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The 2021 Gold Cup


Knoxtnhorn

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1 minute ago, Kringelbert Fishtybuns said:

Take a crack

oh shit it’s 17

Even still 

 

WTF was that?

I like how he looked up and tried to explain himself or blame it on something. You aren't hitting a buried golf ball out of the bunker. 

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2 minutes ago, Firemans4Horn said:

Acosta has looked great at the 6 tonight. 

He was pretty good. 

Lletget was awful. Busio wasn't much better. Dike had a hard time getting anything going. 

Vines and Robinson were both good out of the back. 

Hoppe obviously POTG. And I kind of like Zardes as a sub. Just please quit starting him.

Edited by ztejas
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1 minute ago, ztejas said:

He was pretty good. 

Lletget was awful. Busio wasn't much better. Dike had a hard time getting anything going. 

Vines and Robinson were both good out of the back. 

Hoppe obviously POTG. And I kind of like Zardes as a sub. Just please quit starting him.

True. The tired opponents shit themselves when they see the villain from Demolition Man running at them.

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Acosta was excellent especially on breaking shit up.

Busio was terrible in the first half but really good in the second half

Lletget is just bad.  
 

HOPPE is the best player on the roster

Sands and Robinson have really upped their profile, they are legit backups for WCQ

Turner was great. 

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LOTS OF FUCKING OBSERVATIONS:

1) Shaq Moore is steady on the right side, but you can tell that he is used to playing with midgets (Spanish 2nd Division) because HOLY FUCK he sucks at crossing the ball in the air.

2) Dike is 6'1"+ (listed 6'1"-6'2"), Hoppe is 6'1"+ (listed 6'3")... send them the fucking ball IN THE AIR!!!

3) Edison Cavani seems like a giant on the pitch and gets a ton of header goals and you know what he's LISTED at? 6 fucking feet and 1 fucking inch tall! His wingers are sending in soft bouncing worm burners through 4 to 6 defenders, they are curling the ball into him.

4) Hoppe made a backside run in the 2nd half and the ball didn't quite make it to the middle of the box. So the next time Hoppe cuts inside his defender and makes a run to the middle of the goal mouth and the ball is floated to the back post. WTF?!? The crossing just sucked fungus infected balls.

5) Graham Zusi was too slow 4 years ago, but if he were playing wing tonight on the right side, Dike and/or Hoppe may have had a hat-trick. Sebastian Lletget also can't fucking figure out how to provide service in the air. And what the fuck where those corner kicks? Again, get the fucking ball into the air to two tall strikers! 

6) Why in the fuck did he get to take the corner kicks instead of Gianluca Busio? My guess is that KellynAcosta wasn't on corner kick duty, because they wanted his speed in position to squash counterattacks. (Shout out to FC Dallas' academy coaches!)

7) The announcers alluded to it, but there will be 3 matches for qualifying where some players just play two of the matches. Acosta is going to get some starts for the USMNT when a healthy Tyler Adams just stays in the USA for the 1st & 3rd matches of a 3 match set and Kellyn goes down to the rain forest to put in a solid 90 minutes to pull out a draw... or a win, if lucky. 

European players are NOT going to fly over to North America, play 3 matches in 2-3 countries, and then fly back to Europe for a club match 3 days later. Some will skip the middle match. Some will play the first and second match and then head back to Europe early, some may skip the first match.

Knocking out 15,000 air miles and 270 game minutes over a 9 day period is not something that anyone thinks is a good idea.

8 ) CristianRoldan understood getting the ball in the air. It's not always the right call, like if your striker is David Villa or Kün Agüero, but we had twin towers against shorter-than-average defenders. Cross the fucking ball in the air!!

9) Matthew Hoppe has so much Clint Dempsey in him, I love having him on the field. He is like a mashup of Kenny Cooper & Dempsey.

Cooper because he was a kid who trained to be a crafty attacking midfielder with tricky footwork and standing about 5'10", before growing to be close to 6'3" in his late teens.

Dempsey, because he's just got some dog in him. He's more playground than trailer park, but he tries shit that others don't think about. He's always looking for contact and goes to the ground a lot and they aren't dives per se as much as they are falls after legitimate contact that he has sought out. With many other refs, he would have garnered 3 or more set pieces.

Also, he understands working with a true #9. In the second match of the tournament, he sent in the hard/higher service into Dike and Dike glanced the header into the back corner. Hoppe wasn't sending bouncing low balls through 5 guys hoping that a 220 lbs guy would deftly make a couple of moves and slot the ball home. If you've got a brute in the box, play fucking BRUTE BALL!

10) I'm a big fan of Miles Robinson. He has been fucking nails in this tournament. FUCK YOU, ATLANTA UNITED FOR NOT RELEASING HIM FOR OLYMPIC QUALIFYING!! (Ditto with George Bello) I do not feel panicky with relying on Robinson to save the day... at least not against Gold Cup level competition. He needs to get the fuck over to Europe.

11) I'm a pretty big fan of James Sands' as well. He didn't adjust to the dry conditions of the field tonight, so he wasn't as good as in the 2nd & 3rd game, but I'll still keep him on my team.

12) That field sucked ass. It was like playing on padded sand paper. Anywhere in Europe that field is hit with a sprinkler system before warmups, then right before the start of the match, and then again at halftime. That game was played at about 80% speed and the balls checked up all match long. 

In the past the fields have been far too wet and players were taking chunks out of the pitch. My guess is that with a double header planned for the pitch, they decided TO GO IN DRY and have the ball rather than MAKE IT MOIST and tear shit up.

13) I'm always happy to NOT see Jackson Yueill.

14) Sam Vines is unquestionably Jordan "Hunchback" Morris' and Willem Dafoe's love child. And it kind of makes me sick.

15) I like the danger that Nicholas Gioacchini provides as a striker. He is NOT a winger. He is appealing as a striker or a second striker.

16) Gyasi Zardes will be on this team all the way through the 2022 World Cup (if we qualify). Berhalter trusts him and he earns that trust.

Edited by Napoleon
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13 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

i still do not understand why games at this level in this league still feature players crashing in to each other and to the ground every other touch

You ever watch the NBA??? And they’re allowed to use their hands 

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9 hours ago, Napoleon said:

9) Matthew Hoppe has so much Clint Dempsey in him, I love having him on the field. He is like a mashup of Kenny Cooper & Dempsey.

Yes. I was going to comment something similar last night. He's a bit of a motherfucker. Our team is becoming increasingly European from a stylistic perspective which is generally a good thing but Hoppe has some old-school USMNT grit and toughness. I actually think Sargent has a bit of that, too. If we can marry those two styles a bit then look the fuck out. 

Edited by ztejas
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