US vs Jamaica Gold Cup Semi
The big issue I see on the field, and I love the hell out of what Bradley brings to the team in a positive mental way, is just how slow he is.
It’s unfortunate that time has passed him by, but I don’t know if we really have any other great options.
Pulisic really needs to play out wide, it is amazing how much more dangerous he is with time and space. Go out and find us a center mid please!
Bradley is an absolute liability. He is way too limited as a player, particularly for someone who plays such an important position.
Still, Bradley >>> Trapp, which is apparently the choice at that position, for now. The US had absolutely no depth right now. Pulisic, McKennie, Adams and Sargent are all pretty legit. After that the drop-off is pretty severe. Hard to put together a good team when you have ZERO players over 21 even getting a sniff from the top tier clubs in Europe.
Not sure exactly what you want to qualify as a "sniff," but Steffen did sign with Man City. I believe he's getting loaned out to a Bundesliga side, though maybe not what you'd call a top-tier Bundesliga side. So... half a sniff?
Hard to say what they envision for Steffen or Miazga (who's in the same boat), but I'll give you that.
Jamaica looked pretty bad (though fast), but promising performance for the US. Replace some of the dead weight with Adams, Sargent and maybe another promising youngster or 2 (Pomykal? Weah? a defender I don't know about? a surprisingly healthy Brooks?), and Berhalter might have team that can make a little noise at the WC.
So soccer really got kicked off here long after I matriculated, so I'm not a big fan because I have no history with it. I can live with any well played, competitive game, though, so I'll watch on occasion. What I don't understand, is after ~30 years of the rise of soccer in the USA - a country of 350 million people - we still only have a handful of good players. Clearly not enough to field a highly competitive team at the world level.
How is this possible? I get that the big four (FB, BB, BB, Hockey) take a lot. But kids normally play multiple sports, and I'd think that, by now, some serious athletes would have grown up with a first love of soccer. Any idea why this hasn't (seemingly) been the case?
What I don’t understand is why soccer players are so bad at throw-ins. So many times I see the guy throwing in the ball ignore a wide open guy and instead chuck it down the pitch to a guy who is double covered.
I just finished watching the game and noticed Pulisic is wearing a sports bra. Is this a thing now?
That’s a manzier or bro if you wish.
It's a harness for wearable bio-sensor. The whole team wears them. Our basketball team wears them as well. It allows training/coaching staff to monitor physical performance metrics.
https://www.mlive.com/wolverines/2018/01/a_tiny_wearable_device_is_a_ga…
This question is asked in basically every soccer thread.
The problem is not a lack of athletes. Our team has perfectly fine athleticism. Our problem is coaching and development, particularly at the youth level. The model that works in other sports does not work in soccer.
Tim Ream is a terrible athlete. Our athleticism severely lacking considering the athletes in this country.
And yes, there are some good athletes, but most of them aren't superbly skilled (like Altidore and Zardes). That happens because we just don't have high numbers of good athletes playing soccer since birth. So we don't have a bunch of good athletes who are also really skilled. It's generally one or the other for the US.
I wrote this on the women's thread a week or so ago. I think it's a decent synopsis:
As far as the men, it has little to do with choices people make. There are over 325 million people in this country and we have a ton of money and resources. We have the bodies so to speak. The problem is the way we develop soccer players (and I would argue this is true in most sports) in this country is flat out idiotic. Almost everything revolves around the college scholarship. There's no consistency with development. Watch almost any other country in the men's World Cup and compare to the US. Athleticism isn't the problem. It's the lack of skill. And it shows even to a soccer novice. And that is all coaching and development.
The real issue is that I'm not sure how fixable this is. The college scholarship is so important because it costs an arm and a leg to go to school in the United States, certainly compared to most other countries. There are those more in the know than I about the various academies being set up connected to MLS. Will those really make a difference on the world stage? We don't generally fund our sports through a national sports system like most other nations do. How much do those academies cost and will teams eat those losses? Again, I don't know the answer to this but I'm skeptical that this is the difference between being average to being a world power.
The issues that plague the men's team go beyond just being a sports issue. It is so much more complex than that.
I disagree. For one thing, college hasn't been nearly as expensive as it is now for most of modern US soccer development, so I think your argument falls apart there.
I have a different opinion than most with regard to the "How come Americans suck at soccer?" question, in all of its varieties. My answer has two parts.
First: we don't suck. For the modern period 1990-2014, we made the World Cup finals every single time with a median finish of 15th place. We made the quarterfinals in 2002. We were ranked in the top 10 or 11 for half a decade in the 2000s. You know who sucks? Canada. China. India. Indonesia. OMG Indonesia. Take a look at their FIFA history if you want to see what a messed up football program looks like. And their suckitude is not for lack of trying. They love football. It's their number one sport, and they're the 4th most populous country in the world. ASEAN is trying to host the World Cup in 2034.
Second: some good old-fashioned American arrogance is at play here that makes people conclude, falsely, that we suck. We're so used to being number one in the Olympics (more than double the medal count of any other country in the modern era, combined winter and summer), and in basketball, and in American football, and in baseball (obviously arguable but certainly the perception many still have), and even in hockey (more than half of the time in the Olympics, we have finished in the top 3) that we think anything less than number one is sucking. We seem to have a Ryder Cup mentality - we think we should be about even with all of Europe put together. Well, guess what. There are many, many countries who care about football more than all of those other sports combined. So why should we expect to be number one? Why should we even expect to be top 3 more than half the time? I don't think there is any credible reason to think we should. The common arguments of "we should be better because we spend more" or "because we're bigger" or "because we're terrifically good at other sports" just don't follow.
"So why should we expect to be number one? Why should we even expect to be top 3 more than half the time? I don't think there is any credible reason to think we should."
Because we are an incredibly wealthy country with a ton of resources that immensely cares about athletics in general. It doesn't matter if soccer is the #5 or even #10 team sport here in the US. If we optimized our resources and development to be really good at soccer, the United States would be really good at soccer. But we don't due to reasons I mentioned above.
The college point I was mentioning above was that changing your entire career development to go to college at a prime development age (18) and play soccer isn't a productive way to become a great soccer player.
The reason the US doesn't measure up in soccer as we do in other sports is that we don't have a national obsession for the sport.
Spend some time in Canada and you will understand that hockey is far more than a sport, it is a religion. So much of the local culture in Canada revolves around hockey, that it explains why a country of roughly 30M people can stand toe-to-toe with the USA and Russia.
You're saying we should expect to be number one 'because we are an incredibly wealthy country with a ton of resources that immensely cares about athletics in general.'
But this is exactly what I said that I disagree with. To reiterate, I don't think there is any evidence whatsoever that supports the conclusion that a wealthy country that cares about athletics in general will finish in the top 3 every 4-year-cycle in soccer.
China meets all of those criteria and it's not even close to true for them. Canada meets all of those criteria and Canada still sucks. Indonesia and India - same thing and seriously, if you haven't looked up Indonesia's FIFA troubles, have a read-through. Might make you feel better about US soccer.
For fun, let's look at the top 20 countries (roughly the top 10%) by GDP and eliminate the ones that don't care about athletics in general immensely - I would say that leaves out only Saudi Arabia. Of the remaining 19 countries, we get 10 of them that have a worse average FIFA ranking than the US since the ranking system began. So about half of the uber-rich, uber-sports-crazed nations do worse than the US at soccer.
Evidence: Half of the rich, athletic nations do worse than the US does now.
Standard argument: We're rich and athletic, so we should be doing better than we are now!
The standard argument just doesn't make sense.
The lack of skill isn't a just coaching and development issue. It's that the guys that are good athletes simply haven't logged 10,000+ hours. They haven't been playing since birth, living and breathing soccer like the top players from other countries. They make the US team on athleticism but have just ok skills.
We do have enough good athletes playing soccer. But we don't have enough of them living soccer. They aren't getting developed in their neighborhoods by their parents and peers.
This gets talked about seemingly every thread here on but it's twofold:
1) No, not enough kids that play sports on the playground day after day play soccer as their first love. And I think people compare soccer to basketball or football or other sports that pretty much ONLY Americans play. Of course we dominate in those sports. No one else plays or cares about them (although that's changing little bit for basketball). When it's your 4th or 5th or 6th most popular sport, you're not gonna compete with countries for whom it's a national obsession (which is the case in Europe and South America).
2) To a lesser extent, the instruction kids get in the US still isn't very good. Dad's don't know how to play soccer here even if they stick their kids in AYSO as a diversion. Most high school coaches aren't even very good. So there just isn't high quality development for the few kids who DO love soccer.
And btw, it's pretty hard for kids in America to play multiple sports and be good, let along elite. Sports are so competitive that they get funneled to one earlier and earlier and it's rarely towards soccer.
Basketball is huge worldwide and I saw more kids playing baseball in Japan then i evee saw in America
Weird, I'm in Jamaica right now, and no one is watching it
Just like in America.
To be blunt, the Jamaicans have more important things to do. And that’s the straight dope.
You must be at a resort in like...Runaway Bay. Football and cricket are our most popular sports; it's definitely on at nigh every barbershop/sports bar.
2-0 Pulisic on a rebound driving the net.
2-0 USA! Pulisic on a rebound off a Morris shot, sprung by a McKennie pass.
Re: Bradley. That was basically McKennie playing out of Bradley's position to key that goal. Bradley won't be there at the end of this WC cycle, I think.
The USMNT looked so good at the start of the game. It was a shame the weather derailed that. McKennie's goal was such a good play. Good for Pulisic following up and putting two rebounds in the net.
Can't believe we're still stuck with Bradley.
Beat Mexico!
Am I the only person who wants Deandre Yedlin back at RB, and then when Tyler Adams comes back, slot him in to replace Bradley? It seems like the obvious answer but instead everyone is assuming Adams will slot into RB and we'll...play Bradley at defensive mid until he can collect social security?
Ideally the USMNT should want most of the starting eleven to consist of players who get significant playing time in the top European leagues, but they may be several years away from that.
The USMNT is missing three defenders who play with European clubs and who might’ve been starting for the 2019 Gold Cup team – defensive midfielder Tyler Adams (age 20) from RB Leipzig of the Bundesliga is suffering from an acute, chronic groin injury; right back DeAndre Yedlin (age 25) from Newcastle in the EPL (age 25) is recovering from sports hernia surgery; center back John Anthony Brooks (age 26) from Vfl Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga is recovering from a knee injury.
From this Gold Cup team, keeper Zach Steffen will play in Europe this season, along with Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Tyler Boyd, Matt Miazga, Tim Ream, Adams, Yedlin and Brooks.
Among the players on the USMNT U-20 roster that reached the quarterfinals of this year's U-20 World Cup, several players are training in Europe: forward Sebastian Soto (Hanover 96), midfielder Alexis Mendez (SC Freiburg), forward Timothy Weah (Lille), winger Konrad de la Fuenta (FC Barcelona Academy), forward Ulysses Llanez (VfL Wolfsburg Academy), defender Chris Richards (Bayern Munich Academy), midfielder Richard Ledezma (PSV Eindhoven), keeper Brady Scott (FC Köln), defender Sergiño Dest (AFC Ajax Academy), defender Chris Gloster (Hanover 96 Academy), keeper Carlos Joaquim Dos Santos (S. L. Benfica Academy), and midfielder Christian Cappis (Hobro IK in the Danish Superliga).
There also are many players training in Europe who’ve been with the USMNT and who would be eligible for additions to future national team training camps and friendlies like defender Cameron Carter-Vickers (Swansea City), forward Duane Holmes (Derby County), keeper Ethan Horvath (Club Brugge), midfielder Emerson Hyndman (Bournemouth), forward Aron Johannsson (Werder Bremen), defender Antonee Robinson (Everton), midfielder Kenny Saief (Anderlecht), and forward Josh Sargent (Werder Bremen). LINK