World Cup 2018 Qualification

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tennbengal
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by tennbengal »

Dug them out? He coached eight games in qualifying and they won three of them...
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by wlu_lax6 »

Okay so Arena is out. Who fills that slot? Go international? Go MLS vet? Go with one of the other US youth coaches?

Why are we surprised by not qualifying. The Olympic teams have not qualified for the last 2. Doesn't that indicate some relative weakness at the upcoming age group?

So what should the US do now---With no real meaningful games for a bit, time to go VERY young. Sorry Dax, Timmy, Brad, Bradley, Clint, etc. Time to see who our new goalie will be. Get this young team lined up, setup shop in Germany early in the summer, and be THE best option for friendly matches for teams going to Russia; even if they are all closed door games. Then bring that team back to the states and expand the camp even more. The U.S. is even in a bigger pickle now because UEFA's Nations League will limit the chances for friendlies with top notch Euro teams. So time to start lining up big friendlies against African and South American teams. Most of those will have to take place in Europe (which is not great for US Soccer revenue).

Then on the development front, get the scouts out to non-Academy teams. Especially in the immigrant communities. Develop a shadow non-Academy youth camp. See if you can identify some of the lost kids (and funnel them back to the MLS academies when possible). Don't waste any time on NCAA soccer. It is a fine product but is not the likely path for our MNT or even MLS stars.

and....the MLS is part of the problem. The league's growth and GMs have created a great opportunity for our CONCACAF foes to play high level. The minows are playing alongside our US Stars instead of for Joe Public, Saprissa, and such because they are a great value against the MLS salary cap but better than staying at home. Not sure how to solve that one.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Nonlinear FC »

rass wrote:Hey, I have beIN!

Late arriving crowd?



Citing "electrical issues" with the main venue, they moved the game to this secondary spot earlier in the week. Not an excuse for US's poor play, but it sure doesn't help a squad that wanted to move the ball around on the ground to play on soggy, choppy field. (As reported by folks on the ground.)
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by EnochRoot »

I mean, I get why the USA will never, ever win a World Cup. We have too many professional sports leagues, and frankly, the critical mass of people in this country don't care enough about the sport to keep it in the country's consciousness between World Cups. The chasm that exists between where we are now and where we need to be? To gulf it? We'd need to remove freedom of choice or just eliminate more lucrative sports.

I'm gonna laugh a little about this fact later today:

Trinidad & Tobago would rank as the 41st most populous state in the United States (ahead of New Hampshire, behind Hawaii).

This speaks to the current state of the USMNT.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Nonlinear FC »

TBH, I just don't have the energy to give a shit about "what next?" at this point. They shit the bed spectacularly, not just last night, but in just about every away game, and at home against CRC.

They put everything they had into the Panama game. Arena should've gotten off the plane in TnT, felt the humidity and made some changes in the midfield, and possibly up top. They looked sluggish and lethargic from the jump.

Fuck it for now. Not gonna obsess over this squad for a couple of years. Maybe I'll pick up knitting or something.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Johnny Carwash »

Haven't followed the team closely in a few years, but thought this was a good thread:

https://twitter.com/themikefoss/status/ ... 1434571776

TL,DR: The soccer system in this country is built on squeezing money from upper-middle-class parents rather than actually developing good players, and has huge barriers to entry to those from poorer backgrounds.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by wlu_lax6 »

Nonlinear FC wrote:TBH, I just don't have the energy to give a shit about "what next?" at this point. They shit the bed spectacularly, not just last night, but in just about every away game, and at home against CRC.

They put everything they had into the Panama game. Arena should've gotten off the plane in TnT, felt the humidity and made some changes in the midfield, and possibly up top. They looked sluggish and lethargic from the jump.

Fuck it for now. Not gonna obsess over this squad for a couple of years. Maybe I'll pick up knitting or something.


but Sargent, Durkin, Tim Weah, son of Jurgen, Shaft, Tyler Adams, CCV, Palmer-Brown, Lennon,Saucedo, Zelalem....the cupboard is not empty
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Nonlinear FC »

That was moment of glumness. I'm pretty much over it. As I said in the JK experience thread, every cycle a team that you'd expect to be at the dance stays home. Yes, CONCACAF should be a tap in. Ask Mexico about that, when we had to save their ass in the final minute of the final round to get them into a playoff.

What people don't seem to realize is that the margin for error in CONCACAF starts to get very frightening if you run into a bad home and away cycle. We had a nightmare start, which meant that we really couldn't afford anymore slips. Then we lost a a really bad game at home to CRC... Window gets smaller.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Pruitt »

Johnny Carwash wrote:Haven't followed the team closely in a few years, but thought this was a good thread:

https://twitter.com/themikefoss/status/ ... 1434571776

TL,DR: The soccer system in this country is built on squeezing money from upper-middle-class parents rather than actually developing good players, and has huge barriers to entry to those from poorer backgrounds.


Wonder if that's part of the problem up here too.

I mean, Canada has 35 million people, millions of children of recent immigrants who live and die with the sport, yet we are constantly in battles with French Guiana, Curacao, St. Kitts and the like.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Rex »

I'm certainly encouraged that our guys in the 17-22 age group are attracting clubs like Chelsea, Arsenal, Dortmund, Spurs, PSG, Werder Bremen, etc. I don't recall that being the case with the lost generation guys except for Adu (this was to be his cycle!) and Brooks (man what a huge loss that was).
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by brian »

This is a good opportunity to tear US Soccer down to the screws, one that might not have come if they'd have squeaked in. I'd start with getting rid of Gulati and go from there. Build the 2022 qualifying team around Pusilic (obviously) and cut some of this dead weight we've been carrying. Couple of guys on this team will likely be on the 2022 team (Nagbe, for starters), but we need someone with no affiliation with USS to coach the national team.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by mister d »

So, speaking of the younger players coming up, here's the Hex minutes played (age in parenthesis) ...

Forwards:
Altidore, Jozy (27): 697
Wood, Bobby (24): 553
Dempsey, Clint (34): 420
Morris, Jordan (22): 96
Feilhaber, Benny (32): 6

Midfielders:
Bradley, Michael (30): 900
Pulisic, Christian (19): 842
Nagbe, Darlington (27): 604
Johnson, Fabian (29): 330
Zusi, Graham (31): 285
Jones, Jermaine (35): 238
Acosta, Kellyn (22): 242
Arriola, Paul (22): 237
Bedoya, Alejandro (30): 120
McCarty, Dax (30): 33
Gooch, Lynden (21): 21
Lletget, Sabastian (25): 18
Kljestan, Sacha (32): 17

Defenders:
Gonzalez, Omar (28): 720
Villafaña, Jorge (28): 497
Cameron, Geoff (32): 356
Besler, Matt (30): 440
Brooks, John (24): 340
Ream, Tim (30): 290
Yedlin, DeAndre (24): 377
Chandler, Timmy (27): 163
Beasley, DaMarcus (35): 152
Orozco, Michael (31): 10

Goalkeepers:
Howard, Tim (38): 579
Guzan, Brad (33): 321

So just looking at next cycle, 2020-21 Hex, how many even-odds starters are there beyond Pulisic? My uneducated eye would say Acosta and Yedlin and no one else I'd bet? Are either Wood or Morris seen as the next GUY or is it hopefully someone in the system? Brooks? Just seems like there will or should be insane turnover, right?
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by HaulCitgo »

Kept irrationally expecting that sheer force of will would put them through... but after Honduras that should have been out the window. Those guys shit the bed five times in 10 games. No other way than to say they are the 5th best team in CONCACAF which really isnt worth watching. Really got it into my mind that somehow the talent is enough and that the team should have higher sights of winning a world cup. But thats plain stupid.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by brian »

I didn't realize Nagbe was 27 to be honest. I thought he was closer to 24. So yeah, there's maybe three guys in this cycle that might be on a potential 2022 team. Fortunately, like wlu or someone said there is some talent in the pipeline. They better be ready to go here in 2020.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by mister d »

Nagbe was like the first dude I really got behind outside of players already on the national team but goddamn was he invisible a lot recently.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by testuser2 »

The complaints that there are too many sports leagues isn't valid. Our current professional league and development structure make their money off delivering a shitty pay to play product. Clubs have no incentive to develop anyone other than the upper middle class kids. Clubs won't be able to provide good coaching unless they cater to the well-off families.

https://www.law360.com/articles/859482/mls-union-tells-texas-court-to-ditch-youth-clubs-suit is a great example. MLS and US Soccer are using the other clubs as free training. My kids play Pulisic's old clubs in Hershey all the time. That club should get a huge bump because of the role they played in his early development, but I'm guessing they will get nothing.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by P.D.X. »

mister d wrote:Nagbe was like the first dude I really got behind outside of players already on the national team but goddamn was he invisible a lot recently.


I'm biased obviously but thought he was one of the better players on our side last night. Only one really moving the ball into the attacking 3rd consistently.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Rex »

He was way out of position on the second goal, though not as out of position as Guzan (who was on the bench) or Hamid (who was in a different country)
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Rex »

A little more on the lost generation issue:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MLS/comments/7 ... ource=link

and

http://americansoccernow.com/articles/t ... opment-gap

There's been a pretty straight line between the poor U-17 performances from 2007-2011, and the failure to qualify for the 2011 U-20 World Cup and poor performance in the 2013 version, and the failure to qualify for London or Rio, and the 2017 Hex.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by wlu_lax6 »

testuser2 wrote:The complaints that there are too many sports leagues isn't valid. Our current professional league and development structure make their money off delivering a shitty pay to play product. Clubs have no incentive to develop anyone other than the upper middle class kids. Clubs won't be able to provide good coaching unless they cater to the well-off families.

https://www.law360.com/articles/859482/mls-union-tells-texas-court-to-ditch-youth-clubs-suit is a great example. MLS and US Soccer are using the other clubs as free training. My kids play Pulisic's old clubs in Hershey all the time. That club should get a huge bump because of the role they played in his early development, but I'm guessing they will get nothing.


Aren't most of the MLS clubs (outside of DC United) academies free? I get the pay to play, but most of the good ones I have seen are Pay to Play, but if you can't afford it, we will work with you.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by degenerasian »

so the US can build on this years U20 and U17 teams? Maybe forget about 2022 (who wants to go to QATAR anyways) and concentrate when they play at home in 2026
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by EnochRoot »

testuser2 wrote:The complaints that there are too many sports leagues isn't valid. Our current professional league and development structure make their money off delivering a shitty pay to play product. Clubs have no incentive to develop anyone other than the upper middle class kids. Clubs won't be able to provide good coaching unless they cater to the well-off families.

https://www.law360.com/articles/859482/mls-union-tells-texas-court-to-ditch-youth-clubs-suit is a great example. MLS and US Soccer are using the other clubs as free training. My kids play Pulisic's old clubs in Hershey all the time. That club should get a huge bump because of the role they played in his early development, but I'm guessing they will get nothing.


Just because Soccer can't figure its own crap out doesn't absolve the situation from the fact there are far more established sports' leagues in this country that do manage to attract and develop talent from all levels of society (clearly, some better than others). I don't get the sense that these two issues are mutually exclusive, at all.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Gunpowder »

Pruitt wrote:
Johnny Carwash wrote:Haven't followed the team closely in a few years, but thought this was a good thread:

https://twitter.com/themikefoss/status/ ... 1434571776

TL,DR: The soccer system in this country is built on squeezing money from upper-middle-class parents rather than actually developing good players, and has huge barriers to entry to those from poorer backgrounds.


Wonder if that's part of the problem up here too.

I mean, Canada has 35 million people, millions of children of recent immigrants who live and die with the sport, yet we are constantly in battles with French Guiana, Curacao, St. Kitts and the like.



Also you can only go outside for like 2 months out of the year.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by P.D.X. »

Rex wrote:He was way out of position on the second goal, though not as out of position as Guzan (who was on the bench) or Hamid (who was in a different country)


I can guarantee you there is a vocal contingent on Timbers' boards pinning the loss on Nagbe. I won't even step foot in there.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Rex »

If we do this the right way, 2022 is going to be really hard--the team ought to be better than this one, but it will just be too young. Hopefully the qualifying gets pushed back a few months to accommodate a winter final, because really those extra few months could make the difference.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Nonlinear FC »

wlu_lax6 wrote:
testuser2 wrote:The complaints that there are too many sports leagues isn't valid. Our current professional league and development structure make their money off delivering a shitty pay to play product. Clubs have no incentive to develop anyone other than the upper middle class kids. Clubs won't be able to provide good coaching unless they cater to the well-off families.

https://www.law360.com/articles/859482/mls-union-tells-texas-court-to-ditch-youth-clubs-suit is a great example. MLS and US Soccer are using the other clubs as free training. My kids play Pulisic's old clubs in Hershey all the time. That club should get a huge bump because of the role they played in his early development, but I'm guessing they will get nothing.


Aren't most of the MLS clubs (outside of DC United) academies free? I get the pay to play, but most of the good ones I have seen are Pay to Play, but if you can't afford it, we will work with you.



There are some inherent issues with pay to play as it relates to lower income players/communities. There's a really good Guardian article out there that nails it. It's not as simple as just giving these kids scholarships, which typically don't cover travel. That right there is enough of a barrier to keep latino and AA kids from participating. I don't feel like typing it all up, so I'll try to find the article later. Progress is being made, but if the rich boys at Soccer House really got off their ass, you'd see real leagues in inner cities, not the fits and starts you see now.

So, putting that issue aside, the academies (founded in 2007 or 2008, so still relatively new) are actually doing a decent job of finding talent. Their incentive is to monetize the players, not necessarily develop them. Though, again, this is a relatively new system, so the U12 and U13/14 age groups that were founded back then (now theses kids are 20-23) were really nascent. This group in the U17 and U20 is really the first batch to come up almost exclusively through a 10 month long, every day training academy set up.

There's still going to be the poaching that testuser alluded to... That's just how it's going to be, where some kid blossoms at age 14 or 15 and an academy sees dollars and snatches them up. I'm not really sure I give a shit, frankly. There are enough kids willing to pay for non-academy club teams, so I don't really see that as problem in light of the need to get the talent filtered into professional atmospheres as soon as possible.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by testuser2 »

wlu_lax6 wrote:Aren't most of the MLS clubs (outside of DC United) academies free? I get the pay to play, but most of the good ones I have seen are Pay to Play, but if you can't afford it, we will work with you.


There simply aren't enough of them. How many kids are there in the MLS academies? US Soccer has the developmental clubs, but I'm not sure if the coaching quality is there.

They are also spread out. Non-urban areas could have several hours of travel to get to one of these clubs for practice. Even if the club was free I have never heard of any that would cover getting the kids to practices. The not-so-great kids with money clog the system and take resources that can be used elsewhere. I say this as an upper middle class parent of 2 not so great players.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by mister d »

testuser2 wrote:The complaints that there are too many sports leagues isn't valid.


Do you mean too many different sports or too many soccer leagues? I think the latter is reason 1A why we're where we are; if you shut down football, you don't think soccer naturally gets better from great participation from elite youth athletes?
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by testuser2 »

Nonlinear FC wrote:
wlu_lax6 wrote:
testuser2 wrote:The complaints that there are too many sports leagues isn't valid. Our current professional league and development structure make their money off delivering a shitty pay to play product. Clubs have no incentive to develop anyone other than the upper middle class kids. Clubs won't be able to provide good coaching unless they cater to the well-off families.

https://www.law360.com/articles/859482/mls-union-tells-texas-court-to-ditch-youth-clubs-suit is a great example. MLS and US Soccer are using the other clubs as free training. My kids play Pulisic's old clubs in Hershey all the time. That club should get a huge bump because of the role they played in his early development, but I'm guessing they will get nothing.


Aren't most of the MLS clubs (outside of DC United) academies free? I get the pay to play, but most of the good ones I have seen are Pay to Play, but if you can't afford it, we will work with you.



There are some inherent issues with pay to play as it relates to lower income players/communities. There's a really good Guardian article out there that nails it. It's not as simple as just giving these kids scholarships, which typically don't cover travel. That right there is enough of a barrier to keep latino and AA kids from participating. I don't feel like typing it all up, so I'll try to find the article later. Progress is being made, but if the rich boys at Soccer House really got off their ass, you'd see real leagues in inner cities, not the fits and starts you see now.

So, putting that issue aside, the academies (founded in 2007 or 2008, so still relatively new) are actually doing a decent job of finding talent. Their incentive is to monetize the players, not necessarily develop them. Though, again, this is a relatively new system, so the U12 and U13/14 age groups that were founded back then (now theses kids are 20-23) were really nascent. This group in the U17 and U20 is really the first batch to come up almost exclusively through a 10 month long, every day training academy set up.

There's still going to be the poaching that testuser alluded to... That's just how it's going to be, where some kid blossoms at age 14 or 15 and an academy sees dollars and snatches them up. I'm not really sure I give a shit, frankly. There are enough kids willing to pay for non-academy club teams, so I don't really see that as problem in light of the need to get the talent filtered into professional atmospheres as soon as possible.



I think this is it: https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/jun/01/us-soccer-diversity-problem-world-football I'm a few paragraphs in and it looks really good.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Nonlinear FC »

Yep, that's the one!
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by degenerasian »

US has the easiest of any team in the world. Who plays nearly all of it's continental championships at home? Who plays the nearly all of it's friendlies at home. They don't play enough good teams in hostile conditions. The last road friendlies they played were in Holland and Germany in the summer of 2015.

They don't need glamour friendles. Go play Peru in Peru. Go play Morocco in Morocco. Get used to weird places.

We mock Canada but since the US played Germany in Germany, Canada has played friendlies in Scotland, Bermuda, Morocco and Austria (and some neutral games in the US)
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by brian »

One tiny silver lining in this shitshow is Fox losing (at least) tens of millions of dollars on their WC rights because of the US not qualifying.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

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Yep. Pivot to FUCK YOU!
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Nonlinear FC »

degenerasian wrote:US has the easiest of any team in the world. Who plays nearly all of it's continental championships at home? Who plays the nearly all of it's friendlies at home. They don't play enough good teams in hostile conditions. The last road friendlies they played were in Holland and Germany in the summer of 2015.

They don't need glamour friendles. Go play Peru in Peru. Go play Morocco in Morocco. Get used to weird places.

We mock Canada but since the US played Germany in Germany, Canada has played friendlies in Scotland, Bermuda, Morocco and Austria (and some neutral games in the US)



I mean, we mock Canada because they should be at least top 6 in the region and have failed miserably to even make a consistent run at the Hex.

(Just being a dick. I like and agree with your point. The US is soft. Like I said, they got extremely comfortable making so many WC's in this ridiculously easy region.)
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by wlu_lax6 »

Yeah but the US needs to play home games because they $ makers. TV time/ratings works better when you play on EST not GMT. Nike likes home branding opportunities. Even other countries like playing friendlies in the US (i.e RFK stadium, Dallas, Florida) because they can make more money. Like I said before UEFA's Nations League is going to make this harder too. Just less free dates for UEFA teams to schedule themselves.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Ryan »

Extremely I don't care neophyte question - does it make a difference where you play your friendlies in 2019 when the only games that matter are 2-3 years apart and there's like 54 new guys every time you take the field?
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by brian »

Ryan wrote:Extremely I don't care neophyte question - does it make a difference where you play your friendlies in 2019 when the only games that matter are 2-3 years apart and there's like 54 new guys every time you take the field?


Degen seems to think so -- I'm not so sure I agree. That said, we should be playing some tougher friendlies I think, whether it's at home or occasionally on the road against CONMEBOL sides (where the games can be played prime-time Eastern time.
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P.D.X.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by P.D.X. »

Friendlies seem to only have value when you actually have your full team (or at least close, which rarely seems to be the case with the various league schedules) and are leading up to some kind of actual competition. Otherwise it's just a kick-around.
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Re: World Cup 2018 Qualification

Post by Nonlinear FC »

https://www.facebook.com/jerry.irvine/p ... 0314740102

I just ranted. I think degen makes a very good point and the "where" question goes to something that's been bugging me for a couple of years, but really hit home last night. The culture of the MNT is fucked up right now. I don't know how, when, who, whatever... Something is off.

It's why Twellman is losing his shit, Wynalda, Cobi on the broadcast, Lalas... There's an anger there that has a lot to do (IMO), with tarnishing the legacy these guys helped build.

You don't fucking quit. You're a G-D American soccer player. You don't quit.
You can lead a horse to fish, but you can't fish out a horse.
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