Looks like it took Tyler Adams (and/or the team) a bit to get comfortable in his RB/CM role last night.His 116 touches were still the most by a USMNT player in a game since Michael Bradley vs Iceland in Jan. 2016 (122). pic.twitter.com/N0RHepuT1S— Paul Carr (@PaulCarr) March 22, 2019 TA was not exactly wasting away out on the touchline.
You are absolutely correct. a stat is worthless if you don't know what it represents and how it was defined, how the data was collected and processed. That is why I didn't comment on the actual value of the stat expected goals. I can think of quite a few issues that might make that a difficult stat to measure. As an aside, the liars, damn liars and statisticians quote in many ways illustrates one reason that scientific and academic papers need to be peer reviewed...it helps keep the authors honest and that, I am sure, is basically what you are saying in the bolded.
it seemed to me that the missing ingredient yesterday was a 3rd man helping the 10 and his wing (Pulisic + Arriola or Morris + McKennie) in their combinations in the lateral area of the attacking third.
because he abandoned playing right back and started playing center mid in the second half. Against a better team he would be pinned at right back rather than roaming.
Exactly right. Against better teams our RB will have to focus on defending, not maintaining possession centrally or creating opportunities. Otherwise we will get quickly burned down the right side. Surprised Ecuador came out so timid. They must have a weakened squad in comparison with previous years. The Copa America Ecuador was pretty fierce.
That is exactly how he played. That's the point. He only played RB when the US were pinned in our own half. Otherwise, he played as a second dmid.
This is because Ecuador was not intent on attacking. Really too bad we couldn't get this formation tested against a more aggressive team.
My prediction is that he will get pinned back against better teams--the teams where we will need him to be in the midfield the most for handling possession. At times there were gaps against Ecuador that a better team would have leveraged due to his positioning in the center. You may disagree, but this has not been tested yet.
If Berhalter really wants to just play a 3-2-2-3, then at least we'll finally get some coverage of the losers of that choice. Because that choice will either move Yedlin to the bench or out of position as a winger, and either is a big story.
Maybe... its also possible we'll see adaptions for those games. Right now, he appears to be building a foundation. In future games, it maybe he pulls guys like Arriola and Yedlin back to be wingbacks. Or he may not... we'll have to wait and see. Overall though.. this was a 433 that played mostly as a 343. There was plenty of coverage (as the 1 shot on goal demonstrated) in this system.
Not really. The day they hired a coach to play a primarily possession team- Yedlin's role with the team was written on the wall. He's just not a good player for a possession oriented game.
Obviously there are infinite possibilities for the future. Perhaps GGG has the most brilliant soccer mind the game has ever seen. Is there any player or team precedent for a central right-back who made this work in the past? Or is this a novel GGG idea?
Who cares? But yes - It’s a slight tweet to what Belgium did. And Pep’s done it with both Man City and Bayern