Somehow, USA (and MEX) are in top 10 of “FIFA World Rankings.”
Up TEN spots, without playing any other team in the top 20 besides MEX, SUI and WAL
When people ask if the Gold Cup or Nations League games really matter, this kind of situation (and the subsequent benefits of a FIFA world ranking) proves that it does.
Well, it makes me question the ranking process. Those tournaments matter, since they are the only National side matches, but without more inter-confederation matches, I don’t think either of these teams break the top ten of Europe, most of which have top club starters on their benches.
But, I guess we’ll see. If FIFA wants to mess up rankings in the USA’s favor in order to us to get in Pot 1 of the WC draw, I’m all for it as a fan. As an analytical person, though, meh. It also means that some objectively better teams will be in Pot 2.
Over the past year, we lost to SUI, tied to Wales, beat Northern Ireland which did not qualify for Euro 2020 (2021).
Problem is that friendlies rarely face off A teams from each nation, while I think the rankings are geared towards ranking the “A” teams since friendlies have much less weight. But obviously there are rarely interconfederation games that are meaningful other than the World Cup…so I don’t know what a good system is. The fact that confederation strength no longer has a part in the formula also propped the US and Mexico up this time round.
We looked very good in the 1st half at and A-side SUI this year, but bad vs a Wales B team. Hey we’ve made it to the round of 16 in '10 and '14 WCs and we might have a better team in '22 then we did at that time.
I also think that FIFA would not rig the system to get the US into Pot 1. In 2006 when the rankings were even worse, the US was #4 in the world and FIFA figured out a way to exclude the US at that time from Pot 1.
Let’s pretend he’s not ready in 13 days, but he’ll be good for October. If he’s the difference between 6-9 points out of the first 3 games and being back into “we gotta win much of the rest” yet again, you wonder what the hell we learned out of the last ~6 months.
We should be outright favored to win our first two matches. I think we’ll be slight favorite @ Honduras with a draw being very probable. I dont think 1 player in Christian will make much difference. He could be the difference maker vs better teams.
Weird shit happens in games of the road in Concacaf. Our history is filled with disappointing road games in Central America. I would be ecstatic if we somehow get 6 or more points, damn happy with 5, and ok with 4.
Liverpool refuses to release Saleh for Egypt’s WC qualifiers. I wonder how much of this we’re going to see and how much impact it potentially has on USMNT roster availability for the September games.
I took a look at the UK’s list of “red” countries and the US, El Salvador, and Honduras are all “amber” so we should have no problems with our UK based nationals. I would think most of Europe is similar.
Mexico and Costa Rica are both “red” countries, so they would have the same issues as Egypt. I am not sure what nationals they have over in the UK though.
Costa Rica’s players are all in Costa Rica save Bryan Oviedo, who’s with Copenhagen. Mexico has Raul Jimenez with Wolverhampton Wanderers; if Spain, Portugal or Italy impose restrictions, then there might be a little more concern but most guys are in Mexico or the U.S.
Going beyond that:
Canada has a couple guys in England, no one in EPL. If they go red and other countries put in restrictions, they could have bigger issues but I think it impacts depth more than anything else.
El Salvador, Honduras and Panama are fine unless perhaps the borders get closed, in which case we’re probably scrubbing WC2022.
WCQ roster release coming today I think. It does seem like we have a deeper player pool than recent memory, so tougher choices for Gregg to make.
Word on the street is that Ricardo Pepi (the 18 year old FC Dallas striker who is tearing up MLS) is on the roster. He has played with the US at youth levels, but also is eligible to play for Mexico, so getting him cap tied would be a huge addition to the US as we have a lot of questions at striker.
There is a new rule implemented in 2020 that players under 21 aren’t officially cap tied until they make 4 starts. Pepi is in that category, so he wouldn’t be officially cap tied.
He would be effectively cap tied though, as they have to go 3 years between caps before switching to another country.
G - Horvath, Steffen, Turner
D - Bello, Brooks, Dest, McKenzie, Ream, A. Robinson, M. Robinson, Sands, Yedlin, Zimmerman
M - Acosta, Adams, Lletget, McKennie, Roldan
F - Aaronson, de la Fuente, Pefok, Pepi, Pulisic, Reyna, Sargent, Weah
Pepi is interesting, I suppose Hoppe misses out because of that selection, but he’s been playing well in MLS and I guess we need to cap tie him.
Ream…I am not a fan but he’s playing for Fullham who are top of the Championship (though he was injured in their last league match, not sure he’ll play vs Stoke on Saturday)
Overall can’t complain too much. I hope Chris Richards finds a role on this team some day.
Surprised no Hoppe, but doesn’t look like he has played a minute this fall (isn’t he rumored to be moving after Schakle was relegated?). Interesting that Bello made it over Shaq Moore who I thought played really well in the GC. Also haven’t we seen enough of Tim Ream? Assuming he’s there for the “veteran leadership”.
