row_33 Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 good to see there's people spending quality time on the US national team situation at the same time I'm kind of creeped out.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeginnersMind Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 good to see there's people spending quality time on the US national team situation at the same time I'm kind of creeped out.... National team strength is always about player development. It's common to talk about generational gaps for national teams in every soccer culture. Now get back to worrying about Marquise Goodwin's left rib and Jordan Matthews's thumb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gugny Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 National team strength is always about player development. It's common to talk about generational gaps for national teams in every soccer culture. Now get back to worrying about Marquise Goodwin's left rib and Jordan Matthews's thumb. But the US Men's Soccer team has never .. ever .. been good. I think it's time to come to terms with it. We will never be a "soccer country." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
row_33 Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 National team strength is always about player development. It's common to talk about generational gaps for national teams in every soccer culture. Now get back to worrying about Marquise Goodwin's left rib and Jordan Matthews's thumb. hey, go for it, good to see some fans care sorta like people in Toronto more concerned in heavy detail with the Jays farm system, never watching a minor league game, than the big team in town Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cugalabanza Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 This is a good exploration of the strange gap in US soccer development (it ignores the foreign born US players) from the kids born in 1990-96. The years before yielded today's best players at a rate of about 2 a year. 1983: Clint Dempsey, Bobby Convey, Ricardo Clark, Chris Wondolowski 1984: Jonathan Bornstein, Michael Parkhurst, Brad Guzan, Eddie Johnson, Justin Mapp, Chad Marshall, Santino Quaranta, Luis Robles, Frank Simek, Heath Pearce 1985: Geoff Cameron, Benny Feilhaber, Robbie Findley, Stuart Holden, Sacha Kljestan, Brad Evans 1986: Maurice Edu, Michael Orozco, Jonathan Spector, Graham Zusi, Lee Nguyen, Edgar Castillo, Charlie Davies 1987: Tim Ream, Robbie Rogers, Alejandro Bedoya, Matt Besler, Michael Bradley, Jose Torres, Chris Pontius, Dax McCarty, Tony Beltran 1988: Omar Gonzalez, Eric Lichaj 1989: Jozy Altidore, Jorge Villafana, Freddy Adu [!!!], Sean Johnson And the years after are stacked with talent. But for a 6 year window (except 1995), look at this who's who of dreck (with a couple notable exceptions): 1990: Darlington Nagbe, Joe Corona, Brek Shea, Bill Hamid, Matt Hedges, Ethan Finlay, Miguel Ibarra 1991: Greg Garza, Kelyn Rowe, Gyasi Zardes, Steve Birnbaum 1992: Bobby Wood, Sebastian Lletget, Ventura Alvarado, Perry Kitchen, Joe Gyau, Juan Agudelo 1993: DeAndre Yedlin 1994: Jordan Morris If you're looking at Brek Shea as the 3rd best domestic player you've produced in 5 years, there's a problem. When you look at the success of the U23 and U17 teams, the future looks bright for 2022, but sadly there won't be a generation of Clint Dempsey's to hand off an identity to the younger players. Pulisic and the gang will have to find out who they are for themselves. 1995: Matt Miazga, Kellyn Acosta, Paul Arriola, Cristian Roldan, Lynden Gooch, Ethan Horvath, Jesse Gonzalez 1996: Emerson Hyndman 1997 and beyond: Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams, Jonathan Gonzalez, Josh Sargent, Justen Glad, Erik Palmer-Brown, Nick Taitague Combine that with the academy system set up by Klinsy under MLS's leadership, and the future is bright. I just hope they dump Bradley/Arena and the old guard. They have no place in this future vision. Good post. I agree with you. Man, Stuart Holden! I had such high hopes. Sad story of a really unfortunate series of injuries. I'd maybe argue for ranking Darlington Nagbe and Jordan Morris a little higher, but you make a good point. In spite of the fact that player development stagnated, I still think the player pool was good enough for the U.S. to have kept up with Mexico & Costa Rica as the class of this region. The fact that they couldn't do that and in fact let Panama and Honduras get ahead of them...that's an issue of EXECUTION. And that part of it, I can't quite explain. Why the drab uninspired performances? Why did this group just not come together? Where was that USA heart that we had come to expect? I don't exactly know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4merper4mer Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 How about no more soccer threads for 4 years? Well, maybe 3.5 is the right answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cugalabanza Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 (edited) How about no more soccer threads for 4 years? Well, maybe 3.5 is the right answer. How about if you don't like it, take your silly trolling bull **** back to PPP where that **** plays to great applause. Edited October 13, 2017 by Cugalabanza Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeginnersMind Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 (edited) But the US Men's Soccer team has never .. ever .. been good. Good post. I agree with you. Man, Stuart Holden! I had such high hopes. Sad story of a really unfortunate series of injuries. I'd maybe argue for ranking Darlington Nagbe and Jordan Morris a little higher, but you make a good point. In spite of the fact that player development stagnated, I still think the player pool was good enough for the U.S. to have kept up with Mexico & Costa Rica as the class of this region. The fact that they couldn't do that and in fact let Panama and Honduras get ahead of them...that's an issue of EXECUTION. And that part of it, I can't quite explain. Why the drab uninspired performances? Why did this group just not come together? Where was that USA heart that we had come to expect? I don't exactly know. Lalas wasn't wrong when he called them out. The team played hard for Klinsman, then turned on him for reasons unknown to me (not that I understood his constant lineup and formation changes). When Arena saw this team had no juice, especially against TnT, how does he not put in a guy like Bedoya, who is a full on inspired player all the time. Arena shares some blame for his decisions, but in the end, it's only the players that let the national team down. They played uninspired in this cycle, and seemed to not care in almost every match. This ends up being a crap group. And there was never a top player on defense whatsoever, which just won't ever work in soccer. Perhaps it was leadership that was their biggest failing. Howard, Dempsey, Bradley, Altidore (some others) were all good players, and certainly good enough to carry a team further than they got--but they had no leader(s). No one to grab them by the shirt when they came out flat and challenge them to be better. I really hope they wash out the national team top brass and bring new blood to them for the coming generation, who is really strong. Klinsman put US soccer development on the right path. Club focused. Getting away from big stupid "winning" games in youth soccer and moving to strategy focused small sided passing games. If US soccer sticks with those models, it will pay off. In many respects, it already has with the worldwide success of the U17 team (does anyone remember successful U17 teams in the US?). Those kids just aren't old enough yet to make a difference on the USMNT, but it's coming. Hackworth has those kids lined up to to big things. Edited October 13, 2017 by BeginnersMind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeginnersMind Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 (edited) But the US Men's Soccer team has never .. ever .. been good. I think it's time to come to terms with it. We will never be a "soccer country." Maybe you're a troll--not sure. But assuming you want to discuss this, there has been a sea change in the talent produced by US soccer, with many more top players being international stars. That's why the US team escaped the group stage in the last two World Cups. The unchanging element in US soccer has been the style of play, which reflects a sort of oafish attack-at-all-times attitude, which of course doesn't work in soccer and just gives the ball away to any team with a modicum of defense, in what is a defensive game (soccer being the antithesis of basketball and hockey). When the US players truly learn to play better soccer, they already have the talent to execute on it and deliver results. Sadly, most US youth soccer focuses on winning the game from ages 8-15. So the average dad coach tells the kids to lob the ball long for the tall 10 year old who can barrel in for a goal. This strategy, so successful at ages 8-15, has no correlation to the long term success of US soccer, where that play is a turnover every time. It's changing that mentality that Klinsman took aim at over the last ten years and is making its way through the club soccer curriculum--and is well entrenched in the MLS Academy system. Edited October 13, 2017 by BeginnersMind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gugny Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 Maybe you're a troll--not sure. But assuming you want to discuss this, there has been a sea change in the talent produced by US soccer, with many more top players being international stars. That's why the US team escaped the group stage in the last two World Cups. The unchanging element in US soccer has been the style of play, which reflects a sort of oafish attack-at-all-times attitude, which of course doesn't work in soccer and just gives the ball away to any team with a modicum of defense, in what is a defensive game (soccer being the antithesis of basketball and hockey). When the US players truly learn to play better soccer, they already have the talent to execute on it and deliver results. Sadly, most US youth soccer focuses on winning the game from ages 8-15. So the average dad coach tells the kids to lob the ball long for the tall 10 year old who can barrel in for a goal. This strategy, so successful at ages 8-15, has no correlation to the long term success of US soccer, where that play is a turnover every time. It's changing that mentality that Klinsman took aim at over the last ten years and is making its way through the club soccer curriculum--and is well entrenched in the MLS Academy system. I'm not a troll, but I can see how you think I might be trolling. I assure you that I'm not. I'm not going to pretend that I know the first thing about soccer; I don't. I will, however, tell you that I'm 46 years old and I feel like I've been hearing about Soccer "taking off" in the U.S. for the past 20 years. I've also heard how the U.S. team is "this close," for that long. I don't see - as just an average Joe who only pays attention to soccer during the World Cup or the Olympics - either of those things coming to fruition. Just like it's doubtful that Vietnam will ever field a football team who could complete with an NFL team, it appears doubtful that the U.S. will never be able to compete with countries which have been successful at soccer for generations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeginnersMind Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 (edited) I'm not a troll, but I can see how you think I might be trolling. I assure you that I'm not. I'm not going to pretend that I know the first thing about soccer; I don't. I will, however, tell you that I'm 46 years old and I feel like I've been hearing about Soccer "taking off" in the U.S. for the past 20 years. I've also heard how the U.S. team is "this close," for that long. I don't see - as just an average Joe who only pays attention to soccer during the World Cup or the Olympics - either of those things coming to fruition. Just like it's doubtful that Vietnam will ever field a football team who could complete with an NFL team, it appears doubtful that the U.S. will never be able to compete with countries which have been successful at soccer for generations. Soccer is wildly popular. Of that there can be no doubt. Jerseys of international teams flourish and it's all over every flat patch of earth all year. I'm your age and agree that there was a belief that with popularity would come success. Basketball is popular on courts all over the US and that translates to success. Shouldn't the same thing be true in soccer? I would have said yes, but the last 15 years have shown it not to be true. Soccer's popularity gave the world some top tier US homegrown talent (not seen in previous generations) and best-ever results in World Cups and in international tournaments, so don't let this year batch of underachieving numbskulls fool you--the USMNT is doing much better. But soccer is more like Hockey than basketball, and it needs a development system, led by people who know WTF they are doing. Popularity alone has only given the US more bodies. And that's been why they have gotten more successful. But until the last decade, no one was organizing that popularity into a strategy. With the successes of the U17, U20, and U23 US teams, you can see what a little longer term vision is doing to convert popularity into world class quality soccer. Those US teams are all top 10 in the world. Time will tell how that looks on the national team level but right now, it looks like nothing we've seen before. Edited October 13, 2017 by BeginnersMind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Who Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 Soccer is wildly popular. Of that there can be no doubt. Jerseys of international teams flourish and it's all over every flat patch of earth all year. I'm your age and agree that there was a belief that with popularity would come success. Basketball is popular on courts all over the US and that translates to success. Shouldn't the same thing be true in soccer? I would have said yes, but the last 15 years have shown it not to be true. Soccer's popularity gave the world some top tier US homegrown talent (not seen in previous generations) and best-ever results in World Cups and in international tournaments, so don't let this year batch of underachieving numbskulls fool you--the USMNT is doing much better. But soccer is more like Hockey than basketball, and it needs a development system, led by people who know WTF they are doing. Popularity alone has only given the US more bodies. And that's been why they have gotten more successful. But until the last decade, no one was organizing that popularity into a strategy. With the successes of the U17, U20, and U23 US teams, you can see what a little longer term vision is doing to convert popularity into world class quality soccer. Those US teams are all top 10 in the world. Time will tell how that looks on the national team level but right now, it looks like nothing we've seen before. I'm a very casual soccer fan. I generally only pay attention to the World Cup, which I enjoy, US team present or not -- though I'd like to be able to root for American success. Your view is the most encouraging I have heard. The talking heads on ESPN do not give one a sense that a positive sea change is coming. Now I am sorry Klinsman is gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeginnersMind Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 Arena out. Hopefully just the beginning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cugalabanza Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 I'm a very casual soccer fan. I generally only pay attention to the World Cup, which I enjoy, US team present or not -- though I'd like to be able to root for American success. Your view is the most encouraging I have heard. The talking heads on ESPN do not give one a sense that a positive sea change is coming. Now I am sorry Klinsman is gone. Ideally, Klinsmann could continue to be technical director and someone else could coach the team. But I guess that wasn't an option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeginnersMind Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 Ideally, Klinsmann could continue to be technical director and someone else could coach the team. But I guess that wasn't an option. Exactly this. Klinsman had the right vision for US soccer but was not the best coach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD in CA Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 Wasn't Klinsman the coach during the last WC when they advanced to the knock out stage? Seems kind of Billsy they canned him right before the WC qualifying and then fell flat. Soccer is fun to get into every four years for the World Cup but will be much less so w/o the US. Kinda like an Olympics being boycotted (thanks Jimmah!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoBills808 Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 Good post. I agree with you. Man, Stuart Holden! I had such high hopes. Sad story of a really unfortunate series of injuries. I'd maybe argue for ranking Darlington Nagbe and Jordan Morris a little higher, but you make a good point. In spite of the fact that player development stagnated, I still think the player pool was good enough for the U.S. to have kept up with Mexico & Costa Rica as the class of this region. The fact that they couldn't do that and in fact let Panama and Honduras get ahead of them...that's an issue of EXECUTION. And that part of it, I can't quite explain. Why the drab uninspired performances? Why did this group just not come together? Where was that USA heart that we had come to expect? I don't exactly know. It ALL comes back to player development. Execution is just a byproduct. The US does not invest in nor necessarily want to subject its players from a young age to the academy system that's been the backbone of European development programs for decades now. An argument can be made for just keeping kids in club and ODP-type leagues until they hit college, but by the time they graduate if they're lucky they've played summers for a PDL team while trying to get to the NCAAs once a year, with the rest of the time off spent NOT getting better. Meanwhile by age 18 players who've gone through the academy system have already been identified as potential full squad members and have had at least one or two full seasons of professional time against Europe's best, whereas the American kid would be in his first year of NCAA ball, which would be the highest competitive levels he's every played at before. There's no comparison between the two. Someone earlier asked where the urgency was like in US teams of old...it's been replaced by the self-congratulatory and frankly disingenuous success of the MLS over the last 5 years. Yes, the league has gotten better and yes it's more popular than ever. It's still miles below top leagues, and until we can significantly improve the domestic product there won't be a tangible difference in international play. You cannot rely on players who have satisfied themselves with competing in MLS and either couldn't make in in La Liga or the EPL or Seria A or hell even Eredivise...if your domestic league is weak you must be sending your best elsewhere. That's also why the 'athleticism' argument fails for me. You can't tell me Toni Kroos is a significantly better athlete than Michael Bradley, or that Dempsey or Donovan or Onyewu or Davies couldn't stack up against the Gerrards and Allis and Pirlos of the world. We have enough athleticism in the US to commit 90% of it to basketball/football/baseball/hockey/track and still have enough left over to field a team as athletically gifted as the rest of the international vanguard. Where we fail is in understanding the game is best approached with a measure of intellect and understanding that is simply not part of American soccer culture yet. The precise mixture of intelligence and awareness and arrogance and pure class that's bred into guys from Italy and Portugal and Brazil from an early age just is not being communicated to American players...in the past we had guys like McBride and Reyna whose frankness and naievete translated into some measure of success simply because it was compatible with the old American style of defend-till-you-die and attack similarly totally open, totally honest, purely US-Soccer specific style of play you could ever ask for. Those days have rightly evolved, but the intellect of our current crop of players and their corresponding attitudes regarding international competition have not yet gotten to a place where they can afford to just forget what made those previous generations some of the most important IMO to American soccer. Until they take some of those lessons and apply them in a modern context they will continue dissappointing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeginnersMind Posted October 13, 2017 Share Posted October 13, 2017 (edited) Wasn't Klinsman the coach during the last WC when they advanced to the knock out stage? Seems kind of Billsy they canned him right before the WC qualifying and then fell flat. In Bills speak, Klinsman was more like a Wade Phillips. Really really good at something (player development, soccer vision) but he hit his ceiling as coach so they canned him. Then they re-hired a guy who had once been a great US coach in Arena, but who the game had passed by. In more Bills speak, the GM Marv Levy moment. I really wish they'd figured out a way to keep Klinsman and left him in charge of the US soccer player development vision, but it's hard to take a demotion. Edited October 13, 2017 by BeginnersMind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B-Man Posted October 14, 2017 Share Posted October 14, 2017 (edited) .................... Edited October 14, 2017 by B-Man Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeginnersMind Posted October 17, 2017 Share Posted October 17, 2017 U17 Team into the World Cup quarterfinals. U20 made it this far last cycle. They will probably play England next. Still, all this younger success speaks well of the Academy system put in place 8 years ago and the 2026(!!!) word cup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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