Looking for opinions and some insight, as I am just curious what the board thinks...

What is going to be considered a successful run?

What is the biggest strength and weakness? Can the weakness be solved immediately?

Will Home continent advantage play a factor?

How does the US capitalize on having the WC in North America?

Who is the next breakout player for the US and the field?

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Posted by Broski

Member since Jun 2011

78964 posts

Posted on 8/21/25 at 11:51 am to sms151t

quote:
What is going to be considered a successful run?

Quarterfinals and beyond. Only have done it once (2002) and now there is an extra knockout round added to the tournament.

quote:
What is the biggest strength and weakness? Can the weakness be solved immediately?

Biggest Strength is that Pulisic when he's on his shite, can take over a match against even good teams. The weakness is that we're leaky as hell in defense and we seem mentally soft. Can that be fixed within a year? idk.

quote:
Will Home continent advantage play a factor?

Theoretically yes, but we've also lost three straight competitive matches to Panama on home soil, failed to make it out of the group in Copa America on home soil and just had our worst Gold Cup showing in quite some time on home soil.[

quote]How does the US capitalize on having the WC in North America?
[/quote]

This is the biggest question. The whole reason the MLS exists is because of the 94 World Cup and it was the first touchpoint to legitimize the sport for a lot of generic sports fans. Now that the sport is established, the question is what is the next steps? Is that USL adding pro/rel, MLS getting rid of its archaic salary system, who knows?

quote:
Who is the next breakout player for the US and the field?

No idea. The money says Cavan Sullivan for the US, but he won't be at the World Cup. I guess for the field you can say Lamine Yamal, who is already established as a world talent at 17, but he hasn't played in a World Cup yet.

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Posted by SUB

Silver Tier TD Premium

Member since Jan 2009

24717 posts

Posted on 8/21/25 at 1:18 pm to Broski

quote:
just had our worst Gold Cup showing in quite some time on home soil

Gold cup is always on home soil.

2025 gold cup, Runner up

• Total Caps (Players Who Played): 280 caps (21 players, average 13.33 caps)

2023 gold cup, 4th place

• Total Caps (Players Who Played): 344 caps (22 players, average 15.64 caps)

Just so I have this right, your claim is that the 2025 gold cup team who finished 2nd, composed of much less experienced players, including seven with zero caps, gave a worse showing than the more experienced 2023 team who finished 4th?

This post was edited on 8/21/25 at 2:09 pm

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Posted by Broski

Member since Jun 2011

78964 posts

Posted on 8/21/25 at 3:07 pm to SUB

Lol that’s my b… I was thinking of last nations league

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Posted by RemouladeSawce

Uranus

Member since Sep 2008

17052 posts

Posted on 8/21/25 at 3:39 pm to Broski

quote:
The weakness is that we're leaky as hell in defense and we seem mentally soft. Can that be fixed within a year? idk.

Both of these going from what used to be distinguishing American strengths to weaknesses is beyond depressing. And I really can’t believe we’d ever be this lost at GK

The thing about mental weakness is that it manifests no matter how well you’re playing. If things were flipped and the team looked absolutely amazing going into June, I’d fully expect the lights to be too bright and them to bottle it

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Posted by cwil177

Baton Rouge

Member since Jun 2011

29554 posts

Posted on 8/21/25 at 3:58 pm to sms151t

quote:
What is going to be considered a successful run?

Depends on who you ask. I think the most realistic “successful” run is a quarterfinals appearance, but with the new format that means winning two knockout games and historically we’ve struggled to win even one.

quote:
What is the biggest strength and weakness? Can the weakness be solved immediately?

Biggest strength is our attacking fullbacks, however we haven’t seen how Poch will use Sergino Dest. He’s already tried Robinson out as an inverted fullback, which is a weird call as it’s not really his strength.

Forward and keeper are our biggest weaknesses right now. I think Sargent is the most complete striker we have but Poch doesn’t seem to care for him. Balogun can’t seem to stay healthy. Pepi is still a question mark. Any of these guys having a big year is good news for the USMNT.

All our keeper options are underwhelming but Freese is Harvard level wicked smaht and decent with his feet so I’m ok with him over Turner for now. Immediately fixing this would basically require Diego Kochen to become the Barcelona starting GK.

quote:
Will Home continent advantage play a factor?

It usually does

quote:
How does the US capitalize on having the WC in North America?

Hopefully we see a groundswell of grassroots soccer, more pitches built in public areas, more general interest in the sport, etc. Making a deep run would help this a lot.