In the Studio 90 episode with the Mewis sisters, Samantha talked about the advice and instructions to "stay at holding mid and push Carli forward."
Brian tends to be holding more. I'm not sure what instruction each are given, but as to how they're playing, Lloyd pushes up more and Brian is sitting back although they switch occasionally.
Dunno what kind of experiment the Wambach/A-Rod combo was except to see how far they've fallen in 4 years from their prime, or can they match they're disastrous feat of loosing to Mexico in the 2010 Concacaf qualifiers? In keeping in tune with the original threat, does anybody think that if Germany wins the AC, the US will loose it's #1 world ranking?
Tom is a great coach. He is subtly pulling a coach-in-a-WC-year and making players fight for spots (incomparable to Klinsmann and a year and half out, I get it), but you saw it in the first game with Leroux/Press starting (for example). Tom is saying, look, you've meant a lot to this team, but if you don't bring it, there's hungry players that will take your spot in an instant. He's proving a lot of people right by exposing Abby's age (god bless her) and even Rodriguez's playmaking ability compared to others. The pool is bigger than ever and losing now while we explore the depth and evaluate college/U-20/pro is a good thing. My only issue with his coaching vs Sweden is that he didn't make those changes early enough in the second half.
No, unless US someway manage to loss to Denmark (and possibly even then) Germany should get closer but not overtake US.
Experimentation is all well and good, but regurgitating an old failed experiment in Abby and A-Rod doesn't really move the team forward. The only thing that would make sense is if Sermanni wanted to show Abby that she can't rely on the Morgan's and Leroux's of this world to mask her declining game. Saddling her with a 1 goal per every 4 start player like A-Rod perhaps gave her a wake up call that she needs to be in tip top shape if she's to make the WC roster, and especially as a starter. The other less likely reason is perhaps Sermanni wanted to prove to Pia that he's the better coach, and can even beat her with the Wambach/Rodriguez combination upfront. That experiment certainly failed!
He intended to start LeRoux with Abby, but she came up sick. A-Rod was an emergency fill in, not an experiment. No coach of substance thinks like this. He is not out to show up Pia or his players or anyone else, he is out to find the optimum roster for the WC. This kind of stuff may reflect your emotional life relative to soccer, but it doesn't have anything to do with the intellectual choices he makes to earn his salt, honest! I get that some folks here would rather have seen Press or Hagen than A-Rod; but he may already know that he doesn't want to see those combinations more than he already has in practice. And A-Rod is almost surely one of the people he expects to cut; its pretty normal coaching to give any unexpected minutes to a player in that position to give them an extra chance to change your mind. If A-Rod had scored on a couple of her chances we'd all be singing a different tune today. In addition the time that A-Rod had matched with Abby was in other systems for other coaches; he may have wanted to see if it worked out better in his-- or with A-Rod in her prime, not forced into the lineup early. In addition, isn't it almost certain that if Abby's going to play in WC at all she's going to play with Morgan? What difference does it make who he starts, beyond controlling minutes for the remaining two games-- it looks increasingly like Abby's not going to to start or even play with any of the others except in easy games? Playing A-Rod seemed to me a pretty routine sort of choice. The team he put on the field had every chance of winning; we had the better of play everywhere but on the scoreboard...
I love the way Sermani experiments but some of them lately (Wambach/A-Rod, Mewis sisters starting at midfield, no defensive mids call up, etc...) are just puzzling.
In all honesty if this was an experiment I'm not exactly sure what we learned from it! If the US Federation had 10 questions heading into this tournament, now they probably have a hundred. Did anyone really standout and prove their worth with this team so we can at least say players X and Y had a breakout tournament?! Hope Solo gave up 5 goals in one match against Denmark. They were clearly not all her fault, but she had more goals scored on her in this tournament than actual saves. Should she be benched? You know she won't be happy with this result, and will probably take to Twitter later to voice her concerns. The defense played well in the first 2 matches, but were a disaster in this one. Should Rampone retire? Should Cox and Kling be left off of future call-ups? Is Engen the answer? Rapinoe was her usual Jekyll and Hyde self in this tournament. Should she be judged on how badly she played in the first 2 matches, or her great effort in this one? The Mewis' sisters did well coming off the bench against Sweden but nothing here. Same with Hagen. Morgan Brian was fortunately not involved in this debacle, but wasn't stellar in the first 2 matches either. HAO's sometimes one dimensional skills reared their ugly head again in this tournament. Wambach and A-Rod didn't give us anything against Sweden, while Press missed some good opportunities. Leroux continues to score one goal per match, which is a good thing, but has trouble connecting with other forwards. Did we really learn who should start and who shouldn't in the future. Is Sermanni a brilliant scientist that will mastermind a great strategy moving forward from these results, or does he need to go back to the drawing board and call up additional players for some more experimentation (perhaps Kelia Ohai)? At this point, I'm sure Morgan and Dunn are sitting home kissing their ankle braces, while Holiday is kissing her husband's cast. Those 3 may become full time starters just by default.
That's the name of the highlights (lowlights) DVD I'll make this year for the USWNT. "Boner Plays 2014 - The Year of Mystique to Mystery"
Go over to the Algarve Cup thread in the Women's International forum. A couple were crunching the numbers, and its not likely (but still possible) that the US will drop from the #1 spot.
Assuming that is correct and US stays #2, what practical impact would that have on seedings and potential group matchups for the WWC? (I know its early but someone can play with it if they know the rules).
Proof? New rankings will not be released until the end of this month, so have you already crunched the numbers? If so, please share because there's 72 points to make up from Germany's side.
It's most likely NOT correct, see SiberianThunder's post in the FIFA ranking thread: Also as long as you're among the 6 top seeds (5 + hosts Canada) then it doesn't matter what rank you are. USA #1, GER #2 or GER #1, USA #2 both lead to the exact same pot allocations.