It does sound strange for him to be totally gassed after 45 minutes, but there could of course be external factors too like he's coming down with a cold or something. Either way, from the managers comments after the game in this article from the local paper it sounds unlikely that they will sign the two americans. He says that for the club to sign another player he would have to be better and stand out compared to the players they already have and none of their three trialists have stood out according to him.
That would be a unique landing spot for Stephens. Falkenberg are in the Allsvenskan (top tier of Sweden) for the first time ever since the club was founded in 1928 (as far as I can tell).
True, they had one of the more unlikely seasons for a swedish team in a long time last year and ended up getting promoted. I can also add that Stephens might very well have a bigger chance of getting signed with Falkenberg compared to GAIS even though they play in a higher division because Falkenberg have lost three of their best players from last season while GAIS have strengthened their squad. Maybe I would be exaggerating a bit if I said that GAIS actually currently is stronger player for player, but it's at least not far off.
Falkenberg manager Henrik Larsson told media today that Stephens won't be joining the club as he wasn't the type of player that they were looking for.
It doesn't seem like Stephens has had his hart in these last two trials in sweden. I do believe that Stabæk wants to sign Stephens. In the freindly games we have played this preseason, the team has looked much better with him in the lineup than without. Stabæks problem is that they only have opening for one more foreign player in the roster, and they also want to sign a Spanish striker. (And perhaps Pickens aswell) They may however be looking to offload another foreign player currently on the roster to make room for both the spaniard and Stephens.
Through a joint effort from a small group of hard core supporters and sponsor Sparebank1 OsloAkershus Stabæk has received funds to help finance the signing of Michael Stephens. So even though it is not yet official, I do believe Stephens will be playing for Stabæk this comming season.
Stabæks official fan club doubled the money from SpareBank1 and the small group of supporters, thus Stephens was signed, and will be playing in the blue striped jerzey for the next couple of seasons. Welcome to Stabæk Michael!
http://www.budstikka.no/sport/stephens-kjopte-flybillett-fra-usa-for-stabek-takket-ja-1.8318159 Good stuff. Hope he does well. Added pressure will be on.
These last couple of games he has been tested in a 'nbr. 10'-role just behind the striker, and he has not been as good as he was when playing as a inside midfielder in the first couple of test games. He doesn't get that much involved when playing further upfield. So I think we are best served with giving him som sort of box-to-box duty in the central midfield. However, that probably does not fit well with Bradleys preferred setup with two holding midfielders...
Bob had an interesting tactical evolution when coaching the Nats. At first, we played what bigsoccer derisively called an empty bucket. Basically, it was a 4-4-2 with both midfielders acting like #6s, both shielding the backline and rarely getting forward. It worked poorly in part because it didn't match our talent, and in part because if you think about how it looks on a field, the distance from the central mids to the strikers was too far; the distribution from back to front either had to go down the wings, or be a long ball into traffic. It was called the empty bucket because the midfield sort of made that kind of a shape. Then he turned his son loose and it became more of a 4-1-3-2, and then eventually it was a full 4-4-2 with both central mids having many defensive AND offensive responsibilities. It made for many exciting comebacks, but it also made for many disheartening lost leads. As implemented, the tactic was too open IMO. Given our personnel, it was too common for both central mids to be caught upfield. I still think the US might well have made the semifinals in South Africa if Maurice Edu had been in central midfield and tasked with doing little more than shield the back four, rather than Ricardo Clark who got forward more because that's his skillset. (If that seems outlandish, remember that Ghana needed extra time to beat the US after Clark had a complete nightmare, and Uruguay needed PKs to beat Ghana.) It's interesting that he has started his tenure at Staebek playing with neither central mid having much offensive responsibility. Same as with the US. (If you ever get some horrible disease that causes you to be quarantined for a month, you can look at old threads on big soccer about Bob's tactics. A search for the word "nepotism" will be a good start.) (God, I'm evil. )
Stan Van Gundy just endorsed Bob as a great tactician and underrated coach during the UMass-GW basketball game on NBC Sports, so that should settle it.
Actually, Bradley played a straight 4-4-2 with the USA. The "empty bucket" was just a figment of some BS posters' over-active imaginations.
Mods, I realize this isn't the forum for this and beg your forgiveness. http://theshinguardian.com/2010/06/02/tactical-breakdowns-usa-v-turkey/ http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/06/08/usa-world-cup-2010-tactics/ http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/06/26/ghana-2-1-united-states-tactics/ http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/06/13/england-1-1-usa-tactic/ Not exactly a bucket since the two advanced midfielders are narrow, but no question the 2 center mids play well behind the two advanced mids in a 4-2-2-2 system.
Bob is surely not a master tactician. Does not mean that he is a bad coach, but he is facing big trouble over here now and that is on a lagre part due to his choice of tactics. Lots of players testet out of position. Amongst them Stephens in the nbr 10 role, were he is not able to impact the game.