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USMNT 2021


Napoleon

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14 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Reyna took a setback in his recovery - btw. SIAP. He's definitely out for this next window. 


He shouldn’t consider playing for the USMNT until February at the earliest, maybe just skip qualifying altogether. 

If I were Chelsea, I would not be happy about Christian Pulisic barely being back… kind of… and then watching his ass fly off to the States. He’s barely even playing. He has no business returning to the US for qualifiers.

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8 minutes ago, Napoleon said:

If I were Chelsea, I would not be happy about Christian Pulisic barely being back… kind of… and then watching his ass fly off to the States. He’s barely even playing. He has no business returning to the US for qualifiers.

No idea wtf is going on there. He got subbed in the other day then wasn't really used at all today in the PL. Either he's fit or he isn't. 

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1 minute ago, Ted Lange said:

I meant more about them bitching about us playing CP 


If I were Chelsea, I would tell C.P. that he is staying in London with soreness in his hamstring in a week+.

There would be a “if you don’t stay in town, we can’t trust you to stay fit” conversation that would include mention of “loaning out to Norwich in the January window” in the conversation.

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3 minutes ago, Ted Lange said:

I meant more about them bitching about us playing CP 

Look man. The USMNT is a hair below Texas football when it comes to my rooting interests. As for Chelsea - I'm literally a fan because that happened to be the club Pulisic went to (well - not entirely but it was a major contributing factor).

The dude just can't stay healthy. Unless you want him to not pursue a professional career and just live in a bubble until the NT needs him I don't know what to say. 

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It's way too early to make any sort of criticisms of US Soccer/Berhalter on Pulisic. He hasn't played this cycle yet. 

What we do know is that Pulisic is healthy enough to play in some capacity for Chelsea, though limited minutes. In that regard he should be available for the national team.

Now how and what he plays is still to be determined. What we can take are Berhalter's comments on the situation, what' he said, from the Athletic:

Quote

The main question with this position group is just how much Pulisic will be able to play. He only just returned from a nearly two-month layoff, getting back into full team training with Chelsea last week and making a 16-minute appearance off the bench in a Champions League match at Malmö on Tuesday, where he failed to convert a golden chance on goal, showing that he has some rust to work off. 

In normal circumstances, the U.S. would almost certainly let Pulisic build his fitness and bring him off the bench in at least the first of the two November qualifiers. A match against Mexico isn’t normal circumstances, though. El Tri is the U.S.’s biggest rival and the match has massive implications for the Octagonal standings. Still, Berhalter seems determined to not expose Pulisic to increased risk of injury.

“We’re gonna see what type of minutes he gets this weekend,” Berhalter said. “He just started training with the team at the beginning of the week, it was unexpected that he was going to play against Malmö and he ended up playing a little bit. So for us, it’s about progressing him in a safe way. We know he’s valuable to the team, we know he really wants to be on the field, but we’re also not willing to risk anything. It’s about how he feels and depending on that, it’ll dictate what role he plays in these two games.” 

So let's wait and see.

I will say that Pulisic is the exact type of player that would benefit from a real off season and not taking part in an entire summer of international play. And I won't disagree that Chelsea would love to see him get real rest.

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10 hours ago, Napoleon said:


If I were Chelsea, I would tell C.P. that he is staying in London with soreness in his hamstring in a week+.

There would be a “if you don’t stay in town, we can’t trust you to stay fit” conversation that would include mention of “loaning out to Norwich in the January window” in the conversation.

Chelsea can't stop Pulisic from going to international duty if called up.

If ANY club took this kind of stance on any player, fuck them, they don't deserve ANY players to play for them. That's complete bullshit.

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28 minutes ago, Captain Ron said:

Chelsea can't stop Pulisic from going to international duty if called up.

If ANY club took this kind of stance on any player, fuck them, they don't deserve ANY players to play for them. That's complete bullshit.


Clubs do this shit all the time. 

Especially marginal players traveling to play shit opponents or marginal players who have been injured frequently. 

Chelsea is in first place without Pulisic. He is a luxury, not a vital cog. They’re not paying him to get massages and ride an exercise bike. 

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32 minutes ago, Napoleon said:


Clubs do this shit all the time. 

Especially marginal players traveling to play shit opponents or marginal players who have been injured frequently. 

Chelsea is in first place without Pulisic. He is a luxury, not a vital cog. They’re not paying him to get massages and ride an exercise bike. 

Clubs do it for friendlies and I don’t have an issue with meaningless games.

But international qualification windows are different and outside of England blanket banning players going to red list countries, there are few instances of this happening. I would challenge you you to cite examples.

If Chelsea didn’t want him to play, they could have waited to activate him after the break, but they didn’t. They activated him before, so he’s fair game. 

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Not like Friday night is much better. Kickoff temp is expected to be around 40 and only go down. Heck, even the time of kickoff really sucks (9:00 pm local).

I know parts of Mexico get cold in the winter, it would be interesting to look down both rosters to see how the cold might affect the players. 

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1 hour ago, Captain Ron said:

Not like Friday night is much better. Kickoff temp is expected to be around 40 and only go down. Heck, even the time of kickoff really sucks (9:00 pm local).

I know parts of Mexico get cold in the winter, it would be interesting to look down both rosters to see how the cold might affect the players. 


Hopefully the squad is practicing in the evening (at 9pm??) at least 2 of the 3 nights (Tue/Wed/Thur) before Friday night's match.

I would think that Lletget, Musah, M. Robinson (indoor field), Pepi, & Ferreira play in the warmest climates of those people who have been called in. Don't know how unpleasant Venice is in October and early November, but Busio also played several years in Kansas City.

Hopefully our top MLS players will get trials with (or transfers to) European clubs in December & January, or we don't play any MLS players in our February window, because the guys just entering the MLS season in February will not be match fit.

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11 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

Not like Friday night is much better. Kickoff temp is expected to be around 40 and only go down. Heck, even the time of kickoff really sucks (9:00 pm local).

I know parts of Mexico get cold in the winter, it would be interesting to look down both rosters to see how the cold might affect the players. 

First of 4 US v. Mexico qualifiers I went to in Columbus was the '98 (or '99).  It was the game in which Josh Wolff and (I think) Mathis scored.  I damn near froze to death.  My wife was huddled in the women's bathroom trying to get warm when Wolff scored.  My arms and legs were so cold, I limped to the car after the game.  

As for this game... dammit.  I thought it was on Thursday.  One of the only things that could pry me away from a US/Mexico game is high school playoff football.  I'm going to half to try to avoid seeing the score and watch it "live" at 11PM Friday night.

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8 hours ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

...I thought it was on Thursday.  One of the only things that could pry me away from a US/Mexico game is high school playoff football.  I'm going to half to try to avoid seeing the score and watch it "live" at 11PM Friday night.

Well…

You half to do what you half to do.

🇲🇽 @ 🇺🇸

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Weather looks to be low 40s with maybe some drizzle for the game.  

Big question for Mexico is whether they start Herrera (31) and Guardado (35) against the MMA midfield assuming Gregggggg doesn't bottle his lineup.  

Most of the projected lineups I have seen for El Tri include at least 6 and sometimes 7 (depending on whether Chaka starts at RB) 30+ players.  

Also interesting is that only 6 players on the Mexican roster play their club football outside of Mexico.

 

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19 hours ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

First of 4 US v. Mexico qualifiers I went to in Columbus was the '98 (or '99).  It was the game in which Josh Wolff and (I think) Mathis scored.  I damn near froze to death.  My wife was huddled in the women's bathroom trying to get warm when Wolff scored.  My arms and legs were so cold, I limped to the car after the game.  

 

2016 was pretty damn cold. Not making it to Cincy, this fucking sucks. Dallas ppl we are having a watch party at Sylvan Avenue Tavern.

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Not surprisingly U20 getting smoked by Brazil at the half.  We haven’t played in 2 years and inexplicably waited until like 4 days ago to hire a coach.   Aaronson’s little brother is balling tho, I can see why some think he’ll be better than his bro.   
 

Stream

https://www.tudn.com/futbol/revelations-cup/estados-unidos-vs-brasil-revelations-cup-2021-11-10

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5 hours ago, Ted Lange said:

This was the starting XI

che has been not good. 

Cheeeeee...

I'm a little worried that Che is a CD is stopped growing too soon and is now the size of a fullback who has the game to play CD... but not the size. So he will be placed at FB (right most likely) and then not show what is needed.

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This article resonated with me and made a lot of great points that I couldn't really actualize until after i read it in print. Its fucked that being patriotic is currently synonymous with being some kind of insurrectionist wingnut, but here we are. I hope the 'nats can help change the narrative. 

AMERICA FUCK YEAH!

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/us-mens-soccer-world-cup-patriotism/620673/

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Assuming he sticks with the 4-3-3, what I think it our best starting XI is...

 Aaronson - Pepi - Weah

MMA

A. Robinson - M. Robinson - Richards - Scally

 

And then how Gerggggg will probably line us up...

Aaronson - Pepi - Arriola

Acosta - Adams - McKennie

A. Rob - M. Rob - Richards - Yedlin

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1 hour ago, dieucla98 said:

I seriously typed him in instead of Acosta but thought, nah, even Gergg isn't that bad.

I could definitely be wrong...

Greggg doesn’t play a double pivot and prefers dual 8s.  He played lllet there against Panama.  Surely he won’t break up the MMA MF against old Mexico so he can get llllet on the field … 

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I feel like he plays double pivots kind of often, assuming we agree Acosta is a pivot. 

Doing the research... Vs Honduras, he started with Adams and Acosta in MF. Vs Canada it was Adam,  Acosta, and Lleget (barf). Vs Panama is was Acosta, Musah, Lleget (double barf). 

So in short, Gergg sucks.

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2 hours ago, kingkoopa6 said:

Legetit is a super sub. He comes on in 77th for game winner. @ztejasgoes wild 

I'm running out of room on my Lletget wall. Maybe one more poster.

2 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

BTW Pulisic confirmed for bench yesterday (given your lineups, you knew this).

 

Tuchel said he's still working through some pain but I think at this point it's a "can't really make it worse by playing" type deal. I'm thinking we get 20-30 minutes and I'm guessing we will need them. Hopefully we're at least knotted that late. 

He looked plenty fit last week. Missed a pretty good chance on goal in the CL but he was offsides anyway. 

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2 hours ago, dieucla98 said:

I feel like he plays double pivots kind of often, assuming we agree Acosta is a pivot. 

Doing the research... Vs Honduras, he started with Adams and Acosta in MF. Vs Canada it was Adam,  Acosta, and Lleget (barf). Vs Panama is was Acosta, Musah, Lleget (double barf). 

So in short, Gergg sucks.

Adams played  rwb and then rb for most of the Honduras game.  He didn't move to dm until Sands went out.  It was Sands and Acosta in mf of a disaster 3-4-2-1 and then there was some stability with a 4-3-3 after Brooks went out.  Team didn't take off until Adams moved to dm with Yedlin subbed in to play rb.

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