Post-match: USA vs Jamaica CONCACAF Nations League (leg 1)

Did everyone notice the Honduras v Mexico score?

Do away goals count?

 

Cobi Jones?? The guy who had half a season in England?

 

You either need to add a sarcasm emoji or you are just nuts.....lol

 

Away goals is still the tie break.

Mexico will get two pens at home and get about 15 minutes of stoppage time. This happened last year, as well, I think, and happens every year to Mexican teams in CCL.

Honduras went up 2-0 at home, then Mexico was up 1-0 at their home and scored in the 90+11, of all times. Won in pens after a scoreless extra time.

 

This is ironic, because you admit the pitch was bad, so most things need to be discussed in that context after the game.

Basically you're triggered by it since it's taken as a personal affront to Jamaica. That shouldn't shield you from being exposed to reality. We didn't go to the Jamaica forum to discuss it, so if you want to be in a bubble, that's where to do it.

If you're going to be here though, we should also point out to you this is the norm for our games in Jamaica or the whole of road matches in CONCACAF. It's some combo of weather, resources, & intent to muck things up. Depends on the country & location which one(s).

We have the best fields in the region, but occasionally there are issues out of neglect or intent, to many of our chagrin as well. The fed got obliterated for holding a game in Minnesota at the beginning of February that jeopardized the player's health, all because they needed a competitive advantage against a team they had beaten by 6 in their last home qualifier.

 

The pitch was worse than usual but maybe we should have expected Couva conditions with the hurricane weather which doesn't dry up like a typical day in the Caribs.

 

The problem with this list is you are including players as #9s who would not be playing the #9 role in modern soccer. They were forwards in a two forward system and that's not what we're playing or what we need. If we were to make a comparable list today you'd have to include Pulisic/Reyna/Weah/Aaronson as strikers.

In 2002 only McBride would be playing as a #9 in our system and at the time he was just a good MLS player who really hadn't peaked yet and had accomplished nothing close to what Balogun/Pepi/Sargent have accomplished and was HIGHLY criticized on this board. He was essentially Vazquez level leading up to the WC and really made his jump after it. The rest would be wingers or attacking mids.

In 2006 you have three who would be playing the 9 position today (McBride/Ching/Johnson). I'll take the McBride who excelled in the EPL over every striker we currently have but Ching and Johnson were at best Vazquez level and IMHO probably a tick below him. The wildcard is Dempsey who I always thought could've been the best #9 ever to wear our shirt but we never played him there and neither did his clubs so you really can't compare him to Pepi/Balogun.

No forward on that 98 or 94 team makes our current roster other than maybe Wynalda in 94 but would he even be playing the #9 currently? He was essentially a relegation fodder striker, so Sargent level. By 98 we were experimenting with playing him on the wing and it's probably where we'd be playing him today.

2010 Altidore/Gomez/Buddle are the only #9s. Altidore at his best was no better than Pepi/Balogun now and it's totally reasonable to assume one of them (maybe both) grows a bit between now and the WC. Gomez and Buddle were meh.

 

Balogun and Pepi would absolutely WALTZ onto those teams. To hold up those players and say the striker/9 position is not better and deeper now is insane IMO.

 

without turning this into a mindless back and forth:

1. Don’t misunderstand me I’m kill to have McBride or in-prime Jozy now.
2. Dempsey and Donovan were as you point out attacking midfielders or forwards. Remove them from your list and your above pools are thin indeed
3. Joe Max Moore? Brian Ching? I don’t remember these players going to Europe and scoring regularly the way that Balogun, Sargent, or time-limited Pepi have been doing
4. At least you don’t list Wondo

 

Does Jozy improve on Balogun? I doubt it. I love Jozy, but he's not the footballer Balogun is.

Will take McBride, for sure. Would be a great foil for all of Balo, Weah, CP, etc.

Ching? Mathis? Johnson? Buddle? Findley? Joe-Max Moore?
At the 9? As surely they can't play anywhere else in a 4-2-3-1 / 3-4-3?
HARD pass, from me.

 

Both teams played on the same pitch!

 

Mathis at his best was one of the very best US players ever. Mathis would absolutely play for the USA now WHEN he was at his best. (He wasn't at his best much with injuries, etc.)

 

I can understand and sympathize WHY the pitch was in poor condition, but it is completely impossible to talk about this match and not acknowledge a terrible pitch at every turn.

 

Yes, and the US won, but it very definitely affected the quality of the match, which could've been much, much better.

 

True but this then "favors" the more athletic, fighting team. We all acknowledge that Jamaica, as a country, produces amazing athletes and runners. Their soccer teams are usually poorly organized.
I love me some Reggae Boyz, Always root for them unless playing the USA

 

So on your forum talk about how Leon Bailey seemed to struggle w/ it even though he's Jamaican thus more adjusted to the conditions, or that Mason Holgate & Demari Gray shouldn't be benched necessarily because they're from England thus not accustomed to it hardly at all.

But that is a superficial evaluation that both teams had to play on the same pitch because the US are the higher quality side so a neutralizing factor benefits Jamaica, & also again the natives at least are more trained to deal w/ those conditions where as we are drilled on pristine fields.

 

Altidore scored a TON of goals for AZ. Mind you, the Dutch league can be fools gold as far as attackers are concerned, and Jozy never reached a truly elite level as a player (and he now even admits to prioritizing money up front over career potential maximization, which is understandable but frustrating), but when Pepi scores 30+ in a season in all competitions for PSV, then we talk about just how clearly better he is than Jozy, who scored 31 in his best season, IIRC.

Jozy is almost certainly the most underrated US national team player ever. He should be legendary around these parts, but he isn't.

 

Why is this so hard for some to understand. I really get a kick out of the "the both played on the same pitch" as if that means something.....lol

The field sucked.
The field conditions impacted play.
Shitty fields almost always favorable the weaker teams.

 

Cobi was a great player. Your standard is playing in England when there were strict rules about foreign players?

 

I'd say favors the more athletic, battling team.

 

I wonder what type of grass is grown down in Jamaica .

No, seriously. I've spent a decent amount of time in the Bahamas, which is much less tropical than Jamaica, and the grass there is not conducive to soccer. It's spongy, grabby, hard and irregular. In order to have it be a good soccer pitch you'd basically have to mow it down to ground level and have it just be a brown field.

You'd hope they put in a good specialized turf, but this is the National Stadium. Notice that big track around it??? The track is gonna be way more important to Jamaica than the field. When there's money to maintain, Jamaica's likely to put it all toward the track.

 

In Jozy's best season in the Dutch league he scored 23 goals. Balogun scored 21 in France two years ago. I don't really see much of a difference there and if anything you give the nod to Balogun because France is the better league. Pepi has 5 goals in 4 starts this year. If they keep starting him it's pretty reasonable to think he will at minimum equal Jozy's best season.

I don't write any of this to denigrate Jozy. Until this generation I'd say he's probably second only to McBride as far as true #9s. In my mind you group players into levels they've reached and for strikers here's where I see it:

Starting Big-4 striker: McBride at his best
Champions League qualifying starter in Holland/France/Portugal or top striker in those leagues on a mid table team: Jozy, Pepi, Balogun
Average starter in Holland/France/Portugal or Good striker in Championship -- Sargent, Charlie Davies, Wynalda (maybe I only watched him with the Cats)
Top MLS striker/good Mexican League : Vazquez, Gomez, lots of others.

 

I disagree, but perhaps you value effort over technical ability? You can't compare previous players peaks against current players floor. The pool is larger than ever and a number of guys are routinely getting minutes at the highest levels in world football while still very young. We do not yet know who will emerge, but all of those players have superior technical abilities to many of those past USMNT players.

They all have the potential to improve and the expectation is that they have not hit their ceiling yet. From a numbers perspective the odds are more in our favor of fielding a top shelf 9 for the WC than ever before. I am of the opinion that Pepi is going to be really really good. There is quality to his game and his work rate is added value. He may not have or develop the capabilities of a hold up type guy in the traditional sense, but our pool has the skills we don't have to play where only those abilities are a deciding factor.

Pulisic is on track to be, if he isn't already, the most accomplished American footballer ever. Weah, Musah, and Mckinnie are not far off the pace. Balogun, Pepi, Vasquez not bad up and comers. All of these guys are playing week in and week out at a very high level, with a whole cadre of other players not currently in the conversation due to injury.

The player pool is deeper and wider than it has ever been. It is an exciting time to be a USMNT fan.

 

Agree, but I do think that "talk of the pitch" should be categorized two ways:

1. complaining, which I believe, especially given environmental conditions which nobody but the democrats can control, is ridiculous. It affects both sides and given Jamaica's athleticism as a team, some could make an argument that if hurt them equally if not more.
2. Noting the conditions as a fact and using it for context rather than an excuse, I think, is valid.

 

Maybe you "give the nod" to Balogun (and that's extremely debatable at this point), but it's a tremendous stretch to say that Jozy was "nothing close." Perhaps that will be so eventually, but that is not the case thus far.

Wynalda was a good one tier higher than you'd ranked him, but the situation back then was really very different, and in a day like today, he might well have been at the top tier with McBride. (But Wynalda's career was in part impacted by the fact that he was a dick who kind of imploded, much like the earlier Clint, who might've been a bit more talented than the later, more celebrated, and more accomplished Clint.)