People more knowledgeable than I have said the the 18-24 years olds eligible to play for the US are far better than earlier teams. At this team the US is fortunate that FIFA has offered the US a steep downhill path to making the WC. Many would refer to us as "minnows" if we were attempting to qualify in Europe or South America.
Unfortunately the bar for keeping the manager in place is so very low that it's easy for incompetents to reach that level. We're stuck with GB for the next 3 years, I fear.
And, apparently, our really young teams - the kids who are 13-15 - routinely go to Europe and hold their own. A kid from our club who's now part of ODP went over with a bunch of U14s last summer and did very well in England. This is pretty typical now.
One issue that I hear a lot, though, is the comfort level of soccer here in the US. Everybody knows soccer is pay-to-play here and it keeps a lot of kids out, but there's another aspect to it. An American 16-17 year old trying to make an academy team? It's soccer or...college. Not life or death. Probably a degree. In other countries? Soccer or nothing at all. It plays a role. Hell, just look at Ronaldo's story.
A future guest who has worked w/ Tab Ramos will tell #TheCoachingAcademy that Ramos should have been the interim USMNT coach but wasn't because of fear that Ramos would do well & disrupt Jay Berhalter and US Soccer's plan to hire his brother after Crew’s season
Why must we continue to screw this up?
They want money and protection for their friends.
It appears to go beyond the game. We have three more years to Qatar (assuming we make it) - may it not be three more years of this.
"Berhalter’s USMNT, on the other hand, looks like a kid who hasn’t quite mastered tying his shoes."
It's disorganized, it's hesitant, it's ploddingly slow. It won't work quite right for another couple years. Years that no national or coach actually has time for.
said it was not the international team's job to develop players (it isn't). But with players at the skill level we have, the concept of playing possession ball is pretty crazy. Would Weah, Brooks, and Adams help? Yeah, but maybe not enough to make us competitive with even Mexico under this system.
I wonder how he would grade himself for last night.
Was a win what he was going for? Some other goal? Were they trying some tactics that didn't seem apparent, but in the long run those tactics will pay dividends?
Is it really just as simple as it seems? We're a shite outfit 8 years away from being fixed?
Here's how his piece ends (emphasis mine):
Nobody should have expected Berhalter to transform the United States into a world power in less than a year, but the bare minimum expected of him was clear signs of progress and growth, and signs that the team is responding positively to its coach.
We saw none of that on Tuesday in Toronto, and instead we watched the Americans be thoroughly outplayed by a Canadian team that boasted all the qualities USMNT fans were hoping to see from their team. The result was a historic victory for Canada that could spark its program into a new period of success, and a loss that felt like rock bottom for the Berhalter era, and a new low for a program that has basically been stagnating since that disastrous World Cup qualifying loss to Trinidad and Tobago two years ago.
If Berhalter really wants to show that he has the team making progress, and he is growing as an international coach, then he will need to get the tactics, player selections and game management right in November against Canada. If he can’t do that, and if his team lays another egg, then it will clear that it is time for a coaching change.
In other words, Berhalter and his team need to beat Canada in Orlando on November 15th. No, beating Canada won’t magically mean that Berhalter’s project is destined to succeed, but if Berhalter can’t get his team up for that game, and can’t show an ability to lead the USMNT to an important victory after a year filled with disappointments, then it will be time for Stewart to admit he hired the wrong coach, and it will be time for U.S. Soccer to make a coaching change.
The press reaction is essential here. The USSF had figured that Gregg would be a shoe-in and they could do what they want to do for the foreseeable future with this program with Jay and Gregg at their respective helms. The fact that Stu Holden, Alexi Lalas, Ian Darke, Ives Galarcep, Stars & Stripes on Sirius, etc. are all on the "time is running out" bandwagon puts lots of pressure on the federation. Hopefully, they continue to lay it on.
his very first comment is that the USA didn't "match the desire of Canada". So basically, TRY HARDER is what this coach came up with after a year in his stupid system.
He blames losing 50/50 balls. What he doesn't say is that his tactics were bad. He doesn't say that his tactics led to those 50/50 balls.
He claims this is a challenge because "it is our first meaningful game away from home". Whose fault is that? USSF and Gregg. He could have coached all of those games Sarachan coached.
He goes on to blame sloppy touches and misplayed balls. Really great when you want to play possession, yes?
He's a coach in denial. He's a coach who still believes in his system. He blames his players.
He had no backup plan. Insert Zardes, pull Christian, and try harder were his coaching decisions.
He's in over his head.
Give Tab the keys and everyone above him can just eat some humility while Tab goes to work.
The guy knows all the young guys inside and out. He ran Klinnsmann's training sessions in 2014. He knows what he's doing. Maybe he's not the 10 year guy, but he sure as hell knows how to get them to Qatar.
Won't happen, though. US Soccer would have to admit they were wrong. This is going to be Berhalter's cycle, and that's the way it is.
then he can buzz off. I'm always going to find that decision to be idiotic. The whole organization needs to be rebuilt from scratch.
Not sure that was Tab, though. He certainly may have agreed with it. Tab Ramos was the one that was pushing for small sided play, though. That I do know.
The furor over the school->birth year change was and is overblown. It was always that way until FIFA temporarily switched it back in the 1980s (for two years), and we just refused to change it back until 2016. And I'm a parent who was affected by this, as my son is one birth year older than most of his classmates and was caught in a 'trap' year in 8th grade as a result.
Rec soccer doesn't have to comply with USSF guidelines in this respect, so the bigger impact was to club/DA/ODP soccer. The only countries that were still on school year in the top 100 of FIFA were the US and Canada.
and I think it was totally ridiculous as well. I had two kids impacted (one good and one bad). The problem was in the implementation. They should not have broken up the teams that already existed. They could have said "the new birth year rules begins with U8" and left everyone else alone. Worse yet, my daughter gets put in the "2007 younger" group when she does ODP and her teammate gets put in the "2007 older" group. So we split these kids up by grade anyway. So stupid.
That said, I can forgive Tab if we get rid of Gregg.
But it's US Soccer. I don't even have a referee grade anymore. Why? Apparently they wanted to match it up with how they're classifying coaches now.
The age grouping doesn't affect school soccer, so for the high school kids it was really just the trap year issue (and losing teammates). Clubs have to comply with USSF, so that was unavoidable.
leagues. It is detrimental to how things are broken up at the school level, which is where the overwhelming majority of kids will wind up playing. If you're good enough to compete at a national or near-national level, fine, adhere to birth year. Otherwise school year should apply.
As bunched up as we were on the defensive end all night, as poorly as we broke out once we gained possession, and as poorly as we possessed it once we had it, you would think some of this stuff would be straight forward to review and work to fix. Guys know how to pass the ball. They've known how to pass the ball since they were 8 years old. I think you're just leading me to think, yes it truly is this simple. We're a mess. We have a mess organization. We have a mess coach. He doesn't know how to clean the mess. And he's messing up our players.
I really think that he thinks he's back in Columbus, and he just has to motivate the guys more.
Every single one of these games count Gregggggg
You can't suffer slumps like the MLS seasons he's accustomed to. Each game means a great deal.