The Next Step: Becoming a Better Possession Team

Watching the matches against Spain and Brazil highlighted both the team's strengths and weaknesses. The strengths included awesome goalkeeping, gritty defending, a couple very skillful mids in Donovan and Dempsey, a promising young forward in Altidore, a lethal counterattack. The main weakness is that we give the ball away too cheaply and don't do a good job of playing out of pressure. I'm not saying that we have to reach Spain's caliber as a possession team, but this is the one area that we need to improve at to become an elite team.

What are the prospects for improving as a possession team? I can think of a few things we can do with the current personnel, but I'm not sure most of them will be implemented. The one most likely to happen is replacing Davies with Ching or Adu in the starting lineup. Davies did have the one great assist today, but for the most part he does not combine well with his teammates. Either Ching or Adu would likely be an improvement, though obviously with different styles.

I also think we need to continue playing with a distributor in central mid. I thought the Feilhaber-Clark combo continued to show well against Brazil in the first half. Benny ran out of gas in the second half. I think we need to continue giving Benny and Torres some opportunities. I suspect this will not happen. Once Jermaine Jones is healthy, I expect him and Michael Bradley to become our central midfield pairing. It will be quite a robust combination defensively, but likely sterile offensively.

The last possibility is playing with two skillful fullbacks. I think Spector has cemented himself in the lineup. The question is whether Cherundolo displaces one of the other three who started against Spain and Brazil when he comes back. I think we should consider a lineup with Cherundolo and Spector at fullback. Both have much more composure on the ball than the other defenders. Sure there is a trade-off between pure defensive brawn and ball skills when we bring in Cherundolo for Bocanegra or DeMerit. There is a similar trade-off in central midfield.

We played with a lot of heart and discipline against Spain and Brazil. But I also think those two matches highlighted a big gap in possession skills that we need to try to close.

We don't need (or want) to be a possession team. We just need to be able to possess the ball when the situation calls for it.

For that to happen:
- Agreed with Cherundolo on the left
- Benny to get a full yr of games
- Holden to be integrated into the team
- Torres to get another year at Pachuca
- Freddy to get PT
- Jones, Edu integrated into the team

Horses for courses... and game situations. If all those guys are healthy and available, we have a couple more guys that Bob can feel more secure about bringing on in a similar game situation and a similar opponent in the world cup.

Losing Bradley (which means losing the option to sub-on Benny at that point in the game, which Bradley most certainly would've wanted to do), hurt.

Not feeling confident in Torres or Adu hurt as well.

I think Adu needs a good season in Europe. I think Bob's temporarily put Torres on the "not ready to perform" list, rightly or wrongly, after his early defensive blunders in Costa Rica. But I doubt he's closed the book on him. If he doesn't see some minutes in the second half of the Hex, I'm confident he'll play him in next year's pre-WC friendlies and re-evaluate from there.

Good post.

We acheived a lot in this tournament. Don't wish to denigrat the squad, or Bradley. But ... we're at a bit of a dead end, as was Greece in 2004. Because where do you go from here? Clog the middle. Check. Concede the flanks. Check. Hope the opposition isn't tall with a good air game. Check. Have great goalkeeping. Check. Have Landon spearheading a strong counterattack. Check.

But now what?

I think it starts from the back. We have one back who's pretty good on the ball (Spector), one who's OK (Gooch), and two who are lethally terrible. It's critical for this squad to upgrade, to find players with similar defensive abilities but with much better ball skills. Not a little better, a lot better.

To me, this is a player personnel issue not a coaching issue. I would have picked Boca too. But he's putrid on the ball, just putrid.

Completely disagree. Possession game completely neutralizes our biggest asset, which is our speed. The Next Step for the USA squad is developing positions 14-20 on the squad so we actually have a full World Cup Roster instead of half of one.

Our team isn't built on maintaining 55-60% possession, and, quite frankly, we aren't as dangerous with long build-ups as we are with quick hitters. Seven goals from the run of play in the last 3 games, and 6 of them were basically on quick hitting counterattack/turnover type of plays.

We just need to find enough players so that our core isn't run into the ground like it was by the time the second half of Brazil started.

The first big step for us to become a possession team is to have better ballhandlers in the back. Sadly, this isn't going to come with our current crop

Gooch, Bocanegra, and DeMerit are awful at ball handling. They are good defenders, but they rely on aimless clearances and that gives possession away.

Spector is the best we have by far. I still would hope he can play on the left and put Cherundolo on the right. That would help things out a little bit.

Hopefully our players inprove this year.

Yeah this is the next step. I think most intellegent people know that the 'play defense like crazy' that worked in Spain, isn't a consistent recipe for success.

We need to slow down the game at the offensive end and get legitimate chances, its extremely hard to do against good teams.

I know the Bob haters will chime in that Adu and Torres are the guys for that, but you also lose some defense with both of them.

Playing Boca at left back or basically any left back we have just aren't very good, let alone good at possession. This is going to continue to be an offensive black hole, unless Dolo can come back to 100% and we can move Spector out there.

I agree this is mainly an issue concerning the defenders. DeMerit had a fantastic tournament, but I'm a bit worried this will actually lead to a step backward in terms of playing more skillfully out of the back. We do have some personnel that suggests itself if we want to upgrade our ability to play out of the back. Cherundolo is the obvious one if he makes a full return from his injury. The other suggestion I have is Edu. Central midfield is awfully crowded with Bradley, Jones and Clark (who I thought played very well against Spain and Brazil). Edu has decent ball skills for a midfielder, but would be a very skillful back. Of course the big question is whether he will be solid enough defensively. The potential upside is big enough that we need to find the answer.

Nail struck squarely on head. Against teams like Spain and Brazil (and Italy), the problem is magified. With ever turnover in the second half today vs the Brazilians, you could just feel the game slipping away.

Ching would definitely have helped today, after we had gone up 2-0. There's a trade-off, though. This tournament has really opened my eyes to the positive aspects of what Davies can do for us. His speed, as well as his hustle are nice qualities, and he has a fearlessness about him. He just needs to be a bit better in terms of vision and decision-making.

Maybe we win this match if Ching had been available to help maintain possession in the second half, and maybe Altidore is the one I would have taken off.

It may depend on who we're playing, but I basically agree. I really like to watch Feilhaber distribute the ball, help us keep possession, and help to build confidence in our attack. Once we get better at possessing the ball, our defense will have a better chance of surviving the onslaughts we saw vs Italy, Spain and Brazil.

Possession is good when we want to slow down a game if we are up but I like that we use speed to our advantage. I think with we don't have any clear chances at goal we should hold up the ball and wait for a opening.

Can you name a World Cup winner that couldn't possess when it wished to? Italy, check. Brazil. France. Brazil. Germany. Argentina. Italy. Argentina. Germany. Brazil. Now we're at England '66 before I am unsure.

We gotta have that ability, unless our goal is to be a team that is good enough to scare somebody, but not good enough to win. That's not our goal, is it?

How to become a better possession team?

Change coaches.

Will that get us better results?

I dont know, I'd like to think so, but really, I dont know.

Italy's a good model for us. So is Germany. Both teams are comfortable playing without the ball. But when the situation calls for possession, they can do it. We don't have that in our arsenal right now.

I thought Spector was a step forward, and I thought Gooch was actually pretty good. Demerit and Boca? They are good options when you're locking a team down, but they're limited. Our midfield passing percentages highlighted the other area where we struggled to maintain possession.

Dammit, when you're on you're just too damn good. I wanted to say that.

So, the feeble "ditto" will have to suffice.

In this game, before the subs (actually, let's say "before the subs were needed") we were probably about a half-dozen quality touches and about, oh, 2 smart decisions short of what it would've taken to beat Brazil and really put them to the sword while they were down and leaving the door of opportunity open for us. Not all those were at the back, though. A couple were in midfield, a couple at forward (Davies, particularly).

I agree that we are well-suited to be mainly a counter-attacking team. This will be the case as long as Donovan is our main guy. We should go for the counter whenever it is there. But a large percentage of the the time there is no counter available in a soccer game. This is where being able to hold on to the ball and play out of pressure becomes valuable. The Spain and Brazil games put a big spotlight on this deficiency.

Funny, I thought the title said The Next Step, not The Last Step. Who is talking about winning the World Cup?

I opined that the NEXT step was develop our depth utilizing a strategy that is very effective. I stand by it.

Whether or not you can possess the ball as a team in Bradley's 4.4.2 primarily comes down to 6 players. Your back 4 and central midfielders need to be able to create passing options, recognize passing options available to them, and then complete passes.

Well, this may be a semantic issue, or it may be an actual issue, depending on exactly what you mean and how you read it.

"...That couldn't possess when it wished to" is really the key. Our game plan in the first half was a good one and was working, as it had against Spain. BUT... clearly in the 2nd half when Brazil had adjusted, we'd needed more of a possession game than our players we had out there had in them.

Now, to put this into perspective, a team who could consistently step up their possession game against a team like this after doing the damage counter-punching them early like we'd done (and wanted to do) is a team that is a World Cup contender. Make no mistake about that. So what we essentially witnessed is that we're still short of the quality it takes to be a serious candidate to win the World Cup.

But, ah, when has seeing exactly what it takes, and just how much is lacking ever been so crystal clear? We're like 80% there, but that last 20% is the toughest 20% by far.


This tournament was a damn good learning experience, wasn't it? Anybody still pissed that we brought the A team to the Gold Cup instead of the Copa in 2007?

I think Benny is invaluable for us due to the creativity he brings to our team (epitomized in the pass to Jozy against Italy and the setup to our second goal against Spain), but like Freddy, I think that his inability to find playing time in the past couple seasons may have a bit to do with failing to master the little things.

The problem is that to play a possession game you need more than just skill on the ball. I'm sure many will disagree with this, but I often feel like Bradley helps us with the possession game a bit more than any of our distributing options do, since that type of game requires finding space and showing for the ball, knowing when to hold it and when to play it quickly, and knowing which situations not to play the ball into. Unfortunately, Bradley's skill on the ball limits the extent to which he can play that type of game at the highest level.

Ideally, we'll eventually have players who can defend, create, possess, and get the little things right too, but until then I'm not sure that simply going with a destroyer-creator combo will solve our possession problems or provide any better of a possession game than say Jones and Bradley would.

I forget who said it, but it was something along the lines of, "if you have the ball in your opponent's half of the field, it's unlikely that they are going to score." Possession is a necessary attribute for any team wanting to defend a lead. Time and time again you see teams at the highest levels playing elaborate games of keep-away late in matches.

It's nice that we can use speed on the counterattack to score, but there is far more to the game than that. If we're going to challenge and go toe-to-toe with the top teams more often, it's a skill we do need to develop.

I disagree. All 11 player contribute to possession. Forwards in particular are important, because they are the best options for passes when your team is pushed back, like our team was in this game.

I still agree with you, but consider also that we could have actually produced many more dangerous counter-attacks in this tournament had our forwards (and in some cases our midfielders) not given the ball away so easily. It's not always about slowing the game down, it's also about possessing so that you can be ready to spring somebody behind the defense. And again, we can't go on having Howard playing long balls when an extremely high percentage of them are quickly and too easily won by the opponent.

I know this is sacrilege, but how about starting with Howard distributing the ball OCCASIONALLY. WE did not win but a couple of long balls.

I think we need to shift tactics a smidgeon when we get put on our heels. Form triangles and boot the ball around a bit. We have the players to do this...for some reason panic sets in and the ball is launched and lost. A team like brazil has it back in our half after 5 seconds.....

Sure. What I must have said badly is that in Bradley's 4.4.2, it is the back 4 and CM that needs to most step up.

On another note, in my initial post on this thread, I should have also mentioned Geoff Cameron. He is one CB who has been both excellent in defense and capable of distributing.

Yes, unfortunately. That appears to be precisely our goal. Not sure why, but every move made seems to point in that direction.

I posted this last night:

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?p=18090213#post18090213

Playing the way we do gives us the best chance to win and the least chance to improve. A tough spot to be in.