PBP: 2017 Nike International Friendlies, US vs. England, 11/29, 7 PM EST

When I wrote that we were dominating possession and had the ball in the attacking third a few times.

I though Saldana basically ran in a circle the entire half not doing anything. I thought Chavez basically did the same thing but in the attacking third. Hagan has been bad. Scally has looked great on the ball and horrible on defense.

I think stroud has actually been pretty good. Fuentes has been really good. Busio and bello have been good but generally not involved enough. Think I agree with USSoccer that this team will have trouble scoring, tho put Reyna in for Hagan and there may be some more opportunities

 

Not good start to 2nd half. Too many simple mistakes, England controlling play, just kicking ball long out of bounds.

 

I don't think we have to worry that we're just "out-athleting" people this tournament.

 

England is kicking our asses out athleting us. We are making too many physical mistakes and making some simple soccer mistakes.
Just complete a pass please. Las is a good GK but has to work on his distribution. Not good with his feet.

 

Why did Hackworth just take out the best player on the team in this game

 

How long do I have to wait? 80+ mins in I'd be surprised if we score a goal in this tournament from the run of play unless the Netherlands suck. Which attacking players look like anything special to you?

 

We got alot worse as the game went on. Just simple passes were wanting.
The two best I "saw" were Max Goeggel and Gio Reyna. And Jack Imperato, Josh Pynadath, and Malik Tillman. And Efrain Alvarez.

 

Non-existent midfield and attack. Defense was very good, especially our keeper who kept England from scoring like 4 or 5. Call in new midfielders and strikers.

Las, Scally, Judge, Alejandre, Bello are quality. Saldana is close to okay (I've seen him play better), Atencio is okay. Haven't seen enough of Serrano to comment. Busio is okay, Ocampo-Chavez is quality. Sealy is not ready for this level, but is one of the better '03 prospects. The rest (who played in this match) might very well might be early cycle roster fodder who don't get called back later on.

There are no Pulisic's, Carleton's, Wright's, Perez's in this group of players called in who can really make a big impact this cycle in the attack, but we do have a lot of good players at the other end of the field. Maybe some of these midfielders (because they are really a bigger problem than the attack) and attackers emerge later (like Sargent did, McKennie). I'd like to see Pynadath called up, I'd like to see Redzic called up, Nyeman has to be called up when he's fit again, maybe Sarver, Omidiji, try to get Alvarez back in the fold. Only my opinion of course.

 

Fwiw, the u17 team in 2015 lost 2 of 3 in the Nike friendlies. So yes, 80 minutes is still too soon to judge

 

Could not disagree more. Judge and Scally are both really good when they go forward but I haven’t seen anything that makes me think either is good defensively. Alejandre made some huge mistakes in tackling and marking, too.

Las was unbelievable but any time your keeper is making that many saves, there are plenty of mistakes to go around. Judge made at least 4 mistakes that I saw that should have been goals. Alejandre made at least 2. Lots of room for improvement

 

I think you have to grade the defenders on a scale. There is no midfield, these midfielders are really bad, the games I've watched this group against a non-minnow team the midfield gets completely run over every game. They always end up playing behind the ball for most of the game because there is not someone in there who can win the ball and hold it. Often when we have the ball (which isn't much with this age group), the midfield will make a turnover in a bad area that leads to emergency defending. I'm very surprised they can't find 3 or 4 better midfielders in this whole country, there must be a few who can play. I think this is all very fixable, just not with this particular group of players, some of these guys need to be phased out, many of the same players who struggled when this was considered the U-15's.

I get they are young and all that, but this is not a club team that develops these players, the NT is based on merit. I want to see more roster turnover the next tournament this group plays, this was all too predictable coming into this tournament. I trust Hackworth will do that though, he revamped the last group that looked even worse than this group after the first Nike Friendlies they played.

 

I get your point about the midfielders, but all of the mistakes I was talking about were at times when the defender was in a situation where he should have been able to make a play and didn’t. That doesn’t have anything to do with the midfield.

And while we are at it, it’s not just the midfield. Too often, the wingers and attackers are giving the ball away in the middle third or at the edge of the attacking area when everyone is getting forward and there aren’t enough numbers back to defend the counter.

Really, this team just isn’t good enough to play a 4-3-3. Not sure what they should play because the attackers aren’t good enough to create goals by themselves and the midfield doesn’t win possession enough.

 

Not impressed with Busio. Too many giveaways and no creativity. I think #7 Perez is the most talented offensive player on the team.

 

Regarding the midfield, Fuentes Perez was very good advancing the ball in the attack. Busio was active but not very effective. The wings did not provide much in terms of options in the attack. The outside backs were okay getting forward, but did our overall possession was not good enough for them to really get involved. The other midfielders were overrun and as England gained more control, Fuentes' influence faded. Then, of course, he cramped and was taken off.

Nevertheless, this kid looks like a great prospect and a really fun player to watch at the very least. Las was spectacular, too. No doubt, this was dominant performance from England -- lets not forget that they seem to have taken over the mantle as the best youth program in the world. A hard fought 0-1 game at the beginning of a cycle is not anything close to the end of the world.

 

Do we play this Frantic Hackworth style because we can't possess the ball? Or do we look frantic because we can't string three passes together? It is the same with all the youth teams, men and women. This get the ball, move it forward as quickly as possible. We haven't seen it work against well organized teams in any tournament. Seems to be good against non-European teams. We will see against Brazil.

Las was excellent and was very animated.

Another Hackworth/Ramos thing is to be out numbered in the midfield. Just an American coach thing in general. I wish we could try some different coaching and some modern formations. Our midfield was over run much of the game. Stroud's first instinct every time is to go to ground and lunge. It was too easy to England to beat their man 1 v 1 and find an open teammate in Zone 14. Only Las kept the score close.

Fuentes Perez was a calming influence and the one midfielder able to turn with the ball and get it to a forward. I was impressed with him.

Bello has to work on his first touch, but does have technical skill with the ball at his feet. He looked unused to not being able to kick the ball downfield and simply out race his marker to it. Very Yedlin 2013-esque. He has all the things you can't teach, so I can see why people are excited.

Scally looked a step slow mentally and physically.

Perez was uninspiring. Busio is explosive but very raw. I'd actually just put Busio up top and add another midfielder and drop Perez. But, I guess an American coach can't play with one forward.

Bello, Judge, Las, Fuentes Perez stood out as players.

None of the substitutes seemed to be any good.

 

Thank you to US Soccer for putting these games out there to be streamed. The announcer was very good.

However, I spent the whole time wishing the camera would pan back. Why is it so tight? This is soccer; there should never be only 1 or 2 players in a shot. Was hard to tell what was going on. Any long pass sent the camera spinning because they were so tight and had to pan and zoom out. Dizzying.

There was a sequence where they ran two replays of a save while England were taking shots in the box live.

 

This is an issue with all games shown in the US. American producers do not realize that the key is to see the entire play and the players in relation to each other, not just the player with the ball. They need to show the flow of the game without worrying about closeups of the action. Much better to pan out and let us see more of the action on a bigger screen than to keep going left-right-left-right...

 

I just finished watching the replay of the game and wanted to give my thoughts:

Damian Las is as good as advertised. Sure, he has room to improve on his distribution, but he's very young and a couple of the saves he made last night were, in fact, world class.

Bello and Scally were good going forward. Both could use some work on defending better, but again they're young.

Peter Stroud is active, but he goes to ground too early and often, but otherwise was solid. Saldana was ineffective in my book. He chased the game, was rarely in a position to link the defense with the attackers and as a #8 you'd want to see more of that.

Cade Hagan seemed to be a bit off the pace along with Dante Sealy and Ray Serrano when they came on. I was impressed with Gilbert Fuentes, but I would like to see him more of a #10. Busio looks like he could be dangerous, but as a striker or winger at least while Reyna is out.

I hope Hackworth changes the lineup against the Netherlands. A lineup I would like to see:

Las
Scally - Judge - Alejandre - Bello
Busio - Stroud (as a #6) - Atencio (as a #8) - Fuentes (as a #10) - Gaines
Ocampo-Chavez

I think Gaines offers more as a winger than Hagan does and Atencio is a better box-to-box midfielder than Saldana. Living in the Pacific Northwest I have seen him several times including Man of the Match honors against Manchester City and Tottenham. He's intelligent, has great vision and a passing range that Saldana doesn't offer. When given the keys to the team he can control the tempo of a game like he does with the Sounders.

 

I was mostly skipping through the game, but I agree with the general assessments praising Fuentes and Busio. It was my first time really watching this group in a long time, and I do really like Busio, and just from the looks of him he is going to be an incredible athlete with a lot of technical ability for his position.

Also, Las should be on the Donnarumma schedule. That dude could start for Chicago next year.

 

I think we have to keep in mind how much roster turnover there will be.

Of the 20 on the Nike Friendlies roster in 2015, only 12 made it back to the U-20 WC. And of the starters in the first game of the last cycle (the first game against England at the 2015 Nike Friendlies), only 4 started the last game of the cycle.

 

I agree that Las looks like he could be ready to play at least a handful of games for Chicago next year. Even on plays that didn't count he made some crazy saves.

 

That's one too many.

 

Are you saying one too many game reports or one too many players on the field? Sorry, I wasn't able to watch the game until this morning so that is the reason for a late report, but if you're referring to the number of players there are only 11 players that I've listed, I probably shouldn't have used hyphens to separate players when Alfonso Ocampo-Chavez uses a hyphen in his name.