u/Queasy_Vegetable5725

Who’s looking like the best for the job post World Cup and why?

I’ll start: Mathis Albert. Not really a risk that he’d ever play for France or Germany, but I want him integrated with the senior squad ASAP.

Edit: Oh yeah, Neil Pierre too. We gotta add him to the list. Haiti has already started the social media charming campaign. We’re a more glamorous draw 100%, but let’s lock down our assets from others’ sticky fingers.

Boy it would have been nice to have a cool, calm head that knows how to play out from the back. Has Noonan said anything about his plans?

I know the "give him time, the World Cup just ended" crowd is going to be out in full force, but it’s the end of the business week and there's still no Friday news drop.

For the people saying it's only been a week since the tournament ended: US Soccer offered him a contract extension almost a full month ago. He had the offer well before our exit. Yes, waiting until the tournament was over made sense to avoid distractions, but Pochettino himself told the media last weekend that he would make a decision this week. It's Friday. The delay is entirely on his end.

And for those arguing "there are no big European club jobs open right now anyway," that actually makes his hesitation *worse*. If there are no immediate club options, what exactly is he holding out for?

Let's talk about the elephant in the room: Argentina 🇦🇷. Scaloni literally just gave a tearful press conference after losing the final to Spain, saying he needs to "reset" and that "it hurts his soul." It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots. Pochettino is arguably the highest-profile Argentine manager available. Is he just using the USMNT as a safety net while he waits to see if the AFA president hands him the keys to the Argentina job?

We have a couple months before the next competitive fixture, but waiting paralyzes our program. We can't plan rosters or retain staff if the manager isn't committed. The federation clearly wants him, but we deserve a manager who is actually ride-or-die for the rebuild, not someone keeping us on read while he waits for a better offer.

I was too focused on Neil Pierre and Cavan Sullivan, while also doing my day job that I really wasn’t able to analyze super well. Has anyone made one of those “player versus” videos for Mehmeti yet?

Scouting databases like Transfermarkt list him at 2.01 m (6'7"), which honestly seems like it would be the most accurate measurement given how massive he looks on the pitch now.

But then there are two other sources making it confusing:

1. The official Philly Union website still has him listed at 6'5" (which looks like stale info from when he was 15).
2. The broadcast commentator during today's game explicitly said he was 6'6".

Has anyone seen him in person or heard the latest official word from the team? How tall is he actually right now?

Is this good for the growth of the domestic sport post-World Cup, or is it bad?

My dad and uncle say Pele (they’re about 70 years old). What do you think?

That Belgium loss hurts, but it exposed a harsh reality we need to talk about: when the bright lights hit and the occasion gets massive, we crumble as a collective and turn into motionless traffic cones.

Don't get me wrong, I know the talent is there. We have guys playing week in and week out in the top 5 leagues, and we have Champions League winner/players, BUT having individual pedigree at the club level isn't the same as having collective team grit on the international stage when the bright lights are on.

We can only build that chemistry by actually winning trophies *together* in the lead-up to the World Cup. We need to treat tournaments like the Gold Cup and Nations League as vital stepping stones, and not as inconvenient distractions away from your professional club. Playing for silverware is where we build a true winning mentality. It’s where the squad learns how to grind out ugly games, change the tempo when we're under siege, and develop the tournament street smarts we clearly lacked against Belgium.

Winning breeds winning. Lifting those less prestigious trophies changes the psychology of the entire program. Yes, winning brings expectations, but it dramaticallyreduces the negative, suffocating anxiety we seem to carry into the World Cup. When you have a cabinet of recent trophies, you go into major tournaments with genuine confidence, good PR, and good vibes. All of that matters when the margins are this thin.

If we want to survive the pressure cooker in 2030, the preparation starts with taking our own backyard seriously. We need to learn how to win as a team before we can conquer the world.

The men are giving half of the $12.8 million player prize to the women ($6.4M). I’m all for both teams getting paid, but the 50/50 World Cup prize pool split feels weird structurally. And it feels weird kind of morally as well since the women weren’t running with the men on the field.

I mean US Soccer has a financial surplus. Couldn't the federation have just paid the women the difference out of their own pocket? It seems like they made the men foot the bill to settle a legal nightmare so the federation wouldn't lose too much of its own money.

Are we the only country where the men's team directly subsidizes the federation's PR problems?

What if the free MLS academies drastically expand their footprint, decrease the starting age, and break down territory rules to work with small, local clubs nationwide?

What if MLS had minimum American homegrown quota requirements similar to what’s done in the England and in the Champions League?

I know MLS does not feel an obligation to the success of US Soccer, but they should definitely be looking at the big picture. They both win with better American players.

If we need completely new systems, we’re fucked, and it’s never happening. Let’s hope all we need is some tweaks that go a long way.