What did Shea do with the EPL contract? What did Agudelo do with the EPL contract? Where did Mix go to be able to play? Corona is a part time Liga MX starter, and out of this group, probably has has the best career of the bunch, which speaks volumes about how extra-ordinarily mediocre this group is. Kitchen: Back from Europe to the Galaxy, why one wonders? Boyd: probably could have been a contender if not laid low by injuries Hamid and Johnson: Time will tell what becomes of them. Look at the recent cycle(s) to tell you what being a frequent USMNT means in terms of quality of the player. I'm not sure caps for the USNT are even being considered by the English Home Office in applying for a Work Permit anymore. While, of course, I'm being facetious, there are probably some who read that last sentence and said, hmm, that makes sense.
It's a shame it was Boyd, a player who's healthy about 20% of the time, and when healthy a bench player, who got the awesome idea of the cyclops tattoo. That celebration deserves a consistent scorer.
the other players can't play that wide position both offensively and defensively like Rowe can. My favorite lineup with the current domestic set up is Rowe and Adams as WB's in a 352. A 352 can be thought of as a 3142 so that makes Rowe and Adams the outside mids with 3 cb's behind them in addition to a dedicated 6 so wb's have more freedom to get into the attack and score goals. Who do we have who can score goals out of that position. Morrow but he is older. Our esteemed managers like Arena and Klinsmann played Beasley in 4 man backfield scheme and we lost a lot of key games that way.
Rowe seems to be the new Nagbe for the MLS media hypesters. A guy that has only played in MLS, doesn't seem to be going anywhere, whose club coaches always play on the wing, but the Matt Doyles and Andrew Wiebe's always speculate could play as a #10 centrally. Nagbe was played centrally once against Costa Rica in September and then sort of in T&T. Porter, his coach for who knows how many years, never thought he could play centrally. Klinsman took one look at him and didn't think he would be able to play any defense at all. MLS media types still discuss using Nagbe centrally. Rowe is an MLS lifer, squad depth. Unless he starts playing centrally for his club, I'm not moving him there. Saief is better and two years younger.
You're the one who mentioned Williams. I've seen him play and I'm unimpressed. Pulisic is good. McKennie has ways to go but can be our second best player in the coming group. Parks is getting over-hyped, but haven't seen him enough. MLS lifers are mediocre, but our talent in Europe is barely better. The kids we can't watch actually play but can only get YT highlights shouldn't count yet.
Except we've already seen Rowe for the national team a few times and he impressed. The #1 criteria for international play is.....international play. Again, you're projecting league bias. Besler is an MLS lifer and was our most consistent defender the last 5 years. Mistake was not playing him more. Sapong sure looked good against Portugal and the previous caps. Pope and Mastro for examples were MLS lifers. Holden and Cameron were MLS lifers....until they weren't. They played in the league nearly as long as Rowe. And they didn't have to deal with a coach who has such similar prejudice as you in Klinsmann. Open your mind, pay attention to history, and the US national team when they play.
Jermaine Jones and Fabian Johnson were two of our three best players at WC 2014 and both were very good in the Copa. Brooks is our best CB. Tim Howard, Jozy Altidore, are technically dual nationals. As is Christian Pulisic, but if you want to put those three in a different category that is fine. Tab Ramos was a dual national. Jeff Agoos, Thomas Dooley, Ernie Stewart, Preki, Roy Wegerle, were great USMNT players. Saying our dual nationals haven't been good is demonstrably false when looking at that list. Maybe you are just looking at the last games they played at the end of their careers? Not a smart approach.
I like Besler but he has flaws that were exposed in T&T. Namely, he can't or won't distribute or take space on the dribble. He will pass to Bradley coming between the CBs or more often, over to Gonzales, who himself can't distribute but is willing to try. Mostly ended up with passes back or errant long balls. T&T knew they could use one player to mark Bradley and the ball would end up with Gonzales who would boot it long where it was 9 v 4 for T&T. Besler is ok next to Brooks, as Brooks can pass. Cameron used to be able to pass, he was good there too. He was pretty good at the World Cup, which is International experience. Rowe might have impressed you but one assist versus Panama B and a goal against Nicaragua in off year Gold Cup group stage is hardly International Competition. He also had a terrible defensive play that led to a goal and Arena dismissed him and never called him back. Rowe did not get on the field in Portugal over guys like Gooch and Agudelo. Of course I'm projecting league bias and certainly bias against Camp Cupcake friendlies and Gold Cup group stage games. I don't really consider any of them International experience. The game against Portugal is closer, and Sapong did well, I agree. Whatever the case, what happened developmentally 15 years ago says nothing about now. All the players in the world are better which is why players coming out of the NCAA are only USL level for the most part. MLS is better too, of course, but mostly because real international talent is pushing out the American MLS lifer.
Of course he can, and will, and he's proven that. He has a monopoly on MLS passing stats for CB's the last five or so years. Unless MLS has 0 CB's who can pass the ball, Besler can pass the ball. And he's shown it for the NT as well, I've posted clips before of passes he's made that have either lead to goals with assists or a key pass in the build up. The problem in the T&T game was a few things, I think. First of all, the pitch was terrible, and not conducive to build up play. Also, he's playing next to Omar Gonzalez who he has to cover for because we all know its very likely Omar will be making a big mistake somewhere. Gonzalez can't create passing outlets himself or take any space, so Besler has to play a more conservative role, and cover up when Gonzalez gets near the play. Its also very possible that the game-plan didn't include having the CB's be part of the build up. Thats something that has been mentioned before. Under Arena, it looked like the CB's were less involved in the build up, so there might've been some instructions there from the manager.
Ghana, Panama, and Nicaragua. So a couple solid tests there. Already proved he's well above Wondo-tier, and probably above Ralston-level.
repped but problem with Besler's passing is the coaching. He can pass, as far as capability is concerned. He could play lb (like Ream) in a system where the other outside back is a hybrid winger/mid/fwd/rb and we want good defense on an opposing right forward. I believe he played some left back for Klinsmann and had good games.
It was actually an accidental product of the tattoo. Only after getting it did he realize he could do the move.
Dude just predicts that everyone will fail, and generally offers the most negative outlook possible on whatever he opines about. Then when inevitably a certain percentage of the time when the negative comes true he throws it in everyone face. Of course he never mentions the substantial majority of the time that his predictions are off-base.
That move of Arena's, to send Rowe and Roldan packing after the group round, even though they had been one of the very very few bright lights in the group round, was a warning to us all that Bruce would not learn to do the right thing in time to make a difference.
The height of stupidity is vilifying an objectively good manager (2nd in career results, best 2 all time single season win %) simply because you dislike the truth he says especially about the limitations of our current system.
Thanks for establishing our new baseline for players that deserve another look. "did ok in the wing against second-tier players" When our program was considered one of the top 2 in CONCACAF, that standard used to be considered below the Ralston line.
My two cents for so many years the USMNT has been slaved to, and shaped around Bradley in the midfield. Ok his good days he was good but more recently he was just limited. I am looking forward to a new era where we don’t have to compensate for Bradley’s weaknesses to cater to his strengths.