I believe the problem for the national team failure also lies with Sunil Gulati and the US soccer federation. Per blogs, they have been putting pressure on the coach to play a MLS heavy team in the hope of boosting the MLS (as more teams would then have US national team players to showcase).
Consequently, much better quality players such as Geoff Cameron (of Stoke City) and FabJo (a Bundesleague regular) were not played in favor of journeyman players. Also, clear prodigies like Weston McKennie (now starting at Schalke and around 1 year behind Pulisic in development) haven't been brought in while MLS retreads like Feilhaber, Zusi etc. keep getting called up on the national team. Ultimately, not making the world cup will hurt the MLS more than having a few unworthy national team players playing for MLS teams.
World Cup qualifying draw
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- jayakris
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Re: World Cup qualifying draw
Totally agree, arjun. That is eactly what I thought was the problem. Bruce Arena gets blamed but I think there was pressure for the sake of MLS. That is serious stuff. Some heads will definitely roll now. I think Sunil Gulati's time is up. He gets credit for a quarter century of hard work to build US but basically the last 10-15 years have not shown any improvement.
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Re: World Cup qualifying draw
Maybe Gulati is to blame, but Arena has a long standing reputation of playing favorites. He doesn't get along with Jermaine Jones (arguably the best US player in Brazil WC), so will not play him. On the flip side, the absolutely sub-standard Paul Arriola started several games. It was one of the reasons the US moved on from Arena in the first place. Useless.