This summer, on the first anniversary of the 2019 World Cup, I watched and evaluated the various national women’s teams. It was a nice exercise, and it supported a pretty simple idea: Age balance is important. Normally the country goes up to the players in the top of their age group. In the 2000s, American women did not have the maximum talent to complement Abby Wambach, and their performance slowed slightly. When the generation of Rapino Heath Sauerbrunn-O’Hara-Morgan Press reached maturity, there was an increase in the United States.
Live food: USA v El Salvador, Wednesday 12/9, 7 pm. 30 м. AB, ESPNEWS
It’s the same story on the male side. When Spain won the World Cup in 2010, Sergio Ramos, David Villa, Xabi Alonso, Andres Inesta and Fernando Torres were between 24 and 28 years old. Germany in 2014? Manuel Neuer, Tony Croos, Thomas Mueller, Mesut Ozil, Jerome Boateng and Mats Hummels France in 2018? Paul Pogba, N’Golo Cante, Antoine Grizman, Samuel Umtiti and Rafael Varane (Spain and Germany were both too late for the next World Cup when the core got a bit stuck).
The concept of maximum value is clearly vague. Some players reach the top earlier, some longer, and some even longer, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. And sometimes there are exceptions to the rule within the team. Croatia reached the final of 2018 under the leadership of Luca Modric (33), Mario Manjukic (32) and a key pair of Dejan Lovren and Ivan Perišić (29). Nor can age fraud explain Greece’s famous victory over Euro 2004: In their victory over Portugal, the team started with six players aged 30 years and older (and only three between 24 and 28 years).
– USMNT Stars Pulisik, McKenny, Rhine scored a goal on historic day
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A healthy mix of high-quality talent – the golden generation, if you will – mixed with a pair of old-fashioned steel eyes (say Hugo Lloris) and a fresh face or two (Kylian Mbappe) can take you far enough. This happens even if you don’t have a very high title level. It’s no coincidence, for example, that the deepest race of the 2002 USMNT World Cup took place when the Stars and Stripes brought together Claudio Raina, Frankie Hayduk and John O’Brien, sports veterans such as Brad Friedel and Brian McBride, and some star players under the names Donovan and Beesley.
Since then, the balance has largely shifted from almost correct, but not completely, to largely correct, but it looks like it will change soon.
The USMNT 2022 team may be the youngest of the past years, but for the best reasons: the youth surpasses the veterans. (The team selected for Wednesday-evening’s meeting with El Salvador — LIVE, 19:30 ET, ESPNEWS (USA) only — is specially composed of young American players, as this is not an official FIFA date).
And in 2026, when the United States has a party, the young people become veterans. After a slow descent, there is reason to assume that the course of the USMNT changes rapidly.
– Daily flow from ESPN FC to ESPN+ (US only)
Before looking to the future, let’s take a look at the past USMNT.
1990: Manager Bob Gansler has selected the team that will participate in the first U.S. World Championship in 40 years, which in a short time lost to Italy, Czechoslovakia and Austria.
Youngsters as goalkeeper Tony Meola and midfielder John Harkes would have attracted attention, but of that 24-28 core only midfielder Paul Caliguri (SV Meppen) played in Europe, while defenders Steve Tritchuk (Sparta Praha), Desmond Armstrong (Santos) and John Doyle (Örgryte IS) would have found decent but unspectacular landing places after the tournament.
1994: The team that organized the World Cup was much better than the 24-28 talent. Tab Ramos played for Real Betis, John Harks for Derby County, Eric Winalda for 1. Saarbrücken Football Club and Ernie Stewart for Willem II. Coby Jones will also sign a contract for Coventry City in the near future and players such as Meola, Alexi Lalas and Marcelo Balboa will provide solid depth.
Despite the lack of an attack, the United States entered the knockout phase with a victory over Colombia and a tie against Switzerland.
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Gregg Berhalter praises the Philadelphia Alliance for the progress Branden Aaronson has made since his first USMNT camp in 2019.
1998: With all the players mentioned above, except Jones, who is ageing out of the top coat (and some of whom should be fighting each other), the 1998 team is a bit on the sidelines.
She added versions of Claudio Raina (who then played for Wolfsburg) and goalkeeper Casey Keller (Lester City), while Brian McBride, Eddie Pope and Joe-Max Moore became standards in the new Big League football team, which was launched in 1996. But this accumulation of talent exploded in the group phase of the World Cup and in hindsight it shouldn’t have come as a big surprise.
2002: Rijn was 28 years old and played for Sunderland, while Frankie Hayduk (Bayer Leverkusen) and John Brian (Ajax) were both in top form and played for strong European teams. Pablo Mastroeni and Gregg Berhalter were also in the top flight, while McBride (soon to Fulham), goalkeeper Brad Friedel (halfway through his 18 years in the Premier League) and Tony Sanneh (a strong Bundesliga defender at the time) played at a high level in the early thirties.
Add to that the two best USMNT hope runners so far (Landon Donovan and Da Marcus Beesley) and you have the best American team to make it to the quarter finals of the World Championship. You could have gone on without the German defender Torsten Frings, who made a filthy handball that had no name.
2006: Donovan and Beesley (now with PSV Eindhoven) were in the top group, as were Oguti Onievu (Standard Liège), Steve Chandolo (Hanover 96) and Carlos Bocanegra (Fulham). It was a high-level talent, but the depth was shaky and most of the remaining minutes went to players who were either very behind in their careers (McBride, Rayna) or not quite ready to play at a consistently high level (Clint Dempsey, Bobby Conway).
The United States handcuffed Italy, but lost to the Czech Republic and Ghana and reached the bottom of group E.
Fault! The file name is not specified. The core of USMNT is young but exciting: Giovanni Raina (left), Weston McKenney (center) and Tyler Adams (right) all play for the European top clubs. Photos by John Dorton/ISI/Getty Photos
2010: Donovan and Onyeff (recently signed with Milan) are still at the top and have been joined by Dempsey (now with Fulham), Maurice Edu (Rangers) and Jonathan Bournestein (Chivas USA). The depths were shaken again, but Donovan and Dempsey are great Americans of all time and were in great shape. Then there were the youngsters Michael Bradley and Josie Altidor, who owned the core of Cherundolo, Bocanegra, Jay DeMerit (then with Watford) and goalkeeper Tim Howard (Everton) – they all played at a high level.
In the 16th. In the 16th round, the Americans defeated England. Round – Ghana, but out of breath in overtime.
2014: The 2014 World Cup team is a bit stuck: The winners of the first 11 minutes of the 2014 World Championship had an average age of 29.4 years, despite the infamous decision of Jurgen Klinsmann to exclude Donovan from the 23-man team. However, Dempsey and Howard are still excellent and the team has versions of Bradley (who recently left Roma), Jeff Cameron (Stoke City), Alejandro Bedoy (Nantes) and Fabian Johnson (Borussia Monchengladbach) as well as MLS pillars Omar Gonzalez and Graham Zusi.
The United States eventually defeated Ghana, went with Portugal and made it to the Tour of 16, where they almost bumped into Belgium before falling behind in downtime.
2018: The 2018 team did not qualify for the World Cup and the list of top players clearly shows the reasons for this. Of the 18 players who spent the most minutes in qualifying in 2018, only Altidor, Deandre Yedlin, Bobby Wood, Darlington Nagbe and Jorge Willafana were in the 24-28 series. (Bundesliga steelworkers John Brooks and Timmy Chandler were also in the mix, but they struggled with injuries).
Twelve of the 18 players were 29 years of age or older – Howard was 39, Germaine Jones 36, Dempsey 35, Cameron 32 – but the younger players couldn’t fully spread them out in the rotation. Christian Pulishich, the best view since Donovan, tried to move the whistle to the finish line.
It took a long time for the United States to miss the last World Cup. The USSF probably waited too long to release Klinsmann. Injuries and fitness problems have left Brooks and Chandler’s team without two potentially stable starters. The last day of qualifying was also spectacular, with the U.S., Mexico and Costa Rica all lost so that the Americans were unable to make progress. The United States lost in part because of their own goal, while Mexico and Costa Rica coincided in the top three, resulting in the downfall of both. The qualifying round is played 100 times more often in a multiverse, and the Americans are selected much more often than usual.
However, for a long time it was the most imperfect pool of players in the United States. It was a lost generation of USMNTs.
We can argue about whose fault it is – we’ve been doing that for a while now – but the United States simply hasn’t produced enough top talent to succeed in the last cycle.
Freddy Adu (still leader of most of the 2018 qualifiers, believe it or not) has never performed as well as he should. Aron Johannson has been wounded several times. Players like Mix Diskerud, Gyasi Zardes and Brek Shea have shown upward flashes, but never enough. Altidore is an excellent MLS player with little success abroad, Yedlin is a solid Premier League defender with Newcastle, Wood with a few different German clubs and Nagbe and Villafana with Portland Timbers. But the United States needs a lot more of this age group than they need.
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USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter talks to Branden Aaronson about the recent American prospects of moving to Europe.
So, big question: Will this change in 2022?
Maybe not, but there’s hope on the horizon. (Still there, isn’t it?)
It is clear that it is a daunting task to project a model series with confidence for the USMNT during the World Cup of 2022. We don’t even know how the selection process will go with the modified coronavirus program and we don’t know who coach Gregg Berhalter will prefer in two years time. (We don’t even know who he prefers now.) But here are some of the most important candidates on the list, who will be between 24 and 28 years old in 2022:
GK: Zach Steffen, Ethan Horvath
DF: Yedlin, Matt Miyazga, Nick Lima, Reggie Cannon, Miles Robinson, Brooks Lennon, Anthony Robinson, Cameron Carter-Vickers
MF:. Julian Greene, Jackson Yill, Kellin Acosta, Christian Roldan
FW: Jordan Morris, Paul Arriola, Duane Holmes, Tyler Boyd, Andria Novakovich.
Players like Steffen (a native of Manchester), Edlin and Miyazga (a Chelsea player currently on loan at Anderlecht) can play a difficult role in qualifying. In addition, Morris and Arriola have each been possessed more than 30 times and Roldan and Acosta are not far behind. It’s likely they’re all involved. (The Greens should be involved in the meantime, but not for reasons that Berhalter might have to click to explain).
There is reasonable depth in this group, even though there are no Donovans or Dempseys. But the United States may not get a big contribution from this group, for the best reason: the generation that follows them has already achieved more.
– Pulisik just turned 24 when the World Championship 2022 starts, which means he’s in the top coat for two World Championships. He has done over 150 performances for Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea, two European heavyweights, and if he is healthy he will be one of the best young strikers in the world.
– Tyler Adams and Weston McKenny on lap 23.. Adams is a changing member of the RB Leipzig Champions League semifinalists and McKenney joined Juventus in the off-season. He also just scored his first goal as a super heavyweight.
– Joe Reine just turned 18 and will be 19 when the world championship starts. He has already scored three goals and five assists for Borussia Dortmund this season and has come closer to his goal of becoming more promising than Pulisic.
– Josh Sargent and Tim Wa are 22 years old.. Sargent has already played more than 50 shows with Werderderder Bremen, with eight points. Due to an injury, Wee’s trajectory slowed down, but this season he did 10 appearances with Lille, with three chances in 101 minutes. Each has had its ups and downs, but both are only 20 years old.
– Sergino Dest becomes 21.. Not only has he moved to Barcelona this season, but he has already played more than 700 minutes in 11 games for the club, scored once (at least in the Champions League) and created 10 chances. With Barca he joins 19-year-old American winger Conrad de la Fuente, who has appeared twice in the Champions League and created two chances.
– Burning Aaronson reaches the age of 22 years. After the MLS campaign with a star – four goals and 33 glory moments (eight assists) for the Philadelphia Union Fan Shield – he will leave for RB Salzburg in January, who are still fighting for the Champions League knockout stage.
– Defender Chris Richards reaches the age of 22. A product of FC Dallas, he played six times this season for Bayern in Munich, where he had three chances with an assistant in a Bundesliga game.
– Nicholas Gioacchini is 22 years old. In the last USMNT challenge, he scored three goals in nine games for League 2 presidential candidate Kan.
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Orlando City star Chris Muller describes his emotions and goals after his appointment at USMNT.
I even named Valencia midfielder Yunus Musa (19 at the start of the World Cup) and PSV Eindhoven midfielder Richard Ledesma (22), Telstar-via-Norwich City striker Sebastian Soto (22), midfielder Owen Otasovi (21), deputy goalkeeper Leicester City Chitur Odunze (20) or one of the interesting masses of promising young MLS players: Forward Jesús Ferreira, Sport forward Gianluca Bucio, Defender Philadelphia Mark Mackenzie, Forward Toronto Ayo Aquinola, Defender Dallas Brian Reynolds, Midfielder Dallas Paxton Poker, Midfielder Dallas.
We always believe in perspective, the future is always bright, isn’t it? But in this case, USMNT’s perspectives could already be the most proven actors. And in 2026 Pulisik, Rhein, Adams, McKenny, Dest, Sargent, Aaronson, Richards etc. will be in the prime of life or nearby. The 2022 FIFA World Cup team could become the most talented in the United States, and it will take years to gain experience. The organisation of the World Cup in 2026 could not have taken place at a better time.
We still don’t know how good manager Berhalter is in this team and how long he will be at the top. He had been working for a little over a year when the coronavirus stopped, and until then he had to put a lot of players on the field and try to get as many different points of view as possible, but only try to win to a certain extent. But while management tactics and talent always play a role, the player’s talent is most important. In 2018, the United States was short, but a breakthrough was quickly achieved.
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