Johnny Cardoso could very well stay in Spain next season, but it might be in different colors.
Atletico Madrid has reportedly joined the race to acquire Cardoso this summer, Spanish outlet Marca reported Thursday. Cardoso just recently concluded his club season with Real Betis following the La Liga club’s 4-1 loss to Chelsea in the UEFA Europa Conference League Final.
English Premier League side Tottenham reportedly secured a first priority option for Cardoso last August, which would’ve seen Spurs pay €25 million for his services. However, the option is due to expire in the coming weeks, opening the door for Atletico Madrid to negotiate a larger fee.
Fellow EPL side Wolverhampton Wanderers were also linked with Cardoso last January.
Cardoso, 23, scored four goals and registered one assist in 46 combined appearances (3,387 minutes played) in Manuel Pellegrini’s squad. He has been selected for the U.S. men’s national team’s June roster ahead of the upcoming CONCACAF Gold Cup.
Atletico Madrid qualified for the UEFA Champions League after finishing third in La Liga this season while Tottenham is also headed to the Champions League after defeating Manchester United 1-0 in the Europa League Final last week.
This doesn’t sound imminent but if this is done before June 10, Johnny would be able to join them for CWC and be with the USA for the GC.
Sorry typo “not be” with US if he joins Athletico before June 10.
I’m just personally curious about Cardoso himself. I’d put him there alongside Sargent and Tillman as a guy who seems to do extremely well at club but thus far has vanished for country for whatever odd reason.
I’d love to see the guy all these Champions League monsters all seem to want.
“thus far has vanished for country for whatever odd reason.”
Nothing odd about the reasons.
Pulisic was thought to be a star before he got his first cap. And , in very short order he proved everyone right.
Jedi was thought to be a fast, talentless dullard. A lot of people on SBI hated him.
Everyone is different.
Johny, Malik and Josh were not thought of as stars.
Promising but not stars.
These guys all took a while getting comfortable with their clubs to where they could produce like they are doing now. What you don’t mention is how much practice time these guys got with their clubs, especially compared to how much practice time they have had with the USMNT. And how fucked up some of the club situations were.
Josh
Year Apps Goals
2018 6 2
2019 6 3
2020 0 0
2021 7 0
2022 4 0
2023 0 0
2024 4 0
2025 1 0
Total 28 5.
Josh’s first two USMNT years; 2018, 6 caps, 2 goals, 2019 6 caps,3 goals.
Sounds okay but then after the pandemic, he’ had a run of sixteen caps with 0 goals.
Part of that was that Josh was on a fucked up Werder Bremen that played him as a defensive striker and then at Norwich Josh played second fiddle to Pukki. His productivity at Norwich is a recent post-Pukki phenomenon and suggests that he will get better as time goes on. Whether he hits peak form again when the USMNT needs him is open to question.
It’s worth noting that the USMNT in Gregg’s time has not been a fertile breeding ground for goal scoring forwards not named Ricardo Pepi. And Gregg left Ricardo off the WC squad which says something.
Tillman’s club scoring sprees were with Rangers and PSV. What did he have at those clubs that he does not have with the USMNT?
1. A lot more practice time.
2. Probably a more organized offensive scheme.
3. Lots of games vs. crap opponents with Swiss cheese defenses.
I believe it was JR who said Malik likes to lineup on the left and cut in so he can shoot with his right foot. Does that sound just like every other USMNT player in the pool ? Maybe Malik can wait in line to shoot.
I don’t know if Malik will ever be comfortable with the so-called offensive scheme of the USMNT, but he should get his chance this next go around.
You’re asking for Johnny to become a star doing Tyler Adam’s job when he is not Tyler.
The question for Johnny is;
• Is Tyler going to be the starting #6?
• If yes then what is Johnny supposed to do?
• If no then what if Johnny’s role going forward?
I would say we all should know a lot more about Josh, Malik and Johnny once the Gold Cup wraps up. I know you’ve written Josh off but that’s premature. We have lots of time left for injuries, loss of form and formation changes.
One thing I can tell you pretty categorically about coaches under pressure – and Pochettino is assuredly under pressure at the moment, especially after that Nations League fiasco – is that they tend to revert back to what’s worked for them in the past. Poch has always been a 4-2-3-1 guy for most of his career, but that’s just his defensive structure and what happens in possession to me is what’s interesting. The Gold Cup personnel selection strongly suggests a reversion to his Tottenham days, at least for the summer. And that double-pivot 6 of Poch’s generally has a destroyer and a shuttler…and Tyler and Johnny don’t play the same role within it at all. My guess would be Johnny will be given every chance to win the shuttler role. So I don’t think Johnny and Tyler are going to be in competition the way they were under Gregg since Gregg’s 4-3-3 carried only one 6 and then a pair of co-8’s.
I suppose whether or not Pochettino ends up sticking with what he almost certainly is going to do in the Gold Cup probably depends on what happens in the Gold Cup…but if this doesn’t fly I’m going to start getting worried because it will mean he is rapidly running out of time.
quozzel,
“One thing I can tell you pretty categorically about coaches under pressure – and Pochettino is assuredly under pressure at the moment, especially after that Nations League fiasco – is that they tend to revert back to what’s worked for them in the past.”
He’s seen worse. Guys like Pochettino have spent most of their careers under intense pressure on a regular basis. I don’t agree that he’s under any more pressure today than he was on day one of his hire. I think he’s still trying to find the 23-26 guys that he can trust.
On day one he was handed a shit sandwich of a job. Anyone taking this job would have wanted Copa America to road test the team and then, Cupcake, the NL and the Gold Cup to fine tune things.
As of now, if they make it to the Gold Cup final, something they should do, that adds up to six games. Including the four friendlies they have scheduled, they could have ten games left before January 2026 rolls around.
“Poch has always been a 4-2-3-1 guy for most of his career, but that’s just his defensive structure and what happens in possession to me is what’s interesting. The Gold Cup personnel selection strongly suggests a reversion to his Tottenham days, at least for the summer.”
Lining up in a 4-2-3-1 doesn’t mean they can play like Pochettino’s Spurs team. It’s the players not the formation.
Defense can’t be ignored. At Spurs his back four was:
Trippier, Alderwield, Vertongen and Rose.
And they had Loris in goal.
Pochettino may want to revert to that but to date, there has been no indication that our guys can make it work as well as Spurs did.
Spurs had a goal keeper and we don’t. They had a solid CB pair. We don’t.
It’s down to the players. Always.
You want to revert to his Spurs offense? Harry Kane, Son, Dele Alle, Erikssen, Lucas Moura, Sissoko,. As a group that is a very high level of skill, creativity, talent and productivity. Those six guys start for this USMNT. Do we have anyone outside CP who is in their class? I don’t think so.
“And that double-pivot 6 of Poch’s generally has a destroyer and a shuttler…and Tyler and Johnny don’t play the same role within it at all. My guess would be Johnny will be given every chance to win the shuttler role. So I don’t think Johnny and Tyler are going to be in competition the way they were under Gregg since Gregg’s 4-3-3 carried only one 6 and then a pair of co-8’s.”
You started this thread by complaining about Johnny not replicating his club game with the USMNT. Johnny (injured) was not a factor on this latest NL roster. If Tyler and Johnny are on the field at the same time and combining this go around, it will be a firs.
I don’t know why you are complaining about Johnny taking too long to replicate his club form with the USMNT.
“I suppose whether or not Pochettino ends up sticking with what he almost certainly is going to do in the Gold Cup probably depends on what happens in the Gold Cup…but if this doesn’t fly I’m going to start getting worried because it will mean he is rapidly running out of time.”
You should be worried from day one.
Pochettino never had a lot of time.
He’s just going to have to get everything right going forward. It’s a shame, Pochettino is probably a better manager than IV, but they waited too long to move on from Gregg and the great winning culture that he established.
I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a crap World Cup.
But you never know; we could get lucky.
his first cap he looked interesting and scrappy as a DMer who could get stuck in. but since then he’s looked inconsistent on defense, which doesn’t help when we badly need an adams understudy. the last thing i remember him for was some decent passes playing AM in the pitiful september ’24 window. we tied and lost and he’s not good enough to help us as a setup guy.
i think part of the problem is we learned his last name at which point his brazilian-ness dissipated. he needs to be either “joao” (one name guy) or “joao cardoso.”
IV,
“his first cap he looked interesting and scrappy as a DMer who could get stuck in. but since then he’s looked inconsistent on defense, which doesn’t help when we badly need an adams understudy. the last thing i remember him for was some decent passes playing AM in the pitiful september ’24 window. we tied and lost and he’s not good enough to help us as a setup guy.”
This may shock you but players can actually improve over time. Johnny is a much better player than when got his first cap.
That’s why you are hearing all this talk about interest from Atletico Madrid and others. Unlike you, they are not looking at the Johnny who was first capped.
They are looking at the Johnny of May of 2025. You should try that sometime.
Maybe it didn’t matter in high school because by the time a player got significantly better maybe he graduated. But this is professional soccer and Johnny is still USMNT eligible.
And this new, improved Johnny has yet to really get into a line up with the USMNT. He was injured and unavailable in the NL and he has not been able to combine with Tyler and see how that works out.
So all this bitching, whining and panty twisting about Johnny not playing well for the USMNT ignores the fact that he really hasn’t had a chance to try out his newly acquired superpowers with them.
Hopefully he and Tyler are actually are healthy and available so they can be tried out together or individually in this run of games.
y’all routinely do this gibberish. a guy links up with a coach who likes him. plays more. talk about a better club move. we pretend he’s a different player.
he gets called.
same guy.
we do this over and over with sargent, steffen, and others.
he’s not 18. believe it when i see it.
i think he’d be overrating himself if it’s spurs or atleti. as someone who used to watch atleti every week, and still does occasionally, that is a ruthless 352 defending machine. if you don’t play hard every week and defend like heck without many mistakes, you will disappear.
Add Diego Simeone to the list of people IV knows more about soccer than I guess.
you have it backwards as usual. i don’t think you grasp the consistency, intensity, swarming, and quality of defense simeone will expect. if he goes there and plays for them like us, he will get benched and sold.
atleti is a top 3 la liga team that plays intense, consistent defense. think adams, not the also-rans.
Simeone, if he signs him, is saying he’s not concerned about his work rate. If Diego isn’t concerned, I’m not concerned. This isn’t some club kid signing on with a higher level team and making a roster just because his dad’s lawn care business is paying for sponsor space on the scoreboard. Atleti have scouted him and identified him as a target.
“if you don’t play hard every week and defend like heck without many mistakes, you will disappear.”
Explain to us why Atletico Madrid would bother to try and sign Johnny if they were not pretty sure he was worth the money and effort?
atleti’s problem is limited quality depth. you’re not considering they might bring him in as a rotational guy for cup games and easy/busy games. y’all always seem to overestimate why a player is being brought in when it’s fairly obvious he wouldn’t start. if that’s how it looks on paper it’s probably also reality. reality is they need more solid pros they can toss out there for a second division cup opponent or when they have a few games in a couple weeks in europe and domestic cup.
and if he plays as inconsistent for them as for us, simeone will bury him on the bench or II team then transfer him out.
also, y’all always assume someone’s being signed by the coach as opposed to the GM. sometimes the GM makes a wish list and the coach either begs off the choice or if they make the team they have no slack, put up or shut up.
last — i like atleti but they have little presence here vs. real or barca. ever considered they might sign an american for cynical, shirt-moving reasons?
IV,
“atleti’s problem is limited quality depth. you’re not considering they might bring him in as a rotational guy for cup games and easy/busy games. y’all always seem to overestimate why a player is being brought in when it’s fairly obvious he wouldn’t start. if that’s how it looks on paper it’s probably also reality. reality is they need more solid pros they can toss out there for a second division cup opponent or when they have a few games in a couple weeks in europe and domestic cup.
”
It’s a lot cheaper and easier to just promote from within if that is what you need.
“and if he plays as inconsistent for them as for us, simeone will bury him on the bench or II team then transfer him out.”
That’s a stupid thing to say. AM, whether it’s Diego or anyone else are not going to look at Johnny’s bad USMNT games and say ” Hey lets sign that guy and bury him” How stupid is that?
More likely they will just move on or more realistically they will see how he plays for Betis and judge him on that.
You act like Johnny can just call up AM and say hey about signing me? Think of all the money you can make on shirt sales in the US!
I’m pretty sure it does not work that way.
And even if it did, Johnny’s career decisions are not mine or yours to make. If he thinks he can play for them more power to him, let him prove it. It’s his life.
You further imply that Diego might not know who AM are signing. There are some managers, like Sarri, who don’t care about having input on transfers. I doubt that Diego is one of them. Their player pool is full of players with a particular type of character. I’d be pretty surprised if Diego does not screen his signings. But neither you nor I know exactly how much input on signings he does have.
However, I do know that he does make enough money so that if he wants it, he almost certainly has a big say on who they sign.
And if there really is serious interest in Johnny, you’d think Diego would just ring up Mauricio. Maybe I assume too much but I’m thinking those guys all know each other pretty well.
I’m also pretty sure that if Mauricio thought Johnny would rot on the bench at AM or Spurs( another club where Pochettino has many contacts) he’d get in touch with Johnny. It seems to me one more year at Betis , a pretty decent club, and then waiting until after the World Cup, where hopefully Johnny would impress even more people, sounds like a good, if extremely risky, idea.
However, I don’t know what the money is and things can go the opposite way just as easily for Johnny. If a player has a real shot at life changing money, I’m always going to say they should go for it.
I’m suspect that Johnny and his people are well aware of what signing for AM or Spurs or any big club means.
You act like you know more than they do but you don’t.
We’re not talking high school, college or select team management here. This is real life serious business:
https://frontofficesports.com/highest-paid-soccer-managers/#:~:text=The%20highest%2Dpaid%20soccer%20managers%20in%20the%20world%20command%20salaries,and%20has%20achieved%20sustained%20success.
As of March 2025:
Rank Manager Club Total Compensation
1 Diego Simeone Atlético de Madrid $33.5 million
2 Pep Guardiola Manchester City $26.8 million
3 Mikel Arteta Arsenal FC $20.2 million
4 Stefano Pioli Al Nassr $20.03 million
5 David Moyes Everton $16.2 million
T-6 Luis Enrique Paris St Germain $12.4 million
T-6 Matthias Jaissle Al Ahli $12.4 million
8 Jose Mourinho Fenerbahce $11.9 million
9 Jorge Jesus Al-Hilal $11.1 million
T-10 Carlo Ancelotti Real Madrid $10.7 million
T-10 Unai Emery Aston Villa $10.7 million
T-10 Laurent Blanc Al Ittihad $10.7 million
13 Vincent Kompany Bayern Munich $10.1 million
14 Ruben Amorim Manchester United $8.7 million
15 Arne Slot Liverpool $8.3 million
16 Thomas Tuchel England $7.8 million
17 Simone Inzaghi Inter Milan $7.2 million
18 Ange Postecoglou Tottenham $6.7 million
19 Xabi Alonso Bayer Leverkusen $6.6 million
20 Thomas Frank Brentford $5.96 million
“last — i like atleti but they have little presence here vs. real or barca. ever considered they might sign an american for cynical, shirt-moving reasons?”
Have you considered that Betis is a lot closer to Madrid than Chicago or Atlanta is?
And that maybe they know a lot more about Johnny than you do?
dude, you don’t get it. i like simeone. i watched them enough i know how he runs his show. he runs a tight ship. it’s almost like a serie A type team. you get back. you defend like heck in swarming MF traps. you win balls. you send the wings down the chalk. you crash the box and try to finish the ball back in.
johnny in theory could fit that if he played like the guy who had his first cap. tackle anything that moves, accumulate yellows, send the ball to the chalk for creation.
but what i have seen is johnny diving in and getting beat in transition. he does that twice to simeone he will be G.O.N.E. they gave up 30 goals in 38 games, less than a goal per game, second best defense in the league. 3rd place, same amount of losses as real and barca.
it’s an old school team and i don’t see him as sufficient for purpose for the same reason adams lacks a consistent understudy. no one else consistently sweeps up all messes without diving in and allowing a bunch of transition jailbreaks past them.
but, who knows. he has some raw goods. it’s not like we’re saying LDLT should play italian style physical soccer. it’s more consistency than complete misfit.
i just don’t think he’s the level of a top 3 la liga team. i think people on here buy every rumor. and even if the rumor is true the strained feeling about it should hint maybe it’s not to be a starter. atleti’s problem is they struggle with fixture congestion for depth, and will sometimes start tying a lot of games.