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Report: Jonathan Gonzalez to make permanent switch to Mexico

Jonathan Gonzalez has yet to make any official move with regards to his international future, but one report says the Mexican-American star could be nearing some sort of decision well ahead of schedule.

According to Univision Deportes, the Monterrey midfielder has made up his mind to represent Mexico on the international level. According to the report, Gonzalez came to the decision after speaking with Mexico officials as well as El Tri manager Juan Carlos Osorio.

Any potential move would be permanent while the process to seal that move is a long one. According to the report, Gonzalez has yet to file a one-time switch with FIFA, which is required after representing the U.S. on the youth level. The filing process isn’t always quick, and Gonzalez wouldn’t be able to represent Mexico until he received FIFA approval.

Gonzalez’s decision does not need to come immediately unless he expects to seal a spot at this summer’s World Cup. With the U.S. out of competitive matches until summer 2019, Gonzalez would not need to make an official decision on joining the U.S. program until the start of the 2019 Gold Cup. On the other end, Gonzalez could see a 2018 World Cup spot with Mexico as motivation for a switch, although his youth and international inexperience could make it more difficult for him to seal a spot with El Tri as Russia approaches.

According to the report, Gonzalez is frustrated with the U.S. program after being left out of November’s friendly against Portugal. In addition, Univision reports that Gonzalez’s parents have always pushed their son to play for Mexico while the midfielder himself preferred the U.S.

Gonzalez could reportedly make his Mexico debut as soon as Jan. 31 in a friendly against Bosnia & Herzegovina if paperwork is sorted and submitted on time.

Comments

  1. I don’t know how you could grow up in a the United States and not feel like you are an American. If you feel like you are an American I don’t know how you could accept playing for another team, even if the US isn’t making you feel wanted and the Mexican team is. It seems like his father raised him to feel like he was Mexican and not American.

    He’s a good player and the US could have used him but If he doesn’t feel like and American he shouldn’t be on the team.

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  2. How many pundits go on about how we need to focus more on developing the Mexican American players is this country? Well whats the point when if they are any good they’ll just play for Mexico?

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  3. As someone who was born in another country w parents from that country, in a household where that countries culture was prevalent, that is a naturalized citizen. The kid is an absolute sell out , and has slapped every coach, everyone who helped him along the way and anyone who is a US citizen in the face. How ungrateful? You choose to represent a country that didn’t give your family enough, so they had to move here? You choose not to represent the country and soccer federation that assisted you and your family in a better life for most of your life. F this kid.

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  4. BS is reporting that the federation made repeated attempts to sway Gonzalez, sending Thomas Rongen to his house on three separate occasions to talk to him. Rongen’s takeaway is that not qualifying for the World Cup in Russia definitely didn’t help, but that Gonzalez was probably always going to commit to Mexico.

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    • Yeah, he was just using the US for leverage to get a spot going to the World Cup. This idea he was committed until he was burned by not being called to play in a pointless friendly against Portugal is just nonsense.

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    • Gonzalez notched his first senior game with Monterrey in June of 2017. For all arena’s faults I don’t see how this was one of them. Going into your final two qualifiers and the you are bashing him for not calling in a kid with 4-5 months of being a professional ?

      In the end nothing is official and there is only one report out there saying it’s official. If he opts to switch to Mexico it was not simply about the Portugal friendly. My guess is given his parents push for him to rep Mexico and their recent interest he simply feels it the better route or that he feels more connected to his heritage

      if it happens the World won’t end. Same reaction when Ponce opted for Mexico and while it’s possible he’d help us out he could have easily fallen into the category of Torres

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      • CP made his debut for BVB in late January or early February and then went to March qualifiers. If they are good enough who cares. The US has lacked Central midfielders for some time now, call in your best players. If he wouldn’t have played that’s fine with me but calling someone like Dax over him is just crazy. Bad management top to bottom plain and simple

      • @I scored three goal: agreed, but I will say integrating a promising talent just starting their career at the beginning of qualifiers prior to the Hex is quite a bit different than the trailing end when we are fighting for a spot. By the time Jo Go started playing for Monterrey, the US had 4 qualifiers left and need every point possible.

        Could Arena have called him in over others? Sure, but I don’t blame him for trying to play it safe given the circumstances.

  5. Only thing that could make me happy now is if Timothy Tillman chooses he US over Germany. Another young player with options.

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    • How about McKinney at Schalke or parks at Benfica. My point is that there are many young us players out there. How many dual nationals have we predicted to be the second coming only to see them rarely called upon?

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    • We were heads over heels for Jose Torres at one point. And whether you are on the side he was screwed over by the coaching staff or he was mediocre for the USA (or somewhere in between) he was on a solid pachuca at the time.

      I’m not saying we will be missing out with Gonzalez making the switch, merely saying we blowing this out of proportion. How many dual nationals have we secured in similar situations than failed to pan out. He has half a year of professional games under his belt. Let’s pump the breaks a bit

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  6. How committed was the kid if not being invited to one friendly sealed his decision to change. He had to have been given some sort of guarantee for WC (i.e. julian green). On another note, this is why we should have a TD/Gen Mgr involved with the selection of players. So US Soccer does recognize it needs change hence the division of the responsibilities for the coach and the general manager. If we had a general manger in place, it would be the general manager in charge of making contact with potential players not the coach…..

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      • I agree. USSF spent all that money and time developing him (youth national teams), and he makes a quick decision to forgo his US eligibility because he felt slighted that (he claims) nobody called him in the Portugal friendly? Why was he so worried about a meaningless friendly when his focus should have been with Monterrey (3 games) over the next 8 days?

        Smells like BS to me. He was going to pick Mexico anyways and just wanted USSF to look bad.

  7. If Monterrey were contacted and requested Gonzalez stay with the team would his claim of being slighted just an excuse to make the switch?

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    • There was no way Monterrey would have released him for the Portugal game (11/14).
      Monterrey had 3 games (11/18, 11/23, 11/26) over the next 8 days. The penultimate game of the regular season with the title on the line, and the 2 games of the Liguilla playoffs.

      Don’t let facts get in the way of the truth, people.

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  8. Weak move trying to take the heat off by complaining about the Portugal friendly. Makes me dislike him a little bit. Wouldn’t have faulted him for just picking El Tri and being a man about it.

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    • exactly my first thought. I wonder if that is an excuse….. US soccer needs to be transparent with regards to what happened, otherwise he is the only one on record.

      I like that some are posting what they know to be true, but lets get US soccer to comment.

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      • If there is still any chance that he stays with the US, US Soccer can’t issue a statement that contradicts what he said or that could push him to Mexico. They have to try to convince him privately. If he makes the switch, US Soccer will comment publicly if they actually did invite him in for Portugal or Camp Cupcake. If they don’t make any public comment at that point it will speak volumes.

  9. My only hope is that ICE send J. Gonzalez family back to Monterrey, Mexico, so they can be happy together for the rest of their lives.. amen..!!!

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  10. Turned into a kind of be careful what you wish for situation.

    Had Klinsmann not been fired, this kid would have been called in and cap-tied sometime in the fall.

    Arena and the old guard have no time for this int’l recruitment game, which because of MLS’ lack of developmental quality, we kind of have to.

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  11. Ganzalez has some deciding to do. From his perspective, he cannot play for Mexico until he files a one-time change. Even if he does that, there is no guarantee he would be invited to be on Mexico’s 2018 WC squad or that the paperwork would go through in time. (I remember that Jermaine Jones tried to get on USA’s 2010 WC squad and Bradley wanted him, but paperwork was too slow.)

    I don’t know what kind of competition Gonzalez faces for the midfield in Mexico going forward, but it is likely just as strong as that he faces vs McKennie, Adams, etc.

    He has some deciding to do irrespective of which team invited him (or did not) this year. He knows the USA is without a coach. That makes whoever will be making that decision for the USA a total unknown (as is who will be in charge of Mexico after this summer).

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  12. Not going to argue its not a loss but it’s hard to blame him. He knew missing the World Cup could have this kind of effect. Still a lot of potential talent in the midfield with McKennie, Parks , Hyndman and Adams.

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  13. A few things to consider:

    (1) This is not confirmed, and may just be El Tri trying to start rumors, get its fans excited, and to show JG some love to sway him;

    (2) JG may have felt slighted that he didn’t hear from anyone in November, but if he has any adult advising him, they would explain to him that no one is currently at the helm for the USMNT but they will have a coach in the future who will certainly give him a chance, especially if he keeps showing well in Liga MX.

    (3) 5 years may seem like an eternity for an 18 year old to wait for the next WC. But a sound advisor would explain to him that (a) he probably won’t start or get much playing time at the 2018 WC, and he will be 23, 27, and 31 respectively during the next 3 tournaments, so he should be cautious in jumping for the shiny thing in front of him and consider his longterm career and national affiliation.

    (4) If he ends up choosing Mexico, I hold no ill will toward him. He made a choice for himself. I still don’t believe that no one at USMNT never actually contacted him. Maybe I’m wrong

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    • It’s been reported that US Soccer reached out to get him in twice, but were turned away by Monterrey. Personally, and this is all based on it being true, but i think his parents got to him at the end of the day! You don’t play for several youth USNT set ups and turn an eye towards your heated rival because you weren’t involved in ONE friendly, that you wouldn’t have played in any ways because of club commitments

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      • I definitely seeing your POV Ronniet. Perhaps it was convenient to play for US YNTs while living in SF area growing up, but now that he’s making waves in LigaMX and showing how much upside he has, he has more options now regarding his NT career. I can’t imagine given his parents are born in MX that his family was rooting for the US during US/MX games. What shirt does his dad where on game days? Pareja flew to his famly’s house over the holidays to make an offer and probably was always his dream to play for MX too.

        From US Soccer perspective, we have so many kids playing in our youth system who could rep both nations that we have to do a better job of holding the top talents like JG if we are paying and investing in their youth development. Dual nationals aren’t going away, would it be absurd to have as assistant coach who’s also serves are a sort of scouting/recruiting director who keeps a regular drip on some of these dual national prospects. I said in an earlier post its all about making these next generation kids feel special and wanted. I don’t necessarily agree with it philosophically but that’s the way the world is now. We need to deal with it and adapt.

      • totally agree with you – the US was good to him at so many age levels and he reportedly had strong friendships with several teammates – He is really doing what is best for himself, and i can’t totally blame him, but have no problem calling him out for the BS excuse. And I can’t blame Mexico for taking advantage of us being out of the world cup. This makes me hate El Tri even more, but it also makes the rivalry more fun! I hope he starts for Mexico and scores a hattrick – of Own Goals!

  14. I said a long time ago since everyone knew arena was going to be gone after the WC regardless if they qualified or not there should have been a plan in place or a short list of managers that they wanted and there might be one but at this time whoever is making these decisions should be letting players like CP, Mckennie, Adams, Gonzalez, Yedlin, Brooks, Miazga and there are others but this young/younger nucleus that they are the right now and the future going towards 2022 and it looks pretty good with a lot of talent and potential to be a pretty strong squad.

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  15. AGAIN! Being in-active USNT does harm like Gonzalez not being, being behind team like Panama for future Qualifiers, future development & process, & losing rhythm of play.

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  16. I’m guessing that the November “snub” is only a small part of the reason. Yes it was disrespectul not to at least call, but he knows 1) he couldn’t have played anyway, and 2) the US coach who blew it is a short term caretaker for the job who isn’t going to be there anyway. Any young star is going to crave the chance to play in the world cup, and he has very strong Mexican roots in addition to his US roots. This kid is following his lifelong soccer dream. The US not being in the world cup and the resulting chaos is a much bigger concern for him. I don’t blame him for wanting to choose the best option for him, but my gut says that blaming the stupid interim manager is an easy way to avoid criticism for taking a better option. Of course i could be totally wrong – this is just my gut feeling. Other than the snub”, the US has continually been committee to him at nearly every age-level US team.

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    • my thoughts exactly……people don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes but because the US didn’t qualify for the WC there is this pessimism about the fanbase and a hatred for all things US Soccer right now without knowing all of the facts smh

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  17. All of this moaning and groaning about Gonzalez potential switch is absurd! If he wants to represent Mexico because he felt slighted by the US, good riddance! For me, this signals he never really felt american at heart to begin with,and if the article is to be believed his parents were very influential in this decision. Midfield is our strongest position in the pool, and there are a lot of promising young players getting significant minutes with their clubs that should bold well for the program going forward! As an american, i want players playing for our NT that are all in, and not on the fence because they weren’t called in or talked to personally before a meaningless friendly in europe 4 days before a club game. Most 18 year olds can’t even sniff the senior NT, so this decision if true, speaks of ego and immaturity(he’s 18 so it makes sense).

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    • Honestly : I agree with you 110% If that guy doesn’t wants to be American…Let him be Mexican, period…Bye ,bye , adio, adios. sayonara, au revoir , hasta luego buey…

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    • What a moronic post… Maybe he was thinking something along the lines of, “I must not be American enough to them since I’m already playing at a higher level than half their pool and they don’t even have the decency to reach out me!” That’s the same logic you just used.

      Players want to be wanted, and they want to be on good teams. Our leadership has expressed an anti-foreign, antiquated way of doing things, and we’re not going to a WC for 5 Years.

      Don’t blame the player. Blame our incompetent leadership…

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      • You can say my post is moronic all you want but the fact still remains there aren’t many 18 year olds playing for their senior national team, and the US absolutely tried to get him in but was denied, twice! His time was coming for sure, but i guess pressure bust pipes because mexico was all over him from what i understand and it’s easier to succumb to that type of pressure especially when he is playing in the mexican league and has his parent in his ear pushing him towards Mexico. It’s moronic for you to say that the US has a anti foreigner stance but mexican americans have been heavily involved with US Soccer for decades. This decision seems to come down to WC promises by Mexico, and if that’s the reality of it, then yeah the US didn’t do themselves any favors. I know this though, as a 18 year old you are still maturing and growing as a player so this idea that good players want to play for good teams is a bit early for a player that has one full season under his belt, even if it was a great season!

    • We don’t need him but Mexico, by far the best program in the region is doing everything they can to recruit him? This is the type of ignorant attitude that keeps you out of the world cup. Some of you need to wake up and smell the failure.

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      • not making the WC was absolutely a colossal failure, and if his decision came down to that then God Bless him and the US can say that not making it was on them. I’m not prepared however to say that the program will suffer because of this considering there a lot of young midfielders coming through with promise, much like Gonzalez! Let’s wait and see how this plays out before everyone calls this a complete failure on the part of USSoccer! For all we know these headlines are fabricated by multiple parties!

      • ESPN reported last week that MX NT coach Oscar Pererra flew to San Fransico area during week after Christmas to visit him at his family home too. USMNT can’t even call the guy, meanwhile MX NT is sending the manager on a private jet to SF to personally ask him to switch and join. Epic Fail!!

        I regards to him not feeling American and therefore not wanting him and good ridance per Ronniet. I say, thats goes for kids born pre 1990’s, for kids today there is no loyalty and for the most part these dual nationals will pick who they play for based on two things iMO who calls them first and makes them feel special and inflates their fragile ego the most. We’re seeing the same thing in college football recruiting too. Its a cultural change for the most part, we’ve got to keep up with the times. Make them feel wanted and special, we can hate it and reject it or just deal with the way the things are and work with it to get what we want.

    • I don’t disagree with what you are saying. From my viewpoint we have seen this a few times with the German-Americans. Everyone has their level of patriotism and that is a risk of probably everyone, but definitely for someone that can actually switch.

      My other thought though is the US didn’t qualify for the WCup and left a guy capable of being MX best 11 off the field? You can see how he can feel slighted. No one could figure out this guy could play right now except for Monterrey?

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    • Ronniet,

      You keep referencing that it was reported that US Soccer did call in Gonzalez but I see nothing about that. Where are you getting that from? Bottom line Gonzalez clearly says that he wasn’t contacted by US Soccer. So I will take him at his word.

      by Steven Goff (Washington Post): [“He was not called into the U.S. national team for a November friendly against Portugal, though the circumstances are unclear. Monterrey apparently asked the USSF not to summon him, but because the match fell in a FIFA window, the power rested with the U.S. federation.

      “Nobody came and talked to me and let me know about that friendly,” he told Soccer America last month. “I just wasn’t called in.”]

      And the rest of your comment just sounds like a sour-grapes comment: “he never really felt american at heart to begin with”.

      He had said that he wanted to play for US Soccer and he had been playing for them on youth squads. Clearly he feels both American and Mexican because he is Mexican-American. This was going to be a tough decision that would be swayed one way or another. If you are US Soccer you do your best job and if you lose out well then at least you did what you could. It doesn’t look like that happened in this case. Criticism of US Soccer is definitely warranted.

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  18. Got to give it to the guy: it takes a lot of confidence to pick Mexico knowing he’ll have to fight day in and day out for a position on the national team. This is the type of players we need in our program, not afraid to step out of their comfort zone…. but then, it’s not really hard to understand considering the USNT doesn’t really “exist” right now.

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  19. This is why it matters not to have some extended period of fart-around purgatory bull-hockey where we use Arena’s second in command as an interim coach, like that plus our failure is a player magnet. It might suit the next president of US Soccer but it hurts the actual NT. We had a nice long period where we could start rebuilding the program early and are instead frittering it away so powerful people can fight over the federation executive job and then pick their own favorites. Meanwhile the marquee team is floating around rudderless and this key prospect is like, hmmm, Mexico is going to the world cup and seems to have their stuff together.

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    • What decent manager would have taken the US job in November? No idea who your boss is going to be and no competitive matches for two years. No manager from outside of MLS would seriously consider that job and there is absolutely no info out there Tata is interested.

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  20. If he was German-American they would have brought him in a long time ago. USMNT is in shambles. If he was a crap MLS player he would have been brought in by Arena long ago. They could have at least made contact to let them know they were interested. ” Hey were not bringing you in because Bedoya is a big piece of our future plans” or “were not calling you cause you just played” but your on the radar and bringing you in in the near future.

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    • i disagree with this comment completely! Bradley was the first coach to bring in a German-American in Jermaine Jones, but that decision was a no brainer because of JJ’s ability and experience at the highest level. Klinsmann brought in a lot of GA’s but that’s to be expected because he was German as well! We still don’t know what will come of Gonzo, and it’s crazy that there seems to be this mentality out there that we are missing out on this once in a lifetime player smh

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    • Mike R you said it all.

      What a huge loss for USMNT. He benched a MX NT regular to win his spot in Monterray’s lineup at the age of 18. Huge loss, his upside is far higher than any of the young MF MLSers who’ve been getting USMNT callups and spot minutes, ie Roldan, Rowe(not really young btw), Acosta and Adama(although these two deservedly earned callups).

      This kid could be anywhere in 5 years and according to his interview with Soccer America he wasn’t even contacted by USMNT before Portugal. How are we not keeping in regular (at least monthly) contact with our top prospects. Can we hire Bama’s recruiting director for Pete’s sake. Dual nationals are not going away, even Donovan could have repped Canada thru his Dad I believe.

      Can’t say we didn’t see this coming after his answers in the SA article last week. SMH

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  21. If Trump were a soccer fan, he would put young Jonathan on the Terrorist Watch List just to screw around with him at the airport every time he went home to visit his family in California.

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    • Why didn’t we go through the motions of attempted callups and then let Monterrey try and tell us no.

      Like I said below, I think some of this is what happens when the organization is playing for time and being run by a seat filler coach. I can’t believe a full-time, serious coach lets this issue deteriorate to this point. He calls him in and forces a fight. He calls the guy on the phone and says here’s the deal, I want you to stay with Monterrey but you are in the plans first friendlies in 2018, puts the guy at ease. But Sarachan is just there to coach people who show up and has zero experience running a national team.

      At least part of the problem is we apparently intend on letting this drag out for nearly a year, probably until after Russia. The federation looks rudderless and a player like this would have no sense of whether it is going to be better run or has a future. All he knows is they made it and we didn’t and the team is adrift at sea with the engine off and no sails.

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      • USSoccer did reach out to Monterrey, twice, and was told no for the Portugal game and the January Camp. I think people are underestimating the US’ efforts to get him in because there hasn’t been much word about it, only that of Gonzalez himself, but for all we know Monterrey purposely denied the US’ advances because they wanted the Mexican NT to have an opportunity to pull him away from the US. That may sound absurd but we are talking about a tug of war between heated rivals and we know of the corruption that persist in the mexican federation. If Gonzo makes the switch, it won’t be the first time we’ve lost a potential talent, and at this point it’s just potential albeit the success he’s had in his first full year as a starter!

      • RonnieT: if they did reach out you publicize the heck out of it and explain to the player that you tried to call them up and Monterrey refused. If he still claims we didn’t try it’s a pretext.

        That being said, we’re a rudderless ship right now so who has the brains and leadership to ensure the tactical strategy and media savvy necessary to sometimes make these things happen. No one.

    • Don’t blame the US Soccer Federation, blame B. Arena, D. Sacharan and Tab Ramos. Just blame those three dinosaurs. But, at the end of the day we have W. McKennie and K. Parks in that position, much better, in my humble opinion, that J. Gonzalez . You will see….

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      • All due respect but it’s been several months since we got beat by T&T and the dimwit decision was made to delay the coaching decision and basically NT fixes and progress until the USSF presidential election is held. It won’t be til next month. Minimum 4 months to even start that process. Much less interview and pick someone.

        Russia is then a few months after and we might even punt the decision other side of that tournament too. Next thing you know we’ve spent most of a year without a coach. This kind of “but I didn’t get a call and I wanted one” strikes me as the sort of thing that happens when you have a caretaker.

        Net result, over-empowerment of the political officials, and a NT that we do care about adrift for months for no good reason.

        And all due respect but there was goofy stuff going on like CR in NY or Panama in FL where it’s like who was doing site selection, and has this become too much about the federation making money, and not enough about maximizing team success chances. The best thing for the team is not going through the motions creating game tape under a caretaker who might not try as hard as he can to secure new capped players. It’s starting to fix the issues. What we’re doing now is instead what is best for presidential control over USSF. I care more who runs the teams and how they do, than what bigwig is over the whole thing.

    • At this moment, this 18 year old kid from Norcal is a a better player than captain Michael Bradley (what a Jogger) at the same position. It’s unclear how much of the blame should be on specific actions taken in the last 6 months by the Federation, but fact is there was fuck ups like not calling him and heavily recruiting him before Portugal. I would bet that things would have gone differently if Klinsmann was left in charge. And those saying… no big deal with Keaton Parks, Weston Mckennie and Tyler Adams… you are idiots. There is a reason the Mexicans flew to CA to meet with his family. This kid has special qualities for a holding mid and is playing consistently at a high level right now at a position that usually requires experience and tactical awareness. He’s not some prospect who’s had a couple flashes of excellence.

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