Wil Trapp Thread

In my mind. New coach....clean slate so let's go from here and wait until the upcoming friendlies to start to get a sense of what Berhalter will do.

I have my inklings and I do think Sarachan knew a while ago it would be Berhalter.

Now to Will. Trapp is just a subpar defender and for me, #6 is a defender 1st. In the modern game he is very athletic and should cover the most ground every game. Konte is the model. Probably the greatest #6 of all time. If we can get a player who does 80% of what Konte can do....we are solid

 

Trapp should be Captain til somebody steps up in that 6 role or it doesn't make sense anymore because there is a better choice. Pulisic should concern himself with scoring goals and complaining about service.

Most of the people who are against Trapp as Captain were probably the same ones who said that people who didn't want Bradley as Captain are crazy. I say that because I only remember 2 people who were against Bradley as Captain.

I don't get it, is Pulisic going to Captain Jan camp by skype?

 

Also worth noting for the bazillionth time that the captain of the team doesn't have to be anywhere close to the best player on the team. Landon Donovan admittedly struggled when he was made as captain at a young age. He didn't take to that responsibility.

Carlos Bocanegra was seemingly a great captain and leader for this team for a long time. In club football, Steve Cherundolo was seemingly a great captain for a long time in Germany.

Let the youngsters be youngsters. Let a vet and leader take over the captaincy. We're always told that Wil Trapp is s great captain and leader for the Crew. So give him a shot.

Worth noting that we've heard Trapp is exploring a move to Europe this January. He has a Greek passport, so there are a lot of doors available to him.

 

I want to see Trapp do something that shows he even belongs on this team first and I havent seen anything yet. He needs to win a spot before he's anointed captain.

In fact, this is exactly why I wanted an outside coach for this team. To eliminate this kind of thing. GB has a bias on Trapp and maybe even Zardes and that crap will hurt us in the end. Im waiting to see what GB does in Jan and if it is not a clean break from the past failures, he'll be toast in my mind

 

A lot of times new coaches bring in a few familiar players to set examples for other players. Once those players understand what is needed they take those roles away from the initial players. I can't imagine Berhalter will play any player that is worse than others (although every coach has questionable favorites).

 

How about he has an honest competition for the spot? Bring Canouse in and give Trapp the game against Costa Rica so we can compare with what Bradley did and give the rugged Canouse the game v. Panama.

 

A captain doesn't need to be the best player.

But a captain should have the "been there and done that" experience and resume all in the locker room will respect. In soccer that equates to top league and WC experience. Boca fits that paradigm. Trapp does not.

Trapp has been nowhere and done nothing in this game. Has never played in a top 15 league and has never played an international match of consequence. He was handed the armband having not done a single thing for this program.

Guys like Yedlin and Brooks, with their top league pedigree and international experience are the types who would command respect in the locker room.

 

I was chillin' with a brew before bedtime and put the England 3 -0 USA game on. Trapp was easily the best player. Play after play, he never put a foot wrong. Good passing. Took the ball off Sancho's feet like he took the ball off Konte's feet when we played France. Good passes. Excellent tackles. Watching the game it just was so obvious that Sarachan never understood that Green + Wood is not making it at this level. When Weah found himself centrally, which happened very rarely because of Sarachan's formation, he was putting himself in dangerous situations. Playing Weah on the wing just made his offense invisible and his defense pretty meh.

But, yeah, Trapp was excellent.

 

so he has that Greek passport; is he gonna do anything with it?

 

Russell Canouse looked fantastic this weekend.

Of course, he looked much better than Trapp or Bradley last year, too.

 

That's because he absolutely cannot make the long incisive pass that the aforementioned two competitors do a couple times a game.

In all seriousness, I'd like to see him as a DM vs. strong offensive national teams.

 

I'm not exactly a big fan of Trapp and have seen little of Canouse, but I do see him mentioned as the solution to our #6 issues quite often. I just saw some highlights of the DC game and in particular around the 39th minute or so I saw a guy on Atlanta roll down the middle of the field and my first thought was.... who is that big. clumsy #4 on DC that just got turned around (slowly) in the middle of the park, twice. Guess that's Canouse's number. Was that play an anomaly or does he always lack quickness? He got beat with a simple cut twice on that play and kept dropping further from the player with the ball who ended up with a ton of space to wind up. Shot went just wide, but still poor defense there.

Maybe there is a decent reason he didn't get any playing time for the US. Obviously, any player has a moment here and there where they look poor, so this could well be out of the ordinary, but it was just odd that I wasn't looking for the guy, it just happened to be one play that jumped out at me as being extremely poor and turns out it is the guy a lot of people seem to be pushing as the solution to all our problems in the #6 spot.

 

Not sure what highlight that was, but seems like a pretty big conclusion to take from it. Here is a better view of his overall game:

1102379992237903872 is not a valid tweet id

 

I was hoping that Twellman would address Canouse during the broadcast, but unless I missed something at halftime, it was radio silence. Maybe we shouldn't read too much into it, because he didn't really talk about Nagbe or Guzan either.

IIRC, the only NT issue that received a mention were Hamid's comments about Guzan.

 

canouse would be very useful for concacaf, but i think thats his ceiling. he played a few decent long balls for sure, but i think his ability to combine and help move the team forward is limited, especially compared to his competition.

 

I think we need a 6 who, first and foremost, can defend and break up oppositional plays vs. elite teams. The distribution is a nice-to-have rather than a must-have. We can have JB distribute out of the back if necessary.

 

I read this a lot in these forums. JAB may be an excellent passer, but he's still a center back. You can't ask a center back to carry the ball out of danger and then distribute, which is what you often ask of a 6. If you could just have the CB be the distributor, then the modern sport would have replaced the "6" already. It hasn't, because a CB can't be the distributor AND last line of defense at the same time.

 

Neither can MB, who simply drops in between CBs, gets the ball, and plays to an outside back.

 

Perhaps. But you still can't risk having your very last line of defense be responsible for carrying the ball out of danger and distributing in lieu of a 6. Unless some tactical genius can explain how that would be a good idea, I'll ask that the argument be set aside.

 

The 6s that we are considering (MB/WT) aren't the type to carry the ball out of danger. They are lauded for the ability to make long passes but usually pass sideways or backwards at the first sign of pressure (note; this is not meant as a criticism).

My point is that if long passing is vital out of the back irrespective of the deficiencies in other areas, JB can make the same long passes that for which these guys are acclaimed.

Perhaps we just disagree on the talent level of MB/WT as I recall that you may believe that they are B1 quality players (similar to Morales) and I think they are nowhere near that level. Apologies if that doesn't reflect your viewpoint.