Yup. Which is why I'm sticking to that issue as my #1 reason why the team failed to advance. Picking on Porter is more fun, and he does deserve blame, but that back line always was the #1 trouble area with this team, regardless of who the coach was.
And what about Canada's and El Salvador's lack of defensive talent? I mean, c'mon. Porter got to select his defense, he got to assess every defender, so he must've known about the 'lack of talent', then he got to adjust the formation and style to the weakness of the squad he selected. Picking on Porter has nothing to do with "fun". 2-0 and 3-3 is major fail and he's completely responsible. Are we now excusing him 'cause Canada and El Salvador have better players? If Canada and El Salvador have such good players then we should have known about them. We had months and months to find out about their existence and prepare ourselves!
I won't excuse Porter. I included him in my prior list of reasons for the failure. But I just don't rank him as the #1 reason.
By the way, based on the players who played MLS games yesterday, which players could have been selected instead of some of the ones who were chosen for the U23 team. Cruz, Gil etc?
On the other hand, Hamid and Johnson were always the #1 strength, yet the only goal they allowed that wouldn't have been prevented by rock-solid goalkeeping was Canada's late insurance strike. That's not meant to single them out, only as a reminder that the back line was far from being our only problem.
I'm in a very agreeable mood... I agree with you, too. There were multiple failures and problems, which I previously ranked like this: Plenty of blame to go around, including 2 of 5 problems involving Porter. But in the end, players play the game and there were serious problems from day 1 with the talent of the back four, there were crucial players missing, and there were under-performances by two keepers that everyone trusted to perform.
I don't think you can rank them 1-whatever. It was the perfect storm of a weak defense (by historical U.S. standards), bad coaching decisions, bad player decisions, goal keeping errors. If any one of those things is better we're not having this conversation. If the defense was a weakness it's on the coach to pick different players or use tactics to strengthen that weakness. On the other hand it's the responsibility of the players to play well enough to get the result. IMO everyone shares the blame equally.
Except it was a perfect storm in the U20s too. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar: Overrated, overconfident, and under coached....
Well, the "perfect storm" comment seemed a bit too much like saying it was a "fluke", or "bad luck", or the infamous "youth results are weird" excuse, ie that everything had to go wrong at once for us to lose/draw. And I did not see the games that way at all....
Yes, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't ALSO have been a perfect storm for the U20's. I not arguing your point that it was a fluke or bad luck. I've had concerns (results wise) about our youth teams for a while now. And by concerns I mean I was skeptical that they would get the results needed...not that the results themselves really "concerned" me...if that makes sense.
Well yes, there may have been a few fans who follow those 2 more closely than the masses. They may have been more concerned. So instead of "everyone" let's say "the majority"? I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a U.S. GK to perform at a high level. And if there is an injury to the # 1 I think the majority of us would expect the # 2 to come in and maybe not make the spectacular save, but certainly have a decent performance.
The difference between the U20s and U23's is clear. The U20's was a group of kids with limited experience that were in reserves/youth squads in MLS & Europe. There were three college players, etc. They advanced past the group stage, and lost to the hosts in a hostile environment. The U23's was a group of pros. These were guys that were getting first team minutes in pro soccer or are just now breaking into first teams. They failed to get out of a group with Canada, El Salvador, and Cuba AT HOME. The U20 loss was semi-understandable, and we could chalk it up as a learning experience for those kids. The U23 loss was truly shocking. Truly disappointing.
If any one of those things were different (specifically, "better"), then I think we can feel confident about getting to the semi-final. But the multitude of issues would remain for winning the semi-final. Not guaranteed with this roster. The defensive weaknesses could only have been improved by bringing in 2-3 overage players. There simply were no better options out there that Porter missed. Well, maybe Williams was a better RB than the other two, but not significantly. The CBs? LB? The alternatives were not clearly better, and perhaps not even as good as the 3 starters. We knew this over a year ago. We've been debating the issue on the multiple threads discussing who the overage players should be. Many posters were seeing the need for 2 overage backs at CB and LB. A few even argued for taking 3 overage starting backs, plus living with a U23 RB. The back line was the known, #1 problem for a long, long time. The underperformance of both keepers was a surprise problem that nobody expected. The unavailablity of Morales, Gatt, Altidore, Williams, and the injury to Agudelo were out of Porter's hands. Anyway, I do actually understand your argument that all these factors, plus Porter's own errors, all contributed to the failure. But in my mind, ranking them isn't too hard. Those personnel weaknesses directly impacted the play on the field, and I don't see obvious fixes with other clearly ignored personnel. The majority of fans were hoping to survive the U23 defensive weakness long enough to qualify, and then replace much of the back line for the Olympics.
So you don't agree defensive weaknesses can be solved by playing with a different formation and strategy?
Well yes. There were differences in the two scenarios. Not sure why you bring that up. Because I agree with it. Agree to disagree. I saw so much wrong with this team I can't even begin to break it down and rank it. Like I said earlier: If any one of those issues is corrected we might not even be having this conversation.
Maybe, maybe not. Play 2 DMs instead of only 1? Who drops out of the XI? Adu? Mix? Corona? Does that make the team better? Do we allow fewer goals but also score fewer? JK used 2 and 3 DMs for the Senior side (and lacked Donovan), so we allowed fewer goals but also scored less. No guarantees in a different stategy.
Although, certainly this is true, we had a superior team to both Canada (clearly) and El Salvador (probably). Not making it to the semis was really horrid. 4-4-2 with the empty bucket covering the back line would have been perfect for this group vs El Salvador. Certainly, it is exciting to consider that we want to play like Spain, I am hopeful that we can come up with some players. It is still hard for me to fathom losing to Canada, considering their personnel, their experience and the amount of time they spent training together. This qualifying is the Epic Fail, for me, that I can remember.
Pretty easy to say in hindsight, isn't it. Obviously we were (and still are) committed to the formation we played. Formations don't win or lose games, teams do.
Formations and related tactics do contribute to how teams play so they do impact winning and losing. The fact we are up 3-2 past 90 minutes and we still are playing a 4-3-3 with our forwards pushed high and pressing the ball to immediately win the ball back did impact on why we lost the game. If everyone dropped back and filled passing lanes instead of running at the ball we would have won the game. It ok to drop back and play defense when we're up late in the game instead of running around with our heads cut off.
That's insane, no one in their right mind would possibly think that playing two relatively speedy and quality wingers like Shea and Gyau and having them cross to a big, strong forward like Boyd with an opportunistic finisher and playmaker like either Adu or Corona playing off him would be effective against the mighty oaks that manned the El Salvador backline! You obviously failed Soccer 101 back in whatever community college that you went to!