Zack Steffen will not be playing a role in the U.S. Men’s National Team’s upcoming March friendlies.
The USMNT announced on Sunday that Steffen has withdrew from this week’s camp after sustaining a minor knee injury with the Columbus Crew on Saturday in MLS duty. Steffen helped the Crew to a 1-0 league win over FC Dallas but was diagnosed with the injury after the match.
NEWS: @jessegonzalez44 added to March #USMNT roster after @zackstef_23 sustains minor knee injury.
— U.S. Soccer MNT (@USMNT) March 17, 2019
Steffen will be replaced by FC Dallas keeper Jesse Gonzalez on the roster. Gonzalez was included in the USMNT’s 1-1 friendly win over Portugal in Nov. 2017 but is still in search of his first cap.
The 23-year-old will battle with Ethan Horvath and Sean Johnson for the No. 1 spot in friendlies against Ecuador and Chile on Mar. 21st and 26th respectively.
Ok, this Jesse G did keep a clean sheet at home against an ibraless galaxy. He has a road draw against NE, giving up a goal, and road loss to Columbus. So my man wild bill hamid has tree clean sheets, one against the defending champs, one up in da Bronx, and a walk in the park clean sheet against SLC. I’m gonna give coach B a pass, but only because he Is the godson of Yaz.
I have hammered away at this for about a year now but the team does not exist just to further Steffen’s pro career and by slacking on finding and preparing backup choices, we are now in a situation where our sole egg in the basket has a crack, and who should relieve him for a bit is an open rather than fairly settled question. The US used to be very good at having as many as 3 keepers truly ready to go……
It is like you don’t think what players do between international windows count. You continue to cry about your “pecking order”. It is not like Horvath is minding the nets at UNC and Hamid is playing in the indoor league. Berhalter has a pretty good idea who his second, third, and probably 4th, 5th, and 6th keepers are, just because he doesn’t share it with doesn’t mean he doesn’t know. Kind of being an ignorant snob to assume that a manager can’t determine who the best players are without seeing them on the exact same pitch against the exact same competition.
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Let’s compare strategies for rating players
IV: I watched this guy in a match a year ago and he made a mistake so, therefore, he can’t possibly be plan B.
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Berhalter: I’ve watched each player’s last twelve starts and have analyzed the data in terms of saves and distribution. I talked with each player’s manager, GK coach, and sporting director several times over the last three months. Consulted with my goalkeeper coach and have visited with each player in person.
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Hmm, who doesn’t have a plan?
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And in case you haven’t heard Mar. 22 US U23s vs Egypt, Mar. 24 US U23s vs the Netherlands at the same location in Spain as the US U20s.
Whatever, dude, what you do is toss out the most meaningful data — how they play in our shirt — and get repeatedly fooled by players who go back to their clubs and play decent for a while. My version captures their glitches at the level that matters. Your version tries to delude itself over and over by harping on isolated cases where they played decent in red, white, and blue. To me you earn the NT shirt by being not even just reliable — which many of our secondary keepers have not been — but quality in appearance after appearance. I don’t apologize or back down whatsoever from expecting repeated positive play to earn high status on the team. I think you’re an apologist for a team that currently has much to apologize for.
“The USMNT announced on Sunday that Steffen has withdrew…”
Grammar?
Jesse Gonzalez replacing steffan
And it starts. I wonder how many more get injured before the 1st game? I’m thinking 1 in camp. Then 1 or 2 get hurt in the game or during the practice leading to them getting released before the 2nd game.
This is why I feel we need to keep playing guys like Shaq Moore, Eric Palmer-Brown, Carter-Vickers, and why Sargent and Weah should be on this team. And Novakovich should DEFINITELY be on this team.
Amon also is surprising to not get a sniff at all.
Wait, Steffen’s injury is the reason why we need to bring in Shaq Moore?
Cuz Shaq rhymes with Zack.
The positive version of this is “experiment and see what other good players we have in the pool.” The negative version of this is “be aware of what else is out there and keep it trained up and playing some because you never know if the starter gets hurt.” The USMNT used to be good at finding Plan A and then moving on to Plans B and C. But for some odd reason, as the team has worsened, we have fallen in love with pecking orders and big club affiliations instead of performance and finding a set of 23 performers. Kind of an arrogant snob thing where we assume ahead of time we have the lineup sorted. Might want to watch how people actually play and adjust instead. And once you know Steffen is reliable why we didn’t move on to sorting out Horvath vs The Rest, I don’t get. When you are in the friendly phase of the cycle to be sitting here like ok what now, is dense; It should be, we know who the backups are because they pitched shutouts, not, we annointed x and y and they better play well.