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Napoleon

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Napoleon

Napoleon 8852

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1 hour ago, Longhornfan1024 said:

A little late here, but someone clear something up for me.  Why do we play our younger players in the Olympic qualifier and our older guys in a meaningless friendly?  Is there an age/amateurism limit like there used to be for basketball?

https://sports.stackexchange.com/questions/1121/why-do-olympic-soccer-teams-need-to-be-u-23

https://sports.yahoo.com/why-fifa-blocks-u-mens-203428871.html

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RamjetFDO
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Forget who asked what was on CP10's undershirt:  

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To be fair to Lalas, almost all of the Mexican fans at the game live in the United States and some are Americans.  It's almost impossible to overstate the insecurity of the average Mexican soccer fan

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Hagbard Celine

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9 hours ago, ztejas said:

Me preferring he not play 90 has nothing to do with his current form. I'm not doubting he can give 90 solid minutes - just always worried about his health.

20 years ago we lived and died on the daily fitness report for o'brien and reyna senior.

we have the talent now that gives us the luxury of seeing who has 100-game fitness.

i want to see pulisic get hacked to death, show world-class resilience, and keep on playing for 20 months in a row.

the top 100 players in the world play 20 months in a row every cycle through the world cup quarterfinals, with one 15-day break in june the year before the world cup.

this time around, with a november cup, and the rona fixture pile-up for all of the tv-contracted competitions plus the warm-up friendlies, it's essential we know who is cast-iron tough when the qatar roster is chosen.

at that time, if pulisic is not fit, he is not fit.  i hope he his, but that is 18 months from now.

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ztejas

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12 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

20 years ago we lived and died on the daily fitness report for o'brien and reyna senior.

we have the talent now that gives us the luxury of seeing who has 100-game fitness.

i want to see pulisic get hacked to death, show world-class resilience, and keep on playing for 20 months in a row.

the top 100 players in the world play 20 months in a row every cycle through the world cup quarterfinals, with one 15-day break in june the year before the world cup.

this time around, with a november cup, and the rona fixture pile-up for all of the tv-contracted competitions plus the warm-up friendlies, it's essential we know who is cast-iron tough when the qatar roster is chosen.

at that time, if pulisic is not fit, he is not fit.  i hope he his, but that is 18 months from now.

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Napoleon

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2 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

20 years ago we lived and died on the daily fitness report for o'brien and reyna senior.

we have the talent now that gives us the luxury of seeing who has 100-game fitness.

i want to see pulisic get hacked to death, show world-class resilience, and keep on playing for 20 months in a row.

the top 100 players in the world play 20 months in a row every cycle through the world cup quarterfinals, with one 15-day break in june the year before the world cup.

this time around, with a november cup, and the rona fixture pile-up for all of the tv-contracted competitions plus the warm-up friendlies, it's essential we know who is cast-iron tough when the qatar roster is chosen.

at that time, if pulisic is not fit, he is not fit.  i hope he his, but that is 18 months from now.


I bit extreme, but it is very nice to know that the USMNT will survive just fine if Pulisic isn't healthy for qualifiers or the actual World Cup.

He'd be great to have, but the team doesn't sink or swim on his hamstrings.

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ztejas

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19 hours ago, Napoleon said:

He'd be great to have, but the team doesn't sink or swim on his hamstrings.

Um - it might. I'm not sure we have any way of knowing that yet. I think he's pretty clearly still our best player - and one of if not the only guy that is close to world class at his position.

France is still a great team without Mbappe but I'm guessing they'd prefer he be available to play. 

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Napoleon

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2 hours ago, ztejas said:

Um - it might. I'm not sure we have any way of knowing that yet. I think he's pretty clearly still our best player - and one of if not the only guy that is close to world class at his position.

France is still a great team without Mbappe but I'm guessing they'd prefer he be available to play. 

Correct.

But France would still make the 2022 World Cup without Mbappe. In the past, if the USMNT didn't have a single individual, it could have been a little more harry. Like, the USMNT wouldn't have made it to Russia in 2018 without Donovan . . .

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ztejas

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4 minutes ago, Napoleon said:

Correct.

But France would still make the 2022 World Cup without Mbappe. In the past, if the USMNT didn't have a single individual, it could have been a little more harry. Like, the USMNT wouldn't have made it to Russia in 2018 without Donovan . . .

Well... we didn't qualify for the last World Cup. So to say we'd be fine without Pulisic seems a bit naive - whether it is true or not. 

I mean - I'm not sure we win our last friendly without him on the field. 

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Napoleon

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1 hour ago, UDontKnow said:

Have any of you good sirs or madams heard of these young Yanks? I have not.

 

First guy is English, but not good enough for their youth national teams, so has played with the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kelman

FC Dallas youth, so maybe he grew up in The States. (Never heard of him.)

 

Second kid is American, but also eligible for Nigeria. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Olosunde

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UDontKnow

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From what I saw of the Chelsea match, Pulisic had a couple of chances in the box that were blocked. He was otherwise more effective as a foul magnet against a larger, more physical Porto side. But I am just a n00b and I would request @ztejas  to offer proper commentary.

Also this:

 

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ztejas

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2 hours ago, UDontKnow said:

Pulisic starts for Chelsea versus FC Porto in Champions League!

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2 hours ago, shnsajax said:

Went from think Pulisic would be gone this summer now to believing Werner will be gone. 

Very good 90 today. Not a great 90 - but great work rate and pace and ball control. Drew 2 yellows in about 7 minutes in the last 20 mins of game time. 

@UDontKnow just give me a minute God dammit! 😉

Yes - he had a couple chances but they would have been phenomenal finishes. Overall he was dangerous and made the defense work. Chelsea didn't threaten a lot but when they did they were pretty sharp and Pulisic was a big part of that. Had a great ball he played to the opposite side late. Ran hard, played physical. Very happy with his effort today. The next step in his game is making chicken salad out of chicken shit and sneaking a goal in when it isn't there. He may or may not become that player but everything else is there. 

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1 hour ago, Napoleon said:

First guy is English, but not good enough for their youth national teams, so has played with the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kelman

FC Dallas youth, so maybe he grew up in The States. (Never heard of him.)

 

Second kid is American, but also eligible for Nigeria. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Olosunde

First guy's dad lives(d) in Dallas suburbs and I believe was a scout.  Ran into him at a HS game.  His son was over for a couple of years and was just too rowdy for suburban high schools. With legitimate chances to join English clubs he went back to live with mom.  From what I remember he played well with Southend before transferring to QPR.   

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Hagbard Celine

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pulisic was fouled 11 times yesterday, which as this article comments is a messi-like number:

https://soccer.nbcsports.com/2021/04/13/pulisic-watch-usmnt-star-takes-beating-from-porto-in-influential-90-mins/

read the bbc report and the foul fest is not even mentioned:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/56721849

pulisic played 180 minutes of a UCL semifinal.  he got the shit beat out of him.  the english press gives zero fucks because that's the expectation of a full international football player.

wrt pulisic and the nats......

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@alincoln

i didn't see the game but based on that guardian snippet it seems porto felt crushing pulisic was part of their gameplan.

i recall the dutch going full aggro on spain in the '10 final and it worked for 118 minutes.

it's a tried and true strategy, and the players that have been in that trench are worth their weight in gold.

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Hagbard Celine

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the times leads with the hackfest:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/porto-s-stunner-too-little-too-late-as-chelsea-reach-semi-finals-2wtw9qrjd

express, guardian and sun make no mention:

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/1422794/Chelsea-news-Glenn-Hoddle-Porto-Champions-League

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/apr/13/chelsea-porto-champions-league-quarter-final-match-report

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/14626204/chelsea-porto-live-reaction-result/

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ztejas

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I've never questioned Pulisic's toughness or been super concerned about that. Most of his injuries are nags that he gets from running hard - not getting fouled. There was maybe more of that early in his career but he's a tough SoB. It's the hamstring yips that I still worry about - partially because he plays soccer like Derrick Rose played basketball and we saw how that wound up. 

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UDontKnow

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5 hours ago, ztejas said:

I've never questioned Pulisic's toughness or been super concerned about that. Most of his injuries are nags that he gets from running hard - not getting fouled. There was maybe more of that early in his career but he's a tough SoB. It's the hamstring yips that I still worry about - partially because he plays soccer like Derrick Rose played basketball and we saw how that wound up. 

You can blame Tom Thibodeau for ruining Derrick Rose's career. Up 9 in an otherwise meaningless regular season game with 70 seconds left to go is not the smart way to handle your all-pro player.

But this futbol, not basketball. And I might have to become a Chelsea fan because of Pulisic even though I'm not a club soccer fan.

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