Right now, yes. He is capable of the spectacular but will also make mistakes at a more frequent rate than we have come to expect at the NT level. He won’t have a meltdown like Horvath did yesterday, but there will be gnashing off teeth about him sooner or later.
Seems like this might set up for something like the Bradley-era formation with two deeper-lying central midfielders and two skinny outside attacking midfielders, with Pulisic filling something of a Donovan role?
You're not wrong about quality. A straight 3-divisions split means ~14 teams in each. That's too many games, and too many bad games, at the top. Maybe you could break it up like something like 10 / 10 / 21, so the 3rd division was just a big pool of minnows playing each other more frequently (it's not like they have external competitions to worry about). The Concacaf top 10 are all top-100 teams, though to be fair after US/MX/CR they are all 50-100.
It sounds all nice in theory. But what would you expect? It´s a non-competitive tournament in the summer break (or after the season). It´s Confed Cup². When everybody was complaining about stars being out of Russia and on the beaches to relax and get a well-deserved rest, what would you think will the Robbens, Pulisics, Buffons, Chiellinis do? It will probably be a decent improved U23+ cup, if it will ever happen. And then people+media will be complaining, the interest will be low (stars missing + some other major competition will be on the doorstep a few 1000km away) and therefore...it won´t be happening.
ASN published an interview with him today.
I have deep concerns about anyone with major SUM or MLS connections getting the job. The interest of those 2 are deeply connected and at the same time very often their interests are antithetical to what is best for US Soccer. Seems like you're electing a worse version of Gulati, whose number one thought will be how do I make MLS owners, and their cronies as much money as possible and choke out any competition. Might as well make Don Garber President.
This will send people into orbit although I don't think it guarantees she'd be a bad candidate:
Presumably if/when she officially announces she'll be more specific than this corporate speak:
Also interesting:
Oh I don't think we need dueling DI. or that NALS/USL are real competitors to MLS, but there is no doubt that USSF has gone out of their way to prop up MLS and to throw roadblocks in front of other leagues. It's also a big factor in solidarity payment issues etc. I think they got spooked by candidates talking about encouraging the lower leagues to set up a real pyramid, or others talking about how USSF should invest in other levels than DI the way they invest/invested in MLS. Garber and Co see USSF as a personal gravy train, right now there isn't a clear candidate to keep the train rolling since Sunil is becoming toxic. That meant someone they trust needed to be pushed forward to ensure that the USSF's primary goal continued to be making money for the small group of "soccer elite" rather than anything so crass as letting poor people play.
Yup.
No coincidence, the order of those two considerations.
I wonder who he thinks will be the most pliable in his future attempts to pull strings. Carter, obviously, but perhaps his previous assumption had been Cordeiro.
From all accounts, Cordeiro's entry into the race was an unwelcome surprise to Gulati. From the ESPN article on Gulati's decision:
Cordeiro isn't an outsider; he was on the USSF board for quite some time. However, he does seem to be willing to rock the boat more than most USSF types. In 2016, he ran for VP and unseated an incumbent and this fall he announced he would run for Prez even when it seemed possible that Gulati would run again.
Interesting, Carter and Cordeiro probably have similar bases, Wynalda and Martino likely have somewhat similar. Anyone supporting Wynalda highly unlikely to support Cordeiro or Carter, could slide to Martino. Martino voters probably would split between Wynalda and Carter? if he dropped. Wynalda is the least likely by far to pick up much of anything from a Cordeiro or Carter camp.
Just another pointer on how the US national team is run to benefit MLS, because they basically did that by making MLS stadiums the almost-exclusive home for competitive games.
