I think Weah has a ways to go. He did enough to be around the team, but he needs to be much more assertive. Pulisic, as a comparison, is much more aggressive looking for and dribbling with the ball. Not exactly the same types, but still a gap there.
Nothing to see here, keep moving! Seriously, lot of work to be done. Can't be easy being 20-22 and up against those other guys. MM, Adams, Steffan, Brooks and some others that did not really show what they can do. Seems to me we do not move without the ball when we have the ball. Too many times we lose. possession due to nobody available or just to static. Those other guys are constantly moving without the ball and giving and going. Some big switches but mostly moving the ball through a crowd. Good experience for defenders, but we got to get better with the ball. Oh, and score a little.
I'd love to see him in the no. 6 role a bit more. He's one of the best pure ball winners in MLS and can cover more ground than Trapp. His positioning is a bit less disciplined though.
Well this is why one is a starter on a CL team, and the other is a player on the roster of a CL team... But I like him, and I think CONCACAF's defenders won't.
C'mon, I'm fairly pessimistic, but you take it to another level. What did you expect from a U23 side? There also was a lot positive about the match. The CB's were very good. Steffen made a couple good stops. Robinson grew into the match especially when he had some defensive support. McKennie has the eye for positioning but not the execution quite yet.
To my eyes, this is 70% due to the game plan. A more versatile coach can get more out of these players. The start of the half was... silly. We finally got some possession and immediately looked to long balls over the middle to break down Brazil. That's entirely due to the game plan and player instruction.
I can see McKennie becoming our new Jones. And that's a good thing. He still needs composure, but that's one of the things that come naturally with age.
He's really improved on the ball in a years time as well. That little hesitation where he blew by Neymar outside the box and laid the ball off showed some impressive confidence.
Still too little play through the middle for me. WM and Adams really disappointed me, a ton of loose touches. Glad it wasn't a 5-4-1 like I was expecting. It was a little too "composed". The team was pretty bereft of ideas, particularly in attack, but was muuuuuuuuuch better dealing with Brazilian attackers than normal. Normally our slow-ass CB's with terrible passing skills cough up the ball and lots of goals, but we basically got burned down each side one time, and gave up a cheap penalty. Outside of that, not many chances for Brazil. I was expecting something akin to Belgium-lite, with us getting peppered with chances as Brazil dribbled around us. Pleasantly proven wrong.
I've made it known that I do not want DS as the guy at all, but damn, even I'm surprised at the level of doom and gloom after this one.
It's mainly from a clique of posters who inexplicably think that not standing toe-to-toe with Brazil means that the US is garbage.
Brooks- first half especially- was pretty crap, very little effort. Miazga, conversely, was fantastic. Yedlin was really solid as well, Brazil got nothing on that side. Mckennie- was good, Adams had moments, Steffen was mostly good. Robinson...hopefully learned a lot. Green and Bobby were... physically there. Everybody else was just yawn inducing.
541 would have been a better fit for the personnel. The team had solid ideas the passing wasn't there.
Why? We'd be 3 CB's, 4 CM's, and 1 striker who is mediocre at holding up the ball. Where is the offense?
What?! To my knowledge, there has been exactly one poster on this entire site advocating for this, and that guy annoys the heck out of EVERYONE.
How? You've basically changed nothing with how we play. Trapp was coming back between the CB's anyway, so adding a 3rd CB there means we push the ball up through our FB's... Oh, wait, that's what we were doing just fine anyway! The problem is that midfield. We don't have good enough wingers to just whip in crosses to Wood/Zardes/Nova, who aren't good enough to get onto the end of the balls we do send in. So, we've got to go through the middle. How do you do that? You put more guys in the middle up top instead of just Bobby Wood on his lonesome. 4-1-2-1-2 would make more sense, IMO. Backline is the same. Trapp right in front of them. Adams/McKennie in the middle. 2 forwards in Nova/Wood. The trick is, who would play that guy right behind them that would show for the ball and then get it to the strikers. IDK, maybe put Acosta in there, I don't know who our #10 is for that spot. I wonder how well we could do defensively in that position because it's pretty narrow, but perhaps the 2 forwards help out the press a bit, when it's just BW/Zardes, they couldn't put enough pressure on the CB's by themselves.