Talksport headline…
Roberto Martinez falls on his Cristiano Ronaldo-shaped sword
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Do you really think the US underperformed? I just don’t see it. Writ large, this should probably be a real prompt to consider player development pathways, because I would not rate this US side ahead of their 2002 QF team.
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I’m more shocked at the night-and-day difference between Paraguay’s performance against the US vs what they did afterwards.
They should have easily beaten the US. And held them goalless!
It’s tough because the world cup structure is a fairly blunt instrument to measure progress or success for sides in that good but sub elite categories like the US. Would it have been progress to have got one round further by virtue of a more favourable draw? Is it necessarily a mark of failure for a team who wants to establish themselves as top 8 to go out one round early after getting a tough draw (although I don’t think Belgium was particular tough draw as far as a last 16 opponent goes).
But I took his point more about what are reasonable expectations for the team now and I think it is both true and deserved that the US have been decent for long enough now that they didnt have an inferiority complex and instead had a reasonable expectation of going through. I think they responded terribly to the pressure and as I said last night, maybe the team would do better to get back to the chippy side that was playing to earn respect from the world. But that just isnt the profile of these players anymore and so it would be a fabricated attitude. And that is progress, even if it didnt get them any further. And may not get them any further in 30 either. Because that is just how the world cup be sometimes.
The US man for man is a much better side than Paraguay and are battle tested against the dark arts that helped paraguay against other teams. The early goal was also huge, as is so often the case when playing beligerant sides like them.
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I was thinking less in terms of progress in the tournament, your point taken about the draw, and more in terms of the level of players.
When I think about this position by position, it is hard to see any real progress in 24 years.
GK - 2 MLS keepers and a PL journeyman, versus Friedel, a reasonable backup in Keeler, and a MLS guy in 2002. Even before last night, I think I would go with the 2002 group
DF - Some experience, again more journeymen level, but I would say about the same for the 2026 group. Maybe even, maybe a marginal improvement
MF - a decent group, many of them playing in Europe though not really starring. McKennie is probably the ‘name’. Again, not that different from the 2002 (weird to see 2 fathers of 2026 players - which also suggests their careers benefited from developing outside the US to some extent). Not sure which group I would go with.
FW - I think of Pulisic as the Landon Donovan of this era. Useful, brutally overhyped. With Weah and Balogun, this is the one area where I would say 2026 better, but that is not a trio that is terrifying anyone.
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I was expecting the US side to progress as they play together and mainly the circumstances, but also Belgium, felt like a real setback. It really felt like the US were playing with their minds scrambled.
Deserved. That racist woman deserves a right spanking to be honest.
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Totally agree. A pedestrian squad which never looked capable of beating a football nation. They benefited from a weak draw but just don’t have quality throughout the team. I thought Japan, for example, looked a much better football team.
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It is a little puzzling, because the standard of MLS play has to my mind improved significantly in the intervening 24 years - it just seems to have had only marginal effects on the quality of the player pool. There just seem to be more players available of about the same quality.
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The level is still far too low to make a strong football team just from MLS players. Ironically that the competition is stronger may delay players going overseas at younger ages and thus make it harder for them to ultimately break through at the elite level? As you say, the sons of former players thing is unreasonably strong in US team which - albeit a tiny sample - suggests that early football development is not good enough.
Are we allowed to talk about his barnet?
I think this group is WAY more talented than 2002. Players still playing in the MLS are playing at a much higher level than back then making the MLS player far less of a hinderance. But there were also only 3 MLS players in that side. And of them, I think Freeman is still young and has a shot at getting a decent Euro move. That leaves only Freese and Ream as not Euro league standard, and the team was filled with those back in 02. It is just unfortunate that they are key roles in the side, and sometimes the way it just goes in international football, that sometimes a good team can be undermined by critical gaps in key positions (see Germany not having proper forwards)
There is an interesting question if it would be better for the US side for its best players like McKinney to be an important player in a lesser side than the role he has at Juve. But in terms of depth of talent they are lightyears ahead of where they were
They already signalled their support for him. Its not what the federations are getting that is important, its what the leaders of the federations are getting…
Is it just me or is this in rather poor taste?
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Not seen that much of their current team at this tournament but the 2002 team was pretty good in my opinion.
Had a lot of players at decent European teams and their MLS players like Mathis and Donovan were good players.
If they haven´t improved, I wouldn´t think there is any shame in that as they were decent in my view as I say.
It still seems to me that all of America’s best players were ultimately schooled in Europe. Chris Richards maybe the only exception because he stayed in America until he was the ripe old age of 18 before going to Bayern.
Given the amount of money in youth soccer and the number of coaches who come in from Europe to coach American kids etc, given the amount of social media famous coaches who are and/or coach in America I find it tough to believe the US system doesn’t have better players in the youth system who are for some reason being stopped or disincentivized from playing before really becoming something. So many people have tried.
And at the end of it all I have to come back to the pay-to-play system. The outrageous expense and time commitment required to play anything above “rec league”. As I said above there are loads of good coaches in the US but they generally all paywall themselves into private coaching or elite travel teams like MLS Next Pro leagues etc.
Players as young as 8 are being told to join travel leagues paying up to $200 just to attend a tryout and some travel clubs cost upwards of $10k a year just in dues that’s not including travelling to the games, hotel stays, food etc. It’s a completely broken system (and it’s honestly the same across all sports). In Europe even kids just playing casual leagues are paying maybe the equivilent of $15 a week and they play usually within a one hour radius, not $10,000 a year and travelling 6+ hours weekly.
It’s not soccer but turns out my kid is a very naturally gifted baseball player. He’s 6 and he just won MVP on his U10 rec league team, and he’s done a few hitting camps at the local DIII college (just for fun and because he wants to do it). After the last camp the coach was encouraging us to get him into a travel team, that the coach happened to be the director of, and the costs were ridiculous miles above what we can afford for a 6 year old to play sports. Then you get pressured by being told about college scouts etc who attend their games. We were never interested and don’t plan on ever getting our kids into travel leagues but I can see many parents and kids being both pressured and dispirited by this system and the implied consequences of not joining it.
I’ve been thinking about it myself. I’ve found that I have completely fallen in love with coaching to the extent that I would love to do it full time one day - currently I’m a high school coach so that’s 3 months of the year paid in a stipend + summer sessions that I do for free - but I am trying to think of ethical ways to progress into full time. I don’t want to become another private coach charging $100 per hour to get some kid to do better ball mastery drills (which I am constantly inundated with when I log in to social media). My current long term - very long term - goal is to set-up a non-profit where I keep the costs to the player at $0. I don’t really know how to do it or even where to start but there needs to be some kind of revolution in American youth sports.
There is a reason the best American soccer players didn’t come through the American system, the best Basketball player is from Serbia, the best Baseball player is from Japan, the best Ice Hockey player is Canadian.
There is massive potential in America for soccer - and I don’t accept the “all their best athletes go to football and basketball” argument. Make kids enjoy the game at young ages, stop putting huge financial burdens and pressures on kids, increase the number of professional and college level opportunities. The athletes are there, the love of the sport is present and growing. It’s the system that is broken - and it’s always those who control the system who are trying to deflect from that fact.
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Is that actually true?!?!
The tariffs on Belgium are going to increase to 200% after this mornings result.
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