Scholarship table
Disgraceful. The complete capitulation in the second half was pathetic. Until the last 5 minutes, the USA may as well have not taken the pitch in the second half.Berhalter showed no ability to adjust to the pressure. Altidore had to come off, but Zardes continued to do nothing. How does Boyd, who was undoubtedly the most likely goal scorer on the bench, not get in?A couple bright spots in the group stage, but otherwise a disappointing tournament with questionable selections and inadequate strategies.I know it will seem harsh as Mexico was the favorite, but this is the judgment. Beat Mexico, win the Gold Cup, that's success. Anything less is failure. This was less. This was failure.
were not talking about the womens team. to call anything less than a title for a us mens national team a failure is just kidding yourself.
It's the conundrum of CONCACAF. Making a semifinal or final just doesn't have meaning. Mexico has won 4/6 Gold Cups and the Confederations playoff. We have plummeted in our Confederation in the last decade. There's no denying that and no denying that the only bar for success in a competition like this is a trophy.
Is the bolded limited strictly to the Gold Cup? Because if it includes any event outside of the Gold Cup it's a wild exaggeration not based in reality.
I'll stick with my opinion on Gold. He'll be in foul trouble within the first eight minutes.
This seems to be a reasonable take.https://deadspin.com/the-usmnt-lost-the-gold-cup-final-and-thats-probably-o-1836187519
Very well reasoned take, with one caveat IMO. I know that Adams is the long term successor to the defensive mid role that Bradley was attempting to play, but with him out, you could have put McKennie there instead. He played all over the midfield and even on the back line for Shalke last year. He's the closest thing to a utility man that we have, and has a very high work rate. Putting him in that position would have left our back line less exposed IMO.
IMO, I think the fan community would generally welcome taking a big swing in terms of go all in on the youth. If we played a bunch of youth and we had bad results in this cup but we showed promise I'd be fine with it. Every choice we make from now on should really only have the goal of making the round of 16 in 2022 and the semis in 2026. There should be no other metric.
My question is:Should the WNT play against the MNT to prove they deserve equal pay?And if so, who wins? In my mind, it's 3-2 women's team. At least in the women's game they're actually trying to score for more than the final 5 minutes of the game. The men could score like 30 times on the women, but they don't look to score in men's soccer so they'd just pass it back and forth in the middle 80 yards of the field and score a couple times by just being physically faster and stronger, while the women would actually create scoring opportunities throughout the game.
We missed the last World Cup, behind the likes of Panama, Costa Rica, and Honduras. We lost to Trinidad & Tobago with qualification on the line.We had a great run from 2002-2014, but you could see at the 2014 World Cup we were starting to decline. Donovan was gone. Howard had to stand on his head to keep us in the Belgium match but we knew stars like him, Beasley, Dempsey, & Jones were on the way out. It was up to the next generation that has largely come up short.No keeper has emerged to replace Howard. We don't have a defensive anchor we can rely on like Gooch or Demerit. Bradley never became the midfield rock we thought he'd be. Right now, we're thanking our stars for Pulisic while he is basically our only creator of quality.Are we better than 2 years ago when we missed qualification? Maybe. But if so it's only because Pulisic is two years older. We're stagnating around the rest of the pitch with guys like Bradley, Altidore, & Zardes who can't hold on. We're pinning hopes on guys like Sargent, Adams, & McKinnie with a manager that has shown a preference for MLS players.I hope this proves to be a new golden generation, but we've been promised that for the last 12 years and none of the new crops delivered. Hard to believe this one will be different.
so is soldier field in mexico or US feels /sounds like a road game
https://twitter.com/PaulCarr/status/1148974856735772672New Concacaf Qualifying for 2022.The top six teams go right to the Hex. Top three to the Finals. The rest of the teams go through a group and knockout stage for the right to play the #4 Hex team for a spot in the inter-confederation playoffs.This seems massively unfair to the lower ranked teams in Concacaf, but I know they wanted to have all the countries to have something to play for later on in the qualification process.
From the perspective of the Hex candidates (top 6 FIFA rankings), this doesn't make much sense. If you finish 5th or 6th after the Hex, you're out. But the winner of the 29 team non-hex group has a chance to get in?Feels like they need one more step. Top 3 Hex finishers qualify. Bottom 3 Hex play round robin. Winner of that plays winner of non-hex teams for intercontinental playoff.