Fill me in. I am soccer stupid, but i do enjoy the world cup.
Do you think we advance, who are our best players, anything you can give.
Talent-wise, we should make it to the knockout stage. Most of the United States roster now plays in Europe in top flight leagues and several play for some of the best clubs in the world. The vast majority of them are under the age of 25 and many are 21 or younger. The talent is there. The experience is not. Neither is the coaching. Christian Pulisic is probably the team's best player and seemed to be on a trajectory of becoming one of the best wingers in the world before a string of injuries and a bad run of form has turned him into a rotational player at Chelsea. A really productive rotational player when he plays, but still not in their starting lineup.
Weston McKennie is probably your second best player. Midfielder. Plays in Italy for Juventus. Not elite in any one area but very good to strong in every category. Gio Reyna is probably your third most recognizable player, but he's been very young and injury prone while playing for Dortmund. His potential is probably the highest of anyone on the roster, he just needs to stay healthy. Because he's a starter for Dortmund when he is healthy and in shape and he doesn't turn 20 for another 2 and a half weeks.
Other notable players playing in one of the top 5 European leagues or for other top teams overseas: Brendan Aaronson, Tyler Adams, Sergino Dest, Matt Turner, Tim Weah, Yunus Musah, Antonee Robinson, Cameron Carter-Vickers, John Brooks, Reggie Cannon, Jordan Pefok, Josh Sargent, Luca De La Torre, James Sands, Konrad De La Fuente, Ricardo Pepi, Joe Scally, Malik Tillman, Timmy Chandler, Matthew Hoppe, Mark McKenzie, Erik Palmer-Brown, Kevin Paredes, Tim Ream and the list goes on for a while.
Some of those guys won't make the team simply because there isn't enough space. Others will get snubbed in favor of certain MLS players who continuously get called up to the national team despite not performing very well for their teams in the MLS. We do have a few MLS players (Jesus Ferreira, Walker Zimmerman, Miles Robinson -- who will likely miss the world cup with a torn Achilles) who are at least serviceable and pretty decent, but you'll see guys like Paul Arriola, Jordan Morris and Christian Roldan who are seemingly included in every roster no matter how much or how bad they are playing for their clubs.
Im not the biggest fan of Berhalter. I honestly think he has some good qualities that get rightfully overshadowed by his poor team selection, running a system that doesn't fit most of our players skillsets and stubborn lack of in-game adjustments. I think we have a weird group stage and get knocked out. We'll draw with England, beat Wales and then shit the bed again against Iran. That's how it will go.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
