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Gold Cup Discussion

TU_BLA

I.T.S. Legend
Gold Member
Mar 9, 2012
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Tulsa, OK
So the roster is out...almost all 2nd teamers. Only ones on the roster who played in Nations Cup are Cannon, Yuiell, Acosta, and Lletget. I am excited to see Dike featured up top but I fear he'll have a sub role with Zardes on the squad. From the roster released today, I would love to see Matt Turner get the minutes on goal. Walker Zimmerman is likely to see a big role in the back. Hoppe and Arriola are also on the squad. And here is Berhalter's chance to lock up Busio (has been linked to Italy and I'm not sure he's cap tied to the US just yet...I can't find any USMNT (senior team) caps, just U20 and below. I like Busio...he's still young and his game is immature, probably from being stuck in US academies the whole time. He's had some big time interest from Serie A teams and MLS is sort of holding him hostage right now as MLS tries to squeeze as much money out of a transfer as possible. I know SKC has been waiting for that to happen sooner than later, and every match I've watched SKC play, the announcers mention it several times how a pending move to Italy is looming. I like his game a lot...remind some of Renato Sanches of Portugal, good hold up player and distributor. I think Berhalter knows his WCQ squad, basically the Nations squad we saw earlier. This group is to see who fills out the last few spots and for depth purposes in the event one of the main group get injured. Outside of the GKs, I think there are about 4-5 players on this squad squarely in the mix for WCQ and the rest are building depth for the future. We'll see what happens. More than likely the remainder of the Gold Cup squads will have their A squads out there and we all clearly know this is a B-side for the US. Making the semi's would be a good accomplishment. Making the finals would be tremendous.
 
If Zardes &/or Arriola actually score, I will be pleased but shocked as well. Also looking forward to Dike & G. Busio playing. With this group, making the semi's is about their limit, IMO, even vs the lightweights in CONCACAF.
 
Some quotes from Beer?halter on the Gold Cup: " When you look at some of these CORE guys, like...Guzan, Acosta, Yueill, Arriola, Zardes, have been major parts of the team.....we focused on guys who are in form....the idea was to prepare our ENTIRE player pool in a competitive Concacaf format for WC qualifying....". "We don't want to look at this as an experimental team"

Our competition in the group will be Canada, Martinique & one more from teams including Barbados, Bermuda, Haiti or St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Sometimes, Beer?halter just drives me crazy.
 
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Translation: we are playing politics again. Like we did trotting out the C team in 2017 and barely winning 3-2 in a game we actually won against the run of play.

It’s politics because the other teams don’t want to get stomped. And TV wants the fake idea that some of these players will work their way in based on playing in these games, though it doesn’t come close to working like that in nearly every case. But god it makes the stupid tune in, doesn’t it? And it looks like a meritocracy while in idiotic nonsense theory people tell themselves that fans won’t buy tickets unless there are players they know on the roster. Which is counter intuitive to the idea you can play yourself into the World Cup in this tournament. It’s like 1986 all over again when they basically threw the Costa Rica home game to sell a bunch of tickets and it cost us the World Cup.
 
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