wherever your nats journey starts. Domestic coaches Arena and Bradley had relatively low expectations set upon them but had tons of experience turning American soccer crap into competitive teams in college and MLS for decades, in fact they were masters of it in their time. Through a combination of knowing the talent pool innately, handpicking that talent and hyper engineering player wise, position wise and tactically into something that could compete internationally, they basically overperformed relative to the actual talent on hand from 2000 to 2012. As a consequence of their spotty, yet relative over performance with said talent, expectations were set, aspirations grew larger and assumptions were made that the talent was elevated enough to support more visionary leadership. The US soccer press and us fans in turn sold this belief in an aspirational vision and growing talent pool (shame on them/us) In comes JK with aspirations to transform and elevate the program and what does he find? A sea of mediocre talent. Even their so called greatest player is totally dispensable. It’s rotten from the ground up. Needs a total overhaul. So he rolls out a little of this, a little of that, but his rhetoric is all Tony Robbins. He then swaps players in and out of positions routinely, continues to talk a lot about esoteric goals and instead of engineering around specific players, positions and systems with consistency he appears to be fielding lineups and approaching games like he’s determined to never leave anyone comfortable, particularly his own players (comfort zone) and fans. We dodge a bullet in a blizzard in 2013 and make it to Brazil and button down system wise for four weeks and have 1 and a half performances of moral victory built on the skeleton of stuff left over from the Bradley years. From 2015 onward any semblance or remnant of team engineering and identity is gone minus an occasional game where the players miraculously recognize each other their past lives. The talent having always been mediocre though looks more mediocre more often. We dig ourselves into a hole in qualifying and Tony Robbins is canned. Bruce makes a go of it but it’s too late to reengineer as needed, we have no room for error and Bruce’s fatal flaws were always obstinacy and arrogance. Hello T&T. And after all of that, the talent has once again gone missing, but has been missing since 1994. Perhaps the grand coverup regarding our talent deficit was at its greatest peak when we deluded ourselves into thinking we wouldn’t need a hands on micromanaging, underdog/bulldog, talent mining tactician at the helm for a full four years in order to just compete, no matter how much our talent pool had grown, but instead we decided we could get by with a life coach with connections? Perhaps we underestimated our accomplishments from 2000 to 2011, not from a talent sense, but from all of the other work that went into making the most of the little talent that we actually had during that time? As a side note I’ve been meaning to take a closer look at the Iceland team from the last Euro to see what really made them magical. My guess is that fans and the press have a tendency to label any upstart that makes a splash like they did as having benefitted from a “golden generation” of talent in hindsight, in most cases at least. I’m curious to see though if perhaps they have a certain team balance, approach and system that is equally important.
Never said duals, but our guys in Europe in general. We have one World Cup quarterfinalist quality guy in Pulisic, a couple of R16 guys in Weston & Brooks (although Brooks may be going the Boyd way, with injury after injury), and a couple of guys who'd look fine in a group stage (Yedlin & Cameron, although the latter is on the way out). For Copa we had our best backline in the last four years and perhaps ever: Yedlin-Cameron-JAB-Fabian. Sadly, it didn't last, with the injuries to Brooks, and now Cameron and Fabian on the decline. Even so, Argentina made us look completely, utterly, humiliatingly toothless. PS: We may have other guys ready for the big stage, but we don't know yet. This is the time to test them and see what guys like Saief, Parks, Miazga, etc. can do in a real game --although we won't have a real game for about 18 months.
Wingers peak at 24 Before we got Iceland, have they really done anything? They qualified to an expanded Euros. They beat England using a bunker, maybe a 1 in 20 result. We did the same against Spain once. Mostly a media story. I think our talent stayed the same there wad just a period where development was stunted in the 16-24 ages. MLS just stopped playing youngsters at the same time they started paying a good wage. Whereas Bradley, Dempsey, Beasley had to go to Europe to make money, Dax, Trapp, Zusi, Nagbe, Besler, etc didn't have to. 2014 was saved by recruiting German developed players and the fact that older generation that went to Europe were still in their prime.
Why are people now saying our second best player in Brazil after Jones was Johnson? I still remember those games. Dempsey was our second best player, and I think no one argued for Johnson at the time. Perhaps now, counting on people's memories growing fuzzy. Those games we played defending with eight, so Fabian always had Bedoya or Jones covering him.
"Perhaps we underestimated our accomplishments from 2000 to 2011, not from a talent sense, but from all of the other work that went into making the most of the little talent that we actually had during that time?" I've been thinking along similar lines. Add the attitude that we're sending the marketing team because we are qualifying no matter what and you have a recipe for disaster. Let's start working on the best team instead of the "best" players, since the latter are just a figment of the marketing imagination anyway. Its' pretty obvious that Messi is a better player than Maradona but in Argentina they disagree because Messi hasn't won a WC. Bradley isn't a good player because he couldn't qualify for WC, as far as I am concerned. Hey, you want to be a legend then do something, don't just stand around and let the suits do a number on you. When people elect you to lead, then lead, ffs.
Maradona was better than Messi. You'd have to watch a lot of both to understand why, but it boils down to this: Messi does what is needed to score; Maradona did what was necessary to win the game. Also, Messi doesn't have blind assists like Dieguito. He could make a pin-point pass with the back of his head without actually looking. A sort of soccer sense Messi doesn't have.
JK did a solid job with the team: WC Rnd16 extra time and CC Semis. Prosaic reasons lie at the heart of the US failure to qualify. Folks grossly overthink this. Due to suspensions, for the Argentina match, the US fielded a midfield of Zusi, Beckerman, Bradley, and Zardes. Wondo started at striker. That match was always going to result in a slaughter.
I feel Belgium disrespected us not bringing in Lukaku until extra time. They played the 19 year old Origi for the full 90 against us. They didn't do that in any other game.
Johnson was linked with Real Madrid because he was so good in Brazil. Whether there was any truth to Madrid's interest, that was the stuff they were writing in Germany. Bleacher Report compiled individual game ratings for every player in the tournament and ranked the top 100. 85 Beckerman 78 Johnson 71 Dempsey 44 Jones 39 Howard
I appreciate all your effort but this lack of talent stuff is total garbage when it comes to qualifying out of CONCACAF, talent is not the issue. Klinsmann and Bruce were both terrible this cycle and pushed all the wrong buttons. With competent coaches in place we qualify every time.
Please. You are better than pretending Bruce was some sort of put upon underdog. He was nearly universally praised, including by those who thought Klinsman was less than the anti christ. “We will get back to what we do best, play the best players in roles that make sense, with simple real instructions.” He told us all what we wanted to hear and we believed it, because we all saw it in ‘02, most of us anyway. Everyone was on board, everyone agreed he was the safe choice, he ********ed up beyond belief, total disaster, loser. Complete and utter failure, legacy of ashes.
Bruce is out there with all his excuses about the roster and the "hole" and bad eggs and social media policy. Meanwhile he had 10 months to change the roster and he did and results got worse the longer he was in charge. The team was playing much better early in 2017 than late in 2017. The longer he worked on the "chemistry" the worse it got I guess.
Bruce's last year at LA and then his second stint with the US had similar faults - over reliance on the same veterans. I thought it would be good enough and I was wrong. Still almost stupefied that he used the same lineup twice in a few days for the last two games when he had had good results not doing that. If he had done anything else the team is in the WC. I know he didn't throw the game but good grief it almost seems like he had to do that on purpose because that was the only way we'd lose.
Put the weed down. Messi has big time soccer sense, maybe not as much as Maradona, but more than 99.99% of soccer players.
Uh, Bruce is an aloof, condescending old jerk. The substance of my post that started this line of discussion was that managers should be evaluated based on how they manage. Not on their punditry.
That's what I meant. Messi is a god among men now, but I still think Dieguito was better. On the other hand, after 40, age starts improving your memories.