wc qualifying

Please do not overlook Trinidad.

Signed,
Bruce Arena

 

One little discordant thing: The US's opening match is against Mexico. Historically if the US is to under perform in a group match it has most often been the opening match. I think the US needs to jump on Mexico early and often as otherwise Mexico could produce a surprise.

 

While that is true the matches are not to be played at T&T so the advantage of playing on bad fields is minimized. Also the US have much more pride as a group than the men and will not fold like the men did. The men's failure is shared equally by the staff and the players.

I still think the only points T&T gets will be from their match against Panama. On a good field T&T just does not have the guns to play with either the US or Mexico unless either of those just totally collapses.

 

I don't know enough about Mexico these days to comment. What style do they play?

 

Well, we played Mexico in April twice.

There are replays online. You can start here:

 

They try to play much in the same style as the men's side. The formation has been basically a 4-4-2 and they like to play it fairly flat but against the US they may well drop into a near bunker and try for the fast counter attack.

They have several real good possession players and their defense can be very good.

They are questionable in the forwards in that the same players can play at very different levels depending on the day. They are much like the little girl in the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
=============================
There was a little girl, who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead,
And when she was good, she was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

She stood on her head, on her little trundle bed,
With nobody by for to hinder;
She screamed and she squalled, she yelled and she bawled,
And drummed her little heels against the winder.
Her mother heard the noise, and thought it was the boys
Playing in the empty attic,
She rushed upstairs, and caught her unawares,
And spanked her, most emphatic.
========================

When they are good they are very very good and when they are bad they are horrid.

The US should have little trouble with Mexico but there is always the possibility of that "very very good" team showing up.

The US must be like the mother in the poem and "spank them, most emphatic" for every single mistake and the game will be over early.

To quote another famous saying by Ron Atkinson, "I am going to make a prediction, it could go either way."

 

If Im CONCACAF I seed 4 teams and draw for the rest. That way I could have put Canada and Mexico in the Texas group. Mexico would have sold tickets in Texas while the NC group has the US to promote ticket sales. As it is with Canada, Jamaica, Cuba & Costa Rica in Texas plus the semis & finals in Dallas, these could be played in front of empty seats.

 

US Soccer is highly confident, with some justification I guess. They have placed the semi-final and final (maybe third place) on the match schedule of the US listing it as:
WNT vs TBD.
I guess a bit of arrogance can be forgiven.
https://www.ussoccer.com/schedule-tickets

 

Actually I doubt crowd size is much impacted by venue.

If I am a soccer fan and I am in one of the cities involved I attend. There is a quite large Mexican heritage population in North Carolina if that makes much of a difference but I do not think it does.

The schedule says the TV will be on "Fox sports" I wonder exactly what that means? FS1, FS2, Fox Sports to Go, Fox Soccer Match Pass or some other Fox carrier or some combination of all those. The listing seems a bit vague.

 

I'm trying to figure out why people don't use caps.

 

Don't worry about that, remember it could be much worse.
THEY COULD USE ALL CAPS!!!

Also there is the issue that a number of people are using tablet/phone devices and on many of those the shift key is somewhat hard to use.

Not presented as an excuse but rather just as a reason.

Edit: Looking back through this thread and I do not see any post without the mostly proper use of capital letters.

 

Well my point was Edinburg TX is right on the US/Mexican border so if CONCACAF was actually trying to sell some tickets to these group games, seeding Mexico into the Edinburg group might have made sense much like it would have made sense if one of the sites was near Canada to place Canada at that venue.

 

Well, the thread might have been titled WC Qualifying (perhaps with the understood clarification that it was CONCACAF WC Qualifying).

The OP might further have added USA and capitalized Group, Mexico, T&T (aka Trinidad and Tobago), and Panama. I think in and and are properly lowercase, although without US/USA some might capitalize In and/or use ampersands twice.

But when you're in luv ... the rules don't apply.

Anyway, it's the thought that counts.

 

I had not really paid much attention to exactly where the matches were to be played Edinburg TX does seem to be an odd choice regardless of who is playing. It is about as far south as you can go and still be in Texas and the population density is quite low. I would not really expect much of crowd there even if the match is the final and it is US vs Mexico.

I was born and raised in Texas and that part of the state is really not a cultural mecca and I do not think much of any sporting event (except American HS football) would be much of a draw there.

But you are right if anything else were to draw decent crowds it would be a Mexican soccer match. Unfortunately that area is still steeped in the traditional macho culture so I doubt if a women's sporting event of any kind will draw much. However there is one thing that is going for it: The population of youngsters is quite high and a LOT of them, both girls and boys, are playing youth soccer so it is quite possible that the parents and other adults of the area could see this as an opportunity and the stands could be filled by kids, mostly with one or two parents per group.

While the proximity to the border is something to think about I doubt there will be many folks going to the trouble of crossing to attend a soccer match. It is just too much trouble at this time. You mention the Canadian border but that does not really apply as it is easier to cross between the US and Canada than it is to cross between the US and Mexico.

The majority of the fans will at the game will come from the US side of the border and many of those in that area are of Mexican decent but there is little to suggest that having the Mexican WNT would be a greater draw that Costa Rica or the others in the group.

Lastly basing a World Cup draw on geographical local would probably be nixed by FIFA. FIFA must approve any location and draw used for WC qualification and the appearance of favoritism or bias, which the selection process you suggest would at least imply, would never be allowed.

 

I think they chose HEB for a similar reason that they went with WakeMed...both seat around 10K and these qualifiers rarely draw well even for the US games because the competition is considered bad. Why they picked a site in TX might be a better question. Even tho the finals r there they put the other group match in NC so proximity doesn't seem the answer. If it had been me organizing this I would have put Mexico in HEB, dropped the ticket price a bit (they start at $30 in Cary, no idea yet in HEB) and tried for a decent crowd of Mexican supporters for all three games. Instead they'll need to teach soccer chants to the crickets.

 

Wow this looks like a tough group, there's a possibility that the USMNT probably won't beat all these teams.

 

The only way they could be assured of Mexico playing in Texas would be for all the matches to be played there. If they have multiple venues they have to, by FIFA regs, have an equal chance of any team playing at any venue.

They could not choose to place any team at any given venue. They have some discretion on start times but even that is not easy to change after the event is scheduled and the venues for this was set a good long time ago.

 

Is this the same FIFA who in the 2015 WC put #1 US, #2 Germany & #4 France on the same side of the draw and chose to seed #7 Brazil over #5 Sweden? If this was a FIFA decision the two group sites would have been Cary and Mexico City with Mexico getting the home cooking. CONCACAF just goes thru the motions on the women's side then uses that they don't generate any money as the excuse not to do more.

 

So to get to 20 for qualifiers does Ellis just subtract Zerboni (assuming injury won't let her play), Mace & Franch from the Chile roster above?

 

So here's the scenario....NCC wins the NWSL championship and either Hinkle or Williams is named MVP. How does Ellis ignore them...especially Hinkle if Short isn't back from her ankle injury.

 

Aren't three keepers required?

 

I don't think so for qualifying. Its a 20-person roster with, I think, only 2 keepers.

EDIT: Just went back and looked at 2014 roster, and indeed we only had 2 keepers on that roster (Solo and Harris).