Haji Wright refuses to celebrate goals out of respect for his girlfriend’s ruined vacation plans
Wright and his family were at the airport on the way to Dubai for a vacation his girlfriend had planned. That’s when Berhalter called to at least partially ruin it. So after each of Wright’s goals he didn’t celebrate. He didn’t put his hands up in the air to make a big point of it, but he barely smiled and only reluctantly gave high fives. This was the right decision. It showed a high level of class. I’m proud to have people like Haji Wright representing our nation.
On minutes-restriction subs
As a player it’s correct to be unhappy about your minutes-restriction-based substitution. It shows you have desire as a competitor. And it will not be viewed as you undermining the coach, since the real enemy is the doctors. You can even tell the coach you think the whole thing is bullshit. The coach will like that, even. If its Berhalter he’ll put you into an awkward hold/hug. You get to be angry. Berhalter gets to do whatever that was. Everyone is happy.
Marsch responds to Berhalter
"[Berhalter] is wrong." Marsch told Jimmy Conrad and Tony Meola. "We didn't say that Gio shouldn't be brought into camp; in fact, we made a list, all three of us, of all the players we thought were locks that should be coming into camp and Gio was on that."
We'll have to wait to see how Berhalter responds. My guess is he probably won't. I'd prefer he did because having a weird coach feud running is great for soccer in this country. It's hard to imagine a way Berhalter could have it come up naturally, though. Plus he probably doesn't even know what Marsch is talking about there.
Maybe they did a past episode where they made a list of roster locks? I assume it's that? He's definitely not talking about what happened in the podcast Berhalter must have heard. That means Berhalter will now have to go hunting for an old episode, or social media post, or whatever else it is, in order to get his response right. That isn't even something I'm going to do, and I have way more free time than he does.
We love and celebrate you, Watke. You are the Pan of sickos.
Thank you, Watke! This analysis is spot-on! I was definitely surprised when Haji didn't seem to celebrate his goal. It looked like he used to play for Jamaica so he opted not to celebrate against his old team, but that didn't seem right. I didn't even consider the girlfriend/Dubai angle!