Pulisic scored a goal off a penalty that he drew.  Forgot to watch the game but caught the highlights and he looked good.

 

Hopefully that builds his confidence to bring back to Stamford bridge.

9 hours ago, Valpo said:

Pulisic scored a goal off a penalty that he drew.  Forgot to watch the game but caught the highlights and he looked good.

 

Hopefully that builds his confidence to bring back to Stamford bridge.

I am not sure it is confidence thing with Puli. IMO it is very simple Pulisic is a LW, everytime he played other position you still get all the bad stufd from puli and very little of the good stuff. 

I read somebody said 

"On the left puli is a poor man Hazard, on the right he is a poor man Walcott" 

 

 

MOTM performance today. Would have had at least an assist or two with better finishing from teammates. He was given free reign to roam all over the pitch and he really controlled the game in parts. He's definitely looking like his form is returning with that burst of pace and those tricky dribbles. He added to his highlights reel this week and hopefully be brings that swagger back to Chelsea.

7 hours ago, Bob stark said:

I am not sure it is confidence thing with Puli. IMO it is very simple Pulisic is a LW, everytime he played other position you still get all the bad stufd from puli and very little of the good stuff. 

I read somebody said 

"On the left puli is a poor man Hazard, on the right he is a poor man Walcott" 

 

 

I think he has shown in the limited time he has that he can play the attacking midfield role as well.  I think he has had to get used to it but Tuchel's formation doesn't use wingers.

I think the last time CP played for US was the time he got yanked and was crying on the bench.  I was like, man this kid is maybe not tough enough.

Then, he preceded to pretty much dominate for Chelsea after that and is arguably the player with the biggest impact on Chelsea being top 4 last year after the Covid break.

I am still new to watching this sport as a follower of a particular team, and it's hard to argue with TTs results, but I can't see this team really competing for titles without more offense than they have had during TTs watch.  The team is "good", but CFC will need to score more to beat Bayern, Paris, etc. most likely.

From what I've seen, CP is going to have to play effectively for this team to score more.  I don't understand for instance why Werner gets so much PT on the LW.  He's been pretty ineffective too, although he shows signs of coming out it.

CP might be a bit upset that they hired another LW after his season saving performance last year.  He's got injuries.  But IDK.  If it's not injury related, he doesn't seem to be very highly thought of by the brass.

I think Timo was bought as a striker, a pacy #9.

 

 

21 hours ago, DumbYank said:

I think the last time CP played for US was the time he got yanked and was crying on the bench.  I was like, man this kid is maybe not tough enough.

Then, he preceded to pretty much dominate for Chelsea after that and is arguably the player with the biggest impact on Chelsea being top 4 last year after the Covid break.

I am still new to watching this sport as a follower of a particular team, and it's hard to argue with TTs results, but I can't see this team really competing for titles without more offense than they have had during TTs watch.  The team is "good", but CFC will need to score more to beat Bayern, Paris, etc. most likely.

From what I've seen, CP is going to have to play effectively for this team to score more.  I don't understand for instance why Werner gets so much PT on the LW.  He's been pretty ineffective too, although he shows signs of coming out it.

CP might be a bit upset that they hired another LW after his season saving performance last year.  He's got injuries.  But IDK.  If it's not injury related, he doesn't seem to be very highly thought of by the brass.

 

What game are you talking about that he got yanked and was crying on the bench??

Because the only time I saw him cry was when he was like 18 years old already the most talented male soccer player in US history and he was trying to single handedly qualify the US for the 2018 World Cup while about 9 of this teammates on the pitch stood and watched and he just wasn't talented enough to do it all by himself.

That game (which I feel like I will forever be angry about) the only players on the pitch that were really trying was Pulisic and Tim Howard. 

5 hours ago, Valpo said:

 

What game are you talking about that he got yanked and was crying on the bench??

Because the only time I saw him cry was when he was like 18 years old already the most talented male soccer player in US history and he was trying to single handedly qualify the US for the 2018 World Cup while about 9 of this teammates on the pitch stood and watched and he just wasn't talented enough to do it all by himself.

That game (which I feel like I will forever be angry about) the only players on the pitch that were really trying was Pulisic and Tim Howard. 

https://www.caughtoffside.com/2019/10/16/video-chelseas-christian-pulisic-frustrated-and-left-crying-after-being-subbed-for-usa-vs-canada/
 

and I’m not putting him down for it.  Personally, I’d prefer to keep that sh*t in the locker room, but sh*t’s emotional and dudes deal with sh*t differently.

And I can’t believe we hired an American for our football team. That’s dumb IMO. Obviously dumb.  I was thinking don’t piss this kid off.

Edited March 30, 20215 yr by DumbYank

17 hours ago, DumbYank said:

https://www.caughtoffside.com/2019/10/16/video-chelseas-christian-pulisic-frustrated-and-left-crying-after-being-subbed-for-usa-vs-canada/
 

and I’m not putting him down for it.  Personally, I’d prefer to keep that sh*t in the locker room, but sh*t’s emotional and dudes deal with sh*t differently.

And I can’t believe we hired an American for our football team. That’s dumb IMO. Obviously dumb.  I was thinking don’t piss this kid off.

 

I'm not sold on Berhalter either.  

3 minutes ago, Valpo said:

 

I'm not sold on Berhalter either.  

Tata Martino would have taken the USMNT job... and oh what an upgrade that would have been 😪

Whatever happened to Brad Bobley?

2 hours ago, Valpo said:

 

I'm not sold on Berhalter either.  

I think the US has a chance to be pretty competitive these next few WC cycles, but we need world class coaching to do so, IMO.  

Jurgen had his faults, but I think he left US soccer on good footing by telling the kids they need to play in Europe and not MLS.  He really focused on youth clubs too.  These changes seem to be paying off.  It was dumb to fire the guy because he left an aging player off of a roster that made it through a terrible group draw and competed (even though Howard looked like a hockey goalie rather than a soccer goalie in that match) with world class Belgium.  Still pisses me off, they dropped him for some aging American coach who would have grown up when most of our population never even heard of soccer.  I'm 49, and I had never heard of soccer until 2nd grade.  Some dude on the playground had been playing soccer in some other town and organized a game on the playground.  He said you couldn't touch the ball with your hands, and we were confused.  We didn't have even a youth rec league until 1979.

 

That's the friggin talent pool we draw off of to replace Munich's old coach who happened to be one of the best players in the world for a decade.  It's like the Yankees hiring a friggin dude from Manchester to manage the baseball team.

Edited March 31, 20215 yr by DumbYank

Jurgen Klinsmann is a walking dumpster fire of a coach. Has proved it everywhere he's been since coaching Germany to a third place finish at home (with Low the real tactician). Read what Philip Lahm had to say about his "coaching methods".

2 hours ago, Garbaggio said:

Jurgen Klinsmann is a walking dumpster fire of a coach. Has proved it everywhere he's been since coaching Germany to a third place finish at home (with Low the real tactician). Read what Philip Lahm had to say about his "coaching methods".

Look I don’t profess to know much about world class tactics, but the Lahm articles I read shows that he criticized several coaches.

But one thing I think I do know is Klinsman is largely responsible for many of our kids having foreign success right now.  Maybe it’s partly natural progression but JK really emphasized clubs here and playing in Europe rather than MLS.  I think it would be hard to argue that he didn’t have a significant hand in fairly quickly accelerating our kids talent.

I have a hard time believing the USMNT is better off with friggin Gregg Berhalter who had about a 400 winning percentage in the 4th tier MLS league.

under Arenas the US had some success as a “scrappy” bunch in early 2000s but JK wanted to elevate the talent through a system and accomplished it IMO.

Klinsman likely suffers from being a great player himself.  Seems like these greats don’t understand why non greats can’t just do some of the things that they can do.  Here in America there are few great players in team sports who make great managers and coaches, he also wanted to live here and wasn’t as committed maybe as is necessary to be great at coaching.  However, many of the formally weird ideas Lahm was bitching  about are now standard.

3rd place WC and getting the US through the 2014 group of death aren’t bad accomplishments though 

Edited April 1, 20215 yr by DumbYank

17 hours ago, DumbYank said:

Look I don’t profess to know much about world class tactics, but the Lahm articles I read shows that he criticized several coaches.

But one thing I think I do know is Klinsman is largely responsible for many of our kids having foreign success right now.  Maybe it’s partly natural progression but JK really emphasized clubs here and playing in Europe rather than MLS.  I think it would be hard to argue that he didn’t have a significant hand in fairly quickly accelerating our kids talent.

I have a hard time believing the USMNT is better off with friggin Gregg Berhalter who had about a 400 winning percentage in the 4th tier MLS league.

under Arenas the US had some success as a “scrappy” bunch in early 2000s but JK wanted to elevate the talent through a system and accomplished it IMO.

Klinsman likely suffers from being a great player himself.  Seems like these greats don’t understand why non greats can’t just do some of the things that they can do.  Here in America there are few great players in team sports who make great managers and coaches, he also wanted to live here and wasn’t as committed maybe as is necessary to be great at coaching.  However, many of the formally weird ideas Lahm was bitching  about are now standard.

3rd place WC and getting the US through the 2014 group of death aren’t bad accomplishments though 

Klinsman was let go because he was losing control of the locker room and he apparently was insulting to the fan base.  

Also from what I understand he wasn't much of a tactician either.

I will grant that he did push for the top talent to play in Europe and he is right about that.  The only question I have about that is how much of an effect does that have???  I mean Europe pays more than the MLS, by a long shot.  Would seem to me if you are a soccer player and you have the opportunity to play in Europe you would do it if for no other reason than the money.  

On 31/03/2021 at 14:44, Munkworth said:

Whatever happened to Brad Bobley?

Bob Bradly??

IMO he got shafted.  For a long time US soccer really really wanted Jurgen Klinsman to coach the USMNT.  He was their dream coach.  But I guess he wanted a level of control that they were not willing to give him.  So they gave the job to Bob Bradley who IMO was probably the most successful USMNT coach in our history.

I guess at some point they came to an agreement with Klinsman about control over the team and Bradley was suddenly fired out of no where and they made Klinsman the coach.

Really sucks to be him because I don't feel like he ever really failed to meet expectations.  But he basically was the 2nd choice to begin with and US soccer kept talking to their 1st choice guy behind his back the entire time.  

At this point he couldn't be brought back.  His son Michael tarnished their name because his son was the captain of the USMNT during the last World Cup qualifying cycle in which the US team save for Pulisic and Howard showed an extremely low effort.  Bradley wasn't coaching at that point so it wasn't his fault at all, but his son being the captain of that team and showing an extremely low effort along with just about every other player on the pitch tarnished the name to US soccer fans.  

Quite frankly a lot of former USMNT players who had played a lot of caps for the team ruined their reputation with the fans that qualifying cycle.  I'm still angry about it whenever I think back to it because I've never seen a team display suck a lack of effort and will to win in any sport ever in my life.  I've seen the US lose because the other team was simply a better team plenty of times.  But this wasn't that, they where clearly the better team. . . they just didn't want to win as much as a team that had nothing left to play for. . . 

2 hours ago, Valpo said:

Klinsman was let go because he was losing control of the locker room and he apparently was insulting to the fan base.  

Also from what I understand he wasn't much of a tactician either.

I will grant that he did push for the top talent to play in Europe and he is right about that.  The only question I have about that is how much of an effect does that have???  I mean Europe pays more than the MLS, by a long shot.  Would seem to me if you are a soccer player and you have the opportunity to play in Europe you would do it if for no other reason than the money.  

Well yeah on average Europe pays more than MLS, but Dempsey doubled his salary moving from Tottenham to MLS 3 Mill to 6 mill, and Donavon increased more than that as a percentage.  
 

Jk was speaking am uncomfortable truth that needed to be heard.  The USMNT was not going to improve if it’s players played MLS.  It’s just simply true.

 

I don’t blame the dudes for taking the money to come to MLS, but it doesn’t change the fact that playing in a bush league doesn’t accelerate the talent level.

Are you American?  I for one wasn’t insulted by Klinsman taking this position.  In fact I loved it.

3 hours ago, DumbYank said:

Well yeah on average Europe pays more than MLS, but Dempsey doubled his salary moving from Tottenham to MLS 3 Mill to 6 mill, and Donavon increased more than that as a percentage.  
 

Jk was speaking am uncomfortable truth that needed to be heard.  The USMNT was not going to improve if it’s players played MLS.  It’s just simply true.

 

I don’t blame the dudes for taking the money to come to MLS, but it doesn’t change the fact that playing in a bush league doesn’t accelerate the talent level.

Are you American?  I for one wasn’t insulted by Klinsman taking this position.  In fact I loved it.

I’m American and I can’t resist the urge to not talk about the USMNT after reading this. Klinsman was absolutely right to push players to develop their game in Europe. But what I didn’t like about the klinsman era is the introduction of a bunch of non-Americans playing for the national team. Julian Green, Jermaine Jones, John brooks, etc. Yeah it’s nice to have the talent on the team but I’d take true American pride, grit, and heart over talent any day of the week. Maybe that’s just the way national teams go nowadays but I’d be interested in hearing everyone’s thoughts on this. 

7 hours ago, edewaarb said:

I’m American and I can’t resist the urge to not talk about the USMNT after reading this. Klinsman was absolutely right to push players to develop their game in Europe. But what I didn’t like about the klinsman era is the introduction of a bunch of non-Americans playing for the national team. Julian Green, Jermaine Jones, John brooks, etc. Yeah it’s nice to have the talent on the team but I’d take true American pride, grit, and heart over talent any day of the week. Maybe that’s just the way national teams go nowadays but I’d be interested in hearing everyone’s thoughts on this. 

I don’t know about all that.  If you or your parents are American citizens you should be able to play for the US.  American pride, grit and heart will only go so far and is not any more special than other country’s pride.  If you want to win at the highest level you need talent.  We have have athletes but to gain the skill set to compete globally our players definitely need to be playing in Europe.  MLS is growing and getting better, but will always be a farm/senior league.

10 hours ago, edewaarb said:

I’m American and I can’t resist the urge to not talk about the USMNT after reading this. Klinsman was absolutely right to push players to develop their game in Europe. But what I didn’t like about the klinsman era is the introduction of a bunch of non-Americans playing for the national team. Julian Green, Jermaine Jones, John brooks, etc. Yeah it’s nice to have the talent on the team but I’d take true American pride, grit, and heart over talent any day of the week. Maybe that’s just the way national teams go nowadays but I’d be interested in hearing everyone’s thoughts on this. 

I think other countries with dual citizenship or foreign born parents also have players that play on national teams that don't live in that country.  Don't they?  I don't have a problem with that either.  I think most of these guys were the sons of American servicemen weren't they?  Dudes got married to foreign women and stayed in their wives countries was the main avenue to the USMNT for these guys weren't they?  

Anyway, I get it from your perspective though.  But for instance I know several people that have Mexican parents, but have grown up rabidly rooting for the MexNT.  In fact, I've had several students over the years that wear the Mexican shirt on match days, etc.  If one of these kids was good enough, I don't see a problem with them playing for Mexico.  

3 hours ago, sstarrx2 said:

I don’t know about all that.  If you or your parents are American citizens you should be able to play for the US.  American pride, grit and heart will only go so far and is not any more special than other country’s pride.  If you want to win at the highest level you need talent.  We have have athletes but to gain the skill set to compete globally our players definitely need to be playing in Europe.  MLS is growing and getting better, but will always be a farm/senior league.

I agree.  I'll trade "American Grit" for more skill.  I don't think we have a corner on the grit market either.  It's hubris IMO.  Iceland has seemed awfully gritty these last couple WC cycles, and that Viking Clap or whatever the Hell it is is pretty friggin cool.

On 01/04/2021 at 19:10, DumbYank said:

Well yeah on average Europe pays more than MLS, but Dempsey doubled his salary moving from Tottenham to MLS 3 Mill to 6 mill, and Donavon increased more than that as a percentage.  
 

Jk was speaking am uncomfortable truth that needed to be heard.  The USMNT was not going to improve if it’s players played MLS.  It’s just simply true.

 

I don’t blame the dudes for taking the money to come to MLS, but it doesn’t change the fact that playing in a bush league doesn’t accelerate the talent level.

Are you American?  I for one wasn’t insulted by Klinsman taking this position.  In fact I loved it.

I am

I wasn't insulted, I just felt like Bradley got a raw deal.

I suppose we have the answer to why he was taken off. Injured himself again.

Very, very sad but would not be surprised if we look to sell him this summer now. Simply cannot stay fit.

Bless him, if he could have stayed fit this season he really could of kicked on. It's so unfortunate both him and Hazard have been so injury prone for their teams respectively.

I'm starting to understand why managers like SAF and Klopp were reluctant to replace star players with like for likes it hardly ever works and the best coaches tend to adapt their style and use different players. Man U couldn't replace CR7, Barca couldn't replace Neymar, Real couldn't replace CR7, and we can't replace Hazard.

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by LongtimerLurker

21 minutes ago, Sindre said:

I suppose we have the answer to why he was taken off. Injured himself again.

Very, very sad but would not be surprised if we look to sell him this summer now. Simply cannot stay fit.

Hmm, surely he didn't get injured just from that little jog, even with a tight hamstring it would be hard to feel it that bad just from jogging. I'm starting to think it's a mental thing with Pulisic of late, like any time he feels anything, he is asking to be subbed just in case. I'm just guessing though, but it does seem like it at times.

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by Scott Harris