Pretty damning analysis of USMNT performance since 1990:
https://the93rdminutedotcom.wordpres...0-until-today/
The consensus punditry and media opinion that the US is improving is specious and divorced from reality. The USMNT has yet to play three complete performances in the group stages of any international tournament in the modern era. Given the sample size, this is not a fluke. This is a pattern. This is indicative of the quality of US soccer and an indictment of the program and the notion of “progress”. I think this is unacceptable. We should not be content with the past 27 years of results and the current path the ship of US soccer is on. The potential in our country is enormous and it is being squandered by the USSF.
While I recognize the loss to Trinidad & Tobago and failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup has served as a wakeup call for the common fan, in reality, the writing has been on the wall for years. The underlying issues have persisted under the reign of multiple managers and scores of different players so the common denominator is the powers to be at the USSF.
Based on the findings, the USSF deserves significant criticism. The USMNT has failed to qualify for the most recent World Cup, 3 of the last 4 Confederations Cups, 3 of the last 4 Olympics, and multiple youth national team tournaments in the past decade and a half. Furthermore, the USMNT has only beaten two top 20 teams in the world in a competitive tournament in the past fifteen years and has demonstrated a deterioration in performance against regional opponents in the Gold Cup. This article and these damning statistics focus solely on the results and do not delve into the style of play, which can best be characterized as pragmatic, rudimentary, and unimaginative, or the inability to produce international-caliber players.
For a country of our size, resources, and interest in soccer, these results are indefensible, especially when considering the strength (or lack thereof) of our region relative to the rest of the world. For Gulati and the USSF to claim growth and progress is inaccurate (our growth trails the rest of the world so by growing more slowly we are falling behind) and misses the big picture.
https://the93rdminutedotcom.wordpres...0-until-today/
The consensus punditry and media opinion that the US is improving is specious and divorced from reality. The USMNT has yet to play three complete performances in the group stages of any international tournament in the modern era. Given the sample size, this is not a fluke. This is a pattern. This is indicative of the quality of US soccer and an indictment of the program and the notion of “progress”. I think this is unacceptable. We should not be content with the past 27 years of results and the current path the ship of US soccer is on. The potential in our country is enormous and it is being squandered by the USSF.
While I recognize the loss to Trinidad & Tobago and failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup has served as a wakeup call for the common fan, in reality, the writing has been on the wall for years. The underlying issues have persisted under the reign of multiple managers and scores of different players so the common denominator is the powers to be at the USSF.
Based on the findings, the USSF deserves significant criticism. The USMNT has failed to qualify for the most recent World Cup, 3 of the last 4 Confederations Cups, 3 of the last 4 Olympics, and multiple youth national team tournaments in the past decade and a half. Furthermore, the USMNT has only beaten two top 20 teams in the world in a competitive tournament in the past fifteen years and has demonstrated a deterioration in performance against regional opponents in the Gold Cup. This article and these damning statistics focus solely on the results and do not delve into the style of play, which can best be characterized as pragmatic, rudimentary, and unimaginative, or the inability to produce international-caliber players.
For a country of our size, resources, and interest in soccer, these results are indefensible, especially when considering the strength (or lack thereof) of our region relative to the rest of the world. For Gulati and the USSF to claim growth and progress is inaccurate (our growth trails the rest of the world so by growing more slowly we are falling behind) and misses the big picture.
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