He did the layoffs on purpose. He played a nice ball to Boyd that he shot wide of goal and at least another one to CP. I'm not even going to count the one to Boyd where there was a defender closing down. In what world is a guy useless when he makes multiple gold plated chances for his mates?
I think I get to watch him some more tonight. Hopefully he will be more in sync with his teammates after more practices with them. After that I will have a better idea if 16 year old Pepi is currently better than Zardes.
Too much has been said for that. He does not deserve to be starting because of his play. His ability in recent games to score total fluke goals should not prevent another player from taking his spot.
I can agree that first half Zardes wasn't as bad as people proclaimed. Second half I don't think you can excuse his play. [puts on flame suit] So ummmm, what exactly did Sargent look like in camp to lose a starting spot to that guy? [awaits flames]
No, he did not. Watch again. He is not making layoffs, he is trying to control the ball. I'll bet you think Zardes' miss-control that went into the net was a shot too, huh?
You could have just said "we won our duels and when you do that you win..." except we didn't win our duels.
There's the Mendoza Line... ...the Ralston Line... ...Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...the Arriola Line! (So let it be written...so let it be done...)
I'm not just picking on you, there's a lot of people that have said this, but it never happens. I'm not gonna go World Cup by World Cup, but from memory, I'm not sure we've ever been able to field our best team, due to injuries, either before or during the World Cup, for about the last 5 World Cups we've attended... And I suspect the same was true during some qualifying games. It seems simplistic, but you need to be deep enough to overcome some injuries.
He had more and better cross-field switches than Michael Bradley. A fact that illustrates both how good Boyd is, and how awful Michael Bradley is.
I don't know how you can consider those miscontrols layoffs. I think everyone accepts that if we had a better team, Zardes would be a useful player, but we can't afford to carry around a passenger who contributes by comedic accident.
This could have been said about Beasley and Hedjuk. The good news is they both improved considerably, maybe he will too.
When the guy who scores by accident ends up scoring more than anyone else, what choice do we have but to play him?
IIRC Brian Ching scored one with his ass in the early rounds of the Gold Cup the last time we won an "A" tournament. I feel like you're required to score at least one completely stupid goal as a CONCACAF rule.
I just saw the one to Boyd on the Boyd highlight video. Zardes miscontrols at about 46 seconds but had the compusure to settle and make the layoff. It was on purpose. 1141205502422134784 is not a valid tweet id
I'm not even defending the guy! I'm objecting to the memory holing of multiple good plays. Here at 35 seconds. He actually had a good touch for a change and rolled into CP's path. I think this was a terrible miss. One-on-one with the goalie and meh.
You've proven one. I forgot that Boyd miss, which was basically a hopeful shot, because there were so many bodies in the box. Otherwise, immediately after that highlight, Zardes bungles another chance. Right on cue. His goal was luck, and not based on his positioning, so that's not a positive. Right now, it's 1 positive contribution (that anyone with legs could've done), and a bunch of negatives. How many does he need before he has a bad game? 10 bad plays? 20? Let me put this another way: If we saw an all-touch video of Zardes for this game, does he look good, or bad?
I added the CP one above. I think he was bad I'm just saying, give the devil his due. He could have easily walked away with an accidental goal and two intentional assists. There are no pictures in the box score! I would've called a lot of guys before Zardes, I literally loled at both balls he touched into the goal.
He had cinder blocks for feet just 3-4 years ago so he's improved a ton. The question is where's the ceiling? I think we're watching it and as funny as it is, it's not going to make the USMNT better.
this is not complicated, we spent a lot of the first half trying to find him with crosses and it didn't much work. when we did find him on purpose -- ie not the goal -- he would basically freeze up, not turn and take on his man, not turn and reflex shoot, not back heel the ball even when feet from the net -- roll the ball out, and say you take it. no goals came from that. worth noting one subtle thing he didn't do was play the roll out at an angle, or otherwise lead/help the runner. ball straight back to feet is basically a reset. we instead found abundant joy from skipping the striker for a diagonal ball to the wing forwards. wing forward would call his own number instead of cut it back to gyasi. 3 goals. at which point i am like if you have any of wood jozy sargent or even pulisic, about another 3-4 goals. jozy and sargent might get on the end of some crosses and all 4 would be more creative. it would also help if we had better AMs to drop the ball off to.
You're kidding, right? He turned to shoot, fell over, and the shot trickled off a defender to CP. There's just no way you could watch that play and say he meant to pass there. Are you related to him by chance?
Sorry that is rubbish. I was about to offer that as a lousy play. The first runner is wide open, nope. I think he is falling over and actually trying to shoot when he hits it to the second runner. I think it's as purposeful as the goal. I think what he did on purpose was the roll-outs when he had the ball back to goal in the box, when I would like to see more creativity -- backheels, ball at an angle, turn and face, turn and shoot. I wish he tried to feed runners at an angle like that. I mean on one play he is sitting inside the 6 and can do nothing more than shield and pass back out! You're trying to suggest he does pick and roll when my impression was he would just toss the ball back out to the point guard, and the one good pass is him actually shooting the ball in the direction of the corner flag. Among other things, it is usually not confidence inducing when a target man is absorbed for seconds with basic ball holding and shielding as opposed to giving it back up. That to me screams lack of confidence, lack of skills, lack of ideas. Go watch Sunday league someplace. It's a step above starting to dribble back towards the mids, which is when you're even more stumbly and bereft of ideas.
Zardes is looking, CP is calling for the ball to his feet dressed in a bright red suit. There's a fair chance he meant to pass to the best player on the team, running towards him unmarked.