Midstate01;1801657 wrote:100% with you. Usmnt played horrible. Managed horrible. They played 3 games against good teams and lost all 3. While I blame the players for their coming home to play and leaving the best training in the world, I also blame Klinsmann for not using this tourney as a great opportunity to play some of his young talent more. Jermaine Jones should not be on the usmnt roster...
I'm a Klinsmann fan, but I'm all in on wanting Caleb Porter to take over.
What coach, any coach, looks at the USMNT and says, "I really would like to coach these guys because I can win a tournament with them?" We don't have the players. We don't have the pool. Simple as that.
Heck, even Porter was feeling hotseat from Portland fans because of their often sporadic/terrible play. They don't play good soccer really. Even he's been awful in selecting players. Yes, he won an MLS Cup...but, that was a prime example of POOR POOR POOR soccer (from both sides).
Mulva;1801951 wrote:It wasn't terrible, but it definitely wasn't a hell of a tournament. Beat the team we should, won both toss-ups, and lost the 3 matches where we were clearly outclassed.
This is it. Granted, winning group was pretty unexpected. No reason why anyone should think our squad SHOULD beat Colombia or Argentina. Just not going to happen consistently. There is a reason we are ranked near 30 and they both are top 5.
For me, I don't blame this tournament on the players or JK. It's our lack of productive player development system from U6-U23. Just not a great setup. Players are part-time players for their major developing ages. USSF, NFHS, college associations, etc. should get some collaborating on how to work together so all can accomplish what they want to -- individually AND collectively. Sunil Gulati needs to go. Don Garber needs to go. We just need a system overhaul. Look at what Spain, Germany, Iceland, and even Chile have done. They've all made drastic overhauls in the last 5-10-15 years to change their systems to produce results. Spain won World Cup within that time. Germany too. Iceland jumped more spots in FIFA World Rankings in 3 years than anyone else has. Chile won Copa America (twice) in 2-3 years while also moving from near-100 rank to top-5 rank in the world (in 10 years).
It's rather amazing what those countries have done. It takes investment. It takes collective involvement. And...it takes turning a system upside-down to start development. But, as most alluded to, it also involves a mentality in players that doesn't currently exist. They need to move beyond the Landycakes "part-time player" mentality and start working toward being the best in the world. Granted, we'll probably never have a world player of the year, but there's no reason a collective unit can't play together with a collective mindset/style like Iceland, Hungary, Chile, Northern Ireland, and other up-and-coming countries have exemplified.
