If a commentator said it then it is probably either false or a planted story that may be false as well.
Nice Father's Day Present! Fun atmosphere and a good/great game from the UMSNT. Score was probably fair, buy with some better finishing, there was probably another two goals for the USMNT. It was great to see the passing and movement in the midfield. They looked like a team and were patient with exposing T&T (nice to see Dwight York on the sideline. He is jacked!). Tilman and Richards really stood out with their quality, followed by Luna and DLT. We had seats behind the US bench and prior to the start of the game Luna's family came over the next section over to him to say hi. I was also pleasantly surprised by Berhalter movement and vision. Add that both him and McGlynn are probably better than anyone on the A Team with their set pieces. For a team that has struggle with team's "bunkering", it was nice to see them break down T&T. I actually thought Patrick was OK. He showed better passing and connecting with the team. Still, he struggles with getting his shot off and should have had at least one goal. Ream was a nice inclusion with his leadership and passing, along with a few good tackles. Subs did fine and while Aaronson and Wright took advantage of a tired team. Like to see Wright up top even with his nice run for the goal. Will be interesting to see how they respond against Saudi Arabia, but for one beautiful day in San Jose, this farther was happy!
He looked like a Latino Fred Flintstone at the U20 Concacrap Championship 3 summers ago. But he played pretty beautiful soccer, now he's ripped, plays pretty soccer, but looked like some Italian Grandmother with bleach blonde hair in that rando shot from Sunday's post-game celebration lol. Everything is always a little odd.
You can kind of get a feel with the potential results of all this playing out right now: If Wright uses this tournament well, and is played at striker, he has a HUGE chance of locking in the #3 striker role going into the fall friendlies. I'm hopeful Downs gets at least two of Tillman/Luna on the field, or at least 2 of them+McGlynn, because I think its pretty obvious Agyemang is not really relevant for anything other than these off cycle Gold Cups and games against smallish concacrap opponents at home. I just don't think he has the ball skills, the touch, to be relevant to what's on the agenda the next 13 months beyond this tourney, and even here, I definitely think he should at best, be 3rd striker in the group behind Wright and Downs.
FWIW (very little!), I asked my family after we attended the match if they had a favorite player out there. Soccer novices. My 16-year-old daughter said Luna My 21-year-old son, thought, and then said Luna was the only guy he could remember. My wife said the guy who was closest to us, which was Arfsten. There you have it!
I remember the commentators saying they spoke to pochettino and he raved about it so I doubt it would be false
What about the fact this was his 6th cap, against a pretty soft schedule, he's practically played as a wing & this game was his 1st goal or assist? He's been tremendously wasteful. Has been shanking shots & crosses perpetually. And yes, he's bad at defense, so when we play better teams like Switzerland, that's going to be a big problem as he's ostensibly the last line of defense on the outside. I think this is a wasted experiment, relative to others like Tolkin, Paredes, Wiley. We've had a lot at LB. Previously it was Lund under both managers, & Lovitz the prior one. Maybe it'd help if we started looking at the best overall player, instead of theoretical in a specific tactic, in which they're not even playing very well.
Yes, I agree Tolkin should be getting more time. Paredes showed even less in his appearances with the USMNT. So, no. Wiley has 16 appearances in the last two years. Needs to play more. So, no, it's not a wasted experiment.
McGlynn is bettter than others like Pulisic, and Reyna, but Berhalter is superior. Honestly, I don’t remember us ever having a guy with this level of performance on free kicks. His deliveries are tight with excellent velocity and trajectory. Not only that, but he is oddly consistent. Dudes just typically aren’t that consistent at that level of performance on these things. He’s a sniper.
Paredes has 3 caps, 2 in which he played 15 or less minutes, they were all at left wing not lb (which Berhalter said he'd be for us long-term), & he was 20 yrs old (now 22). So no he hasn't gotten remotely the chance Arfsten has had to show he wasn't a good enough lb option. In case anyone mentions the injuries, he was questionable for meaningless club games over a month ago. Could have been played in the friendlies. As for Wiley, he had 16 appearances this season, not in 2 yrs. Calendar-wise it's even more, like 22, cuz he transitioned right from MLS. How is 22 games in a calendar yr an excluder? We'd have to exclude about a third of the guys we typically use. Yes, there are 2-3 better alternative trials, so it's probably a wasted experiment.
Wow totally unexpected who knew... Hey just a quick follow up question for the media to ask Poch: Why didn't Poch have McGlynn take set pieces vs Panama in Nations League instead of Pulisic??
Pochettino was probably feeling that out. However, I don’t think we see him taking them again from here forward under Pochettino, and Pulisic very well could be left out of the World Cup.
So Poch the genius soccer mind couldn't see that McGlynn should take set pieces over Pulisic when that's like the one thing he does well, but he may take McGlynn to the World Cup over Pulisic despite McGlynn being close to a zero in like every other aspect of the game of soccer besides "left foot" and Pulisic being the best player on the team? Truly brilliant stuff!
Yeah, one thing for sure, Luna is always gonna stand out as a recognizable guy with his unusual build, bleached hair, and high work rate. I was sitting far enough away that I couldn't really make out faces so I had to rely on the numbers, but obviously there's no mistaking Luna. I think that helps in creating a positive impression of him as long as he's mostly doing good stuff.
I have an unsubstantiated little suspicion that we might see Poch roll out the 3-CB look from the outset in this game. It feels like he's been toying with it, it suits some of our players who are available, and it suits our game in general against top sides. But then again, the Saudi side that we are facing is missing nearly as many of its first team players as we are, so maybe we stick with the same 4231 as we had against T&T, in which case I would expect mostly the same lineup. We won't rotate for the sake of it until this result is wrapped up.
He’s a donkey. You can’t fix a shit first touch at 24. Sure, maybe he can improve tactically by leaps and bounds, so what? He can be in more good positions to ruin attacks with his lead feet? Id be more open to your idea that his constantly tripping over the ball were one off accidents, if he hadn’t done the same exact thing against Turkey. He’s a poor mans Zardes. That’s barely tolerable if we had wide players bouncing crosses off him so he can score more goals he knows nothing about, but that’s not the players we have and not what we need from our forwards. I like his story and wish him nothing but the best, but he’s not international quality and never will be.
This is your logic, not mine or Pochettino’s. Strange indeed. Not sure why you’d want to make it public.
It's been less than 400 minutes. I'd be far more interested in seeing what his xA is than caring either way about the assists. Or frankly, what his xA would be with a little more help from up front. Offensively, I've seen him play for Columbus. He's been worse for the US, but the skill is there and I expect it will come through more. I don't know that he's bad at defense. He had one bad play against Turkey early on, but later was playing pretty strong one on one defense. I'm not entirely certain about his team defense, because it's always very difficult to tell what the plan is, but the Switzerland game was really not on him. Whether it was a breakdown of the CMs or the tactical plan, it's irrelevant. Take this Gold Cup to see if he can handle set defense when we are back, see if he can handle one on one, understand where his IQ game is and exactly how much speed he has. He's not Jedi and he's not going to be, but covering for an attacking fullback is not exactly a gimmick here. Part of this is that I really have very little confidence in the offenses of the other options. Maybe Caleb Wiley has taken a leap, but when he left Atlanta he was all potential -- most of his offense was essentially all speed and his defense was suspect because of decision making. He's very young, so maybe that's changed. Or maybe it hasn't -- I really am not going to call for a guy who I've seen was not ready yet and haven't seen since. I hope Tolkin gets some run here as well. He's got about 100 less minutes than Arfsten and no goal contributions for the US and also has miffed a decent number of chances in that short time. It's also somewhat irrelevant. (Honestly, the guy I am most hopeful about is Peyton Miller.) He also needs to be tested on both ends, so hopefully we see him. But I don't think Arfsten is a failed experiment. He's not terrible on defense -- or at least we don't know that verdict yet. I think people are judging on a mis-appreciation of gameplan.
I read that when Luna was still with the Quakes academy, US youth nats was balking at calling him up because they thought he looked out of shape. The Quakes said, no, he's just sort of barrell-chested.