Official USMNT/USWNT Thread

[ImTellinTim]

Re: Official USMNT/USWNT Thread

If there were VAR in 2002, there’s a decent chance we beat GERMANY to advance to a World Cup semi-final where we’d have faced South Korea.

The WC before that we were literally the worst team in the competition.

These tournaments are crapshoots for the most part. But what you don’t want to do is hamstring yourself for no reason. Which is what we did by re-hiring Berhalter when he wasn’t even under contract and we were playing fine under the guy that was brought in. That really was one of the decisions of all time lol

[Cod]

Re: Official USMNT/USWNT Thread

Don’t necessarily disagree but teams outside the top 20 make deep runs all the time. I mean by the rankings we ARE a top 20 team.

We should at the very least be able to make it extremely difficult to beat us for any of the top top teams, and able to pull off results on occasion. Currently neither is the case.

According to the FIFA Rankings, yes, we are in the top 20. The Elo Rankings, which put a little more science behind it, have the USMNT at 32. Neither is close to perfect, I just have a hard time trusting FIFA Rankings when Brazil and Belgium have lived near the top for so long...the later not having done near enough to warrant their rankings.

[jasontoddwhitt]

Re: Official USMNT/USWNT Thread

It appears the USMNT have their guy.

https://x.com/david_ornstein/status/1823971134267662593?s=46&t=h3ycN0h5j2wlPEzEFyG14g

Blows my expectations out of the water. Never expected them to hire Pochettino.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: Official USMNT/USWNT Thread

Is this a new era of competency or blind luck lol

[Cod]

Re: Official USMNT/USWNT Thread

It appears the USMNT have their guy.

https://x.com/david_ornstein/status/1823971134267662593?s=46&t=h3ycN0h5j2wlPEzEFyG14g

Blows my expectations out of the water. Never expected them to hire Pochettino.

This move shows that the federation may have gotten their heads out of their rears. However, as I mentioned with Klopp, Pochettino does not have experience with tournament football on an international level. The game is different and the same tactics, etc. do not work in most cases. I'm excited to see how he can adjust and squeeze the most out of the talent we have. I don't think we're going to see Emma Hayes levels of success, at least not right away, but at least it's in the realm of possibilities now.

[Cod]

Re: Official USMNT/USWNT Thread

Reviewing Wyscout data on Pochettino has me thinking about squad management more. Pochettino typically utilizes a 4-2-3-1 when attacking and switching to a 442 or 4141 when defending. On the attack, the fullbacks heavily influence the style as they end up driving the form shape (compact vs wide). He loves the high-press which flows into a settled defense.

Do we have enough fullbacks / wing backs that are comfortable with the ball at their feet and high fitness levels? I ask "enough" because I think we have a couple that can manage this style, but with players playing more and more games in the calendar year, we're going to need at least 4-5 that can fill-in.

[Brahvocado]

Re: Official USMNT/USWNT Thread

Petition to have female refs replace every top flight male ref immediately.

They are scrutinized 100x more because they are women so they respond by simply never making mistakes.

Seeing an actual good ref makes you realize what clowns some of these guys are.

[fugazi]

Re: Official USMNT/USWNT Thread

Crickets.

Understandably so...

But crickets, nonetheless.

[Cod]

Landon Donovan just laid into the crop of current USMNT players regarding how they lack of pride and attitude towards playing for their country. Clint Dempsey did the same during his debut podcast episode a few days ago.

I understand these guys play way too many games, but why do our best players "ask" for vacations/rest when you got guys who just finished a more grueling schedule across leagues, UEFA, etc. playing for their countries and putting it all on the line. Feel like I just need to accept that Americans aren't as prideful of their country as others. We see the same story in baseball with every iteration of the WBC. It's just frustrating, maybe moreso as a veteran...

[DrJones]

I understand these guys play way too many games, but why do our best players "ask" for vacations/rest when you got guys who just finished a more grueling schedule across leagues, UEFA, etc. playing for their countries and putting it all on the line. Feel like I just need to accept that Americans aren't as prideful of their country as others. We see the same story in baseball with every iteration of the WBC. It's just frustrating, maybe moreso as a veteran...

To play devil's advocate here, CONCACAF teams play more international games than UEFA teams do.

UEFA participation in international tournaments for the last 4-year cycle:

- World Cup
- Euro
- Nations League x2

CONCACAF participation in international tournaments for the last 4-year cycle:

- World Cup
- Copa America
- Gold Cup x2
- Nations League x2

To make matters worse, ALL SIX of those tournaments are being primarily played in the US - the USMNT must play a higher percentage of home games than any other team in the world.
IMO this has several negative effects: the USMNT are being asked to play too many games (to fatten CONCACAF coffers), don't play games on the road enough (because they're always at home, they don't bond as much as other national teams), and play garbage CONCACAF teams far too often. I'm not trying to excuse Pulisic et al, but continual meaningless games against El Salvador must get old when you've already played 50 games for Milan.

My solution would be to scrap the Gold Cup entirely and have a combined CONCACAF/CONMEBOL Copa America every 4 years, and that Copa needs to travel - no more than one out of every three should be held in the US. Let's see how the USMNT (and Canada and Mexico) fare against South American competition in Ecuador and Paraguay.

TLDR: fewer games, but make the ones you do play more meaningful