Last year there were an average of 5.6 per position if you ignore pitchers. It’s higher if you count pitchers too.
Depending on if you consider all wingers together or just left wingers Son either was probably never in the top 5 in the world or a just a couple times. If you restrict it to the EPL he’s either in that group or almost a lock.
The EPL vs the world question is something I don’t know how I would compare. Relative # of people that play the two sports in a professional setting?
Regardless of the group the US is going to have a tough time, that’s just the reality of not being one of the absolute top teams.
However, regardless of who goes through, the US is going to be the second best team in the group. It’ll be tougher than when they had England/Slovenia/Algeria, but easier than Germany/Portugal/Ghana or Italy/Ghana/Czech Republic.
That’s a very valid observation. It’s a short tournament and, while there are a couple of potential mismatches, most teams will have a reasonable chance against almost anyone else in their group.
Sunday - Wales v Ukraine - will tell us more. Though, with this US squad, it may not tell us anything at all. Ukraine, which Henry Bushnell of Yahoo Sports calls “the best Ukraine team ever,” looks tactically and technically proficient in a way that the US can not handle. But crazy shit happens in the Cup (see: England/US draw in 2010).
I had previously looked at the FIFA rankings (which while still flawed, have gotten better) and the US was ahead in those. Ukraine has a better ELO ranking though. Using ELO you have: England at 5, Ukraine at 17, US at 21, Wales at 23, and Iran at 24.
With the teams so close, I wouldn’t be shocked at any order finish order with the exception of England finishing 4th. I would laugh if they finished 3rd, but 3 draws or 2 draws and a win with them losing on GD wouldn’t be insane.
I may be underestimating Ukraine, but if the team is healthy I don’t see how outside, England, any of the potential teams will be too much for the US. They might win, but it won’t be because they outclass the US. You’d probably have to go up to Uruguay at 11 or Netherlands at 10 before I assume the US is going to lose.
Damn man, going out on an own goal. That’s brutal.
Especially if you’re Colombian…
Jokes aside (in bad taste, I have to admit), like many people I rooted for Ukraine, but nonetheless Wales deserved it after a long qualification stage.
I didn’t watch it, and stats are sometimes deceiving, but looks like Ukraine was the better team today by a fair amount?
Same for me, didn’t watch, but was following a live ticker. Judging from this, Ukraine had the better chances and virtually lost to the Welsh keeper.
I watched, and I have to say there were just a ton of missed chances by both sides. Obviously Ukraine had more, but some of that was Wales deciding to clog the middle of the field and sit back a little, compared to Scotland leaving everything wide open.
The header on the own goal was just an unfortunate bad decision. I feel terrible for the guy.
Apparently Canada is following up World Cup qualification by just never playing a match again. Good to know!
I have this app called ViX on my firestick, and it’s free, and it’s carrying (it seems) all of the Nations’ League games. It’s in Spanish, but I don’t care, given Fubo is $69/month.
ETA: just re-read my post to check it, and noting the many commas, encourage reading it aloud, in the voice of William Shatner.
Canada did end up playing a match after all! 4-0 against Curaçao. I think there was a 10 minutes stretch where they were playing 4-4-2 with Davies and Tajon Buchanan up top, which certainly is a way to go 
My summary of Nations League so far, with some teams at 3 matches and some at 4, is the players look understandably tired. It’s very fun to have matches every day, though, and to sometimes watch the very smaller sides. Plus: go Latvia! I don’t often get to root for them.
On a different note, I understand that after a lot of 4-2-3-1 success Hansi Flick has the team mostly formed that way, but Germany is sorely lacking the kinds of strikers they’ve had in the past. Werner has looked a little better, but he’s still not good enough.
Speaking of Nations League, it has been pretty amusing seeing people on social media being very upset that the US played Grenada instead of a “good team” to prep for the World Cup (they must have missed the friendlies against Morocco and Uruguay). I guess it may take a little while for people to realize that Nations League in CONCACAF means the US plays Grenada or Haiti or whoever every once in a while.
Plus, UEFA Nations League means that a lot of those teams we might like to play some friendlies against are busy with a league of their own.
I know the last couple years don’t make for a good comparison but is it getting harder for teams to get more cross-confederation experience via friendlies?
Do you mean in quality or style? Because I don’t think Germany has had a dominant striker in decades. If you mean just not having a traditional 9, then yeah, agreed.
I don’t have stats in front of me, but it must, right? More required games with the same number of windows a year necessitates less inter-confederation games. Unless, I suppose, teams previously played all their friendlies within their confederation.
Dunno if anyone watched the Aussie-Peru penalty shootout, but the Aussie keep isnt doing himself any favors with all that dancing around…his timing was off and when he stopped dancing and guessed, he wasn’t getting good extention. That said…they won.
90’+4’ Second yellow card to Alistair Johnston (Canada) for a bad foul.
90’+5’ Cyle Larin (Canada) is shown the yellow card.
90’+5’ Milan Borjan (Canada) is shown the yellow card.
90’+6’ Doneil Henry (Canada) is shown the yellow card.
90’+7’ Jonathan David (Canada) is shown the yellow card.
90’+8’ Second Half ends, Honduras 2, Canada 1.
Just some old-time Canadian hockey soccer.
I’m not sure how to define dominant, but Germany did well for 4 cycles building around the poaching of Klose (in 68 caps, .85 goals/0.20 assists/90 minutes). Was he a premier player? Not at all. Did the GMNT make great use of him? Definitely.
In 2018 Loew leaned on Werner and Mueller to score, and it did not go well. Now Flick’s trying Werner and Havertz as 9s, and so far it’s a struggle…one of our CAMs (Hofmann) has looked better in/around the box than either of them.
Anyway, ignore me, this is just the usual pre-WC nattering here. I’m sure they’ll do better under Flick than they did late-era Loew.