I'm hoping to see a midfield of McKennie at the 6, Roldan ahead of/beside him, and Arriola/CP/Boyd underneath Jozy.
with the benefit of hindsight, i would like to think the friendlies were a B/cut team followed by an A/B team. not even GB's best. however the more we rotate the closer we approximate those units that got clobbered in the friendlies and looked ineffective against panama.
when i ran the numbers several months ago -- based on goals allowed in games they played since roughly portugal -- i came up with lichaj long zimmerman lima. i feel like the tournament so far verifies the numbers, though the next two games would be the sterner test of that. i think the numbers of those who played in the june friendlies would have skewed up for those games but the pattern i saw was that group barely gave up goals. even italy was 1-0. you go back and look who was playing england colombia etc when we were giving up bushels and it was robinson brooks miazga yedlin. i doubt the backs i like would run the table on everyone -- i am open to richards and others coming up -- but my hope is they would run a tighter ship than brooks etc. the defense of brooks etc. tends to be "devil you know" and the argument we don't know how this bunch would handle the biggest games. i feel like that tends to give the incumbents an unearned sense of circular security -- they should start the big ones because they have before -- and ignores how those games actually tend to go. unlike under JK we basically quit upsetting ANYONE. i think we need to get back to promoting the players who do well by us in the shirt and get away from all the little proxies, club brand names, club minutes. doing so tends to squeeze out pleasant surprise in favor of frustrating but obvious expectation, and hasn't been a winning formula. we never just handed jobs to CVs. quite a few people came through US camps with germany or england credentials and then laid an egg and disappeared. kirovski was never quite his CV. robles disappeared after a certain haiti game. cooper wasn't handed anything for being ManU. proxies are for scouting. once they are called and in camp and playing games there is tape. there are goals and assists numbers both ways. you either do the thing or not.
I agree that we won't (or shouldn't) see any major tweaks for the Jamaica game but I fell the largest reason is that he has to get the team all on one page and playing "their game" at or close to their potential. We are no Germany, Brazil etc but we have enough talent that we should be able to beat any of the 2nd and lower tier CONCACAF teams playing "straight up" and we should be able to do it playing without our "best 11". I also would change out some of the players in this team but that is NOT the reason that we have struggled at times. If I were the coach, I would be focusing on refining the basics of his system and not worrying about trying to out think or "trick" Jamaica. Assuming we advance to the final, perhaps he worries a bit more about adjustments against Mexico.
I don't know how we can significantly rotate. Jozy is an obvious one, Miazga is capable. Morris is not a terrible dropoff, I suppose. After that, it's ranging from significant to massive drop off across the board, with the closest comparisons being in the defense (and thus needing less rotation) and the biggest gaps being in midfield.
we have gone around and around on forward club form already but one midfield example is roldan. he does not take/make for country the half dozen boomed goals he gets from league. similarly, we see little evidence of the assists he gets in league.
One of the better explanations I've heard -- and it jives from what I've seen -- is that Roldan really can't receive the ball with his back to goal and turn. He just doesn't have that skill. His offensive game for the Sounders like to play a facing forward, usually on the counter or a late arriving player into the box. He's really not a good fit here. Someone like Pomykal will be much better. I don't think you lose much defensively and the offensive skills are significantly better. The bigger surprise to me on Roldan is how ineffective he's been in 50/50 battles in the midfield. I expected him to struggle with the skill elements -- but he's getting bullied.
I wouldn't be that surprised if Morris starts this one. Boyd is forward-ranging and attacking-minded, and Berhalter has subbed him out regularly with Morris, who's more willing to stay back and help defend. I have a completely speculative and totally unconfirmed impression is that Berhalter isn't happy with how far forward Boyd pushes, especially when they have the lead. But at the very least, it seems Berhalter is more likely to play Morris when defending. I think Boyd still starts, because of what he offers going forward - but I wouldn't be too surprised if Berhalter decides he wants to start with Morris in respect to Jamaica's counter-attacking speed.
Well I am befuddled that there never seems to be accountability -- for like 2 years now -- for us getting bossed in possession and specifically the midfield by almost everyone decent we play. I wouldn't mind if it was a Mexico- or France-game systemic thing where I see us park the bus and try to keep the ball in front of us. But anyone and everyone tends to get to the last line and run right by our mids. So it's not really a system or if it is one it doesn't function in the midfield. I see it as a selection issue. I go back to my youth club. You didn't see the field if you didn't get stuck in and win balls. Short of literally playing a 460 or something there is no defensive system that inherently does the job and doesn't also need the right people. Now, you could be insincere about the defensive commitment, but then, heck, I have a list of real attackers to play. We got rid of Nagbe but still seem stuck in two-way 8 hell halfway between real defense or serious offense, either of which would make us more of a handful. It's odd because there are a list of left backs who have disappeared for performance. We are quite capable of accountability when wanted. But the wrong eggs would have to get cracked for this one I fear. In theory we are stuck with this roster so there is only so much you can do now. You kind of have to milk this unit to its conclusion. But I have a feeling they get the same honeymoon as the rest when this is done, earned or not. When the response should be, ok, keeper is solid but can't play sweeper, backs are ok, forwards are good, and, oh, that midfield......yeah, get to work.....nope, I unfortunately think this is going to have to cost us somewhere in something that counts -- like LB last cycle -- before anyone with power over it wakes up. And it shouldn't have to when you get dominated every game except Pulisic.
Just want point out regarding this short rest stuff that this is standard rest during the WC or did I miss something? And aren't Jamaica in the same boat?
There is not enough combination play into the box. We get the ball wide early, and either the forward or the mid overlapping gets a cross. Zardes is the theoretical target. But I think defenders or about anyone are just as likely to get on the end when we finally punch one in. Once in a while someone cuts in from the wing, but they tend to take their own shot. There is no combo play where the striker dinks the cutter into better space. That strikes me as tailor made for an old Dortmund player. And yet. Also, there is just not enough movement off the ball. Diagonal or longballs into wide space. But there is no forward making a square or diagonal run across, there isn't even whatever Gyasi and Pulisic worked for their goal in the friendly. Very positional and everyone in their channel and predictable, and thus no surprise a defender could score just the same. A defender with any pace would love this. OK, he's going right up his channel. No surprise on the players coming at him. No surprise on where they are coming from.
We may disagree on a bunch, but on this, we are on the same page. It's shocking how rarely he comes away with the 50/50s at this level.
Broken record but why isn't Arriola in the midfield feeding Pulisic? If you break down the goals and assists per minute for the US that would be the order. I think he would play harder on defense, and that is the right hierarchy of who I want feeding and who I want finishing and working in the box. Arriola gets a few shots a game and generally puts them over. (ditto Zardes) How about the Dempseyesque quality of strikers with finishing? Sargent would put the ball on cage, but that's perseverating. Boyd will. Pulisic will. Pick one more and that's your lineup. We can't afford to spray the chances we get. It's not as bad as when the Dynamo would get in a rut of Brad Davis playing Corey Ashe into space for a cross, but it's the same sort of backwards logic. I want the worker bee feeding the meal ticket. We are taking way too seriously that Pulisic is a 10 when most of his passing is playing Arriola into space.
Alvas Powell is a tough defender with some pace, they need to be willing to swap players' sides -- to get Pulisic right side -- and to cut across the 18 and combine more because if it's just play people into perceived wing space we may lose many a foot race.
The problem is that the defender on the other side (Lawrence) is better than Powell, and just as fast and tough. Jamaica's center is soft. That is where we should be going.
I've seen some streamed stuff on him with Bayern's dev squad, and more. You seem biased to not see talent because of age of opponent or whatever? I don't. I see talent when it's there. You'd wait until they're what, 25?
Agreed. Zardes has the work rate that GB appears to want. Altidore is the better passer, better finisher (with head or feet), a DFK option, and better back-to-goal. Seems like an obvious choice to me... but we shall see.
This roster is so weak it's hard to care about who the egg rolls out. There are 2 for sure talents in CP and McKennie and a bunch of scrubs that shine against weak fish.
When GB introduced "The System tm" and "The Plan tm" at Cupcake 2019 a few of us looked at it and said it was naive and would be useless against competent opponents. A few coaches like FC Dallas came out and said they had strong doubts about implementing it in international soccer. Many of the MLS mouthpieces (including Matt Doyle), came out with pieces "explaining" and endorsing it. Posters showed up "explaining" it like soccer had turned into quantum mechanics. You could tell that all the "explainers" were clueless about what really happens when you put 22 high level players on a field. It is not a theoretical physics, pen and paper exercise that the naive believe it to be. Whatever you do with your 11 the other team will compensate with their 11 and it is game on. Most have concluded what was obvious all along, even Matt Doyle: https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019...uggling-ahead-concacaf-gold-cup?autoplay=true Some are still trying to explain it because we just don't understand the brilliance.
The game is not about individual skills only, but also about the team as a whole. As part of the CB pair (with Cameron, or Gonzalez, or as part of a 3-man back line with Besler+Gonzo), JAB has looked quite poor at times, to the point that I don't feel much confidence with him at the back and can understand if he's benched for the NT.
As someone who's been stanning Lawrence all tournament, let me rep this post. Also, if we could annex Jamaica, I'd really like Blake and Lawrence on the team.
Personally, I'd love to see a CB pairing of Brooks and Zimmerman....but that will be another discussion for another tournament down the road. Either way, our bigger concern is finding a way to never have to see Ream in the starting lineup ever again. With the population this country has it's shameful he's our starting LB. How in the world GB rates him over Lichaj or Fabian STILL boggles my mind.