Yeah, I am not really high on Turner's decision-making, just using him for the example. Other things relatively equal, I'd prefer a guy that knows what he can do with his feet over a keeper with better foot skills but also less self-awareness. I don't know what the percentage of goals conceded fairly directly from misplays building out, but that sure seems like low hanging fruit to reduce or eliminate. It would be great to have an excellent shot stopper to build from. Turner has lost that (for now). But has Freese ever had it? Has he made any saves that your average pro keeper doesn't make? I have forgotten them. He has seemed too tentative for me these last three games.
I don't think he's spectacular. As for average ... that depends on what you mean. Freese is at +.25 g v psxG / 90 ... so basically versus a typical goalie he saves one goal every four games (at the MLS level, obviously). That's good. It's actually the same as Matt Turner's last year in MLS, but his two prior years he did .45 and .37 (and that .25 is Freese's best). Turner's numbers are historically good; Freese's are not uncommon for a top MLS GK. Freese isn't anywhere near Tim Howard or anything, but Tim Howard is not walking through that door. I think the best we can hope for is solid and mostly mistake free with maybe a great save once in a while.
Perfectly likely. And if you note, Tillman has already replaced someone from a year ago in that. I do think positions like Weah or McKennie are more vulnerable than people think. And these are two of my favorite players. But Pochettino may be looking for something else in those spots. And, of course, a bunch of guys will be hurt.
Not going to do a full 11, but I will say this team has been, and will be (at least for the foreseeable future) a team of role players, with maybe 2 truly special players in our pool. IMO opinion that is Pulisic and Dest rn. We do have a couple other guys that are truly elite at a specific aspects of the game but have holes elsewhere, and I think its up to the coach to put these guys in positions to succeed while building around our difference makers. That's why I have been frustrated with Poch for several different reasons so far. Feel like he just doesn't know the pool or really care as much as someone like Jim Curtain would. I think three of those special but limited players here are Adams, Tillman and McGlynn. I want to lean into their strengths, and see a midfield of Adams as a lone 6, McGlynn as the 8 picking out passes with Tillman and Luna providing looks in the half spaces and Aaronson providing width on the right. Obviously, this might not be enough defensively but I think its worth it for this tournament to try and to see what range Adams truly has. Seeing just average replacement level guys in the middle like Berhalter, LDLT and Johnny feel like wasted reps. Lets find something out.
We we doing pretty good in that game defensively and the Richards left injured and McKenzie came in. I was worried because Ream - McKenzie are both a bit undersized and Richards had been a beast in the air before leaving injured. I was correct as we lost the aerial battles and eventually Panama got a very lucky goal but I believe it had something to do with now losing those aerial battles. Ream and McKenzie is not good pairing and both should be paired with either Richards, Zimmerman or Robinson. Was Richards still injured for the Canada game? For some reason I never watched that one.
This squad has a big advantage in that they’ve had a lot more time together under Poch than the NL group. Five matches and all the training time to go with it before they have to face a conca big gun.
agreed, weve had five matches with this group, (up to) three to go in our only competition left before the world cup and everyone is arguing hypotheticals nine months down the road. however large or small a percentage of our "first team" this will provide is tbd, but this team is playing now. there are a lot of other threads.
We dominated Panama in that much much like Bayern dominated Benfica today yet still lost sometimes it happens. We lost because of a sequence starting with McGlynn missing a Pulisic back header and culminating with Ream playing zero defense and Turner missing a shot he would typically stop. The aerial duals was Panama 12 USA 11. Don't see how that played a part in the 0-1? We missed 3 big chances they had 0 big chances.
I think the #'s basically say that Freese is the best GK we've had under 25 the plastic couple of years, along with Schulte. Turner has not been what he was in MLS '18-'21 in a really long time. It's been eons since he played at that level for club, and he hasn't been a consistent lineups keeper for the US since the summer of '21 Gold Cup run (he was average for Concacaf splitting time in that cycle, not exactly special). To me the reason Freese is the guy right now is Steffen is constantly injured and statistically along with Horvath and Turner, was just flat out bad in England when they were over there, period. Freese is just playing better, if obviously in an inferior league. Turner of 6 years ago is not stepping through that door either, so to me, you pick Schulte or Freese and let them get comfortable with the back lines, get that communication down and you should see them play average or a tidbit above average goal keeper, that is far better than we've expected from Turner for years, and from Steffen during his steep decline '19-'22. We are just used to ---- goalkeeping, we need to be satisfied with handing the gloves to an average/slightly above average Freese or Schulte while we wait for the kiddo's to hopefully develop into legit options (Kochen, Gaga, Brady, Eyestone, that dude in Germany etc). What I can't stomach is going to a GK who is clearly rusty as hell and years past his best form in Turner or Steffen.
I think the challenge for any coach is that there are (a) still some key missing elements of the team and (b) a couple of the players you would design around do not substitutes who can not replicate the skill you are building around -- so if they are out, you need to substantially change. In particular, I think Dest and Adams have skillsets that are incredibly hard to duplicate and make you adjust your gameplan quite a bit. We have no fullbacks that can either add to the build up or attack like Dest can or even really come close. Likewise, Adams' ability to cover ground allows for other players to get forward with less risk on the counter. There's simply no one we can put back there that we can leave alone like Tyler. We also are really lacking in addition to pure personnel weaknesses: finishing pending Pepi or Balogun getting healthy (maybe not even then); midfield or centerback or keeper ball progression via passing; forward who can win aerial duels. I'm not entirely sure there's a clear solution here given who has been available. Of course, we may never be actually healthier.
I know some folks don't like G+, but I put the fbref numbers earlier. But Freese 2025 is tied for the 15th best season on a rate basis since 2013. Of course, it's easier to be an outlier halfway through a season -- Steffen's current season is still #2 behind Petrovic; Carlos Coronel's 2025 is right up there. So it's by no means going to stay there. But his 2024 is still good -- close to .23 g+ per 90 whereas the 2025 is .29 above average. So similar to the fbref numbers in value. That season is also 14th since 2013 in terms of total value -- 8.21 goals above average. Turner 2019 and 2020 are #3/4 (and #1/#2 I think in terms of full seasons), fwiw and are much better. But like you said, that Turner doesn't exist right now.
🚨🐏 Excl: Derby County are closing in on deal to sign 24 year old striker Patrick Agyemang from Charlotte FC.Talks underway with player’s green light already in place. pic.twitter.com/qCVPIuBotn— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) June 24, 2025 Derby County are closing in on deal to sign 24 year old striker Patrick Agyemang from Charlotte FC. Talks underway with player’s green light already in place.
I'm checking G+ right now, and if you filter by club rather than season (i.e., if you compare rates for each player across all seasons combined at each club they played at), Freese during his time at NYC ranks pretty highly on there. It looks a lot like the career psxg/90 stats that I looked at on FBref. G+ rankings, on a rate basis, since 2013, with a minimum of 3,000 career minutes played: Petrovic (NE) - 0.39 Turner (NE) - 0.31 Burki (STL) - 0.25 Freese (NYC) - 0.22 Clark (POR) - 0.17 Ricketts (POR) - 0.17 Fernandez (DAL) - 0.15 Rimando (RSL) - 0.15 Bingham (SJE) - 0.14 Stuver (ATX) - 0.14
The answer to that would be to look at what happened to Brazil in 2014, after their coach (Felipao) basically went with their 2013 Confederations Cup winning team, leaving out some of the 2010 veterans. Many of those guys never played for the Brazilian national team again after that 1-7 debacle against Germany. The moral of the story is: don’t fall for the fool’s gold.
I'm not sure that anecdote is remotely comparable nor true in aggregate. Who knows what the other players would have done anyway? That 7-1 loss was in the semis against the champion; I'll take that. I'm also not really sure why people have such a hard simply answering the question rather than assuming I'm actually positing leaving the current "A" team home. Here's the spirit of it: How much should performance and results for the national team matter in terms of future selection? I see a lot of people who seem to think it shouldn't at all or only minimally. I'm not on the complete other end of the spectrum, either. I just simply think it's a weird thing that it's not a significant point in favor for Player A to play better against the same competition as Player B did.
Player B hasn’t played the same competition yet plus they have a huge leg up in terms of preparation, so it’s not quite as cut and dried as you are saying.
In terms of not playing yet, my question was a hypothetical for that reason. I'm not sure I'm going to give the A team, which is now like 6 years into the cycle, all that much leeway on cohesion. Maybe some, but Poch's tactics aren't some massive departure on a high level from what they've been doing. But sure, if this team gets waxed by Canada or Panama, yep, no reason to ask. Or rather, if individuals play poorly, it's not a point in favor. Certainly the odds will be against us. But I find it interesting that still in the hypothetical, so many people are so quick to dismiss it. How hard is it to say "If this team does beat Panama/Canada/Mexico, it is a point in favor for them." I put a conditional -- so can everyone else! Actually, feel free to put any conditionals on you like! But it seems there's a real reluctance in the fanbase to actually use results / performance in the shirt to evaluate guys. (Unless it's a poor performance by someone they've already written off.) Look, I'm not saying that if Diego Luna kills it against Panama and Canada with guys like Agyemang and Max Arfsten around him, that that should override the years of play Christian or Tim Weah have had ... but it should count for something, right? At least ask the question why Diego was effective with what everyone acknowledges was an inferior team. Whatever the actual reason is, we should learn something from it, shouldn't we? The answer is not necessarily that player X is better. But at some point, we have to tie back to results, right?
Why? The midfield options from this GC look poor unless you are dropping Tillman into McKennie's spot. Musah doesn't seem likely to overtake Wes as an #8 right now. Then who? Tessman/Morris/Busio??? Nah. Guess the mythical player that is Giovanni might figure in somewhere?
I guess I’d have a better idea of what we’re looking at for players if our ‘A’ team guys had the same opportunity to grow into it as the B squad has had. I believe they would perform as well or better, is all. No knock on the B team guys, all they can do is perform on the day and let the chips fall. I do think it has been a very good thing for our A teamers who aren’t here to see these lesser players can get it done so don’t get comfortable.
It depends who we are talking about. I def keep our A team wingers, Puli and Weah, over anyone in this roster, I don’t think there’s anything McGlynn, and others, could do to change that. We know who the starting fullbacks will be, if healthy, so no, these guys won’t change my mind there, either. I also think Balo and Pepi are better options as they are more skilled and experienced, so I don’t think Big Pat will do anything for me to see it different. It’s been a good tourney for depth, wasn’t sure about Tillman or Luna before but now I can see those guys pushing for starts in the WC, so that’s great, and necessary. If Freese takes the reins that’s a win, too, imo. If Ream kills it going forward, I still want to replace him for next summer. I don’t know who that would be, it remains problem number one for me.
He should get healthy, and improve his pre injury level as well. Let's not look at him as a savior. At no point in his career he was better than any Aaronson, Sullivan, and probably Zendejas and Argsten are now. He is soft, fragile and weights less than DMB used to. And he isn't DMB. If healthy he would be 6-8 on wingers chart.