15' 2-0 Coffey carries up left touch to 25m, passes ahead to Torres cutting inward to arc top wide left -- and continues her own run. Torres rolls a vertical pass between two defenders, Coffey chases it down to 3m left tick mark. Hard ground pass to 7m 2-left, DeMelo makes a hard cut from spot to there past a flatfooted defender, one-touch left instep volley bends around Tajatalo's dive, into 1/5 left back low. DeMelo practices that pattern at USC No time to waste! Savannah DeMelo doubles the lead for the 🔴⚪️&🔵 with an assist from Samantha Coffey. 🇺🇸 2-0 🇫🇮 | #NikeFriendlies pic.twitter.com/pMorYabIUO— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) December 9, 2017 17' 3-0 Coffey switches left to K.Rodriguez at circle top mid-left. K.Rodriguez sails a long pass outswinging to 15m right post, Kuhlmann outruns her defender as Tajatalo comes out past 6-top. Kuhlmann jump-flicks a header way up to an elevation of ~12m up -- it drops behind Tajatalo, bounces perfectly at 1m, and up into roof 1/5 right. Another one! 😲Civana Kuhlmann joins in on the fun with a header off a long ball into the box from Karina Rodriguez in the 17th minute.🇺🇸 3-0 🇫🇮 | #NikeFriendlies pic.twitter.com/7FWM1ZbdAw— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) December 10, 2017
20' 4-0 Kim sprints down wide right to box right foot, cross cleared but directly to Kuhlmann at 7m 6-right. She crosses just behind Torres at 6m 1/6 right, Torres backpasses to box top center. Coffey shoots one-touch left foot through traffic, into back right low past Tajatalo frozen. What a rout, Finland can't sustain any kind of pressure to disrupt our ideas. FOUR GOALS IN SEVEN MINUTES 😱FOUR GOALS IN SEVEN MINUTES 😱FOUR GOALS IN SEVEN MINUTES 😱Samantha Coffey in the 20'!🇺🇸 4-0 🇫🇮 | #NikeFriendlies pic.twitter.com/SUHDYh3bqa— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) December 10, 2017 24' 4-1 Finland #_ does two cutbacks at 2m wide left, hooks a cross to 5m center. #19 I.Rodriguez volleys it away to the left -- but it hits #15 K.Rodriguez's knee and sits at 1m center. #14 Teesa Rinkinen pounces first, drags it away from K.Rodriguez's pressure and GK Dickey's dive, finally hooks it forward and scuffs it into back right low.
37' 5-1 Finland fk at own 12m wide left, sailed to midfield circle, Villacorta heads it forward to DeMelo at 27m mid-right. DeMelo drives to 24m, tries a vertical through-ball toward Kim sneaking past the right flank -- ball deflected to box top left post, Finland slide-clear it away. Villacorta settles and passes to DeMelo at 27m arc right, she turns to 25m and shoots right foot early -- over Tajatalo's diving fingertips, golaaaaaazo into right 90 ‼️ G O L A Z O ‼️Savannah DeMelo blasts her second goal of the night home in the 37'!🇺🇸 5-1 🇫🇮 | #NikeFriendlies pic.twitter.com/zQKg8cg0PB— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) December 10, 2017 40' 6-1 Kim centers to Villacorta, she switches left to I.Rodriguez. Pass down wide left for Torres chasing unmarked, to 5m. Torres chips a perfect cross to 5m right post, just over GK's reach, Kuhlmann wins her race and head-spikes into center back low. WE CAN'T KEEP UP! 😬Civana Kuhlmann secures her brace after finding a perfect service in the box from Taryn Torres in the 40'!🇺🇸 6-1 🇫🇮 | #NikeFriendlies pic.twitter.com/D3WWTI3NV2— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) December 10, 2017
43' 7-1 Morse dribbles from midfield box right to 35m, slips a centering pass to DeMelo. DeMelo dribbles to 25m mid-right, has Kuhlmann slightly ahead and to her right, making a hard cut toward arc top mid-right. DeMelo scoop-flicks a right outstep dink pass over 2 defenders to box top mid-right, Kuhlman chest-traps into own stride. One bounce, right-foot half-volley rocket blast off Tajatalo's hands at 5m right post -- ball pops up over her, drops unerringly to 0.5m right post, and bounces in. That kind of night First half 🎩 trick!Civana Kuhlmann scores her third one of the night, with a brilliant assist by Savannah DeMelo.🇺🇸 7-1 🇫🇮 | #NikeFriendlies pic.twitter.com/oLzXcj3Ako— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) December 10, 2017 45' 8-1 Coffey passes down wide right for I.Rodriguez overlapping to 8m. Quick cross is just over Kim jumping 1-v-3 at 14m center, ball bounces untouched to Kuhlmann at box top mid-right. Kuhlmann juggles ball straight up into wheelhouse, one bounce, right roundhouse blast across mouth beats Tajatalo, bounces into left side netting. No, you're not seeing double. 🤓Civana Kuhlmann lets it rip (AGAIN) for her fourth goal of the night in the 45'!🇺🇸 8-1 🇫🇮 | #NikeFriendlies pic.twitter.com/Lfrq7lkEdI— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) December 10, 2017 HT 8-1 Finland is only 5.5M people.
64' 9-1 GK Tajatalo rolls a pass to #16 Juulia Gronlund, who dribbles to own arc top mid-left and hoofs to midfield. Finland header back to own 30m intercepted, Coffey passes to Torres(?), backpass to Kornieck (she's tall ) at 35m arc right. One-touch forward pass to box top mid-right is way too fast for Kim 5m behind Gronlund and not going for it. Tajatalo comes out to 9m 5-right, hapless Gronlund dinks a perfect pass inside her momentum, wrong-foots her -- and it rolls in at right post low. When it rains 67' 10-1 Coffey fk at 12m wide left, backpass to I.Rodriguez at 23m box left. High chip to 7m 1/3 left, Kim jumps alone and glances a side-header, down and up to 6-top left post. Villacorta is unmarked thereat, lifts waist-high right roundhouse across mouth, into back right low. Ugh -- Finland was kind of not in the mood to mark anybody. Viviana Villacorta gets on the scoresheet in the 67'. Abigail Kim delivers her second assist of the night.🇺🇸 10-1 🇫🇮 | #NikeFriendlies pic.twitter.com/CuP2lKCcMI— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) December 10, 2017 Funny/sad: scoreclock graphic said "0-1" for two minutes thereafter, until they took it down and widened the little window. FT 10-1. This 2nd-game group was sharp on crosses. Finland were overmatched, so we had time on the ball.
Meh. Norway is only 5.2M. No mercy and no excuses! Maybe they should have just played 3 against the limeys.
2017/12/11 Mon 15:30 EST England 6-0 Finland 2017/12/11 Mon 18:30 EST USA 0-2 Brasil 10' 0-0 Girma clangs a hot backpass a tad too far, #11 pokes it to #17 Kerolin through box top mid-right. Morse comes across hard, lunges right shoulder in front but hip-checks Kerolin down. Foul, penal. 11' 0-1 Victoria pk, right instep to left post low, just under McGlynn's dive. 59' 0-2 Brasil GK #1 Kemelli punts to midfield box right, Ana Victoria turns and chips low long past Girma caught up high, perfectly in stride to Kerolin at 22m mid-right. McGlynn charges out to 9m 5-right, Kerolin chips one-touch right instep from 15m 6-right, perfectly over her, bounces at 2m and in. USA play a decent possession game, but we have (in computer architecture terms) too many stalls in the pipeline. We can make a pass, look around, decide, make a pass, look around, think it through, decide, ..., etc. That's a bit too much decision-making going on amidst the process, which ultimately saps the knife-edge speed from our attack: we don't hit openings as soon as they're open, defenses have time to retreat and settle, and any close pressure can seriously disrupt us. (This affects our WNT, too.) Ergo, we're best when we can play quick combos, esp. longballs or footraces that reduce configurations to book (meaning you don't need further decisions). We're not good, at any level, when we're forced to invent or combine on-the-fly -- there's not enough consensus amongst our collective database of patterns-known, and so it's rare for any 3+ of us to pattern-match something and all do the right thing in time. (Some subsets of WNT, or teams like Portland or WNY, can do that when they get the right group of 3-5 players in.) Brasil are a tad more vicious than we are, probably because they do have a better grasp on a few good patterns, and have enough gas to keep probing us for 90'. Other than that one pass, we basically stifled each other.
7+07 (+10-03) 1.England 6+05 (+06-01) 2.Brasil 4+07 (+13-06) 3.USA 0-19 (+01-20) 4.Finland We scored the only 3 goals against England, and gave up Finland's only goal. I think this is OK for a training tournament. Clearly, we juggled the line-ups to share minutes (and played all 3 GKs, one game each), instead of playing a fixed starters/subs roster to win. It's a tad disappointing that our default level of play is 3rd-best, but that might be inevitable. Our W20s are underclasspersons on their NCAA teams, and nothing in that environment builds them up to be top dog. Now we have about 1 month to train to be ... more vicious. Maybe commit to a subset of patterns, and train them relentlessly, like gridiron goal-line packages.
Keep in mind this will most likely not be the squad who goes to Trinidad for qualifying. Pugh is still age available and there are others (Sanchez Davidson etc) that we’re coming off college cup. It would not surprise me to see several new faces at the camp between Xmas and nye Hope Jordy Harr is ok. That looked pretty much like an ACL
This is a good metaphor. There is just not enough technical ability to string three passes together. This isn't the U-14 team or the U-17 team, this is the U-20 and we can't string a few passes together. Grima was a horror show. If she is really one of the best U20 CBs, that is incredible. She doesn't do anything well. Doesn't position well, doesn't pass well, doesn't defend well. Morse was better and spent a lot of time covering for Grima. But she is not good enough. Sophie Smith is good with the ball at her feet and seems very dangerous around the box with the ball at her feet. But that rarely occured as the midfield can't pass and Smith has the first touch of a trampoline. DeMelo impressed but wasn't involved much. The USA were in a 4-1-3-2 and rarely got the ball to her.
I think any plans of Pugh participating in U-20 play went out the window when she turned pro. She is age-eligible, but the WC next year is in August, smack dab in the middle of the NWSL season. And Washington can refuse to release her for it.
The USWNT is heading for the same problem the USMNT collided with. The high school, pay for academy, college system is just not developing players to push out the veterans and keep pace with the technical and tactical ability of the rest of the world. The veterans are getting older every day. Pugh is no Pulisic and he couldn't do it alone. Pugh's first touch is slightly better than Sophie Smith but she often dribbles to nowhere and rarely passes in any kind of constructive way. She is fast and if you play direct against inferior competition she can be effective. She is not going to be effective against Brazil, England, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, etc. Some disaster is coming; then maybe something changes and players with a good first touch and the ability to pass and go and defend in space emerge? It is sad that many of these players have paid so much and put so much work in through their lives and haven't really been taught to the level they deserve.