“perhaps you are not familiar with the 1990s era stories where meola was our starting keeper in the world cup and he gets like lower division english offers, barely plays, comes back to minors and indoors then MLS.”
Ah yes, more weak-minded Bullshit.
Tony wasn’t that good
“or maybe the part confusing you is how friedel and howard would get signed at a good club like liverpool or manU, barely play then get dropped, then go to some second tier EPL team and become the team star and somehow win EPL keeper of the year, which is a fairly strong hint they weren’t accurately evaluated by the big clubs they first came to.”
As for Friedel and Howard what “it” is a fairly strong hint of is that both went to clubs where they faced strong competition and came out
second best. Liverpool and Man U. are very competitive places. It happens.
Brad and Timmy learned from this and did much better when they got another chance.
This may shock you Mr Voice, but not everyone hits their peak form first time out. Good players learn from this and then improve.
People often rag on Chelsea for having let DeBruyne and Salah go. But the truth is, they were not DEBRUYNE and SALAH when they were at Chelsea. They had to go somewhere else and learn and improve and then become the players who we all know today.
You’re like a lot of fans here.
A USMNT eligible player has one great game vs great opposition and you think that he’s going to do that every single game for the rest of his life. Or, on the flip side, a USMNT eligible player has a shit game against tough opposition then he is crap for the rest of his life.
I hate to tell you this but that’s not how it works.
“or even horvath now who couldn’t keep a starting gig for his first championship team, goes on loan, his new loan team wins promotion. or steffen signs city but can only play on loan in the championship. do you not see the pattern there? particularly on the ones who won best keeper awards after being dropped by english UCL sides.”
You see the patterns you want to see.
Horvath has only recently begun developing the kind of confidence that consistent starter needs. Would he have developed that if Brugge had played him more? Maybe but Mignolet was a better keeper.
Steffen has always been terrifically talented but mentally fragile. The result is he is an inconsistent keeper.
The most important part of being a keeper is mental and Steffen and Horvath are both lacking there.
That’s why Matt is the best.
However. they still have time to develop. There’s a reason so many keepers are going on to play well into their late 30’s and even longer.
“so, yeah, turner getting to start at his EPL team is rare. it in fact probably helps who his owner is.”
Turner ‘s starts at Arsenal are rare because Ramsdale is having a career year.
“all due respect but nobody american was getting EPL gigs before swansea handed bradley a job. period.”
That’s because there were no American managers with enough European club experience unless you count Gregg who was fired by Hammarby before Bob was hired at Swansea. And Gregg was not swamped with job offers like Jesse allegedly was afterwards. Bob went to the trouble of getting a job at Staebek and doing well. Then he got a gig from an American owned French club , Le Havre. He had them well on their way to promotion before leaving for Swansea. He should have stayed.
“he got a chance from the AMERICAN organization. he and the owners got crap from the WELSH fans who were appeased when he wallowed.”
Swansea was not an AMERICAN organization. It was a team with American ownership, which is not quite the same thing.
Bob’s record was awful. He should have never taken the job in the first place. The owners sold him a bill of goods and did not support him.
” leeds = american owners (49ers). pulisic has not fully played out yet, new coach, no move yet, and that’s an odd example given the whole abramovich fiasco and how the whole team detonated.if you want i could go down a list, CCV at spurs, etc. because these days you’re only getting into england with the right passport or a work permit that means you are already star NT stuff.”
Now you’re really throwing that crap up against a wall and seeing what sticks
CCV was born in UK. He was loaned out several times by Spurs and if you chart his loans increased his value with almost all of them.
By the time he got to Celtic he had improved so much that someone wanted to pay the price to buy him.
For some reason you seem to think that players are fully formed as soon as they get promoted to a senior team for the first team. Guess what? Players can improve (or get worse) over time.
“i don’t buy a guy who can start for celtic couldn’t start anywhere in EPL”
Nobody said he couldn’t. Can CCV start in the EPL? Probably. VVD came from Celtic. But there are many guys out of the EPL who can start in the EPL. There are guys in MLS , maybe many guys, who can start in the EPL.
But don’t confuse being able to start in the EPL as being the same as having the opportunity to start in the EPL.
It is not all about talent and ability. Money has a lot to do with it. There are a lot of guys in the EPL who won’t get a chance to start in the EPL.
“and had to play championship. i think there is a bias and the bias is weird meanwhile we’ve run a series of people through schalke, dortmund, etc. not everyone gets a good shake — pepi — but more of our players seem to stick in germany. ever considered there are some biases involved in certain countries? how are there not more americans playing in spain or italy, for example. i get maybe not barca or madrid’s teams. but not even the midtable or bottom teams? like musah sits there. does that sound accurate? sorry but i firmly believe there are leagues that like us and ones that have biases where we’re clueless tactical clods. or do you forget the way lampard discussed pulisic??? as in the guy you’re beating the drum for leaving CFC.”
You’re taking a lot of normal situations and trying to portray them as some kind of conspiracy.
There are not a lot more Americans playing in Spain or Italy probably because racism is pretty severe there and more overt. Culturally it is easier to fit in the UK , Scandinavia, Germany and the Low countries. They do a better job there of hiding their racism.
Americans gravitate towards the UK because of the language. It turns out they speak a version of English there.
Americans stick in Germany because the permit situation there is a little more friendly towards Americans. Also, there is a long history of American outfield players in Germany with guys like Dolo, Claudio Reyna, Eric Wynalda. McBride, Joe Max Moore, and many others
“sorry but you’re playing political games on sweeper keeper. when turner was up for the job, were there or were there not folks saying regardless how well he keeped that he couldn’t be the “1” because he wasn’t a slick sweeper keeper but instead tends to just hoof it out? exactly.”
Folks are always talking. Fuck them. Who cares? If Matt listened to them he’d be an assistant at Fairleigh Dickinson today.
“i am telling you that such things are now part of the calculation and could in fact result in weaker shotstopping keepers because a guy who simply does the job gets dinged for not being jorge campos.”
Yeah but you are not credible. Truth and accuracy is not something you are interested in.
“You’re arguing against reality just like if you were trying to argue it was meant to be adams the whole time as DM and not like we tried to instead use a different type of passing 6, bradley, yeuill, trapp, etc.”
Reality? We don’t need no stinking reality!
Those “other” 6’s were tried out because unless I’m very wrong Tyler was injured a long time with an adductor injury. There was and still is a need to find a suitable Tyler backup. Bradley is the only guy who thought he could play the 6.
JK said that as a 6 Bradley was nothing special and did not play him there.
“it’s cute rhetoric but the opposite of the reality i vividly remember enduring. GB wanted cute and eventually woke up and chose the obvious superior traditional type player. the team then improved.”
Yeah? So what? The team improved because they got better players and Gregg figured it out a bit better. They don’t really have a keeper in the pool who is particularly good with his feet so they don’t go crazy with that. But it is possible to be good with your feet and be a good keeper.
You act like a great shot stopper must suck with their feet and being good with your feet means that you can’t be a great shot stopper.
This is horseshit of the highest order.
I don’t see any keepers in the system that are great with their feet ( Slonina sucks ) but it doesn’t mean one won’t eventually come up.
V: this is not complicated. if you win GK of the year in EPL — better than the big club keepers — then how were you second behind them on the same team. this suggests the evaluations that led to you being cast off from the big club were inaccurate or biased. you hide behind the fanboys’ favorite — roster competition — except the awards reflect a broader panel of experts, journalists, team captains, and fans thought these american keepers won an even bigger pool leaguewide competition. how do you then lose liverpool or manU? it makes no logical sense. it suggests americans are viewed harshly. if your view of the supposed competition was accurate, they should have settled into second rate status at second rate clubs. they did end up at second rate clubs but they ended up seen as the top keepers in the whole league. which suggests rather than them being “inherently everton material” that hmm maybe manU was the wrong one.
re meola, you clearly never watched some of the trash manning some english nets in the 1990s. the level has improved post-Bosman. and what you are missing is he was not only deemed unworthy of the EPL, he was barely getting time playing low division soccer there. i have seen lower division english soccer in person. to me it’s roughly NCAA or USL level. i mean, have you not watched a wrexham game? it’s solid but hardly amazing. it’s often quite kickball.
i never said shotstoppers can’t use their feet. i said, fairly clearly, that our current 1 had to fight for months to get his job while overcoming constant chatter about whether he was technical enough for the snobs, when he’s actually significantly better at his primary goalkeeping job. that people wanted to go with a struggling steffen just because he was in theory a better sweeper keeper. worse, the fanboys wanted to ignore not just the keeping errors but also the regular giveaways for goals mr. slick was giving up with errant passes. so, yes, i say find the better shotstoppers first and then worry about their foot skills.
to me the periods of US soccer success are built around a few positions working well and one is a good keeper in the net.
“this suggests the evaluations that led to you being cast off from the big club were inaccurate or biased. you hide behind the fanboys’ favorite — roster competition — except the awards reflect a broader panel of experts, journalists, team captains, and fans thought these american keepers won an even bigger pool leaguewide competition. how do you then lose liverpool or manU? it makes no logical sense. it suggests americans are viewed harshly.”
More fractured logic.
Competition for a place in any sport is about what can you do for me NOW. Especially in the EPL.
If Friedel eventually turned out to be a better keeper than whoever beat him out at Liverpool, the key word is “eventually”.
EPL clubs, especially big clubs like Liverpool and Man U. with very high expectations, need you to be the best option right then and there. Not in a year or so. For those clubs “development” is different than for other teams.
“except the awards reflect a broader panel of experts, journalists, team captains, and fans thought these american keepers won an even bigger pool leaguewide competition.”
Fuck them.
The job of picking the roster is the manager’s if he gets it wrong it’s his ass on the line. Your broad panel there, nothing happens to them if they are wrong. Also, the manager is the only one who knows what he really wants out of these players not your fucking panel.
Walter Winterbottom was England’s first full-time manager in 1946, but the team was still picked by a committee (?!) until Alf Ramsey took over in 1963. England won the World Cup three years later.
If you want to hide behind a popularity contest committee, go for it.
Meantime the real manager has games to win. NOW.
This boils down to who runs the team, the manager or a committee of kibitzers.
“re meola, you clearly never watched some of the trash manning some english nets in the 1990s. the level has improved post-Bosman. and what you are missing is he was not only deemed unworthy of the EPL, he was barely getting time playing low division soccer there. i have seen lower division english soccer in person. to me it’s roughly NCAA or USL level. i mean, have you not watched a wrexham game? it’s solid but hardly amazing. it’s often quite kickball.”
You have no idea what I watched. You think Tony was entitled to a spot in the EPL ( By the way ,the EPL started in 1992 so it was not in existence around the time of the 1990 World Cup when Tony would have been most prominent)
No player is entitled to a spot on an EPL team.
What they have to do is convince the manager. If they can’t do that then they are out regardless of how talented they are. Tony didn’t convince enough people in the UK that he was worth a spot.
Maybe they hated him because he was an American.
Maybe they thought he was a jerk from New Jersey.
Maybe he wasn’t as good keeper as his competition over there.
The bottom line is all of this was around 33 years ago and you don’t know what you are talking about.
As for Wrexham, Tony would have a hard time making that team. He’s a tough guy but at 54 years old playing keeper is can be hard on the body, even at that level.
V: you’re deeply confused. my point is they wouldn’t let him start lower division. whether he could start EPL is besides the point as they wouldn’t let him start there third tier. when you imply he was not worthy you have apparently never seen some of the 90s EPL keepers. ed de goey, etc. and he was third tier. i saw fulham play once in the lower divisions (pre-century) where they tied the game because the keeper whiffed a clear and it rolled right in. the dynamo had a former starting SPL keeper at gretna come in c. 2010 who gave up 2 howlers to FCD in about 15 minutes. you don’t know what you’re talking about.
i find the debates about player destinations interesting in part because in the 1990s and on up towards 2010 rarely would we be signed by good teams and we were routinely busted down to lower divisions. keller played spanish second division at his peak. and friedel and howard both had to get dumped by a leading team to find a midtable side who would play them regularly, at which point they won keeper of the year type awards.
you’re pretending bias does not exist despite this, and despite the fact i still have to listen in recent years to lampard — who played here — diss pulisic as tactically naive despite climbing to the point he has. when IMO lampard makes CFC worse. when IMO US players would flood into their various divisions (as in germany) if work permits went away. one thing i definitely think we are better at is keepers.
all you’re doing is basically reciting fanboy tropes about how the coaches know everything and see the practices and i don’t. if they are such perfect sorting machines none would ever be fired for losing or incompetence. if they are such perfect sorting machines transfers wouldn’t exist. the coaches would sort you at your first deal precisely where you belong and that would be that. transfers and loans exist in part because some guy signs MLS who has EPL ability, or signs EPL and is really c’ship level. but they also exist because some EPL coaches have big egos and a lot at stake but not really the chops to tell players apart.
classic example: landon donovan couldn’t stick in germany. how does a guy who couldn’t keep a midtable BL job and was shipped off to MLS be worthy of top shelf BM a few years later? the answer you’re struggling with is someone was wrong at BL before.
the trope is basically a “blame the player” trope. i have been on a HS team that starting the wrong people and thus blew state, when it had players off 2 select teams that won their version of state. i have been on a college team where the coach was a jerk who could recruit but ran people off every year. i was long ago disabused of the ideas of papal infallibility you’re pushing. i don’t buy no americans are worthy of coaching EPL. i don’t buy the way we get treated is 100% fair and accurate. ergo i tend to suggest players be picky where they go precisely because it’s not 100% fair. to me the coaches have a pile of talent that usually flatters them no matter how bad they do. my HS coach got awards rather than fired for how we did with state winning talent. because on paper quarters looks like success. to then hear you pretend like the world is 100% fair over there is amusing.
Looks like Juventus may make a move for Weah. Price tag looks to be set around 10 million euros.
the move worked for him because he had an american owner and was given a sincere chance at starting, which i think US keepers are capable of earning. the problem is US keepers are usually only given that sort of chance at a second or third tier EPL side like everton or villa — villa having american owners too. to be real this is historically true in a variety of european leagues — keller was playing second division ball for rayo when he was surely la liga material.
it may also help that i think the sweeper keeper obsession is waning just a little where pure shotstopping is back in fashion, both USMNT and club. i think our sporting youthscape is well set up to churn out athletic shotstoppers, much more so than keepers with field player foot skills and composure.
“US keepers are usually only given that sort of chance at a second or third tier EPL side like everton or villa — villa having american owners too. to be real this is historically true in a variety of european leagues —”
More shaky, bullshit logic from you.
Villa’s first American keeper was Brad Friedel who proved his EPL Superman status at Blackburn Rovers for 8 seasons before coming over to Villa. If being an American influenced Villa to sign Guzan to back up Brad then I would say Brad had a lot more to do with it than Randy Lerner being an American.
Chelsea’s owner is an American. That’s done wonders for Pulisic.
Swansea’s owners were American. That sure helped Bob Bradley.
American owners fire American players all the time. It turns out in America we have lots of sports franchises where that kind of ruthlessness by owners is displayed all the time. Just because the team is in the UK is no reason for these owners to change their behavior.
American bosses are just like owners everywhere. The bottom line is what matters.
Sweeper keeper is not an “obsession”. There is no reason you can’t you do that and be a great shot stopper as well. That’s another one of those artificial distinctions.
perhaps you are not familiar with the 1990s era stories where meola was our starting keeper in the world cup and he gets like lower division english offers, barely plays, comes back to minors and indoors then MLS. or maybe the part confusing you is how friedel and howard would get signed at a good club like liverpool or manU, barely play then get dropped, then go to some second tier EPL team and become the team star and somehow win EPL keeper of the year, which is a fairly strong hint they weren’t accurately evaluated by the big clubs they first came to. or even horvath now who couldn’t keep a starting gig for his first championship team, goes on loan, his new loan team wins promotion. or steffen signs city but can only play on loan in the championship.
do you not see the pattern there? particularly on the ones who won best keeper awards after being dropped by english UCL sides.
so, yeah, turner getting to start at his EPL team is rare. it in fact probably helps who his owner is.
all due respect but nobody american was getting EPL gigs before swansea handed bradley a job. period. he got a chance from the AMERICAN organization. he and the owners got crap from the WELSH fans who were appeased when he wallowed. leeds = american owners (49ers). pulisic has not fully played out yet, new coach, no move yet, and that’s an odd example given the whole abramovich fiasco and how the whole team detonated.
if you want i could go down a list, CCV at spurs, etc. i don’t buy a guy who can start for celtic couldn’t start anywhere in EPL and had to play championship. i think there is a bias and the bias is weird because these days you’re only getting into england with the right passport or a work permit that means you are already star NT stuff.
meanwhile we’ve run a series of people through schalke, dortmund, etc. not everyone gets a good shake — pepi — but more of our players seem to stick in germany. ever considered there are some biases involved in certain countries? how are there not more americans playing in spain or italy, for example. i get maybe not barca or madrid’s teams. but not even the midtable or bottom teams? like musah sits there. does that sound accurate? sorry but i firmly believe there are leagues that like us and ones that have biases where we’re clueless tactical clods. or do you forget the way lampard discussed pulisic??? as in the guy you’re beating the drum for leaving CFC.
sorry but you’re playing political games on sweeper keeper. when turner was up for the job, were there or were there not folks saying regardless how well he keeped that he couldn’t be the “1” because he wasn’t a slick sweeper keeper but instead tends to just hoof it out? exactly. i am telling you that such things are now part of the calculation and could in fact result in weaker shotstopping keepers because a guy who simply does the job gets dinged for not being jorge campos.
you’re arguing against reality just like if you were trying to argue it was meant to be adams the whole time as DM and not like we tried to instead use a different type of passing 6, bradley, yeuill, trapp, etc.
it’s cute rhetoric but the opposite of the reality i vividly remember enduring. GB wanted cute and eventually woke up and chose the obvious superior traditional type player. the team then improved.
Umm, Turner got better at passing and dribbling we didn’t stop playing out of the back. Virtually everyone plays out from the back today. Sometimes you get punished. Just like Turner got punished against Canada by hoofing it up field. Of course he was hitting a flat ball on a frozen parking lot and your preferred duo of Richards and MRob got out athleted by Jonathan David but you know Canada isn’t athletic.
JR: sorry, dude, but turner won his US job keeping in the net and hoofing it out. i realize the revised snob thesis since he did play some at arsenal is he must be better than we thought. i see where that thesis is being repackaged as his footwork must be better. you’re just trying to find a way to accept that he’s dominated the US job so bad you have to come to terms.
ironically he’s dominated it so much that i — having seen what happened with steffen before him — actually want the keeping time shared out so we actually get proof of concept on his backups.
JR: do i have to remind you what canada did to ream in NL 2019? re WCQ if you look at the tape goal 1 is larin, not david or davies, and their second goal is on yedlin getting dribbled when we were playing a high line down a goal in injury time. i also find chuckle inducing the idea we should respond to an athletic speedy opponent with anything other than the most athletic backs. what, do you want to stick ream and brooks out there and go for 0-5? basically a costa rica away scenario i assume.
personally what i get out of this is why on earth would you play a high line offsides approach on canada. you sit back and there is no room for a wall ball before the keeper comes out and snags it. nor is there room for their speed to get past us other than on the odd transition play. maybe GB’s brain froze up there in february canada.
Mr. Voice
“V: you’re deeply confused. my point is they wouldn’t let him start lower division. whether he could start EPL is beside the point as they wouldn’t let him start there third tier. when you imply he was not worthy you have apparently never seen some of the 90s EPL keepers. ed de goey, etc. and he was third tier. i saw fulham play once in the lower divisions (pre-century) where they tied the game because the keeper whiffed a clear and it rolled right in. the dynamo had a former starting SPL keeper at gretna come in c. 2010 who gave up 2 howlers to FCD in about 15 minutes. you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Big deal.
If the Brits or any country want to keep Americans from starting or playing in their leagues, or in Meola’s case, force them to leave the country when they don’t live up to the terms of their work permit, I’m okay with that.
The teams belong to them and it’s their right to make it harder on or even exclude foreigners.
Countries, including the USA, do that sort of thing all the time to protect domestic workers. In the UK at the time getting a work permit was fairly tough. One reason Germany had so many Americans is that their work permits were a little less stringent.
The regulations were often full of loopholes and inconsistencies but basically, if a UK club were interested in signing you they had to research you and decide if you could get a permit. Some clubs were better than others at gaming the system to get a permit. For example, one reason Timmy Howard got to Man U. is that he has a Hungarian grandmother and thus got himself a Hungarian passport. Going after an American player was really tough to do for the club unless they were of the requisite stature like a Landon for example. So, clubs did not do it a lot.
I’m not sure but since Brexit, I think the permitting situation is less onerous but I’ll let you figure it out:
As I mentioned before, Tony eventually had to leave the UK because he couldn’t keep up with the permit requirements. If MLS wants to set up stringent work permit rules to ban all but the very best Brits or any furriner from working here to save the jobs for Americans
I’m fine with that.
“i find the debates about player destinations interesting in part because in the 1990s and on up towards 2010 rarely would we be signed by good teams and we were routinely busted down to lower divisions. keller played spanish second division at his peak. “
Routinely huh? Kasey, my favorite keeper transferred from the EPL ‘s Leicester City to Rayo Vallecano, a newly promoted LaLiga side and spent two years there, playing in LaLiga, then went back to Spurs.
Kasey Keller never played in the Spanish second division.
You can look it up.
“and friedel and howard both had to get dumped by a leading team to find a midtable side who would play them regularly, at which point they won keeper of the year type awards.”
You have such great hindsight.
Timmy became the #1 and Man U. and was going great until he made a howler vs Porto in the Champions League. Eventually he lost the #1 role to Roy Carroll but then won it back when Carroll proved to be just as shaky. Timmy finally was put out of his misery when SAF had the chance to finally sign Van De Sar an all time great keeper, much better than Timmy and that is how Moyes got Howard.
Brad got his shot at Liverpool and lost out to Sander Westerveld. That led to him getting a shot at Blackburn where he gained his Superman status.
All the teams I mentioned were in the EPL, by the way.
“you’re pretending bias does not exist despite this, and despite the fact i still have to listen in recent years to lampard — who played here — diss pulisic as tactically naive despite climbing to the point he has. when IMO lampard makes CFC worse. when IMO US players would flood into their various divisions (as in germany) if work permits went away. one thing i definitely think we are better at is keepers.”
Bias does exist. You’re one of the best examples I can think of. Your posts drip with it.
As for Pulisic, if he were tactically naïve, that would be a slight on the Germans not Americans. As a pro , CP10 is a German player.
If you notice, look at Pulisic’s BVB successor Sancho, another “German player”. How’s he doing in the EPL? Kai Havertz? Timo Werner?.
Your views are outdated. The American keeper thing has not been a thing since the days of Brad, Kasey, Timmy, and Brad Polar bear, We have not been at that level since they went away. The proof is in the pudding.
As for the work permit thing, the late great Giorgio Chinaglia was saying years ago to anyone who would listen that if the UK didn’t have such tough work permits , we would have had lots of Americans over there a long time ago.
“all you’re doing is basically reciting fanboy tropes about how the coaches know everything and see the practices and i don’t. if they are such perfect sorting machines none would ever be fired for losing or incompetence. if they are such perfect sorting machines transfers wouldn’t exist. the coaches would sort you at your first deal precisely where you belong and that would be that. transfers and loans exist in part because some guy signs MLS who has EPL ability, or signs EPL and is really c’ship level. but they also exist because some EPL coaches have big egos and a lot at stake but not really the chops to tell players apart.”
Fanboy trope? Is that a drag queen revue at the Palace Bar in Miami?
Coaches know more about their players, their tactics and their practices and so on than you ,the Imperative Voice, do. They know more about it than I do.
That’s just obvious.
Do you have better judgement than a Manager or a Director of football about tactics, players, etc.? Are you better judge? Would you be better at their job than they are?
We don’t know because you are not in a situation where you are held accountable for your judgement. You are free to sit at your keyboard and with your perfect hindsight claim any damn fool thing and nothing will happen to you if you get it all wrong. You have it easy.
As fans on SBI, we all do. We have the right to complain about all this stuff because that is the point of SBI.
But, having the right to criticize doesn’t mean you know what you are talking about. And posting on here means glass houses and all that stuff.
The chances that Gregg got held accountable for his judgement were about a million times greater than the chances of you ever facing accountability for your judgement.
I’m a big believer in selfishness and self-interest. Is Gregg going to start a player or set up a team to play a certain way, if he didn’t think that it would help him get a result? No way. I’m pretty sure he always felt that he was doing what he thought was best for the team. And what was good for the team was good for Gregg.
That doesn’t mean I agree with everything Gregg does. But that also doesn’t mean I agree with all of your criticisms of him either
I’m like most of you. I’ll agree with the person whose opinion seems to align most closely with mine. Sheep have nothing on me.
Do I think the Brits are biased against Americans. Absolutely. Sure. But are they also biased against anyone who isn’t like them?
Tell you what, read their sports media going back as many years as you want. You will find they almost always refer to the Scottish winger, or the Brazilian fullback the Italian keeper, the Belgian striker etc., etc., . They are very consistent about that .
But if you can do the business, if you can save them from relegation, they will still refer to you by where you come from but they will make up songs about you.
The point is all nationalities go through this over there. You do not like it? Stay in MLS.
Or agitate against it like Weston has always done. He is out there taking a risk that you don’t at home safe behind your keyboard.
“classic example: landon donovan couldn’t stick in germany. how does a guy who couldn’t keep a midtable BL job and was shipped off to MLS be worthy of top shelf BM a few years later? the answer you’re struggling with is someone was wrong at BL before.”
Have you ever tried to work in a foreign country where maybe you didn’t know the language or the culture. I have. It is really hard.
Landon, about 18 years old or so, at the time, couldn’t stick in Germany because he was miserable. . It wasn’t like it is today where Gio can have his parents get him into the starting lineup and play every minute. LD did not have Erling Haaland as his personal uber. LD couldn’t face time all his friends and family at home.
Leverkusen were not particularly sensitive to LD’s homesickness. Maybe LD could have worked it all out if he were getting to play and prove his worth but at the time those guys were more about paying your dues, seniority and outright mistrust of the SoCal kid. So there’s no joy on the field and no joy off the field.
And an unhappy Landon is a shit player.
So, fuck it, LD engineers a LOAN move back to the Quakes, he wasn’t “shipped out “and bingo, right away is an instant star. I do not blame him one bit. I would have done the same.
And he was brought in to Bayern Munich years later because Klinsmann, ever the risk taker, knew he had the talent and wanted him there.
That’s twice that LD has contributed to JK’s getting canned.
“the trope is basically a “blame the player” trope. i have been on a HS team that starting the wrong people and thus blew state, when it had players off 2 select teams that won their version of state. i have been on a college team where the coach was a jerk who could recruit but ran people off every year. i was long ago disabused of the ideas of papal infallibility you’re pushing. i don’t buy no americans are worthy of coaching EPL. i don’t buy the way we get treated is 100% fair and accurate. ergo i tend to suggest players be picky where they go precisely because it’s not 100% fair. to me the coaches have a pile of talent that usually flatters them no matter how bad they do. my HS coach got awards rather than fired for how we did with state winning talent. because on paper quarters looks like success. to then hear you pretend like the world is 100% fair over there is amusing.”
You do not buy a lot of stuff. That is fine no one is really selling. These guys are not in high school or college anymore.
Mr. Voice,
“perhaps you are not familiar with the 1990s era stories where meola was our starting keeper in the world cup and he gets like lower division english offers, barely plays, comes back to minors and indoors then MLS.”
Ah yes, more weak-minded Bullshit.
Tony wasn’t that good
“or maybe the part confusing you is how friedel and howard would get signed at a good club like liverpool or manU, barely play then get dropped, then go to some second tier EPL team and become the team star and somehow win EPL keeper of the year, which is a fairly strong hint they weren’t accurately evaluated by the big clubs they first came to.”
As for Friedel and Howard what “it” is a fairly strong hint of is that both went to clubs where they faced strong competition and came out
second best. Liverpool and Man U. are very competitive places. It happens.
Brad and Timmy learned from this and did much better when they got another chance.
This may shock you Mr Voice, but not everyone hits their peak form first time out. Good players learn from this and then improve.
People often rag on Chelsea for having let DeBruyne and Salah go. But the truth is, they were not DEBRUYNE and SALAH when they were at Chelsea. They had to go somewhere else and learn and improve and then become the players who we all know today.
You’re like a lot of fans here.
A USMNT eligible player has one great game vs great opposition and you think that he’s going to do that every single game for the rest of his life. Or, on the flip side, a USMNT eligible player has a shit game against tough opposition then he is crap for the rest of his life.
I hate to tell you this but that’s not how it works.
“or even horvath now who couldn’t keep a starting gig for his first championship team, goes on loan, his new loan team wins promotion. or steffen signs city but can only play on loan in the championship. do you not see the pattern there? particularly on the ones who won best keeper awards after being dropped by english UCL sides.”
You see the patterns you want to see.
Horvath has only recently begun developing the kind of confidence that consistent starter needs. Would he have developed that if Brugge had played him more? Maybe but Mignolet was a better keeper.
Steffen has always been terrifically talented but mentally fragile. The result is he is an inconsistent keeper.
The most important part of being a keeper is mental and Steffen and Horvath are both lacking there.
That’s why Matt is the best.
However. they still have time to develop. There’s a reason so many keepers are going on to play well into their late 30’s and even longer.
“so, yeah, turner getting to start at his EPL team is rare. it in fact probably helps who his owner is.”
Turner ‘s starts at Arsenal are rare because Ramsdale is having a career year.
“all due respect but nobody american was getting EPL gigs before swansea handed bradley a job. period.”
That’s because there were no American managers with enough European club experience unless you count Gregg who was fired by Hammarby before Bob was hired at Swansea. And Gregg was not swamped with job offers like Jesse allegedly was afterwards. Bob went to the trouble of getting a job at Staebek and doing well. Then he got a gig from an American owned French club , Le Havre. He had them well on their way to promotion before leaving for Swansea. He should have stayed.
“he got a chance from the AMERICAN organization. he and the owners got crap from the WELSH fans who were appeased when he wallowed.”
Swansea was not an AMERICAN organization. It was a team with American ownership, which is not quite the same thing.
Bob’s record was awful. He should have never taken the job in the first place. The owners sold him a bill of goods and did not support him.
” leeds = american owners (49ers). pulisic has not fully played out yet, new coach, no move yet, and that’s an odd example given the whole abramovich fiasco and how the whole team detonated.if you want i could go down a list, CCV at spurs, etc. because these days you’re only getting into england with the right passport or a work permit that means you are already star NT stuff.”
Now you’re really throwing that crap up against a wall and seeing what sticks
CCV was born in UK. He was loaned out several times by Spurs and if you chart his loans increased his value with almost all of them.
By the time he got to Celtic he had improved so much that someone wanted to pay the price to buy him.
For some reason you seem to think that players are fully formed as soon as they get promoted to a senior team for the first team. Guess what? Players can improve (or get worse) over time.
“i don’t buy a guy who can start for celtic couldn’t start anywhere in EPL”
Nobody said he couldn’t. Can CCV start in the EPL? Probably. VVD came from Celtic. But there are many guys out of the EPL who can start in the EPL. There are guys in MLS , maybe many guys, who can start in the EPL.
But don’t confuse being able to start in the EPL as being the same as having the opportunity to start in the EPL.
It is not all about talent and ability. Money has a lot to do with it. There are a lot of guys in the EPL who won’t get a chance to start in the EPL.
“and had to play championship. i think there is a bias and the bias is weird meanwhile we’ve run a series of people through schalke, dortmund, etc. not everyone gets a good shake — pepi — but more of our players seem to stick in germany. ever considered there are some biases involved in certain countries? how are there not more americans playing in spain or italy, for example. i get maybe not barca or madrid’s teams. but not even the midtable or bottom teams? like musah sits there. does that sound accurate? sorry but i firmly believe there are leagues that like us and ones that have biases where we’re clueless tactical clods. or do you forget the way lampard discussed pulisic??? as in the guy you’re beating the drum for leaving CFC.”
You’re taking a lot of normal situations and trying to portray them as some kind of conspiracy.
There are not a lot more Americans playing in Spain or Italy probably because racism is pretty severe there and more overt. Culturally it is easier to fit in the UK , Scandinavia, Germany and the Low countries. They do a better job there of hiding their racism.
Americans gravitate towards the UK because of the language. It turns out they speak a version of English there.
Americans stick in Germany because the permit situation there is a little more friendly towards Americans. Also, there is a long history of American outfield players in Germany with guys like Dolo, Claudio Reyna, Eric Wynalda. McBride, Joe Max Moore, and many others
“sorry but you’re playing political games on sweeper keeper. when turner was up for the job, were there or were there not folks saying regardless how well he keeped that he couldn’t be the “1” because he wasn’t a slick sweeper keeper but instead tends to just hoof it out? exactly.”
Folks are always talking. Fuck them. Who cares? If Matt listened to them he’d be an assistant at Fairleigh Dickinson today.
“i am telling you that such things are now part of the calculation and could in fact result in weaker shotstopping keepers because a guy who simply does the job gets dinged for not being jorge campos.”
Yeah but you are not credible. Truth and accuracy is not something you are interested in.
“You’re arguing against reality just like if you were trying to argue it was meant to be adams the whole time as DM and not like we tried to instead use a different type of passing 6, bradley, yeuill, trapp, etc.”
Reality? We don’t need no stinking reality!
Those “other” 6’s were tried out because unless I’m very wrong Tyler was injured a long time with an adductor injury. There was and still is a need to find a suitable Tyler backup. Bradley is the only guy who thought he could play the 6.
JK said that as a 6 Bradley was nothing special and did not play him there.
“it’s cute rhetoric but the opposite of the reality i vividly remember enduring. GB wanted cute and eventually woke up and chose the obvious superior traditional type player. the team then improved.”
Yeah? So what? The team improved because they got better players and Gregg figured it out a bit better. They don’t really have a keeper in the pool who is particularly good with his feet so they don’t go crazy with that. But it is possible to be good with your feet and be a good keeper.
You act like a great shot stopper must suck with their feet and being good with your feet means that you can’t be a great shot stopper.
This is horseshit of the highest order.
I don’t see any keepers in the system that are great with their feet ( Slonina sucks ) but it doesn’t mean one won’t eventually come up.
V: this is not complicated. if you win GK of the year in EPL — better than the big club keepers — then how were you second behind them on the same team. this suggests the evaluations that led to you being cast off from the big club were inaccurate or biased. you hide behind the fanboys’ favorite — roster competition — except the awards reflect a broader panel of experts, journalists, team captains, and fans thought these american keepers won an even bigger pool leaguewide competition. how do you then lose liverpool or manU? it makes no logical sense. it suggests americans are viewed harshly. if your view of the supposed competition was accurate, they should have settled into second rate status at second rate clubs. they did end up at second rate clubs but they ended up seen as the top keepers in the whole league. which suggests rather than them being “inherently everton material” that hmm maybe manU was the wrong one.
re meola, you clearly never watched some of the trash manning some english nets in the 1990s. the level has improved post-Bosman. and what you are missing is he was not only deemed unworthy of the EPL, he was barely getting time playing low division soccer there. i have seen lower division english soccer in person. to me it’s roughly NCAA or USL level. i mean, have you not watched a wrexham game? it’s solid but hardly amazing. it’s often quite kickball.
i never said shotstoppers can’t use their feet. i said, fairly clearly, that our current 1 had to fight for months to get his job while overcoming constant chatter about whether he was technical enough for the snobs, when he’s actually significantly better at his primary goalkeeping job. that people wanted to go with a struggling steffen just because he was in theory a better sweeper keeper. worse, the fanboys wanted to ignore not just the keeping errors but also the regular giveaways for goals mr. slick was giving up with errant passes. so, yes, i say find the better shotstoppers first and then worry about their foot skills.
to me the periods of US soccer success are built around a few positions working well and one is a good keeper in the net.
“this suggests the evaluations that led to you being cast off from the big club were inaccurate or biased. you hide behind the fanboys’ favorite — roster competition — except the awards reflect a broader panel of experts, journalists, team captains, and fans thought these american keepers won an even bigger pool leaguewide competition. how do you then lose liverpool or manU? it makes no logical sense. it suggests americans are viewed harshly.”
More fractured logic.
Competition for a place in any sport is about what can you do for me NOW. Especially in the EPL.
If Friedel eventually turned out to be a better keeper than whoever beat him out at Liverpool, the key word is “eventually”.
EPL clubs, especially big clubs like Liverpool and Man U. with very high expectations, need you to be the best option right then and there. Not in a year or so. For those clubs “development” is different than for other teams.
“except the awards reflect a broader panel of experts, journalists, team captains, and fans thought these american keepers won an even bigger pool leaguewide competition.”
Fuck them.
The job of picking the roster is the manager’s if he gets it wrong it’s his ass on the line. Your broad panel there, nothing happens to them if they are wrong. Also, the manager is the only one who knows what he really wants out of these players not your fucking panel.
Walter Winterbottom was England’s first full-time manager in 1946, but the team was still picked by a committee (?!) until Alf Ramsey took over in 1963. England won the World Cup three years later.
If you want to hide behind a popularity contest committee, go for it.
Meantime the real manager has games to win. NOW.
This boils down to who runs the team, the manager or a committee of kibitzers.
“re meola, you clearly never watched some of the trash manning some english nets in the 1990s. the level has improved post-Bosman. and what you are missing is he was not only deemed unworthy of the EPL, he was barely getting time playing low division soccer there. i have seen lower division english soccer in person. to me it’s roughly NCAA or USL level. i mean, have you not watched a wrexham game? it’s solid but hardly amazing. it’s often quite kickball.”
You have no idea what I watched. You think Tony was entitled to a spot in the EPL ( By the way ,the EPL started in 1992 so it was not in existence around the time of the 1990 World Cup when Tony would have been most prominent)
No player is entitled to a spot on an EPL team.
What they have to do is convince the manager. If they can’t do that then they are out regardless of how talented they are. Tony didn’t convince enough people in the UK that he was worth a spot.
Maybe they hated him because he was an American.
Maybe they thought he was a jerk from New Jersey.
Maybe he wasn’t as good keeper as his competition over there.
The bottom line is all of this was around 33 years ago and you don’t know what you are talking about.
As for Wrexham, Tony would have a hard time making that team. He’s a tough guy but at 54 years old playing keeper is can be hard on the body, even at that level.
V: you’re deeply confused. my point is they wouldn’t let him start lower division. whether he could start EPL is besides the point as they wouldn’t let him start there third tier. when you imply he was not worthy you have apparently never seen some of the 90s EPL keepers. ed de goey, etc. and he was third tier. i saw fulham play once in the lower divisions (pre-century) where they tied the game because the keeper whiffed a clear and it rolled right in. the dynamo had a former starting SPL keeper at gretna come in c. 2010 who gave up 2 howlers to FCD in about 15 minutes. you don’t know what you’re talking about.
i find the debates about player destinations interesting in part because in the 1990s and on up towards 2010 rarely would we be signed by good teams and we were routinely busted down to lower divisions. keller played spanish second division at his peak. and friedel and howard both had to get dumped by a leading team to find a midtable side who would play them regularly, at which point they won keeper of the year type awards.
you’re pretending bias does not exist despite this, and despite the fact i still have to listen in recent years to lampard — who played here — diss pulisic as tactically naive despite climbing to the point he has. when IMO lampard makes CFC worse. when IMO US players would flood into their various divisions (as in germany) if work permits went away. one thing i definitely think we are better at is keepers.
all you’re doing is basically reciting fanboy tropes about how the coaches know everything and see the practices and i don’t. if they are such perfect sorting machines none would ever be fired for losing or incompetence. if they are such perfect sorting machines transfers wouldn’t exist. the coaches would sort you at your first deal precisely where you belong and that would be that. transfers and loans exist in part because some guy signs MLS who has EPL ability, or signs EPL and is really c’ship level. but they also exist because some EPL coaches have big egos and a lot at stake but not really the chops to tell players apart.
classic example: landon donovan couldn’t stick in germany. how does a guy who couldn’t keep a midtable BL job and was shipped off to MLS be worthy of top shelf BM a few years later? the answer you’re struggling with is someone was wrong at BL before.
the trope is basically a “blame the player” trope. i have been on a HS team that starting the wrong people and thus blew state, when it had players off 2 select teams that won their version of state. i have been on a college team where the coach was a jerk who could recruit but ran people off every year. i was long ago disabused of the ideas of papal infallibility you’re pushing. i don’t buy no americans are worthy of coaching EPL. i don’t buy the way we get treated is 100% fair and accurate. ergo i tend to suggest players be picky where they go precisely because it’s not 100% fair. to me the coaches have a pile of talent that usually flatters them no matter how bad they do. my HS coach got awards rather than fired for how we did with state winning talent. because on paper quarters looks like success. to then hear you pretend like the world is 100% fair over there is amusing.
Looks like Juventus may make a move for Weah. Price tag looks to be set around 10 million euros.
He’ll play wingback for them if this happens
the move worked for him because he had an american owner and was given a sincere chance at starting, which i think US keepers are capable of earning. the problem is US keepers are usually only given that sort of chance at a second or third tier EPL side like everton or villa — villa having american owners too. to be real this is historically true in a variety of european leagues — keller was playing second division ball for rayo when he was surely la liga material.
it may also help that i think the sweeper keeper obsession is waning just a little where pure shotstopping is back in fashion, both USMNT and club. i think our sporting youthscape is well set up to churn out athletic shotstoppers, much more so than keepers with field player foot skills and composure.
“US keepers are usually only given that sort of chance at a second or third tier EPL side like everton or villa — villa having american owners too. to be real this is historically true in a variety of european leagues —”
More shaky, bullshit logic from you.
Villa’s first American keeper was Brad Friedel who proved his EPL Superman status at Blackburn Rovers for 8 seasons before coming over to Villa. If being an American influenced Villa to sign Guzan to back up Brad then I would say Brad had a lot more to do with it than Randy Lerner being an American.
Chelsea’s owner is an American. That’s done wonders for Pulisic.
Swansea’s owners were American. That sure helped Bob Bradley.
American owners fire American players all the time. It turns out in America we have lots of sports franchises where that kind of ruthlessness by owners is displayed all the time. Just because the team is in the UK is no reason for these owners to change their behavior.
American bosses are just like owners everywhere. The bottom line is what matters.
Sweeper keeper is not an “obsession”. There is no reason you can’t you do that and be a great shot stopper as well. That’s another one of those artificial distinctions.
perhaps you are not familiar with the 1990s era stories where meola was our starting keeper in the world cup and he gets like lower division english offers, barely plays, comes back to minors and indoors then MLS. or maybe the part confusing you is how friedel and howard would get signed at a good club like liverpool or manU, barely play then get dropped, then go to some second tier EPL team and become the team star and somehow win EPL keeper of the year, which is a fairly strong hint they weren’t accurately evaluated by the big clubs they first came to. or even horvath now who couldn’t keep a starting gig for his first championship team, goes on loan, his new loan team wins promotion. or steffen signs city but can only play on loan in the championship.
do you not see the pattern there? particularly on the ones who won best keeper awards after being dropped by english UCL sides.
so, yeah, turner getting to start at his EPL team is rare. it in fact probably helps who his owner is.
all due respect but nobody american was getting EPL gigs before swansea handed bradley a job. period. he got a chance from the AMERICAN organization. he and the owners got crap from the WELSH fans who were appeased when he wallowed. leeds = american owners (49ers). pulisic has not fully played out yet, new coach, no move yet, and that’s an odd example given the whole abramovich fiasco and how the whole team detonated.
if you want i could go down a list, CCV at spurs, etc. i don’t buy a guy who can start for celtic couldn’t start anywhere in EPL and had to play championship. i think there is a bias and the bias is weird because these days you’re only getting into england with the right passport or a work permit that means you are already star NT stuff.
meanwhile we’ve run a series of people through schalke, dortmund, etc. not everyone gets a good shake — pepi — but more of our players seem to stick in germany. ever considered there are some biases involved in certain countries? how are there not more americans playing in spain or italy, for example. i get maybe not barca or madrid’s teams. but not even the midtable or bottom teams? like musah sits there. does that sound accurate? sorry but i firmly believe there are leagues that like us and ones that have biases where we’re clueless tactical clods. or do you forget the way lampard discussed pulisic??? as in the guy you’re beating the drum for leaving CFC.
sorry but you’re playing political games on sweeper keeper. when turner was up for the job, were there or were there not folks saying regardless how well he keeped that he couldn’t be the “1” because he wasn’t a slick sweeper keeper but instead tends to just hoof it out? exactly. i am telling you that such things are now part of the calculation and could in fact result in weaker shotstopping keepers because a guy who simply does the job gets dinged for not being jorge campos.
you’re arguing against reality just like if you were trying to argue it was meant to be adams the whole time as DM and not like we tried to instead use a different type of passing 6, bradley, yeuill, trapp, etc.
it’s cute rhetoric but the opposite of the reality i vividly remember enduring. GB wanted cute and eventually woke up and chose the obvious superior traditional type player. the team then improved.
Umm, Turner got better at passing and dribbling we didn’t stop playing out of the back. Virtually everyone plays out from the back today. Sometimes you get punished. Just like Turner got punished against Canada by hoofing it up field. Of course he was hitting a flat ball on a frozen parking lot and your preferred duo of Richards and MRob got out athleted by Jonathan David but you know Canada isn’t athletic.
JR: sorry, dude, but turner won his US job keeping in the net and hoofing it out. i realize the revised snob thesis since he did play some at arsenal is he must be better than we thought. i see where that thesis is being repackaged as his footwork must be better. you’re just trying to find a way to accept that he’s dominated the US job so bad you have to come to terms.
ironically he’s dominated it so much that i — having seen what happened with steffen before him — actually want the keeping time shared out so we actually get proof of concept on his backups.
JR: do i have to remind you what canada did to ream in NL 2019? re WCQ if you look at the tape goal 1 is larin, not david or davies, and their second goal is on yedlin getting dribbled when we were playing a high line down a goal in injury time. i also find chuckle inducing the idea we should respond to an athletic speedy opponent with anything other than the most athletic backs. what, do you want to stick ream and brooks out there and go for 0-5? basically a costa rica away scenario i assume.
personally what i get out of this is why on earth would you play a high line offsides approach on canada. you sit back and there is no room for a wall ball before the keeper comes out and snags it. nor is there room for their speed to get past us other than on the odd transition play. maybe GB’s brain froze up there in february canada.
Mr. Voice
“V: you’re deeply confused. my point is they wouldn’t let him start lower division. whether he could start EPL is beside the point as they wouldn’t let him start there third tier. when you imply he was not worthy you have apparently never seen some of the 90s EPL keepers. ed de goey, etc. and he was third tier. i saw fulham play once in the lower divisions (pre-century) where they tied the game because the keeper whiffed a clear and it rolled right in. the dynamo had a former starting SPL keeper at gretna come in c. 2010 who gave up 2 howlers to FCD in about 15 minutes. you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Big deal.
If the Brits or any country want to keep Americans from starting or playing in their leagues, or in Meola’s case, force them to leave the country when they don’t live up to the terms of their work permit, I’m okay with that.
The teams belong to them and it’s their right to make it harder on or even exclude foreigners.
Countries, including the USA, do that sort of thing all the time to protect domestic workers. In the UK at the time getting a work permit was fairly tough. One reason Germany had so many Americans is that their work permits were a little less stringent.
The regulations were often full of loopholes and inconsistencies but basically, if a UK club were interested in signing you they had to research you and decide if you could get a permit. Some clubs were better than others at gaming the system to get a permit. For example, one reason Timmy Howard got to Man U. is that he has a Hungarian grandmother and thus got himself a Hungarian passport. Going after an American player was really tough to do for the club unless they were of the requisite stature like a Landon for example. So, clubs did not do it a lot.
I’m not sure but since Brexit, I think the permitting situation is less onerous but I’ll let you figure it out:
https://worldfootballindex.com/2020/12/work-permits-premier-league-post-brexit-english-clubs-efl-libertadores/
As I mentioned before, Tony eventually had to leave the UK because he couldn’t keep up with the permit requirements. If MLS wants to set up stringent work permit rules to ban all but the very best Brits or any furriner from working here to save the jobs for Americans
I’m fine with that.
“i find the debates about player destinations interesting in part because in the 1990s and on up towards 2010 rarely would we be signed by good teams and we were routinely busted down to lower divisions. keller played spanish second division at his peak. “
Routinely huh? Kasey, my favorite keeper transferred from the EPL ‘s Leicester City to Rayo Vallecano, a newly promoted LaLiga side and spent two years there, playing in LaLiga, then went back to Spurs.
Kasey Keller never played in the Spanish second division.
You can look it up.
“and friedel and howard both had to get dumped by a leading team to find a midtable side who would play them regularly, at which point they won keeper of the year type awards.”
You have such great hindsight.
Timmy became the #1 and Man U. and was going great until he made a howler vs Porto in the Champions League. Eventually he lost the #1 role to Roy Carroll but then won it back when Carroll proved to be just as shaky. Timmy finally was put out of his misery when SAF had the chance to finally sign Van De Sar an all time great keeper, much better than Timmy and that is how Moyes got Howard.
Brad got his shot at Liverpool and lost out to Sander Westerveld. That led to him getting a shot at Blackburn where he gained his Superman status.
All the teams I mentioned were in the EPL, by the way.
“you’re pretending bias does not exist despite this, and despite the fact i still have to listen in recent years to lampard — who played here — diss pulisic as tactically naive despite climbing to the point he has. when IMO lampard makes CFC worse. when IMO US players would flood into their various divisions (as in germany) if work permits went away. one thing i definitely think we are better at is keepers.”
Bias does exist. You’re one of the best examples I can think of. Your posts drip with it.
As for Pulisic, if he were tactically naïve, that would be a slight on the Germans not Americans. As a pro , CP10 is a German player.
If you notice, look at Pulisic’s BVB successor Sancho, another “German player”. How’s he doing in the EPL? Kai Havertz? Timo Werner?.
Your views are outdated. The American keeper thing has not been a thing since the days of Brad, Kasey, Timmy, and Brad Polar bear, We have not been at that level since they went away. The proof is in the pudding.
As for the work permit thing, the late great Giorgio Chinaglia was saying years ago to anyone who would listen that if the UK didn’t have such tough work permits , we would have had lots of Americans over there a long time ago.
“all you’re doing is basically reciting fanboy tropes about how the coaches know everything and see the practices and i don’t. if they are such perfect sorting machines none would ever be fired for losing or incompetence. if they are such perfect sorting machines transfers wouldn’t exist. the coaches would sort you at your first deal precisely where you belong and that would be that. transfers and loans exist in part because some guy signs MLS who has EPL ability, or signs EPL and is really c’ship level. but they also exist because some EPL coaches have big egos and a lot at stake but not really the chops to tell players apart.”
Fanboy trope? Is that a drag queen revue at the Palace Bar in Miami?
Coaches know more about their players, their tactics and their practices and so on than you ,the Imperative Voice, do. They know more about it than I do.
That’s just obvious.
Do you have better judgement than a Manager or a Director of football about tactics, players, etc.? Are you better judge? Would you be better at their job than they are?
We don’t know because you are not in a situation where you are held accountable for your judgement. You are free to sit at your keyboard and with your perfect hindsight claim any damn fool thing and nothing will happen to you if you get it all wrong. You have it easy.
As fans on SBI, we all do. We have the right to complain about all this stuff because that is the point of SBI.
But, having the right to criticize doesn’t mean you know what you are talking about. And posting on here means glass houses and all that stuff.
The chances that Gregg got held accountable for his judgement were about a million times greater than the chances of you ever facing accountability for your judgement.
I’m a big believer in selfishness and self-interest. Is Gregg going to start a player or set up a team to play a certain way, if he didn’t think that it would help him get a result? No way. I’m pretty sure he always felt that he was doing what he thought was best for the team. And what was good for the team was good for Gregg.
That doesn’t mean I agree with everything Gregg does. But that also doesn’t mean I agree with all of your criticisms of him either
I’m like most of you. I’ll agree with the person whose opinion seems to align most closely with mine. Sheep have nothing on me.
Do I think the Brits are biased against Americans. Absolutely. Sure. But are they also biased against anyone who isn’t like them?
Tell you what, read their sports media going back as many years as you want. You will find they almost always refer to the Scottish winger, or the Brazilian fullback the Italian keeper, the Belgian striker etc., etc., . They are very consistent about that .
But if you can do the business, if you can save them from relegation, they will still refer to you by where you come from but they will make up songs about you.
The point is all nationalities go through this over there. You do not like it? Stay in MLS.
Or agitate against it like Weston has always done. He is out there taking a risk that you don’t at home safe behind your keyboard.
“classic example: landon donovan couldn’t stick in germany. how does a guy who couldn’t keep a midtable BL job and was shipped off to MLS be worthy of top shelf BM a few years later? the answer you’re struggling with is someone was wrong at BL before.”
Have you ever tried to work in a foreign country where maybe you didn’t know the language or the culture. I have. It is really hard.
Landon, about 18 years old or so, at the time, couldn’t stick in Germany because he was miserable. . It wasn’t like it is today where Gio can have his parents get him into the starting lineup and play every minute. LD did not have Erling Haaland as his personal uber. LD couldn’t face time all his friends and family at home.
Leverkusen were not particularly sensitive to LD’s homesickness. Maybe LD could have worked it all out if he were getting to play and prove his worth but at the time those guys were more about paying your dues, seniority and outright mistrust of the SoCal kid. So there’s no joy on the field and no joy off the field.
And an unhappy Landon is a shit player.
So, fuck it, LD engineers a LOAN move back to the Quakes, he wasn’t “shipped out “and bingo, right away is an instant star. I do not blame him one bit. I would have done the same.
And he was brought in to Bayern Munich years later because Klinsmann, ever the risk taker, knew he had the talent and wanted him there.
That’s twice that LD has contributed to JK’s getting canned.
“the trope is basically a “blame the player” trope. i have been on a HS team that starting the wrong people and thus blew state, when it had players off 2 select teams that won their version of state. i have been on a college team where the coach was a jerk who could recruit but ran people off every year. i was long ago disabused of the ideas of papal infallibility you’re pushing. i don’t buy no americans are worthy of coaching EPL. i don’t buy the way we get treated is 100% fair and accurate. ergo i tend to suggest players be picky where they go precisely because it’s not 100% fair. to me the coaches have a pile of talent that usually flatters them no matter how bad they do. my HS coach got awards rather than fired for how we did with state winning talent. because on paper quarters looks like success. to then hear you pretend like the world is 100% fair over there is amusing.”
You do not buy a lot of stuff. That is fine no one is really selling. These guys are not in high school or college anymore.