US Players Abroad, Rating

Here's a quick look at US born players abroad in some of the top leagues in Europe, right now. The way I ranked the players was based simply on four criteria on a 10 pt scale (10 best-7-5-3-0 lowest):

1. Strength of League
2. Man of the Match (MotM)
3. WhoScored Rating
4. % Mins played (possible)

(ooo) is transfer value per TransferMarkt.co.uk, in thousands.

Age	(OOO)	Name	League	Club	MotM	Rating	%mins	HB
19	40,500	Christian Pulisic	Bundesliga	Borussia Dortmund	2	7.18	84%	100
34	225	Josh Wicks	Allsvenskan	Sirius	2	6.74	80%	75
27	1,350	Alfredo Morales	2. Bundesliga	Ingolstadt	0	7.03	79%	68
27	3,150	Timothy Chandler	Bundesliga	Eintracht Frankfurt	1	6.85	58%	68
22	2,700	Matt Miazga	Eredivisie	Vitesse	1	6.78	81%	68
24	12,600	John Brooks	Bundesliga	Wolfsburg	0	7.22	40%	63
25	3,150	Bobby Wood	Bundesliga	Hamburger SV	1	6.51	62%	63
20	450	Cameron Carter-Vickers	Championship	Sheffield United	1	6.75	60%	60
30	1,800	Tim Ream	Championship	Fulham	0	6.82	92%	55
24	4,500	DeAndre Yedlin	Premier League	Newcastle United	0	6.76	78%	55
32	2,700	Geoff Cameron	Premier League	Stoke City	0	6.67	57%	55
23	450	Brendan Hines Ike	Allsvenskan	Örebro	0	6.87	95%	50
29	1,580	Eric Lichaj	Championship	Nottingham Forest	0	6.73	58%	48
26	450	Terrence Boyd	2. Bundesliga	Darmstadt 98	1	6.45	25%	45
19	4,050	Weston McKennie	Bundesliga	Schalke 04	0	6.43	47%	45
28	1,800	Danny Williams	Premier League	Huddersfield Town	0	6.32	46%	45
28	270	Andrew Wooten	2. Bundesliga	Sandhausen	0	7.21	2%	43
22	630	Julian Green	2. Bundesliga	Greuther Fürth	0	6.68	49%	43
30	4,500	Fabian Johnson	Bundesliga	Borussia M'gladbach	0	6.51	30%	40
21	450	Shaq Moore	La Liga	Levente		6.49	26%	40
33	450	Caleb Stanko	Bundesliga	Freiburg	0	6.21	12%	40
24	270	Jerome Kiesewetter	2. Bundesliga	Fortuna Düsseldorf	0	6.8	11%	38
22	22	Romain Gall	Allsvenskan	GIF Sundsvall	0	6.58	53%	38
19	450	Haji Wright	2. Bundesliga	Sandhausen	0	6.32	30%	38
22	675	Lynden Gooch	Championship	Sunderland	0	6.24	29%	33
20	315	Keaton Parks	Primeira Liga	Benfica	0	6.16	3%	33
27	900	Aron Jóhannsson	Bundesliga	Werder Bremen	0	5.99	0%	33
19		Luca de la Torre	Championship	Fulham	0	6.02	2%	25
22	900	Emmerson Hyndman	Premier League	AFC Bournemouth				25
20	135	Jonathan Klinsmann	Bundesliga	Hertha BSC				25
18	23	Brian Scott	Bundesliga	Köln				25
20		Kyle Scott	Premier League	Chelsea				25
22	225	Desevio Payne	Eredivisie	Excelsior	0	6.39	6%	20
24	225	Shane O'Neill	Eredivisie	Excelsior				18
23	95	Mael Corboz	2. Bundesliga	MSV Duisburg				18
19	90	Orrin McKinze Gaines	2. Bundesliga	Darmstadt 98				18
29	360	Conor O'Brien	Eliteserien	Start				13
21	270	Rubio Rubin	Eliteserien	Stabæk				13
29	113	Andrew Stadler	Allsvenskan	Dalkurd				13
26	90	Alexander Ray De John	Allsvenskan	Dalkurd				13
28	90	Stefan Antonijevic	Eliteserien	Lillestrøm				13

I created a little rating system to help me sort who is playing well and try to find out any surprises and not so much surprises. In no particular order:

1. Josh Wicks, 34, GK, Sirius in Allsvenskan
Some might remember Wicks from his time in MLS in 2009. He got into a fight with teammate Marc Burch in a league match and also two foot stomped Fredy Montero (Seattle) in a US Open Cup game. He wasn't seen again in MLS and moved to Europe right after. He's been bouncing around Nordic leagues since. Having a good year this year. His WhoScored Rating of 6.74 (top 30%-ish of all players in the league). He may be crazy but had a good 2017.

2. Christian Pulisic, 19, Attacking Mid (L/R), Borussia Dortmund in Bundesliga
Pulisic has shot up to be possibly the best player the US has ever had. Grew up in Pennsylvania but moved to Germany around age 16. At 19 now and, according to TransferMarkt, worth over $40 million. Both American owned Manchester United and Liverpool want him so that fee could easily jump. 3 goals and an assist in 1300 minutes this year, with an astonishing rating of 7.18 which easily puts in the top 50 players in the league.

3. The Central Defenders
Matt Miazga (22), John Brooks (24) and Cameron Carter-Vickers (20). All under 25, all player will in their respective leagues so far this year. Brooks' (Wolfsburg) 7.22 rating and pass success rate of 85% is best in class, but his minutes sit less than 700 thus far.

4. Yedlin, Tops in Prem
DeAndre (24, Newcastle) took a chance heading over to the Premier League. Signed with Tottenham, loaned to Sunderland but now found his home in Newcastle. He's seen the dark side of relegation and the joy of promotion. I like his story. Like it or not, he's the only player in the regular starting eleven the US has right now, playing in 78% of possible minutes. His success has got his transfer fee close to $5 million. 

[fun] College Football Ladder

PROPOSAL! Create a league atop college football made up of teams winning the conferences year to year. Two from each "power 5" and three from the rest of the country. The lowest-finishing team in each conference moves out, conference winner moves in. Winner of this new league = National Champion.

College Football is a behemoth in the United States. In Division 1 there are 130 teams alone. It does not need to change to make any more money. But I do think change is on the horizon. Leagues are expanding across the country and everyone wants to see the big schools playing each other week in, week out. How long that takes? No idea, but it's moving that direction.

Important note about me: I'm an outsider to college football, admittedly. Neither of the colleges I went to (Virginia Wesleyan, Campbell University) had college football (soccer, believe it or not, was the homecoming game at both). I am a soccer guy, but the idea of working something like this is interesting to me because of the "club" type nature of college athletics.

There is something that has always bothered me about college football. The choosing of a national champion. You can't argue that the controversy surrounding the process of picking on is part of the appeal, but for me, it could be something much more clear and much more interesting.

Why not take two teams from each of the top five conferences (65 total members) and three teams from remaining six (65 total members) and drop them in a league in and of themselves?

Next year that would look like (lets something fun like SUPERLEAGUE):

ACC: Clemson Tigers
ACC: Miami Hurricanes
Big 12: Oklahoma Sooners
Big 12: TCU Horned Frogs
B1G: Ohio State Buckeyes
B1G: Wisconsin Badgers
Pac 12: Stanford Cardinal
Pac 12: USC Trojans
SEC: Georgia Bulldogs
SEC: Auburn Tigers
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The final three spots would go to the top three teams based on existing polls at the end of the season for the following conferences: The American, C-USA, Independent Schools, MAC, MW and Sunbelt.
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1. University of Central Florida
2. Memphis University
3. Boise State Broncos

Some bullet points - on schedule:

- All-in-all, that gives you a league of 13 teams for a 12 game schedule
- Most conferences play a 13 or 14 game schedule (including bowl game)
- 12 game schedule would allow for 2 games, whatever the university wants (rivalry game, cream puffs)
- No bowl game for teams in this conference

Who stays in, who goes:

- Goes: The team finishing lowest in standings in each conference
- In: Winner of each top five conference, top-ranked 3 among the rest

Why it works:

- Keeps the schedule fresh, determines a true champion
- Maintains integrity of conferences and bowl games (which would be for all teams outside SUPERLEAGUE)
- Every game in SUPERLEAGUE would be essentially a bowl game

There you go. Those are my thoughts. My brain needed a break from US Soccer thoughts for a bit.

Motivations behind "Camp Cupcake"

It was only a month ago that the suggestion arose from Danny Williams, a USMNT player with over 20 appearances, spoke out about not being selected by the team in their failed attempt to qualify for Russia 2018.

"I think there are too many political things going on behind-the-scenes," Williams told NBC, though he also cautioned: "I wasn't really close enough with the team for that amount of time so I can't really talk, or give too much information, because I don't really know about what happened." 

He added: "Obviously I spoke to the boys when I was in Portugal. Everybody has a different view. I heard from a few people that they tried to 'market the MLS' a bit more, in the qualifying games and get a name for the MLS."

"At the end of the day it shouldn't be about that. It should be about quality and bringing the best players and having a plan. That is it."

From here we got a firm response from Bruce Arena that denied the accusation that USSF and MLS wanted to market the league by selecting MLS based players. Beyond that, we were treated to this by the writer that broke the story:

Everyone can quibble about Arena's player selection, but the idea that marketing of MLS players influenced his decisions is one I find to be absurd. https://t.co/eQPpF8sHxy

— Jeff Carlisle (@JeffreyCarlisle) December 12, 2017

It's no secret that Bruce Arena favored MLS players. He's spoken publically about that. However, is there a more powerful hand at work via the USSF/MLS offices directing both former US coaches Jurgen Klinsmann and Bruce Arena?

Something J. Cruyff wrote in one of his books also suggested that team selection was directed from on high: “Jürgen Klinsmann, coach of the US national side since 2011, often couldn’t select the best possible team because he was obliged to include someone from each franchise.”

Digging into minutes and team selection for meaningful games yields a mix. Basically, 50% of the time is given to MLS players (or so), going back multiple World Cup cycles.

But when Williams made the quote it struck a nerve with me. MLS and USSF work in lockstep to grow their product. The comments made by Kathy Carter recently confirm this. I firmly believe that because of this relationship there is a directive to select MLS players to help market the league.

We don't see that with meaningful games, however. They have to win those, you need to select the best. Where we see this is the oddball USMNT January Camp ("Camp Cupcake") that takes place in the MLS offseason.

I decided to take a look and see if there was anything there that proved there is a marketing hand in selection. Turns out it is true that each team gets a callup. I do not this is by chance.

Here's a look at selections over the last two years. Each team, except two, have had a player in camp in January.

7 - Seattle Sounders FC
6 - D.C. United
5 - New York Red Bulls
5 - Toronto FC
4 - New England Revolution
4 - Philadelphia Union
4 - Real Salt Lake
3 - Columbus Crew SC
3 - FC Dallas
3 - LA Galaxy
3 - San Jose Earthquakes
3 - Sporting Kansas City
2 - Chicago Fire
2 - Vancouver Whitecaps FC
1 - Atlanta United FC
1 - Colorado Rapids
1 - Los Angeles FC
1 - Minnesota United FC
1 - Orlando City SC
1 - Portland Timbers
1 - Houston Dynamo
0 - Montreal Impact
0 - New York City FC

Montreal and NYCFC missed out on the last two years, but going back one more year - they did. So there it is. Each MLS team represented.

There's certainly nothing illegal about this. But what makes it frustrating is that the league and USSF hide it and writers close to those groups claim it doesn't happen when it most certainly does.

Why not just say that they do this? Marketing the league using USMNT call-ups in a non-FIFA window would not be the worst thing in the world. The only thing I can think of is that USSF wants to keep up the idea that competition and playing ability drives selection when in reality it takes a back seat to making money.

That's frustrating. Cruyff was right when he said (while commenting further on the practice of selecting players from each MLS team): "... it’s very restrictive if you’re a coach, and something that would delay the national side’s development by years if it were to continue."

These are things that need to change, even at "Camp Cupcake" in order for the US to become better. The best players and prospects should be selected, regardless of team.

MLS is to Blame (incomplete thought)

(this was an incomplete thought after the failure to make Russia 2018, but posting it, written 11-18-17 - it's a big deal)

-----------------------

Once was thought to be unfathomable, the United States men's team failed to qualify for Russia 2018 for the first time since the 80s. It's a failure on an epic scale for the USSF, MLS and SUM.

This wasn't supposed to happen, but when you look back at how the US has qualified for World Cup competitions over the years, maybe it was.

What many people fail to remember is that the World Cup is an ever-changing, ever-evolving tournament. When the US qualified in 1989, it was a massive achievement. At that time, qualifying was much more difficult with only two teams from the CONCACAF region able to punch their ticket. Were the WC not to expand in 1998, or the US not hosting in 1994, we might be talking about more missed Cups between 1990 and 2018.

But as things happened, CONCACAF was given 3+ spots from 1998 onward. Had it been just two in 2002, the US would not have gone (finished 3rd). Marching forward - 2006, 2010 and 2014 saw the US finishing 1st in qualifying. Eight good years that spanned three different coaches, but a relatively stable stock of quality players from overseas + Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey.

All that changed in 2013 when MLS wanted to go big into buying players back from Europe and elsewhere around the world. The move was strictly a financial one. MLS wanted the attention on them, especially if the US did well. They had the financial might, they wanted poster boys.

2014 came and went. It was marked by a dramatic loss to Belguim, of which the US was dominated, but hung in there. The years in between then and now, however, saw an erosion of quality and effort. Key players like Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey lost their edge and there were no replacements playing in Europe's "big 5." A giant hole was created. One that Jurgen Klinsmann famously recognized. He warned against players returning and encouraged those younger to play overseas. It wasn't enough, however. There just wasn't anyone to select.

Things got bumpy for the US after 2015. Bruce Arena was brought back in the attempt to salvage a poor start to qualifying, which should be a slam dunk considering the quality of the region, but it failed.

What to do with Crew

I have no idea.

2018 is more than likely the final season for the Columbus Crew. At least the team as it is now. I do believe that it will be on the way to Austin for 2019. Nothing can stop it. The only question left that I have is that if the team history, badges and colors will be left here - or go.

If you find yourself reading this then you know that I've written about the team for nearly 8 years now. My interest in the team was spurred on by the 2011 season. Balanced schedule, single table and Don Garber opening the door (ever so slightly) for a unified pyramid.

Since then, however, things have radically changed. Ever expanding league, unbalanced scheduling, a team budget rulebook that changes each year etc etc. On top of this, we have very clear battle lines being drawn between those that want a clear competitive format and single, cohesive, league structure and those that are ok with things going on as they are.

These are things that make it difficult and burdensome to write about the league. Even if you are coming from a player focused, quality, competitive angle (which I have always tried to do). Each post written from this perspective seems to topple down upon itself with the shifting sands of MLS. Want to write a simple piece about a player in good form? Well, good luck. Asking the simple question on why he is in good form leads you down league structure roads (unimportant games, a string of games close to home and/or avoiding a late-night match out west, or God forbid, you ask how the player got to the team in the first place via MLS rules) that ultimately end up in the hands of Don Garber. It's frustrating.

At some point in 2015, I realized that every post nearly required a qualifier about league rules and a discussion on Soccer United Marketing to explain what was going on. Even as I write this, there is an article just posted about how Ola Kamara and Justin Meram want out - and it has nothing to do with the actual competition coming up this season and everything to do with the team moving. A post on this would require a dive into league organization, ownership, Anthony Precourt, Don Garber. Lost in all that is what Ola Kamara and Justin Meram are as players.

Players deserve better. Particularly the players in Columbus right now as a black hole is opening up underneath them. Want to make an argument as to why players find it hard to improve in MLS (or coming back to MLS)? This is just one reason why. Everything is always in flux. Everything! Each year like a new league.

Part of me wants to put my head down and plow through this final season. If nothing else, because it is so bizarre. Another part of me just wants to take pictures and make videos of the season. And the last part of me just says to let it all go.

Put all that together, though. It makes for some good inspiration.

Here's to 2018, Crew. Faults, flaws, future.

Let's see how this goes.

Video: MLS Cup Final, 2015

Went back to put together video I made from the 2015 MLS Cup Final. It is chronological, in regards to the editing. Not sure what prompted me to go back to it, but I did. It wasn't an overly moving match and looking back it just seems more like a thing that just... happened. I'll always feel that Columbus sort of "gamed" the playoff format. Winning two, losing three. While Portland won three, drew two (no losses). I know that's more a structure thing, but at no point did I feel I was watching a particularly good Crew team. More like they managed the playoffs if that makes sense. I'm not sure I would feel different had they plowed through everyone to get there. Maybe it would have meant more if there weren't the home/away series and they had to win two or three straight to get to the final? Not sure.

One thing I hadn't noticed, or remembered, was the smoke billowing out from the visiting fans across the stadium. It looks as though it was following the Portland players as they took their positions before kickoff. It eventually engulfed the entire stadium. Ominous.

The music selection was made because of what happened in the aftermath. Because of the structure of the Cup (long and at end of the season), Columbus was set back in their prep for 2016. I've heard that it's an excuse, but when your resources are limited I think it is a real disadvantage. 2016 was a disaster, one of the worst Crew seasons (2nd worst, technically). It was also the year Precourt Sports Ventures started work in Austin. Fans didn't know at the time, but I'm sure players and some staff had an idea.

Here are some other pictures from the event.

2017 MLS Best XI

2017 Helltown Beer MLS Player of the Year

Still using the same rating system since 2011. This is a regular season award. The playoffs in MLS are too wonky to measure.

Past Winners:
2016: Bradley Wright-Phillips
2015: Bradley Wright-Phillips
2014: Robbie Keane
2013: Darlington Nagbe
2012: Chris Wondolowski
2011: Todd Dunivant