****OFFICIAL SOCCER THREAD****

[we_gotta_believe]

2 hours ago, Mike31mt said:

Excactly.

F'ing newsflash to everyone who doesnt suck on MLS teets: star players get star treatment.

Berhalter is a f'ing clown. Just look at how he behaves on the sidelines, chasing down balls and rocketing them at players.  Amateur hour and embarrassing to our entire country 

 

 

The MLS is a F'ing joke, but this has nothing to do with that. Reyna is not some star like Ronaldo, he's a 20 yr old kid who pissed off multiple teammates with his behavior. Ask good coaches like Mourinho or Mancini how the "star treatment" worked out for malcontents like Balotelli. Where did his career end up despite an embarrassment of talent and physical ability? Reyna doesn't have even a fraction of the talent that Balotelli had.

[Mike31mt]

6 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

The MLS is a F'ing joke, but this has nothing to do with that. Reyna is not some star like Ronaldo, he's a 20 yr old kid who pissed off multiple teammates with his behavior. Ask good coaches like Mourinho or Mancini how the "star treatment" worked out for malcontents like Balotelli. Where did his career end up despite an embarrassment of talent and physical ability? Reyna doesn't have even a fraction of the talent that Balotelli had.

Who did he piss off on the team?  Give me a name.  Because it sure seems like Berhalter was talking a bunch of ish and made things up to make himself look better, and teammates are coming to Gio's defense

And even if Gio did piss off his teammates, F them.  Reyna deserved to be on the field because hes one of the best players. 

This isnt time for the manager to get emotional, and for him to actual tell a star player that theyll be in a limited role is piss poor coaching.  You want all your players ready to go mentally and physically

 

 

Heres what happened here:

Berhalter f'ed up because he thinks higher of MLS players than he should.  He now realizes his team underperformed and the public perception is that Gio should have been on the field.  So he leaks these BS stories like a little bish.  The dudes a failure and needs fired ASAP.

 

[DaEagles4Life]

8 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

The MLS is a F'ing joke, but this has nothing to do with that. Reyna is not some star like Ronaldo, he's a 20 yr old kid who pissed off multiple teammates with his behavior. Ask good coaches like Mourinho or Mancini how the "star treatment" worked out for malcontents like Balotelli. Where did his career end up despite an embarrassment of talent and physical ability? Reyna doesn't have even a fraction of the talent that Balotelli had.

Exactly, he is a kid, that knows he is the most talented or 2nd most talented on the US Team. Then to be told BEFORE the WC that he wouldn't have a role in the team, everyone in his position would have acted the same way. He apologized for lack of effort and moved on.

I bet this happens at every major club in Europe but doesn't get leaked because they don't have bozos running the club. 

 

[we_gotta_believe]

5 hours ago, Mike31mt said:

Who did he piss off on the team?  Give me a name.  Because it sure seems like Berhalter was talking a bunch of ish and made things up to make himself look better, and teammates are coming to Gio's defense

And even if Gio did piss off his teammates, F them.  Reyna deserved to be on the field because hes one of the best players. 

This isnt time for the manager to get emotional, and for him to actual tell a star player that theyll be in a limited role is piss poor coaching.  You want all your players ready to go mentally and physically

 

 

Heres what happened here:

Berhalter f'ed up because he thinks higher of MLS players than he should.  He now realizes his team underperformed and the public perception is that Gio should have been on the field.  So he leaks these BS stories like a little bish.  The dudes a failure and needs fired ASAP.

 

https://theathletic.com/3991695/2022/12/11/gio-reyna-usmnt-gregg-berhalter/

If you want to believe The Athletic made it all up to cover for Gregg F'ing Berhalter, then be my guest, but that's one of the dumber things I've heard in a while.

[we_gotta_believe]

2 minutes ago, DaEagles4Life said:

Exactly, he is a kid, that knows he is the most talented or 2nd most talented on the US Team. Then to be told BEFORE the WC that he wouldn't have a role in the team, everyone in his position would have acted the same way. He apologized for lack of effort and moved on.

I bet this happens at every major club in Europe but doesn't get leaked because they don't have bozos running the club. 

 

Absolutely false. Plenty of 20 year olds would've handled it better than Reyna did. Not every talented soccer player has this false sense of entitlement to the point where they cause these types of issues with the rest of the team.

[TEW]

 but   

[TEW]

15 minutes ago, Mike31mt said:

Who did he piss off on the team?  Give me a name.  Because it sure seems like Berhalter was talking a bunch of ish and made things up to make himself look better, and teammates are coming to Gio's defense

And even if Gio did piss off his teammates, F them.  Reyna deserved to be on the field because hes one of the best players. 

This isnt time for the manager to get emotional, and for him to actual tell a star player that theyll be in a limited role is piss poor coaching.  You want all your players ready to go mentally and physically

 

 

Heres what happened here:

Berhalter f'ed up because he thinks higher of MLS players than he should.  He now realizes his team underperformed and the public perception is that Gio should have been on the field.  So he leaks these BS stories like a little bish.  The dudes a failure and needs fired ASAP.

 

If we had Gio and Pepi playing significant minutes there is a decent chance the US advances.

[Mike31mt]

17 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

https://theathletic.com/3991695/2022/12/11/gio-reyna-usmnt-gregg-berhalter/

If you want to believe The Athletic made it all up to cover for Gregg F'ing Berhalter, then be my guess, but that's one of the dumber things I've heard in a while.

I dont have the Athletic, but I dont think theyr covering for Berhalter, theyre reporting what he told them.  The guys a turd and a psycopath.

The whole "team vote" whether or not to send Gio home never happened.

16 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Absolutely false. Plenty of 20 year olds would've handled it better than Reyna did. Not every talented soccer player has this false sense of entitlement to the point where they cause these types of issues with the rest of the team.

You dont even know how he handled it. 

I 100% guarantee you that every player, certainly every non-MLS player, totally understood and knows how in over his head Berhalter is

[we_gotta_believe]

10 minutes ago, Mike31mt said:

I dont have the Athletic, but I dont think theyr covering for Berhalter, theyre reporting what he told them.  The guys a turd and a psycopath.

The whole "team vote" whether or not to send Gio home never happened.

You dont even know how he handled it. 

I 100% guarantee you that every player, certainly every non-MLS player, totally understood and knows how in over his head Berhalter is

  No, they're not. Seriously, I don't know why I bother sometimes.

Quote

Multiple sources close to the U.S. men’s national team have provided details to The Athletic that help explain attacker Gio Reyna’s lack of involvement at the World Cup.

The sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said that Reyna showed an alarming lack of effort in training ahead of the U.S.’s opening match of the tournament against Wales on Nov. 21, including in a scrimmage against Qatari club Al Gharafa SC on Nov. 17. Reyna’s lack of intensity in the scrimmage — sources described him walking around throughout his time on the field during what was otherwise an intense session — caused significant frustration within the team. The lack of effort was so pronounced that it was unclear whether Reyna was protecting against an injury or just frustrated that he was not set to be a starter against Wales.

 

 

The drama surrounding Reyna crescendoed during the Wales game, when Reyna threw his shin guards after not being subbed in, and then into a post-Wales training session in which Reyna’s lack of effort continued again. It prompted several veteran players to speak with Reyna, including DeAndre Yedlin and Aaron Long, who pulled him aside and urged him to show more effort moving forward.

The sources said that the situation became untenable and that it had to be addressed multiple times, including with the coaching staff, until, finally, Reyna stood up before a video session and apologized to his teammates for his initial lack of intensity and said he understood he was part of a collective group. After the apology, several players on the team spoke up to hold Reyna accountable for his actions. Sources said players believed the group and its culture would be able to overcome the issues after Reyna’s apology, and that the 20-year-old turned a corner in regards to his effort in training. Within the team, the issues with Reyna ended there, the sources said.

U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter appeared to reference the Reyna situation without naming the player at the HOW Institute for Society’s Summit on Moral Leadership in New York last Tuesday, comments that were published in a Charterworks newsletter this week. (UPDATE: A U.S. Soccer spokesperson said the summit in which Berhalter participated was supposed to be "explicitly off the record.”)

"In this last World Cup, we had a player that was clearly not meeting expectations on and off the field,” Berhalter said. "One of 26 players, so it stood out. As a staff, we sat together for hours deliberating what we were going to do with this player. We were ready to book a plane ticket home, that’s how extreme it was. And what it came down to was, we’re going to have one more conversation with him, and part of the conversation was how we’re going to behave from here out. There aren’t going to be any more infractions.

 

 

"But the other thing we said to him was, you’re going to have to apologize to the group, but it’s going to have to say why you’re apologizing. It’s going to have to go deeper than just, ‘Guys, I’m sorry.’ And I prepped the leadership group with this. I said, ‘OK, this guy is going to apologize to you as a group, to the whole team.’ And what was fantastic in this whole thing is that after he apologized, they stood up one by one and said, ‘Listen, it hasn’t been good enough. You haven’t been meeting our expectations of a teammate and we want to see change.’ They really took ownership of that process. And from that day on there were no issues with this player.

"As a coach, the way you can deal with things most appropriately is going back to your values. Because it’s difficult to send a player home. It was going to be a massive controversy. You would have been reading about it for five days straight. But we were prepared to do it, because he wasn’t meeting the standards of the group, and the group was prepared to do it as well.”

Attempts to reach Reyna’s agent, Dan Segal, about an hour before publication and after Berhalter’s comments were published by Charter, were not immediately successful. Segal later provided The Athletic with the following statement.

"Gio obviously did not have the experience anyone hoped for at the World Cup. The situation, relationships and interactions among parties are far more complicated than what has been reported. It is disappointing and disrespectful for certain parties to be commenting on private team matters publicly, especially when some do so without full knowledge of the facts and others do so in a self-serving manner.

"At this point, our view is that nothing more is gained by those associated with the national team turning on each other, and we plan no further comment on this matter.”

 

 

Some of the issues with Reyna leaked out into the public during the tournament after Reyna did not play against Wales.

Berhalter used his first four subs while the U.S. led that match 1-0, then chose to bring winger Jordan Morris on for Tim Weah after Wales equalized in the 82nd minute. After the match, Berhalter explained his decision to opt for Morris over Reyna, saying that "in the phase of the game that we were at, we went with Jordan, who we felt could give us something with speed and power.” He noted that the team had done a "last-minute check” on Reyna, deemed him "OK” and said that he envisioned him playing a role against England in the U.S.’s second match of the group stage.

Asked to clarify what the last-minute check was for, Berhalter said "you could see there was a little bit of tightness” during the scrimmage with Al Gharafa a few days prior, that the team had been "building him up” and that "we think he can play a big role in this tournament — question is when, and hopefully on Friday (against England) he’ll be one further step ahead.”

A few minutes later, Reyna told reporters in the mixed zone that he was fully healthy.

"I felt good, I felt ready to go,” Reyna said. "But it was just his decision.”

On the day of the England game, former U.S. national team forward Eric Wynalda brought up Reyna’s lack of playing time during a Twitter Spaces with LA Times columnist Dylan Hernandez. Wynalda claimed that there was "internal strife” within the team about Berhalter’s decision to not play Reyna. He also alleged that Berhalter lied to the media when he told reporters after the Wales match that he held Reyna out of that match because of an injury. Wynalda claimed that he had spoken with Gio’s father Claudio, the former U.S. captain and Berhalter’s childhood friend and teammate at multiple World Cups.

"With Gio Reyna out of the lineup right now, which has been a massive controversy within the team — even his own teammates are wanting him on the field and it seems to be (causing) internal strife with the (team) and manager Gregg Berhalter,” Wynalda said. "I don’t know how much I should comment on that, but I’ve been trying to console Gio’s father, Claudio, for the last couple of hours, well, the last couple of days with everything that’s been going on. He was fit to play, Berhalter did lie to the media and say that it was an injury, ask the player to kind of go along with that story, which caused a rift between the two of them and now he’s on the bench which is really unfortunate. The situation should have been handled very differently.”

Wynalda slightly backed off his initial comments in a tweet posted to his account the day after his initial comments.

Berhalter wasn’t asked about Wynalda’s claims in his press conferences before or after the England game, though he did clarify in an answer that it was a "coach’s decision” not to play Reyna against Wales. Reyna played seven minutes against England. Berhalter then was asked before the Iran game if there was any rift between him and Gio Reyna and if he had, as Wynalda alleged, lied to the media and instructed Reyna to tell reporters that he was hurt after the Wales match.

"Speaking of the four-year journey, right, there’s been also four years of interacting with you guys (the press contingent). And what I’d say is, you know, I’ll leave it to you to decide if I asked Gio to lie about it,” Berhalter said. "That’s just not who I am. That’s not what I represent. So, you know, if you have to take Eric’s word or my word or whatever, feel free, but I know what happened, that’s not what I represent. Like every other person, Gio is a member of this team that we care deeply for and we know can help the team. It’s a matter of when he can help us and how he can help us.”

Shortly after that response, Wynalda walked back his initial statement even further on his SiriusXM show.

On Counter Attack, @EricWynalda clarified comments he made about #USMNT Head Coach Gregg Berhalter on Twitter Spaces with the @latimes.

Hear the entire conversation with @KeithCostigan here – https://t.co/cv63ZlzuVl pic.twitter.com/9J2DQK2mIK

— SiriusXM FC 157 ⚽️📻 (@SiriusXMFC) November 28, 2022

 

Reyna didn’t end up playing against Iran on Nov. 29 as the U.S. spent the second half protecting a narrow 1-0 lead.

"I think a lot of it comes down to timing and circumstance,” Berhalter said before facing the Netherlands in the round of 16. "If you look at how the games have unfolded, we’ve had the lead and had to hold on to the lead later in games. The only game that we didn’t have that scenario, we actually put him in to help get the victory. So it’s just how we can use him in the most effective way. Really talented player, and we’re looking for the right moment. But he can, no doubt, help his team.”

Berhalter did use Reyna more significantly in the U.S.’s loss to the Netherlands on Dec. 3. Down 2-0 at halftime, he brought the Borussia Dortmund attacker on for the second half, then shifted him to the wing when he inserted center forward Haji Wright. Reyna largely failed to make an impact in the contest, ending his first World Cup having played a total of 52 minutes as the U.S. were eliminated having scored just three goals in four matches.

Reyna scored for Dortmund in a shortened, 60-minute friendly against Rapid Bucharest, the fourth-place team in the Romanian SuperLiga on Saturday in the "Christmas Cup” in Bucharest.

 

[Mike31mt]

😆so Yedlin and Long??

Yeah they can F off, they are not in leadership positions and I couldnt give a F what they thought.  

Berhalter is such an arse clown, that article just drives the point home. I dont believe anything he says, hes a f'ing liar and a fraud.

Hes also an emotional little bish who gets caught up in his feelings, look at John Brooks as an example.

Im sure the players definitely stood up one by one and backed Berhalter in his decision about whether to send him home.  What a joke.

[DaEagles4Life]

52 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Absolutely false. Plenty of 20 year olds would've handled it better than Reyna did. Not every talented soccer player has this false sense of entitlement to the point where they cause these types of issues with the rest of the team.

Sorry but Reyna has a right to be pissed and entitled when sees the MLS clowns getting playing time over him. 

I'm sure they can all play with this quality 

 

Gregg tried to shift some blame from him to a prominent player and it backfired. 

[we_gotta_believe]

9 minutes ago, DaEagles4Life said:

Sorry but Reyna has a right to be pissed and entitled when sees the MLS clowns getting playing time over him. 

I'm sure they can all play with this quality 

 

Gregg tried to shift some blame from him to a prominent player and it backfired. 

I don't care how good he thinks he is, no single player is bigger than the team. If someone has watched enough soccer, then they've seen this play out too many times to be surprised at how it can end. 

[DaEagles4Life]

4 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

I don't care how good he thinks he is, no single player is bigger than the team. If someone has watched enough soccer, then they've seen this play out too many times to be surprised at how it can end. 

I'm sure you would sit quietly and be a cheerleader when you find out Jordan Morris, Ferreira or Wright would be getting playing time over you. Give me a break. 

I have no issues with a kid that wants to play and is competitive would be pissed and give half effort in training sessions when everyone knows bums are getting playing time over him. 

In every professional sport their are rules for the team and their are rules for the stars. That is just the way it goes. 

[Mike31mt]

15 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

I don't care how good he thinks he is, no single player is bigger than the team. If someone has watched enough soccer, then they've seen this play out too many times to be surprised at how it can end. 

When the entire team (minus MLS golden boys) know the manager is ish, then I don't expect them to all fall in line.

Its like the Chip Kelly dynamic.  How many mind-numbingly, obviously-stupid decisions do the players tolerate until the guy completely loses the room?

Imagine Chip Kelly coming out publicly and talking ish about Shady or Desean Jackson because they dared to question his stupid and wrong choices.  Thats what happened here

[we_gotta_believe]

4 minutes ago, DaEagles4Life said:

I'm sure you would sit quietly and be a cheerleader when you find out Jordan Morris, Ferreira or Wright would be getting playing time over you. Give me a break. 

I have no issues with a kid that wants to play and is competitive would be pissed and give half effort in training sessions when everyone knows bums are getting playing time over him. 

In every professional sport their are rules for the team and their are rules for the stars. That is just the way it goes. 

I'd voice my displeasure with the staff, but I wouldn't become a distraction and a prima donna to the point where I'm having to stand in front of the rest of the team to apologize. Even at 20 yrs old, I definitely had way more sense than that.

[we_gotta_believe]

7 minutes ago, Mike31mt said:

When the entire team (minus MLS golden boys) know the manager is ish, then I don't expect them to all fall in line.

Its like the Chip Kelly dynamic.  How many mind-numbingly, obviously-stupid decisions do the players tolerate until the guy completely loses the room?

Imagine Chip Kelly coming out publicly and talking ish about Shady or Desean Jackson because they dared to question his stupid and wrong choices.  Thats what happened here

Well for his sake, I hope Reyna doesn't continue being a petulant problem child and eventually grows up. Some players never do precisely because they're constantly being told it's never their fault and thus their behavior is justified. 

[DaEagles4Life]

 

 

[we_gotta_believe]

bUt He cAnT sCoRe fRoM tHe SpOt 

aNd He'S tHe tHiRd BeSt pLaYer fRoM ArGenTinA

[we_gotta_believe]

And another assist after turning the defender around twice. Geez.

🐐

[TEW]

2 hours ago, DaEagles4Life said:

I'm sure you would sit quietly and be a cheerleader when you find out Jordan Morris, Ferreira or Wright would be getting playing time over you. Give me a break. 

I have no issues with a kid that wants to play and is competitive would be pissed and give half effort in training sessions when everyone knows bums are getting playing time over him. 

In every professional sport their are rules for the team and their are rules for the stars. That is just the way it goes. 

This is the issue.

It’s not like the coach made a tactical decision to drop Gio for a roughly equal player at a different position so he could run a different formation. Or the coach selected an equally good player who was maybe better in the air or more physical.

He was dropped for guys who are several leagues below where he is. Guys who could never make it in Germany, let alone in UCL. And he wasn’t just dropped from the starting lineup, but from relevancy at all. He could have played for Poland, he chose the US, and got screwed immensely for it because the coach is a corrupt Dbag.

Yes, he should have put forth maximum effort anyway because that’s the professional thing to do, but let’s just be clear that this entire situation was Berhalter’s mind numbing LT stupid creation.

[we_gotta_believe]

25 minutes ago, TEW said:

This is the issue.

It’s not like the coach made a tactical decision to drop Gio for a roughly equal player at a different position so he could run a different formation. Or the coach selected an equally good player who was maybe better in the air or more physical.

He was dropped for guys who are several leagues below where he is. Guys who could never make it in Germany, let alone in UCL. And he wasn’t just dropped from the starting lineup, but from relevancy at all. He could have played for Poland, he chose the US, and got screwed immensely for it because the coach is a corrupt Dbag.

Yes, he should have put forth maximum effort anyway because that’s the professional thing to do, but let’s just be clear that this entire situation was Berhalter’s mind numbing LT stupid creation.

^This

Now if you can just bring yourself to admit you're watching, in real-time, a living legend cement his status as the undisputed goat of the sport, we'd be all set.

[we_gotta_believe]

Video of Alvarez as a kid being asked what his dream would be. 

He says to play in a world cup. 

When asked who he'd like to play with, he says Messi. Dude has to be having an out of body experience right now.

 

[UK_EaglesFan89]

10 hours ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Video of Alvarez as a kid being asked what his dream would be. 

He says to play in a world cup. 

When asked who he'd like to play with, he says Messi. Dude has to be having an out of body experience right now.

 

Good for him. And he's going to win a WC because FIFA want to make it happen for Messi. A corrupt WC won in a corrupt way. Its rather fitting. 

[DrPhilly]

12 minutes ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

Good for him. And he's going to win a WC because FIFA want to make it happen for Messi. A corrupt WC won in a corrupt way. Its rather fitting. 

Messi was pretty darn good last night.

[we_gotta_believe]

5 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

Good for him. And he's going to win a WC because FIFA want to make it happen for Messi. A corrupt WC won in a corrupt way. Its rather fitting. 

Refs have been garbage all around, not really seeing any favoritism to Argentina or any other one team, but okay.