Yanks Abroad Flavors of the Week: 2020/2021

Smart, slick, and sure. Nice goal.

 

Now that Mbappe has a stout frame, dude is pretty much unstoppable.

 

When Derek Rose was at his peak, the Bulls color guy had a great saying, almost a chant about him “Too big, too strong, too fast, too good!"

That's what I think when I see Mbappe and Haaland.

From 1:03

 

Me as well, he's got 10 in 900+ minutes. Come on down. Beggars can't be choosers when you've got a Forward Room littered with nothing but unproven kids, and "proven" worse than mediocrities for vets.

7 goals for like 1700ish minutes with Rennes from fall '18 to spring '20, but was great in Ligue 2 in '17-'18. Not sure if this is his level, or if he just landed on a team w/better options at Forward in Rennes circa the '19 and '20 seasons (Rennes did finish 3rd in '19-'20 so it was stiff competition at least that year, theoretically-grading papers so I'm not looking up). Anyway, I'm excited for him, when the Forward Room looks as purely theoretical and prospect driven as ours does, adding options is necessary. People are seriously attempting to convince themselves that Zardes as starter, four years after Couva, makes sense. When that is true, that alone, get Siebatcheu on the horn yesterday.

 

The arrow should include Pulisic, Reyna (though I understand if people would just like him to get rest after a bad winter), and Weah, w/whatever upside option we want to throw out there for the tip between Sargent, Siebatcheu, Soto, Niko, Hoppe and all the others. If you want to move Pulisic to Reyna's position so Reyna can just get a week off (another one at this point), then you could put Weah out on the left and Morris on the right.

 

Prepare yourself next season for Brian Brobbey, he is what happens when Mbappe and Haaland make a baby:

 

I watched Lille and Brobby looks stout but not shot out of a cannon fast but maybe the Lille defender he was racing was very fast..

 

Wait, but I thought that kind of comic play only happened in crap leagues like MLS, not UEFA Champions or Europa League...

Good on Weah to follow the play and finish cleanly. He's a good player.

 

What does Couva have to do with Zardes? He didn't play a single minute in the Hex. He was injured for most (or maybe all) of it.

Zardes as starter in some games makes sense. It's unlikely (but possible) he'd make a final WC roster, but you definitely need guys like him for qualifying--fighters who can deal with crappy bumpy fields and hacking players, and bumble the ball into the net by sheer will. He's also been in really good form and his numbers under Berhalter are as good as any forward we've ever had.

 

So let me know if it's a problem that I'm watching a Europa League replay of Molde and Hoffenheim on TUDN with Spanish announcers just so I can watch Chris Richards get continental Europe playing time. I mean, there has to be some sort of problem with that, right???

 

Liverpool’s goals against Leipzig were just as bad.

 

Bob was starting a forward that was way worse than Zardes at the WC. Not like I think that was a great idea.

 

It’s funny watching Bob run a high pressing 4-3-3 now. That would have worked so well with the 2010 team.

Landon-Jozy-Clint

Feilhaber-Edu-Bradley ​

 

He needs to improve at going to his left.

 

Exactly. But, it's kinda hard to swallow them chiding people for overreacting, when they were so down on McKennie for so long.

 

Straight to Ignore. There's a first time for everything.

 

i haven’t seen an old school message board troll in a long time.

 

This weekend we get Hoppe versus Reyna.
Nice hype video with a little USMNT history in the Schalke/Dortmund match thrown in. By the way, Gio Reyna is a year and a half younger than Matthew Hoppe.

Schalke vs. Dortmund
Hoppe vs. Reyna

We're all set for a #Revierderby showdown 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/ftcowNrDya

— Bundesliga English (@Bundesliga_EN) February 19, 2021

 

I know, that was the (attempted) Champions League reference.

 

There's one who always trolls on USMNT articles on The Athletic. It's funny to watch his comments always getting flagged. Classic "El Tridiot" troll.

 

True to form, Tuchel now benching Pulisic for something approximating "calf management" lol shoot me now

 

This is getting bad fast. Read quotes earlier from tuchel saying "no decision has been made" on his potential sale, which doesn't sound great either.

 

But at least, our young ones did well this week (Richards, Aaronson, Weah). There is hope.

 

Zardes hasn't played for Berhalter in over a year and didn't start that game. He also didn't score in that game. Which is strange because he has morphed in social media to some prolific scorer.

He scores roughly once in 3 games for Berhalter. Over his USMNT he scores every almost 5 games. Hardly, "as good as any forward we've ever had". Donovan had those numbers from midfield. Dempsey had a goal every 2.5 games. The much maligned Sargent scores a goal roughly every 2.4 games. Pulisic scores about every 2.4 appearances too.

Zardes is not up for playing the position as Berhalter has been using it. He is not prolific. He is actually sub-par. He has been good in MLS. He hasn't played since November, so is not in any form and just had surgery. He is post-prime age. It is so strange that he is made into Superman.

By the way, the offense under Berhalter has been pretty crappy. We have 12 goals in the 11 games against Top 75 FIFA ranked nations. Maybe the forward that played in most of those is not actually that good?

I'm agnostic on Zardes actually. I do get triggered when he is made out to be Superman or good. He is portrayed, as in this post, as constantly scoring goals with his various body parts. Well, he does do that, but not very often, and not often enough.