re: United States of F#ck Yeah v. The Canal | Gold Cup | 8:30 p.m. CST (FS1)

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Sacha Kljestan

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Every time I think I'm done hearing this guy's name it gets brought up

I once grew a Sacha Stache'. That picture will live forever.

I'll be rocking TnT by ACDC for the next Mexico game.

He's been pretty impressive, I agree. But his days with the Nats are over it seems. If Benny don't get no play then Sacha won't either.

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Jozy is still coming back from injury. He is still the most reliable striker in our pool, except for maybe Deuce. He had one bad game and y'all are acting like he's a god damn pariah.

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TL;DR: Personal soapbox about how we've become too negative and critical, a lot of times unwarranted, when we're in one of the most optimistic times to be a US Soccer fan ever. It's one thing to criticize a player's form or performance, but it's another to bury a recovering Jozy playing limited minutes because we have other options. In a tournament we want to win, we're experimenting and tinkering and still winning, and that's awesome.

I've felt this way for a while, but I've tried not to have any massive rants with novels of text or start any real beefs. I can tell this is going to end up being massive because this is something that's really been bothering me. I love this board, but a lot of us, myself included, let our emotions take precedence over all else too much. We have to be careful before US Soccer becomes just another mostly negative experience because we judge every facet too strongly. I feel like we're starting to go from guys who are passionate about the team and sport to a bunch of USMNT rantards. I'd much rather discuss club than country here now because it's less drama even with the #bantz and Chelsea fans and more open to differing views.

Personally, I think Jozy is actually pretty solid for country when he's completely healthy. His streak of 5 matches scoring showed what a healthy, confident Jozy could be, and his strength is really an asset when he's playing well. When he isn't, he pouts a lot and doesn't put much in. What bothers me is that Clint does that same shite, and he takes much less heat for it. In the US-Mexico match last year, he was absolute shite, and people, especially here, were saying it was "vintage Clint Dempsey" and praising a performance that included him walking around, pouting, and giving up on balls. He crushed it for us in the World Cup and is running shite now, but he was dogshit in that match. Yet, Landon Donovan got crucified (by myself included) for coming in and giving the same performance with more spirit. I got criticized for even mentioning how awful Clint was in the match, if I remember correctly. I'm not innocent because I trolled hard on the Donovan thing. I also went apeshit when people gave Michael Bradley a hard time for basically going on a relaxing vacation to Brazil outside of the last seconds on the Belgium match when he really had been pretty bad.

This board is and has always been very reactionary. I think there are a lot of knowledgeable people here, but I think that people are comfortable enough here to let a lot of their emotions fly more than they would on a lot of other forums or boards. I say things here that I wouldn't say on /r/soccer, /r/ussoccer, /r/mls, Football365, Goal.com, etc. Add in a small contingency of people without much experience or knowledge of the game with kneejerk reactions, and it makes it seem much worse. People see Zardes playing well, and suddenly, Jozy's awful. I think Zardes is coming up, and I love what I see from him. At the end of the day, though, I think a healthy, confident Jozy is one of the most solid choices at the top. He isn't healthy, and his confidence is clearly not there due to injury and him feeling the pressure of other talent coming up judging from his hesitance to take shots. Frankly, guys who have been stars here aren't used to as much competition as Jozy is seeing now, and after injury and a few bad years for his clubs, people are far more harsh on him. Jozy is feeling the heat of him being successful. In fact, he's seeing a lot of the same shite people gave Donovan and people are giving Tim Howard in some pretentious circles. Because there is someone else doing well while he struggles, he's overrated, not skilled, hates America, and all of this other stuff.

A part of me enjoys that we have people to make things hard on our top guys, but I think we need to be more realistic and rational. One of the reasons I did troll so hard on Donovan decision was because I like the idea of the best players being chosen no matter what a player has done and giving young hungry guys a chance in big matches. Now, we all know that wasn't the case, which why my tone shifted so much, but it's something I still like about Jurgen. The dude makes a lot of stupid decisions, but he seems really invested in us really taking that next step and finding and trying anything and everything in terms of players and tactics.The only reason we have so many options at forward is because of all sorts of experimentation and not focusing purely on results. When we look bad and the experiment doesn't work out, it's really bad, but when things come together, we (well, the offense at least) look great and play a style of football that is different than we used to play. Sure, we haven't changed completely, but there are moments where we create goals that are just pure beauty or we look downright dangerous. The matches against the Netherlands and Germany showed that our B team is good enough to compete with elite teams' B teams. They were friendlies, but I refuse to ignore the fact that our A team beating a top Euro team's B/C team used to be a huge deal to us regardless of what the match "meant".

My point in all of this is that we're all emotionally invested in this team, which is pretty much the reason this board even exists, and we all let our emotions take over in a lot of situations. The USMNT is just so much deeper than we used to be, and we're struggling with that in good and bad ways. We're not used to having options as a fanbase. We've got guys like Aron going for overhead kicks and scoring screamers for his club, and guys like Gedion Zelalem and Julian Green who have big expectations and coming from elite clubs. Hell, Deandre Yedlin's entire story is just insane to me, especially with as much shite as his inclusion last year stirred up. We're just not used to having options as a fanbase, and it leads to a lot of very irrational opinions and unmerited criticism of players overall instead of just performances. Just because Jozy is not doing well right now doesn't mean he's not a top choice for us when healthy. It just means that a down Jozy is no longer a better choice than our forwards on the bench (except for Wondo no matter how many damn shite tap ins he scores). We have to be open to criticizing form over players before we become another England who hypes up any decent or hopeful player to the point to where a bad run of form labels them as shite forever. This rant is really more directed towards the general USMNT fanbase, but this is a venue that I feel people will actually agree to an extent. There are a lot of really knowledgeable guys here even when I don't necessarily agree with them, but we all tend to forget what things used to be like, especially around here in the MSB days. It's hard to really be pessimistic with us as favorites to win despite some shaky arse performances and mass lineup rotations when you look back to how we got embarrassed in the 2011 Gold Cup.

To be clear, Jozy's form isn't pretty, but I think that a healthy, confident Jozy is worthy of the starting XI. We need him to get minutes and confidence while the matches aren't tough because we're much better with Zardes coming off to provide the spark when Jozy isn't playing well than relying on him for 90. Ignoring what Jozy brings when in form and has done for the national team because he's not at 100% is just a "grass is greener on the other side" mentality. It reminds me of the LSU QB debate. The backup is always much better, and the second things go south, any strengths the starter may bring, reasons why they may be struggling, or weaknesses of the replacement are completely forgotten. Any disagreement or pointing it out is met with a thousand people offering nothing but insults to your own intellect. The thought of my favorite team to support going the way of full on rant-level lunacy is terrifying.

No, you're good bro. Good post.

But what's the starting lineup tonight....any leaks on it yet?

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To be clear, Jozy's form isn't pretty, but I think that a healthy, confident Jozy is worthy of the starting XI.

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I agree 100%. The argument then is, do we try to get a 50%-60% Jozy match fit for the knockout rounds, or do we go with someone that is healthier?