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​⚽ OFFICIAL GOLD CUP THREAD: United States Beats Mexico. Again. ⚽ (2 Viewers)

El Floppo said:
For Nips or Shaq?

Nips has always been a very high floor, low ceiling guy for the US, regardless of the competition. Can count on high work rate, decent skills, decent sense of team shape, and hitting good balls across.

The new concern for him is coming back fully from that injury in England. Dunno if we'll get old Nips back...certainly wasn't there last night.
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Morris got injured at Swansea.  Arriola went to Swansea shortly after returning to DC United after tearing his ACL and never really got minutes in a short loan.  For what it's worth, he has 3 goals in 5 caps for the US since returning, albeit not against great teams.  I think he's largely the same guy he was before the injury, although he's more prone to niggling injuries now (not surprising as major knee injuries often leave you prone to muscle injuries afterwards).

I agree with the assessment that Arriola is a high floor/low ceiling guy.  But that might be a better fit to round out the 23 than perhaps a guy like Hoppe who is kind of a wild card.  Arriola isn't going to start over Gio Reyna.  But he can play multiple positions and is rarely going to hurt you in a game with a bad mistake or not put in the work.  The same is true of Lletget (though I have no defense why they still have him taking set pieces).  I don't know if Arriola will make the qualifying squad.  But he's in contention, as he should be.

 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
I agree with the assessment that Arriola is a high floor/low ceiling guy.  But that might be a better fit to round out the 23 than perhaps a guy like Hoppe who is kind of a wild card.  Arriola isn't going to start over Gio Reyna.  But he can play multiple positions and is rarely going to hurt you in a game with a bad mistake or not put in the work. 
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Think this is good.  We (me too) get so enamored with the shiny new things that we don't think about how useful the steady-eddy role players are.  Someone who can give you 20 fresh minutes of running and being in the right place and not turning the ball over at the end of a game can be a big deal.

Zardes taking the ball to the corner two or three times at the end of the game last night for example.  Simple and competent.

 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
Morris got injured at Swansea.  Arriola went to Swansea shortly after returning to DC United after tearing his ACL and never really got minutes in a short loan.  For what it's worth, he has 3 goals in 5 caps for the US since returning, albeit not against great teams.  I think he's largely the same guy he was before the injury, although he's more prone to niggling injuries now (not surprising as major knee injuries often leave you prone to muscle injuries afterwards).

I agree with the assessment that Arriola is a high floor/low ceiling guy.  But that might be a better fit to round out the 23 than perhaps a guy like Hoppe who is kind of a wild card.  Arriola isn't going to start over Gio Reyna.  But he can play multiple positions and is rarely going to hurt you in a game with a bad mistake or not put in the work.  The same is true of Lletget (though I have no defense why they still have him taking set pieces).  I don't know if Arriola will make the qualifying squad.  But he's in contention, as he should be.
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yup, Berhalter knows what he's going to get with Arriola: effort, good defense and few mistakes. Coaches generally love guys like that a lot more than us fans.

Acosta's another of that type guy, although he makes a lot more bad turnovers than I'm comfortable with, really. He had an awesome effort on defense last night and was huge on that end for us - if he had just spent the night playing D and making safe little back passes I would've been overjoyed. But then he had probably 5-6 turnovers in bad areas that led straight to Jamaica counters. They just couldn't make us pay for them but that's not gonna be the case against Mexico or at the WC.

at this point I don't really see another great backup for Adams though. I still think Flach could turn out to be really good for us there, but since he hasn't gotten called up yet I'm guessing that ship has sailed for this cycle.

 
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Seeing you guys say that Mexico brought their A team to Gold Cup.  Curious why they would prioritize that over the Olympics.  Their Olympic team lost 0-2 to Japan. 

 
dnurk said:
Seeing you guys say that Mexico brought their A team to Gold Cup.  Curious why they would prioritize that over the Olympics.  Their Olympic team lost 0-2 to Japan. 
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Not everyone cares about the Olympics when it comes to soccer. You’re also limited to U-23 players there so the older veterans are at the Gold Cup. Plus the Mexico manager is kind of on the hot seat so he really wanted to bring home this trophy. These are all possible reasons the teams are made up the way they are right now. Could be others.

 
dnurk said:
Seeing you guys say that Mexico brought their A team to Gold Cup.  Curious why they would prioritize that over the Olympics.  Their Olympic team lost 0-2 to Japan. 
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DA RAIDERS said:
Did we even make the olympics in the ole footy?
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The Olympics is technically an U-23 tournament.  Which means most of the players were under 23 years old at the time of qualifying (IIRC).  So a lot of the full senior team is ineligible.  FWIW, most of our "A" team would be eligible -- we could have sent a very good team.

But... the US did not qualify for the Olympics, mostly because we sent players 40-60 in our pool to the qualifying tournament.  The A/B squads were prioritized for the Nations League (the US beat Mexico to win) and Gold Cup.

Mexico made a different decision, for lots of reasons, and sent a good U-23 team to qualifying and Japan.  It's helps Mexico some that they don't have as many young players trying to earn big PT in Europe.

 
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dnurk said:
Seeing you guys say that Mexico brought their A team to Gold Cup.  Curious why they would prioritize that over the Olympics.  Their Olympic team lost 0-2 to Japan. 
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Mexico's A squad is mostly made up of players from the Mexican league or MLS and the few players they do have in Europe are pretty established in their roles.  They're also mostly older than 23, which is the cut off for the Olympics.  They sent the best team they could to the Olympics and kept the best of the rest for the Gold Cup.  

The US is in a unique situation right now.  Most of our best players are young and playing in Europe for the first time.  Many of them with new teams/managers right now.  So, prioritizing their preseason work with their clubs was far more important the the Gold Cup to us.  We need those great young players to get a ton of playing time in the next few years to prepare them for the WC and missing the first month of training camp with their squads is not the way to do that.

I expect that the next Gold Cup will see a much stronger US side represented.

 
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DA RAIDERS said:
So if this is the b squad, where are the A players 
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to be specific, these (see below) are many of our top players and they are all in either preseason, or their seasons just began in Europe.   The US coach felt it made more sense for these players (many on the top teams in the entire world) to play in preseason to hold their spots on the team instead of playing in the Gold Cup and then getting passed over by a player who took advantage of their absence.

We want the healthiest, most inform team come September when World Cup Qualifying starts.

Pulisic - Chelsea

Steffen - Man City

Weah - Lille 

Aarsonson - RBS 

Reyna - Dortmund

McKennie - Juventus

McKenze - Genk

Adams - RBL

Dest - Barcelona

Musah - Valencia

Brooks - Wolfsburg

 
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TripItUp said:
I mean, if it doesn't mean anything.  I'd like to keep it to the B team/fringe roster players.  
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It is absolutely going to mean something IMO.  That is the WC cycle that we host.  We want to sign up for every single tournament possible with our A side if we don't have any qualifying games.

 
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
But... the US did not qualify for the Olympics, mostly because we sent players 40-60 in our pool to the qualifying tournament.  The A/B squads were prioritized for the Nations League (the US beat Mexico to win) and Gold Cup.
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This is not exactly true.

We sent such an incredibly bad team to Olympic qualifying not entirely by choice.  We sent it because FIFA does not mandate that players have to be released for Olympic qualifying because it is considered a youth tournament.  Couple that with the Covid mess and no Euro team wanted any part of sending their young Americans into Mexico for Olympic qualifying.

And it was not even Europe alone.  Atlanta blocked players like Miles Robinson from playing as well (and as we can see now, he would have been a gargantuan improvement over the donkeys that started for the US in Olympic qualifying at CB).

 
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It's the 2nd biggest tournament we can win (after the World Cup).  And if we don't win it, Mexico does.  That's horrible.

The fact that we often have good reasons not to send our best team is something I hope eventually gets cleaned up.  I love this tournament and love when we win it.

 
  • Smile
Reactions: Ned
dnurk said:
Seeing you guys say that Mexico brought their A team to Gold Cup.  Curious why they would prioritize that over the Olympics.  Their Olympic team lost 0-2 to Japan. 
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To be clear, Mexico sent exactly one player who plays in a top European league to the Olympics.  Diego Lainez.  And he typically comes off the bench for El Tri.  They also sent Memo Ochoa, their normal first choice GK, as an overage player.  Japan had 10 starters from European clubs (and Mexico had beaten France, a pre-tournament favorite, 4-1 in their opening game).

Youth tournaments are always sketchy and results can fluctuate wildly.

 
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
It's the 2nd biggest tournament we can win (after the World Cup).  And if we don't win it, Mexico does.  That's horrible.

The fact that we often have good reasons not to send our best team is something I hope eventually gets cleaned up.  I love this tournament and love when we win it.
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I liked it more when it gave a birth to the Confederations Cup.

 
At our current trajectory, sooner than later our B team may be good enough to beat most if not all  teams not named Mexico.

 
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Dinsy Ejotuz said:
It's the 2nd biggest tournament we can win (after the World Cup).  And if we don't win it, Mexico does.  That's horrible.

The fact that we often have good reasons not to send our best team is something I hope eventually gets cleaned up.  I love this tournament and love when we win it.
Click to expand...
I wonder if this is going to continue to be a situation going forward?  Europe's preseason is almost always going to start during the Gold Cup and if we continue to become a more Euro based national team then I could see this tourney becoming the B/C squad "show me" tourney for the US.

 
encaitar said:
I wonder if this is going to continue to be a situation going forward?  Europe's preseason is almost always going to start during the Gold Cup and if we continue to become a more Euro based national team then I could see this tourney becoming the B/C squad "show me" tourney for the US.
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exactly, particularly if our B team can continue to hold their own which I suspect they will.

 
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El Floppo said:
Did they work together in a US camp...for Nations League? I didn't remember Hoppe on that squad.
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No, what Pulisic is referring to is when they went on vacation together in Florida.  The Taitigue brothers were with them.  Remember the whole stupid juggling a ball over the edge of the boat?

They obviously spent some time training down there.

 
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NewlyRetired said:
No, what Pulisic is referring to is when they went on vacation together in Florida.  The Taitigue brothers were with them.  Remember the whole stupid juggling a ball over the edge of the boat?

They obviously spent some time training down there.
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Had no idea.

Saw that Schalke lost their league opener. Hoping Hoppe gets solid PT- he's genuinely impressed me.

 
NewlyRetired said:
No, what Pulisic is referring to is when they went on vacation together in Florida.  The Taitigue brothers were with them.  Remember the whole stupid juggling a ball over the edge of the boat?

They obviously spent some time training down there.
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Is there anything you DON'T know about soccer/football/foosball/futsal/futbol?

:lol:

 
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
This is probably half B, a lot of C and even some D/E/F players.

The As and a lot of good Bs are in pre-season training for their teams in Europe, mostly.
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That's not quite true. We actually have not an insignificant number of A players. Not necessarily starters, but still A team players.

Cannon

Lletget

Acosta

Turner

Dike

And strong possibilities for Zardes, Robinson, Zimmerman, Sands, Hoppe, and Busio (GGG seems to be pleased with him).

 
NewlyRetired said:
This is not exactly true.

We sent such an incredibly bad team to Olympic qualifying not entirely by choice.  We sent it because FIFA does not mandate that players have to be released for Olympic qualifying because it is considered a youth tournament.  Couple that with the Covid mess and no Euro team wanted any part of sending their young Americans into Mexico for Olympic qualifying.

And it was not even Europe alone.  Atlanta blocked players like Miles Robinson from playing as well (and as we can see now, he would have been a gargantuan improvement over the donkeys that started for the US in Olympic qualifying at CB).
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1. F Atlanta, bunch of traitors.  We could be watching Pulisic, Gio, Dest and company opening a can of whoop are on the world right now.

Dinsy Ejotuz said:
It's the 2nd biggest tournament we can win (after the World Cup).  And if we don't win it, Mexico does.  That's horrible.

The fact that we often have good reasons not to send our best team is something I hope eventually gets cleaned up.  I love this tournament and love when we win it.
Click to expand...
I still don't understand why they don't bump this p to match the timing of the Euros.

Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
To be clear, Mexico sent exactly one player who plays in a top European league to the Olympics.  Diego Lainez.  And he typically comes off the bench for El Tri.  They also sent Memo Ochoa, their normal first choice GK, as an overage player.  Japan had 10 starters from European clubs (and Mexico had beaten France, a pre-tournament favorite, 4-1 in their opening game).

Youth tournaments are always sketchy and results can fluctuate wildly.
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If we had qualified and brought our best team, the mercy rule would have come into play vs. Mexico.

 
NewlyRetired said:
to be specific, these (see below) are many of our top players and they are all in either preseason, or their seasons just began in Europe.   The US coach felt it made more sense for these players (many on the top teams in the entire world) to play in preseason to hold their spots on the team instead of playing in the Gold Cup and then getting passed over by a player who took advantage of their absence.

We want the healthiest, most inform team come September when World Cup Qualifying starts.

Pulisic - Chelsea

Steffen - Man City

Weah - Lille 

Aarsonson - RBS 

Reyna - Dortmund

McKennie - Juventus

McKenze - Genk

Adams - RBL

Dest - Barcelona

Musah - Valencia

Brooks - Wolfsburg
Click to expand...
What a list :wub:  

 
NewlyRetired said:
I thought John Strong made an excellent point last night.

We keep talking about depth in terms of players we will need for injuries but with the 3 game qualifying windows, we might see a decent amount of non injury related changes game to game.
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Berhalter has talked about this IIRC: where it can't be the same team for three games in a window.  We play on September 2nd, 5th and 8th for example -- in the middle of club seasons.

Assuming guys have games on either side of the window that could be 5 games in like 13-14 days.  

 
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NewlyRetired said:
Here are some comprehensive ratings from Half Spaces.   Busio has been rating out higher across the board from all raters than I had him, so I clearly misjudged his effect on that game.

https://halfspaces.com/halfspaces-player-grades-usmnt-vs-jamaica/
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Yeah, Busio is one of those guys that can grow from game to game. It's something I've seen here in KC for the last several seasons.

I do agree with most here that he is probably not ready for this World Cup qualifying cycle, but clearly he needs to be playing with better competition week after week. We'll see if he gets that in Italy. 

 
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
Looking at Zardes and Roldan it's easy to see why the game turned -- they both did a lot of good things in 30 minutes.

I was sure Robinson would be rated higher.
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I thought he would be too, but I'm guessing a lot of us are probably giving him a better rating than he deserves due to that incredible 2 on 1 stop that he had.  He had a couple of loose plays as well and those probably are where the knocks come from.

 
NewlyRetired said:
Here are some comprehensive ratings from Half Spaces.   Busio has been rating out higher across the board from all raters than I had him, so I clearly misjudged his effect on that game.

https://halfspaces.com/halfspaces-player-grades-usmnt-vs-jamaica/
Click to expand...
I like the graphic near the bottom with the depth chart of the players we are starting.  It really emphasizes how poor the winger spots are on the team.  I think if we keep things tight at the back tomorrow night that we will create some chances - Qatar's defense is not that good.

 
not for nuttin', but ...

the book sets it at:

Qatar +315

Draw +250

USofA -105 

o2.5 +110, u2.5 -133

Draw/No Bet: Qatar +195, USofA -250 (juice is if team wins in reg, if it's a draw after regular time it's a push, money refunded).

gotta say, Qatar presenting some tremendous value here, from a wagering standpoint they make a ton of sense  :shrug:

USofA at basically even money is a gift for those who believe believe in them ... not too shabby.

i think best bet of the slate is BTTS at -105, tho  ... you know Qatar has gotta be good for at least one, and they will certainly yield.

⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️

for the second match ...

Mexico -180

Draw +305

Canada +550

o2.5 +111, u2.5 -134

DNB: Mexico -525, Canucks +370

BTTS +115 

⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️

 
otb_lifer said:
not for nuttin', but ...

the book sets it at:

Qatar +315

Draw +250

USofA -105 

o2.5 +110, u2.5 -133

Draw/No Bet: Qatar +195, USofA -250 (juice is if team wins in reg, if it's a draw after regular time it's a push, money refunded).

gotta say, Qatar presenting some tremendous value here, from a wagering standpoint they make a ton of sense  :shrug:

USofA at basically even money is a gift for those who believe believe in them ... not too shabby.

i think best bet of the slate is BTTS at -105, tho  ... you know Qatar has gotta be good for at least one, and they will certainly yield.

⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️

for the second match ...

Mexico -180

Draw +305

Canada +550

o2.5 +111, u2.5 -134

DNB: Mexico -525, Canucks +370

BTTS +115 

⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️
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In betting terms, what defines a draw in a knockout round game?  is it the score after 90 minutes or after 120 minutes?

 
NewlyRetired said:
In betting terms, what defines a draw in a knockout round game?  is it the score after 90 minutes or after 120 minutes?
Click to expand...


bet is strictly regulation (90 mins + stoppage)

there is usually a "to advance" option, along with "win in extra time" or "win on pks", but i haven't seen it tabled yet for this particular book. 

 
otb_lifer said:
bet is strictly regulation (90 mins + stoppage)

there is usually a "to advance" option, along with "win in extra time" or "win on pks", but i haven't seen it tabled yet for this particular book. 
Click to expand...


Estimating "to advance" is something like -200 for the USA (1/2); and +200 for Qatar (2/1).

 
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I know, wrong thread and all, but I figure this thread will be busy today so I will ask here.

I have been tablet user ever since they were first introduced.   As such I never owned a smart phone.

I finally, in my old age, have my first smart phone now.  Please list any and all soccer apps that you think I might enjoy.  Thanks!

 
NewlyRetired said:
I know, wrong thread and all, but I figure this thread will be busy today so I will ask here.

I have been tablet user ever since they were first introduced.   As such I never owned a smart phone.

I finally, in my old age, have my first smart phone now.  Please list any and all soccer apps that you think I might enjoy.  Thanks!
Click to expand...


For me it's just making sure that I can stream everything that's available through my streaming subs on my phone.  Not sure if there are any soccer-specific apps I've used.

 
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