that's not really the point though. The USSF had a proper international coach approach them and they rebuffed him for this guy. Berhalter may actually be decent, but at this moment it's an uninspiring hire that reeks of the echo chamber that the USSF seems to stay in.

It feels like such a wasted opportunity.

Euro experiment scared them (despite him delivering on his pipeline promises) so back to the old ways. Oh. And make money and keep MLS happy. Winning is last priority.

$100m in the black yo!

Meanwhile, they keep messing up the Women’s team too somehow. Youth program falling behind and they can’t even get basic **** right. Still don’t sell WNT shirts in men’s sizes and the y are totally out of stock of almost everything in Women’s sizes.....at Christmas and only 6-months before the World Cup

Yes was gonna order myself a PINOE shirt for WWC and get that **** tailored

It's even more confounding having now seen just about all of Western Europe that we lag so far behind. Sweden, who we can all agree is currently way ahead of us and historically our equal even at their worst and our best, is essentially nicer Ohio. It's cold. People have a lot of money. There are only 10 million people. It makes zero sense that they wouldn't be the scrappy David to our Goliath. Zero. I drove through the western part of Czech. Aside from their Euro highways they don't even have great roads. I drove across Poland, of whom we would kill to be contemporaries. It looked like northern Indiana and has about as many people as California. East of Warsaw things get pretty bleak. I'm no longer willing to believe that the talent just isn't there in America. We're actively crushing it. It almost seems like we're ATTEMPTING to be bad.

Done well


=

Gone 500
Won nothing

The vast athletic advantage we had was more to do the women’s team dominating for so long. Now that Europe is taking women’s football seriously they are catching up, and surpassing us. Our development system has been broken for a long time and our “competitiveness” (see defending for our lives and GK’s making 20 saves as “competing”) in Men’s world cups and the Women being successful due to our huge athletic advantage has masked the real problems that we have. It’s not going to get better anytime soon until there is a massive change in the system.

that's a cope

the talent is in the other major sports. maybe kareem hunt wants to play soccer.

The women's WC will probably the last WC that the US will contend for in the next 10 years.

The rest of the world has caught up and our youth teams are not that great.

They're the favorites in 2019, I doubt they're just gonna fall off a cliff in 8 years much less 4. Worst case scenario they're maybe the 4th or 5th favorite in 2027, which I'd still consider a contender.

Also, Women's soccer has College Soccer which, unlike the Men's, actually helps in that, instead of one of the world's worst developmental models (as it is in Men's) it's one of the best (in Women's) because other countries have just now started to allow women to play...

Yeah, this isn't true at all. At least not anymore now that other countries are taking the women's game seriously. Simply compare women's college soccer to what the European women's teams are doing and you'll see exactly why we are starting to fall behind. Due to the substitution rules, college soccer is a very fast, very direct, brand of soccer (in most cases, not all) where you have teams pressing as hard and as high as possible all game. The players who start do that for 20+ minutes and get subbed off. That's a much different game and development model to what's happening around the world.

If you look up "damning with faint praise", this quote should be the first result.

This year both the U-17 and U-20 women's teams failed to get out of the group stage at their respective WCs. It's the first the U-20 team failed to make it to the knockout round.

Yep, everything is fine.

If youth tourneys mattered then Mexico would win every men's World Cup going away (or at least that's what cruizn would have us believe).

There's a big chasm between things not looking so hot for the future and going from the favorite to not a contender in 4 years. I'd put any amount of money that USWNT is in the top 4 betting favorites for 2023 WC.

Josh Sargent will be on the team today for Werder Bremen, let's see if he makes his debut

This is great news. It's been a ROUGH season for yanks abroad. Sargent seeing some 1st team action would be very nice indeed.

I've backed them at -136 as Fortuna are awful. Will definitely be watching now

Haji Wright started at striker for Schalke last week. I was surprised it wasn't covered more but I guess bc he isn't well known and hasn't played for the full national team plus the coaching announcement didn't help.

Yeah and also literally every one of our strikers was injured. Good for him and I hope he gets going but from what I've heard he hasn't particularly stood out at the 5th division reserve side.

Sargent confirmed on the bench. I think he'll get in today!

Got in and scored right away.

Sarge! 2 min after coming on! Get in!