re: US Soccer is going backwards

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And this is because of our youth system. It’s simple as that. We have just as many talented players (and we’d have more if things were cheaper) as other nations but it alllll comes down to development. We do NOT develop our guys the same way and the most crucial ages, which is like 6-15.

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100%. Youth soccer is broken. Like travel baseball, it’s all about collecting fees and winning meaningless tournaments - not developing skills and players in a cohesive system.

Landon has been railing on this for a while.

One of the first random articles I came across this AM (without looking) was headlined something like "US storybook World Cup run comes to an end."

Storybook run?

Storybook would not have even started until after having won last night's game.

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This isn’t a tier of athlete problem. It’s a coaching, technical, and system problem. When a slow 5’7” 141 lbs dude is tearing you up it’s not strictly an athletic issue.

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this, I'm so tired of the constant "if our best athletes played blah blah blah". No, we need skill. Athleticism is not he problem in country of 340 million people.

You cannot mask a deficiency in technical skill at this level.

Cape Verde has the same number of people as Modesto and played their asses off straight up against Soccer Jesus.

The US pissed down their collective leg for 90 minutes.

For whatever reason, the US team went into the game nervous and intimidated. The female analyst on Fox it the nail on the head in her postgame comments when she said the game was lost before the US even took the field.

I am by NO MEANS knowledgeable of the intricacies of soccer. But I am a sports fan and can tell when a team clearly lacks confidence and/or is nervous, regardless of the sport. That was evident from the first minute of the game last night. Literally.

Belgium started the game with possession. After a long pass into the US zone they attempted a shot that was blocked by the US. The ball was deflected towards the sideline clearly off a US player. Dest had a good15-20 yards to play the ball before it went out. Instead, he chose to shield off the Belgium player and let the ball slowly roll out of bounds. That led to a throw into the box. The first hard shot was blocked up front by the US. Belgium then hammered the rebound on goal that was barely blocked by the GK.

44 seconds in Belgium almost had a goal all because the US was hesitant and passive. The ball could have been played, but the US player did not want to play it. That was the theme of the night. The US had little desire to attack 50/50 balls. The US passes seemed to have little purpose besides just trying to get rid of the ball as soon as possible. Any time Belgium showed any type of aggression the US player panicked. Nowhere was that more evident than the GK's blunder. All he had to do was just kick the ball away. Yet, he was so nervous by the mere presence of the Belgian player that he hesitated and missed the ball completely.

It was if they went into the game believing they were the vastly inferior team with little confidence and just the hope they could do just enough to be close at the end. Underdogs don't win by hoping not to lose. They do so by taking the fight to the better opponent and forcing the action. The US didn't do that. They were nervous and easily pushed around from start to finish.

THAT is what I think people are most upset about. It's one thing to lose to a more skilled/talented opponent. US fans recognize the US is not dominant in soccer. But it is another to just seemingly give up from the start. That's what last night's game looked like from the US perspective.

Yeah the terrible game we played last night was 100% mental

It's not some proclamation about our inferior technical ability. Yeah our technical ability looked bad last night b/c our guys melted down mentally and kept making mistakes. And we got Bad Dest, and there is no fixing Bad Dest (and Poch understood that assignment)

We have a much larger sample to judge the technical ability of our players than that one game.

I think one has to go back to how soccer is viewed in the US. The athletes who have a chip on their shoulder, that play to intimidate and dominate their opponents don’t play soccer. They view it as a wimp sport for which soccer genuinely obliges with the constant acting and dive taking. Those athletes choose a game like American football and basketball where testosterone rules.

The end result is we have naturally selected those more prone to being timid and wilting under pressure for soccer. It is what it is and will continue until soccer is viewed in a more favorable light here in the States.

Football basketball baseball will always be top 3 in US. Hockey 4 then you have the individual Sports, which could potentially before like golf and even tennis. Soccer is an afterthought every 4 yrs

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It's not some proclamation about our inferior technical ability.

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Thank you. There are so many people acting like we're back to 2006 lmao.

I've been an Georgia/Atlanta sports fan my whole life & know a choke job when I see it. We choked, plain & simple. The 3rd goal in particular was one of the worst decisions I've ever seen from a professional keeper

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Thank you. There are so many people acting like we're back to 2006 lmao.

I've been an Georgia/Atlanta sports fan my whole life & know a choke job when I see it. We choked, plain & simple. The 3rd goal in particular was one of the worst decisions I've ever seen from a professional keeper

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I have to just repeat, guys like Pulisic and Wes play on major teams in Italy. What they face every week in Serie A is so much more complex than what they faced last night, but neither could complete a pass or have touch last night. There is no way they could start for Milan and Juventus if they were inferior technically or strategically. That's not how Italy rolls. They'll play 40 year olds who can't run over better athletes who don't understand the tactics.

Dest was bad Dest

Ream got bodied. Richards kept fricking up and panicking.

We couldn't get the ball to Robinson on the left flank. We couldn't get the ball to Balogun with any consistency.

Tillman played OK but had his own set of brianfarts that you don't see for Leverkusen

Oh, and we don't need to talk about Freese