Bunkering/Counter Attack Strategy
 

Yesterday's game was another example of Arena's ability to contruct a team defensive approach to a game against a World power that limits the number of scoring chances of our opposition. While I agree with this approach when you are out gunned (e.g., Argentina, Brasil, the Dutch etc.), I fail to understand why he doesn't compliment it with a counter attacking threat. When a slower target foward like McBride is left all alone up top, it provides very little threat because he is unable to get free and when he does, he rarely has the support he needs to be successful. I think we would be much more dangerous on the counter attack with a player with the vision of Mathis in the midfield trying to play a through ball behind a defense to Wolff, Donovan or Beasley. The classic example of this is when Bruce was forced to bring on Wolff and Mathis early in the Mexico WCQ when McBride and Renya got injured.

It just has never made sense to me why you would wait until after your opponent is up a goal to bring in your players who are most capable of exploiting a pushed up defense.

By the way, this post is meant to be constructive critisim, not Bruce bashing. Although I have been critical of some of his player selections over the years, I have thought from the time of his success with DC United that he was, and continues to be, the best man for the job.

I don't understand why many think we were bunkering. How is it bunkering when you outshoot your opponent. Sometimes you don't generate much offense because the other team is just plain better.

We must have watched two different first halfs. The first half that I watched had Renya and Armas each playing primarily as defensive mids with Donovan playing more in the midfield than upfront, leaving McBride all alone up top. I'm not quite sure why you think total shots are relevant to this discussion given that most of the US shots came when we were no longer in a defensive posture and because Arena's defend from the 40 and in strategy is precisly designed to stiffle shot counts.

I agree with Martin. This wasn't the match in Saprissa. We played conservatively, yes, but I wouldn't call how we played "bunkering." We just had some guys play badly. Lewis had some bad touches, Armas' passing was tentative, etc. So we had a hard time holding possession. But that's on the players, not Bruce.

exactly. In the first 15 - 20 minutes I really thought we played the Dutch evenly, but our turnovers killed any kind of chance we had at going forward, and after awhile we just stopped trying and thats when the Dutch dominated the ball. Really its like a football team that suffers from dropped passes on 3rd Downs at the beginning of a game against a great defense, it just kills momentum and more importantly, confidence.
But it bears repeating, Holland is simply a better team.

First, Reyna is not a dmid any more than Wesley Schneidjer or Edgar DAvids is (less than Davids actually, much less). It is completely normal to play with two deep-lying holding or dmids. Many of the most offensive teams in the world play this way.

I never said the US generated much offense in the first half. But it was not because we were bunkering. We did not play overly exhuberently but we could have generated offense if we could have achieved some penetration. But Convey was the only one close to doing this and Lewis, who had this explicit role utterly failed.

I thought the US played much more offensively, or more effective offensively, from the opening whistle of the second half. The better chances came mostly after the Holland goal, but we started looking more dangerous from the beginning of the second half. In my opinion, no change of strategy or Dutch substitutions -- but Beasley entered and he did create penetration. Completely changed the game IMHO.

I also don't see why we see so much talk of bunkering. Pretty much the whole game when the Dutch went forward, there were pretty much 3 or 4 US players in or around the area, with most of the rest in the midfield. Here's a clue for the clueless: the players that broke up the Dutch attacks in the area were always Berhalter, Gibbs, Boca or Hejduk. Not McBride, not Donovan, Not Lewis, Not even Reyna or Armas for the most part. Those folks were mostly in the midfield. For the most part the US defense stifled the Dutch attack, and the Dutch defense stifled the US attack.

The main thing to my mind was the speed with which the Dutch closed on every ball. The US was caught in posession a lot, and the fact that the ref was content to let lots of fouls go added up to a very difficult day breaking through for the US.

G.

this thread should be re-named...bunkering/bunkering strategy...I didn't see much counter attacking going on for the first 75 mins...a Michael Owen type would be helpful when playing a low pressure game...someone with real pace and the ability to take people on...

I agree, clearly this was not the match in Saprissa, which might have been the darkest day of Arena's tenure. With hindsight maybe I shouldn't have used the term "bunkering" in the subject line, because the purpose of the thread was to discuss how we could generate a more dangerous counter attack when playing from a defensive posture.

This is an important point because given how effective we are at defending, if could develop a dangerous counter attack from this posture I think we would have a much better chance of beating the top teams in the World rather than just keeping the score respectible.

insert obligatory "but we have Landon" post...