USMNT - 2026 World Cup Cycle
- Thread starter bluesfan94
- Start date
bluesfan94
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KlausJopling
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Balogun situation is getting to hilarious levels. After he withdrew from the England U-21 squad he immediately flew to Orlando (where US is training) and reports are he had dinner with some of the US squad (not unsurprising since he is friends with a few of them). But the optics of the entire situation are a great to follow on social media.
bluesfan94
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4-1 at half, I’ll take that. Big fan of Trusty getting the start. Make some subs and finish it off
KlausJopling
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KlausJopling
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Even though it was only 1-0, a pretty comfortable win against El Salvador. Pepi with another nice goal.
Basement Cat
Frank Drebin
Ricardo Pepi, rebounding from World Cup snub, sends USMNT to Nations League semis
Ricardo Pepi has been on a "roller coaster" that included a World Cup snub. But he's back scoring for the USMNT.
sports.yahoo.com
robertmac43
Forever 43!
- Mar 31, 2015
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Basement Cat
Frank Drebin
Bring em on - I'd rather play Mexico than Canada at this point. I think we are clearly stronger than Mexico on paper.
robertmac43
Forever 43!
- Mar 31, 2015
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Yeah you guys definitely are. Is Vegas one of the cities in the US that will see a large Mexican support contingent?
- Oct 3, 2013
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bluesfan94
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There aren't really cities that aren't, but Vegas definitely is. Southwest is the hotbed.
kingsboy11
Maestro
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Frank Drebin
- Oct 3, 2013
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Was always hoping USA would build its version of Wembley in a city whee they would be able to have a consistent homefield advantage and just use it for USMNT, US Open Cup, maybe MLS final, etc.
Basement Cat
Frank Drebin
To do that in the US you probably have to make it Columbus. Which, without looking it up, is probably something like the 30th largest metro area in the country. Not ideal
- Oct 3, 2013
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I don’t think it has to be Ohio.
I think you could do like Seattle for example. You can do somewhere cold with a dime and better planning. You can also do a place where the stadium is the destination. I mean Stadium Series in Raleigh, NC brought in 20m to the economy. Someone is going to sign up for that.
Basement Cat
Frank Drebin
Seattle is probably the best bet, but one of the worst for travel for Euro-based players.
At the end of the day, the US is too big to not have the national team be a traveling show. It's not like the fervent soccer support is all in one region.
- Oct 3, 2013
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For sure. I believe though that there should be a hub, with a guaranteed home field advantage for the biggest games.
On the same token though is the argument is that USMNT is a traveling circus, it’s not super fair for one venue to be getting the same game over and over again either
Basement Cat
Frank Drebin
Seems like Columbus has been that de-facto hub. Not always, but it definitely has been ol' reliable when needed to be.
If US Soccer ever did go this route, they'd have to toe the line carefully to not be perceived as racist/xenophobic. We all know there would be some uproar surrounding that.
- Oct 3, 2013
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I don’t agree with that statement. I would say California has been the hub of anything
i think uproar would be severely misplaced. No other national team on the planet doesn’t have home field advantage in its own country. Racist/xenophobic would be if they stopped selling tickets to opposing fans. It’s not racist/xenophobic to want to play somewhere where they aren’t outnumbered
Basement Cat
Frank Drebin
I agree with you, but I'm just saying that there would be complaints of that. A home field advantage for the USMNT means more white people than Mexicans and Central Americans. You make Columbus the hub and it's obvious you are trying to accomplish.
- Oct 3, 2013
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Who would be complaining though? The federation for not getting money from “away” fans?
Basement Cat
Frank Drebin
No, not the federation. People who would perceive it as xenophobic to intentionally keep the games away from large metro areas with immigrant populations. I recall some of this sentiment in the past, forget which games in particular. An official move to make a largely white metro area the official home of US Soccer would raise questions.
For the record, I am all for getting as much of a home crowd advantage as you can, outside of outright illegal profiling. This isn't a charity, it's a competition. I come from a Polish upbringing and plenty of my family/friends would root for Poland over the USA despite growing up here or living here since the 1980's/1990's. I would never hold it against US Soccer keeping a meaningful Poland/USA match out of Chicago / NYC metro areas (I know this is really a hypothetical).
