This isn't something you get over. I'm never going to get to share the 2018 World Cup games the United States played in the group stage and possible the knockouts with my 2 year old and his grandfather. That's never coming back. If I'm lucky, maybe I get to share the 2022 world cup with my 6 year old and his grandfather. Maybe. That's probably what I find so infuriating. This was so easily avoidable, but hubris on the part of the fed (getting creative with host cities, keeping Klinsmann two years past his sell by date etc), and the players and coaches has landed us in this porta potty of lost hopes and dreams. Never getting over this. I didn't have any god given right to it, but on the players, coaches, and feds part, finishing fifth in the hex was a disgraceful, career killing worthy performance that should go down as the most inept performance by a USMNT ever in soccer, and alongside the performance of the US Men's basketball team at the 2004 Olympics as the worst ever performance by a US men's athletic team in an international competition.
We may be back for Qatar. But, for sure, we'll be back in 2026. It's all a matter of not wasting the "free" time.
I've actually gotten over it now, I realize there is still an exciting tournament to watch next year.
I know how you feel. My team/country Bolivia haven't qualified to the World Cup since 1994, which was basically their first ever qualification and given the circumstances, thank God it was held for the first time in the US because my dad and I (14 yrs old at the time) were living in the states and so as you can imagine, we enjoyed every minute of it. Sadly, I wasn't much of a soccer fan beforehand so I didn't really appreciate the meaning of it all till afterwards but I was looking forward to doing so with my dad in the many years to come. 5 World Cups later and I'm still waiting to appreciate it with my dad as I should have and for the 6th World Cup, Bolivia did not qualify and this time it was partially due to FIFA taking away 4 points from us (due to an appeal from Chile) and giving 3 points to Chile and Peru. And like you said it, "That's probably what I find so infuriating." My dad says not to worry because he's gonna live forever and so will your pops. But in all seriousness, the US will be in QATAR and so will Bolivia and we'll enjoy watching it with our dads.
Me too, we've had success in the Netherlands, and Germany and Belgium in terms of having our young players there, but England, I don't really see it, basically our vets have done well there, but our young players generally haven't for the most part, ditto Italy, in terms of France or Spain or Portugal, I can't think of anything particularly positive. For me, it just really seems wise to consider Germany and the Netherlands as those are two of the best three or four regions for coaching and development that I have observed in recent years for our players and players in general, Belgium seemed to be doing a better job as well. I would prefer our young players avoid England until we can make more positive gains there.
I don't think there is any evidence for this argument. The sample size is tiny, and the particulars are important. In '96 we got a murderous group, despite hosting, prompting arena's joke about "what happened to hosts getting the group of life" after the draw. In '00 we qualified, made the semifinals, and finished fourth all while Clive consistently refused to start Donovan for a huge chunk of the tournament. In '04 we failed to qualify, however the fact that we had to beat Mexico in Mexico to qualify AND, the game was played like 48 hours after one of the coaches kids who was very close to the team had been killed in a car accident played the absolute key role in not qualifying. In '08 we were basically a couple of seconds away from making the knockouts when an inexplicable idiotic foul was given, I think by Holden, with us up by a goal in the dying embers of injury time. The Dutch converted from outside the box, and that goal as time expired, proved the difference in keeping us out of the knockout rounds. In '12 we failed to qualify in one of the weirdest, and most horrifying of manners, the awful loss to Canada was bad enough, but then not making it to the knockout rounds because of a 94th minute howler from our keeper is up there with the last second equalizer against Argentina in the 2003 U-20 World Cup Quarterfinals, as the most painful moment in our youth soccer history. In '16 we only got some of our best players released, definitely not all or most of them (if memory serves, so we had to make do with a kind of blended A/B team and worse, finished in third place in qualifying, earning a playoff with Colombia which we lost 3-2 on aggregate. I don't think there's much shame in losing to Colombia (although drawing them in Colombia,I could expected better in the home leg, at least pushing it beyond regulation), but the loss in the semis to Honduras was definitely bad. When you look at the Olympics failures, to me they came down to three things: #1 The development chasm so remarked upon between about mid 1989 and extending to at least 1994-1995 matches perfectly with the failed qualification cycles in 2012 and 2016 for the olympics, and with the very worst U-20 cycles that preceeded each attempt at olympic qualifying. Our '09-'13 U-20 teams were the worst I've ever seen us put together, and they were responsible for the bulk of the 2012 roster that failed, and to a lesser extent the 2016 roster that failed, which also had quite a few elements of the 2015 U-20 QF's, but it's worth mentioning, a bunch of those guys weren't released for qualification or were injured during the campaign. #2 and #3 Failure in 2004 was in keeping with traditional American results (we usually lose in Mexico), and the horrible factor that was team mood, due to the game being played just a day or two after a coaches daughter had been killed in a car accident. To me the failures have absolutely nothing to do with anything inherent in our system or flaws with our overall approach, or suggest anything at all with regards to our teams being found out as they have to match up with other fully grown and mature adults. I don't think that's close and thankfully so. Instead, it definitely seems as if the '04 failure was an aberration that easily could have been predicted when considering the situation going into the match, and the '12 and '16 failures were fall more about 1989-1995 and a goalkeeping gaffe, than any kind of indictment of our young players, or what we've been doing of late. If we could call up our first choice XI for qualifying for the 2020 and 2024 olympics, I'd fully expect us to demolish our opponents and qualify with ease. If we had to replay 2012 or 2016 qualification with the same factors in place, I'd fully expect us to run into similar problems (if not the ridiculous goal keeping gaffe angle).
In international soccer, by necessity, samples are small. We've had our U-17 and U-20 groups face big challenges as well, yet oftentimes they managed to rise to the occasion. In the U-23 case, we've almost never done that. It's fascinating how our Worst Generation was in the crucial years, 10 to 16, right when we were riding the cusp of that '02 QF. Those were the years when people were talking of Project 2010 (win the World Cup by then) and triumphalism was in the air: we had discovered the perfect formula to shortcut 100 years of soccer development and to produce results in 20 years! And, of course, it all had happened just when MLS came to life. That '02 team was composed of MLSers and guys who had moved to Europe from MLS, for the most part (Friedel from the Crew, Hejduk from Tampa Bay, Eddie Lewis from the Clash, etc.). So the arrogance was at peak level. Basically, the "lost generation" was the most American, MLS-centric of all generations. We stopped looking outside because everything seemed to be working so well at home. Even I felt that. It was the peak years of our methods. It was only after the '06 debacle that the USSF started looking abroad again. But from 2002 to 2006, there was a big hiatus. The funny thing is that most of those coaches pushing the American Way were in fact English or Scottish.
It's a long story, a Tale told by an Idiot, full of Sound and Fury, signifying Nothing. And that was just up to the second game of the Hex. Then Arena took over, and reminded us that "Sirs, I am too old to learn. My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent" as he embraced players for whom Age, with his stealing steps, hath clawed in his clutch. Thus Bruce a fallen King, exemplifying that for all men, as they say, when the Age is in the Wit is out.......And now? We take solace in this thought; that the Instruments of Darkness tell us Truths....
I had a much simpler feeling at the time, and have been totally disabused of it's relevance to that generation. I was absolutely positive that the momentum gleaned from a World Cup on American soil in 1994 combined with a quarterfinal run in '02 should have produced our best ever young players by about 2005-to the present, with a potential peak happening around 2007-2013, but instead it is precisely those generations that have produced the absolute bare minimum of end product in terms of quality players. Even w/the issues we had in terms of internal player development and changing up our program quite a bit in the aughts, for me it beggars belief to think that hiccups as we changed over eventually to the system we used today could produce such a chasm in terms of overall development, as compared to kids that grew up watching literally zero soccer on tv whatsoever in the eighties when were going from elementary, to middle, to high school and out to college by the early nineties. While I was nearly a '75 (which apparently produced zero in terms of American talent, kind of depressing, I was born in December 1974), as a '74, Greg Vanney, Eddie Lewis, Heydude, Ralston, Razov, and Maisonneuve represented my generated for the US. All these names grew up in an America with no soccer leagues other than Major Indoor Soccer League, of the sidekicks fame etc. It was that bad. There were two channels on the tv where I could occasionally see soccer, and neither was in English, there was the Telemundo and Univison, and I got one of them, forget which, so I could watch some Mexican soccer (I didn't), and there was an Italian Channel, I think RAI or something like that, and sometimes you could see soccer on that, I don't think it was available consistency. Literally noone, whatsoever discussed the 1982 World Cup when i started up 2nd grade, nor the 1986 World Cup when I started sixth grade. Instead all the talk at school was about the Niners, and the Celtics, and the Lakers, and why the Yankees suddenly sucked, and the Giants were either god awful or great, etc. Soccer had literally no media foot print whatsoever in the country. Yet even with that god awful situation in place, and AYSO and CYSA not necessairly relevant in kids lives beyond age 14-15 when kids usually took up football, basketball and baseball more seriously, my birth year still produced 4 legit international caliber talents in the sport, and another two guys that got capped plenty of times. My generation itself (how many years is a generation, lets just say my high school class: 1974-1978 birth years) produced: Elite Talent: Mathis, O'Brien USMNT Caliber Player: Lewis, Razov, Heydude, Vanney, Kirovski, Mastro, Olsen, Wolff, Conrad, Ching USMNT Camp Cupcake Caliber: Ralson, Maissoneuve Compare that to the 1990-1994 Birth Year: Elite:Wood, Yedlin USMNT Caliber Player: Nagbe, Hamid, Rowe, Zardes, Lleget, Morris USMNT Camp Cupcake Caliber: Shea, Corona, Birnbaum, Alvarado, Agudelo It absolutely stuns me that kids from my birth year, and high school generation, that grew up in the soccer sucks, soccer is <unacceptable>, with zero soccer coverage on tv when we were growing up and impressionable, or when it was too late and we were in high school, and no legit league in the country, and no world cup performances when we were kids to watch in 1978, 1982, or 1986, and in 1990 us getting curb stomped in 2 out of 3 games, and inexplicably almost beating Italy in a third when a World Cup was for the first time, largely televised, but again, it was too late for us by and large because my age grouping was 15 at that point, and the kids behind me were 11-14, and largely developed as well. How in the hell did my generation outproduce kids who were born 15-20 years later, and grew up at a time when we made four straight World Cups during their impressionable years, making it to the knockout rounds twice (quarterfinals once), where our country hosted a World Cup, where champions league soccer was on tv 8 months a year, where we had a legit, major league for people who wanted to play soccer professionally, and where we had numerous examples of players doing well enough to be bought by teams in the most famous leagues of the world? How in the hell did kids from my generation, which grew up basically in the Book of Eli/Mad Max wasteland level in terms of fertile soil to grow potential soccer talent, outproduce the 1990-1994 generation? Who cares if our system was a bit arrogant, and self-important, who cares if the structure wasn't perfect. I recognize that that's a problem, but how on earth does any of that compare to the literal nuclear apocalypse level wasteland that was American international and domestic soccer when we came of age in the eighties (and to a lesser extent, the very early nineties). It doesn't compare remotely. At every level, growing up after being born between 1990-1994 was infinitely better in terms of fertile soil for raising and developing soccer talent than it was in the seventies and eighties. Yet the opposite happened. How on earth did we blow nearly half a decade of potential talent. No explanation makes sense to me other than the potential argument that we just flat out didn't find the talent that was always there to be found. I just don't think it's remotely possible that the talent wasn't there, period, when it comes to that generation of talent. Hell I can even add in this key factor: The NFL and the NBA was largely a dumpster fire in the late nineties and early aughts when these kids would be choosing what sports to focus on. The Post Jordan NBA was a complete s-show from 1999 until LeBron and Wade and friends came in in 2003. Sure I suppose you could point to the lakers circa 2000-2002, but that was still a poor time period for the NBA where it was basically the Lakers, the Kings, and a bunch of garbage, even the draft classes sucked, the 2000 class was regarded as the worst NBA draft ever, the '01 draft was barely better, and 2002 was noted for a freakishly tall Chinese Center. Basically the NBA fell back from 1999-2003 when Lebron helped reignite interest. And the NFL? Remember, by the late nineties the QB's and superstars who had caused the league to explode further in popularity in the eighties and nineties had all retired by the late nineties, and you got some down years: Rams vs Titans in 1999, two god awful super bowls for a largely moribund league in 2000 and 2002 with the Ravens and the worst offense ever to win a super bowl thrashing NY, and then two years later the Bucs, THE BUCS, stomping a Raiders team distracted by a key OL having a bipolar breakdown the night before the game. Basically the two biggest sports in the country were like a deer on ice skates from 1999-2002, and this is precisely when those 1990-1994 kids would be deciding which sports they liked best. So again, how the hell did this happen? My guess remains we just flat out didn't find the talent, because I refuse to believe the barren wasteland that was the environment my generation grew in, somehow actually fostered more interest and development in the sport than the far more hospitable environment that greeted kids born 15+ years later (1990 and after). It's just bizarre.
Has anyone looked at length of tenure? I'm wondering if our players got so good it's hard to risk displacing them until they age out.
Claudio Reyna pins US World Cup failure on ‘arrogant’ culture http://nypost.com/2017/10/17/claudio-reyna-pins-us-world-cup-failure-on-arrogant-culture/
Ha, I was about to post that too. "Our approach and our behavior to the sport here — to coaching, to everything, is just wrong. We’re far too arrogant. We’re far too obnoxious. We are egotistical having never won anything or done anything, and that’s not the case around the world. He added: "We have coaches who think they’re better than they are. Across the board, we just think we do things better than we really do. I mean in every way. Whether it’s broadcasting, or media, coaching, we’re just not as far along as we tell ourselves we are. "We need a little honesty, and hopefully this brought it. I think it’s far too late. I think we’ve been asleep at the wheel for a little bit too long." That perfectly describes our landscape and those who head it. Sunil is a pompous ass. Arena thinks we "have nothing to learn from Europe" and are legit challengers to win the WC in 2026 because....stuff. Garber thinks Zardes can be world class and we'll have a top league four years from now. Lalas thinks Bradley is world class. And for the honesty? We saw how the establishment handled criticism from Jurgen, filled with truths. It was an all out war against him. Media can't be honest as access will get pulled. Garber actually went on a public tirade against Jurgen and his criticism and said “We need deep alignment with everyone who is an influencer in the sport. I not only ask this but I insist that everyone who is paid to work in this sport that they align with the vision". That's the environment we've built. "What I think has happened in the past 10 years is we’re confusing investment, expansion, growth, (U.S. Development Academy), and all these other things with progress," Reyna said. "All these things have sort of created a feeling that we’re progressing, but I call it expanding, growth and more fans. Bingo.
It's the role of the media to be critical, to stop hyping players "just to get more behinds in the seats" and to focus on what is wrong with development. It's also the role of directors, advisors, consultants, even coaches to do it. What cannot be done, though, by a National Team Coach, is to criticize openly his players and the local league. That's a no-no. A coach only does that when he's about to get the boot. For one, it affects morale. You're supposed to call the guy in private and tell him, "I need you to improve in this and that." For other, it depreciates the value of the players in the league. You're basically telling the world: "don't buy from us, the product we're selling is garbage!" That's the wrong way of going at it. As the NT coach, you have privileged access. The tacit, implicit condition in your contract is that you don't use that privileged access to provide weapons to the people who want to see soccer in your country fail. Klinsmann was correct in what he said, but it was not his position to say it.
That's bloody rich. Jurgen was the establishment. Sunil could hardly refrain from bowing and scraping before him, until the very end, like the most sycophantic attendant at the court of Le Roi Soleil. The problems with Jurgen were so very many. As the most arrogant manager we may have ever had, warnings as to arrogance among rivals and the need for humility were were buried under his pewling ego. As the most capricious, self indulgent narcissist we may have ever had, warnings as to calm reflection on the greater good were as deserving attention as Benny Hill pretending to be Professor Richard Corey before the Nobel Prize gathering in Stockholm. As the most biased against, and contemptuous of, the American player we may have ever had as a manager, salting the earth with his gibberingly insane vendetta against Landon Donovan, he generated nothing but division, discord, and a cohort of folks in US Soccer that assured us that Bundesliga 4 was better than MLS, and by gum golly Mr. Green would prove it. As the most clueless tactically blinded manager we have ever had this side of Miller, he could not for the life of him find a way of making a cohesive team in the full 5 years he mismanaged the USMNT. As his rhetoric exuded all the buzz words of the most inane bunglers and faddists in the world of business and politics, full of proactive this and progressive that and metaphors with priapic imagery and hacks and grifters pounding on telephone books and gazing at their fatty buddhas, his on field work was the most aimless, shiftless, mess that one could ever wish on one's soccer enemy. His acolytes viewed him as Apollo, chariot promising a new day. He gave us nothing but burnt ground and charred ruins. Yet his temples still resound with calls of wonder as to his glory. A charlatan in every way, pushed on us by folks so eager to attack the failings of the present order that the thought never occurred to them: "Is it smart to proclaim an Idiot as your Savior?"..
The bloody rich here is the establishment, the owners, SUM, who are raking in profit and constricting the game to protect and grow that profit even more. And Jurgen threatened that. Bloody rich indeed. Good deal for them. Not so much for the rest of us.
So glad he said it - it's been out there forever. Lots of BigSoccer posters have talked about dealing with people involved with running our team and how so many of them, including Arena, seemed so arrogant and like they were royalty or something. Someone needs to really lead us to a place of humility.
I've withheld comment for over a week. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact the USNT mailed in a game deciding WC qualification. In fact they mailed in several during this Hex. This group had some divisions. Maybe political. Look at Altidore's body language during the anthem. Hands behind back, head down. He didn't look excited to be in that situation. And his play showed it. I much preferred this team when the players had half the talent and twice the heart.
Back when we were considered a joke, our players had that pride, that fury to prove themselves in the qualifiers and the WC. Now that we became a usual fixture, one of the teams always in the big party, qualifying always, it got to our head. Our players lost the eye of the tiger. We've become like the successful Rocky Balboa, basking in his supposed glory, while the Central Americans were training hard and single-mindedly, like Clubber Lang.
A fair amount has been written already about the millenial generation and the malaise they encumber from years of being helicoptered by their parents. I see it often in my work. It should be of note that I believe Pulisic is of the very begining of Generation Z.
You'll survive. We all will. The bloody rich also make all this happen, unless you just want to watch some of your friends kick the ball around on a muddy pitch in front of everyone's moms and a few drunks who wandered in looking for a warm seat. There are probably myriad reasons combined together that we can blame for the loss and the failure to qualify, in many ways, it was the perfect storm that Panama was praying for, and we never thought would swamp us. But, I understand everyone is looking for a scapegoat. That always makes people feel better but it usually doesn't help anyone. Now isn't the time to try to divide each other, neither is it a time for a full fledged revolution. It is the time to come together and work hard togehter. Yeah it hurts, but if it didn't hurt then it wouldn't matter, and in some sense the hurting will make the next big victory that much sweeter. That is why we play and watch sports. Its boring if the same things happens over and over again.