General Soccer Thread

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lukethedrifter
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Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by lukethedrifter »

Don’t know if it’s true but Twellman was saying that the Mexico squad was missing quite a few frontline players. If so, not good.

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Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by Fat Strat »

lukethedrifter wrote:Don’t know if it’s true but Twellman was saying that the Mexico squad was missing quite a few frontline players. If so, not good.
So are we. But, they are still probably a top 16’ish or better team in the world.

Honestly, we have rarely been better than Mexico in even our recent history. We just have to be better than Panama or Jamaica ad. At least even with Costa Rica in talent to reach the WC. CONCACAF is much improved over the last decade.

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thrill
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Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by thrill »

Overall there were signs of progress and life but ultimately we're still a tick below Mexico in ability and didn't get the right bounces we'd need to beat them. A game changing striker could open everything up, I just don't know who that is at this point. Altidore is still the best we've got and it isn't all that close. We'll see where Lille deploys Weah and if Sargent can take a leap.

Basically, being just tick below Mexico in ability and depth is nothing new. It's been this way for about 20 years. We could've easily won that game with a few fluky bounces in a different direction. Mexico was missing a handful of guys but only a few starters. Based on that game, Tyler Adams for Michael Bradley alone would've gotten us a W.

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thrill
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Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by thrill »

Looks like Tyler Boyd signed with Besiktas, not MLS. Good, good.

This is an excellent breakdown of where we are with the MNT after the Gold Cup:
https://sports.yahoo.com/usmnt-gold-cup ... 39845.html

My #1 wish for this upcoming club season is that David Wagner brings Weston McKennie some positional stability because I think that will help his consistency issues a great deal. Last season was absurd. His versatility is great, but a 20 year old needs to be refining his game at his best position.

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Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by Fat Strat »

thrill wrote:Looks like Tyler Boyd signed with Besiktas, not MLS. Good, good.

This is an excellent breakdown of where we are with the MNT after the Gold Cup:
https://sports.yahoo.com/usmnt-gold-cup ... 39845.html

My #1 wish for this upcoming club season is that David Wagner brings Weston McKennie some positional stability because I think that will help his consistency issues a great deal. Last season was absurd. His versatility is great, but a 20 year old needs to be refining his game at his best position.
Seems like McKennie and Adams finding positions and gaining consistency, experience, and confidence are two of the most important things that need to happen for this squad. A striker developing and left back would be next, probably.

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Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by thrill »

Fat Strat wrote:
thrill wrote:Looks like Tyler Boyd signed with Besiktas, not MLS. Good, good.

This is an excellent breakdown of where we are with the MNT after the Gold Cup:
https://sports.yahoo.com/usmnt-gold-cup ... 39845.html

My #1 wish for this upcoming club season is that David Wagner brings Weston McKennie some positional stability because I think that will help his consistency issues a great deal. Last season was absurd. His versatility is great, but a 20 year old needs to be refining his game at his best position.
Seems like McKennie and Adams finding positions and gaining consistency, experience, and confidence are two of the most important things that need to happen for this squad. A striker developing and left back would be next, probably.
Oh yeah. That's the other one. We're pretty strong at right back. There's like 3-4 guys that I'm pretty happy with at that position. RB Leipzig plays Adams at his best position (d mid) and he stepped right in and actually dominated Bundesliga games at age 19/20. He has Pulisic-level ceiling at that position. Berhalter playing him as a Philip Lahm-style right back that can go move around is a terrible idea for a couple of reasons. 1) it's not his best position. 2) he has less touches/impact than he does at center mid. 3) our other defenders aren't flexible enough to transition to a back three to cover when he roams from that wide position. 4) we have plenty of good right backs and Michael Bradley's lack of pace at the d mid position is a liability against top class opponents.

Unlike McKennie, Adams does have world class coaches like Ralf Ragnick telling us that his best position is defensive midfielder. If it's good enough for him and Jesse Marsch, it should be good enough for Berhalter.

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Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by Transmogrified Tiger »

USMNT coming to St. Louis in September to play Uruguay: https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2019/0 ... 0-st-louis

Having to play it at Busch is a bit of a downer, but that's a fun friendly to get, not sure how many big Uruguay names will be called in but it should be a fairly strong US roster.

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Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by BottenFieldofDreams »

Seattle gets bitxhy when we call ourselves Soccer City, USA. And it's all pretty silly, anyway. But damn, 22k went to a weeknight Thorns game this week. Diego Valeri takes his daughter to those, which is so cool.

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Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by tlombard »

Just saw that the MLS says they will not be making any expansion announcements during the all star events because they prefer to make the announcements in the city they are expanding to. Think they will announce coming to STL during the USMNT game here this fall? I am hopeful!

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Re: General Soccer Thread

Post by BottenFieldofDreams »

Wow. This (former) MLS was so committed to his use of a bigoted slur he used visuals.

https://www.sltrib.com/sports/rsl/2019/ ... erminates/
After RSL lost to Tigres, Petke was seen yelling at referees vociferously after receiving a red card. It was later revealed that Petke had repeatedly hurled a homophobic slur to the referees both on the field and in the tunnel of Rio Tinto Stadium shortly afterward. He also confronted the referees in the tunnel with a handwritten sign that displayed the slur.

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