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US Men's National Team (28 Viewers)

prefontaine said:
Brunell4MVP said:
We consistently suck on the international level. In the rare case the men get to WC top 16 it's mostly with 1-0 wins.
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The last time the US was knocked out of a tournament in the group stage before this Copa was in 2007
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But we also didn’t qualify for the 2018 World Cup.

To answer Brunell’s other question, Pulisic will definitely make the Top 100 players in the world list this year and Antonee Robinson probably should make it as well.
 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
prefontaine said:
Brunell4MVP said:
We consistently suck on the international level. In the rare case the men get to WC top 16 it's mostly with 1-0 wins.
Click to expand...
The last time the US was knocked out of a tournament in the group stage before this Copa was in 2007
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But we also didn’t qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
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Sure but we qualified for 3 all of which we advanced and reached the semis of Copa America Centennario and the finals of the 2009 Confederations Cup in that time period. The "rare" case we advance isn't particularly rare.
 
Rare case to make WC top 16?

We have made WC top 16 in 1994, 2002, 2010, 2014, 2022.

Our issue is not getting to top 16. We do that remarkably well. But top 16 is the choke point as we only got past that stage once (and the one time came courtesy of Mexico)
 
JB Breakfast Club said:
TennesseeJed said:
El Floppo said:
Any others step up?

Nice to see Adams in there... The teams better with him playing.

Gio... Mixed bag for me. His upside on the ball is clear. He showed good willingness to defend, which was great. But he still seems tactically naive/problematic about how to defend off the ball.

Musah. Ugh... I love the kid, but he's gone Jekyll and Hyde on us. He needs more PT at club level to work out the kinks. Overall, copa was a downgrade for me.

Swag... This could a big problem for arguably the US most consistent player the last 4 years. He didn't look in sync at all. And his club situation is dicey right now.. the US needs him firing for 26.

CBs... Another potential problem. Richards defended well, but was a liability in the ball. Ream- under intense pressure like URU, showed cracks with his distribution, which has been apparent since the end of the season for the US given his lack of PT for Fulham. CCV was awful vs Panama. Somebody else has to step up and fast.
Turner/GKs... First time in my life I feel like the position is a weakness for the US. Neither did anything to make me feel secure.
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I thought Pulisic stepped up - post-match antics against Uruguay aside (I'mm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and/or accept heat of the moment reactions).

He looked like he belonged in any squad in the world.

I like Weah - Red Card aside.

I liked Robinson.
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One way to reset the culture would be to say Weah is out of the program entirely. You don't get to cause a national embarrassment and assume you'll keep your spot. They should cut him, imo.
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Good call. Get rid of the Reynas too. Let them threaten coaches back at the local club level.

Then again they’re probably doing that in parallel anyhow.
 
Brunell4MVP said:
We consistently suck on the international level. In the rare case the men get to WC top 16 it's mostly with 1-0 wins. Do we even have a player sniffing the top 100 players in the world. Our lower levels suck at development. FIFA can have us ranked 11th all they want. The teams behind us ... Morocco, Uruguay, Colombia, Japan, and Germany ... they all perform better at the international level. US women's soccer is heading the same direction. We were simply early to the game with a large population of empowered women. Other countries have jumped that bandwagon and we've made a quick drop to 5th in FIFA rankings, and are on track to drop out of the top 10 like the men. We can roll out coach after coach, and mid level premier league players all we want. Until we find a couple of top 30 in the world talents to build around we are no more than a pawn on the world level. We have plenty of money. It's not spent correctly or at young enough ages.

USSF needs a total re-build.
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yes. this team has talent. enough to be a top 12-15 team in the world.
 
I was thinking about the coach and his cost to a National team. While a club coach/staff takes up a very small amount of a team's overall all budget, an international coach can take up a massive chunk of the national teams budget.

The other way to look at it is that since you can't buy players internationally*, the only real choice you have to spend your money on is for the coach/staff.

I would not normally say this since I always lean towards being fiscally sound, but in this specific case, I would risk spending a ton on the coach (if they can figure out how to get around equal pay). The only one downside is if we get hit with a world pandemic again. Outside of that, even if US Soccer has to go into the red for a couple of years, WC2026 is going to be a cash cow that will fix everything.

WC2026 is very likely to set up US Soccer financially for 25 years. A great run by the US could see that being doubled. I think it would be worth the risk to spend more than what the current finances say we should. There is almost no downside.


*dual nats slightly change the picture but you get the point
 
Last edited:
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
NewlyRetired said:
We have made WC top 16 in 1994, 2002, 2010, 2014, 2022
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Yeah, but the list of countries to make the Round of 16 five times in the last eight world cups is really long, right? Probably a lot of crappy teams in it?
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5 of the last 8? I doubt it is "really long". Depends on what you mean by really long. This is going to take a while to figure out. Let me see how I can format a spreadsheet quickly if I can't find anything online to help me.
 
NewlyRetired said:
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
NewlyRetired said:
We have made WC top 16 in 1994, 2002, 2010, 2014, 2022
Click to expand...
Yeah, but the list of countries to make the Round of 16 five times in the last eight world cups is really long, right? Probably a lot of crappy teams in it?
Click to expand...
5 of the last 8? I doubt it is "really long". Depends on what you mean by really long. This is going to take a while to figure out. Let me see how I can format a spreadsheet quickly if I can't find anything online to help me.
Click to expand...

ok I think I found a helpful chart. The US accomplishment is clearly strengthened because they can qualify very consistently but still you have to admit this is extremely impressive


Here is the list of teams that have advanced to the round of 16 in at least 5 of the last 8 WC's.

Argentina
Brazil
England
France
Germany
Mexico
Netherlands
Spain
Switzerland
US



Here is a list of teams that surprised me to not accomplish this

Belgium
Colombia
Croatia (yes they started in 1998 but they have only done it 3 times, so even if they were around in 1994, they could not have made 5)
Denmark
Ghana
Italy!! (I had to check this 3 times to be sure)
Japan
Portugal
Russia
South Korea
Sweden
Uruguay
 
El Floppo said:
Brunell4MVP said:
We consistently suck on the international level. In the rare case the men get to WC top 16 it's mostly with 1-0 wins. Do we even have a player sniffing the top 100 players in the world. Our lower levels suck at development. FIFA can have us ranked 11th all they want. The teams behind us ... Morocco, Uruguay, Colombia, Japan, and Germany ... they all perform better at the international level. US women's soccer is heading the same direction. We were simply early to the game with a large population of empowered women. Other countries have jumped that bandwagon and we've made a quick drop to 5th in FIFA rankings, and are on track to drop out of the top 10 like the men. We can roll out coach after coach, and mid level premier league players all we want. Until we find a couple of top 30 in the world talents to build around we are no more than a pawn on the world level. We have plenty of money. It's not spent correctly or at young enough ages.

USSF needs a total re-build.
Click to expand...
See the comments about MLS academies only being 10 years old and MLS being less than 30 years old.

Now that the money is finally getting there and tools are in place to actually develop pros, talent will come. The LCD has risen a lot... But agreed, the jump from scrambling around at the 10th-35th spots like we do only changes when there's a team full of guys making differences at big clubs.. not 1 or 2 with the rest bit role players.
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After navigating relatively high level youth hockey (outside of MN) for the past 2 years for my ‘11, I won’t be shocked if the academies are actually holding us back. The incentives and politics for these clubs and coaches, even for 11,12, and 13 year olds, are such that a whole bunch of great kids get left behind and those that get chosen (mostly the more mature kids at that age) get chosen by coaches where development isn’t necessarily the number 1 goal. A whole lot of youth “development” is a complete money grab. The really perverse thing is those coaches that develop well do so in a manner that parents look at and say, well that’s not going to work, and they go to the crappier coach/program that gets wins or has a prodigy that went on to success.
 
El Floppo said:
NewlyRetired said:
oh great, now Klopp himself is trolling us.... :lmao:

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Did he post that today, or is it old?

If today... He's either a terrible troll (which I guess is a good troll), or putting himself out there for this.
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it is today - its in his Instagram stories - posted a couple of hours ago.

Not sure if this link will work

www.instagram.com

Jürgen Klopp on Instagram: "It’s the perfect day to think about my trips with @liverpoolfc to the States 🇺🇸 We’ve had a great time & the US fans are electric! Happy 4th of July 🎆"

213K likes, 0 comments - kloppo on July 4, 2024: "It’s the perfect day to think about my trips with @liverpoolfc to the States 🇺🇸 We’ve had a great time & the US fans are electric! Happy 4th of July 🎆".
www.instagram.com www.instagram.com
 
Sammy3469 said:
I won’t be shocked if the academies are actually holding us back. The incentives and politics for these clubs and coaches, even for 11,12, and 13 year olds, are such that a whole bunch of great kids get left behind and those that get chosen (mostly the more mature kids at that age) get chosen by coaches where development isn’t necessarily the number 1 goal
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I'm not seeing this. I'm seeing more and more 14-16yos playing at levels I've rarely seen. Are you talking about MLS academies, or all their affiliates? In the current climate of the actual academies developing players and selling them for big profits, I don't buy that development isn't a primary focus. What you're describing reminds me of the typical pay to play programs where wins rule and the smaller kid with better potential can get left behind... Is that really happening at MLS academies. I didn't think so, but I'm looking in from waaay outside, and just drawing opinion from the players I see.
 
El Floppo said:
Sammy3469 said:
I won’t be shocked if the academies are actually holding us back. The incentives and politics for these clubs and coaches, even for 11,12, and 13 year olds, are such that a whole bunch of great kids get left behind and those that get chosen (mostly the more mature kids at that age) get chosen by coaches where development isn’t necessarily the number 1 goal
Click to expand...
I'm not seeing this. I'm seeing more and more 14-16yos playing at levels I've rarely seen. Are you talking about MLS academies, or all their affiliates? In the current climate of the actual academies developing players and selling them for big profits, I don't buy that development isn't a primary focus. What you're describing reminds me of the typical pay to play programs where wins rule and the smaller kid with better potential can get left behind... Is that really happening at MLS academies. I didn't think so, but I'm looking in from waaay outside, and just drawing opinion from the players I see.
Click to expand...

It absolutely is not happening, by choice, in the MLS specific academies.

Now there are always going to be some level of favoritism shown, but that happens all over the world at every club team. There is no way around that human condition. You read stories ALL THE TIME about international quality players who were over looked in their younger days, for many different reasons.

With the US being significantly bigger than almost all of the soccer playing world, this is going to happen even more often with players getting overlooked. It is inevitable and likely unfix-able since no one has a crystal ball.

But the MLS mandate is 1000000% clear and has been since less than 24 hours after every single MLS owner woke up, drank their coffee and saw what Davies sold for.
 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
And I have no idea if Koop would be a good international manager. But you wouldn’t be able to fault the fed for lack of ambition or even really claim the manager is holding the players back.
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I remember the same thing being said about the JK signing... Not to compare a seasoned, winning club coach to a gimmicky former pro nat team coach without club experience.
 
El Floppo said:
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
And I have no idea if Koop would be a good international manager. But you wouldn’t be able to fault the fed for lack of ambition or even really claim the manager is holding the players back.
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I remember the same thing being said about the JK signing... Not to compare a seasoned, winning club coach to a gimmicky former pro nat team coach without club experience.
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I think it’s pretty different. JK was sooooo thirsty. He had been publicly campaigning for the job for 18 months and all his public comments seemed like a bunch of woo to me. He had already cratered disastrously at Bayern and we already had a bunch of quotes from players suggesting he was a fraud.

Maybe we don’t have a pool to fit Klopp’s preferred style of play. We can’t exactly go out and find Allison. He might be stuck with our version of Loris Karius. But we know he”s not a tactical fraud. We know he has a philosophy that generates chances.
 
BlackCrowes said:
Brunell4MVP said:
We consistently suck on the international level. In the rare case the men get to WC top 16 it's mostly with 1-0 wins. Do we even have a player sniffing the top 100 players in the world. Our lower levels suck at development. FIFA can have us ranked 11th all they want. The teams behind us ... Morocco, Uruguay, Colombia, Japan, and Germany ... they all perform better at the international level. US women's soccer is heading the same direction. We were simply early to the game with a large population of empowered women. Other countries have jumped that bandwagon and we've made a quick drop to 5th in FIFA rankings, and are on track to drop out of the top 10 like the men. We can roll out coach after coach, and mid level premier league players all we want. Until we find a couple of top 30 in the world talents to build around we are no more than a pawn on the world level. We have plenty of money. It's not spent correctly or at young enough ages.

USSF needs a total re-build.
Click to expand...
yes. this team has talent. enough to be a top 12-15 team in the world.
Click to expand...
Top 12-15 for the most populous country in the world that cares at all about soccer. meh.
 
A....I still dont believe the Federation will fire Greg
B.....I still dont think Klopp would take the job. (while managing the host team with some decent young talent is appealing, they can't actually WIN the tournament)

But yeah, if they could get him, its a no brainer. Even if the system isn't an ideal fit.....he's a legitimate elite soccer mind and brings instant credibility. It wont be camp cupcake where everyone holds hands and daddy is nice to them and makes pretty spreadsheets. The guy wants to win and will push them.
 
prefontaine said:
NewlyRetired said:
TLEF316 said:
A....I still dont believe the Federation will fire Greg
Click to expand...

I was 50-50 it was going to happen, but I have changed to I think it is a 90% chance now of happening.
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I don't know. If they made the decision yesterday it would already be announced. Instead it's radio silent .The longer it goes, the more likely he stays imo.
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One guy with seemingly inside knowledge said not to expect anything for one week, either way.
 
This is really good. If MLS can break through this last mental barrier they have and not look at the USL as a competitor but as just another cog in the development wheel, our whole system will be better for it.

=======

Battery sign rising star, USYNT forward Zeke Soto to multi-year deal - Charleston Battery

The Charleston Battery are pleased to confirm the signing of United States youth international Ezekiel “Zeke” Soto to a multi-year professional contract on Thursday, pending league and federation approval. Soto […]
www.charlestonbattery.com www.charlestonbattery.com
 
NewlyRetired said:
This is really good. If MLS can break through this last mental barrier they have and not look at the USL as a competitor but as just another cog in the development wheel, our whole system will be better for it.

=======

Battery sign rising star, USYNT forward Zeke Soto to multi-year deal - Charleston Battery

The Charleston Battery are pleased to confirm the signing of United States youth international Ezekiel “Zeke” Soto to a multi-year professional contract on Thursday, pending league and federation approval. Soto […]
www.charlestonbattery.com www.charlestonbattery.com
Click to expand...
Do you think that Is what is happening here? I would assumg he's leaving Houston to go to USL so he can move on a free to Europe next January. If anything, this is just a reminder to me that the Dynamo is a disaster of an organization. They should be pumping out players.
 
prefontaine said:
NewlyRetired said:
This is really good. If MLS can break through this last mental barrier they have and not look at the USL as a competitor but as just another cog in the development wheel, our whole system will be better for it.

=======

Battery sign rising star, USYNT forward Zeke Soto to multi-year deal - Charleston Battery

The Charleston Battery are pleased to confirm the signing of United States youth international Ezekiel “Zeke” Soto to a multi-year professional contract on Thursday, pending league and federation approval. Soto […]
www.charlestonbattery.com www.charlestonbattery.com
Click to expand...
Do you think that Is what is happening here? I would assumg he's leaving Houston to go to USL so he can move on a free to Europe next January. If anything, this is just a reminder to me that the Dynamo is a disaster of an organization. They should be pumping out players.
Click to expand...
He signed a multi year deal. He can't move next January on a free as he will be under contract.
 
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:
NewlyRetired said:
This is really good. If MLS can break through this last mental barrier they have and not look at the USL as a competitor but as just another cog in the development wheel, our whole system will be better for it.

=======

Battery sign rising star, USYNT forward Zeke Soto to multi-year deal - Charleston Battery

The Charleston Battery are pleased to confirm the signing of United States youth international Ezekiel “Zeke” Soto to a multi-year professional contract on Thursday, pending league and federation approval. Soto […]
www.charlestonbattery.com www.charlestonbattery.com
Click to expand...
Do you think that Is what is happening here? I would assumg he's leaving Houston to go to USL so he can move on a free to Europe next January. If anything, this is just a reminder to me that the Dynamo is a disaster of an organization. They should be pumping out players.
Click to expand...
He signed a multi year deal. He can't move next January on a free as he will be under contract.
Click to expand...
Fair. I'm sure he has an out for a set fee. That seems to be the play these days. The club is guaranteed some money and the players gets a pro contract and has an out.
 
prefontaine said:
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:
NewlyRetired said:
This is really good. If MLS can break through this last mental barrier they have and not look at the USL as a competitor but as just another cog in the development wheel, our whole system will be better for it.

=======

Battery sign rising star, USYNT forward Zeke Soto to multi-year deal - Charleston Battery

The Charleston Battery are pleased to confirm the signing of United States youth international Ezekiel “Zeke” Soto to a multi-year professional contract on Thursday, pending league and federation approval. Soto […]
www.charlestonbattery.com www.charlestonbattery.com
Click to expand...
Do you think that Is what is happening here? I would assumg he's leaving Houston to go to USL so he can move on a free to Europe next January. If anything, this is just a reminder to me that the Dynamo is a disaster of an organization. They should be pumping out players.
Click to expand...
He signed a multi year deal. He can't move next January on a free as he will be under contract.
Click to expand...
Fair. I'm sure he has an out for a set fee. That seems to be the play these days. The club is guaranteed some money and the players gets a pro contract and has an out.
Click to expand...
Exactly and that is why I love this.

Most times MLS don't want to transfer players to USL teams but if they don't see a path for a player to the first team, I would love if they transfer the kids down to a USL team where they may have a better chance to play and get themselves noticed by either another MLS team or a team in Europe looking for a bargain.
 
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