To me, Malik looks low-key pissed out there. Like a nice guy who has been dealt with roughly and developed a quiet, stone cold mean streak.
So you believe that the fans who voted for Tillman did so because he was the only goal scorer when voting opened at minute 86? You believe you have some insight that they lack. You believe that all the algorithm based sites who awarded him the MOTM based on OPTA tracking events somehow missed whatever you believe you did not see him do that you thought he should do? I get that you are disappointed in his performance but I suspect that everyone who was concerned if he was ready for the big jump in level moving to a club like Leverkusen is right now ecstatic that after missing most of the preseason with an injury Malik has 2 Gs in 3 appearances and is currently ranked as one of the top 3 players at Leverkusen. That for my money is a dream start and I for one hope he keeps doing what he is doing while he acclimates to the level of play at the BuLi!
Pulisic another goal, coppa italia against Lecce 3 minutes after subbing on. Comfortable easy win for AC milan
I guess that’s right. I’m not trying to overstate it, but right up until minute 70, he looked like he was just along for the ride. I’m glad he has analytics on his side, but I saw what I saw. I am glad he’s getting minutes and hope he keeps getting them.
Alejandro Zendejas has scored or assisted for Club America in his last four games.En fuego. 🔥 #USMMT pic.twitter.com/9cowX5ZHkC— herculez gomez (@herculezg) September 25, 2025
Tanner tessmann is freaking doing it at Lyon. Early season breakout contender. Has go ahead goal in m Europe against Utrecht, and it was a star spangled banger too
Yep, some of us have been on Tessmann for years, some have not, but man, nobody can disagree his performance the past two months in Lyon and the past few weeks especially have underlined x10 how moronic Poch's depth chart is at CM. Hopefully that finally gets Poch to pull his head out. It can't be that thoroughly stuck up there.
I feel pretty good about our program given a guy like Tessman isn’t good enough to get called in over the likes of Roldan and Berhalter who themselves aren’t top 5 CM’s for us. That kind of depth is elite.
They’re all different players with differing attributes who have had differing levels of success with the USMNT.
It'll be interesting to see how much Tanner has improved over the last six months. The US fanbase continues to be a bit bizarre in that there's this impression that Tanner hasn't been called in -- he was there in October, November and March -- so actually he's been called in more by Poch than not. He started three of the four Nations League games, too. People keep acting like Tessman wasn't given any chances instead of the reality which is that he played a bunch and was okay? Hopeful? I don't think he was terrible in any of these performances. He hit some decent distribution, if not as influential as you'd like. He certainly wasn't particularly good or active defensively, and his overall level of play was ... fine? Maybe promising? I'm not sure if he's really improved substantially or not. He's always had the distribution and he's always had the distance shot. Those aren't new. The question has always been more around a somewhat passive defensive stance and a tendency to disappear at times. If you are going to be a distributor from the back, you've got to get on the ball. He's playing right now with a good Lyon team and he's paired with Corentin Tolisso, formerly of Bayern and a member of the 2018 World Cup champions. I haven't watched a ton of Tolisso this year, but he was an active, very good offensive CM in terms of ball progression and entering the box. If that's unlocking Tanner in some way, it'll be interesting to see how he works with say, Adams. Although Tillman might be a better proxy. Tessman is also playing in a double pivot, which we did through at least part of March. But that has somewhat been scrapped in favor of dual 8s, so there's a question of whether Tanner translates there. Tanner's real competition, stylistically, is probably Johnny. I'm not sure if Tanner can really be the active box to box type that we've seen out of our non-Adams CMs recently. But maybe he can.
I see Tanner being a backup to Adams. He is stronger in the challenge, but Adams is quicker but hardly gives you anything going forward. Adams is more of a "destroyer".
Lets not hype things out of proportion. Tessmann came on at 65 against Utrecht in a Europa league match and scored a banger. Utrecht is currently 8th in the Eredivisie.
Interesting. I'm not sure I agree on the tackling, but I think the real challenge with Tanner backing up Adams is that he doesn't have his defensive range, so you are almost certainly altering how the other midfielders play. I think we'd end up going back to more how we played before Adams was healthy, which was a much more structured double pivot. Which, Tanner makes a ton of sense there, so in a lot of ways, maybe he is a backup to Adams in that sense. He's really the only guy who has some distribution / ball progression skills that actually can stay home, so he probably fits a real double pivot as well as anyone. I think a Johnny - Tessman pairing, for example, would be conservative but make a lot of sense. Or pair him with someone who can go forward more but has great recovery ability -- Tillman or Weston. We'll see if Poch is really committed to the style he's played for the last two windows (and moved towards in March) which is more having 2 8s and the two wingers be a bit more interchanging and play almost as four midfielders. To fully commit to that, I think you really need Adams, and if you do that, I really don't think playing that kind of 8 is going to be natural to Tessman, but he does have some skills that translate. I think like Tillman at times, that level of movement and activity doesn't come naturally but the tools are there. Of course, it's all degrees, as well, so we could see Tanner stay home more -- we saw that in the GC with de la Torre at times as well. I'm pretty sure we'll get to see Tanner, especially if we see Tillman at one of the playmaking winger roles.
Good article in the Athletic about how the EPL is not buying from the Championship anymore. In this past window, only 5 players were transferred from Championship clubs from last year to the EPL and two of those were basically cheap third keeper options. There's little confidence in players being able to make the adjustment, and there's an impression the league has regressed while the EPL has shot forward. They go into detail on Sargent -- that the impression is that he's too good for the Championship but unlikely to get an EPL call, and that the best route for going from the Championship to the EPL these days is to leave to an interim league -- like the Bundesliga move he turned down. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6643973/2025/09/23/premier-league-transfers-championship/
Zendejas again Alejandro Zendejas’s game winner for Club America in their 1-0 win over Atlético San Luis.[🎥: @lilboimx]pic.twitter.com/JhfMrbtCaA— USMNT Otaku 🇺🇸 (@USMNTOtaku) September 25, 2025
Not great news for Americans as they tend to go to the Championship not the Premier League (unless it's joining a "loan army" and not actually playing in the Premier League). That means their only real shot at the Premier League from within England is via promotion... but these days 100% of those promoted clubs will end up relegation battlers with 95% losing the battle. Which is why many USMNT fans were disappointed with Sargent's refusal to move. The counterpoint was it's his life and he can do whatever he wants and what he thinks is best for him, which is true. But fans can express their opinions about it, because their primary concern is the USMNT not how happy someone is living in Norwich or Columbus (Nagbe) or Seattle (Morris).
The BuLi has 2 interesting YA matches tomorrow. First, Pauli (Sands) hosts Leverkusen (Tillman). With Andrich back from Y/R suspension Mailk is expected to return to RAM in their 3-4-2-1. Sands often plays LDM in Pauli's 3-4-1-2 so we should see plenty of Yank v Yank. Sands is tied for the lead in fouls committed in the BuLi. Frankfurt (Brown and Chandler ) hosts BMG (Scally and Gio). Gio is questionable-injured and Chandler is just a locker room presence.
Frankly, I have no idea what we will be expecting in next month's friendlies. We hope he brings the Euro kids, but there is a chance he may stick with the MLSers. That would be a downer for me. The only MLSer that i like is Freeman.
Damion Downs is having a rough time... stay off social media kids Damion Downs has deleted social media, after 4 games. No surprise our best period in the last 5 years has been where there where no fans in the stadium. #saintsfc— A (@AndrewH_2022) September 24, 2025 Damion Downs deleted social media after a rough start to life at Southampton, where he’s already missed multiple sitters and has received heavy backlash from supporters. https://t.co/t2Wm3wx2QW— American Ultras Talk (@usmntaut) September 26, 2025