After hearing talk about the US looking bad against Jamaica in part because these guys donโt have many minutes together, I wondered exactly how many minutes that is. So I went through the game logs of both the Jamaica starting XI *and* the Mexico NL starting XI for comparison.
MLS teams wanting to be โglobal brandsโ is the most cart before the horse thinking imaginable. A lot of teams arenโt even relevant in their home market. The average sports fan probably can only name a few MLS teams. And you want to be *global* brands? Become local brands first.
Last piece from Vegas. After a wild few days, we've officially entered the most exciting USMNT era ever.
"Sometimes," Folarin Balogun said, "when I'm asking the boys, and they tell me they're 20 [years old], I can't believe it."
This is the worst Mexico performance in a World Cup ever. Even in the past when they went out in the group stage, there were only 16 teams. This is the first time Mexico has ever not been one of the top 16 teams at a World Cup.
We Respond.
After a tough result in ๐ต๐ฆ, the
#USMNT
bounced back with three points at home in Columbus.
Go inside the 2-1 win vs. ๐จ๐ท in
#BehindTheCrest
, presented by
@VW
.
Before this season, the record for most Americans to play in an entire champions league campaign was 6 in 2004-05. Now, weโve had 7 play in a single matchday.
Destโs minutes today mean that at least one American has played in each of the big five leagues in Europe in the same season for the first time ever.
@pcxd13
Iโve been thinking the same thing. A โload-bearing postโ isnโt just a memorable tweet, itโs one that gets referenced and remixed all the time.
American soccer passed a milestone this week. Thanks to appearances by Sergiรฑo Dest, Gio Reyna, Weston McKennie, Konrad de la Fuente, and Chris Richards, we have broken the record for minutes by U23 Americans in the Champions League. Reminder, itโs still just matchweek 4.
Entering the weekend, the US ranked 10th in U23 minutes in the big five European leagues. (This chart could also be captioned with the French are really good and really young)
The top four U20-eligible players for USSF to try to recruit: F Folarin Balogun (Arsenal; ENG), AM Malik Tillman (Bayern; GER), CB Bryan Okoh (RB Salzburg; SUI), CM Yunus Musah (Valencia; ENG). All of them are out of reach for now and the US would be pretty lucky to get just one.
๐จFIFA RANKINGS UPDATE๐จ
After beating them three times in this calendar year, the US is finally ahead of Mexico. The bad news though is that we are almost certainly out of pot 1 contention. We would need Italy and Portugal to both lose in the playoff to have a chance.
Top 40:
Greggโs fine. Heโs not incredible, heโs not terrible. Heโs not the greatest coach ever, heโs not single handedly responsible for the USโs downfall. Heโs fine. Now shut up and letโs enjoy these players entering their prime.
In German, if a number has a period at the end (eg 2.) that turns it from a cardinal number to an ordinal number (two to second). In other words, this is my plea to American fans and media to stop calling the โSecond Bundesligaโ the โTwo Bundesligaโ
The difference is even more stark than I thought it would be. Only five pairings on the field against Jamaica had played more than 90 minutes with each other. Other than Balogun debuting, there were only two pairings against Mexico with *less* than 90 minutes.
Morgen! โ๏ธ๐ฉ๐ช
The
#USMNT
's
@tyler_adams14
,
@joshsargent
and Gio Reyna are all in the Starting XI for their
@Bundesliga_EN
clubs today!
Augsburg vs. RB Leipzig
Freiburg vs. Werder Bremen
Hoffenheim vs. Borussia Dortmund
๐บ: All 9:30am ET on ESPN+
I hate this goal difference shit. Like, weโre almost certainly not gonna lose 6-0, but I feel like I canโt celebrate because we arenโt mathematically clinched.
By my research, this is just the second time ever that the US Men have swept a group stage at a global tournament at any age group. That includes U17 World Cups, U20 World Cups, Olympics, Confederations Cups, and senior World Cups. The only other time was the 1991 U17 World Cup.
โUSMNT Twitterโ is a deeply fucked up, toxic place these days. Thereโs always room for dissenting viewpoints and healthy discussion - but my mentions, right now, are an absolute dumpster fire of borderline radicalized nonsense, the sort of shit that drowns reasonable voices out.
Three balls, two strikes, the pitch;
Swing and a long drive, deep left field, going going,
It's gone!
Goodbye! Game over!
It's a walkoff, game winning, season saving home run for Jayson Werth!
And the Nationals have won the game, 2-1!
Unbelievable!
Average squad age of the 8 teams in the octopus, plus the 3 teams that lost in the second round of qualifying, with age weighted by minutes played in all rounds of World Cup Qualifying.
FIFA RANKINGS UPDATE:
After Fridayโs win, the US is as close as theyโve been to taking the top spot in CONCACAF. If the US gets a better result against Jamaica on Tuesday than Mexico gets against Canada, the US will pass them. Hereโs the top 40:
Gregg is asked about poor defending on set pieces. He says this isn't true, that
#USMNT
defends well on set pieces. Tells media member "if you come up with a question with more data behind it and more substance behind it I'll answer that"
Itโs weird how Tyler Adams becoming the second American to play in the UCL semifinals felt monumental to me but Christian Pulisic becoming the third feels like run of the mill good news. Itโs still great, but it feels like the goalposts have shifted so much in the past 8 months.
On the
@scuffedpod
Discord, we recently ran a new edition of the US player pool power rankings, where patrons rate players in the pool and we take the average to rank the player pool. Kind of a wisdom of the crowds concept. Hereโs what was settled on for a 26 man roster.
I am once again requesting a moratorium on Kevin content from the Wolfsburg English account until he plays more than 10 minutes of garbage time in a 5-0 blowout
BREAKING: FIFA has approved Folarin Balogun's one-time switch to represent the US national team, FIFA has confirmed to The Athletic.
Balogun, 21, has 19 goals in 34 games on loan at Reims from Arsenal. He most recently was with England youth int'l set-up.