f13.net

We are like, what, a week away from the EPL season starting?

I'd just like to ask, wtf is Chelsea thinking? I mean , by all means, go ahead and blow up the team that won a title 2 years ago but wtf?

Can anyone stop City this year?

Wil Kante still be on Chelsea by close of the next window? Will Hazard and Courtouis?

Chelsea's biggest problem is their executives apparently cannot stay on good terms with a manager. Oh and they also hire managers who are prickly geniuses who get really upset at slights and start acting like an asshole to the players, media and everyone around them. And I say that as someone who really like Conte (but yes, he can be a prickly asshole genius - he's just more likable than Mourinho). Letting Cante, Hazard, Courtois or Willian go would be madness but that seems to be the Chelsea way these days. I don't expect they will rise to the top 4 this year but at least they probably won't have to worry about Arsenal overtaking them either.

Liverpool's whole season could revolve around whether they get a decent goalkeeper. Rumors about Allison keep dying down then heating up so hopefully they aren't going to cheap out this time. They still need to worry about depth everywhere but they are looking much better with Shaqiri, Fabinho and Keita in.

Man. U. are only going to go as far as Mourinho will let them and I don't see him pulling his head out of his ass long enough to produce the kind of offensive displays that will overtake City. It's just not in his DNA no matter how many top attacking players you give him. City, OTOH, are due for a dip in form because they appear to have spent so much money that they can't really add much without being expected to overpay (see Jorginho going to Chelsea instead of City). Barring a crazy spate of injuries and their defense completely collapsing, I don't see much hope that anyone will challenge them.

Spurs are still Spurs, and are operating under the "tighten your belt" phase of a new stadium. Arsenal may have Unai Emery but I don't see this team gelling well enough to challenge for top 4 based on the quality above them.

Off-topic question: wife and I are debating whether to start following soccer a bit more than watching highlights. What TV channels would be needed to start watching or recording matches?

If you want the English Premier League, you need NBC Sports Network (NBCSN). They offer a streaming package for $50 a season but it won't have all the games - about 230 games will be on TV while the rest will be on their streaming service (NBCSN Gold). For La Liga (Spain) and I think Serie A (Italy), you need BeinSportsTV. For Bundesliga (German), you need Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 and/or Fox Soccer Plus. They also have some kind of streaming service but I'm not sure what's on it. ESPN+ is their new streaming service and it has English Championship games (the tier below the Premier League). GolTV has something but I'm not sure what - I think some of the South American leagues. MLS (American) matches are on Fox and ESPN.

EPL is probably the best and easiest to follow (more teams with an actual chance vs other European leagues which are 1-2 teams shows at best - IM LOOKING AT YOU BUNDESLIGA). NBC Sports has good coverage and is usually in most basic cable packages if you are going that route. Don't support Chelsea, no one will like you.  :why_so_serious:

If you do go the EPL route I also suggest listening to the Men In Blazers podcast and taking in their weekly TV show. It's a hoot.

Hey I don’t know what you complain about. There have been years where Bayern didn’t win.  Be grateful  :grin:

Splendid. Thanks for that.  :drill:

What's actually broken in the last 7 years ? Bayern just has TOO much money or other clubs not spending enough?

I think it's mostly that Bayern has made a habit of buying up all the best German players, including from the teams that have been their biggest rivals for the title. They bought Gotze and Lewandowski in back to back years from Dortmund (who was I think the last non-Bayern team to win the Bundesliga), and when I first started watching in 2006-2007 season, they bought Miroslav Klose from Werder Bremen (who finished 2nd the season before Klose left). They don't spend Barca/Real Madrid/Man U/Man City money on foreign players, but they still spend more than their rivals.

Yeah but I guess they could've done that for years, also doesn't the Bundesliga have a rule about amount of non-German players that can be on one team?


In regards to your comment about City buying ppl let's note they just spent $60mil on Mahrez, one does have to ask where the fuck is he going to play?

Exactly. I'm a big fan of Mahrez but that's WAY too much money to pay for him, especially considering he's not likely to displace Sterling or de Bruyne or David Silva (maybe him because of his age but that'll depend on form and health) in the regular starting XI. But knowing that Man City's owners are rich as fuck, teams will charge over the odds for anyone that goes there. Napoli tried to do that with Jorginho and City pulled out because Chelsea was willing to pay more than they were.

I think all the leagues have some restrictions on foreign players though I don't know if the Bundesliga is more restrictive than others. 

Weird: Usain Bolt may be signing (https://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/bolt-mariners-agree-to-a-league-deal) with the worst team in Australia's A-League, the Central Coast Mariners.

In the A-League's defence, this is how the last season ended (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCYqr4zpRC8).

Bayern have been exceptionally smart investors and buyers/sellers and they have an exceptional youth programme.
There's practically nothing Bayern does that couldn't be replicated by most other Bundesliga teams.

Germany's 50+1 rule prevents investors from taking over a majority stake of any Bundesliga club. This rule was put in place to prevent rich investors from taking over one club as a "hobby" and then outspending the competition into oblivion like it happened in Spain, England, or France. Everyone was scared that some oligarch would be able to buy a Bundesliga club and then pump 800 million into it to turn it into the next Chelsea or Man City only for them to bail a few years later and leaving the club in shambles. The corollary to this is that the money Bayern is able to spend on players has to come from TV rights, merchandising, smart investments, smart player purchases/sales or they have to recruit players from their youth academies/programs.

Bayern is managing its money very well and Höneß in particular has a knack for clever investments. Bayern usually manages to have a net profit on player purchases/sales and they bring up a lot of really strong players from their youth teams or their own academy. Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Müller, Hummels, Alaba, Kroos, Wagner, Can, Badstuber, the list goes on. All of those players have either been brought up from Bayern Münchens own youth academy or have been part of bayern München's youth teams (U15, U19 etc.) and came up though those.

Bayern also have a very good talent scouting department. They got James Rodriguez on loan for 13 million from Real Madrid for example, Robben for 30 million and Ribery for 25 million, Boateng for 12.5 million, Lewandowsky for free and Neuer for 30 million.

Bayern are acting very smart - most of the time (I still don't understand why they let Kroos go to Real Madrid) - and have been for more than three decades. The rest comes from success drawing in more talent, because who wouldn't want to work for the most successful team.

There's nothing in Bayern's success though that couldn't also be copied by Dortmund, Schalke or other top tier Bundesliga clubs.

The main difference between Bayern and them is stability - the Bayern management team has been largely the same for the last twenty years - and business savy.

European clubs can't put any restrictions on the number of foreign players they hire at least as far as citizens of EU member states are concerned. See Bosman decision in 1995.

The main reason why Bundesliga teams don't hire as many marquee foreigners is budget. The DFL's 50+1 rule precludes outside investors from acquiring a majority stake in any club. This means that no German club has an Abramovic stand-in that would be able to field the massive amounts of money for top players. That's why you'll probably never see a German club being able or willing to buy someone like Cristiano Ronaldo for 350 million. Draxler, Tolisso, Marztinez and Vidal have been the most expensive transfers so far and they all cost in the range of 45 million.

I know that English clubs do have a minimum number of spots on the roster that must be from "home-grown" players. Those players don't necessarily have to be English but they must have trained at the club for a certain number of years if they aren't. Barca and La Liga teams do have a restriction on the number of non-EU roster spots, but that can be got around - for instance, there's talk that Coutinho (who currently does count as one of 3 non-EU spots) will come off that list because his wife is Portuguese so he'll be considered an EU player with some kind of paperwork.

As for Bayern's success being emulated by other German clubs, good luck. Dortmund could have been that under Klopp (and were) but once he left, they decided to get into Barca/Real Madrid style pissing matches with their coaches, and are now on their 4th coach in 3 seasons.

Jeff,

I'm just going to say that your piece reads like a fan piece about how 'my team is just smaaaaartah than yours, its nothing to do with the money!'. Yankees fans take note. Pats fan probably too (though revenue isn't the issue there it's having the best coach/QB/owner combo in NFL history)

Looking at  this chart (https://www.statista.com/statistics/591201/bundesliga-revenue-football-clubs-germany/) revenue is absolutely a difference maker and no the other Bundesliga teams COULDN'T just replicate what Bayern is doing. Why didn't Borussia just keep Goetze, Lewandoski, Hummels then?

The reason why Bayern has so much money comes from the fact that they have been more consistent and stable and yes smarter than their competition.

For example: after their very successful run at the end of the nineties, where they even won the UEFA Champions League, Dortmund overextended itself so much that they nearly went bankrupt. They very nearly got relegated to the second division in 2000, three years after they had won the CL. By 2002 they had wasted most of their money on expensive but useless players, on a whole slew of business ventures that all failed and expensive projects like an extension to their stadium. In 2004 they had accrued about 100 Million Euro of debt. They subsequently had to sell most of their players to stay afloat, sold and re-leased their stadium to generate additional cash on short notice and the Dortmund board of directors summarily resigned/was fired.

It took Dortmund nearly a decade to recover from that.

Also while Schalke has probably an even better youth program than Bayern, and also the more wealthy title sponsor (Gazprom) they tend to favor stupid business decisions. In 2006 Schalke had a whopping 226 Million Euro of debt and prominent members of the club allegedly took on private loans to stave off bankruptcy, which led to the resignation of president Assauer.

In the same time frame Bayern didn’t have any financial issues or sweeping changes in management.

Yet both Dortmund and Schalke are in the top 20 of the most financial successful clubs in the world (revenue) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deloitte_Football_Money_League

Dortmund at 12th place is in front of Athletico Madrid, Inter or Olympique Lyon and has a budget on par with Juventus or Liverpool.

1899 Hoffenheim is sponsored by SAP and funded by billionaire Dietmar Hopp, one of the SAP founders, VFL Wolfsburg is literally owned by VW. Red Bull RasenBallsport Leipzig‘s main sponsor and 99% owner is Red Bull and Dietrich Mateschitz.

There is literally nothing Bayern does that couldn’t be replicated by the top five of the German Bundesliga at least. It’s just that Bayern has been much more savvy and consistent over the last two decades and didn’t piss their money away on stupid shit.

I sometimes watch the games on nefarious streams of US channels and I really dig it when Alexei Lalas is co-commentating. Has a good insight and untouched from the bias and dumbing down of British media punditry, think he's on FOX?

I cannot fucking stand Lalas. He is smug and often reeks of "in my day"-ism.

Just think about how bad the British Media Pundits are then.

This. Lalas is the worst. Fox's commentary at the WC was fucking terrible.

I didn't watch any of the World Cup studio stuff (the shows and halftime) but I thought their broadcast teams were decent. Tony Meola was ear cancer, Martino was ok. Ian Darke and Aly Wagner were the best, IMO, but I'm partial to a British voice for watching football anyway.

Even though they've yet to offer their services in the US I'd recommend checking out DAZN (www.dazn.com). The parent company of DAZN is very aggressively purchasing sports rights and they want to become the "Netflix of sports". They are currently operating in Germany, Austria, Switzerland,  Japan, Canada and Italy and they offer Premier League, La Liga, Seria A, Ligue 1 and Bundesliga. This might not be an option for the US at the moment but they are continuously expanding their sports rights portfolio and target markets.

Looks like the US version is only about "fight sports."

That's literally every ex-pro commentator ever though. I think the reason I like him is that he considers his points to some degree, which is rare, and I find his post analysis of a half to be generally spot on.

You can lump the Irish ones in there too, Brian Kerr is like nails on a chalkboard.

Urgh. Don't remind me...

It was actually Derek Rae with Aly Wagner. He could barely hide his erection when things went south for England  :roffle:

Liverpool just bought alisson becker on a record transfer for goalkeepers.

Thank fuck for that.  :awesome_for_real:

Pulisic is an animal.  Damn he's good. 

Yeah, he's really good. He needs to stay consistent and hit the goals more but given how badly Dortmund collapsed as a team last year, I can see why he wasn't. Liverpool looked totally gassed when they gave up the goals which is understandable. Even if they hadn't landed the day before, Charlotte in the summer is hot as fuck. I'm sure most of those players are not used to those kinds of temps.

Bayern Munich pays up to $22 million for Alphonso Davies from the Vancouver Whitecaps. Vancouver will share  part of the fee with an Edmonton youth club  (http://lastwordonsoccer.com/2018/07/26/alphonso-davies-transfer-highlights-ussfs-errant-ways-regarding-solidarity-payments/) going against US MLS clubs SOP but how the rest of the soccer clubs in the world do. Oh Canada!

It was a sad but happy day for us in Vancouver. He's a Canadian citizen and only 17 years old, so at least we'll still have him on the national team (they have to let the host country play in the World Cup, don't they?!)

He's still playing for Vancouver for the rest of the season. His first game after the transfer - he went out and scored two goals and two assists.

I saw footage of one goal he scored with a ridonkulous move at the top of the box, looked like someting outa FIFA18.

Yes Canada will play in World Cup '26. Mind you aren't they expanding the field to 48 teams in 2022? (bad idea but hey's those cat apartments don't pay for themselves I guess)

I'm sure I've said it before but it's amazing how BAD NBC Sports website is. Highlights and scores of games your OWN network actually broadcasts? fuckinghellgetoutwiththatshit.

so fucking bad.

LIVERPOOL. LIVERPOOL.

As expected, they looked really good. If not for Fabianski in goal, it might have been 6 or 7 goals. Sure, we got the benefit of a really blind ass referee missing an obvious offsides call for the 3rd goal but it's not like we were ever in any danger of giving up even a two goal lead. West Ham is going to be better than the 4-0 result would suggest - Felipe Anderson and Balbuena look like really good acquisitions onto a team that has some talent but was stuck with unimpressive managers like Moyes.

Nice to see that Arsenal may be even worse than last year if only because Emery's focus on keeping the team from giving away really dumb ass goals is going to cause their attack to suffer. Also nice to see that United under Mourinho hasn't changed their approach one fucking iota so United fans can look forward to seeing 1 out 6 dazzling performances followed by 3-4 drab but effective performances with the odd complete damb squib of an outing against a team they should beat handily. Mourinho still doesn't know how to get the best out of Sanchez and Pogba and I expect by January, if Mourinho is still there, Sanchez will be sulking his way through every appearance.

Scouses looked good. When's the first Man City Liverpool match??

Sunday, Oct. 7 at Anfield.

2 months! Let's hope it's the match of the season when it does arrive. Arsenal will suck, Chelsea kinda sucks, Mourinho will find ways to make Man U suck (even if they shouldn't), Spurs will do something Spursy. It SHOULD be Liverpool vs Man City for the title.

United still boring and aimless, Liverpool could win the league.

Or in other words, United still have Jose Mourinho as manager and what worked at Chelsea a few years ago no longer works because the game has evolved and Mourinho resuses to. It's a news line that means the same as "water is wet" but said differently.  :why_so_serious:

I'm honestly unsure why anyone in the football world who hasn't been in a coma for the last decade is shocked. Replacing Moyes and Van Gaal with Mourinho and then expecting the football to be attractive is just bonkers. Granted, I think Ed Woodward is a dolt and the Glazer family is more interested in loading the club with debt and making money off the merchandising of the brand than in having title-winning football (so long as the Champions League revenue comes in), so having achieved 2nd last season is a feat. The whole club is a slow motion train wreck waiting to happen and I can't wait until the Pogba/Mourinho feud gets exploded by the addition of the Sanchez/Mourinho feud, as Alexis starts making moon-eyes at Pep Guardiola again.

EA and Nike probably seriously regret plastering Ronaldo’s face over everything right now.

Top of the table is tiiiight. 

I'm amused when commentators profess amazement when the Liverpool - Man City game ended 0 - 0. Really, the two teams who've given up 6 goals total in 16 games , under a crap load of pressure manage to cancel each other out. duh. Oh and Mahrez, a guy who sucks at taking penalties and obviously didn't WANT to take the penalty is given the chance and blows it. Suck it Pep.

That was a really good game. Based on how shitty the form of Mane, Firmino and especially Salah is, I'm happy enough with a 0-0 draw, especially after Van Djik gave up a really stupid penalty.

It's so clear that Salah and Firmino especially need a rest. Sturridge/Solanke and Shaqiri need to get some league starts against the cupcakes like Huddersfield.

Bye bye Jose!

That was WAY overdue and frankly should have happened shortly after his little rant during preseason when he shat on all the players who weren't there because of the World Cup and said the young guys he had to play weren't going to have a chance to play in the season anyway. His negativity just ran down that club and his inability to even muster a decent defense (something he's supposed to be good at) in the process of playing such, dire, boring, negative football with millions of pounds worth of player talent was inexcusable. As a Liverpool fan, I'd have been fine with them keeping him all year, though.  :why_so_serious:

The Liverpool crowd chanting 'Dont fire Jose' after the match was golden.

That organization is fucked in the head. 

Write a new contract and fuck up your team during the third year so you get fired and go to a new club, rinse repeat.

If you haven't seen it and you have a chance, watch today's City/Liverpool game. It's an absolutely amazing game to watch.

Fuck Real Madrid. That is all.  :why_so_serious:

The total wage budget for Ajax‘s 1st, 2nd and youth team is 38 Million or less than the salary of Gareth Bale.

Awesome display by Ajax today. Also fuck Sergio Ramos who deliberately missed this game to have a clean slate for the rest of the CL campaign

Suck. It. Real.  Madrid.

hahahahah

I never ever thought liverpool could come back from being down 3 goals against barcelona, another magical european evening on anfield road. That corner from alexander arnold.....

The kind of result that has you posting on a f13 soccer thread that no one uses and you normally forget exists.

Just an absolutely fantastic game to watch unless you are a Barca fan. I was trying all day not to have the result spoiled because I was DVR'ing the match, and damn if a Facebook group of Liverpool supporters kept posting, which emailed me, which sent popup notifications through my browser. So I knew it was probably a Liverpool win but not the score or the details and I'm glad I watched it anyway. Holy fuck. Barca looked asleep most of the game, like all of their players were just waiting for Messi to come in and save them. The worst part is that it was that way in both legs. The only reason Liverpool didn't win in Barcelona was they couldn't finish and Messi was amazing. This time they finished and to do it without Salah and Firmino, with DIVOK GODDAMN ORIGI is just perfect.

Dat corner though... wake the fuck up, Barca.

Suck it Suarez, suck it Coutinho. Grass is greener playing with Messi until your former team steamrolls you over two legs.  :why_so_serious:

The fast corner kick was intentional and planned for (https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/liverpool-fc-barcelona-champions-league-2019-divock-origi-goal-ball-boy-ucl-video-a8904461.html) so gg to the coaching stuff.

Yeah, coaching staff noticed how slow Barcelona was while setting up for set pieces and so they instructed the ball boys to be as quick as possible for standards. If you watch the replay you can see that there's basically no Barca player covering for the kick and there's a lot of space between the corner and the "box" that is not defended. TAA could pretty much pass it directly to Origi who was completely free inside the box. Barca was pretty much asleep there.

The most interesting "fan-theory" I read was by a Barca supporter on reddit who claims that Barca regularly use standards to slow down the game and to time-waste and that they have instructed their own "ball-boys" to be deliberately slower and that they basically fooled themselves into thinking that every standard set piece is a slow setup. They also allegedly tend to bitch and moan more than other teams whenever a standard is awarded against them.

Also because I saw that question quite a few times: No, the player executing the corner does not have to wait for the whistle before he can take the kick. In fact a player doesn't need to wait for a whistle on any of the standards (including free kicks) unless the Ref explicitely tells them to.

That's why the opposing team usually has to cover for free kicks by deliberately standing too close to the spot (so that the distance requirement is not met). Also if there is an irregularity during a standard the ref can always stop play and order a repeat

The thing about that quick corner was that the ref was watching the corner the WHOLE time. If he'd had a problem with it being taken when and how it was, he clearly saw the whole thing from a good position and could have blown it dead if he wished. He saw no reason to and there wasn't one. It's amazing how many times I see teams just fiddle-fart around before a corner instead of being aware of the situation. It was just endemic of how lazily Barca played both games. Messi really did seem like the only one who gave a shit - maybe Suarez as well but for the most part the rest of the team just expected Messi to save them.

I've seen u14 teams better coached than that.  But holy fuck then the Tottenham game. What a week for the EPL.

I'm happy about the win but as a football fan this years champions league was about the way Ajax beat both Real Madrid and Juventus, Tottenham's crazy overtimes and Liverpool beating Barcelona.

Yeah, that final was a damp squib, but it's exactly the type of game Liverpool would have drawn or lost in years' past. Had they not scored so early, it probably would have been a more exciting game but they basically just challenged Spurs to come get some, and Spurs couldn't do it. Clearly Kane shouldn't have started (or Firmino for that matter) because he wasn't fit enough to give Van Djik much of a challenge. That tackle Van Djik made on Son was just goddamn exquisite, and the fact that was really the only challenge he faced the whole game says a lot. Why they didn't start Moura instead of Kane I don't know.

Still, Spurs finished 4th and got to the Champions League final without buying a single player for an entire year. You have to put a lot of that down to Pocchettino - he's every bit as good a manager as Klopp or Guardiola, IMO, he just needs an owner that spends money. They are 3-4 players away from a real challenge at the title simply because of depth. They've got to find a way to protect Kane from getting the shit kicked out of him every season and having to play close to 60 games.

Pocchettino before the final: "If I don't start Kane and we lose you guys will berate me for it and if I start Kane and we lose you guys will also berate me for it". He was under immense pressure to start Kane from the moment Kane claimed he was fit and able to play. Like Klopp a few years ago Pocchettino doesn't yet have the 'fuck you, I know what I'm doing' sort of attitude that comes from experience and a knowledge of one's own abilities as a coach.

He was also not confident enough to sub out Kane once it became apparent that he wasn't fit enough. Klopp started Firminio but he took him off about half way through when it became clear that he wasn't very effective.

Give Pocchettino a few more years of experience and he'll be on the level of the other top coaches in football.

Women kicked off their World Cup today... France mauling S.K. Not shocking, especially when you have a player 6'2" against an Asian team.  :why_so_serious:

The structure and reality of women's WC means that the group stage is a bunch of terrible matches that mean nothing. Wake me up when the knock outs get here.

I watch the early matches mainly to get familiar with names since I don't follow soccer very closely.

Stolen from Reddit, Women's World Cup Group stage first match results in Polandball format:

(https://i.imgur.com/jcgF4um.png)

Ohhh a crossover post!

So far, the best match I have watched is the one currently on, FRA-NOR

Before I say this, I do like watching the later rounds of the Women's World Cup and I don't think it's a bad spectator sport at all:

HOWEVER

I was wondering if there's a bigger waste of everyone's time in sports than the Women's World Cup Group Rounds, and I thought: No not even the first round of the NBA is this one-sided.

Also, I think if your format is designed to only eliminate 8 of the absolute worst teams out of the 24 possible teams fielded, you've designed a shitty tournament. Just don't invite those 8 teams or find 8 other body bags.

I'd much rather see them field 16 and do groups of 4 with the top 2 advancing to elimination 8s, or go full 32 and do groups before heading into 16 elimination. The middle ground is just shitty to me because we get to see up close how teams like Thailand get obliterated and don't even belong in the discussion at all.

I'm of the same thought about the men's NCAA basketball tournament.

Women's world cup group phase is atrocious but i hear the argument that you don't want to cut those 8 clearly shouldn't even be there countries because you do want to grow participation/visibility. The main issue is the whole 3 teams make it out of group thing. That is really bad.

Men's world cup had the same sort of problem back in the 80's when 24 countries competed and teams from asia and africa were fillers.

I'm glad we've played all these group rounds to see that maybe 4 teams will change from the 2015 World Cup round of 16?  :oh_i_see:

Cameroon likely won't make it (although still in it I think even losing 2 games lulz), Columbia and Switzerland didn't even play, and South Korea got smoked.

Well at least the Gold Cup is starting and the USMNT is so bad that besides a game versus Guyana you can't count on them for shit even though all games are "home" games.

How the fuck is Bradley still on this squad. Every fucking game I watch he is just clownshoes.  Replace him with Rose Lavelle.

He is old but he is slow.

Be fair... his age has never had anything to do with his statuesque movement.  :why_so_serious:

There was a time he was serviceable now he's just washed. He appeared to be a bulk of the problem versus Mexico. In part because he drew the hardest assignment for breaking down their pressure but also because he just looked fucking useless, made bad plays, was a step behind everything and wasn't even making good decisions as far as I could tell.

This could be a halfway decent USMNT this cycle though if someone gets some more brains+balls (who am I kidding). I think we have more useful backline talent than usual. If Bradley can get hurt and we can uncover a competent CDM then I might upgrade my outlook from "gdi we better at least qualify" to "I like our chances to get out of WC group".

 :Love_Letters: :Love_Letters: :Love_Letters:

The entire midfield was garbage against Mexico, but Bradley was definitely the worst of the lot. If you went back and broke down the game minute by minute I would set the over/under at passes that went directly to a Mexican at about 15, and I would probably bet the over. He made a couple of decent challenges that broke up counter-attacks, but overall he was one of the primary reasons they lost that game. Well, him and the utter lack of quality finishes. Sigh.

Jordan Morris doesn't look like a starter. Though he did have that pretty great header beyond that he was bleh as fuck. McKinnie you could give a pass to because the whole thing was shambles and he strikes me as more of an attacking mid than anything else. I'm of the fuck that opinion and he's a terrible pairing with Bradley in games versus real opposition seemingly. You can't fault Arriola: that trackback took a goal off the board alone and he was active from box to box and gave everything without being too out of control or stupid. Also fouled a lot of Mexican prickfuck players so bonus points for that. Pulisic is the only player with true class the USMNT has. So yeah Bradley has to go. Keeping Morris for a sub also seems like a solid idea.

I just doubt anyone has the stones to sit Bradley at this point. Which sucks.

Jordan Morris needs quality service. He is very good at making slashing, dangerous runs in behind defenses, and is a decent finisher. What he can't do is take on defenders 1v1 (for the most part). If the US had a central midfielder who could complete more than a quarter of their passes, Morris would look a lot better. He plays with Nico Lodeiro in Seattle, who probably makes him look better than he actually is; NL is like a fringe player for Uruguay. That tells you the vast difference in skill between the US and even middling South American sides.

Yeah McKinnie has to develop as an individual player /and/ develop a chemistry with idk Tyler Adams? Kellyn Acosta? Someone needs to save this team and it won't be Bradley. Fuck we are hosed, I feel like by 2022 our attack might be exciting. I'm excited as I've ever been about our backline quality but you can't win international games without a strong midfield spine.

I honestly think when anyone but Bradley plays holding midfield (hopefully Roldan- that is where he plays for Seattle, even though GB plays him wide), McKinnie will get the touches he needs to affect the game more. He has a nice touch on his over the top balls especially.