Yeah, 3 guys listed as not having been good for the US, he picks 2 guys who have led the team for the last decade, and our best defender. Yes, each has failings, but to say these guys are 10 mil players who have failed is ridiculous.
Yeah, Boyd obviously thinks he's Arjen Robben. Problem is, he's far from that. He's predictable, selfish and overlooks the simpler play. Frankly, he gets pussy drunk in the final 3rd -- loses ability to make good decisions closer he gets to goal. More importantly, Arjen Robben is not what Berhalter needs from his wingers in the job. Boyd is stepping on on Pulisic's heels.
The US has had a dearth of goal-hungry offensive players for some time. Boyd has a lot of value in that regard. If it steps on somebodies toes, so be it.
He looked pretty average for the U20s until the last game. That was against teenagers with a pretty stacked USA side. I was more impressed by a few of the other players. He does have that "it" factor which can be exciting but for 90% of the tournament he was non existent. His more basic fundamentals need work. Runs off the ball, defense, positioning, to make an impact. I do believe those things can be taught with hard work. The "it" factor can not. No offense but the opposition Celtic faces with their roster does not impress me one bit. He has proven nothing professionally yet but has loads of potential. Show me something professionally playing week in and week out in a top league.
http://positionalplayscholar.com/index.php/2019/07/04/usmnt-vs-jamaica-checkmate/ My take if anyone is interested.
he isn't good enough to play that way against decent teams. you saw the difference between even guyana and t&t
While it's natural to inflate the absent and speculate whether we'd be World Champs in some what-if scenario, I prefer to go over what we have now, the players we can use for the final, and the lessons learned from the game that is supposed to be the topic of discussion in this thread. So going there: The Good : We made the final without needing PKs nor ET. Five won games, +14 GD. And we've faced at least two teams likely to make the Hex (Panama & Jamaica). The Bad : As a NT we've always depended greatly on two or three "stars" making everything else work. Which means it's enough for a couple of players to be injured or have a day off for us to drop significantly and become a much weaker team. A solid team can tolerate the loss of its best players and still produce something. I'm not sure we'd amount to much without Pulisic. The Ugly : With Pulisic playing more centrally, we have an absence of true wingers (remember Boyd is playing more as a forward). With Ream as our LB, we have very little coming forward from that side and a weakness in defense too. Next we're facing a team whose best weapon is wing play to send in crosses to the area. We may get destroyed on that left side.
people bashed them for a year and then all of a sudden a couple good matches and its...oh I always liked bradley and jozy.
If I thought he could make that jump, I'd agree with you. He just looks like basically the same guy I saw four, and three, and two and one year ago. A solid depth guy. I would agree, if he could refine his skill further, and start finishing chances w/consistency, providing a better final ball etc, Id be right with you, and if by some chance this happens, I'll be the first one saying my Mea Culpa's, heck I was so quick to do them with Haji Wright late last fall/early winter that I was totally wrong about it. I'm not trying to score points, just trying to be honest and fair in my evaluations and thoughts, and of course nothing is better than being wrong about things like this, because it would mean so much more for the US, it would help a ton if Arriola suddenly made the leap into being effective at that Beasley, Pulisic level in terms of historical wingers. Being wrong and that being why would just be absolute heaven.
Point 1: I have Wood, Sargent, Jozy WAY WAY WAY ahead of Zardes. Point 2: You may be right, in particular instances, however in my experience watching Zardes, he has a preternatural ability to find the right seams, the right space to generate scoring opportunities, against seemingly anyone. I can't recall the last time I watched Zardes and he failed to generate a legit chance to score, usually multiple. What makes me lose my ---- is how horrific his ability is at finishing the plethora of chances he helps to create and at the end of the day, you just can't afford that when the opportunities to score dip ever lower and lower against quality competition. Point 3: I agree on Arriola (obviously, I guess this goes w/o saying). I think he brings back memories of guys like Max Moore, yes Eddie Lewis (great point someone made about the crossing) and so many other attacking players we had over the years that just flat out couldn't threaten quality teams, virtually ever. They were try hard, work hard guys that lacked difference making ability. Others have made good arguments that he does generate a lot of chances a la Zardes, but like Zardes (just not nearly as bad), he tends to blow nearly all of them. I do think he's a kind of marker, when we have better options ready (Weah, Llanez, Pulisic is already there), we will go from a team that looks kinda like 1998, 1999, 2006 era USA, to more like the 2002-2003 era (when that squad was healthy), and when Davies was healthy for the summer of 2009. Until then, him being in the lineup reminds me of the moribund attacks we put together when everyone was hurt during the summer of '01, or when the attack withered and died due to injuries (Mathis, Wolff, Johnson etc), stupidity (Mathis), and bad luck (O'Brien) before and during WC '06.
Finally someone who actually watched Weah with the U-20. The basic issue is that Timo lacks in what the NT needs most: an understanding of the team, fitting the plans of the midfield. Timo is too much a do-his-own-thing guy. Pulisic finally crossed that line and now he looks much better. Hopefully, it's just a matter of time with Weah.
He had a rough first couple of games, but was one of the best players after that. In my opinion, at least, and most of the write-ups. While the US team was very young for the U20s, most of the teams they played had mostly 19 and 20 year olds, so of an age with Weah. And it was an U20 World Cup, so while the US team was good, so was, you know, France and Ukraine and the rest of the teams. Weah has always had a pretty strong workrate and his ability to make runs is one of his biggest strengths. He's going to fit on the wing in this system very well. Soon enough. But he's competing with a bunch of people who aren't facing top comp, either, and aren't exactly tearing up their own league.
[ I was never on that bandwagon. Mikey has just about aged out imo but was a good servant. Jozy is still very good. I would rather have a guy you have to tone down than a Nagbe you can't get to attack consistently.
Personally, I'd just prefer to take my lumps with the kids now, have them find a leader, have Bedoya as the glue guy, rather than a Bradley that clearly seems to muzzle young potential leaders due to his je ne sais quoi, and build around them. It can't be done now, but my midfield in the fall would be something like Boyd, Holmes, Adams, McKennie, Pulisic, Pomykal, Weah, maybe Arriola as a bench guy. Who am I forgetting? Forwards would be Wood, Altidore, Sargent, Soto and probably Nova, unless we can steal Siebatcheu, am I forgetting someone there? That's what I would do. The back 4 is pretty self explanatory, though I'd probably surprise with the inclusion of Richards, Gloster, and possibly Dest, depending upon health. The problem I'd run into is w/October Olympic Qualifying if memory serves. That would take away a lot of potential options, so it might be, what, a November FIFA Open date, whenever the next open date is that doesn't overlap with the Olympics. I'd send the 30+ guys out the door other than someone like Bedoya (who I stupidly forgot to mention a second time after initially mentioning him. Hmmm, but I wouldn't want to drop any of those Miss, so maybe bring in Bedoya as an advisor or something, hell, I don't know, the one thing I really worry about is Bradley's ability to muzzle the natural development of leaders because of his seeming intense presence. That's what I want. Turn the team over to the kids, the vets we leave in place that are older than 24 are Altidore, Wood, and JAB, gosh, wish there was room for a Bedoya type. Regardless, that's my interest, turn it over, give it to the kids, and the only holdovers are in place because they're good enough and/or because our depth at the position for now is garbage (Forward). This MLS/Veteran focused approach is one I loathe, and am praying GGG will go away from by the end of '19, if not the next friendlies. We need to be integrating the kids so they take their lumps now rather than in semifinal qualifying in '20.
How long run is that long run? We've got a lot of interesting MF prospects set to burst through, ditto CB/FB prospects.
In the meantime, while Weah takes the next steps forward at Lille, we play Arriola because he is entering the tail end of his developmental stage like the other U20's from 2015.
All of this makes me wonder a lot about the room, and practice/training (and great post by superdave you're quoting, should have read that more closely, really great points in it). Sometimes players we tear out are hair over in terms of call ups, are just ridiculously good in training, and/or in the locker room, and that can go a long way w/the coach. I definitely get the sense that Zardes just kills it in terms of work rate, work habits, and the chemistry he adds to the room. I think the guys love him. Arriola, I don't know, in his case I just think w/Holmes getting injured, Lletget getting hurt, Weah at the U20 WC etc, Arriola was the next one up. I don't know if he's great in training or great in the room, but Zardes flaws are like Hollywood sign level obvious, and if that's so, and he's still getting call ups, its either nepotism, stuff he does that we don't see (in training, in the locker room), or a bit of both. I tend to go with one of the latter two options, probably the 2nd.
I'll wait until we actually see Weah playing at Lille. He was not given enough time at Celtic, 354' league minutes and late sub in three cup games is not much.
For now Pomykal seems more like a 6 or 8 to me. It's weird, it seemed like a year ago it was "he's a 10 who might be an 8 if he could get more grit, and get stuck in on the defensive end," but at the U20's he screamed "6/8" all day, everyday, he was a defensive ball winner, left, right and center, and was effective at delivering the ball, before the final ball (he did that against France for the 2nd goal if memory serves) but seems to not have that playmaking tool kit yet OR the sample size from '19 is small enough to suggest that he just hasn't been doing it well lately, but it is in his tool kit and could resurface at any time. For now, he just seems like the direct back up to Adams for me (if GGG can get his head out of his rear w/regards to the RB stupidity), but fingers crossed that he does find that playmaking final pass and finishing ability that seems missing this year. It would help a ton because other than Ledezma, it doesn't seem like we have a single prospect close to age 20/21 that projects like a traditional 10 or just confident playmaking option centrally.
The reason I'm not paying this any mind is because the talent we have at Forward is the worst it's been since summer of 2001 injury riddled US team (No McBride, No Wolff, No Mathis etc), and possibly the worst its been since the '90 WC. It is that bad. We've got an aging, nearly always injured and not remotely productive Altidore from '17. We've got a Wood who had back to back horror show seasons in '17-'19, and after that we've got NOTHING. Zardes isn't something. When that's the situation, and it is, you can either go dumpster diving for non-entities like Zardes, or you can promote the kids who haven't proven it yet and hope for the best. I'll take the uberprospects who haven't yet proven it over the guys who've proven they aren't remotely good enough and I'll gladly take the lumps doing it. None of our games matter until semifinal qualifying as I mentioned in an earlier post, best to get everyone familiar now, if they fail, we can always throw donkey touch and always injured back into the starting lineup, and recall Wood from his Odysseus like journey to find a club with a functioning midfield that can bring out the best of his game and confidence which I imagine has nearly wilted beyond repair.
In the modern game, the #10 is expected to do a fair amount of defending and retreating to do deep-lying playmaking. In fact some teams pass from the CBs direct to the #10 to increase the speed of counters.
If we see Arriola's deficiencies, then so does Ben Olsen. I'm confident the DC United coaching staff has mentored him on this. It's up to him to get better.
We have? Everybody wants to score goals. Wanting to score and being able to score are different things. More importantly, that doesn't seem to be the role his coach is asking him to play.
Come on man, Jozy played 9 qualifiers in the hex and didn't make the scoring sheet in 8 of them.That's a problem. A HUGE problem. I really disagree w/you hear, and it's not about being stupid, it's about a track record of scoring against Caribbean sides, and at home, and rarely ever on the road (especially in Central America) and NEVER against Mexico or Costa Rica. The Criticism doesn't come out of stupidity, it comes out of a track record of piling up goals at home and against sorry sides and in friendlies, getting shut out against quality teams, and getting injured A LOT, at the worst possible time (seeming history w/soft tissue injuries). As I've said before in these arguments, I loved, loved, love Jozy from 2005-2010, and after that the slow fall off began, along w/the track record of injuries. I still think he's way better than Sunderland or Hull think (and defended his terrible stay in those places arguing that it was a horrible move from the jump, that Jozy, like Wood these days, needs a quality midfield, and confidence, and he didn't have either and as a result stunk: when Jozy has a good midfield (i.e. definitely not in '17 qualifying) and he's confident, you see a good and sometimes great player. I hope and pray in this system he gets his shot, that GGG gives him that midfield (and not this gross one), and that Jozy's confidence soars and we see a return to the fountain of 2009/2010 and the glory that was. But the issues people have with him exist for a reason based on tangible, unarguable facts. The upside in games that matter against quality competition at this point is pure speculation, the down side is injury and the '17 hex. Fingers crossed that speculation ends up being rewarded w/lots of goals, assists and happy, confident Jozy. We've seen flashes of that guy in the tourney.
Mike Brad is definitely in the all-time 11. If there's an argument, it's whether he's the best USMNT CM of all-time. He doesn't have the top individual performances of Reyna or Jones, but making the case for consistency and longevity and actual achievements over time, he has a solid argument. People shouldn't act like he's fallen off a cliff yet. Club form isn't international form and I expect him to be still be one of the best performer's against Mexico. He's the only person on this squad that's scored against Mexico in a competitive match, and he's done it multiple times, including a previous GC Final (Remember, Clint Dempsey never scored against Mexico, even in a friendly; Jozy has only done it in a friendly). Taking aside the bight of missing the WC, 2017-18 were career years for Michael: won the domestic club treble, won a Gold Cup (and was named best player), scored a spectacular goal against Mexico in WCQ and was a CCL finalist. How many other Americans can achieve that in the span of a couple seasons? So until Weston and Pulisic (or Adams, who's scored against Mexico last) wrest that torch from his hands (and now's the time) expect to keep seeing Bald Brad.