Originally Posted by
zitothebrave
Costa Rica and Ecuador are great opponents. Ecuador was FIFA rated 13th going into the tournament, Colombia and Argentina should boss the USA. Again, you're complaining that the US did not beat 2 of the 5 best teams in the WORLD. They played Colombia hard and close both games. First game was much closer than the scoreline, and second game is probably a win if the ref wasn't the worst, Colombia got all the calls and wasted so much time. Often when the run of play favored the USA.
USA went into the Argentina match facing the best team in the world, without 2 of the best players on the team and their best attacking midfielder. They got blown away, there's no denying that, but they had no prayer, even if they were all there, we lose, Argentina is the exact type of team the US has no prayer. Realize this, the USA finished 4th in the tournament, behind Colombia, Argentina, and Chile, how is that bad? Got further than Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, and Uruguay
Of those 3 losses, the only not high quality team is Guatemala. Realize that Jamaica isn't a joke anymore. They're a talented side full of some top athletes who can make you pay. Guatemala's loss was a bad one but it was a road CONCACAF game, which is not easy. So it's understandable. US bossed Guatemala at home. Their loss to Costa Rica was a friendly. By the logic of friendly wins matter the US MLS squad beat Iceland in January and they're now in the Quarters for Euros. LOOK AT HOW GREATS WE IZ.
Nagbe doesn't play the same position as Bradley did. Nagbe isn't a number 6. He plays the same position that Bedoya or Jones did to start the tournament. Jones had a fantastic tournament aside from his stupid red card. Bedoya was really solid all tournament. So your "hilarious" reason for not playing Nagbe is to play him at a position he's going to fail at? He's a CAM who can wing as well, he's Bedoya or Zusi. If you want to argue he should have started over Zusi that's fine. But that's one game, Aside from that do you really think Nagbe would have been markedly better than Bedoya? or do you opt to play him out of position for Bradley? Bradley mind you did more defensive covering that any non-Zardes midfielder.
I wouldn't have started Wondo personally, but trying to keep things as consistent as possible is why Klinsmann did it. I personally would have started Pulisic and Nagbe, but you're complaining about one game we would have lost. Maybe Jurgen didn't start them because of pressure or expectation or any number of reasons. Maybe he didn't want to risk a huge blow to confidence for those players when they're getting bossed around by Argentina. I don't know, I'm not the manager so I don't know those things, neither do you. That being said who do you bring over Wondo? Jozy? Hurt. Johannson? Hurt. Boyd? Hurt. Morris? Piss form going into the tournament and he'd have been murdered by Argentine defenders.
Pulisic was brought into the tournament in the same way that Brooks, Yedlin and Green were to the World Cup. He's a building block player but he's not ready for the bigs yet.
Orozco is a solid player, he was not good and his sending off was moronic. But again in that scenario what player do you see making the difference? Chandler? Hurt. Garza? Hurt Ream? Only semi-plausible improvement is to have named Omar instead and used Besler as a LB, but is Omar/Besler better than Besler/Orozco? Who knows. It's picking between 2 ****ty options.
So basically your case for Jurgen picking terrible lineups is the Argentina game which he couldn't pick an acceptable lineup if he tried. Let's suppose he doesn't go with what he did, lets suppose he plays the guys you want.
Same back line, MF of Bradley, Beckerman, Nagbe, and Pulisic, Demspey and Zardes striking, does that win the game for us? Nope. Maybe we lose 4-1. Maybe we lose 6-0 because Zusi was actually quite good that game.