That’s a concern tho. A coach should never be so married to a system that they can’t adapt it to their players or opponents. If he’s that inflexible we’re in trouble. You can play a possession based forward thinking approach without a regista.
Disagree. Most coaches adapt or are fired. Pep adapted his side. Klopp did as well. Sarri is either going to get fired or adapt. The recent game against the Wolves had him drop Jorgi for the last 10 and go to a 4-2-4 with Kante and RLC as the 2. With that approach sports forums would never exist.
The issue is that you have used players in search of a role instead of a role in search of players. Jorginho and Busquets are excellent at sitting in a tight pocket playing quick short combinations, moving and playing combinations. If that is the role, Adams may currently be the best US CM at that aspect. Watch him at RBL. If the role is a tight pocket combination passer, WFT and MB90 don't have that in their arsenal. The US under GB has not played with a Jorginho or Busquets style #6, in fact Trapp and MB90 are about as far from that style #6 as you can get. They are both too suceptable to getting dispossesed under pressure in tight spaces.
Ok - here is where things can be interesting. GB will adapt his tactics. The big question coming in was how would he adapt to not having the #10 that he had with the crew. He’s adapted by wanting dual #10’s. So start from the assumption that GB has to have that regista. We know the two candidates for that have been MB and WT and they are limited defensively. He’s attempting to adapt that by putting a pure defensive 6 next to him. The best candaite being Adams. Those two adaptations means playing a 3 man back line. So he’s tucked in the lb which solved a 3rd problem. We don’t have any good lb but have lots of cb. But a 343 - is not solid to play without the ball. So he’s adapted by having that dmid fall back into Rb. These are all clever adaptations that are interesting to discuss. What will go wrong? If we start with the same assumption as GB that it’s going to be a possession oriented style- what is the adaptation if many are right and MB/WT can’t do it? Who else could do it or what adaptations could we see and still maintain the overal style he is committed to? Those are interesting questions that would be fun to discuss.
Reasonable. I’m taking the inclusion of those two and trying to understand the system and role profiles. Then finish high level comparisons. How would you analyze things differently?
He is adapting but just like them - within a consistent framework. It’s moot to argue against the framework
Been so busy that I just got around to looking at the roster...this has to be one of the absolute worst groups of forwards we have called in for the A team in quite some time. Where is Weah and Sargent? Way too many MLS guys, which is confirming my fear about hiring an MLS coach in the first place. I don't think I can watch Bradley and Omar anymore...my interest and passion for the team unfortunately continues to fade.
It would be moot if we were on 3G coaching staff and so tasked with helping his vision. Otherwise, I'm not sure what's moot about discussing the merits of his system.
I would say Parks has the potential to be that kind of player. His defense is as suspect as Bradley and Trap or possibly. His skill and passing may be better. He needs time in that role somewhere to improve and he’s not getting it in MLS so far and didn’t in Portugal. Maybe some even younger kids that won’t be ready for 2-3 years at a National Team level.
You know what Pragidealist? You should put me on ignore. You state that you want to discuss soccer tactics, systems and analysis but you really don't want to talk about this. here's your comment on tactics and systems in a response to the challenges Chelsea faces when it switched to the model system that GB espouses: So, you initially engage in a discussion by posting a bunch of articles about GB's system.....and then when you receive a counter-analysis, your reponse is "the topic is irrelevant." Next, if what you really want to talk about is "how the US best make it work?" then the only way to really talk about how to execute is to discuss who in our pool can execute the strategy and your comments are: - I refuse to discuss the merits of the pool and refuse to acknowledge differences between players who play at the games highest levels and those who are undifferentiated at the B2/MLS/Championship level. - i refuse to even discuss if better players should touch the ball more unless there's definitive proof via statistics. When parties actually state,"well, if we insist on playing a system where we have no obvious solution to one of the most important positions on the field, we should absolutely try as many options as possible", you respond with "GB is reasonable and if he decides to only look at two players who are demonstrably not world-class as total players, that's gotta be the right answer". At the end, there's no good faith attempt on your part to even discuss system, tactics and analysis. It's perfectly fine to have an opinion that you feel strongly about but please, don't cloak yourself as if you actually want to have an open dialog about these topics when it's clear you don't.
To be fair to Pragidealist, he's stated that what's most important to him is playing attractive possession soccer where the USMNT dominates CONCACAF against the Panama's of the world; conversely, advancing deep in the World Cup by "stealing points" against elite teams is not important. GB's strategy could be effective at dominating Panama, although I have serious doubts about the consistency of that.
I think it's patently false that the style and system was decided when GB was hired. While there was the usual commentary about playing an attacking system (every coach has said that IIRC), I don't recall ever hearing GB or Earnie saying anything about instituting the system he used in Columbus.
Agreed, instead of looking at Robinson's prospect profile, kind of like say an MLB team would in its farm system, people just see him get skinned by the best Non-European international squad in the world (and by one of their best players) and say he sucks. It's kind of laughable. We have soccer debris like Lovitz being called in because he was subpar against a total non-entity C side out of Panama, and Robinson should be dumped at the curb on garbage day because he took a bad angle/was overconfident in challenging one of the best players on one of the best international teams in the World. It's just absurd. I don't say this to argue that Robinson is a stud, I have no idea what he'll be and he certainly isn't a complete player yet by a long shot, but he does have a fantastic array of tools to work with, plays at a legit club and has consistently looked very good against bad to solid competition. I am a fan of Robinson and view him as a guy with easily the highest ceiling right now amongst our LB's. He might fall off entirely, he might hit a wall and never be better than a bad EPL or good Championship caliber LB, who knows, but he has a ton of potential, and instead we're fixated on guys that have little to none. We were starting a near 40 year old left midfielder at Left Back recently and he was better than just about any of the other LB's called up back then, and now. I think Robinson absolutely should be in the mix, period and certainly called in over freaking Lovitz.
I do think we all do Berhalter a disservice when assuming he won't adapt. As pointed out , he switched to a 2 10s formation instead of 1 already and his little gambit with the right back wasn't something he did in Colombus either so he's already changed his system in the only example we have of what he does once the players get on the field together. Personally, I think using 2 10s begs the question of how the rest of the midfield looks. If you roll out two creators, you have to have someone deep. Wouldn't balance dictate that if you push one player more forward to fill a hole, someone has to fill the deeper hole that guy leaves? Your midfield can't consist of 2 10s and a regista if you want any kind of defense.
You should start your own thread entitled “Playing Possession Football with the US Player Pool” and leave the rest of us to discuss the upcoming friendlies, which this thread is designated for.
If you had some insights about how Chile and Ecuador will challenge GB’s system and what we could learn from it beyond “Chile presses and attacks frenetically” or “Ecuador is generally defensive/counter with a few technical players” then it would be applicable and interesting. But your preferred topics are not applicable here.
God knows I'm constantly dismissive of our local league, when it's warranted. Actually, I wasn't expecting any of our teams to make semis in this CONCACAF Champions, but we got lucky with Toluca being hot garbage. Had we got one of the better MX teams, we'd be done today. MLS is about #24 in the world for me, below the Botola and the Copa TIGO. However, quality of the players is only part of the equation when making a NT. Sure, we cannot aspire to win a World Cup with MLSers and guys from the Championship and 2.BuLi (or barely in the between zone between those and the top level). But we have enough to qualify, we had more than enough to qualify for 2018. We have enough, right now, to give a decent fight in a not-too-strong World Cup group. Personally, I'm wary of Berhalter. There is an inner circle in the federation, and people who like doing things as they have always been done. There is the potential for disaster, sticking to players based on history and potential, not on where they are right now. Thing is, if you come into a charge like manager with a specific set of fixed assumptions, in order to make people stomach those assumptions, you'll be more open to deal to make the masses happy. In short: if the USSF wants Bradley/Trapp bad enough to be part of the main team, they will throw the masses a bone and always start McKennie, Adams and Pulisic too. And both things together can be big errors.