Haha, for real…

Y'all ever heard the phrase that stupidity seems to raise its hand when it's in a room?


Well it did today

It seemed to me that we were possessing for possession sake, and that we had no real plan in the forward 3rd of the field. It basically seemed like "possess until you get the ball up there and then do what you can."

I was watching the Neymar documentary on Netflix, and he went out of his way to talk about how hard it was to get used to the Barcelona system. It took him a full year to get used to it. And he's obviously an elite player. To me, that shows there is a crapton more to such schemes than possessing for the hell of it.

I didn't realize until this WC that the coach for Mexico is Argentinian. Does that mean there is no citizenship rule on the coach? If that is the case, why do we keep hiring American coaches? Why not go open the field to more European coaches? Hell if most of our players play in Europe now, then why not practice and friendly more in Europe? Maybe that would open ourselves to even more elite European coaches?

jeffk said:

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We had a German coach in the very recent past. It didn't work out.

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Yeah but he played at Bayern when I was in college. That was a long ass time ago. It seems that things have changed drastically since then.

One could argue that Jurgen Klinsmann was instrumental in overhauling the youth development and scouting programs and processes at USSDA for US soccer when the USSF brought him in as head coach for the Sr USMNT and technical director of all of US Soccer.

I don't think Arena, Bradley, Klinsmann, or Berhalter are horrible team managers. I do think, no matter who our manager is, they will have a tough time dealing with some fundamental flaws in the US when it comes to soccer. Pay to play and accessibility for our most athletic youth and the college sports mindset in America as there is more scholarship availability for other sports but not for men's soccer, taking away interest, and then for the most talented players, college soccer impedes their development.

👋🏼 St. Louis pic.twitter.com/RaWlMuBj5O

— Taylor Twellman (@TaylorTwellman) December 5, 2022

GoAgs92 said:

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Defense yesterday was terrible, which is really the only game that matters.

Had an easy draw and barely squeaked through.

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It wasn't an easy draw lol. It wasn't the group of death, but it was the only group that had all 4 teams ranked in the top 20.

Dre_00 said:

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So in summary, the US sucks now because 42 years ago they beat Mexico for the 1st time in 46 years and 4 years ago they didn't even qualify for the World Cup.

I'm assuming that means that Italy is still elite now since they won the World Cup 16 years ago and didn't qualify for the last 2 World Cups.

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FIFY

oh no said:

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One could argue that Jurgen Klinsmann was instrumental in overhauling the youth development and scouting programs and processes at USSDA for US soccer when the USSF brought him in as head coach for the Sr USMNT and technical director of all of US Soccer.

I don't think Arena, Bradley, Klinsmann, or Berhalter are horrible team managers. I do think, no matter who our manager is, they will have a tough time dealing with some fundamental flaws in the US when it comes to soccer. Pay to play and accessibility for our most athletic youth and the college sports mindset in America as there is more scholarship availability for other sports but not for men's soccer, taking away interest, and then for the most talented players, college soccer impedes their development.

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The US is a very different place than a lot of traditional soccer powers, for sure. Some of the structural things that have traditionally held us back from growth are improving (like you mentioned) and others are I don't think are as big of impediments as some make them out to be (college soccer is a great developmental and scouting resource for late-blooming players that most other nations don't have). Honestly, I'm pretty bullish about the future of American soccer. Our growing and multicultural population and (comparative) economic stability, heck even our military industrial complex are working in favor of continued improvement. The only thing that I think that could scuttle us would be a disaster of a NT manager hire by the USSF (assuming GB moves on).

Quote:

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I don't think Arena, Bradley, Klinsmann, or Berhalter are horrible team managers. I do think, no matter who our manager is, they will have a tough time dealing with some fundamental flaws in the US when it comes to soccer. Pay to play and accessibility for our most athletic youth and the college sports mindset in America as there is more scholarship availability for other sports but not for men's soccer, taking away interest, and then for the most talented players, college soccer impedes their development.

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I think that has changed and is still continuing to change with the development academies. We're seeing more and more of our talented youngsters move over to Europe and are starting to succeed.

The glaring problem is we're still not developing the sheer number of talented youths that's required to develop and compete for depth in the NT's to rival the established powers. Elite teams bring in the Fodens, Graelish, Morata's, Giroud, Sane off the bench. They leave Salibas, Firminhos and other star players off their teams. We're still cycles away from that.

I wrote a long post about how most of our best young players are turning pro at 16-17. The U19 team that beat England 2-1 this summer, mostly 05s with a few 04s sprinkled in, were almost all exclusively MLS Next Pro players.

Not Academy. Not MLS next. MLS Next Pro, meaning these are professional athletes training as a fulltime job. This was unheard of 10-15 years ago.

There are 100s of pros in the 17-19 age, which will really develop the pool even more.
Check out the number of Homegrown signings in 2022-2023.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homegrown_Player_Rule_(Major_League_Soccer)

Point being, and I've said this for years, the hardest shot to defend is the cross when the defender is not looking. We need to do more of that.

fig96 said:

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aTmAg said:

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jeffk said:

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We had a German coach in the very recent past. It didn't work out.

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Yeah but he played at Bayern when I was in college. That was a long ass time ago. It seems that things have changed drastically since then.

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Umm…how old do you think our coach should be?

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I don't care how old. Just that it be somebody who understands and can teach these new schemes.

It seems to me, that Pep at Barcelona changed a lot with hyper possession. Now almost everybody tries to do it, but only a few can really pull it off. Everybody else (including USMNT) merely possess for the sake of possessing.

I read somewhere that the Dutch coach was perfectly happy to allow us to try to out possess them. It wasn't that we were better at it than them. In fact, they showed they were clearly better once they won the ball immediately prior to their first goal. It's just that we were not dangerous with it.

The best coach I've ever knew first hand once told me "it's easy to teach possession, it's hard to install a potent offensive scheme from it." He told me that is what separates great teams from good teams. It seems that's where we are. Good, but can't jump the gap to great.

I'm glad we made the world cup, just disappointed in the effort once we got here.

If you guys are happy with the results, more power to you.

I didn't expect a win over the Netherlands anyhow but the back line was a mess.

We are clearly making strides, which is good.

wangus12 said:

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GoAgs92 said:

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Defense yesterday was terrible, which is really the only game that matters.

Had an easy draw and barely squeaked through.

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It wasn't an easy draw lol. It wasn't the group of death, but it was the only group that had all 4 teams ranked in the top 20.

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FIFA rankings are always super suspect.

Wales and Iran...c'mon man.

PatAg said:

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GoAgs92 said:

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aggiephoenix02 said:

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GoAgs92 said:

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US didn't beat Mexico for 46 years.

Know your history. We are on equal footing now and it's nice but we got a long way to go.

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We've been on equal footing or better than Mexico since the 90's, bro…

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Mostly because they have gotten worse.

We didn't even make it last time…clearly we are doing great…and are just a few unlucky bounces away…

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You suck.
You should try sucking less.

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I'm sorry my opinion differs from the almighty soccer genius "patag" who is fine with mediocrity in all things.

I watched a documentary on the All Blacks and think our rugby team should do that to compete against the six nations

aTmAg said:

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fig96 said:

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aTmAg said:

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jeffk said:

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We had a German coach in the very recent past. It didn't work out.

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Yeah but he played at Bayern when I was in college. That was a long ass time ago. It seems that things have changed drastically since then.

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Umm…how old do you think our coach should be?

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I don't care how old. Just that it be somebody who understands and can teach these new schemes.

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Klinsmann also coached Bayern just before taking over the USMNT.

It'd be great to get a top manager like Pep, but very few if any of those guys are managing national teams.

Well said. I also think we're missing that #10 type who can create in the middle of the pitch. Right now too much of that falls on Pulisic and our wingers which doesn't free him up to do what he does best.

I am counting on one of either Gio or Musah or CP or Weston eventually becoming a serviceable #10. Might be a pipe-dream, but that's my hope.

MookieBlaylock said:

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I watched a documentary on the All Blacks and think our rugby team should do that to compete against the six nations

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Non-ironically, Japan has had a huge turnaround of their Rugby team over the last 15 years. One of the important things they did was hire coaches from New Zealand (and the All Blacks).

aTmAg said:

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fig96 said:

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aTmAg said:

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jeffk said:

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We had a German coach in the very recent past. It didn't work out.

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Yeah but he played at Bayern when I was in college. That was a long ass time ago. It seems that things have changed drastically since then.

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Umm…how old do you think our coach should be?

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I don't care how old. Just that it be somebody who understands and can teach these new schemes.

It seems to me, that Pep at Barcelona changed a lot with hyper possession. Now almost everybody tries to do it, but only a few can really pull it off. Everybody else (including USMNT) merely possess for the sake of possessing.

I read somewhere that the Dutch coach was perfectly happy to allow us to try to out possess them. It wasn't that we were better at it than them. In fact, they showed they were clearly better once they won the ball immediately prior to their first goal. It's just that we were not dangerous with it.

The best coach I've ever knew first hand once told me "it's easy to teach possession, it's hard to install a potent offensive scheme from it." He told me that is what separates great teams from good teams. It seems that's where we are. Good, but can't jump the gap to great.

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Here in lies the difference between club and country. The Barcelona squad is together all day, every day, for 8 months. National teams are together for about a week at a time every 3 months. You can develop waaaaaayyyyy more sophistication at the club level than you can in the national squad. A national team federation has to strategize differently than club teams.

Historically, teams win the world cup for one of 3 reasons:

1) Your players play on the same elite club team (Spain with Barca, Italy with Juve, and Germany with Bayern). These countries have a built in advantage due to their "super team" construction. Instead of diluting or losing their talent, it's concentrated, retained and encouraged to grow with one another. The MLS cannot offer this same advantage to the US, nor can most other soccer leagues.

2) You hit the gold mine of super elite talent (France, Brazil, Argentina). These countries are singularly obsessed with soccer and have distinct characteristics that produce super elite footballers. They have wealth as a country, but they also have a large population of people with relatively lower resources. You need modern resources to build talent, but real freak athletic talent is born on the streets. The USA actually has all the required ingredients, except for the singular obsession with soccer. We would have turned Mbappe into a running back.

3) You take advantage of generational bubbles of talent (Germany and Brazil). In order to capitalize you need to have strong teams at many levels of youth development where the talent regularly plays with one other. Importantly, you must develop a nationalistic style that allows players to integrate relatively easily. The US is still growing its own identity, but this is our only achievable path to winning the WC. The early 90s teams were all about grit and determination, the Donovan years evolved into a more sophisticated counterattacking squad and the modern kids seem to have brought even more technical ability into the fold. I think Greg did a great job bringing in and encouraging many of these kids to grow. The results from this world cup were slightly underwhelming, but generationally they are extremely encouraging. I wouldn't be opposed to having Greg return, but I think its important we capitalized on this bubble of talent and continue to push forward. I'd like someone who would hold these players accountable, and it often helps to bring in an outsider. That said, the federation is making really good progress and needs to pick someone who will "fit in" and not redesign.

fig96 said:

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GoAgs92 said:

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PatAg said:

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GoAgs92 said:

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aggiephoenix02 said:

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GoAgs92 said:

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US didn't beat Mexico for 46 years.

Know your history. We are on equal footing now and it's nice but we got a long way to go.

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We've been on equal footing or better than Mexico since the 90's, bro…

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Mostly because they have gotten worse.

We didn't even make it last time…clearly we are doing great…and are just a few unlucky bounces away…

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You suck.
You should try sucking less.

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I'm sorry my opinion differs from the almighty soccer genius "patag" who is fine with mediocrity in all things.

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When literally no one is agreeing with you there's a chance he might not be the one with the wrong opinion here.

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Team underperformed, that is a fact not an opinion.

Ranked 16 in the world per the infallible FIFA rankings and didn't make the final 16.

Do you disagree?

Bunch of participation trophy babies in this thread.

Time out.

I know the FIFA rankings are crap, I said so earlier when somebody claimed our group was tough because all 4 were in the top 20.

I said infallible FIFA rankings as Sarcasm....so yes it was a joke.