I've never said anything about it. Personally, I think playing Friendlies against top UEFA teams is useless. Those teams simply don't care. We have overrated ourselves for decades by taking the results of such friendlies seriously. Also, player development does not happen in a single game and doesn't happen much at the NT level. Player development happens with increased competition at the club level starting at very young ages and through a player's prime. Playing a Friendly against England has nothing to do with that argument. You are confused as to what people are actually talking about. The USMNT is a mess under Gregg and can't even look competent against sub-mediocre teams. That has nothing to do with the development path of USMNT players with their clubs. Gregg is making the players use very complicated and poor tactics. Even if they could execute them perfectly, they are easily countered and not effective. This is an entirely different problem than under Sarachan, who had rudimentary tactics. Seems like no instruction is actually superior to what Gregg is doing. You are correct that teams that give the players space to think about what Gregg wants at every moment make us look better.
re Adams, i think some - including to some extent me - have talked him up for the next pair of games, but per transfermarkt he has zero appearances for anybody this season, and this article suggests he's being slowly brought back in https://sbisoccer.com/2019/10/nagelsmann-easing-adams-back-into-rb-leizpig-first-team with the next pair of games 20ish days out and him not even playing a minute yet, not sure if this is happening. bluntly on this scenario i'd write him off and bring him back in march, for our mutual good.
This is the big conundrum that Gregg's player selection has us in. After all this time in the "System", can Gregg actually put a possibly rusty Adams in as the #6, so he can "reinterpret the role"? He really only can if there is zero pressure on his job. Most would think a loss or draw at home to Canada, at this point, would mean a new coach. But, if GB thinks that is the case (and he and Earnie are traveling together like best buddies) he can't possibly blow all his plans up, can he? But look at all the other guys in the "Group" who have spent all this time being taught "the System". They will all have been idle for weeks. Lucky for Gregg, Roldan and Bradley keep winning and playing, but Long, Lovitz, Arriola, Trapp, Zardes, et al are already on vacation. Do you play guys that haven't even trained for a month, or do you play guys you have spent zero time with teaching the "System".
If we beat Canada by a goal, it doesn't matter how many goals they score, as we'll have scored one more and reduced the goal differential margin by two goals total. They'll be at +8 and we'll be at +6. And the same type thing goes for total goals scored -- if we beat them by a goal, we'll gain a goal on them in that metric no matter how many goals they score. They're now two ahead of us on total goals scored, and if we beat them by one, they'll then be one ahead of us on total goals scored. Whether it's 1-0 or 7-6 doesn't really matter, because it's impossible for us to tie them on both goal differential and total goals scored, so we'll never get to head-to-head goals. They're done after their game with us and don't play on the matchday where we play Cuba. If we beat them by a goal, we'll need to beat Cuba by two in order to tie Canada on GD...and in so doing, we'd have automatically passed them in GF. If we beat Canada by two, we'll already be tied in GD, meaning beating Cuba by any margin would put us through on GD. It doesn't matter how many goals Canada scores in Orlando as long as we beat them. And if we don't, it doesn't matter how many goals we score in that game or against Cuba.
I think you are on to something but the more useful aspect would be a practical response to a practical problem. In 2014 hex was a single calendar year process from March - October 2013. You then do not need to handle the end of MLS season and its impact on the pool. In 2018 hex lasted a year in days but began November 2016 ending October 2017. The two losses that got JK fired were November losses right out of the gate. I don't remember whether the players we called were in season or out, whether we responded by calling the people still playing or whether we risked people now out of season. I am curious. I believe Camp Cupcake was a response to the fact MLS didn't use to start until like April and we would have March games to play, sometimes that count. OK, we will bring in MLS players early in January-February to work on fitness and get some games in. MLS has pushed games and training camp earlier in the year but I think they still don't start until like March. So the response would still be why not get guys together in the winter for a camp, after everyone is eliminated and they have some rest. A lot of snob talk centers on its value as a personnel exercise. That might have some narrow truth in how GB overrelies on a B team camp for A team players, in a naive way no coach I have seen has. Most coaches have funnelled down the camp players after March to a very short list who can actually contribute in A team games. I digress on that, but the point is Camp Cupcake is primarily a response to trying to get the MLS chunk of the pool fit and game ready for March. More so than personnel stuff. If you want players fit for March then either they go on Landon loans -- which I imagine a maturing MLS is less interested in -- or they hold a camp. I say this because on the players out of season now, how is this any different than the camp cupcake situation? Whether wise or not, we want to take the November games very seriously. OK, why not have an extended camp of MLS regulars, MLS prospects, age group kids, out of season? You don't have to fight the clubs for the players, even less so than camp cupcake. It wouldn't even have to be a full month. Just a couple weeks longer than usual perhaps. You keep the players fit, work on tactics, try out some rookies, and get a jump start Canada won't have. You might not want to do this in off years when there is just a friendly, but it makes sense if there are games we are trying to win. The alternative, as you suggest, is play around with the roster list in terms of who is active and who is eliminated. But as with our obsession with club form, it's kind of passive and deferential to forces beyond our control. Why concede good players to losing team situations. Why not instead have the good eliminated ones in already? I don't see it happening because we are on autopilot, following a routine set up long ago, not really thinking it through much. GB is behind, not ahead of, the curve in terms of adapting to international ball. If he spends time it's scouting and system stuff. But we're playing the same two teams again -- how much scouting do you really need -- and I have seen a photo of GB in Holland presumably chasing Dest, to me a low reward effort. How about spend time actually coaching and kick the tires on kids who want to be here? But I think you are on to something just like where camp cupcake got started. Someone saw a problem in terms of how the new MLS league's calendar year schedule meshed with the NT schedule. That MLS people would be showing up in training camp shape. So we play soccer in January now. Perhaps this merits a similar response. I would say that you should then give correlated rest to November camp players. Maybe leave them off camp cupcake. While I am thinking about it, I would think this would be EVEN MORE OBVIOUS for U23s we could corral. If you care so much about that, why isn't every U23 already eliminated in a camp? Qualifying is a half year off. You could even include the more reliable and impressive ones in the senior team roster. This sort of thing used to be obvious when we had a minor soccer league system and were hungry to make the world cup and show ok. Part of the loss here is we now defer to professional systems on almost everything. Go develop our players. Go get them in shape. If you are sincere, take some swaths of open calendar back and act like you are creative and give a sh*t. Or we can just rotely follow the same calendar someone else set a couple decades ago, which was itself responsive to scheduling quirks in MLS.
I honestly can't think of a regular poster on this board that didn't criticize his game. There is a difference between criticism and making lame swipes at his character.
The whole job of the USMNT coach is to build a team that can come together periodically and perform together at a very high level in a short amount of time. In theory, GB has time to implement a "system" but he has not shown any kind of glimmer of hope that progress is being made. 1. He wants to play this elaborate, sophisticated, build out of the back soccer and then calls in Zardes, Yedlin, Roldan, Morris, Lovitz etc. No one would use sophisticated or technical to describe them. 2. We have gotten worst as his system has been implemented. 3. He focuses on minute details when all of the big picture stuff is horribly wrong. 4. If he didn't talk about "his system" incessantly, and the average soccer fan was asked to describe what he thought we were trying to do, no one could tell either an attacking or defending plan. He is a soccer poser who uses soccer cliches to hide the fact that he has no idea what he is doing.
The three main tiebreakers are H2H, GD, GF. H2H is straightforward and negated by our circumstances. We have to win to tie on points at which point H2H is equal. If we tie or lose we finish second. GD is the next criteria. Since the next game is H2H, it works double. If we win, by the nature of the way it works, the gap is multiplied x2. Any goal we get is both +GD for us, and -GD for them. The gap is +9 to +5. We bridge that gap in a 2 goal win because we go to +7 upwards and they get there downwards. However, to win the tiebreaker we have to be one better on that area, not even. So we need a single goal margin win from Cuba to advance on GD. If we get a single goal margin on Canada then we earn +2 of the +5 we need. We then need 3 on Cuba. And the deal is this is Canada's last game so they cannot respond to how we handle Cuba. But since both teams are not involved each goal only contributes +1 to GD, since Canada doesn't also allow that goal. If we make up precisely +4 in GD then it goes to raw GF. Canada is 9 and we are 7. I agree that merely winning both games would get you even, one goal more than Canada at least plus at least one on Cuba. But to win the tiebreak you have to be one ahead. Part of the reason I posted how recent Canada home and Cuba away results is this process may be more demanding than some assume. It makes math sense to argue what you are, but practically we have a lot of 0-0 and 1-0 games with Canada, and then the last time we played Cuba in the Caribbean we won just 2-0. And that's neglecting this is a better Canada than Canada B in camp cupcake, both in A team and boom era senses. I also think there is some arrogance and mental double accounting of a TnT variety in assuming you can go down to another guy's choice of stadium and get not just a road win but perhaps even a goal difference expectation. And as with TNT the potential scenario is you exhaust the starters to get the first game of the 2, and then still need the second result. Can you rely on tired starters in their second game of the week to go get road goals? Do you risk squad rotating if you need a result plus goals? I think we have work to do. I think we also will face, as we have for about 4 years now, since the mentality got cemented, the tension between calling the usual suspects "as our best chance to win," and the reality of recent results. One reason I have argued experimentation is it's the primary way to change the results. Call different people. But that is both an upside and downside risk, we seem frightened to death of the downside -- even as we don't get wins/upside from the usual suspects. So I expect a fairly routine unit at which point good luck. Same guys who couldn't beat Canada to chase a win? To chase goals in the Caribbean? Meh.
We hired a career .500 MLS coach and wonder why it is going so wrong? His 2 bosses are his brother and his best friend. This is going to go wrong on so many levels.
If Gregg is going to use players eliminated from the playoffs, he should be having an extended camp starting now. I wonder if all MLS players are contracted through the final. They would have to be, wouldn't they? So, even if they are not playing, they are still "in season" and would have to be released for a camp. But why any MLS team wouldn't release a player is unknown. Maybe GB just doesn't care that much about the Canada game or the Nations League.
The cynical guess is he likes the junkets, last time to Qatar, this time to Holland and where-ever else. Swamp creature isn't wanting to actually work. Enjoy that while it lasts, if we don't advance or start playing decent you will be canned. The naive version is someone who seems to have to relearn every NT coaching lesson would have to learn this one on the job also. I don't get how we hired someone even less aware or foresighted about international soccer than a decent BS poster, but that's arguably where we are. He shows up in November asking rhetorically why are you out of shape? It is too late to do anything about it. Beyond that, like I said, this would be autopilot. What have we always done? Do it again. If he's learning on the job he ain't brilliantly bending the NT calendar to maximize our team within its club realities. Contract status, I don't think that matters. They are under contract in the winter just the same -- and these days already in each club's training camp (negating some of the excuse for the camp). They are nonetheless friendly about release, even though Jan/Feb is not an international date. But the hammer would be November is an international date, I think. Unless the player is hurt they don't have a choice. I think that is even true during MLS playoffs -- if we wanted, our date overrides NYRB in the playoffs so to speak -- but we often work with the teams, at least when it's not WCQ.
Besides GK, I can't think of many times in those games where you would have said a US player was the best man on the field. Landon wasn't perfect but people have gone too far. Familiarity breeds contempt and he was very familiar to fans with 157 caps.
It's a team game not a 1 v 1. How many times have we beaten or tied Cristiano Ronaldo? Kind of like, I don't care if Canada has 2 very good players. Our team should still be better. This is the snob obsession with world class. I prefer wins. And the thing is what I have seen is us handing away wins as part of a transition process, but lacking the players to do the new way. So we changed the players but not the tactics. CP/Landon: regardless of any faults, they were elite players who were going to start no matter what, no matter their faults, and on whom we heavily rely. They will produce to be in the record books here. But you can make the record books and have flaws and cost the team occasional games the other way just like you win them for us. I think it matters because it's something they need to work on to be truly world class, and also that as new players come up they need to see the various facets of their role models' games and be able to glom onto the positives but hopefully be better at what they lack. I think one of the telling features of the current team is players with very specific strengths who in other ways can be useless. Doesn't help them to be like one dimensional is OK.
This is what you said... Which on its own is false. If you are talking about last season, then you ignore that his time was likely reduced do to him refusing to re-sign. It made no sense that he didnt start more with Sancho.
Likely...perhaps, but if Berhalter marches out the same crew of low achievers, notably MB90, Lovitz, Ream, Roldan, it greatly improves Canada's chance of winning on US soil. It is remarkable that apparently no one in the USMNT hierarchy recognizes (or admits) the parallels between the WCQ failure and more recent performance. Principally, midfield ineffectiveness. It seems easier to focus on the symptom (specific defender or keeper) rather than the cause. Poor midfield play spans multiple coaches/systems, but a common element is MB90. His general play has declined such that, as some here have opined, those around him are burdened because MB90 is not able to mark even average midfielders.
i would buy arguing generalized sh*t midfield continuity as the reason we continue to suck and perhaps be sub qualifying level. but in terms of nuance MB was the faltering best mid on the last team, but is now surpassed by several players. i say this because as much or more blame before would have been the supporting cast eg Nagbe. a lot of the problem last time, was who else were we starting, or was out there, and didn't they suck as bad or worse. now, he and roldan are roughly equal weak links. there are at least two better mids out there, probably several. enough he shouldn't make the team, or at least should be a sub. i blame GB for MB right now more than the player himself. he is what he is. it's GB's fault for picking up the phone every time. he picks other people and we don't have this conversation. we still then need to see if those others can hack it. i think we can. not necessarily world class but that's not the standard.*** the standard is better than now. ***i feel like there is more than a hint of the snob obsession with "world class" players in holding on to MB past his sell by date. i do not see a player who dominates much at all. but i think the reason he gets picked is some dream world where he can in isolation make big plays the others can't. i see maybe one really good play a game. that can't make up for the other 89' nor do i believe 60% or 70% MB is as good as 100% Holmes Green Pomykal etc. that is kidding ourselves. that is the fundamental glitch, is that miscalculation right there. we are deliberately? naively? underrating anyone else and overrating him. this is not objective. this is kind of similar to the dim witted idea around here where we had ching and then beasley well past sell by dates. i think the idea is we're getting a top player for cheap at a slight loss of quality. the reality being that if they only manage 5 goals all season for $200k you actually could probably get a free agent or draft pick to do that, cheaper, with more career left. and that ideally you want the guy who comes in and scores 15 if you're, say, in the playoffs. the boss may be impressed you kept a former international for almost nothing. the other team doesn't care and isn't impressed much. i don't know how many years 2009-2013 we blew losing to LAG trying to prop up Brian Ching one more year and then we can't score on them in the playoffs. defense tight as a drum but can't get a goal to save our lives. there are consequences from these decisions. it's kind of a MLS midtable moneyball mentality to milk overage veterans forever. same concept 2006 that had reyna still starting at 33 and looking awful. players need to be judged in terms of present value and not whether wow it would be nice if he had something left in the tank. the eval is not objective and if you go out there with 50% of the team that should be out there, that should be #2 in the region, maybe #7 can take you now.
Jones vs Portugal. Sciaretta agrees and he hates dual nationals. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/...er-ratings-united-states-2-vs-portugal-2.html Jermaine Jones So far this Cup, Jones has been the team’s best player. His thunderous equalizing goal will be widely talked about, but Jones stood out in every aspect of the game. He won nearly all of his aerial challenges, closed down on Portugal’s attackers, and ran tirelessly for 90 minutes. Rating: 8.0 and Man of the Match.
https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/ranking-table/men/#CONCACAF fyi fifa rankings updated, jamaica 3rd, honduras 5th, canada now 6th plus usual suspects fyi2 if you use June 2020 FIFA ranks then you will not include June 2020 NL semis and finals. you would include the remaining 2020 NL group games and i assume friendlies through May.
re our attitude towards youth development, the mere structural exercise of handing off development to the clubs, alone, does nothing. zip. zero. like many an org chart solution. the rest of the world, with a few exceptions including the world champion, does the same thumb twiddling exercise of letting the market deliver their players. if anything it is a regression to mean choice. how do you actually think you will outdo the rest by doing what they do? now, if you did club related development well, then you have diverted resources to an advantageous strategy. but diverting your players to academies that do the job, generally, poorly, is playing to a weakness. oh, but many of the best countries in the world do it, we should xerox! they also put in the resources at each team, take it seriously, routinely produce first team players for those teams, for loan, and/or to sign at other sides. having put in that effort, it is playing to strength. it is not the "market capitalist" structure that does it. i assume the world is full of second or third rate pro team age group pyramids that suck. it is the effort put into the scheme. that effort then makes it wise to delegate the responsibility and trust in the end product. otherwise, it's a regression to mean strategy posing as a world class one. we have to treat it like ajax or arsenal does to get the value of mimicking them.
Everyone who posts on these USMNT N&A boards knows Pulisic's history at Dortmund. He's the most high profile American player. He only had one season where he was a starter, 2017-18. The 2 seasons before that and last season he was not a starter. That's OK, but it's time to get real about his time at Dortmund. Saying it was because he was sold to Chelsea and was on loan is bullcrap. If he was considered the best option, he would have started more. Do I want him to succeed. Of course! I'm a USMNT fan above all other things. He's doing pretty well at Chelsea, and he's on track to become a starter.
https://www.transfermarkt.us/christian-pulisic/leistungsdaten/spieler/315779/plus/0?saison=2018 his argument is simply bunk. he was a starter the year before, but then 2018-19 he only played half the games. being omitted: the coach changed. you can see easily favre didn't like him, and liked sancho. just like lampard likes mount. so, new coach comes in, league weeks 1-6 he either starts or is out injured. you can look at the game log and see where the switch flipped -- roughly october -- and he becomes a bench guy. the coach goes whole hog on sancho. by the winter window he is sold and he only starts 1 more game that half season, during a week they had 3 games he then disappears to the bench or training table until march. superficially oddly, he is restored to the lineup at the end of the season. but as someone who watched all BD's games, if you know how the season went, they broke from the gate like gangbusters, were in 1st at the break, but then were passed by BM with what we now know was finality. he starts and plays 90 the last 3 games, but they were having injury problems fielding their first choices. he has the narrative all wrong, both as common sense and fact. common sense is you sell someone who is surplus. this is not a selling league situation, sancho is probably more expensive. this is, they benched him and probably after a period of that decided he was surplus. a period of the benching would go before the transfer. you do something (or don't do something), they get fed up, and only later do they sort out to do something with permanent effect. it also doesn't fit common sense, in the sense that not only is this a team that doesn't have to sell, it's contrary to their interests to bench the asset. benching the asset only hurts or freezes its value. so a team might bench a player right before they sell them, but not most of that half of the season. that would have only bid down their transfer fee. no, this was not they liked him and wanted to bubble wrap him until the transfer, this is a switch flipped in the coach's head and later on either he asked out or they invited him to shop. i could see a snob argument that england is the daddy of them all and this is him being sold upward, and preserved. that's fake. and the reality is that when he is sold the past 6 years running europe had been won by a spanish or german team. the idea this is done with england ascendant is chronologically confused. BD is top of the B.1 when they sell CP. BD wins its group and makes it to the round of 16 in CL before he's sold. if they felt he was integral to winning either competition, they don't sell him. but they do. liverpool doesn't win CL until he's gone. this is dumping surplus, not selling upwards.
since the thought process deserves some mocking, what is Chelsea doing now, putting him in bubble wrap for real madrid? he's having the same standard issue sports conundrum happen twice, and lampard doesn't even play that this is a positive thing, it's a benching. so how on earth do you expect me to read a similar pattern last year a different way? benching is benching. expensive bench players are easy transfer bait. this is not rocket surgery.
The argument was that simple label of "not a regular starter" can be misinterpreted by naive american soccer fans. There were other variables that led to him not starting last season, as he already showed he had the talent to compete at that level. Your continued "snob arguments" are just stupid. Your understanding of the european leagues also seems limited. It is just amazing to me how someone who claims to have played so much doesnt recognize the importance of competition. I dont know if it deserves it, but I could see people mocking this post.
one element you are neglecting is he was at an elite team that had made a coaching change. the past coaches thought he was a key element. for long stretches favre did not. favre is the one who had him sold. your personal opinion, or even a basic idea he could handle b.1 or that level team, doesn't override the coach's conclusion. the coach's conclusion then dictates if he sees the field. that he had bona fides doesn't change reality on how one coach sees him. that coach, until he gets fired, is all that matters. if that coach hates him, he could be brilliant, and that's besides the point. that coach by the end would only play him in cup games or if someone got hurt. and we then get the consequences. also, while this competition argument sounds nice on paper, and people make confused academic theories, when neymar meets weah, or pulisic meets sancho, there is one spot on the field. there is a winner, and a loser. of course teams want the winners of such personnel showdowns. but as a career choice strategy, you don't know if you're the winner or the loser. there are downside risks to being the loser. lose enough and your prospecthood is done and so is your career. zelalem, etc. at some point you need to be in a position to actualize and not just compete. NTs don't usually call in a bunch of bench sitters. berhalter especially. oh, i believe in recruiting, and i think cumulatively it makes you a better team. but if you consider the players as individuals, and not vague tools, if your coach recruits his butt off, someone gets their eggs cracked to make that omelette. friends get cut. choices get made. the theories being touted ask us to focus on the ones who survive. but there are losers. and the theories ignore how often our players are winning or losing. the pattern is generally not success. it's mostly pulisic and then a bunch of people on loan or moved on. i refuse to accept half cooked pro market theories of competition that don't actually align with player by player reality, which suggests that while ambition is nice, we are perhaps overshooting. last, we are often talking about U20s who have barely played a pro soccer game. or MLS players. anything first team EPL or B.1 -- even the worst teams -- is a step up. is ambition. i think it's sick that we're not throwing around this if it's not top 5 you're not really trying, when that is the least successful approach of them all. going to schalke, newcastle, or fortuna is still a leap but they give us more of a chance.