Why the US Men Will Never Win a World Cup by Beau Dure

The latter definitely.

Travel in youth soccer is a trade-off between time/cost and level of competition. I personally have no idea which way moving the scale is better.

 

Beau points out where two high level prograi from Minnesota don't play each other but travel all over for similar competition. That's just wild to me.

 

Damn SquareHeads.

 

Why the US will never win a World Cup
https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2020...team-captain-tyler-adams-or-christian-pulisic

Neither Adams nor Pulisic are particularly good Captain material which is why we are far from winning a WC.

Whoever gets the Adams baby sitting job might do but we don't know who that will be yet. Laimer does it at Leipzig. Pulisic will be fouled and double teamed constantly and needs a Captain who would make a good advocate.

I think Dest might make a good candidate eventually but he is young. McKennie would choke. Arriola? Ream wasn't a bad captain but I don't see him starting in Qatar. Jozy knows Spanish. Pomykal but who knows if he starts.

I can see why Berhalter is rotating the role because nobody really stands out.

 

Man, you really dislike Adams it seems. Havent frequented the actual soccer threads since the beginning of this coronavirus, so I cant attest to the last 6 weeks or so. But prior to that, it seemed you could only find the most begrudging acknowledgments of his talent. And it appears that nothing has changed.

 

That's not what players are saying. Whenever Adams is mentioned on the BSI podcast his peers rave about his smarts, drive and leadership.

 

Yep. I've never seen someone so young so universally lauded and mentioned as a future captain from both club and national teammates.

I find captain debates amongst fans kind of silly; the attributes you want in a captain are largely things we will never see first-hand. Yeah, we can see people communicating on the field, but that's it.

 

Yeah, when we talk about the "athlete gap" or American soccer not attracting the kind of athletes of the other big sports, we mean dudes like Tyler Adams. Not just physically gifted, but the smarts / mentality as well.

 

Adams has elite talent. I played d3 football 20 years ago and we had some MF sized guys running 4.4ish 40s with 30+ inch verts. I wonder how many of them ever even tried soccer... On the plus side, I bet their kids are giving it a go.

 

If their kids have those kind of physical stats the pressure will be enormous from the local football coaches. I have seen it first hand. Takes a strong family to keep resisting from “just giving it a try”. Of course, if the family has a soccer culture it helps immensely.

 

I think a big step will be if/when soccer is ubiquitous enough that guys know if they are any good. I feel like most Americans have a decent understanding of their basketball ability to the point where we probably don’t miss many NBA stars.

 

You are referring to my comment that he would be known as an elite passer when people were dumping on his passing, I believe?

It's ok if you think he is a bad passer but I've seen enough to know he will be really great with enough reps.

Edit: b.t.w., my conclusion was that nobody stands out as great captain material but you seem to take this as a slight to Adams and not to everybody else on the team. You really dislike the team, it seems, a part from Adams.

 

I took it as a slight on Adams because you have made quite a name for yourself with your constant shots at him. You don't harp on and on about the negative in any of our other "elite" (for lack of a better word) players. You could hardly contain yourself in that post, arguing that maybe the person who "gets the Adams BABY SITTING job" should be the captain. Holy crap, seriously? He needs babysitting to you? But yeah, it is about the team ... c'mon, man.

 

If you think he doesn't like Adams, wait until you see what he writes about Tyler's friend Weston. It's like McKennie did something wrong to the Excellency family at some point....

 

Get well soon.

 

Exactly what they said about my Kellyn Acosta criticism when I didn't buy into Ives' declaration that we should get used to seeing Kellyn patrolling the midfield for the next decade for the US men. Supposedly he was going to be the leader. The silliness people buy into around here is high school level. Grow up.

 

b.t.w., what is the view around here of how Nagelsman is using Adams? My guess is that he wants to exploit his elite passing while allowing the smarter more experienced Laimer to "patrol" the 6.

Thoughts? (see title of thread)

 

There's quite a large gap between Kellyn Acosta and Weston McKennie.

There's also a very large gap between Delgado/Roldan and Weston....

 

Finally something I agree with. Tks.

 

Insider info about Adams’ personality around the time he was breaking into RBNY’s XI is one of the reasons I became more bullish on him than I already was:

https://chasingacup.com/ynt-prospects-probabilities-and-possibilities/

Naglesmann has been using his ability to cover ground and be effective inside and out wide by having him defend as a wingback and then come inside higher up the field to free attackers wide and counterpress high in more central areas. He also played as a standard RBL DM in a 4-2-3-1 but the hybrid RWB->RCAM thing feels like the A-team look (it was used against Bayern).

 

I've actually heard several stories about NFL players not wanting their kids to play football because of injury potential and steer them into other sports. I can't imagine the grind on a body of years and years of football practice and games. Lots of those guys can barely walk when done and then there are those with the head trauma. Now families whose dads weren't pros like to live through their kids and that is most and would be tougher to talk out of.

 

I was watching the USA Jamaica game where Berhlater was taking the trash out just 3 hours before the deadline for his final roster for Gold Cup 2019.

I like Roldan but, unlike Berhalter, I like a midfielder for my national team who plays the middle third. This goal is all too typical of Roldan's play in the middle third (which doesn't matter to Berhalter). Enjoy the full game or go to 1:07:18 for the goal sequence. Notice how the Reggae boyz construct the perfect crucible for creation of a goal with their triangle just below the centre circle. You'll never see that from Berhlater.

 

oooof:

 

Seems about right. Steffen summarized it pretty well.

You'll see posts below talking about how we need to get so and so on the team and we'll see identity and leadership but the fact is that we need an identity for our roster of 23, not our best xi. Our best xi have very little chance of being together at crucial moments.

 

I'll just say: I've been involved in a big expose coming out on US soccer in the next few weeks here.

Be prepared for the insanity of Jay Berhalter to blow your mind even further.