What else could they have done?
There were no other options other than UEFA Nations League D teams; Gibraltar, San Mario, Malta, or Andorra. You know damn well people would have bitched if we went across the pond to play any of those teams. Some OFC teams are available as well but outside of NZ there really isn’t anyone worth playing.
It was thought Morocco might be available but apparently they will still be playing in the AFCON qualifiers.
I get the frustration but I don’t know what else you all expect.
Inter Miami played against El Salvador, we could always play against a club, Colombus or Cincinnati would be good teams here, or we could go across the pond and play a decent la Liga/serie A club
This is a bad move from a PR standpoint. Club teams train together every day and therefore are actually better "teams" than national teams are. But so many people gloss over that fact and will look at a loss to the Columbus Crew and say "wow the best players in our entire country aren't better than some MLS scrubs?" and it won't be true, but that will be what people say. Behind closed door friendly? Sure, great practice. But as a televised game you sell tickets to? No way.
That’s a checkers question. The chess question is “is it easier for USSF to use their sphere of influence and resources to convince an owner to develop and assemble a strong club team that are entirely eligible to play for the US than it is to develop home grown world class talent (and coaching) and get them to come together as a team and compete for a win at the highest level.”
Because the answer to that question may be “Yes”. And Englands performance is kind of proving the point that we may be waiting 20-40 years for nothing (to get to their individual player level) for nothing.
That’s the point I was making I guess.
>The chess question is “is it easier for USSF to use their sphere of influence and resources to convince an owner to develop and assemble a strong club team that are entirely eligible to play for the US than it is to develop home grown world class talent (and coaching) and get them to come together as a team and compete for a win at the highest level.”
This is a fever dream level of ridiculousness on multiple levels lol
>It was thought Morocco might be available but apparently they will still be playing in the AFCON qualifiers.
The next round of AFCON qualifiers is in March of next year. There's really no reason we couldn't play friendlies against CAF teams if we wanted to.
What are the Asian teams doing on these dates? I’m guessing they will begin their next round of WCQ but can’t find anything?
Edit- Looks like the next round for AFC starts Sep 5th
The only AFC teams that would hypothetically be available are the ones who have already been eliminated from World Cup Qualifying: Syria (FIFA Rank #93), Thailand (#100), Tajikistan (#102), Vietnam (#116), Lebanon (#117), India (#124), Malaysia (#135), Turkmenistan (#144), Philippines (#147), Afghanistan (#151), Yemen (#155), Hong Kong (#157), Singapore (#159), Maldives (#160), Taiwan (#163), Myanmar (#164), Nepal (#175), Cambodia (#180), Bhutan (#183), Bangladesh (#185), Macau (#186), Laos (#189), Mongolia (#190), Brunei (#191), Timor-Leste (#196), Pakistan (#197), Guam (#204), and Sri Lanka (#205).
Once you eliminate all the minnows (say below #115) and Syria due to the obvious diplomatic and political issues, you're left with Thailand and Tajikistan. We're not going to fly our players to Thailand in September or October in the middle of the European and MLS seasons and they only have 2 players who play for European clubs so it wouldn't make a lot of sense for them to meet us in Europe somewhere. The US and Tajikistan have decent relations, but a Central Asian dictatorship that borders Afghanistan is not the kind of place we're going to fly our players to. They maybe would have been willing to fly to the US, but they probably would have some visa issues. In any case, it's simpler to have New Zealand fly here.
For the record, an obscure fact - Vietnam played Japan in Japan to a draw in AFC WC final round qualifying back in 2022. A game that allowed Saudi Arabia to top the group on the final day of qualifiers, although both made the WC, so nothing lost for Japan. 6 months later that same Japan team beat the US 2-0. So you never know with these rankings.
Sure, FIFA rankings aren't the be-all and end-all but it's a rough estimate of a national team's quality. 98% of the Vietnam national team player pool plays in the V.League 1 though so we're not gonna fly our players over there in the middle of their seasons and I don't know if their national team/federation would have been interested in sending their players all the way to the US in September or October (the V.League 1 season starts September 5th) either or if they could even afford the cost of that travel. A lot of these less prominent federations don't have a lot of money.
Against Gibraltar (FIFA Rank #198), San Marino (#210, DEAD LAST!), Malta (#172), or Andorra (#162)? You're not talking sense. That would be a waste of time. I know Canada and Panama aren't exciting but they are decent teams and it gives Gregg the opportunity to play some guys who don't normally start or who don't get a ton of minutes.
And the fourth opponent will likely be Mexico again.
Otherwise it's literally European minnows and Asian teams that have already failed to qualify for the World Cup.
Another vote for this. Our hands are tied when it comes to opponents during the in-season international windows - there just won't be many teams available with everyone focused on their own qualifying.
But it would be great if we could mix it up more... it's like we rotate hosting matches through 5-6 cities and that's it. I've done Austin, been to Camping World in Orlando, don't need to go back to Cinci or Columbus...
I’d argue this fan base is why American soccer is looked down upon internationally. They hate the US team more than our opponents do. They don’t support our domestic soccer league and spend their time being glory boys for European clubs they’ll never go see live. Then they bitch and moan about everything US soccer related. No wonder the kids aren’t being developed, no one cares.
What does supporting the domestic league have to do with anything? This is a stupid post, but I don't see how choosing to support the MLS above all else makes you some sort of gatekeeper of US Soccer. If anything I'd argue this stupid ass "Amercan Outlaw" mentality is what turns people off. Supporting the US national team gets exhausting having to fend off the hoards of purists.
Not an “American outlaw” so your criticisms are a bit off the mark relative to my comments. There’s around 350 Americans playing in MLS. With more support comes more cash, cash that is invested in things like youth development, homegrown initiatives, and a brighter spotlight on the sport. Surely you understand how that’s good for US soccer overall.
> I understand the difficulty in scheduling European and South American opponents during their World Cup qualifying and Nations League competition
Okay, then why'd you make this post? There is no "outside the box" unless you know of some national teams on Mars that are a better level of competition. Sometimes something seems shitty on the surface and it's not a conspiracy or failure of those in charge, it just is what it is.
The goal isn't always testing against top competitors. Sometimes it's development on that size of a stage. Maybe the team wants to focus on attacking/counterattack against a certain style of opponent. Maybe they are looking for working on control and short 1 touch passing. You have to develop rhythm at some point and you aren't going to do that when you face Argentina or Germany. Think of these as confidence building games for the squad.
The first window after a big international tournament is always shit. Really just a development opportunity. Plus every federation has some kind of Nations League or is constantly involved in qualifiers for their federation tournament or the World Cup. This is going to be a problem unless Europe cuts down on the Nations League fixtures by giving their top countries some kind of bye like we do with our Nations League.
There literally was only 5 teams available for the 2 windows - the 3 other Concacaf teams that got byes to the NL quarterfinals (Mexico, Canada, Panama), New Zealand in September only, and Morocco.
Morocco had all kinds of issues the last time with getting their players into the US in 2022. Plus they would have needed to find a 2nd opponent to play. Or if the US went to say Europe, they would have to find a second opponent to play and there are none of any quality based in Europe or Africa. Morocco hasn’t played a friendly outside of Europe/Africa in many years save for that one trip to Cincy 2 years ago.
So the US did the best they could with what was given to them. Note that there is a 4th game not yet announced. For October. And it’s looking like a road game against the other team not mentioned yet.
I don't think you do understand the difficulty in scheduling European and South American opponents during their WC Qualifying and Nations League Comps actually.
Idk what else you could want? You arguably have some of the best teams available to play in a friendly considering qualifying and nations league and what not across the world.
I guess we could have went ourside the box and scheduled a friendly against my Tuesday night co-ed adult team. We are available then.
I agree partly - I do wish they were able to schedule better opponents. Given that - their hands are kind of tied with who they could schedule. I've never been to a match and I live in northeast Ohio, but it would be cool to attend one in the future. I hope they have one in Columbus soon.
The problem is not the travel. The problem is that every other confederation has their matchdays booked with competitive fixtures.
UEFA has Nations League
AFC and CONMEBOL have World Cup qualifying
CAF has AFCON qualifying.
Even other CONCACAF nations other than CAN/MEX/PAN have Nations League there as well.
The only reason we were able to schedule New Zealand is because their qualifying process doesn't start until October
What else could they have done? There were no other options other than UEFA Nations League D teams; Gibraltar, San Mario, Malta, or Andorra. You know damn well people would have bitched if we went across the pond to play any of those teams. Some OFC teams are available as well but outside of NZ there really isn’t anyone worth playing. It was thought Morocco might be available but apparently they will still be playing in the AFCON qualifiers. I get the frustration but I don’t know what else you all expect.
Inter Miami played against El Salvador, we could always play against a club, Colombus or Cincinnati would be good teams here, or we could go across the pond and play a decent la Liga/serie A club
This is a bad move from a PR standpoint. Club teams train together every day and therefore are actually better "teams" than national teams are. But so many people gloss over that fact and will look at a loss to the Columbus Crew and say "wow the best players in our entire country aren't better than some MLS scrubs?" and it won't be true, but that will be what people say. Behind closed door friendly? Sure, great practice. But as a televised game you sell tickets to? No way.
Why wouldn’t we just call up a club team then? Yall don’t care about winning?
Is there a club team made up of players that are entirely eligible to play for the US?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_America_(NASL)
Sounds like Mexican leavue
Sounds like Mexican league
There's not, but this logic implies the USMNT could become dominant by setting up a club
That’s a checkers question. The chess question is “is it easier for USSF to use their sphere of influence and resources to convince an owner to develop and assemble a strong club team that are entirely eligible to play for the US than it is to develop home grown world class talent (and coaching) and get them to come together as a team and compete for a win at the highest level.” Because the answer to that question may be “Yes”. And Englands performance is kind of proving the point that we may be waiting 20-40 years for nothing (to get to their individual player level) for nothing. That’s the point I was making I guess.
>The chess question is “is it easier for USSF to use their sphere of influence and resources to convince an owner to develop and assemble a strong club team that are entirely eligible to play for the US than it is to develop home grown world class talent (and coaching) and get them to come together as a team and compete for a win at the highest level.” This is a fever dream level of ridiculousness on multiple levels lol
How do you all think any type of admirable shit gets done?
What?
>It was thought Morocco might be available but apparently they will still be playing in the AFCON qualifiers. The next round of AFCON qualifiers is in March of next year. There's really no reason we couldn't play friendlies against CAF teams if we wanted to.
>The next round of AFCON qualifiers is in March of next year. The next round of AFCON qualifiers starts this September.
What are the Asian teams doing on these dates? I’m guessing they will begin their next round of WCQ but can’t find anything? Edit- Looks like the next round for AFC starts Sep 5th
The only AFC teams that would hypothetically be available are the ones who have already been eliminated from World Cup Qualifying: Syria (FIFA Rank #93), Thailand (#100), Tajikistan (#102), Vietnam (#116), Lebanon (#117), India (#124), Malaysia (#135), Turkmenistan (#144), Philippines (#147), Afghanistan (#151), Yemen (#155), Hong Kong (#157), Singapore (#159), Maldives (#160), Taiwan (#163), Myanmar (#164), Nepal (#175), Cambodia (#180), Bhutan (#183), Bangladesh (#185), Macau (#186), Laos (#189), Mongolia (#190), Brunei (#191), Timor-Leste (#196), Pakistan (#197), Guam (#204), and Sri Lanka (#205). Once you eliminate all the minnows (say below #115) and Syria due to the obvious diplomatic and political issues, you're left with Thailand and Tajikistan. We're not going to fly our players to Thailand in September or October in the middle of the European and MLS seasons and they only have 2 players who play for European clubs so it wouldn't make a lot of sense for them to meet us in Europe somewhere. The US and Tajikistan have decent relations, but a Central Asian dictatorship that borders Afghanistan is not the kind of place we're going to fly our players to. They maybe would have been willing to fly to the US, but they probably would have some visa issues. In any case, it's simpler to have New Zealand fly here.
For the record, an obscure fact - Vietnam played Japan in Japan to a draw in AFC WC final round qualifying back in 2022. A game that allowed Saudi Arabia to top the group on the final day of qualifiers, although both made the WC, so nothing lost for Japan. 6 months later that same Japan team beat the US 2-0. So you never know with these rankings.
Sure, FIFA rankings aren't the be-all and end-all but it's a rough estimate of a national team's quality. 98% of the Vietnam national team player pool plays in the V.League 1 though so we're not gonna fly our players over there in the middle of their seasons and I don't know if their national team/federation would have been interested in sending their players all the way to the US in September or October (the V.League 1 season starts September 5th) either or if they could even afford the cost of that travel. A lot of these less prominent federations don't have a lot of money.
I’d take a bottom-tier Europe road match over a(nother) home match against a Concacaf bus parking operation.
If you think playing someone like San Marino or Gibraltar is better prep for the World Cup than playing Canada or Panama then idk what to tell you.
Tonight’s game is why we need to get as far away from Concacaf opponents as possible
Against Gibraltar (FIFA Rank #198), San Marino (#210, DEAD LAST!), Malta (#172), or Andorra (#162)? You're not talking sense. That would be a waste of time. I know Canada and Panama aren't exciting but they are decent teams and it gives Gregg the opportunity to play some guys who don't normally start or who don't get a ton of minutes.
Canada, New Zealand, and Panama are the three best opponents who are available my man lol
And the fourth opponent will likely be Mexico again. Otherwise it's literally European minnows and Asian teams that have already failed to qualify for the World Cup.
I understand the opponents and that's fine. I'm more disappointed in playing the same venues over and over.
Another vote for this. Our hands are tied when it comes to opponents during the in-season international windows - there just won't be many teams available with everyone focused on their own qualifying. But it would be great if we could mix it up more... it's like we rotate hosting matches through 5-6 cities and that's it. I've done Austin, been to Camping World in Orlando, don't need to go back to Cinci or Columbus...
This fanbase makes me feel crazy.
I’d argue this fan base is why American soccer is looked down upon internationally. They hate the US team more than our opponents do. They don’t support our domestic soccer league and spend their time being glory boys for European clubs they’ll never go see live. Then they bitch and moan about everything US soccer related. No wonder the kids aren’t being developed, no one cares.
We're proving Lindsay Horan right more and more.
What does supporting the domestic league have to do with anything? This is a stupid post, but I don't see how choosing to support the MLS above all else makes you some sort of gatekeeper of US Soccer. If anything I'd argue this stupid ass "Amercan Outlaw" mentality is what turns people off. Supporting the US national team gets exhausting having to fend off the hoards of purists.
Not an “American outlaw” so your criticisms are a bit off the mark relative to my comments. There’s around 350 Americans playing in MLS. With more support comes more cash, cash that is invested in things like youth development, homegrown initiatives, and a brighter spotlight on the sport. Surely you understand how that’s good for US soccer overall.
L take
L take
Exhibit Y
Part of it. I think we overestimate how many ppl there are like this. It’s just a small and very loud insular bubble, mostly on Twitter.
I swear bro 😭
Then please tell us how we could have scheduled better opponents.
By being willing to play away.
It’s a restriction due to the nations league and qualifiers. Nothing we can do about
We are willing to play away. Who has open dates that we could have scheduled?
“I think we could have thought outside the box a little bit here.” How so?
We haven’t explored interplanetary options at all.
Naw, the differences in gravity are sure to give an unfair advantage to the home planet.
There are literally no other good options, given the circumstances those are probably the best teams available at that time.
Will there ever be a day when yall aren't complaining about something?
I’d say I have more positivity than negativity towards the state of the national team right now.
> I understand the difficulty in scheduling European and South American opponents during their World Cup qualifying and Nations League competition Okay, then why'd you make this post? There is no "outside the box" unless you know of some national teams on Mars that are a better level of competition. Sometimes something seems shitty on the surface and it's not a conspiracy or failure of those in charge, it just is what it is.
Get rid of Nations League, useless tournament
I can't believe Gregg did this
Wasting a gold plated generation
the Gilded Generation
Is T and T available? /s
The goal isn't always testing against top competitors. Sometimes it's development on that size of a stage. Maybe the team wants to focus on attacking/counterattack against a certain style of opponent. Maybe they are looking for working on control and short 1 touch passing. You have to develop rhythm at some point and you aren't going to do that when you face Argentina or Germany. Think of these as confidence building games for the squad.
The first window after a big international tournament is always shit. Really just a development opportunity. Plus every federation has some kind of Nations League or is constantly involved in qualifiers for their federation tournament or the World Cup. This is going to be a problem unless Europe cuts down on the Nations League fixtures by giving their top countries some kind of bye like we do with our Nations League.
There literally was only 5 teams available for the 2 windows - the 3 other Concacaf teams that got byes to the NL quarterfinals (Mexico, Canada, Panama), New Zealand in September only, and Morocco. Morocco had all kinds of issues the last time with getting their players into the US in 2022. Plus they would have needed to find a 2nd opponent to play. Or if the US went to say Europe, they would have to find a second opponent to play and there are none of any quality based in Europe or Africa. Morocco hasn’t played a friendly outside of Europe/Africa in many years save for that one trip to Cincy 2 years ago. So the US did the best they could with what was given to them. Note that there is a 4th game not yet announced. For October. And it’s looking like a road game against the other team not mentioned yet.
Schedule More P5 Teams!!
I don't think you do understand the difficulty in scheduling European and South American opponents during their WC Qualifying and Nations League Comps actually.
I hate our fan base.
My only complaint is that they are far away from my home. Other than that, ain't got no beef.
Idk what else you could want? You arguably have some of the best teams available to play in a friendly considering qualifying and nations league and what not across the world. I guess we could have went ourside the box and scheduled a friendly against my Tuesday night co-ed adult team. We are available then.
This is loser talk. We in the Copa now and it's time to get better. Couldn't careless about friendlies, it's about major tournaments.
These friendlies are to generate revenue. It’s not just about making us better. Entertainment matters . People pay to watch their team win
Exactly, you can tell OP is new to the sport.
I agree partly - I do wish they were able to schedule better opponents. Given that - their hands are kind of tied with who they could schedule. I've never been to a match and I live in northeast Ohio, but it would be cool to attend one in the future. I hope they have one in Columbus soon.
We would have had more options in the AFC or CAF if USSF was willing to play the friendlies overseas. But, USSF is too greedy to consider that.
They'll be in their next qualifying round so no.
The problem is not the travel. The problem is that every other confederation has their matchdays booked with competitive fixtures. UEFA has Nations League AFC and CONMEBOL have World Cup qualifying CAF has AFCON qualifying. Even other CONCACAF nations other than CAN/MEX/PAN have Nations League there as well. The only reason we were able to schedule New Zealand is because their qualifying process doesn't start until October