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USA National Soccer (M & W) Thread

DeadMan

DeadMan

aka spiker or DeadMong
You know, if US Soccer would just give the job to Arena until the World Cup is over, I think I would be on board with it. The problem is that Gulati will give him an extension after qualifying for the World Cup, and we'll be stuck with Arena for 6 years. Gulati is a problem, too.
 
goblue96

goblue96

Disney and Curling Expert
DeadMan said:
You know, if US Soccer would just give the job to Arena until the World Cup is over, I think I would be on board with it. The problem is that Gulati will give him an extension after qualifying for the World Cup, and we'll be stuck with Arena for 6 years. Gulati is a problem, too.
Click to expand...

Gulati is the bigger problem.
 
kella

kella

Low IQ fat ass with depression and anxiety
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TBH I don't mind a 2018 WC where I don't have to stress out about this team.
 
DeadMan

DeadMan

aka spiker or DeadMong
goblue96 said:
Gulati is the bigger problem.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's true. He's definitely a problem, too, but the team just lost 4-0 to Costa Rica and to Mexico in Columbus for the first time in 4 cycles. That's the bigger problem. The good news is that there's plenty of time to right the ship - and possibly still finish first. The problem is that we could get buried if we don't move quickly. Lose to Honduras at home in the next qualifier, and we're way behind the eight ball.

This could be a great time to move on, too. Next qualifiers aren't until March, so you can take 3-4 months to get a replacement in. I guess you'd ideally have a coach in before camp cupcake, but that should be pretty easy, too. And, I mean, probably any decent MLS coach would be successful with this group of players. Maybe without Jurgen, we don't get Chandler to come anymore. Oh well.
 
Yankee151

Yankee151

Hot Girl Summer
Travis7401 said:
Ya'll ready to try the ATHOLETE plan yet, or you still dicking the dog?
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Maybe the trogs like BORNSTEIN, ala the TAGG plan, is the real way to go. We've been focused all this time on atholetes or unlikable bald white guys when we really just needed scrappy guys trying their hardest out there! Our best forward trio is clearly Julian Green (plucky youngster blocked in the German 4th division) Pulisic (plucky 17 year old) and, I don't know, Charlie Davies (plucky car accident guy!)
 
Travis7401

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
That's true, if you're going to have shitty players they should at least be plucky and have good attitudes.
 
NML

NML

Well-Known Member
I'd take any kind of fucking identity over the complete lack of one we've had since BUCKET BOB left.
 
kella

kella

Low IQ fat ass with depression and anxiety
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A baseball manager can have a huge impact if they are Dusty Baker. But not in a good way.
 
NML

NML

Well-Known Member
Skeeter said:
I was genuinely curious. I know fuck all about soccer.
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Soccer coaches/managers, like all other coaches/managers/executives, have little impact. Statistically, you have basically 80% that will all roughly perform the same, then the top 10% who will over perform and the bottom 10% (aka Vinny Del Negro) who will hurt the team.

International coaches have even less impact than ur average coach, because they only see their players for about five weeks a year (maybe 11 during a WC year). The impact you can have on a player's ability when you see them for 30 days, spread out over an entire year, is basically non existent.

Ultimately an international coach's ability is based around two things - selection of players and tactical acumen.

You have to give some credit to JK for convincing Brooks, Fabian Johnson, and AJ, among other dual international, to play for us. FabJo is a staple and while Brooks wasn't great this week, he's arguably our best player and certainly has the highest upside sans Pulisic.

However, his traditional camp selections are highly questionable. He's shown a habit on calling up older players who even at their peak weren't international quality (Wondo, Orozco), too slow to remove players who have been staples of the team but aren't getting it done anymore (Beckerman), while completely ignoring players in the Championship who may contribute (Lichaj, Danny Williams, now Yedlin).

He also may be one of the most clueless tactical managers I've seen. The international game tends to be more defensive, since you don't have the time to work on intricate patterns of play or establish the reading of each other to have fantastic build up play. That's why Del Bosque was one of the best - he had this extremely technical group of players, always the better footballers, but it didn't work in the international game because they didn't have the prep time that Barcelona does. So he stayed defensive and utilized that great technical ability to control the game and have 75% possession and 3 shots haha

Jurgen is seemingly completely unaware of the talents of our teams. He opens us up too much and seemingly refuses to work on set pieces.

His legacy was always going to be the foundation he's put in place for youth development. At some point the future - maybe in 2 summers, maybe in 22 summers - we will reach the semi's of a WC and it will be traced back to him. I've been a big defender of his because he's done so much in that aspect that I get the opportunity to see on a daily basis.

However, his legacy may also be as the most underachieving manager in 30+ years.
 
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kella

kella

Low IQ fat ass with depression and anxiety
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I wouldn't put too much blame on Brooks, he is just facing a deluge of attacks every time he goes out there. Thiago Silva is going to look pretty pedestrian if Brazil just coughs up the ball in their own half over and over again.
 
Snorky's Shame

Snorky's Shame

Well-Known Member
NML said:
I'd take any kind of fucking identity over the complete lack of one we've had since BUCKET BOB left.
Click to expand...

The USMNT does have an identity, they're the angry, intense team full of passion with no idea how to actually play the game.

Basically they've become England.
 
NML

NML

Well-Known Member
I guess I missed that intensity and passion when Joel Campbell slipped in his second 1v1 goal in three minutes.
 
doh

doh

THANK YOU Dermott McHeshi
kella said:
I wouldn't put too much blame on Brooks, he is just facing a deluge of attacks every time he goes out there. Thiago Silva is going to look pretty pedestrian if Brazil just coughs up the ball in their own half over and over again.
Click to expand...
Pairing him with Omar doesn't help.

First goal him and Besler had a pretty high line and Omar was way back (5 yards) leaving the guy who played the ball onside.
 
Travis7401

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
He also may be one of the most clueless tactical managers I've seen. The international game tends to be more defensive, since you don't have the time to work on intricate patterns of play or establish the reading of each other to have fantastic build up play. That's why Del Bosque was one of the best - he had this extremely technical group of players, always the better footballers, but it didn't work in the international game because they didn't have the prep time that Barcelona does. So he stayed defensive and utilized that great technical ability to control the game and have 75% possession and 3 shots haha
Click to expand...

I honestly agree with this, and it's a huge reason why I think the ATHOLETE build would have a wonderful chance to be successful for the US. Recognize the unique strengths ur nation has compared to the rest of the field and then try to fit that into a sound defensive tactical framework. You highlighting Spain is the perfect example. They recognized their unique strengths and then fit those strengths into the only "defensive" tactic that made sense for those strengths, defense through possession. The funny thing is that everyone watching saw the technical skills as the reason for success, while failing to acknowledge the VERY NEGATIVE tactics. Anybody who called Spain's soccer "beautiful" during that time period was obviously only watching extended highlights or something, because the games were truly awful.

I think that any winning national program requires solid strategic plan that flows all the way through their cultural identity as a soccer nation, links with grand strategy of the entire youth system/domestic league with the general strategy of the national team and finally the tactical approach of the national team in any given match. If you've got an identity disconnect in there, you're just going to be like the footbaw team Bortles as your QB trying to beat the Patriots.

So applying that to the US.... our entire youth soccer system is already set up to encourage athleticism in gameplay, often at at the expense of development of technical skills... but the horrifying juxtaposition here is that our potentially huge player pool is simultaneously limited by elitist white people who were too small to play other sports. So we are promoting (and encouraging) development based on the best atholetes, but we're pickin from a player pool that is akin to that of what a Division 3 Lutheran footbaw school recruits from.... Then our domestic league also values athleticism at the expense of technical ability as well, probably moreso than any other league in the world considering the fact that we've got stadiums with field turf! Then we take the cream of this trog crop and try to make a national team out of it and then expect them to compete by playing solid technical soccer? How is a shit Leopard supposed to change its spots? This is the exact reason why we are so reliant on dual national players from outside our own system, because our identity disconnect means that few of the players that come from our youth/domestic league have the requisite technical skills to beat out the dual nationals who were often trained elsewhere (or at least learned the game in a different cultural identity). But this movie about trying to emulate some other national sports identity has already been made (cool runnings). We're still trying to do our starting chants in German, and can't figure out why we aren't winning.

I think everyone sees the same problem, that's why we try to improve our domestic league quality of play and youth systems! But to me, it is far easier to change the strategy/tactics of the National team than it is to fix the entire domestic league, the entire youth system, and the entire national soccer culture to match our current manager's ideas. America WANTS to be a HARD WORK WORK big trog atholete team, our entire youth system is based on WINNING! Our domestic league plays on fucking field turf! To me, We should embrace the trog, to me.

Lets build a national stadium with Field Turf in Laramie Wyoming at 7,000 feet elevation and schedule all our home games for Oct-February! Lets see how you fancy pants Central and South Americans like playing COWBOY SOCCER WOOFBALL IN THE FROZEN TUNDRA! Donald Trump's fitness secretary will make sure we're the most cardiovascularly fit and mentally toughest cold weather soccer team ever created. Plus short passing doesn't even work on frozen field turf, good luck technical teams! Every game will be like that blizzard game against Costa Rica, our opposition will be completely broken mentally. Tactically, the team will play an ultra defensive counter attacking 5-3-2 formation straight out of the puber playbook. All of the defenders and midfielders will be ball winning hard work work ATHOLETES who look to win the ball back and then immediately woof it up field. No dribbling or passing back here, that only leads to turnovers because we suck. Woof it up to our dual ATHOLETE strikers (ideally with purple afros) who will attempt the vaunted 2 man attack! If they can't get close enough to get a shot on target, then they'll try to win a free kick, throw in, or corner in the opposition's final third. That's when the ATHOLETES really shine, SET PIECES! It will be completely horrifying and probably set soccer as a whole back decades, but I honestly bet we'd be good at it.

Most importantly doe, if we're going to encourage atholetes in our youth system/domestic league/national team, we need to get out of our own way and eliminate the pay to play elitism. We don't want the best atholetes with parents of combined income > $150k/year, we want the best atholetes from the entire potential player pool.
 
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NML

NML

Well-Known Member
I'm not so opposed to going to a structure that highlights athletes (we are already there), but it can't be our SOLE focus. You have to build a technical base too. Otherwise you end up with a pool of Marvell Wynne's and Robbie Findley's.

I have no aspirations of us being fucking Spain pinging the ball around, and anyone who does is delusional. But we could get better, and a lot of the things that will improve that have been put in place. We are talking 15 years minimum before we start seeing that really coming through doe.

I totally agree that we should embrace the strengths of our country and make that our identity.
 
Renegade

Renegade

Charge on!
Travis7401 said:
I honestly agree with this, and it's a huge reason why I think the ATHOLETE build would have a wonderful chance to be successful for the US. Recognize the unique strengths ur nation has compared to the rest of the field and then try to fit that into a sound defensive tactical framework. You highlighting Spain is the perfect example. They recognized their unique strengths and then fit those strengths into the only "defensive" tactic that made sense for those strengths, defense through possession. The funny thing is that everyone watching saw the technical skills as the reason for success, while failing to acknowledge the VERY NEGATIVE tactics. Anybody who called Spain's soccer "beautiful" during that time period was obviously only watching extended highlights or something, because the games were truly awful.

I think that any winning national program requires solid strategic plan that flows all the way through their cultural identity as a soccer nation, links with grand strategy of the entire youth system/domestic league with the general strategy of the national team and finally the tactical approach of the national team in any given match. If you've got an identity disconnect in there, you're just going to be like the footbaw team Bortles as your QB trying to beat the Patriots.

So applying that to the US.... our entire youth soccer system is already set up to encourage athleticism in gameplay, often at at the expense of development of technical skills... but the horrifying juxtaposition here is that our potentially huge player pool is simultaneously limited by elitist white people who were too small to play other sports. So we are promoting (and encouraging) development based on the best atholetes, but we're pickin from a player pool that is akin to that of what a Division 3 Lutheran footbaw school recruits from.... Then our domestic league also values athleticism at the expense of technical ability as well, probably moreso than any other league in the world considering the fact that we've got stadiums with field turf! Then we take the cream of this trog crop and try to make a national team out of it and then expect them to compete by playing solid technical soccer? How is a shit Leopard supposed to change its spots? This is the exact reason why we are so reliant on dual national players from outside our own system, because our identity disconnect means that few of the players that come from our youth/domestic league have the requisite technical skills to beat out the dual nationals who were often trained elsewhere (or at least learned the game in a different cultural identity). But this movie about trying to emulate some other national sports identity has already been made (cool runnings). We're still trying to do our starting chants in German, and can't figure out why we aren't winning.

I think everyone sees the same problem, that's why we try to improve our domestic league quality of play and youth systems! But to me, it is far easier to change the strategy/tactics of the National team than it is to fix the entire domestic league, the entire youth system, and the entire national soccer culture to match our current manager's ideas. America WANTS to be a HARD WORK WORK big trog atholete team, our entire youth system is based on WINNING! Our domestic league plays on fucking field turf! To me, We should embrace the trog, to me.

Lets build a national stadium with Field Turf in Laramie Wyoming at 7,000 feet elevation and schedule all our home games for Oct-February! Lets see how you fancy pants Central and South Americans like playing COWBOY SOCCER WOOFBALL IN THE FROZEN TUNDRA! Donald Trump's fitness secretary will make sure we're the most cardiovascularly fit and mentally toughest cold weather soccer team ever created. Plus short passing doesn't even work on frozen field turf, good luck technical teams! Every game will be like that blizzard game against Costa Rica, our opposition will be completely broken mentally. Tactically, the team will play an ultra defensive counter attacking 5-3-2 formation straight out of the puber playbook. All of the defenders and midfielders will be ball winning hard work work ATHOLETES who look to win the ball back and then immediately woof it up field. No dribbling or passing back here, that only leads to turnovers because we suck. Woof it up to our dual ATHOLETE strikers (ideally with purple afros) who will attempt the vaunted 2 man attack! If they can't get close enough to get a shot on target, then they'll try to win a free kick, throw in, or corner in the opposition's final third. That's when the ATHOLETES really shine, SET PIECES! It will be completely horrifying and probably set soccer as a whole back decades, but I honestly bet we'd be good at it.

Most importantly doe, if we're going to encourage atholetes in our youth system/domestic league/national team, we need to get out of our own way and eliminate the pay to play elitism. We don't want the best atholetes with parents of combined income > $150k/year, we want the best atholetes from the entire potential player pool.
Click to expand...

Can we hire Tony Pulis to manage this?
 
NML

NML

Well-Known Member
I hoped thats why this thread was bumped

It'll probably be Arena, but I think Tab Ramos is the right mix of "safely get us to Russia" and maybe a great hire.
 
doh

doh

THANK YOU Dermott McHeshi
fat-kid-celebrates.gif
 
DeadMan

DeadMan

aka spiker or DeadMong
Assuming it's Arena, does he call up people like Fabian Johnson after coming out against dual nationals playing for the US?
 
DeadMan

DeadMan

aka spiker or DeadMong
pavel said:
Why not Jill Ellis? At least she can win with American players...
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Assuming you exclude the Olympics, though...

I am fine with Arena has a stop gap to get us through the hex and into the World Cup. He's the best American coach, so it makes sense. But anything beyond that would just be us going in circles instead of trying to make the team better.

Real question, though, does he call up Ben Olson? Maybe Gregg Berhalter?
 
kella

kella

Low IQ fat ass with depression and anxiety
Staff member
Administrator
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Last time Arena corched the national team, our offense seemed to be little more than chunking endless crosses in toward Bryan McBride. It will surprise Bruce to know that we can't even fucking get it down the field to chunk in crosses at this point. Time to start over!
 
TrojanMan

TrojanMan

Pink Panther
Mod Alumni
kella said:
Last time Arena corched the national team, our offense seemed to be little more than chunking endless crosses in toward Bryan McBride. It will surprise Bruce to know that we can't even fucking get it down the field to chunk in crosses at this point. Time to start over!
Click to expand...

Chunking it from the middle of the field up towards Alan Gordon was the Galaxy's plan of attack most of this year too. :thumbsup:
 
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