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US Men's National Team (7 Viewers)

NewlyRetired said:
please don't summon Candyman, the thread has been so intelligent and pleasant lately. :)
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Because heaven forbid anybody question the Federation for empowering Berhalter and enabling his legacy of incompetence.

Of course, it became acceptable to criticize Berhalter in here after his missteps in the World Cup...which I of course predicted.
 
DC United have an 18 year old player named Kristian Fletcher. He was not seeing much time and the team this fall decided to loan him to Swansea (I believe DC United and Swansea share some common ownership).

Swansea put him on their U21 team and he is off to a great start. He has been playing as either a lone striker or a dual 9. He has 6 goals in his first 6 games.

There is now some talk that he might get moved up to the main squad in the Championship but some details have to be worked out first with DC I think.
 
Aaronson again was not great and came off on 60', down 0-1, and just before Union got a red card. Looking at stats (I didn't watch) Aaronson was hardly involved. 11 total passes in 60 minutes playing in the midfield is brutal when his team has made 368 passes.

Union Berlin looking like last year was just a magical season as they are treading on the relegation line. I think there might be big changes soon so maybe it's good for BA.
 
prefontaine said:
Aaronson again was not great and came off on 60', down 0-1, and just before Union got a red card. Looking at stats (I didn't watch) Aaronson was hardly involved. 11 total passes in 60 minutes playing in the midfield is brutal when his team has made 368 passes.

Union Berlin looking like last year was just a magical season as they are treading on the relegation line. I think there might be big changes soon so maybe it's good for BA.
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I believe today might be their 10th loss (if they end up losing) in a row across all comps.
 
Gladbach pick up a much needed win with Scally and Pefok both starting. Moloney played for Heidenheim and was subbed out late. None of our guys stood out in this match.

Paredes was pretty bright playing as a RW for Wolfsburg. He left the game on 74' with them ahead 2-1 but Augsburg scored 2 late to snatch the victory.

Hoffenheim picked up a huge 3-2 road win vs Stuttgart, who entered the weekend 1 point off the top. Matarazzo looking like a wizard as they move up to 5th in the table. This is their 6th win. Last season's 6th win came in mid-March.
 
NewlyRetired said:
DC United have an 18 year old player named Kristian Fletcher. He was not seeing much time and the team this fall decided to loan him to Swansea (I believe DC United and Swansea share some common ownership).

Swansea put him on their U21 team and he is off to a great start. He has been playing as either a lone striker or a dual 9. He has 6 goals in his first 6 games.

There is now some talk that he might get moved up to the main squad in the Championship but some details have to be worked out first with DC I think.
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Apparently there is a complication here as the Championship has a fixed number of loanees you can use and Swansea are already at the cap. So I don't think he'll be able to appear for the first team until January when they either send a loanee back or make a permanent move for Fletcher.

I'm really glad to see him having success. I never understood why DCU didn't give him a shot this year (he got in 10 games but only played 120 minutes) and I didn't realize til this post that they had loaned him. The 2005 class is pretty strong but hasn't had a breakout attacking player. He and Ngoma are guys that can make the class really special.
 
prefontaine said:
Hoffenheim picked up a huge 3-2 road win vs Stuttgart, who entered the weekend 1 point off the top. Matarazzo looking like a wizard as they move up to 5th in the table. This is their 6th win. Last season's 6th win came in mid-March.
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If things go really south (and by south, I mean we lose all 3 group stage games in the Copa, or even worse, don't qualify for the Copa (shoot me for even suggesting this)), it would not shock me if Matarazzo will be high on the list of in cycle replacement choices.
 
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:
Hoffenheim picked up a huge 3-2 road win vs Stuttgart, who entered the weekend 1 point off the top. Matarazzo looking like a wizard as they move up to 5th in the table. This is their 6th win. Last season's 6th win came in mid-March.
Click to expand...
If things go really south (and by south, I mean we lose all 3 group stage games in the Copa, or even worse, don't qualify for the Copa (shoot me for even suggesting this)), it would not shock me if Matarazzo will be high on the list of in cycle replacement choices.
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I don't think either of those scenarios is even possible. We rolled through Nations League without our captain and with the interim to the interim.

We don't play to the sum of our parts, but the roster at this point is just too strong for that kind of failure.
 
prefontaine said:

We don't play to the sum of our parts.
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I think many of us overrate our parts to be honest.

We are the 11th ranked team in the world, and I don't think we have a single player in the top 100 (Pulisic is probably close but there are SO MANY great wingers in the world. He is not even the best winger on his own team). And after Pulisic, we might not have anyone else in the top 200(although it gets VERY grey in this area so I won't argue if people feel differently).

If anything we may have been out punching our weight these past few years considering the ages of the players.

This formula should change as we move through this cycle and more players move into their prime.
 
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:

We don't play to the sum of our parts.
Click to expand...

I think many of us overrate our parts to be honest.

We are the 11th ranked team in the world, and I don't think we have a single player in the top 100 (Pulisic is probably close but there are SO MANY great wingers in the world. He is not even the best winger on his own team). And after Pulisic, we might not have anyone else in the top 200.

If anything we may have been out punching our weight these past few years considering the ages of the players.

This formula should change as we move through this cycle and more players move into their prime.
Click to expand...
As an exercise, similar to what I did before, I'm going to have a look at the top 20 teams and their transfermarkt values.

We don't have the big star (yet), but we actually have really good starters at every position. I don't think that's common.

I'm not saying that's the recipe to do well, but I think our current ranking will reflect that strength of depth throughout our starting XI.
 
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:

We don't play to the sum of our parts.
Click to expand...

I think many of us overrate our parts to be honest.

We are the 11th ranked team in the world, and I don't think we have a single player in the top 100 (Pulisic is probably close but there are SO MANY great wingers in the world. He is not even the best winger on his own team). And after Pulisic, we might not have anyone else in the top 200(although it gets VERY grey in this area so I won't argue if people feel differently).

If anything we may have been out punching our weight these past few years considering the ages of the players.

This formula should change as we move through this cycle and more players move into their prime.
Click to expand...
Plus, I think if you similarly look at the top 100, the vast majority of those players are going to be from the giants: Brazil, France, England, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Argentina, Spain.

Then you'll have countries like Norway (Haaland), Egypt (Salah), etc that have 1 or 2 players and then nothing.

One day it'll be nice to have that top 10-20 player in the world and I think that's the NEXT step in development for us.

But not having any weaknesses is still a good thing.
 
gianmarco said:
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:

We don't play to the sum of our parts.
Click to expand...

I think many of us overrate our parts to be honest.

We are the 11th ranked team in the world, and I don't think we have a single player in the top 100 (Pulisic is probably close but there are SO MANY great wingers in the world. He is not even the best winger on his own team). And after Pulisic, we might not have anyone else in the top 200.

If anything we may have been out punching our weight these past few years considering the ages of the players.

This formula should change as we move through this cycle and more players move into their prime.
Click to expand...
As an exercise, similar to what I did before, I'm going to have a look at the top 20 teams and their transfermarkt values.

We don't have the big star (yet), but we actually have really good starters at every position. I don't think that's common.

I'm not saying that's the recipe to do well, but I think our current ranking will reflect that strength of depth throughout our starting XI.
Click to expand...
I agree that our balance is really good but the top end quality really should not make us think we are under performing. We are probably pretty close to a 10-15 level team any way we look at it.

Lets take a look at our two fullbacks for example. Jedi and Dest are nice players, both with strength and weaknesses and both are starting on good teams.

But I strongly doubt that either of them would be even a top 20 player in their position. Maybe not even top 30.
 
gianmarco said:
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:

We don't play to the sum of our parts.
Click to expand...

I think many of us overrate our parts to be honest.

We are the 11th ranked team in the world, and I don't think we have a single player in the top 100 (Pulisic is probably close but there are SO MANY great wingers in the world. He is not even the best winger on his own team). And after Pulisic, we might not have anyone else in the top 200.

If anything we may have been out punching our weight these past few years considering the ages of the players.

This formula should change as we move through this cycle and more players move into their prime.
Click to expand...
As an exercise, similar to what I did before, I'm going to have a look at the top 20 teams and their transfermarkt values.

We don't have the big star (yet), but we actually have really good starters at every position. I don't think that's common.

I'm not saying that's the recipe to do well, but I think our current ranking will reflect that strength of depth throughout our starting XI.
Click to expand...
that's right. We have a deep and balanced roster.

A basic structure - how many guys are regular starters for a team in a big 5 league or on a UCL team (Celtic, PSV) outside of the top 5? We have at least one starter at every position. I think only left back and goalkeeper we don't have 2. We may not like all the guys, and they may get better still as they age, but right now today is what I'm talking about.
 
gianmarco said:
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:

We don't play to the sum of our parts.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Plus, I think if you similarly look at the top 100, the vast majority of those players are going to be from the giants: Brazil, France, England, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Argentina, Spain.

Then you'll have countries like Norway (Haaland), Egypt (Salah), etc that have 1 or 2 players and then nothing.
Click to expand...

But this is kind of the whole point I was making. We are ranked (ie generally performing) where we should be. Behind the best countries but above countries like Norway and Egypt.

I don't think we are severely under performing where our talent (based on club performance) says we should be which is what I assumed "don't play to the sum of our parts" was implying.
 
NewlyRetired said:
gianmarco said:
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:

We don't play to the sum of our parts.
Click to expand...

.
Click to expand...
Plus, I think if you similarly look at the top 100, the vast majority of those players are going to be from the giants: Brazil, France, England, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Argentina, Spain.

Then you'll have countries like Norway (Haaland), Egypt (Salah), etc that have 1 or 2 players and then nothing.
.
Click to expand...

But this is kind of the whole point I was making. We are ranked (ie generally performing) where we should be. Behind the best countries but above countries like Norway and Egypt.

I don't think we are severely under performing where our talent (based on club performance) says we should be.
Click to expand...
I think you are putting way too much weight on ranking. I really don't care about that. FIFA rankings are garbage. If you want to examine rankings, I'd use ELO, but even then it's hard to rank teams given the disparity in game quality and relatively few real matches.
 
prefontaine said:
NewlyRetired said:
gianmarco said:
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:

We don't play to the sum of our parts.
Click to expand...

.
Click to expand...
Plus, I think if you similarly look at the top 100, the vast majority of those players are going to be from the giants: Brazil, France, England, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Argentina, Spain.

Then you'll have countries like Norway (Haaland), Egypt (Salah), etc that have 1 or 2 players and then nothing.
.
Click to expand...

But this is kind of the whole point I was making. We are ranked (ie generally performing) where we should be. Behind the best countries but above countries like Norway and Egypt.

I don't think we are severely under performing where our talent (based on club performance) says we should be.
Click to expand...
I think you are putting way too much weight on ranking. I really don't care about that. FIFA rankings are garbage. If you want to examine rankings, I'd use ELO, but even then it's hard to rank teams given the disparity in game quality and relatively few real matches.
Click to expand...
If we don't use some form of metrics then it is all purely subjective and the conversation basically ends.

I don't know how to judge whether we are over or under performing what we think we should be doing other than looking at the performances of our players at club level and comparing that to how they perform as a team against players who are doing better or worse than them at club level.
 
prefontaine said:
I think you are putting way too much weight on ranking. I really don't care about that. FIFA rankings are garbage. If you want to examine rankings, I'd use ELO, but even then it's hard to rank teams given the disparity in game quality and relatively few real matches.
Click to expand...
ELO rankings are just as bad or just as good as FIFA's. They are just a slightly different mathematical formula trying to bring a small amount of sanity into a very chaotic situation.

As you said, there is no perfect method of ranking international teams but the methods used by both FIFA and ELO do a fairly good job. I think they are FAR from garbage considering the complexity of the problem they are trying to solve.
 
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:
I think you are putting way too much weight on ranking. I really don't care about that. FIFA rankings are garbage. If you want to examine rankings, I'd use ELO, but even then it's hard to rank teams given the disparity in game quality and relatively few real matches.
Click to expand...
ELO rankings are just as bad or just as good as FIFA's. They are just a slightly different mathematical formula trying to bring a small amount of sanity into a very chaotic situation.

As you said, there is no perfect method of ranking international teams but the methods used by both FIFA and ELO do a fairly good job. I think they are FAR from garbage considering the complexity of the problem they are trying to solve.
Click to expand...
Are they the best there are? I guess. But the dynamics of national teams make them inherently poor indicators. They might mean something when teams are 11th vs 80th. So maybe they are meaningful in large tiers, but I think they do a really poor job of rank ordering within those tiers. I just don't put much stock in them. Anyway, I think we're strayed far off topic.

The point - i think - was that we have a much stronger lineup than most 2nd tier countries because we have good balance. And most of our games are against teams well below that. We're playing T&T to get into Copa and our C-Team in Gold Cup beat them 6-0. I'm not sweating qualifying or even advancing out of group.
 
prefontaine said:

The point - i think - was that we have a much stronger lineup than most 2nd tier countries because we have good balance. And most of our games are against teams well below that. We're playing T&T to get into Copa and our C-Team in Gold Cup beat them 6-0. I'm not sweating qualifying or even advancing out of group.
Click to expand...
I can't wait for the Copa...it will really give us our best indicator of where the team is and how we should set expectations for 2026.

Next summer is going to be so amazing with Euro's and super Copa. They are going to overlap but hopefully time difference will help us not miss games. The two finals are on the exact same day.
 
I am not familiar with this player (to the point I have no idea how to pronounce his name) but he is a Yank so I post

==================


Tom Bogert

@tombogert

Sources: American central midfielder Adeteye Gbadehan is nearing a deal with League One side Port Vale.Gbadehan, 19, trialed with Southampton and Brentford previously, but prioritizing better likelihood of first team soccer with Port Vale.
 
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:

The point - i think - was that we have a much stronger lineup than most 2nd tier countries because we have good balance. And most of our games are against teams well below that. We're playing T&T to get into Copa and our C-Team in Gold Cup beat them 6-0. I'm not sweating qualifying or even advancing out of group.
Click to expand...
I can't wait for the Copa...it will really give us our best indicator of where the team is and how we should set expectations for 2026.

Next summer is going to be so amazing with Euro's and super Copa. They are going to overlap but hopefully time difference will help us not miss games. The two finals are on the exact same day.
Click to expand...

Need to go ahead and get my cocktail menu and my liver ready.

@The Gator
 
AAABatteries said:
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:

The point - i think - was that we have a much stronger lineup than most 2nd tier countries because we have good balance. And most of our games are against teams well below that. We're playing T&T to get into Copa and our C-Team in Gold Cup beat them 6-0. I'm not sweating qualifying or even advancing out of group.
Click to expand...
I can't wait for the Copa...it will really give us our best indicator of where the team is and how we should set expectations for 2026.

Next summer is going to be so amazing with Euro's and super Copa. They are going to overlap but hopefully time difference will help us not miss games. The two finals are on the exact same day.
Click to expand...

Need to go ahead and get my cocktail menu and my liver ready.

@The Gator
Click to expand...
Where's the cornhole happening?
 
The Gator said:
AAABatteries said:
NewlyRetired said:
prefontaine said:

The point - i think - was that we have a much stronger lineup than most 2nd tier countries because we have good balance. And most of our games are against teams well below that. We're playing T&T to get into Copa and our C-Team in Gold Cup beat them 6-0. I'm not sweating qualifying or even advancing out of group.
Click to expand...
I can't wait for the Copa...it will really give us our best indicator of where the team is and how we should set expectations for 2026.

Next summer is going to be so amazing with Euro's and super Copa. They are going to overlap but hopefully time difference will help us not miss games. The two finals are on the exact same day.
Click to expand...

Need to go ahead and get my cocktail menu and my liver ready.

@The Gator
Click to expand...
Where's the cornhole happening?
Click to expand...

Anybody in Atlanta area is welcome to come over to AAA bar and watch some games and :banned:
 
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