Olympic Qualifying U24 Tournament - Guadalajara Mexico - March 18 to 30 2021

[BearcatSA]

And so El Salvador is on four points, three goals for, four goals against.

[dyslexic nam]

53 minutes ago, BearcatSA said:

And so El Salvador is on four points, three goals for, four goals against.

So do we have to lose by 4 to not advance?

[Canuckistan2019]

Buchanan sorta looks like Leroy sane

[Canuckistan2019]

Beautiful delivery 

[dyslexic nam]

5 minutes ago, Canuckistan2019 said:

Beautiful delivery 

(Most folks are in the game thread)

[dyslexic nam]

After sleeping in it and thinking about the result(s) I have to agree that some of the knee-jerk disappointment of not finishing first is probably unjustified.  We finished the group stage undefeated (1 win, 2 draws) and only missed out on topping the group by a single goal on goal differential - and Honduras had a ridiculously unfair advantage in that metric.  We managed all of that without a ton of guys that would normally be in our first 11.  We are now one game (albeit a very difficult one) away from qualifying for the Olympics.  
 

We may be ramping up our national teams expectations these days but objectively we have done pretty damn well so far at this tournament.  Win or lose on Sunday, the lads have nothing to be ashamed of.  

[CanadaFan123]

This is our 4th straight cycle of being in a "win and you're in" scenario for the Olympics. We're due for a break.

[SoccMan]

14 hours ago, CanadaFan123 said:

This is our 4th straight cycle of being in a "win and you're in" scenario for the Olympics. We're due for a break.

We will be due for a break when they start taking the men’s Olympic program more seriously. I’ll give them a pass this year because of Covid, however, in all the other years there has been  almost zero preparation in the buildups to the men’s Olympic team. Teams usually just put together at the last minute literally coming together a few days just before the first game . Moreover, this year they decided to exclude a bunch of good Olympic age players and instead put them with the senior national team for games against those two power house nations that are Bermuda and Cayman Islands. Did they really need any of those Olympic age players for those games against those two nations ? Can you imagine even just a difference a guy like Theo would have made to the Olympic team? Even a guy like Miller on the back line or the presence of a St. Clair in net. Like I said when the CSA decides to take this men’s Olympic team seriously that’s when we might be due for a break until that happens I don’t see any breaks happening, it will always be the same old “ well they did their best considering what they had to work with” .

Edited March 27, 2021 by SoccMan

[Ivan]

28 minutes ago, SoccMan said:

We will be due for a break when they start taking the men’s Olympic program more seriously. I’ll give them a pass this year because of Covid, however, in all the other years there has been  almost zero preparation in the buildups to the men’s Olympic team. Teams usually just put together at the last minute literally coming together a few days just before the first game . Moreover, this year they decided to exclude a bunch of good Olympic age players and instead put them with the senior national team for games against those two power house nations that are Bermuda and Cayman Islands. Did they really need any of those Olympic age players for those games against those two nations ? Can you imagine even just a difference a guy like Theo would have made to the Olympic team? Even a guy like Miller on the back line or the presence of a St. Clair in net. Like I said when the CSA decides to take this men’s Olympic team seriously that’s when we might be due for a break until that happens I don’t see any breaks happening, it will always be the same old “ well they did their best considering what they had to work with” .

Good rant, lots of good points in there. I still hope we catch a break though! 😄

[El Hombre]

31 minutes ago, SoccMan said:

We will be due for a break when they start taking the men’s Olympic program more seriously. I’ll give them a pass this year because of Covid, however, in all the other years there has been  almost zero preparation in the buildups to the men’s Olympic team. Teams usually just put together at the last minute literally coming together a few days just before the first game . Moreover, this year they decided to exclude a bunch of good Olympic age players and instead put them with the senior national team for games against those two power house nations that are Bermuda and Cayman Islands. Did they really need any of those Olympic age players for those games against those two nations ? Can you imagine even just a difference a guy like Theo would have made to the Olympic team? Even a guy like Miller on the back line or the presence of a St. Clair in net. Like I said when the CSA decides to take this men’s Olympic team seriously that’s when we might be due for a break until that happens I don’t see any breaks happening, it will always be the same old “ well they did their best considering what they had to work with” .

Not sure if you fully appreciate the difficulty that was encountered in trying to get the MNT together.  Availability of players was in question right up until the start of this week.  There was a non-zero chance that we would've had to play with an entirely domestic lineup.

Also, are you sure that Theo would've been released for the Olympic qualifiers?  We had other players like Paton that were held back by their club.  Can you say for certain that he was available?

And finally, Pantemis has been a revelation.  He has not been the issue, so I'm not sure what St. Clair would've done better.

[narduch]

21 minutes ago, El Hombre said:

Not sure if you fully appreciate the difficulty that was encountered in trying to get the MNT together.  Availability of players was in question right up until the start of this week.  There was a non-zero chance that we would've had to play with an entirely domestic lineup.

Also, are you sure that Theo would've been released for the Olympic qualifiers?  We had other players like Paton that were held back by their club.  Can you say for certain that he was available?

And finally, Pantemis has been a revelation.  He has not been the issue, so I'm not sure what St. Clair would've done better.

That Honduras goal was a bit of a stinker.

[El Hombre]

3 minutes ago, narduch said:

That Honduras goal was a bit of a stinker.

True, but he he's been solid pretty much the rest of the time.

I forgot to mention that, with regards to Miller who was also mentioned, two factors come in to play:

1) We entered the tournament with Meilleur-Giguere, Montgomery and Cornelius.
2) Nahki Wells was supposed to play for Bermuda (a fact that this board spent a couple months legitimately worrying about).

Did we really need Miller with the U24 team or could we may have needed his speed to potentially deal with a Bermuda counter?

Now with hindsight, its super easy to say we should've done X considering injury issues and everything else, but until the CSA properly invests in time travel, I'll give them a pass.  Most of these decisions had to be made at the beginning of March.  We could've very easily had a CB pairing of Jakovic and Ferreira going up against Wells.  Different ballgame.

[JamboAl]

Maybe it’s a different attitude to things but I prefer the CNMT be prioritized over the Olympic team.  Not that I don’t hope we qualify for any Olympics, but if we don’t, I wouldn’t lose a minute of sleep over it.  The U-23s are there to provide a few players for the full national team in the future.  And to that end, I think we’ve done that in this tournament.

[archer21]

The fact that we’re playing WCQ games while Honduras, USA, and Mexico are playing friendlies makes it harder for us as well. They don’t need to worry about sending their best to the MNT and the B team to U23 like we do.

[gator]

59 minutes ago, JamboAl said:

Maybe it’s a different attitude to things but I prefer the CNMT be prioritized over the Olympic team.  Not that I don’t hope we qualify for any Olympics, but if we don’t, I wouldn’t lose a minute of sleep over it.  The U-23s are there to provide a few players for the full national team in the future.  And to that end, I think we’ve done that in this tournament.

I agree Al, the only point I might add though is Olympic Qualification would be huge for the entire Men's program and we are still in a position to do so even if it is a monumental task!

[toontownman]

Any update on Cornelius?

Hope he and Montgomery are both fit for tmrw. 😬

[LeoH037]

4 hours ago, SoccMan said:

We will be due for a break when they start taking the men’s Olympic program more seriously. I’ll give them a pass this year because of Covid, however, in all the other years there has been  almost zero preparation in the buildups to the men’s Olympic team. Teams usually just put together at the last minute literally coming together a few days just before the first game . Moreover, this year they decided to exclude a bunch of good Olympic age players and instead put them with the senior national team for games against those two power house nations that are Bermuda and Cayman Islands. Did they really need any of those Olympic age players for those games against those two nations ? Can you imagine even just a difference a guy like Theo would have made to the Olympic team? Even a guy like Miller on the back line or the presence of a St. Clair in net. Like I said when the CSA decides to take this men’s Olympic team seriously that’s when we might be due for a break until that happens I don’t see any breaks happening, it will always be the same old “ well they did their best considering what they had to work with” .

Its unfortunate that Olympic Qualifiers and World Cup Qualifiers overlapped this year, however, personally I have no qualms about the U23 players that are on the senior team as opposed to the Olympic squad. Why? Because IMO you always prioritize World Cup Qualifiers and you never overlook your opponent or roll out "B teams" (hell, if a country like England rolls out their strongest squad against a San Marino, who the heck do we think we are to assume we should bring anything less against a Bermuda/Cayman Islands), not only is it disrespectful to the opponent, its disrespectful to the whole process and undermines the important of it. How embarrassing would it be to underestimate an opponent and end getting shocked, specially when the margin for error in these games is razor thin to non existent? As mentioned before, its likely a guy like Corbeanu only filed his one time switch now on the condition of senior football (else he could have opted to just further extend his youth career with Romania). And who's to say that Olympic qualifying wasn't taken seriously... there is this thing called Covid that has throw a wrench into worldly plans as of late.

As far as Pantemis... no fair to let that one blunder against Honduras (his only one so far this whole tournament) overshadow an otherwise great performance by him throughout the entire tournament so far, or the fact that he is the reason we left the game against Haiti with a clean sheet

[Bison44]

"Why? Because IMO you always prioritize World Cup Qualifiers and you never overlook your opponent or roll out "B teams" (hell, if a country like England rolls out their strongest squad against a San Marino, who the heck do we think we are to assume we should bring anything less against a Bermuda/Cayman Islands), not only is it disrespectful to the opponent, its disrespectful to the whole process and undermines the important of it."

 

I get all that, but is having Liam Millar, Corbeanu, maybe St CLair etc, skip a cameo for the CMNT disrespectful??  They could have played all of the u-23 games and the mens side could have had someone else come for the last 20 minutes eh?    They let Cornelius go to U-23, and he should probably be starting for the men, so you know this was a choice on their part.  Who knows what promises were made to players (Theo) but I would feel better about our chances if a couple of those guys were down with the U-23 (with CMNT regular Cornelius) and not sitting on the bench against Bermuda/Caymans.  Getting back to the Olympics would be a big step for the men's program.  

That being said, I do love seeing Millar/Corbeanu etc get to shine with the big boys.  

[nfitz]

3 hours ago, archer21 said:

They don’t need to worry about sending their best to the MNT and the B team to U23 like we do.

If we were playing El Salvador or Surinam ... maybe. But I don't buy that we couldn't have sent the A team to the U23 with the MNT playing Bermuda and the Caymans.

[archer21]

3 minutes ago, nfitz said:

If we were playing El Salvador or Surinam ... maybe. But I don't buy that we couldn't have sent the A team to the U23 with the MNT playing Bermuda and the Caymans.

Depends on what you mean by the A team. Most European clubs probably wouldn’t release their players to come here for U23 action. So yeah, maybe I can see the argument that Miller should be with the U23s and maybe Guti, but is Gutierrez really that big of an upgrade anyways? And Miller is our only CB with pace in the MNT camp when we were expecting to play against a much stronger Bermuda than we did with Nakhi Wells leading the counter.

[toontownman]

Cornelius hopefully in.

https://twitter.com/onesoccer/status/1375847583680143364?s=20

[saintjoes]

Días "ready to start" tomorrow!! 👍🏻

Per Biello: 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2021 by saintjoes

[Gian-Luca]

20 minutes in Honduras looking slightly more dangerous than the US 

[Gian-Luca]

Honduras scores in injury time to take a 1st half lead

[dyslexic nam]

Honduras just went up 1-0.  I have no idea how to feel about that.  I assume they both can’t lose them