Greece is currently 12th on UEFA coefficient. Scotland is 14th. When considering the top-4 teams in each league, these are not bad leagues. Panathinaikos and Celtic have the highest payrolls in their respective leagues.
what about max dietz of second bundesliga? Or Maloney as CB option? Both better than Trusty or Zawadski.
Yep, what you're seeing isn't PSV thinking he's mediocre, its PSV having to build an attack without him for nearly 10 months, and then slowly reintegrating him into a team that hasn't played with him in nearly a year. It's pretty difficult to change from one stylistic striker and set up, to Pepi's strengths, especially when he's reinjuring himself, and you've had to play without him for a year. He's damn good, and the best striker we've developed as a program since Altidore 20 years ago, and McBride 10 years before that.
Definitely one of my takes has been, and easy for me to say I know, players should not be getting married and having kids in their 20's. It's idiotic for their long term financial security, it's idiotic for the distractions it creates, and on top of everything else, it is not easy to be a father that's "there," when you're constantly gone for travel, training etc. Again, I probably shouldn't be judging, or telling people how to live, not my place, but this is all logic. You've got to live the life you want to live and choose for yourself, but almost everything is made more difficult by marriage, and family at a young age. It's a wonderful thing that provides focus, but if the focus is not on the family, you're doing something wrong, which obviously means it will come at the expense of the career, club and country more often than not, when it comes to club soccer and international soccer. I do not know why all these guys are getting married and/or having kids in their mid 20's (I think Adams, Reyna, Sargent, maybe Musah etc). It's just absurd. My job is hard as hell with a wife and a kid. How in hell someone can be a club soccer player, an international soccer player, a husband, and a dad, effectively as a mid 20something is beyond me. Unbelievably demanding, and what will be left wanting in terms of attention and time? Something's got to give. You have to actually sleep after all.
Probably because Pepi has been out for a thousand years, and PSV had to make do without him, and now they're slowly reintegrating him into the team.
The reason he hasn't scored in a year is injury, period, full stop. He hasn't been healthy and match fit for a game since last November, when, not coincidentally, he started, and scored in both games of the window. You can't score, when you're injured and unavailable, and that's the entirety of Pepi's story with the NT since last November. He was injured before the 1st full international window of '25, and as a result, has missed the past year.
The problem with co-efficient is that it is entirely based on European play, which is to say, entirely based on the top teams in each league. If you have a player on Celtic, and a huge reason why Scotland is #14 is Celtic, that doesn't actually speak to the level of competition your player is playing very much. Opta is far from exact, but it has Greece at #30 and Scotland at #39. That makes it sound worse than it is -- Scotland's average is closer in rating points to MLS than MLS is to Ligue 1 in their system. But the more stratified your league, the more overrated the co-efficient system is. Which is okay, because the intent there is to allocate UCL and Euro and Conference slots and seed teams, and so rating the teams you are doing that to makes sense. But it's not necessarily the best measure of the overall level of the league. The bottom of the SPL is ranked not too far from the USL Championship. Which may or may not be right, but does mean we have to take the level of competition in league play with a grain of salt.
Dietz has started the last couple of matches but he is really a tweaner. Dietz reminds me of a young Tim Ream in MLS. Too small to be a cornerstone CB, not enough ball skills to be a main DM. Works in a back 3 as a RCB for Furth. Trusty is the best of that group and his play in last year's UCL made that point. We forget that Trusty and Mckenzie were the original dominant young CB pair for Philly in MLS. Arsenal bought him and he was POTY for a EFL club!
And of course Scotland was only 14 at year end last season. In the current coefficient (with 20-21 results excluded and results this season so far included) Scotland sits 18th (below Cyprus and above Sweden). We'll see where things end up at the end of the season but based on their dreadful results so far I wouldn't expect much improvement.
The SPL is two spots BEHIND England's League 1 in those rankings. The leagues surrounding them don't inspire any oohs and aahs. The daily training competition within a club like Celtic is far greater than what they see on a weekly basis in the league.
If you're a player in one of the top teams in either Scotland or Greece, then you're in a solid situation w/re to MLS. You get 8-12 good domestic matches, plus UCL, EL, and Conference League play. UEFA coefficient matters, if you're on one of the top teams.
I largely agree with you. My theory is that for guys in Europe, their significant other often moves over to live with them but has no friends, family, or career there and feels isolated and bored. So, to give her some purpose there, they start having kids.
Meh. I think you're OK in a league like Greece or Scotland, but not necessarily better than an MLS Option. Even CCV was on the fringes of the USMNT this cycle. He's had 3 caps in 2024/2025 combined. He's won four SPL titles in a row. So what? Up to the USMNT coach to scout & decide. Pochettino literally played CB for Argentina, in La Liga, and in Ligue 1. Played over 500 games in club soccer at centerback. Berhalter, by the way..............also a centerback. A guy like Trusty wasn't playing under him either. And people on here are critricizing them for not picking a CB in the Greek League or Bund2 or wherever. If folks want to make an argument for Noahkai Banks, great. I'm all ears for that. He's playing in a top 5 league. Maybe George Campbell? Maybe. He hasn't played in West Brom's last couple of games. Maybe he's carrying a little injury. Other than that, none of these suggested alternative options are playing at higher level than the guys being picked. Coach's choice. Its like suggesting Miljevic. A guy not doing a heck of a lot in the Argentine league. 2 goals and 3 assists halfway thru the season? He's not even on the top of my list for attacking midfielders with Serbian last names to call up. I'd call up Mihailovic over MIljevic. Mihailovic had 25 goal contributions across all competitions this season. But Miljevic breathes air in South America I guess. He must be considered.
If Pepi is not yet 100% fit i hope that Poch does not push him in Poch's ultra intense training camp.
Shrug. I think if he and his staff (cuz it could actually be his staff) are scouting deeply into MLS, then I think they're also doing it with these Euro options that people are talking about. They're calling up Klinsmann from Serie B. Somebody is watching film on him. They're calling up Tolkin from Bund2. They're calling up Championship players. I'm making the assumption that they're also scouting a player like Palmer-Brown, and simply choosing others. Or players based in Belgium like Bryan Reynolds and Griffin Yow. Or a player in La Liga 2 like Jonathan Gomez. Is it an assumption? Yes. I think its a good one.
I don't think there's a chance in hell they're watching Klinsmann. I think they read the name "Klinsmann,". I'm not saying the end all be all of a keeper is PSxG +-, per 90, but it's a crucial metric in determining performance for a keeper across reasonable sample sizes, and Klinsmann hasn't been great, good, or even average under the metric for a good league, he's been mediocre in a really bad league in '24-'25, and horrible through 3 months in a pretty bad league in '25-'26. There's literally no justification whatsoever for calling him up beyond his dad is Jurgen. NONE. If you dig through his analytical #'s, there are a few where he isn't meh for Serie B, PSxG/SOT (78th percentile), he's 65th percentile in crosses stopped, he is good on penalties across small sample size, but yeah, there's literally nothing there. Good for him for finding his level, which is near the bottom of the 2nd division in Italy, but that sure as ---- shouldn't be worthy of a call up.
They've already had him in a camp before this. They know the player. [Jonathan Klinsmann's first callup to the USMNT was as long ago as 2018.] Why are they picking him over options like Turner and Brady? Hell if I know....................but they do know the player.
It's typical for a player's performance to take a hit after a child is born. After the several months or so things go back to normal, however.
I was and am shocked that Luna had his kid so young, but in some ways I'm not, because it's of a piece with the Latino culture I have grown up and taught around the past 50 years. But I also think Luna's a kind of unique case too, he's had his struggles with mental health and acclimating to big moves around the country, and I think having family may just be the grounding he needs to feel centered in life. Otoh, as a huge Luna fan the past 4 years, I can't help but acknowledge that while he's played mostly quite well for the USMNT in '25, his play for club completely fell off a cliff after the Gold Cup wrapped four months ago. He did like ---- all over the next 11 games (he had as many red cards as goals, 1). I have no idea what was happening, but, man did that go off a cliff. For comparison's sake he had 7 goals, and 4 assists in the 11 games prior to the Gold Cup, and 1 goal and 1 assist in the 11 after (not including the games he was suspended for).