World

If FIFA insists on a World Cup every 2 years, I’d love it if they’d be open to trying a different format every other World Cup. Every 4 years have the traditional World Cup, but keep it at 32 teams. In between, try a knockout style tournament like Wimbledon / March Madness… I think there are 211 member nations:  Teams ranked 46-211 start in the first round, 1-45 join the 63 winners of Round 1 into a 128 team round 2 and the bracket begins.  Maybe have the first few 3 or 4 rounds “regionally” and then have the final 32 or 16 and after in one location.  Perhaps give the host of this Final 32/16 a bye even into this point of the tournament.   The pros would be no need for qualification, it’s something new, it works for tennis and college basketball.  The cons would be a lot of early round blowouts / low -ranked teams parking the bus.

class guy on and off the pitch,sorry to see him go.i can think of 6 or 7 of his teammates i wish would join him in retirement.

While I am mildly skeptical of performance in Russia, as the USMNT/American players have no real track record there, if Whoscored is anything to go by, Ennin has nearly a 7 rating in 3 games. His last 2 were 7.4 and 7.2, after a 6.4 in his debut.   FTR: That's quite good. A 7ish rating would put him in the top 40. A 7.3 would put him top 10. 

It also looks like they plan to start the World Cup a week earlier and finish by the turn of the month.  The last World Cup didn't finish until July 15th. The 25 day break is a very eurocentric talking point but that is the opposition they have to placate.  In practice, I don't see how it can be enforced for other confederations.        

Why hasn't Giraldo featured with FCE?

Personally, I have moved on from the question on whether he's an "upgrade" or not. For me that's not particularly important, but what is important is can he help this team, for which the answer is still yes.  I feel the same way about the "is he a starter" question. Again, it's not really a relavent question. Different players will start different games because of the fixture congestion, with Eustaquio probably being the only exception.  If Arfield gets dropped entirely and/or released from Rangers, that's something to discuss, but as long as he's part of the squad and getting minutes here and there, he's CanMNT material and deserves to be in the rotation, assuming all the "committment" stuff is put to bed. 

When you look at the age and caps of these players, there's a nice stratification:   Laryea - 26 yo w/ 18 caps Miller - 24 yo w/ 14 caps Johnson - 23 yo w/ 13 caps Buchanan - 22 yo w/ 12 caps Fraser - 23 yo w/ 9 caps ZBG - 22 yo/ w 5 caps Chapman - 27 yo w/ 3 caps Akinola - 21 yo w/ 2 caps St. Clair - 24 yo w/ 1 cap Pantemis - 24 yo  0 caps Waterman - 25 yo w/ 0 caps Obviously it doesn't follow a perfect pattern, but I like how the older guys (in general) have more caps than the younger guys. It's a healthy sign and a good indicator we shouldn't suffer too much as generations get phased out in the future. 

The paradox of course is that the less time he gets with Rangers the more useful he is for us - more willing to show up, healthier etc. I still maintain with these crazy windows and the need for rotation he’s a valuable piece for us. We don’t have many mids who can play like him - Atiba in his current role, Osorio a bit - so it’s good to have another competent guy with those abilities.

I made a rough list of our 03 and 04 depth a few months ago. It may be a but outdated. We need a camp for these guys.

They are probably anticipating Covid to continue to be an issue.