2025-2026 European Football Thread

[Purp]

Burn the ENTIRE thing down and start over. New organization, new players, new coaches and manager, new pipeline, new everything.

Friendlies or not, this current crop, even the veterans, do not seem to have the correct mentality or maybe even ability for international play.

I've been saying a lot of this for weeks and I'm glad to finally see it in print. Guys like Donovan and Lalas played half as much as our top guys play now and every match they played was at a lower level. They also earned more from playing USMNT tournaments than they did for MLS clubs most of their careers.

The European calendar is grueling and being an ocean away makes it even more difficult for our guys to get into camps and train at a high level. Expecting the same level of commitment was never realistic, especially when these European clubs have as much money invested in their individual readiness at the club level as they do.

There's a lot in here I hadn’t heard before and am glad to know. We're going to be fine. This group will be properly motivated and prepared for the World Cup next summer. It's not their fault the federation brought Berhalter back and quickly canned him, wasting half of the most important WC cycle in American history. It's not Poch's fault either. I wish they had more time to play together in a continuous system like most groups would in a full 4 year cycle, but that was never realistic for this group this summer for all the reasons we've already discussed.

The USMNT is a mess. That's the price of the U.S. becoming a 'soccer country'

The more the U.S. cares about soccer and produces better players, the more dysfunctional the USMNT becomes. That's just how it is.

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[Purp]

Looks like Johnny Cardoso finally made the move to Atleti today and Weah going to Forest will be fun to watch. I hope he gets a ton of minutes there. He'll be dangerous in the EPL with his speed they way Forest play.

Matt Turner to Lyon doesn't look quite as good now after Lyon were just relegated due to financial fair play rules. Tanner Tessmann may need to get out of there now. He was a big piece for them in the midfield last campaign and may have some suitors in the top 5 leagues given Lyon's financial desperation.

 

[Purp]

Looks like Johnny Cardoso finally made the move to Atleti today and Weah going to Forest will be fun to watch. I hope he gets a ton of minutes there. He'll be dangerous in the EPL with his speed they way Forest play.

Matt Turner to Lyon doesn't look quite as good now after Lyon were just relegated due to financial fair play rules. Tanner Tessmann may need to get out of there now. He was a big piece for them in the midfield last campaign and may have some suitors in the top 5 leagues given Lyon's financial desperation.

Looks like Weah put the skids on the Forest deal. Never saw why he rejected it for sure, but it sounds like they were offering too low a salary. Strange because the transfer fee was fairly high. Seems odd to pay that much for a player to another club and then not pay the player enough to want to make the move.

Turner's situation with Lyon seems touch and go. One day it looks to be done and the next not. I can't imagine a team relegated for financial fair play rules will pay that much for a league 2 goalie, but it sounds like they're hoping to stay up on appeal. We'll see. That situation sucks for Tessman too bc his future could be screwed over by this club too.