jbdiver

It seemed like a good portion of the team wanted to leave this summer — many of the defenders and forwards. Even the captain wanted to leave. The product on the field was boring. TT was not a good people manager. He didn’t have a good working relationship with his bosses. I don’t care how smart you are, you won’t survive the culmination of all these problems.

This is not on the players. It’s the system. They’ve given up on this manager. The well is poisoned.

The shut it off because it’s too painful to comment.

Nah. We’ve seen this too many times before regardless of the selection. Has that forward line received any service? I see players making runs. Nothing but back passes and slowing play down. Everything builds up through the wingbacks. It’s so predictable and damned slow. Just count the number of one-touch passes that half.

#FreePuli. 😃 I can understand the concerns of both the player and the team. He probably doesn’t have a great relationship with the manager and doesn’t fit the system that well. He’s a confidence player and needs a run of games to build a relationship with new teammates. He probably won’t get that unless someone gets injured. The team can’t clear out most of the attacking squad until replacements are found and that may not happen this window. He should get a reasonable amount of playing time this fall with CL and WC games coming. Perhaps his future will be settled in January.

HC telling us what he thinks about Puli again. Sigh. We know what you think after weekly posts on the player so why bother? It’s borderline illness Take a deep breath, get out and enjoy the world At least the game commentators and analysts, you know — actual pros — clearly noted the energy level injected by the subs. Apparently my lying eyes saw it as well.

And this is why TT wants new defenders.

I thought overall he looked good today playing more central. If that Werner goal counted he would have been MOTM for me. First real game in a month. He and Lukaku combine well.

The US has many young players under 25 playing across all the major leagues in Europe today — several on CL teams. Pulisic is probably the highest profile at the moment, but there are others that may have a higher ceiling. In short, the future of USMT is not dependent on Pulisic being the man at Chelsea. He’s just a talented player who’s a little ahead of other talented youngsters in their career progression.

Kepa FFS

Goalie vs goalie.

Come on Kepa.

Pens. It had to be.

Werner carries the yellow flag in his pocket.

Incredible stuff here.

Dangerous for the players? Well maybe Honduras players. Dangerous for the fans? Nah. We deal with these polar temps routinely in the winter and can handle it.

And… he scores. Looked more confident and fluid tonight despite the -16C temperature. It was great to be at the stadium and get to see him play live.

Now predicting wind chill around -15F/-26C at match time on Wednesday. I’ll be wearing lots of chemical heat pads. Could become one of the coldest games in FIFA WQC history. Chelsea will have to dethaw Puli when we send him back.

Puli looked totally out of form last night which isn’t surprising. The Central American hitman tried to take him out at the 5 minute mark. I’m surprised he is still walking.

Agreed. Some people get hysterical if he sits on the bench for two games. I want him to struggle and fight and earn it. For all we know TT purposely put him on the bench because he knows that what happens in the next 10 days is way more important for Pulisic’s growth than what happened the past 10 days. The kid has to work this week.

I just bought a ticket to hopefully see Pulisic play for the first time in my city next week in a WCQ match (-21C here tonight!). I’m beyond excited. Thank you TT for shipping him back to us in bubble wrap. Crossing my fingers that he isn’t taken out by CONCACAF hitmen.

The opposition is obviously playing with 12 players. No other explanation.

The kid is only 21. I don’t rate him as high as our injured wingbacks, but he has the pace to run circles around our fit ones. Chelsea faced him while playing Ajax two seasons ago.

CONCACAF is a mixture of football and MMA. A Mexican player tried to rip the eyeballs out of a US player yesterday. They are finally getting VAR in January despite the protests of many teams in that group. Those teams know that their style of intimidation and dirty tricks is coming to an end. Pulisic’s goal and movement was so quick when it happened in real-time. True predator. His t-shirt message was like a dagger to the heart of that Mexican team.

Pictures today of Puli back in training with the USMNT. That’s a good sign for him as he recovers from Covid. Hopefully he’ll get some good minutes, avoid injury, and come back to the team ready to put in some good shifts.