Kansas Crimson

Even without Pulisic on the field, the talent gap between El Salvador and the U.S. was huge. You couldn’t help but notice it every time Josh Sargent turned a defender, or when Konrad de la Fuente zoomed past some schmuck on the flank, or when McKennie out-jumped every Salvadoran on the field. It’s nice to see such obviously gifted players in a USMNT shirt, but it’s also hard not to grimace when those guys can’t put a few goals past a clearly overmatched opponent.

Such a dramatic improvement in the team’s makeup and talent level will naturally come with higher expectations, and why shouldn’t it? Wouldn’t Dest expect to whoop up on Málaga if he faced them in a Barcelona shirt? Would Gio Reyna not feel slightly embarrassed to see himself and his Dortmund teammates labor through a 0-0 draw against Paderborn?

There has been a lot of talk about how this version of the USMNT is different from any we’ve seen in the past, but at some point the team actually has to go out there and be different. Beating Mexico in the Gold Cup and Nations League this summer was certainly a fun time, but World Cup qualification season is where some bars need to start getting cleared. Because if the expectations for this team really are greater than “let’s just try to qualify for the World Cup and then go out there in 2022 and have some fun,” then a 0-0 draw with El Salvador isn’t something anyone should be satisfied with. If this is to be a team capable of doing real damage in Qatar, then it needs to start cohering into whatever that looks like sooner rather than later. So go out there and hang four goals on Honduras next Wednesday, OK fellas?

pdub wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 9:50 am I watched the highlights and it seemed as if we had more chances.
McKennie missed two point blank headers.

We also didn't have our best player out there.

jfish26 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 9:06 am I hadn't read this before I posted, but it speaks to me:

That Was Certainly A USMNT World Cup Qualification Game

https://defector.com/that-was-certainly ... tion-game/

Even without Pulisic on the field, the talent gap between El Salvador and the U.S. was huge. You couldn’t help but notice it every time Josh Sargent turned a defender, or when Konrad de la Fuente zoomed past some schmuck on the flank, or when McKennie out-jumped every Salvadoran on the field. It’s nice to see such obviously gifted players in a USMNT shirt, but it’s also hard not to grimace when those guys can’t put a few goals past a clearly overmatched opponent.

Such a dramatic improvement in the team’s makeup and talent level will naturally come with higher expectations, and why shouldn’t it? Wouldn’t Dest expect to whoop up on Málaga if he faced them in a Barcelona shirt? Would Gio Reyna not feel slightly embarrassed to see himself and his Dortmund teammates labor through a 0-0 draw against Paderborn?

There has been a lot of talk about how this version of the USMNT is different from any we’ve seen in the past, but at some point the team actually has to go out there and be different. Beating Mexico in the Gold Cup and Nations League this summer was certainly a fun time, but World Cup qualification season is where some bars need to start getting cleared. Because if the expectations for this team really are greater than “let’s just try to qualify for the World Cup and then go out there in 2022 and have some fun,” then a 0-0 draw with El Salvador isn’t something anyone should be satisfied with. If this is to be a team capable of doing real damage in Qatar, then it needs to start cohering into whatever that looks like sooner rather than later. So go out there and hang four goals on Honduras next Wednesday, OK fellas?

pdub wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 2:56 pm Also, while I think Gonzaga is always a very good team, the argument that their rank is inflated bc of their competition during conference season is valid -- and in this case, US has fed off some easier opponents to raise their rank ( and i know that's factored in ).

USA isn't the 10th best nation in the world.
But i'd put them top 20.

So for us to think we can go out and win the World Cup would be akin to KU thinking they could have won the NCAA tourney last season.