OT: USMNT

[gobillsgo]

24 minutes ago, RiseOfTheBillikens said:

 

Just named the roster for the games coming up. One being the friendly versus Uzbekistan in St Louis. Excited that they are bringing a lot of the guys, should be fun. 

No MLS “vibes guys” (Arriola, Roldan, Long, Morris, Acosta)!!!   Are we sure this is the same Gregg, or has he been replaced by an imposter?

[Slu let the dogs out?]

18 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

Nice to see Ream coming home.  Having watched Cremaschi and Callender plenty this past month, they both deserve a shot to be in camp.  Both have had their profiles enhanced by playing with Messi. 

Cremaschi is only 18.  He has a  bright future.  Steffan is coming off a knee injury, hence the opening for Callender.  Reyna is also just coming off an injury and just started training last week.

Hopefully it’s a bright future with the USMNT and not Argentina’s. I’m sure it’s going to be a hard sell though. It’s not like Cremaschi has his idol/the greatest player of all time in his ear about playing for the defending WC champs or anything…

[HoosierPal]

Read that Sargent is hurt again. Hence he isn’t being called in. 

[wgstl]

1 hour ago, gobillsgo said:

No MLS “vibes guys” (Arriola, Roldan, Long, Morris, Acosta)!!!   Are we sure this is the same Gregg, or has he been replaced by an imposter?

When you get an undeserving and ridiculous second chance, you don't screw it up, and do opposite of what you've been doing. 

[Lord Elrond]

1 hour ago, wgstl said:

When you get an undeserving and ridiculous second chance, you don't screw it up, and do opposite of what you've been doing. 

There’s a lot to that, what he was doing wasn’t working, so trying something new isn’t a crazy way to start out on your second chance.

[brianstl]

1 hour ago, HoosierPal said:

Read that Sargent is hurt again. Hence he isn’t being called in. 

Goalkeeper crashed into his ankle while Sargent scored.  Awful timing on the injury.  He was playing as well as he has in a long time in the first four weeks of the Championship.  Supposedly he will be out for months with ligament damage.

[HoosierPal]

48 minutes ago, brianstl said:

Goalkeeper crashed into his ankle while Sargent scored.  Awful timing on the injury.  He was playing as well as he has in a long time in the first four weeks of the Championship.  Supposedly he will be out for months with ligament damage.

Yeah that’s what I read too. Norwich Coach said he will be out ‘months not weeks’.  The next non-friendly call up is in Nov for the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Nations League.  Sounds like Sargent won't be available by then anyway.  (The Nations League has been reconfigured somewhat, so I'm not sure if we call up the A team or the B team.)

[gobillsgo]

1 hour ago, HoosierPal said:

Yeah that’s what I read too. Norwich Coach said he will be out ‘months not weeks’.  The next non-friendly call up is in Nov for the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Nations League.  Sounds like Sargent won't be available by then anyway.  (The Nations League has been reconfigured somewhat, so I'm not sure if we call up the A team or the B team.)

Nations league should definitely be an A team.  With no World Cup qualifying, we need all the “competitive” games we can get prior to 2026. 

[laker119]

In some good news to end the work week, Gregg has named arguably the USMNT’s best 11 for the game tomorrow at City Park.  

[laker119]

https://x.com/usmntonly/status/1700219229092323460?s=46&t=VMtTbWGwLYHddAaeUWmPrA 

 

[HoosierPal]

Balogun limited to 45 minutes, will be replaced by Pepi  

[Pistol]

What was with attendance today? My friends here in Cincy are dunking on STL and its claim as the U.S. soccer capital hard right now.

[willie]

11 minutes ago, Pistol said:

What was with attendance today? My friends here in Cincy are dunking on STL and its claim as the U.S. soccer capital hard right now.

I was there. Don’t know what the official might be but looked like about 70% full to me. Pure guess but how about 14,800. I’ll check my guess in the morning paper. 

[wgstl]

36 minutes ago, Pistol said:

What was with attendance today? My friends here in Cincy are dunking on STL and its claim as the U.S. soccer capital hard right now.

It was bad I would say 17K. 

[willie]

13 hours ago, willie said:

I was there. Don’t know what the official might be but looked like about 70% full to me. Pure guess but how about 14,800. I’ll check my guess in the morning paper. 

15,569.  My guess was pretty good. 

[slufanskip]

I was there also, though the USA won 3-0, they looked lethargic after they got the early goal. Way too much slowing it down, inaccurate passing, and almost no direct balls. Ream got away with a couple of mistakes and some bad distribution. If not for Turner this could have been a loss or a tie. 

[Slu let the dogs out?]

22 hours ago, wgstl said:

It was bad I would say 17K. 

I may be a moran with horrible money management skills but my wife and I are not paying $300+ (for JUST tix) to take the dependents to see the USMNT take on my least favorite Soviet satellite country. Also, why the 4:30 start?

[HoosierPal]

14 minutes ago, Slu let the dogs out? said:

I may be a moran with horrible money management skills but my wife and I are not paying $300+ (for JUST tix) to take the dependents to see the USMNT take on my least favorite Soviet satellite country. Also, why the 4:30 start?

I agree on the weird start time.  I looked at tickets Friday morning and they were $40.  You have a huge family! 

[Slu let the dogs out?]

58 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

I agree on the weird start time.  I looked at tickets Friday morning and they were $40.  You have a huge family! 

Ha thankfully we still don’t have to purchase a ticket for our youngest but finding 5 tickets together is sometimes challenging (and more expensive). I saw around $50 the day of* (If we wanted to stare into a giant ball of gas for 2 hours - another reason I ask the question: why the 4:30 start time?) but assume after taxes and fees they were a lot more than $50/ticket. 

*another questionable aspect of this game to me: marketing. Perhaps I just drive down the wrong roads or follow/watch/read the wrong people but I had completely forgotten this game was being played until being reminded about 5 days ago. 

[Brighton]

On 9/9/2023 at 11:20 PM, Pistol said:

What was with attendance today? My friends here in Cincy are dunking on STL and its claim as the U.S. soccer capital hard right now.

No offense, but they’re idiots. This was the third National Team match this year and the previous one was packed when it featured the C-team. Blame USSF for price gouging consumers while putting together a weak friendly matchup. You want to impress us by giving the men some stiff competition before 2026 ? Then schedule teams from France, England, Argentina, Germany, etc to play you.

[Lord Elrond]

I had to be out of town that weekend, but obviously my absence did nothing for the overall attendance. It was an uninspiring matchup (personally still trying to figure out when the glory years of Uzbeckistani soccer were), and I think a vote by the fans on the choice of Head Coach by US Soccer.  By the way, nothing about how the US team played that game gave me much confidence that US Soccer got the head coach choice right. Oh well, we’re stuck with him now.

[wgstl]

11 hours ago, HoosierPal said:

I agree on the weird start time.  I looked at tickets Friday morning and they were $40.  You have a huge family! 

I believe fee's were around $20, so that $40 was actually $60

[wgstl]

2 hours ago, Brighton said:

No offense, but they’re idiots. This was the third National Team match this year and the previous one was packed when it featured the C-team. Blame USSF for price gouging consumers while putting together a weak friendly matchup. You want to impress us by giving the men some stiff competition before 2026 ? Then schedule teams from France, England, Argentina, Germany, etc to play you.

Everyone keeps talking about this, who else were we supposed to play?  Very few options available unless you want to play the same teams we always play. 

[Lord Elrond]

9 minutes ago, wgstl said:

Everyone keeps talking about this, who else were we supposed to play?  Very few options available unless you want to play the same teams we always play. 

Team USA is currently ranked 11th in the FIFA rankings. Uzbekistan is ranked 74th. This explains both why many USA fans didn’t view this as a competitive matchup, and why many USA fans didn’t greet the return of the coach who failed to get us into the knockout round of the World Cup with a lot of enthusiasm. The quality of the Team USA play for much of this game  didn’t change many minds about the coaching decision, but US Soccer has never really cared about the opinion of the fans, so here we are.

[Slu let the dogs out?]

8 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

Team USA is currently ranked 11th in the FIFA rankings. Uzbekistan is ranked 74th. This explains both why many USA fans didn’t view this as a competitive matchup, and why many USA fans didn’t greet the return of the coach who failed to get us into the knockout round of the World Cup with a lot of enthusiasm. The quality of the Team USA play for much of this game  didn’t change many minds about the coaching decision, but US Soccer has never really cared about the opinion of the fans, so here we are.

Not the biggest Gregggg fan but didn't he get us into the knockout round of the WC?