Nations League A, Camp 1, Cuba/Canada, Oct. 11/15

No it’s not but it’s the best 3G can seem to put out there.

Not completely meaningless but yes against Cuba it is and the youth on home solid should have no issue dismantling them.

 

Unlikely

 

i was joking via text w friends just now that sarge and pulisic may have to pick up the ball behind at least 2 central midfielders tonight than they get balls from those cms.

 

Really, does anyone take the NL games seriously?

Somewhat glorified friendlies.

 

id say exactly as seriously as all star games when the winner gets homefield advantage in the world series. there technically ARE stakes, but to really effect us wed have to consistently be somehow worse than klinsmann playing guys out of position in steve sampsons 3-6-1 from a roster berhalter picked.

 

I get the feeling the fix is in on Cannon as far as getting p.t. so he can get visa/contract abroad. His game is defensive and this would have been a good opportunity to see Lima in action taking baby steps.

Also I would have played Arriola or Ream at lb instead of Lovitz and put another cb back there instead of Ream. What do we learn from having Lovitz go 90?

 

good thing we have all these young players to cap on the bench to play cuba

 

So, against a bad Cuba we had a really good first half to follow it up with a slow second half. McKennie, Yueill and Morris had remarkable tempo in that first half. Nice to see but can't really take away anything when playing against Cuba.

 

It was direct from the mouth of the horse's ass.

 

Human centi-horse?

 

I think Cannon and Ream had good games too... but it is indeed hard to give a ton of credit against that opponent. What I will say is that Pulisic was underwhelming... giving the ball away several times. I am a huge fan but it was not a great showing. All the subs were pretty poor... Not a single earned goal (aside from the penalty) against that side? It does not make me feel great at all. Lastly, I am very upset that Sargent missed that last break-away opp... that is what a true number 9 needs to put away.... he had one blocked in the Bundisliga this past weekend too. I love his connection plays but he always seems to just miss his opportunities. At least he put one away. In short, the 1st half had me geeked and the 2nd half had me shaking my head. Pathetic way to finish the game.

 

Well, that was the throwaway game. Canada, in Toronto, will be much tougher. Canada now has some legitimate weapons. They still have to prove that they're in the upper echelon of Concacaf teams, but they're gradually heading in that direction.

 

Agree. But 7-0 with 6-0 at half is still pretty nice.

 

I didn't see the game and just watched the highlights when I got home, but I don't have a problem with them easing the pace in the 2nd half. They have a much tougher game in 4 days. Is it worth it to win 10-0 if it means guys have extra fatigue or pick up an injury?

And I would remind people that the biggest margin of victory ever for the USMNT is still that 8-0 game against Barbados in 2008. So, putting up 7 goals on anyone, even Cuba at home, is still pretty good by our historical standards.

 

For Canada it's a bigger game, since they need at least one win vs. the USA to keep their hopes of making the Hex alive.

 

I'd say we can take certain negative things away. It looked like all of our field players were about five steps above Cuba, except Lovitz who nearly always played backwards or errantly forward and still had nearly all his crosses blocked. If not for the Cuban defender momentarily deciding to try out as a DB for the Redskins, the earned pk would have been blocked as well.

I'll also say this. If we continue playing our glorified 4-1-4-1, I think Morris has joined Pulisic and McKennie as a lock-starter in that line for the time being. I'd really like to see Weah as the fourth member of that line at some point.

Major negative was also Stu Holden's five-minute disgusting propaganda piece on MB90. I just assume he will be fired by SUM if he doesn't verbally praise him excessively and absurdly for a certain number of minutes per game.

I was fully prepared to hate Yuell for being the new Trapp but I actually like him. He's bigger than Trapp and more athletic than Trapp and Bradley combined (though I still wouldn't call that a strength of his) AND he's a much more adventurous passer. I'd like to see more of him in a hostile game.

Lastly, Tim Ream is simply excellent as a LCB. He needs to play there anytime Brooks is out, which is always.

 

it's a semantics parse posing as an argument. the academy players who sign out directly do not earn a transfer fee. they might earn one of the new training-type fees youth teams can get. so you can argue "you're not getting fees for young players" and it might have some literal truth but one of the academicians we didn't "sell" who left as a teenager had the fastest hat trick in team history TONIGHT, so it sounds like a pretty fake argument.

the argument also has a basic chronological flaw. a player who leaves at 18 will sign abroad and not start here. a player who starts here at 18 probably stays 2 years before they leave. by definition they are 20. he would then beef "who have you sold under 20" players like freddy adu who sign here at 14 and burn 4 years of tenure before leaving at 18 will be highly exceptional. you can expect most players who bother to sign here will make their 20s before a transfer. i would think if they left earlier than that it would be on loan and not sale.

i could also see us holding onto players until u20 worlds to miaximize value.

 

prior to the subs they were good around the perimeter except LB and then not very good in the midfield. mckennie was good playing almost as a forward but the two reasons that game ground to a halt were the mids couldn't create and the subs dropped off in quality. boyd continues to strike me as ineffective and as crisp as pulisic was, arriola was sloppy.

i know people liked mckennie in on net but where was he in the midfield??

3 of the first 4 goals were basically that same right side play over and over they had scouted due to cuba's narrow defense. that was not improv, that was design/scouting. i say that because how many goals did we create on the fly that weren't scouted and packaged to the players.

once we couldn't go to that well offense dried up because the mids weren't doing much combo work and creating. to me occasionally hitting a home run ball over the top is not the same thing as the hard work of constantly being on the ball moving the ball around looking for openings. that is what we have confused on this whole MB thing. yueill is the same thing in another package. i want to see something more like that trick flick mckennie did but facing the goal. throughball to a man making a run. you know, normal team stuff. just about everything was beat them down the line and cross. morris and cannon were more creative than the mids that way.

lovitz couldn't quite handle cuba. cuba is the worst team we have played this year. why is he here QED.

GB will swap some "starters" in (zardes, arriola, long, zimmerman, yedlin, etc.) and i'm not sure it will be a better team in sum than what he started tonight as an A/B hybrid, because he will probably yank good players to do it.

 

Tim Ream is in the form of his life, not only two games in a row where he's looked good with the NT, but five games in a row with Fulham where he's looked very good.

 

ream is composed and plays smart soccer, and is to me basically what people THINK brooks is. the problem is when we play a team like canada or some other foot speed team can he stay with the play. to be fair, only cannon of this bunch could keep up. against a bad team you can look brilliant. against a fast team he gets exposed as an athlete. big picture he's not your regular guy. outside of the box you would need to pick your matchups.

 

to the people talking down cannon based on opposition it hasn't been just this game or have people forgotten how he got the job???

let's be real, though, he played tonight so yedlin could disappoint against canada. kind of like sargent tonight so zardes next week. or yueill tonight so bradley next week. he has so much of this literally backwards.

i am amused at people talking him down as defensive after how THE FIRST FOUR GOALS FREAKING WENT. he only either made the cross or played the crosser into space behind the defense over and over.

 

they need someone who can hit a deadball, badly. corners, crap. free kicks, crap. we have people who could head them in with service.