U23s get a 4-0 win on DR last night and Mexico got the W vs CR. So both US/Mex are through to the semis and their group game Wednesday will just determine the 1 vs 2 seed.
The do or die Olympic qualifying game will be next Sunday vs probably either Honduras or Canada.
I appreciate Fox Sports finally having their display show the jersey colors of the teams: D.R. with white lettering in a blue background, same as the jerseys; USA with blue lettering in a white background. Some networks use the same lettering and background for the teams, with a tiny stripe denoting the jersey colors, which are sometimes hard to interpret (for me).
Oh, and great result.
Dest scored twice yesterday for Barcelona. More a winger than a back, playing ahead of the midfielders at times.
U23s lose 1-0 to Mexico. Not the best performance, but the had a couple chances in the last 15-20 minutes and could never get a quality shot.
Now all the attention falls to Sunday vs either Honduras or Canada with the Olympic bid on the line.
The senior team plays today at noon CDT on ESPN2 vs Jamaica. Game is in Austria, so it is a mainly Euro based squad. Assuming Pulisic plays, it will be his first USMNT game since 10/2019.
During the qualifier last night they showed a brief interview with Pulisic where he mentions he wants to play in the olympics. If we do qualify, how many of our A team players would we bring? It’s a tournament for u23 + 3 older players if I recall correctly, but the majority of our A team is under 23 at the moment.
First, their club has to release them for The Olympics.
Second, their club will likely release them for the effing Gold Cup.
Third, Olympics will overlap with Euro club’s preseason conditioning.
So, players and the Oly team would have to beg to be an exception.
So, the A team.
The Gold Cup and the Olympics overlap. It would seem to reason that if clubs have to release for the Gold Cup that we could get them for the Olympics instead. But reason gets thrown out the door a lot of times in these cases.
Gold Cup 7/10-8/1
Olympics 7/22-8/7
Plus for the Gold Cup chances are we make the final on 8/1. For the Olympics there is a decent chance they are done after the group stage (7/28) or quarters (7/31). So they could get their players back a day or 2 earlier if they allow them to go to the Olympics.
Not how it works. Since the Olympics is a quasi-age-group tournament, clubs are not obligated to release them. So, they won’t.
But, there might be a price.
Also, if we bring a more A-ish team to the Olympics, I think we’d do so to win, not to peter out in Group.
I agree that is not how it works.
But I was saying the timelines overlap, so if the players wanted to be in the Olympics a reasonable* person would allow the players to play in the Olympics instead of the Gold Cup, especially since no club games are being missed.
As far as bringing our A team and trying to win, all it takes is getting drawn into a group with Brasil and Germany and we are going home after 3 games.
*Yes, I know club management positions are not full of reasonable people.
Pretty much what I was getting at.
Then again, might as well let Pulisic play SOMETIME, SOMEWHERE.
Some pretty finishes, but passing out of the back looks clumsy.
I thought Brooks was a little sloppy. Cannon out of league a bit.
Dest is our best player isn’t he?
Sure looks that way at the moment.
OK, problem solved.
Watching that game was as close as possible to reliving the Trinidad game.
Well that was a shit show.
Good to know our team of MLSers can’t be a team of guys from the Honduran league.
And people online really hate Jason Kreis. Understandable when looking at this recent track record (32-21-47 in his last 2 MLS stops, fired at both places), the player’s body language all tournament seemed monotone, playing guys out of position (Yueill is a 6, but he played as a 8 in each game), and some of his selections (Ebobisse as a CF was needed in a bad way).
