The US Ladies continued to roll thru Olympic qualifying in front of alarmingly small crowds after they shutout Costa Rica 7-0, after destroying Panama and Haiti. The US will face Mexico tonight at 10 pm on Fox Sports 1, right after Canada plays Costa Rica at 7 pm on FS1 with spots in the Olympics on the line for the winners. Hopefully fans will show up tonight at the LA Galaxy Home Stadium in LA. The US Ladies have looked amazing with Christen Press on the left wing and Williams on the right with Carli Lloyd in the middle forming a deadly attacking trio while Alex Morgan is out pregnant. Midfielder Horan has scored 6 goals and has some assists to lead the way for the US Ladies. The Defense has barely been tested at all – with Ertz holding down the #6 slot in front of the veteran 4 person backline from the World Cup. This will be the toughest test tonight – as Mexico is probably the 3rd best team in the region behind the US and Canada. Set the recorder if you can’t watch it live tonight and let’s see if the US can advance on to the Olympics this summer!
US Men Youth Wins 1-0
The US men – or boys if you will looked pretty good vs a solid first team Costa Rican side last Saturday. The 1-0 victory probably should have been 2-0 US – but certainly the US dominated all phases of the game – including possession. Youngster Ulyssess Llanez (just 18 years old) from Wolfsburg stole the show in his first cap with solid attacking midfield play and a great awareness in the box. His PK goal just before the half was the only goal for the US team that probably deserved at least 1 or 2 goals from the run of play. Most impressive was the US ability to maintain possession as they must have had at least 70 to 30 possession throughout – including solid play moving the ball from the back to the front without turnovers. A veteran backline of Long and Zimmermann along with Cannon on the right and new comer Sam Vines on the left looked good and barely took a misstep most of the game. Newly mented 18 year old forward Jesus Ferreira started in the 9 jersey and had some good hold up front – before giving way to Zardez who almost scored in his 25 minutes on late. All in al l thought it was a fine showing by the young US squad with plenty of U23’s playing in anticipation of Olympic Qualifying in March. I can honestly say our U-23 group is looking pretty strong – I hope enough of them will be released from club play in March to allow us to qualify for the Olympics – so Pulisic, McKinney, Reyna, and Adams can join this summer.
Games on TV
As for Big games this weekend the biggest is of course the German Derby Sunday at between league leaders Red Bull Leipzig and US mid Tyler Adams and Bayern Munich at 12 pm on Fox Sports 2. Plenty of stories on the https://theoleballcoach.com/ for this one. Its winter break time in the EPL with just 4 games this weekend Everton host Crystal Palace Sat at 7:30 am on NBCSN while Brighton vs Watford is on NBC at 12:30 (don’t ask me why they have shit games like this on NBC – just the screw up the ratings I guess – seriously why??? Also at 12:30 on FS2 Leverkusen hosts Dortmund and US mid Gio Reyna- coming off bench). Sunday at 2:45 pm we also get the Milan Derby – Inter vs Milan on ESPN+.
USA
USWNT guarding against letdown with Olympic berth on line
USMNT Betting on Veterans not young Stars to Capture Olympic Gold – Leadner Schaerlaneckens – Yahoo
Boehm: US win again in a rout, but two players face Olympic cut
Doyle: The big winners from the USMNT’s January camp
Olympic boost? Youngsters provide “snapshot” of USMNT future
The kids are alright: Ferreira, Llanez lead the way for youthful US
Three things we learned from USA-Costa Rica
Player Ratings: Llanez, Berhalter get highest marks in win vs. Ticos
Jay Berhalter steps away from U.S. Soccer
Saucedo denied USMNT call-up by Pumas, eyes Olympic qualifying
The former Real Salt Lake winger instead played 71 minutes in his fourth Liga MX appearance for the club during the Clausura.
Watch: Gio Reyna scores stunner for Borussia Dortmund
Bradley echoes Arena with bold USMNT prediction
Three reasons to believe in Bruce Arena’s bold USMNT prediction
USMNT: Dest’s rise continues; named Man of the Match in Ajax win
MLS’s 25th anniversary won’t be marred by strike
Ranking the new 2020 MLS jerseys
High-profile influx of Latin American talent is altering Major League Soccer for the best
Chicharito positioned to deliver a David Beckham-level impact with the Galaxy
Reports: NYCFC to play CONCACAF CL game at Red Bull Arena
FC Cincy continue adding to attack with Regattin
WORLD, Champions League
US Players Weekend Viewing Guide
Guardiola admits City can’t be sure Sterling will be fit to face Real Madrid
Liverpool most difficult team in UCL says Atletico Boss
Real Madrid & Barca in 65-year first after Copa del Rey elimination
- Could Neymar, Mbappe antics derail PSG as season enters crunch time?
‘I don’t fear Haaland’ – Meunier backs PSG to overcome Borussia Dortmund in Champions League
Champions League squads changes for four PL teams
Bayern, Leipzig prepare to clash with German title at stake
GAMES ON TV
Fri
10 pm FS1 USA Ladies vs Mexico (Olympic Qual Finals)
Saturday
7:30 a.m. ET: NBCSN Everton v. Crystal Palace
9:30 am Fox Sport2 Schalke vs Paderborn
12:30 pm FS2 Leverkusen vs Dortmund (Gio Reyna)
12:30 p.m. ET: NBC Brighton v. Watford
Sunday
9 a.m. ET: NBCSN Sheffield United v. Bournemouth
9 am ESPN2 Napoli vs Lecce
11:30 a.m. ET: NBCSN Man City v. West Ham United
12 noon FS2 Bayern Munich vs RB Leipzig (Adams)
2:45 pm ESPN+ Inter vs Milan
3 pm beIN Sport Real Betis vs Barcelona
Wed
2:45 pm ESPN+ Inter vs Napoli (Coppa Italia)
12:30 beIN Sport Dijon vs PSG (Coup de France)
3 pm beIN Sport Lyonnaise vs Marseille
Thurs
2:45 pm ESPN+ Milan vs Juve (Coppa Italia)
fri
2:30 pm FS2 Dortmund vs Frankfurt
3 pm NBCSN Wolverhampton vs Leicester
Sun
9 am NBCSN Aston Villa vs Tottenham
1130 am NBCSN Arsenal vs Newcastle United (Yedlin)
USWNT seems to be betting on veterans — not its plentiful young stars — to capture Olympic gold
Leander SchaerlaeckensYahoo Sports•February 6, 2020
Carli Lloyd (10) has been a focal point of the USWNT’s attack in Olympic qualifying, and that appears to be the plan for this summer too. (Photo by Omar Vega/Getty Images)
Meet the United States women’s 2020 Olympic soccer team, same as the United States 2019 Women’s World Cup team. Or largely, anyway.If all goes as it should, the American women will qualify for the 2020 Summer Games on Friday with a win over Mexico in the semifinals of the 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying Championship. Which, by the way, begs the question why there will be a title game on Sunday, since it isn’t an actual championship but a qualifying event and there is no prize other than an Olympic berth for the winning semifinalists. While the team has a new coach in the Macedonian-American Vlatko Andonovski, it looks remarkably similar to that of Jill Ellis, who left the job late last year after a second straight World Cup title.
In December, Andonovski held an identification camp in Florida, inviting 24 players who hadn’t made the 2019 World Cup roster to do his due diligence, to get a better sense of the player pool. Yet when it came time for the new head coach to submit his roster for this qualifying tournament, 18 of the 20 names on it had also been to the World Cup. And of the two who didn’t go to France – Andi Sullivan and Lynn Williams – neither had been part of the identification camp and both were well into double-digits in caps prior to the tournament.Which is to say that the national team has stayed much the same. Even Alex Morgan, the star striker seven months pregnant with her first child, has actually been practicing with the team in Southern California, in a feat more impressive than anything her peers have done in actual competition.That also means that, absent the 30-year-old Morgan, the national team is anchored by veterans very much in the last flush of their careers. Carli Lloyd, now leading the line, will be 38 by the time the Olympics begin, although her conditioning remains irreproachable. The defense is still anchored by Becky Sauerbrunn and the revived Ali Krieger, who are 34 and 35, respectively. Megan Rapinoe, who provides much of the creative impetus, will be 35 in Tokyo. Even the sparkplugs Tobin Heath, Christen Press and Kelley O’Hara all turn 32 this year. A young team this is not.ertainly, there isn’t time to rebuild a team between the Women’s World Cup and the Olympics. Such is the nature of the women’s international cycle that the two major tournaments fall in back-to-back summers, followed by almost three years of nothing other than friendly tournaments and a single and typically unchallenging World Cup qualifying event.
Ellis ran into much the same quandary. She was appointed a year out from the World Cup and had no time to shape her team until after the Rio Olympics, almost a year and a half later. Only then could she begin cutting players who were aging or didn’t fit her vision, and integrate new ones and introduce her ideas. But what rankles about this roster is that not so long ago, the impression of this team was of a young, talented bunch with a future every bit as rosy as the recent past. Yet the attacking prodigy Mallory Pugh and upstart defender Tierna Davidson, both 21 years old, were left off the qualifying roster, as was 26-year-old midfielder Morgan Brian. The latter decision was understandable, considering the logjam in central midfield and the similar age of her competitors. Pugh, however, was supposed to be the future of this team. And her omission meant there is no player on the team younger than 24. Fully half of it is 31 or older. Only the midfield is young, with Sullivan, Julie Ertz, Rose Lavelle, Sam Mewis and Lindsey Horan all between 24 and 27 years of age. The trouble with that is the Olympics force the two finalists to play six games in just 17 days. And the roster is much smaller than at the World Cup – 18, instead of 23. The tournament will scatter its games all over Japan, but it’ll be warm in all of them in July and August. The Olympics weren’t pretty for the Americans in 2016, in the aftermath of a first World Cup title in 16 years. In Brazil, the group stage was a slog. And then they were eliminated by a well-organized Swedish team – the “cowards” in Hope Solo’s famous putdown – in the quarterfinals. It was the first time the Americans hadn’t reached the final at the Olympics, after four gold medals and a silver.There still isn’t a country that has won Olympic gold the year after winning the World Cup. Judging from this qualifying tournament, the Americans seem to be betting on veteran experience, at the expense of youth, to become the first. Leander Schaerlaeckens is a Yahoo Sports soccer columnist and a sports
Match preview and schedule: USA vs Mexico, Olympic qualifying
Win and the USWNT are in the Olympics. By Donald Wine II@blazindw Feb 6, 2020, 6:00am PST
The United States Women’s National Team have completed the group stage of the 2020 CONCACF Women’s Olympic Qualifying Championship, and the scene shifts to Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California for Friday’s semifinal against Mexico. The winner of that match will punch their ticket to Tokyo, Japan and the 2020 Olympics. The loser will not be in Tokyo, falling short of the goal.The USWNT have not allowed a goal so far in Olympic qualifying, scoring 18 goals in Group A play. After struggling a bit in their opening match against Haiti, the USWNT has settled in and dominated Panama and Costa Rica on their way to the semifinals. For Mexico, they’re here after beating St. Kitts and Nevis as well as Jamaica, but their loss Tuesday to Canada meant they finished 2nd in Group B and will have to go through the Americans to get to Tokyo.
Predicted USWNT lineup
USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski will likely go back to a similar lineup that he had to open the group stage against Haiti:
Predicted Lineup vs. Mexico
Andonovski clearly has several options at every position. Lindsay Horan could very well get the start in the midfield alongside Julie Ertz and Rose Lavelle, but Andi Sullivan could also factor as well. Up front, Tobin Heath could get a shot, but Lynn Williams, Carli Lloyd, and Christen Press have thoroughly destroyed every team they’ve faced. It’s likely they will get another chance to do just that.
Time, TV, and streaming options
USA vs. Mexico
Friday, February 7, 2020
10:00 PM ET / 7:00 PM PT
FS1, TUDN
US women beat Costa Rica 6-0, win Olympic qualifying group
Costa Rica midfielder Gloriana Villalobos (9) goes over the back of United States midfielder Samantha Mewis (3) during the first half of a CONCACAF women’s Olympic qualifying soccer match Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, in Houston. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke)
HOUSTON (AP) — Christen Press and Samantha Mewis each scored a pair of goals and the United States beat Costa Rica 6-0 on Monday night to finish atop its group in the CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying tournament.The World Cup-winning U.S. team extended its unbeaten streak to 26 games. The Americans wrapped up the group stage with three shutouts and 18 goals.Both teams had already earned a spot in the semifinals of the tournament later this week in Carson, California. Eight teams are playing in the tournament, which will determine the region’s two berths to the Tokyo Olympics this summer.The semifinal matchups will be determined on Tuesday when Canada plays Mexico on Tuesday in Edinburg, Texas. The winner of that match will avoid the top-ranked Americans.Press extended her scoring streak to four straight games with a goal in the fourth minute. Lindsey Horan, who had a hat trick in the U.S. team’s 8-0 victory over Panama on Friday, scored some six minutes later.Press, who plays for Utah of the National Women’s Soccer League, added her second goal in the 36th minute.Mewis scored on a free kick by Press in the 63rd minute and Jessica McDonald added a goal in the 77th before Mewis’ second goal, which appeared to just barely hit the line after deflecting down off the crossbar.The crowd at Houston’s BBVA Compass Stadium was announced at 7,082. Already eliminated, Haiti beat Panama 6-0 in the other group game earlier in the day.Costa Rica rested top players Shirley Cruz and Raquel Rodriguez in anticipation of the semifinals on Friday.The U.S. has qualified for every Olympics since women’s soccer was introduced in 1996, and has won the gold medal four times. The team has five consecutive titles in the qualifying tourname. Six teams have already made the field for Tokyo: Japan, Brazil, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden and New Zealand.
Three reasons to believe Bruce Arena is right about USMNT reaching World Cup 2022
February 2, 20209:12AM ESTGreg SeltzerContributor
This week, former US boss Bruce Arena went out on a limb we didn’t think existed a few years ago to declare he holds “no doubt” the US men’s national team will escape a dark cloud period by making their way through the forthcoming World Cup qualifying campaign to see the sunny other side once again.It was the type of reassurance we’d want in the lingering wake of a stunning Concacaf hexagonal failure that left the US men’s national team on the big dance sidelines for the first time since 1986. Since that fateful, sobering night in Couva, so many of us have spent two years and counting reaching for hope that missing out on Russia 2018 was a mere blip. But is Arena right? Was that qualifying calamity just a perfect storm of letdown circumstances not to be repeated? Can the US pick themselves up off the mat to start a new World Cup attendance streak in Qatar 2022.Of course, you can’t notarize an official blip explanation by rebounding to qualify for just one or two World Cups. No no, this program wants to get back to being a regular invitee routinely found at the top of hex tables. While the last couple of years have involved a lot of soul-searching and fretting about the USMNT’s place in the Concacaf hierarchy, there are reasons to believe Arena’s declaration is sound and the ship will then remain righted for qualifying campaigns to come. Here are three.
Outside factors
There’s a lot that goes into a World Cup cycle, good or bad. A lot had to go wrong for the US to court disaster enough that a phantom goal could help knock them out. The good news is, in my estimation at least, the variables that led to the downfall don’t seem repeatable. Take Concacaf’s competitive level of play. Helped in part by an improving MLS, several of the so-called “second-tier” Concacaf teams have closed the gap on the US and Mexico a bit. Countries like Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica and Panama got a little stronger and a little deeper. They then proved an ability to up their game for stretches to hit historic program-high notes and, umm, end our streak of playing in World Cups at seven. Each of these countries had many good recent times authored by national team icons who now have and/or will soon leave their international playing days behind. A lot of guile and skill in key positions will need to be adequately replaced, a task harder and slower to do for these smaller nations. The US is in a rebuilding period, but those teams appear headed for their own bumpy phases. As the entire USMNT bubble knows, growing new linchpins is a time-consuming task. It feels like the Nats have a head start on that and can soon re-open that gap for a while. They should also bounce back stronger once better fitness luck returns. These injury bug sprees come and go, but it can’t be missed that injuries have consistently taken major bites out of Gregg Berhalter’s selections. So far we’ve seen Tyler Adams, Jozy Altidore and Christian Pulisic together in red, white and blue on the same field a grand total of zero times. Guys like John Brooks, Weston McKennie, Jordan Morris and Timothy Weah have often missed time. It’s always harder to regain team swagger when it’s not complete, let alone missing multiple key cogs and hot prospects. Once depth is no longer stretched thin and the team can go about more ideal business, USMNT bubble confidence will repair much faster.
Growing pain relief
There’s no denying it. Some missed growth opportunities at the Under-20 level some years back combined with the cruelly bunched retirement of numerous national team stars set us back big. The roster needed a restock, plain and simple. Of course, the star men that came before had to fight through a development process before racking up international accomplishments. Happily, we have a squadron of notable young talent now doing the same.They’re all over the map. We have guys who are already important to big clubs in their respective leagues like Chelsea, RB Leipzig and MLS Cup champs Seattle. Several are at talent farms like Ajax, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. Even behind greener full internationals such as Miles Robinson and Josh Sargent, there’s a loaded Under-17 pool. Heck, the FC Dallas youth set-up could probably cobble together a full lineup of future promise.Systems can be drilled all you like, but what usually matters in the end is a capable crew on the pitch. Blooming standouts like Adams, Pulisic, McKennie, Morris, Zack Steffen and Sergino Dest are gaining experience and confidence that should pay off big. I could go on all day dropping names like Chris Richards and Paxton Pomykal and Gio Reyna and Julian Araujo and Gianluca Busio and Joe Scally and Ulysses Llanez (you get the point). We could stack a hefty depth chart with exciting talent on a collision course with the senior team. Even if half our strong stable of youngsters fulfills expected potential, USMNT happy days would come back to us, possibly hit new heights and probably stick around.
It’s all about balance
Real quick, scroll back up to gander at all the players mentioned thus far. You may notice a pleasant even distribution around the field. Go ahead, draw up an actual working formation from the names. You’ll see a lineup and bench pieces that could cause trouble now. There’s no barren spot on the field and it’s fun just to imagine them combining into a unit.I often say balance is the key to everything. That goes double for soccer. Winning teams need solid pieces that fit together, they need flexibility and depth, they need to stop wishing for a left back (and yes, there are even a handful of good prospects aiming to fix that). I’m not sure if a more evened-out field cover in the squad will cancel all those fiery “he’s out of position!” debates or light more off, but settling them both on and off the field will be much more fun either way. It’s not just a straight depth chart thing, either. Tilt our squad outlook on another axis, and you’ll find the names mentioned above also strike a good balance across age levels. Chart everyone in the pipeline and it starts to look like a wave pool. The young risers won’t arrive all at once (which would be one of those annoying “good problems”), but they should consistently arrive in groups over the coming years.Frankly, I’m ready to move on from feeling down about the last few years. Even a conservative estimate of the double dose of USMNT roster balance we’re set for is the best reason for World Cup optimism going. Now we just need to start that new qualification streak, prove Arena right and take it from there.
Three things we learned from the US national team’s 1-0 win over Costa Rica | Charles Boehm
February 1, 20206:36PM ESTCharles BoehmNational Writer
The US men’s national team kicked off a busy year with a deserved, if somewhat incomplete 1-0 friendly win over Costa Rica on Saturday. Here are a few thoughts on the outing.
Give Gregg his due
Look, if you’re reading this you probably know all about the overarching negativity that’s lingered around the USMNT since the woes of 2017. While you could argue that Gregg Berhalter and his players might have done more to vanquish that with a couple more big wins last year, they deserve the chance to keep their heads down and do their work, and be evaluated fairly on days like this.And Berhalter deserves some praise for giving new faces a chance, both in Saturday’s lineup and the January camp roster in general. The starting XI was 23 years, 216 days on average, the youngest in “Camp Cupcake” history and marked by four debutants, all 20 or younger. Another three came off the bench to mark their first caps. And I’d contend that all over them looked like they belonged, at the very least.The coaching staff looked to offer some stability with the familiar Aaron Long–Walker Zimmerman center back duo, Sebastian Lletget and Paul Arriola in the attacking band of three, and Reggie Cannon and Jackson Yueill look increasingly like nailed-on regulars. The core ideas they’ve worked on over the past year were recognizable and often pleasing to the eye. As for the top newcomers…
Jesus and Uly
For many of us one of the long-running asks of the national team is the desire for greater Latino representation, not only in personnel but also style. And there were genuinely exciting signs of progress here as Jesus Ferreira and Ulysses Llanez shined on their first exposure to this level.Confident on the ball, full of ideas and already showing promising chemistry, they linked play and drifted into dangerous spaces around the attacking third. Given their modest top-flight experience, this really should encourage supporters. Though it would’ve been a tremendous boost to see one of them score in the run of play, Llanez will savor his game-winning goal from the penalty spot in front of a big hometown crowd of family and friends. Maybe some US fans can even watch his Kobe Bryant-tribute celebration and dream of a someday where “Uly”, too, can become a first-word household name across the nation.As for Ferreira, the intelligence and variety of movement he showed in the No. 9 role belied his tender years, and troubled the Tico defense. As new USMNT GM Brian McBride said at halftime:“I thought Jesus Ferreira was excellent in dropping into that hole and really making the game, connecting, opening things up. [Costa Rica] realized it, they condensed the space, and then we started going wide.”
Time for transitions?
Nothing’s perfect, of course, especially in January. Amid plenty of positive buildup play, the finishing nous wasn’t quite there for the home side. And if I were to nitpick further, I’d wonder why the USMNT continue to look uninterested in quick, aggressive counterattack bids for long periods under Berhalter.Given that some of Costa Rica’s most dangerous moments came off transitions and set pieces in their direction, it might’ve behooved the Yanks to respond in kind where and when balls turned over in promising areas going the other way. When such situations arose, it didn’t appear that there were practiced collective movements at front of mind for those in positions to stretch the opposition.It was a recurring theme in 2019 and at this point I’m not sure whether Berhalter has pushed it down the to-do list, or just doesn’t see it as a priority at all in his system. Time is short in most international windows, so January is a period in which you’d expect to see more signs of automation in this regard.
The Ole BallCoach 