[alky13]

The other day when watching the Honduras match, a friend of mine asked me what formation the US was playing in. Now I know that for the most part we draw it up 4-4-2 or I'm pretty sure 4-1-2-1-2 is being tossed around beause of our use of a true central defensive midfielder. Oddly enough though after watching the game and previous ones it seems like we naturally slip into the 4-1-2-3. Consider that this is our on paper formation:

--------------------Howard----------------------
Cherundolo--Onyewu-----Bocanegra---- -Bornstein
Holden/Dempsey-----Bradley-----Clark----Donovan
---------Altidore/Casey----------Davies----------

We in fact slip into something a bit more like this:

Cherundolo----Onyewu----Bocanegra----Bornstein
---------------------Clark----------------------
------------Bradley--------Donovan-------------
---Holden/Dempsey--Casey/Altidore------Davies

This to me, looks like our shape everytime we take the field. We often criticize Dempsey for not sliding back but Holden was very much out on the wing as is Davies. In fact if you look at Davies touches he seems to always be out on the wing, playing the Thierry Henry type of role.

Why does this even matter? Because we have to adjust our players for a such a formation. I can't say I'm in love with Conor Casey, he just doesn't have the look to me, but he got it done.

Holden fits the role of RW quite well. I've always looked at Holden as a poor man's Beckham. He is bar none the best crosser on the team and he fits the natural formation the best. Dempsey in this formation is often criticized because he takes a lot of risks which lead to counter attacks.

Now I'm not saying that Casey or Holden are better than Altidore/Dempsey. Its safe to say that we owe a lot of our success to them. But if you look at all our scoring and shots on goal this year, you'll see that more often than not, Davies and Dempsey are out on the wings with Altidore sitting in the middle.

Altidore in just a year may have a touch to kill for. But the game against Honduras showed him flailing for headers and slow on the ball.

If this is the formation we naturally ensue, we should tailor our parts to it.


Dear MODS: Can you change Uur to "Our" haha.