They announced from the start he was a rightie who they were playing on the left side. He did what I used to do when I got moved to playing left back in college which was hit tons of outside of the foot spun stuff. It's better and more dangerous than the straight downfield balls some of his cohort were trying. His were being picked off by a CB and not the next mid downfield. The downside would be that this is what one footed players do. But his raw speed is tactically useful by itself, and he can hit a decent ball in. Not everyone's contribution has to be technical, sometimes you need a tall guy or a speed guy. Somehow this has been lost in our drive to be The Best Third Best Technical Team in the Region. Slow and semi-technical but not Barca is the route to mediocrity. Mexico will be better technically and Panama will be more athletic. Who you should be comparing him to are Gooch, Saief, Rowe, bench wing options. He is not starting ahead of Weah and Pulisic. But he could be the guy you sub in for them up 2-0 and it's like oh crap I have to defend that tired for 20 minutes?
every team looks good when they bunker. The problem is that such a team will never win their match unless they happen to have a player that can zip, dribble, and score on their one counterattack (like an Mbappe) opportunity. ...or provoke a penalty or deflection. I don't usually remember the US play like this at home, even against Brazil when they've shown up for a friendly, and I hope it is not how they intend to play their WCQ games. In that sense, it does look like they still have a ways to go to get back to a more dominating posession, multi-goal, game that they had some years ago. Anyway, I think it was a good result for both teams. each team kind of got what they wanted. The US needed to respond after their loss to Colombia. They needed to be very serious and, since they are a rebuilding team, work together in defense, and I think they accomplished that. Peru needed to give minutes to their substitutes to see how well they can replace the starters. They also made full advantage of having the subs play against a team that bunkered, as those are the toughest games to play. I think everybody comes out of this game satisfied.
Delgado occasionally hits a nice pass, and I mean very nice. Like some gorgeous outlet right speed to feet. And then he hits two duds. IMO in this sort of game the ability to do something of that quality should earn you a return visit with the other players who do nice things. This game should be more about do you do something nice. And then we bring back the ones who showed something -- as opposed to anonymously churned away like say Trapp -- and then there should be more emphasis on how much you contribute, mistake limitation, who should start, who can help as bench, who constantly screws up despite a spark here or there. Also, this schedule is basically designed to expose more than it shows. This is a notch or two up from CONCACAF. The one thing I wish is this game was at the end of the sorting process rather than smack in the middle. These are World Cup teams we are playing without a system or gelling. There is a baby with bathwater risk in the urge to toss out players who were a mixed bag but had rough moments, particularly with the coachable players. To me the only ones who should disappear are the ones who looked out of their depth. Sweat looked out of his depth. Horvath a few games back. The others, you do a a sort of iterative sorting. OK, Steffen and Pulisic and Weah start. OK, Amon and CCV and Robinson and others looked decent one game. OK, can they do it twice. Do we figure out Robinson can't defend. OK, can we use him some other way? Yes, good. No, go in the pile with Horvath. On Bradley, I can think of the role they are grooming him for but he just played it last night and didn't do a thing. We need to get away from the pecking order and objectively see if people fulfill their roles. i don't care if you are Mike Bradley and in theory you could be a "closer," if you hand the ball over when you're subbed in, you're not the composed veteran hand we thought we had.
Meh, been down this road before. We'll have to bring up freeze frames, argue tactics, etc, etc. It's one play by a debuting 18 year old. I just don't think he saw Weah earlier than when he passed. Yeah, he should have his head on a swivel, blah, blah. We just aren't all Josh Sargent. I'm not really sure that Weah's debut was much better and look how good he is now. Did we see those passes in his first game? By the way, shocking to see Acosta use the outside of his left foot to shoot from Weah's pass. Now that should have been with the right.
I haven't said anything about Amon's quality or his choice of foot to make the pass - just that this one pass should've been one touch sooner. I don't need freeze frames to know that.
no, but this was the first time this combination of players have played together in an actual game. The coach mentioned he was pleased that the style of play remained intact despite the changes. Also, a couple of players made their debut on this particular team (the RB johan madrid, and DF Alexander Callens). In some ways, I wonder if the peru coach lined up the team knowing it would result in an even match....or maybe I'm just giving him too much credit, lol!
I think you have it backwards, because the bleeding tends to slacken when we are making the other team busy. It's counter-intuitive, but if you bunker too hard you can't outlet and possess the ball to build up the other way. We're not just arrayed defensively but running out DMs in the center. With 1 forward. It gets hard to get the ball upfield sustained. You sub in one more attacking force and we magically look better. We can possess. We can create chances. We start spending time on their end. If the attacking mid does his job chasing also, he roughly does the defensive job of these mediocre 8s we are trying, and he has the attacking upside. I also think people are talking generalities when it needs to be specific. Who is going to do the job at 6 or in the backline to justify bunkering and crippling a strong offense? Few years back the Dynamo did this when it was a bad team. What in reality happened is we lost our proven ability to have some 3-5 goal nights, in favor of 1 goal tops by system, in exchange for trying to bunker when the defense was a sieve. I know bunkering can be a tactical reflex but to me you need the personnel to do it. if you don't have them but you have attackers you should really tilt the other way for at least 30-45 minutes of the game, give the other team hell and see if you can swipe a couple. I realize these are friendlies affected by subs but how many results has Sarachan lost late in his attempts at controlled 90 minute conservatism.
Not a fan of Trapp, but it'd be wrong not to recognize this was one of his better games. When you put a guy as the #6 in a 4-1-4-1, don't expect him to have much in the way of creative duties.
It's the expectations trap. He'll do OK I just think that there may be better options even in MLS. Heck, I can see Zardes taking his spot.
People have asked why I think Sarachan is playing for results. I think the sneaky thing he is trying to do is start the younger players and then finish with closer to his idea of the lineup. In his mind the team on the field should improve as the other team is subbing off good players. Which in theory gets your result. The thing is he has the team mis-evaluated, kids are better than veterans, and so Yedlin in for Cannon is a step back. Ditto Bradley for anyone. But he thinks he's putting the game 1 starters in to close out the game 2 victory. I am telling you right now. Klinsi used to do the same thing for friendlies sometimes, sub in the better players at the end. it works in practice if they are in fact the better players. I don't think we owe the kids confidence in the sense they all play 90 to close out their win. But to me I thought of it as part of a win at all costs mentality when the time would be better used on trying new players. If the starter is only playing 30 in the second game of a pair of friendlies I don't see the big value in it. What is this for, chemistry? For a cameo? It's really more about pumping the win count up. I think fans who watch the games for wins like it. I think fans who are thinking, but should we be looking at more new ideas at a, b, c, d, different story. And last night Dave had the starter vs bench mis-diagnosed enough -- again -- that he handed away the win late. As he did to France, Ireland, etc.
When the play starts you can see that Delgado is outside of Yedlin marking the goal scorer. You can see Yedlin look over to Delgado as if to say you got him right! Yedlin is swiveling between the ball and Reyna. Immediately after the goal Yedlin is screaming at Delgado. It was Delgado's mark that scored. See 2:45 of the highlights.
It's very obvious from the video that Marky stayed marking Yordy, the #26 in Peru. Had Yedlin done his job and covered the shot, Flores was going to make the pass to Yordy who'd have been completely alone to shoot. That's why Delgado moved to cover him. Yedlin should have paid attention.
Yedlin never sees the man so WTF does he know whose it is? It's after the fact unaccountability. I was too busy ball watching and facing my own end line to know the man was even there, but now that I see him (putting the ball in the net), it was yours. Pfft. Also, if Yedlin is unmarked and a mid loses their mark that runs up Yedlin's channel, what is the switch off? Exactly. It is Delgado's problem but if the defender also loses the runner the mid lost it's kind of both their problems. All he has to do to end that play is either step to the ball instead of lazily assuming it rolls off the endline, or body up on the man. Either way, done.
You have gone back too far in the play. By the time the ball is being played, Yedlin is standing along in space, covering NO ONE. And as the right back with the ball on the other side of the goal, the right back ... YEDLIN ... is to be covering runs to the back post. Marky is not supposed to be following a single player around to every area on the field. In fact, Marky had stayed closer to the top of the box than Yedlin was, to cover the cut-back pass TO Reyna, who was outside the box. The notion that Yedlin's man was Reyna, and that he was marking him at the time of the goal is laughable.
Yedlin has Reyna. Delgado had Flores and left him. You can scream all you want. Scuffed, Total Soccer Show, all see the same thing. Delgado drifts away and leaves Flores open. Delgado was not supposed to follow every player on the field. But he was supposed to follow Flores. It is you that wants the outside mid to cover someone dead center at the top of the box. All game the outside mids had been covering the widest attacking player. Delgado just drifts to his natural position. Look at Sweat on the play. He also has no one because Weah is suppose to have the widest player. Sweat should have probably done something. But long ago in the match he decided to do as little as possible. Delgado looks at Flores 3 times. Why would he be so preoccupied with a player he is not marking? There was obviously some confusion on the play. Tired legs and mind for one player and another that probably didn't think he was going to play. Again, who cares?!? I doubt Delgado will be a wide mid covering back posts runs with the new coach. Giving up that goal in garbage time does not change how the team fundamentally played until the first sub.
I can see that. Still, if it's Conrad, it's obviously all going to be 2nd hand. Shirley you must be joking here. How in the hell could they be similar? Is that based on what Conrad told you? Or something else?
I'm not All sounds sort of weak to me. The team was fractured and this type of stuff is what runs around once that happens. Probably the biggest loss towards team unity was when Bocanegra left. After that nobody had the right combination of bridge building and talent to unite the team. Cameron, Jones, Bradley, Dempsey are all highly talented but somewhat difficult guys.
Maybe we would have had more attack if we'd put in an extra cb like Parker to clean up that left side where the Peruvians were massing against Ben Sweat getting his first start. If you go to the opta stats it is rather clear to see that Trapp and Acosta both had to get deep into the wide left defensive third area to help out which meant Delgado had to move into Trapp's position centrally and counters out of such a deep position with no mids in midfield means no counter. With a 3rd cb we would have pulled Amon and used Acosta in his place. Having said that, Amon actually had the two best chance creations.