DrunkOffPunch

Right Backs:

Starters

1. Deandre Yedlin 25 Newcastle United

Backups

1. Reggie Cannon 21 FC Dallas

2. Nick Lima 24 San Jose Earthquakes

3. Sergino Dest 18 Ajax(CL)

Thoughts

Yedlin is far away the best RB right now but has been battling injuries. Cannon played really well in the Gold Cup after only making it in after Tyler Adams got injured. He's young, quick, and a played some pretty good defense so I could see a possible transfer to Europe coming but he'll have to land in a spot that will offer first team minutes. Dest played really well at the U-20 WC IMO. He's a dual national with the Netherlands so we're going to have to call him up soon to lock him up. He's my hopeful to take over/sub in for Yedlin if he continues to develop.

Going to do a breakdown of our prospective 2022 WC team. If I miss someone let me know but this will be based mostly on opinion and if some of our younger guys can develop. It's hard to keep up with transfers and rising/falling players so some of the info may be wrong. Starting with goalies.

Goalkeepers:

Starters

1. Zack Steffen 24 Manchester City(CL)- On loan at Fortuna Dusseldorf

2. Ethan Horvath 24 Club Brugge(CL)

Backups

1. Bill Hamid 28 FC Midtyjlland(EL)- On loan at DC United

2. Tyler Miller 26 LAFC

3. Jesse Gonzalez 24 FC Dallas

4. Sean Johnson 30 NYCFC

Thoughts

Pretty much a 2 man race between Steffen and Horvath. Earlier last season Horvath lost his starting spot but won it back. Going to be interesting what happens with Steffen on his second trip back to Europe. Needs to lock down a starting spot. No real Tim Howard level of GK in this group but Steffen has the athleticism to break out in Europe.

(CL) Denotes Champions League 

(EL) Denotes Europa League

Just some thoughts overall on this Gold Cup.

-Pulisic by far our best player. This team ran through him.

-Zardes shouldn’t suit up for the MNT anymore. He adds nothing from an attacking standpoint. Should’ve brought Sargent.

-No depth. Pretty clear Berhalter trusted no one off the bench. Losing Adams and Holmes hurt. Also the subs he brought in against Mex made no sense. Couldnt hold possession so we take out our best  #9 at hold up play and bring in Zardes who has a horrible first touch. Sub Roldan in for Morris when our best attacking winger was Boyd. Yes Boyd played bad against Curaçao, but Morris and Roldan we’re invisible vs Jamaica. Lastly a LB for a LB when you’re down a goal late? Cmon.

-Tbh I don’t really understand Berhalters philosophy. We’re playing 3 in the back on the attack so when an opposing team pushes their front line up to press we don’t have the numbers to out pass it and and end up turning it over. Seems like when we play from the back there’s nobody in the middle to support Bradley.  Also don’t understand why Pulisic is up with Altidore on defense. Are we a possession team or a counter attacking team?

-Time to start building for the 2022 WC. If things work out we’re going to be a talented but young team. I don’t know yet if Berhalter is the guy for the job.

Roldan and Zardes coming in makes it feel like we’re going to bunker down and play for pens.

Congrats to the USWNT. Going to be interesting what this team will look like in 2023. Midfield is pretty young still but of the 17 other players 11 are 30+. 

Pretty poorly reffed game so far.

ND

6 minutes ago, Frott Scost said:

 

The ones polling the best get the most talk time. So if you are not one of those people, yes, you need to step in, butt in, interrrupt to get your ideas across. Which is why these debates are a circus because you have people polling at 0% standing on stage? Why?

Thanks. Why not give a more equal talk time across the candidates? Aren’t Biden and Sanders pretty known quantities already? I guess what’s the benefit of preferential treatment to candidates people already know a lot about? I agree with others though 10 is way too many people though.

28 minutes ago, Frott Scost said:

 

Yang needed to talk more. 

This was the first debate I think I’ve ever watched but I missed the first 30 minutes. Are you supposed to just step in or what? It seemed like to me they only really asked questions to half the candidates and the rest only got a couple. I saw they had their hands up at times do they get called on to jump in or do you just start talking and force your way in?

40 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

In your hugely subjective opinion the Americans were exhibiting bad sportsmanship.

 

 

I hugely disagree with that take.

 

And for the record I have no idea who's giving you those eyerolls up there. It's not me.

It’s fine that you disagree I didn’t think I would have a popular take on this. No hate, just sharing my opinion. 

5 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

 

This is Thailand's best team - not the point.

This is the world's highest level of competition in this sport - not the point.

There were no penalties administered for excessive celebration - not the point.

The Americans were living out their childhood dreams of scoring in the World Cup - not the point.

Teams throughout the recorded history of sports celebrate scores - not the point.

 

 

 

I am all ears - what is "the point?" 

Sportsmanship. You’re creating arguements that I’m not arguing against. Again, not the act of celebrating, the excessiveness in which you do it. 

5 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

How many Americans were carded during the Thailand match?

None, but that’s missing the point. You don’t get carded for continuous play after a player is seriously injured or for not giving the ball back to a team that kicked the ball out so a player could get medical attention either.

3 hours ago, knapplc said:

 

So Thailand, who made it to the World Cup, through qualifying rounds and friendlies, is analogous to a D2 school playing a money game in early September.

 

Not seeing that.

 

Your better analogy would be 1995 Nebraska trouncing Florida, up by several touchdowns, and Christian Peter dances into the end zone on a fumble recovery.

 

All of Nebraska celebrated with him (even though the TD was called back).  Now we're supposed to be upset that these players celebrated too much after fulfilling a lifelong dream?

You’re getting too hung up on the label World Cup. 

Lets not act like excessive celebration isn’t a thing in all sports. In the NFL you get fined. In the NCAA you get flagged. In soccer you get carded. Nobody has said you can’t be excited or celebrate. It’s the way you do it especially when you’re the #1 team playing a team that only got in because North Korea got caught doping and the WWC expanded from 16 to 24. (NK said their players got struck by lightning so they used traditional medicine on them no joke.)

There are unwritten rules in soccer. Like when a player gets seriously injured you kick the ball out so the medical staff can look at them. 

4 hours ago, knapplc said:

 

Scoring a goal in the World Cup is what every one of these women dreamed of growing up. It's a lifelong goal. They get a goal and they're just supposed to... what? Mope around and not celebrate? 

 

Melvin Gordon ran for 408 yards on Nebraska in about three quarters of work, and he celebrated every touchdown, every first down, with cheers and high-fives with his teammates. If we didn't want him doing that, we should have stopped him. Our guys are on scholarship, too.

 

Nobody has said that though. It’s the excessiveness people have a problem with. Again coming from a vet that has scored in WCs before.

It would be more like if Melvin Gordon had that performance against Wayne State and did a pirouette into a slide and some leg farts on rout to a 130-0 blowout.

1 minute ago, Mavric said:

I have a problem with the premise of your first question.  It implies - possibly unintentionally - that they were running up the score.  I don't think they were trying to embarrass anyone - which is implied by "running up the score".  They were a good team playing a bad team.  Their goalie was terrible.  They litreally looked like they were barely trying out there - they couldn't even keep the ball with us applying minimal pressure.  We routinely got wide open right in front of the the net.

 

The only thing we could have done differently was kick it back and forth in our own end and not even try.  

It was mostly unintentional. It was somewhat of a talking point on sports media. 95% of it centered around the celebrations, but since it was being talked about in such a way, I thought I would just word it how it was in the media. Like I said, score 30 if you can, but I think it's pretty natural to call it 'running up the score' when there's such a huge win margin. To be fair I don't think we were running up the score.

To start off I have no problem with the score. If you can score 30 do it. On the other hand I do have a problem with the excessive celebration. The USWNT has been no stranger to controversy in loss (pretty much just Hope Solo). To me, it's not good look.

This is the celebration that people are really talking about. A veteran who's been on this stage before who scored the 9th goal late in the game. Thailand's team is a bunch of amateurs. I will say the USWNT did console some of Thailand's players after the game, which is nice, but this just seems disrespectful to me.

In the opening game of the WWC for the US, they played an outmatched Thailand team and won 13-0. There has been some heavy conversation since about a lack of sportsmanship from the US squad for running up the score or excessively celebrating such goals. A counter argument to this is that this is the biggest stage in the women's soccer world. As kids they dream of being on this stage and if you don't want them to score/celebrate, then stop them. Also, since goal differential can determine whether you make it out of the group stage, you might need every goal you can get. To be fair the vast majority of the conversation has been about the excessive celebrations. 

What do you think?

Lost 2-1. Didn’t see some of the second half. Came out slow but it didn’t hurt us. From what I saw the game was pretty evenly matched. Missed a couple opportunities but so did Ecuador. Weah has a real flair when passing.

The US u20 team beat France 3-2 to advance to the quarter finals of the u20 World Cup. This is the second u20 World Cup in a row where we’ve reached the quarters. We play Ecuador Saturday at 10:30. Assuming on FS1.

Edit- This is actually the third consecutive time we’ve reached the quarters.

22 minutes ago, Mavric said:

 

The transfer rules haven't really changed.  The portal has been added and they seem to be more lenient with waivers but the base rules are basically what they have been.

 

As you said this type of situation has been a criticism of previous coaches.  I was wondering if that stayed the same or it changes when we like the coach better.

Fair enough but the change in leniency has had a drastic change on the number of transfers in every school. Frost probably gets more benefit of the doubt but IMO but offseason transfers would be a problem regardless of who the coach is. The off-season transfer market is just a new part of recruiting.

1 hour ago, runningblind said:

 

 

I don't think there is help for you two if you don't think the comment was sarcasm.  

I figured it was. Thought maybe Mav was playing devils advocate. 

3 hours ago, Mavric said:

 

Frost is obviously terrible at roster management

I’m not sure if this is sarcasm or not. I know this was a big criticism for previous coaches but with the recent transfer rules there’s really only so much you can do.

2 hours ago, garn said:

Hell yeah, but this team as 8 combined wins the last 2 years.

I don’t even know why you would bring up Riley’s last year. Different coach, different roster, and way different culture.

4 hours ago, Lil' Red said:

He announced April 30, 2015 and polled around 10% in most polls shortly after his launch so not much but still significantly more than Yang's current polling of around 1%. 

Thanks for that. Was trying to find it myself but didn’t really know where to find it.

3 hours ago, RedDenver said:

But people also voted for Bernie or Hillary in the primary and then Trump in the general, so what do I know.

Yeah I read part of an article where a guy went to a Yang rally or whatever to get a feel for the people that supported him. He ran into plenty of people that had previously voted for Trump and Obama. In a way it’s like they just follow whoever they think represents the most change in the current system. 

7 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

However, that online crowd is very vocal but they are still definitively the minority. The internet is a poor approximation of broadly society. Twitter is a very poor estimation of the voting public. It's why putting too much stock into hot takes on Twitter is usually a dumb idea. It's akin to gauging a candidates support with voters by counting yard signs.

Out of curiosity how popular was Burnie when he first announced he was running in 2016? To me YANG GANG’s internet popularity has a similar feel to the whole ‘Feel the Burn’ thing.