Dean Smith

I find it hard to believe that GB expects to be back the way he threw Gio under the bus.  There seems to be blame to go both ways but you can’t coach a team that doesn’t trust you and no one’s trusting him at this point. He has to go. And why would you tell one of your very top players your role will be limited?

9 hours ago, hskr4life said:

Marocco over Spain in Pens.... Spain didn't make a single Pen.  Yikes.

Japan all time worst shootout, making only one of 4 pens. Spain - hold my cerveza. 

8 hours ago, hskr4life said:

 

Anything in the dual national pool that we could recruit to come over to our side of the pond?  I haven't looked/heard anything in a while.

Flo Balogun - 21 years old

Has played for both US and England youth teams. Also eligible to represent Nigeria. Currently playing for Reims in league 1. 8 goals in 15 appearances this season.  On loan from Arsenal. 
 

Good finisher, good techinical ability, can take people on off the dribble and has a very high work.

9 minutes ago, Huskerpapa said:

No disrespect whatsoever; but I do not understand the disdain for Wilhelm.  The dude is a    gamer who is only going to get better.  

As a whole, we are embracing the grinder attitude of this team.  Briedenbach is the ultimate grinder.  I guess I personally understand why the staff plays him and the team embraces him.  But everyone has their right to an opinion.  

He is young in his defense, but I think the frustrating part of his game is his decision making. He seems to make up his mind on what he is going to do before he catches the ball and it leads to ugly plays. He plays hard, that's a fact. Like all of us he will learn with time and hopefully stop with the fouls and the out of control dribbling. When he knows he is going to attack the basket when he catches it, whether its there or not, his ball handling makes Lat look like Curly Neal.

26 minutes ago, cornfed24-7 said:

To piggyback on this maybe not having him available in the beginning took away a crutch and forced the team to learn how to play with out him. Also gave his minuets to players that needed them more for development purposes. Walker has got back to top form damn quick so I don't think him not playing was a detriment to his game. I think long term him being gone may have been a blessing in disguise. 

If you watched the games before Walker came back like I did, I'm afraid to say they did NOT learn how to play without him. Really hope they don't have to for the rest of the year because they are becoming kind of fun watching them with him.

8 minutes ago, cornfed24-7 said:

We see it different. I saw a Dutch team sit back and wait for the US to make a mistake and when they did promptly carve them up. But after rereading your post it feels like we're splitting hairs.

That was Van Gaal’s strategy. That’s what I said.  I just don’t think we got carved up. For all three goals you can point to a very simple defensive mistake.

We didn’t take our best chances. If we were clinical we had at least three goals as well. Van Gaal is miles better than Gregg. (Not being disrespectful - can’t spell his last name) Blind is 30 something. Couldn’t run with Dest or Weah but we spend 90% of out time trying to go down the other side? 
 

52 minutes ago, cornfed24-7 said:

Not so sure it broke or it was surgically dismantled

It broke. They did nothing special. Last goal had 5 defenders guarding 3 and our FB was ball watching, had no idea what was behind him. That’s a U12 mistake. Pulisic and especially Wight missed sitters. 
 

Out managed. They knew we would struggle in possession to break them down so they allowed us to have the ball and hit on the counter. While our manager finally put Aaronson and Reyna on the field together but knows so little about his own team that he had them each playing the other’s position compared to what they do for their clubs? 
 

Need a 9 badly. Google Flo Balogun. He’s the obvious answer. Throw the kitchen sink at him to convince him to play for the US and remind him Harry Kane ain’t going anywhere.

If you can play Reyna 7 minutes then he’s fit enough to play half an hour. And he says he’s 100%. Really strange situation going on there. Lots of contradictions. He has to get real time vs Iran. 
 

England quickly picked up on Zimmerman’s lack of technical ability. They laid off Ream but started pressing Zimmerman second half. You have to have the players with the technical ability if you want to play out from the back. Ream’s fine but the other US center with ball skills got left at home. Adams did a nice job of checking to the ball to help him out but he still gave away too many dangerous balls in our third. 
 

Adams was a baller but Turner for me was man of the match. After just part of a season with Arsenal and he’s dribbling out of his box. His distribution has improved drastically. 
 

This performance just makes bottling the Wales game even more painful. It’s must be the Husker fan in me that makes me fear for the worst against Iran. The Wales game proved being the better team is no guarantee of the result. And the tie means we go home. I fear for the worst and hope for the best. 

7 hours ago, hskr4life said:

Also— England will need a result vs Wales or we’ll take 1st in the group.

I think they are quite a bit ahead on goal differential. That’s the first tie-breaker 

8 hours ago, HuskerFever said:

 

England doesn't have as much incentive as we do to change the score from 0-0. I'd imagine a very different strategy if this were in the knockout rounds.

I take it you’ve never seen Southgate manage before then. He doesn’t have a different strategy. And like Greg, he doesn’t believe on playing all his best players at one time either. English players outclass their manger but so do ours. 

6 hours ago, aphilso1 said:

 

Hindsight is 20/20, but those decisions in the moment made tactical sense.  And the first four subs were all made to protect a 1-0 lead rather than try to build a 2-0 lead. 

 

-Aaronson was a pest and quite active in winning the ball back.  I'd hate to think what Wales could have done with a few extra possessions had he not been subbed on.  This move also insulated Weston from picking up a second yellow or aggravating his quad injury.

-Dest was also sitting on a yellow and was leaving too much space behind him for a team with a one goal lead; Yedlin made sense as a more defensive-oriented RB.

-As much as I don't like Acosta's overall skillset, his soccer IQ is high and he preserved the draw with that yellow he picked up late preventing Bale from shooting on an open net.  Also, Musah got more sloppy the further the game went on and was an obvious choice to come off.

-Haji for Sargent is the one that I don't fully agree with.  Yes, Sargent had been invisible the whole second half (and really the last 20 minutes of the first half too), so the thought of swapping in a big target forward who is better in hold-up play makes sense.  But, Christian had been getting beat up all match and was getting more visibly frustrated the further the match wore on.  I'd be tempted to sub Gio for Pulisic here, but I also can understand not wanting to sub out all of your ball handlers in a match that you are winning based largely on controlling possession.  This is the tough one.  I think I would have kept the fourth sub in my back pocket to see how the match continues to evolve.

 

Now fast forward to the 88th minute, and your final sub in what is now a tie ballgame.  You need to both protect the draw and also push for a goal.  What was effective early in the match?  Wales was content to sit in a five-man backline and wait for counter opportunities, and early indications after Bale's goal was that they would do that again.  So you need a sub that helps you play more direct, not a sub that helps you string together a 14-pass goal that takes 5 minutes to set up.  Morris has his flaws and shortcomings, but that is the exact role he was brought on the team to fill.  He's got straightline speed to beat the backline and the strength to hold off a 1v1 defender and allow time for trailing runners into the box.  Perhaps he should have come on for Pulisic rather than Weah, but then we would have been forcing Acosta and Aaronson into the playmaker role.  We needed both a player on the pitch that can make the line breaking pass (Pulisic on dead legs or Gio) and can make the run behind the backline (Weah on dead legs or Morris).  Really, we needed one extra sub available to us at this point so we could have brought Morris and Reyna on for Weah and Pulisic.  But we only had one sub left, which makes me second guess the earlier Haji-for-Josh sub.  

I’m not using hindsight. When the team was announced I felt Jordan Morris should be back home and if Gio is at 80% he starts. Whatever Morris’ strengths are, he’s simply not good enough to be on the national team. Sargent on the bench and Pulisic as a false 9 and Gio out wide. 

Brooks is our best ball playing CB. I don’t know what he did to Greg to get on his bad side but he should start with Ream and he’s not even on the team. 

Jordan on and Reyna  0 minutes is criminal. Reyna at 80% is miles clear of Morris.  
 

Back line should be Ream and Brooks. 

On 11/15/2022 at 3:58 PM, hskr4life said:

I hear ya on the 4-3-3.  You’ll also probably never see Weah up top.

This isn’t club where you go get players to fit your system. National teams need to find a system where you can get you best players on the field. That includes Musa. You have to find a way to get him on the field with Weston. Aaronson, Reyna, Pulisic, Adams, and probably Weah. Won’t happen though. 

Our manager is almost as stubborn as Southgate. I don’t think either has ever put their nations best team on the field. We’ve had injuries in the front half but Brooks sitting at home and Long on the roster is almost criminal. He wants to play out of the back and then loads the roster with center backs that have no technical ability.  Jordan shouldn’t be anywhere near this team either. Anyone of the young 9’s would be a serious up grade and a needed plan B. 

Say what you want to about last year's team, they had the ability to beat anyone on a given night. This team just is not good offensively and they don't have the ability to score consistently against power 5 teams. You can stop watching if they fall behind by 10 because with their limited ability on the offensive end it's like a 20 point lead for a normal power 5 team. They play hard I'll give them that but they are not fun to watch. 

3 minutes ago, jimmykc said:

Why so few minutes for Breidenbach???

2 fouls in 30 seconds or so

8 hours ago, fred1212 said:

He traveled. 

 

Is there so much traveling allowed these days because of so many refs that didn't actually play the game?  I see so much uncalled traveling and I don't even have to count the steps.  It just looks awkward and unnatural.

That’s the problem with a lot of refs. If something looks awkward and/or unnatural they blow the whistle and then make up the call. Looking awkward isn’t against the rules. 

20 hours ago, Cazzie22 said:

Why, the old rule was a step and before the next step the ball must be released. Elgin Baylor would have thrived with the extra step allowed today. To me it’s a mockery of the rules.

The way the rule always read was a step in a half. That's how layups have been shot since the beginning of layups. Right side would be right-left and release before the right foot comes down again.  The only difference is the Euro doesn't go in a straight line. And technically, the step count doesn't start until you' ve gathered the ball but that would make a refs head explode.

1 hour ago, Cazzie22 said:

Euro step to a purist is traveling.

Why? You get a step and a half on the way to the hoop - the Euro just doesn't go in a straight line. You are correct though that refs see something new and immediately blow the whistle because something had to be wrong there.

1 hour ago, uneblinstu said:

Are the site announcements televised anywhere?

 

Edit: Found it. It's on FS1.

Yes and KC is one of the cities. 

3 hours ago, hskr4life said:

In future USMNT news... England lost to Hungry at home today.... 4-0.  I know our group is tougher, but I could see us finishing 1-4.  Honestly.

England is in our group and you only have three group games so 1-4 is not possible? 

1 hour ago, Vinny said:

Wonder if the athletic department can’t find a path to citizenship for students in this situation. 

Reading the story I doubt he would want to be a US citizen. Where he’s from seem pretty important to him. 

1 hour ago, lang said:

I’m pretty ignorant of all the NIL stuff, what rules need to be changed in order for him to make money ?

Foreign students aren’t eligible for some strange reason. 

On 12/20/2021 at 3:16 PM, royalfan said:

My vocabulary doesn't go deep enough.  I do put about 17 or so of them on Miles.  There was not any talent whatsoever left behind.  But even then, it is hard to fathom or put into words.  Hoiberg looks exhausted.  It is a very similar story as Frost.  Comes in good looking, energetic.  Seems like it will work great.  Neither guys systems worked well in Big 10 and both very uncomfortable figuring out what does work.  Both look beaten down and defeated.  Neither likely to have a very happy ending.  Tough deal.  

Part of the reason the cupboard was bare was because everyone knew he had no support from the AD. That's why Hunter left. It is very difficult to recruit talent to a place everyone knows the coach is on his way out.