I'd forgotten one fact about Paxton. First international dates are in September, and Olympic qualifying starts the first week of October, so we're going to have to wait until the November dates to see him with the full team, most likely. Unfortunately, Schalke, Chelsea, and Die Roten Bullen are going to tell us "LOL. Go F-ck yourseves" when we request our top tier guys, so we need Pomykal with that squad.
Didn't we have three guys go down with hamstrings in 2014 in Brazil? Jozy and Fabian, but didn't we have one more too? Unfortunately they're not just big guy injuries, they're soccer player injuries. A couple guys on the Fire have went down with them this year IIRC, including Nico Gaitan.
Honest question since I'm still learning all of the "club vs country" intricacies - is there a "pecking order" of instances where club teams are either required or strongly encouraged to release their players for international duties? For example, would RB Leipzig be able to tell all of their international players (first one besides Adams coming to mind for me is obviously Timo Werner, but I'm sure there are others) "Sorry, you're staying here" in the case you have mentioned above? If it's generally accepted that even the top countries aren't going to have their guys leave for international duty, then I can understand your statement.
Players have to be released for FIFA sanctioned matches on FIFA dates. The Olympic qualifying matches may not be during FIFA dates.
i believe (though i could be wrong) that most youth tournaments are official fifa fixtures, but youth qualifying tournaments/single qualifiers arent- meaning teams arent required to release players.
Regarding Jozy, I recall that when he came to Toronto he leaned up quite a bit, and it really helped his lateral mobility particularly. Much quicker and more agile player than he had been-it was a great improvement. I haven't watched much of him over the last year so couldn't give an opinion on if he's bulked back up or what, but at least when he joined Toronto a leaner Altidore is what they wanted.
Yeah, it's been a frequent problem for us over the years, not that it excuses our results. But yeah, the 2015 squad wasn't exactly great. Hard to believe that Morris (still a college player at the time and the only amateur on the team) of all people would be the one to have the most successful national team career so far, four years later.
You have totally misread this interaction. I am here to discuss my favorite team, there are no prizes available. Read my post history and you won't see me insulting people or declaring internet victory. I honestly don't know when Jozy was a speedster. He scores on combinations and good runs. I don't remember him running out of the defense carrying the ball 50-60 yards.
He looks the same to me physically from 2017 when TFC won everything. He's a big wide guy. Jordan Morris is a similar dude, some people carry more muscle easily.
Martinique has impressed me every time I've seen them in the Gold Cup. If they were eligible, they would be a hex team, IMO.
They may not work out individually or together but it does take a while for center back pairings to really gel. Arena kept switching them around the last GC and no one looked good.
as i understand it i think they have to release players for official senior tournaments and then the international date calendar, whether it's a qualifying game or a friendly. olympics and u20 aren't senior tournaments and technically aren't on the international calendar. regional senior championships like ACN or Gold Cup i think they have to release for, at least to date building into confed cup, which may not continue to exist. the big exception is injury. if a player is injured they do not have to release. i think for good or ill this is why many absences are defined as injuries. however i believe the practical difference is that u20 worlds is in the european break and even if it's not a break the players for either qualifying or worlds are % less likely to be on first teams where they invoke their rights. the vast majority of the sort of players you want in u23 are first teamers, at least these days in the USA. also, while the rules give you rights NTs might curry favor with the clubs by not just quoting the rulebook but in fact working with the clubs on callups. the value of that is debatable and you might just rely on the rules and when you want your players involved, when you think they need rest.
lipstick on a pig cycling through different combinations of the same frustrating people is unlikely to fix frustrating needed to go out of the box eg opara parker someone who wasn't taking their turn in the dunce cap that cycle to me you need to find 4-6 people who can play before gelling works. you can;t gel your way out of crappy.
i have witnessed the game on this, which is that some people only think you are a dual national if you have a choice to make that vexes you ("[would] actually play for another country, not someone who happens to have another citizenship/passport.") it is the 50/50 ball of interpretation. the reality is there are touted americans who came up in our system and never were a doubt who slid rapidly into europe using a second passport. there are people like aj who barely spent time here and came over. there are the switchers who start one end another. there are ones who get away. there are ones who come over who suck, or have attitude issues, or are good. it's a wasted argument. what i want is a player, not an immigration dossier. if the player has performance or attitude failings big enough to matter, that will manifest on the field, and the coach can deal with it just like any other performance or attitude issue. this is political and not sporting. UK has its home nations gentleman's agreement. mexico used to be hung up on naturalized. some countries choose as a matter of posturing to make more or less a fuss of this. they are generally not better teams for doing so. if you err on the side of exclusivity then we become england where the existence of a bright line in abstract can deny you a player who has uk citizenship and lives in london but wasn't born there. we'd shift from this loyalty debate to the absurdity of unbendable rules weakening the team.
and zardes missed a chunk of last cycle with knee and foot issues. or are we just doing this one sided pretend stuff.
Jozy's never been a particularly fast or quick player. He thrives on being really hard to mark through physical play and really good timing with his movement. Similar to Sargent in a couple ways which is one of the reasons I think Sarg needs to bulk up a bit. He did look kind of slow on Saturday, but he also kind of looked like he was sandbagging it out there already up 4-0.
Your claim is that he got fat this year? A lot of soccer fans are anti-muscle like 1950s baseball people.
as i suggested in my earlier post, you may be fighting the last war. kind of like the dual nationals discussion. i don't think many of the younger players care. many play abroad. way i see it we did well in GC 2017 and meh. and more precisely, i think each cycle different secondary teams come to the fore and it becomes a question of which ones. no one would have talked up trinidad until they got those 3 points last cycle, and panama already beat them this time. they don't look like an emerging regional side. like i said, i see the rest of the tournament as the barometer give or take panama which may be a rest game. i think the thumpings are good for confidence but hard to discern in terms of where we sort out. those teams finished behind us last time and will again. it's a cuban or barbados blowout. it hints certain players stand out and should be in the mix. it doesn't hint they are the ones to help us top mexico. basically camp cupcake-plus.