General Soccer Thread

[CardsofSTL]

[BottenFieldofDreams]

Happy independence, Berhalter.

Does it matter who the next coach is? Feels like the USMNT will just forever be in a show a little promise, just wait for the future, disappoint dramatically cycle. Gorsh, I really do hope that’s untrue.

I was a pretty reluctant fan. The last thing I need is another Trailblazers in my life.

[BottenFieldofDreams]

Girma is so goddam good. In her own league.

I like the way Hayes has them getting after it.

@thrill if you would, tell me what hiring Papapachinco for the men means.

[thrill]

@thrill if you would, tell me what hiring Papapachinco for the men means.

After a still small, but reasonable sample size under Poch, here is what I think it means in order of importance (imo).

1) a supremely confident manager: he has already shown more boldness and creativity in deploying our players in his system than Berhalter ever did. An evergreen problem for the MNT has been the effect that playing most of our games against less talented teams in our region and then playing more talented teams when it matters in crucial World Cup games. In region, we have the ball and teams bunker. Against better teams, we bunker and they have the ball traditionally. We really struggled to adapt to that swing in game style. In the last window, we saw Poch switch to three in the back with Jedi Robinson move into the midfield to create an overload in transition and attack similar to what Pep did at Bayern with Philip Lahm. It worked really, really well in those games. Dest is injured but will be even better in that role than Robinson. That will move Robinson to the back line and Robinson’s speed and athleticism will be way better than Scally in a back 3. This gives us a system to go toe to toe with more talented teams and still be able to get our excellent attacking players involved. He’s not intimidated by big teams, players, or managers. He’s going to do what he thinks we have to do to win.

2) an objective, expert assessment of our player pool: American managers have been less ruthless and more indulgent to the mainstays. If Poch makes a change, he does it because he thinks it will improve the team. No other reasons. Nobody’s dad is calling to harass Poch. No player is going to sulk in training because Poch benched him. This world class credibility is something we’ve never had in a manager.

3) club relationships/pressure on the players to play: I’m very interested to see what the next transfer windows brings. If you’re not playing at your club, Poch expects you to move, not settle, and he has the connections to facilitate that.


Ultimately, I’m not sure how much further he can take us in the World Cup because that’s still largely dependent on talent and luck but he removes a lot of factors from the control group that and gives us a clearer picture and assessment than ever of how talented our players are and what we can do. We should come much closer to maximizing the potential of our players than ever.


Issues: not enough games/time to really get the full benefit ofwhat he can build.

[thrill]

Desperately wanted him to win this so there would be a trophy named for Landon Donovan somewhere (way in the back) of the greatest individual trophy room in the history of the sport. That is very funny to me, and probably LD, as well.