Photo by Robert Mayer/USA TODAY Sports
By DAN KARELL
The U.S. Men’s National Team has one more friendly date to fill after a reported match with Croatia fell through.
Sources confirmed to SBI that Croatia is out as a potential friendly international match opponent to face the USMNT in London’s Craven Cottage on Nov. 12. According to other reports, U.S. Soccer is looking into scheduling another opponent to face the U.S. in the same location on the same night.
Nine days ago, the Croatian Football Federation announced that they had scheduled a friendly match against the USA, but U.S. Soccer never confirmed the friendly on their end. This is the second time this fall that a reported friendly has fallen through at the last moment. In August, the USMNT had a potential match against Colombia in September at the Alamodome in San Antonio fall through.
Croatia meanwhile announced on Tuesday morning that they’ve scheduled a friendly match against Argentina on the same day in London.
———–
What do you think of this news? Disappointed to see the U.S. not face Croatia? Who would you like to see them face in November?
Share your thoughts below.
SOMEONE TEL JURGUNN
Cut the crap. Worst fake-FRANK post in weeks.
Looks like its Colombia. It’s even on Colombia.com’s futbol website.
http://www.colombia.com/futbol/seleccion-colombia/noticias/sdi/101523/colombia-jugaria-ante-estados-unidos-en-noviembre
Headline reads -> “Colombia jugarÃa ante Estados Unidos en noviembre”
translates to -> Colombia would play against USA in November.
However, article says that FIFA has mentioned of the “possible” friendly against USA.
Australia . . . for reasons that don’t come to mind right now. Maybe because A is the first letter in the alphabet. Still, a solid opponent that we should beat on our home turf.
I know a lot of Americans have played at Craven Cottage, but “home turf” might be a stretch.
Speak for yourself I was there the day Eddie Lewis became the first American to suit up (4 years before McBride).
That being said, I was an FFC fan before there were Fulhamericans and I sometimes feel that connection is a little strained and fanboy. The sort of people who loved it when Dempsey arrived and then hated the team when he left. They the buy a Spurs shirt and laud their American connections. So fly by nighters I don’t respect.
Brazil, Argentina, Australia, or African teams might be a good choice because they have hefty expat player populations where they can rely heavily on local players to make a team. Kind of like we can almost call an entirely Euro based unit.
Two friendlies in quick succession falling through feels like a red flag about something, as this had not been the “norm” previously, as best as I recall. Good that we are not wasting the dates, but it feels like there must be a bigger story. Have we starting asking for more aggressive terms or something?
Lets see who Croatia ends up with. Maybe they got a better and sent us packing
Certainly possible, though from the sounds of things it looks like we were the ones who backed out (if your suggestion is correct, it may be a case of, you snooze, you lose from Croatia).
with the Internet debate raging over JK vs Garber, how about an intrasquad scrimmage? MLS vs the A-AA (Anonymous Americans Abroad, riding pines across the Old World)
That would be awesome!
Do you think there would be sufficient players to fill every position, particularly the European side?
This can’t be a serious question. I’d take the AAA starting 11 over an all MLS starting 11.
NA Squad:
————————-Dempsey——————————
——-Gil——————————————-Nyguyen–
————-Jones———————-Trapp—————–
—————————-Bradley——————————
—Klute——Besler—————-Gonzalez——Yedlin–
—————————–Rimando—————————–
Subs: Beckerman, Powers, Kitchen, Hedges, Bunbury, Orozco, Castillo, Torres, Corona (if not injured), CD?…..??????
EU Squad:
———————————Jozy———————————-
——–AJ——————————————-Green———-
—————FJ—————————–Mix———————-
—————————–Williams———————————
–Lichaj———Brooks————–Cameron—-Chandler–
——————————-Guzan———————————-
Subs: Boyd, Bedoya, Morales, Hyndman, Wooten, Wood, Packwood, Gyau (if not injured), ????
Would be a fun match to watch………
Is that a serious question? The original post said MLS vs the rest of the world, so I’m including the Liga MXers
Guzan
Cameron Packwood(Ream) Brooks Garza
Bedoya Diskerud FJ
Gyau (or Johannson) Altidore Green
Coming off the bench you have Terrence Boyd, Danny Williams, Emerson Hyndman, Rubio Rubin, Bobby Wood, Castillo, Corona
Who’s left? Honduras again?
Heard it’s now Colombia.
Colombia media is saying Nov 12 in London.
England are free and at home in London. They have a UEFA home qualifier a few days later. Even if it’s their bench, it would be a great test. I know it’s fun to pick on England as an underachiever but their talent is amazing, and would be fun to see our Nats against The Three Lions.
It would be a fun matchup although their talent is actually far from amazing in my opinion. Unless you mean amazingly mediocre for a rich country with a large population that is obsessed with soccer.
Sometimes we confuse “well-known” with “good.” There are dozens of jordan hendersons and phil jagielkas out there.
I wouldn’t even call england underachievers. They achieve just right.
The work permit system, while somewhat effective in the EPL, doesn’t stop the best players in the world from flooding the teams. They earn the permits. The permits are more effective as you go down the ladder and a player worthy of a permit wouldn’t bother and a player worthy of that level wouldn’t get the permit. So you have Americans in EPL and Champ. but not really below, at least ones worth speaking of.
The effect on the teams is you have cosmopolitan competition in the top division, widespread at some teams, some players at others, that squeezes out Brits. People want to imitate the EPL but it is actually less than ideal for its NT because it is so cosmopolitan that English players have to fight for spots and time. The ones who emerge are good but then what makes a good team is depth and the EPL make quality depth that gets playing time harder.
Be glad MLS is home for so many Americans. That makes it a NT backbone where the EPL merely rewards the best players.
You would think it would make for a backbone for the NT (and it should) but when the head coach looks at it as not good enough, it kind of kills that theory. We need an American coach
He’s ambitious. But if you back up and look at it the period of consistent qualification roughly parallels MLS, give or take our 1990 Caliguri bomb. With MLS there is always a ready set of players in a league second only to Mexico who are solid. That is enough to get us in the Hex routinely. Maybe even qualify routinely. The backbone.
You then add quality from Europe or Mexico that puts us over the top. It’s an advantage regional sides generally lack. It is also an advantage versus teams who depend on more cosmo leagues were domestic players are a lower priority.
Klinsi wants the domestic league even better, and more players at better teams abroad. Without even getting into the issue of how some of those teams underrate and shun Americans, he simply underrates the value of our domestic league to the quality of the pool on a constant basis. The team is never any worse than a MLS all star team it could field. Which makes it inherently solid.
Also, Canada has tons of expat players but it’s never worth a hoot because the player pool is not as committed — they want to emphasize club — and they don’t use MLS as much to create a backbone. TFC and whatnot are not as Canadian as possible. So fewer Canadians play and develop. So there is less of a default safety net below which the team won’t fall.