Italy vs. USA 2/29 - the midfield

It was a good win. I was super pumped yesterday. I just had 3 things I wanted to say.

-Sacha played like shit, ball watching when Pirlo was orchestrating

-D. Williams CANNOT play on the wing or against the line...hold, hold, hold, juke, lose ball was his progression

-Brek looked very careless, trying to be too cute with the ball in the final third


That's all I had to say, bro. Good win though. More excited for the U23's though.

You people really don't know who is supposed to mark Pirlo, do you?

I've heard everything from Bradley, Edu, Williams. And now KLJESTAN, our LEFT F***ING MIDFIELDER mind you, was supposed to marking Pirlo??

Come ON, people...

In a 4-1-2-1-2/4-3-1-2 diamond shaped midfield, Pirlo was the deepest midfielder, right in front of his defence. Dempsey was in that exact same space, for the most part.

I don't care if Dempsey is our highest goalscorer. His job was to mark Pirlo, and he said so himself. The fact that he didn't always do so gave us issues.

If Bradley and Edu push up to mark Pirlo, then who's covering the other three Italian central midfielders? Nobody! Which is EXACTLY what Pirlo and Cesare Prandelli want!

We were already on thin ice when we allowed Motta between our defense and midfield, but when Clint wasn't picking up Pirlo when he was right in front of our midfield, we were SERIOUSLY having issues, especially when our midfield collapsed even with our defense and allowed Pirlo further up the pitch under NO pressure whatsoever.

I know people don't like Sacha, but I think the best place to put him would have been to bring him in for Clint underneath Jozy/Boyd as a sub. While his defensive positional sense was questionable, he at least would have brought enough energy to that position to put some pressure on Pirlo. I mean f***k, the guy scored a goal against El Salvador by robbing their defensive midfielder of the ball. Dempsey was getting tired, which gave Pirlo more space.

Some in the Italian press thought he was very usefull.

I think the criticism of Williams' game on here is overblown. He wasn't blowing by people and getting crosses in, but he pushed forward and held the ball pretty well and helped Cherundolo out plenty in defense.

But I also noticed that when he was in possession his only option was usually back to Cherundolo or inside back to a CM. He didn't seem to have Dempsey and Altidore hustling over to support him like Shea did. This must have been by design?

The midfield shape was fitted for applying a press to Italy's deep-lying midfielder. Problem is neither Dempsey nor Altidore are the high energy players who could really harry effectively. A pre-injury Davies paired with Dempsey would have been more effective.

Dempsey would be my Man of the Match because scoring against this level of competition is so immensely difficult and that goal was very cleverly contrived. At the same tired he tired noticeably and should have been subbed after the 70th minute.

Bradley had the best overall game. The on the ball guile he's picked up in Serie A really set him apart.

Edu quite effective but like Dempsey really flagged as the game wore on. The spine of Altidore, Dempsey, and Edu needed a high energy sub by minute 70.

Williams was solid as a runner on the left. Defended well but didn't offer much going forward. Obviously would be better suited for a central midfield role.

Kljestan. Can't play wide at this level. Faces an uphill with the likes of Jones, Bradley, Edu, Torres, Corona, Holden, Spector, and Williams to get time in his natural central position.

Shea. Not ready for this level yet. Was a step behind the others in reading the game.

Their heat maps look very balanced to me. No obvious #6 vs #8 distinction.

Just for kicks, can you post the heat map for Pirlo? It's just as far ranging but far more intense everywhere.

The most impressive heat map would be of my armpits during the final 5 or 10 minutes! I was sweating bullets.

And these represent?

I'll answer that myself.

For the 10.000.000th time: these are NOT heatmaps.

They do not represent player movement! They are a FALSE/UNTRUE/FABRICATED depiction.

I would urge everyone to not look at the Opta stats, because they are absolutely false.

Clint was playing as a withdrawn forward and nothing in his play indicated he was solely tasked with marking Pirlo because if he was he did a shitty job. Having your #10 play as a trequarista is only one of many ways to use a withdrawn striker.

It's a moot point since none on this board have any idea what Clint was really tasked to do by JK.

Pirlo is a unique and incredible player. Certainly, he was effective in delivering accurately served balls as a deep lying playmaking midfielder. I'm not sure who was designated to keep an eye on him, certainly I would like to hear more about this. Had Italy had a more seasoned lineup, this particular aspect would have been a considerably more severe problem.

Given that you downgrade pretty much every objective measurement, is there an objective measurement that you approve of? What is it?

I have very mixed feelings on the midfield. Thought Bradley played well, better than Edu. The parts that bothered me though were the fact that Ital
y got so many hard shots on Howard and the fact that we played most of the game in our own half.

The hard shots were due to people getting between the mids and the fulls and nobody picking them up. I blame both the center mids and center fulls for this.

On attack we had very little. We cannot bunker and look to counter for wins. That was BB's style and in the end, its not enough. Shea simply is not ready and no matter how hard Jurgen tries to push that square peg into a round hole, he doesnt fit. While MB and Edu have many nice moments, they were not getting us out of our own end and the outside guys couldnt do it alone

I think JK has to go with either MB or Edu but not both at the same time. This game screamed for a Torres or Benny to spring the offense. Unfortunately, JK seems to not like Benny and he may be done. Sacha showed once again that he shouldnt be getting any more minutes. I'd call Beckerman over Sacha even though and I think Kyle is too slow for this level. I saw one play early on when Twellman said "Sacha was caught ball watching" and TT was right

To summarize, too many hard shots allowed due to people not getting back. No attack because we started two DMs.

Sure, but with no Donovan or Chandler, we were going to play on the counter.


Anyway, our goal came from a a nice string of movement and passes.

Clint Dempsey said himself after the game that he was supposed to be marking Pirlo.

Aside from that, who else was supposed to be marking him?

Altidore was pressing the centerbacks.

Shea and Williams were concerned with the fullbacks.

Bradley and Edu tracked Nocerino and Marchisio's runs from central midfield.

Motta was left completely free between lines.

Giovinco and Matri were tracked by Bocanegra and Goodson.

Dempsey is the closest player to him, frequently in the exact same space.

Here's a visual aid:

http://this11.com/topics/show/8337/usa-vs-italy

We weren't playing the Little Sisters of the Poor.They know how to attack "between the lines".

Benny or Torres would not have helped in this game,except possibly in the last ten minutes.Rather have seen them than Sascha.

I was in fact pleasantly surprised with the amount of possession we had until Italy put fresh legs in.

I think Benny or Torres would have helped as Italy was not pressing our mids hard and they would have had time to get something going

I'd like to see our possession percentage. Im guessing somewhere around 35%

He didn't say that he was tasked with solely man marking Pirlo. Grab the quote. I'll be the first to say if any USMNT manager thinks making Clint Dempsey(scores lots of goals, shitty defender) solely responsible for man marking a world class playmaker then he needs to be relieved of duty right on the spot. I don't think that was JK's assignment and by judging the results it seemed Pirlo duty was shared among the midfielders.

I can hear it now. Messi scored another hattrick but boy oh boy his man marking of Xabi Alonso was sure suspect. (feel free to substitute your favorite withdrawn forward and deep lying playmaker combo.)

Bonus MLS combo WF- Fredy Montero and M-Beckham or WF DeRo and M-Osvaldo Alonso. (See how stupid it sounds)

He said it right after the game when talking to Taylor Twellman and Ian Darke. It's not like I'm lying. I saw/heard it with my own two eyes, and I'm sure there were other people who saw this.

Those may not have been his exact words, but the general idea was that he was told to at least pester Pirlo, which he really didn't do a good job of. Dempsey man marking Pirlo and tracking him wherever he went would have taken him out of the game offensively and brought him far away from Altidore, but he could have put a little pressure on him.

I agree with that and it seems the more likely game plan. I was just confused as to why some thought Clint Dempsey of all people was supposed to be in Pirlo's shirt like Roy Keane or something.

Clint defends like its a court ordered community service sentence. In the end no ********s will be given because he's a goal scorer.