American Outlaws
- Thread starter Tin Cup Cowboy
- Start date
i hate to be a buzzkill, but we are going to get our asses stomped. portugal looked bad, but rest assured, they will most likely beat us soundly even after losing 2 of their top 4 forwards and ghana has beaten us over our last 2 matchups. soccer isnt popular or lucrative enough for US athletes to be THAT engaged. now, if we had all our nfl, nba, and maybe mlb athleticism focused on a singular sport, we would probably be a dominant international team, but for us to be a real threat, we need all of the premier athletes in the united states be rolling under one banner in one sport. still, its pretty remarkable that we have a respectable team fielding largely "B team" athletes. thats how awesome 'merica is athletically.
Outside of Renaldo and Pepe, Portugal's team is basically on par with the US's as far as individuals' club teams. While a lot of our players play in the MLS (because they choose to as Americans) most of theirs play in the ****** European leagues. We have some heavy hitters on our squad too (our goalie is in discussion for best in the world).
There's a stigma attached to American players. A guy like Besler is good enough to play for a club like Stoke City or AZ or whoever but European teams won't sign marginal US players. They will sign marginal players from anywhere else... Just not Americans. If you need proof you can look at Canada's roster. They're rarely ranked inside FIFA's top 100 but 90% of their players play overseas.
It's very rare to see an American go overseas and not be on the starting squad. They only sign our best players, and if for some reason they decided to sign one of our players to sit them on the bench for a substitution... They usually just stay in the US.
All that being said, we're on the outside looking in. Portugal getting spanked today while having their 2nd best player become ineligible and possibly their best defender doubtful makes me optimistic.
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Portugal is better than you are giving them credit for, with most players playing in La Liga or the Portugal league, which is clearly superior to MLS. American players have come a long way, but few of them would be called up for Portugal. Having said that, it's a team sport and the USA has always swung above its weight. And without Coentrao or Pepe, the Portugal defense should be really out of sorts and I like our chances.
I do think a lot of our players would be on their 23 man roster, but I'll agree that a solid portion wouldn't.
I do think Howard, Bradley, and Dempsey make their starting squad, which is really where it counts. With Klinsmann's formation most of these guys only need to play defense, and when relying only on that (Beckerman, Besler) they're above par.
The way our team is set up, each player is heightened by its counterpart. You can't say that about Portugal. Our best player improves our 4 fullbacks, our 4 worst players, because they can play loose. Our overall best player over in the middle of the field (who played like **** tonight) can play loose because he's got Beckerman who's a fantastic defender (horrible possession player), Jones who enforces, and Bedoya who is easily our most underrated player with ABOVE average numbers is France's league... The 4th best league in the world.
Really our weakness is the scoring position, but Altidore (who is hopefully healthy) is able to box people out with his size and overpower people... Which in international soccer seems to work. And then Dempsey adds in what is a demonstrated world class finesse skill. He's still overpowering.
Maybe I'm 17ing stupid. But I honestly think they've only got 2 players who are demonstrated bad asses on the international level, one is ineligible and the other has only ever scored twice in WC competition, with a discrepancy of about 30 places in our world ranking in those 2 teams.
Off topic sort of, but Spurs proved it. While Duncan might be the greatest 4 ever, he's plays like a lesser one.... But his team is bad *** is well coached.
ETA: like I say... Most of our players have Portuguese league ability. But they're American and aren't pursued. They'd also rather stay in America. Again, Canada's team as evidence.
I'm not sure I agree with your characterizations of either Portugal or USA's teams, but I admire your enthusiasm and won't argue with you.
Having said that, Portugal is a team that often doesn't add up to the sum of its parts, while USA often plays better than it's individual pieces. That is why we've got a great shot.
Having said that, Portugal is a team that often doesn't add up to the sum of its parts, while USA often plays better than it's individual pieces. That is why we've got a great shot.
Oh come on... Portugal is one of the most overrated teams in the world. They're #3. Three! That's higher than Brazil and only one back from Germany... Who beat them 4-0. They have 2 players. Granted... Those two players aren't on the same planet as our 2 best players... But one is out, and the other has only ever scored 2 goals in the World Cup. Their 3rd best player is hurt.
When it comes down to it, they are "better" than us because they don't have to play guys on the level or Beckerman or Zusi and the rest of the roster who doesn't play could play the portion of our roster that doesn't play and beat them like a drum. But top to bottom I believe we measure up (not saying we're top 5) if they don't have 2 of their best 3 and their #1 continues to get flustered.
This ain't yo daddy's USMNT.
It's also not fun to sit here and be realistic about all this. If we lose out I won't be disappointed because that's expected. But that's not fun to think about.
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our backfield really struggles at times as does our midfield. how many times did we lose possession with poor routine passes or misplayed balls. we made up for it with tightening up. we were dominated yesterday and fortunate to win...not my words, but the words of the international soccer experts on espn...keep in mind, this is ghana, not germany or portugal. we are tenacious...ill give us that, but we lack elite skill, speed, and touch that teams like ghana and other sub 20 ranked teams have. nobody is saying we are chopped liver, but we arent a contender either. we are the 2009 bulldog team and with some luck we might get a win against michigan (portugal)...outside of that, don't expect much, we have a solid chance to upset portugal thanks to the red card. im not trying to short the team, but we clearly lack elite talent excluding a few players who might make the bench squad on one of the top teams, save maybe howard.
http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/statisticsandrecords/tournaments/worldcup/alltimerankings.html
we just won our 7th game EVER in the world cup out of 32 chances. just ahead of korea republic and croatia and just behind denmark and romania. the top teams have 50+ wins. getting out of our group is still a long shot because we too have to play a relentless germany team and an elite but severely hobbled portugal team. jozy altidore going down is going to be hard to replace and our best shot to pull off a win will be playing wondolowski not johannsson and hope ronaldo continues to pout, but our execution wont be nearly as flawless as germany and ball control will again be an issue against portugal.
http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/statisticsandrecords/tournaments/worldcup/alltimerankings.html
we just won our 7th game EVER in the world cup out of 32 chances. just ahead of korea republic and croatia and just behind denmark and romania. the top teams have 50+ wins. getting out of our group is still a long shot because we too have to play a relentless germany team and an elite but severely hobbled portugal team. jozy altidore going down is going to be hard to replace and our best shot to pull off a win will be playing wondolowski not johannsson and hope ronaldo continues to pout, but our execution wont be nearly as flawless as germany and ball control will again be an issue against portugal.
I'm not making the case that we're now to he considered a world power. The exact opposite.
But this team has an outside shot at making the round of 16 (would be considered by me beyond successful even with a loss to Argentina). We're in the driver seat.
Is a shove-it-down-your-throat team, so the #'s don't necessarily shock me... But we did play like ****. Well below where we should be. Maybe I'm just thinking that there's not much of a chance we could possibly play that bad in 2 straight games.
Call me optimistic, I just think Portugal is the most overrated team in this tournament and we're being largely underestimated, mostly by people who think Donovan should be on this roster.
But this team has an outside shot at making the round of 16 (would be considered by me beyond successful even with a loss to Argentina). We're in the driver seat.
Is a shove-it-down-your-throat team, so the #'s don't necessarily shock me... But we did play like ****. Well below where we should be. Maybe I'm just thinking that there's not much of a chance we could possibly play that bad in 2 straight games.
Call me optimistic, I just think Portugal is the most overrated team in this tournament and we're being largely underestimated, mostly by people who think Donovan should be on this roster.