• The KillerFrogs

2024-2025 European Football Thread

EVOfrogMR

Active Member
Berhalter: saved by luck to get past Jamaica in the nations league semis. Fails to advance in with a favorable draw in probably the most important Non-World Cup tournament team history. IF he actually cared about US Soccer, he'd get past his own ego and resign for the good of the team he both played for and now has coached for.

Mexico has basically screwed us by being awful since 2020, so kudos to them I guess.

USSF is too worried about off the field stuff to care about winning.

I'd straight up take Emma Hayes right now for the Men's team as well. I don't know how she'd adapt coaching the Men, but at least shes a winner.
 

dawg

Active Member
Indeed. You could actually make the case that they have somehow regressed even.
Berhalter: saved by luck to get past Jamaica in the nations league semis. Fails to advance in with a favorable draw in probably the most important Non-World Cup tournament team history. IF he actually cared about US Soccer, he'd get past his own ego and resign for the good of the team he both played for and now has coached for.

Mexico has basically screwed us by being awful since 2020, so kudos to them I guess.

USSF is too worried about off the field stuff to care about winning.

I'd straight up take Emma Hayes right now for the Men's team as well. I don't know how she'd adapt coaching the Men, but at least shes a winner.
Gregg gotta go. Not getting out of this group at HOME is an abject failure. This group of players needs a new voice. And a massive kick in the aas.
 

kaiser soze

Active Member
Gregg gotta go. Not getting out of this group at HOME is an abject failure. This group of players needs a new voice. And a massive kick in the aas.
Clean house. Take it down to the studs. The entire federation needs a wakeup call. Its just not working. GGG and all his cronies who helped him get in and get back in charge need be out on their asses. Everyone including players should be more uncomfortable and the youth program needs re-evaluation to determine why we can't produce more creative and capable finishers in the final third.

The players bear blame here as well. Poor decisions in club season and the transfer window carry over to poor play on the National team. Quality starter minutes and player growth matter more than a fancy name on your jersey while sitting on a bench. Bunch of guys who are complacent and satisfied with just being famous, rich US superstars .... but generally unexceptional footballers on a global scale. I could feel Alexi's displeasure with many of them.

Pretty alarming. Even more so if Gregg is not out on his ass by the end of this week. Not much here to "evaluate" other than we have 23 months for the biggest stage we've seen in 20 years and we are nowhere close to ready.
 
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dawg

Active Member
Clean house. Take it down to the studs. The entire federation needs a wakeup call. Its just not working. GGG and all his cronies who helped him get in and get back in charge need be out on their asses. Everyone including players should be more uncomfortable and the youth program needs re-evaluation to determine why we can't produce more creative and capable finishers in the final third.



He's not wrong. The goal of the youth soccer system should be to identify kids with soccer talent, keep them interested in the sport, and help them improve. Not rake in boatloads of cash and enrich the "coaches," which seems to be the primary goal right now.



And every one of Lloyd's words there. IIRC Purp mentioned it a few pages back: the players were far to comfortable with Berhalter.

Yes, the ref was beyond terrible (flashing a yellow then allowing Uruguay to continue a break? Refusing to shake hands with one of the sides' captains after the match? The refs at my daughter's U12 matches are more professional and competent.) Yes, the Uruguay goal was probably offsides. In no way should the USSF allow those to temper the reality of the situation: Berhalter has to go, and the entire MNT (players, backroom, the Fed itself) needs a hard look and revamp ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

I have no faith, whatsoever, that any of that will actually happen.

Sigh.
 
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kaiser soze

Active Member


He's not wrong. The goal of the youth soccer system should be to identify kids with soccer talent, keep them interested in the sport, and help them improve. Not rake in boatloads of cash and enrich the "coaches," which seems to be the primary goal right now.



And every one of Lloyd's words there. IIRC Purp mentioned it a few pages back: the players were far to comfortable with Berhalter.

Yes, the ref was beyond terrible (flashing a yellow then allowing Uruguay to continue a break? Refusing to shake hands with one of the sides' captains after the match? The refs at my daughter's U12 matches are more professional and competent.) Yes, the Uruguay goal was probably offsides. In no way should the USSF allow those to temper the reality of the situation: Berhalter has to go, and the entire MNT (players, backroom, the Fed itself) needs a hard look and revamp ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

I have no faith, whatsoever, that any of that will actually happen.

Sigh.

Zlatan is 100% right. The cost of youth sports in the US is a big obstacle. Another is soccer being mostly played at the highest/elite levels in rich suburbs like Frisco which discourages our best athletes from playing in thier formative years. Much easier (and less effort and $ outlay) for a talented athlete to switch his focus to football or basketball which can be played close to home year round and in front of friends. Our missing #9 is playing 7v7 right now and creative 10s and wings are in a basketball gym. Compound that with the professional youth development abroad and we are always going to be at a disadvantage, though with 330M people and immigration opportunities we should be able to overcome more than we've demonstrated.

Not to defend the ref whose field performance was atrocious, but in the 10 seconds of video prior to the ref refusing to shake hands, you can see Pulisic telling the ref he needs to go celebrate with his buddies on the Uruguay team as he gifted them the game. Not classy. While Pulisic is our best player and his on field effort for the USMNT is unassailable, he needs to grow up and figure the **** out how he and his teammates can put the ball in the net at a higher clip. This is the issue, not the ref / VAR making a bad call.
 

Purp

Active Member
Under GB this group of players has accomplished nothing of importance on a world stage and they haven’t gotten any better. Time for change. He’s failed.
This is the biggest problem I have with Berhalter. When he took over the program all these guys were kids just starting their professional careers in high profile leagues with enormous potential. They weren't there yet, but they were already miles better than the group that washed out of WC qualifying in T&T for the Russia WC. 5 years later, they're veteran players in the early parts of their primes who haven't approached that enormous potential yet and really aren't any better than they were when they first came up.

Honestly, they may be worse as a group. The GK position is definitely not settled like it was 5 years ago. The striker position is still a toss-up, though Flo put in a strong case this tournament that he's the answer there. Gio is worse, McKennie is less consistent, and the entire team has no composure against opponents who try to goad them into losing their temper. It's magnified when the referee is awful and you can't expect good refs in CONCACAF (or CONMEBOL, apparently). All of those things fall at Berhalter's feet, IMO.

He said he was hired to change the way the world views American soccer. He's failed spectacularly at that. The last 5 years have done little else than reinforce previous perceptions of our quality, except now the old perception that we'd out-work you has been eroded too.

If Crocker doesn't start packing his bags of sneakers for him today then Crocker needs to go too.
 

Purp

Active Member
Zlatan is 100% right. The cost of youth sports in the US is a big obstacle. Another is soccer being mostly played at the highest/elite levels in rich suburbs like Frisco which discourages our best athletes from playing in thier formative years. Much easier (and less effort and $ outlay) for a talented athlete to switch his focus to football or basketball which can be played close to home year round and in front of friends. Our missing #9 is playing 7v7 right now and creative 10s and wings are in a basketball gym. Compound that with the professional youth development abroad and we are always going to be at a disadvantage, though with 330M people and immigration opportunities we should be able to overcome more than we've demonstrated.

Not to defend the ref whose field performance was atrocious, but in the 10 seconds of video prior to the ref refusing to shake hands, you can see Pulisic telling the ref he needs to go celebrate with his buddies on the Uruguay team as he gifted them the game. Not classy. While Pulisic is our best player and his on field effort for the USMNT is unassailable, he needs to grow up and figure the **** out how he and his teammates can put the ball in the net at a higher clip. This is the issue, not the ref / VAR making a bad call.
My oldest had signing day yesterday. I just shelled out another $3,500 for the next year for a U11 player. If Zlatan is paying the same amount this club isn't as good of a bargain as I thought. We're very happy there and he's improved a ton over the last year, but it's certainly not something most people can afford. Talking to the other parents last night it was clear they're all having to reevaluate how much they want to support this every year for their kids It should not be that way.
 

FROG2597

Active Member
My oldest had signing day yesterday. I just shelled out another $3,500 for the next year for a U11 player. If Zlatan is paying the same amount this club isn't as good of a bargain as I thought. We're very happy there and he's improved a ton over the last year, but it's certainly not something most people can afford. Talking to the other parents last night it was clear they're all having to reevaluate how much they want to support this every year for their kids It should not be that way.
and you haven't even factored in travel, hotels, etc. Both my kids went through this and were fortunate to play and still play in college, but i don't want to add up the dollars spent over those years.
 

Chongo94

Active Member
Zlatan is 100% right. The cost of youth sports in the US is a big obstacle. Another is soccer being mostly played at the highest/elite levels in rich suburbs like Frisco which discourages our best athletes from playing in thier formative years. Much easier (and less effort and $ outlay) for a talented athlete to switch his focus to football or basketball which can be played close to home year round and in front of friends. Our missing #9 is playing 7v7 right now and creative 10s and wings are in a basketball gym. Compound that with the professional youth development abroad and we are always going to be at a disadvantage, though with 330M people and immigration opportunities we should be able to overcome more than we've demonstrated.

Not to defend the ref whose field performance was atrocious, but in the 10 seconds of video prior to the ref refusing to shake hands, you can see Pulisic telling the ref he needs to go celebrate with his buddies on the Uruguay team as he gifted them the game. Not classy. While Pulisic is our best player and his on field effort for the USMNT is unassailable, he needs to grow up and figure the **** out how he and his teammates can put the ball in the net at a higher clip. This is the issue, not the ref / VAR making a bad call.
It does seem as if Pulisic has become more petulant the last few years. I’m not putting that down to any national team issues but I’ve definitely found it a bit odd and definitely unbecoming.

I do kinda think if he put half of that petulant energy into telling USSF things aren’t working, we might get somewhere but he won’t cause he loves Berhalter.
 

Purp

Active Member
What I saw from the players last night from a purely football standpoint was pretty good. I think Turner playing out of the back is maybe the only thing I was displeased with from a performance standpoint. The other major critique is the wide gap between the number of dangerous chances in the penalty area that resulted in no shot or a blocked shot. But the ball movement and cleverness of the runs to create space and opportunity offensively was really good last night. The ball was zipping around quickly with one touch and great control; the players dealt with the press very well most of the night and held possession in spite of great defense making very tight spaces for them; the ability to create opportunities and unlock the defense without opening up for a world class counter-attack... there were a lot of things to like last night except the result.

It's that last bit of quality that needs to come around, but this is as close as I've seen it in a long time and maybe ever. For example, that shot Haji took into 2 defenders when he could have laid it off to a wide open Pepi is the difference in us scoring tons of goals and us scoring very few. There were some telegraphed crosses (Gio had one and Puli had another that I remember) that the keeper was able to cut off where a shot at the back post on those plays probably results in a tap-in opportunity from a rebound.

The ref and VAR were obvious issues (another wild one not yet mentioned here was Adams' yellow card for taking the other guys' studs into his ankle/shin), but they aren't the reason the game was lost. We just played a great game against a better team last night and didn't get the fortuitous bounces that Uruguay did. That gives me hope that someone could come in after Berhalter and squeeze a lot more juice out of this group fairly quickly. I've been very critical of Ream recently, but even he was terrific last night. Balogun was an animal before he got hurt and it seemed inevitable that he'd break through. They had no answer for Puli on the wing or when he'd tuck in. Jedi had a couple hiccups, but he was dangerous all night. My point is, we faced a better team last night, but our players were clearly not outclassed by Uruguay's players.

Again, the only player I thought had a bad night is Turner because he can't play the ball out of the back when he doesn't have a thigh contusion so expecting him to do it last night against that press was foolish. I bet he played 10 balls or more into the stands and most of them were attempts at passes. He's woefully deficient with his feet.

Hopefully Crocker can see that as clearly as I do and make a swift decision to send Berhalter packing.
 

Purp

Active Member
and you haven't even factored in travel, hotels, etc. Both my kids went through this and were fortunate to play and still play in college, but i don't want to add up the dollars spent over those years.
Yeah. Tournaments aren't included in that. Neither are the kits (they're sweet this cycle). And the travel, hotels, meals, etc. pile up in a real hurry. It's a shame it has to cost this much to play at a high level.

It's not just soccer, though. Basketball, baseball, football, hockey... they're all ridiculously expensive to play at a high level in America. A lot of clubs offer scholarships for elite players in all sports, but that won't get the marginal players interested who need playing time to develop into elite players. The system is broken and needs a massive overhaul.
 

Purp

Active Member
It does seem as if Pulisic has become more petulant the last few years. I’m not putting that down to any national team issues but I’ve definitely found it a bit odd and definitely unbecoming.

I do kinda think if he put half of that petulant energy into telling USSF things aren’t working, we might get somewhere but he won’t cause he loves Berhalter.
His demeanor in games is why I think Adams should be our captain. Puli leads by example on the field with his play, but he also leads by example with his tact with refs.

I get that he's contesting some of the most bizarre rubbish I've ever seen, but he's like Luka in that he does himself and his team more harm than good by the incessant wailing and gnashing of teeth. His side will never get the benefit of the doubt after 90 minutes of verbal abuse.
 
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EVOfrogMR

Active Member
Kids sports, all of them, in the US are too expensive. That said, it’s not the point right now. We could adopt Gemany’s youth system overnight and it wouldn’t Impact 2026 one iota.

The US is in win now mode and needs to hire a win now coach. We’re past the point of building anything because the dress rehearsal just bombed.
 

dawg

Active Member
My oldest had signing day yesterday. I just shelled out another $3,500 for the next year for a U11 player. If Zlatan is paying the same amount this club isn't as good of a bargain as I thought. We're very happy there and he's improved a ton over the last year, but it's certainly not something most people can afford. Talking to the other parents last night it was clear they're all having to reevaluate how much they want to support this every year for their kids It should not be that way.
So the wife and I were chatting with my daughter's teacher a few years ago during parent teacher night, and, as a "get to know my kid," the teacher asked about some of her interests, hobbies, etc. We mention that she plays soccer, and her preferred position is defense. Teacher's eyes immediately brighten, and she proceeds to tell me that her son's "elite select team" was "chosen" to participate in a tournament in Madrid run by Madrid, and how they were so excited to head to Spain for a few weeks of "coaching and real competition. Does [amazing daughter of @dawg] play on an 'elite' team?" No, I reply. She plays in the local rec league. "Oh... well, that's ok, too." Of course it is, I say, before causally asking how much their trip is costing per kid? "A little over $6,000." Was it unrelated that my daughter got on worse with this teacher than any other before or since? Maybe. But maybe not.

Later on in the school year over dinner, my daughter mentions that they're playing soccer for a few weeks in gym class. Have you seen [teacher's kid] playing during gym? "Yeah." He any good? "Not really. I shut him down." She smiled, and I immediately give her a crisp high-ten.

Now I'll be the first to admit no one on my daughter's team, including her, is likely getting anywhere near a college scholarship, let alone the WNT ranks, and select teams do serve a point, in that kids who are good at a particular sport only get better by playing with and against better kids. That coaching and time cost money; in other countries it is fronted by the big clubs (Ajax, Liverpool, Dortmund, etc) who run the academies. In this country it's fronted by the parents. But I have no idea how we (we meaning the US and US Soccer) begin to go about capturing the the missing strikers and wingers as @kaiser soze mentioned up thread and getting them the development they need to reach that level.
 
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kaiser soze

Active Member
Yeah. Tournaments aren't included in that. Neither are the kits (they're sweet this cycle). And the travel, hotels, meals, etc. pile up in a real hurry. It's a shame it has to cost this much to play at a high level.

It's not just soccer, though. Basketball, baseball, football, hockey... they're all ridiculously expensive to play at a high level in America. A lot of clubs offer scholarships for elite players in all sports, but that won't get the marginal players interested who need playing time to develop into elite players. The system is broken and needs a massive overhaul.
I was fortunate that Covid gave me a natural opt out of the youth sports cycle with my kids. The spend never ends. If you're lucky, you might find a knowledgeable and generous dad who can aggregate enough local talent to get you on the field against the pay to play crowd. The tradeoff is less organized and a lower quality training.

The youth $ports money grab is compounded by the general lack of neighborhood after school pickup games we had as kids. I could walk or ride my bike to a backyard pickup game of football, baseball, soccer or basketball from 4-6:30 most any weekday as a kiddo. Now parents shell out $300 monthly ($500 all in with travel/kits etc) and drive 10+ miles for some washed up Brilesbag from the UK to mail in coaching a 75 minute practice.
 

kaiser soze

Active Member
What I saw from the players last night from a purely football standpoint was pretty good.
You are much nicer grader than I am or watched a different game. I saw relatively few quality chances and an overall lack of ability to control the ball and then intentionally become dangerous. And in the instances we did generate something, we lacked the technical ability to make the right pass or finish. Sure, credit due Uruguay for being good and making it difficult. And yes, the ref mucked up the flow of the game for the US.

Still, the US I observed over three games are materially behind the quality play I've watched in the Euro and the better Copa teams (Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela). Nowhere near a top 10-16 squad (ie getting out of group). We are still playing boring soccer and just waiting for moments of individual greatness to claim a goal rather than overall great, controlling play that overwhelms a lesser or even a good opponent. Absent major changes in leadership AND further player development, I am now pretty down on this squad. They've been fortunate to advance and win against mid CONCACAF opponents and a [ Finebaum ]ty La Tri squad.
 

Purp

Active Member
Kids sports, all of them, in the US are too expensive. That said, it’s not the point right now. We could adopt Gemany’s youth system overnight and it wouldn’t Impact 2026 one iota.

The US is in win now mode and needs to hire a win now coach. We’re past the point of building anything because the dress rehearsal just bombed.
Not sure if it's a fantasy wet dream from some talking head or a legit possibility, but just saw a headline that Jurgen Klopp could be a consideration. If that happens Crocker needs a raise.
 
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