PBP: 2017 Nike International Friendlies, US vs. the Netherlands, 12/1, 7 PM EST

#Sunilout

 

Welp, back to the drawing board.

What a horrible selection.

 

Perez and Lopez were good. Perez is the 10 on this team. Serrano is good on the ball but weak. Busio is not good enough.

 

Fuentes to Ocampo-Chavez, I don't know why this announcer can't get their names right.

 

Fuentes-Perez.

 

I'm aware, I've just never seen him referred to anywhere as "Perez", its as if this announcer doesn't have any clue who these players are, and is just reading off a sheet he was given, which is probably what it is.

 

I'm not sure about Bello. He is big and fast but in this game he didn't offer much in the attack and left the left side of our defense exposed. Busio did a decent job of covering for him but that was about all he did that was good.

 

Same second half problems as the first, no possession, no creativity.

 

#18, what the ******** is it that you think you are doing?

#6, I liked how you yelled and got demonstrative when none of your teammates were providing outlets on restarts.

Hackworth, good job teaching this team how to run sharp post and go routes, lots of deep threats.

 

What are you talking about?

 

US loves to select hassle players. But they have absolutely no clue about how to play soccer.

You want your defenders who can read the game, read the opponents, and anticipate the next 2-3 plays - they can’t even anticipate anything! They get fooled completely by any feint or cut.
You want your attacking players to be creative and deceptive, not make all the obvious moves or passes. You don’t want them to only play one v one or worse one v many.

At minimum, your national players should have decent techniques. Nooo, They all strike the ball like amateurs - as ugly as how Lonzo Ball shoots the ball. Passing technique is so poor (no accuracy, very slow in delivery, very obvious), heavy first touch

 

Soccer is an art.

So You want to find artists! Not plumbers or welders (nothing against them, they are doing important jobs).

Artists who are not creative are handyman or at best craftsman.

A person can never be a great artist if he doesn’t have great techniques. It doesn’t matter how creative he is and how many great ideas he has.

Many US Soccer people think techniques are tricks and hot dog moves. They especially love those players who can bully bad players.

US Soccer loves to select players who are athletic and physical and aggressive, but they have no ideas nor techniques.

 

3 friendlies in a week Ok, send out the B team. Really, it looked a lot like the A team. A midfielder gets wrong side around the half way line, the opponent dribbles by, finds a team mate wide open at the top of the box.

The only difference between this game and the last is the the USA GK had a nightmare. Both the first and third goals were laughable gaffs. Hopefully, the kid can bounce back and continue on; not with this team anytime soon. The other problem was the USA defenders were incredibly passive. There were times when a Dutch player was just standing on the ball at the top of the penalty area and every US defender was off 5 yards doing nothing. Comic book quality defensive organization.

Same midfield problem as always, Hopefully, there is a Jonathan Gonzales that is left of this team to play a Zelalem-type player at #6. Hard to tell how much is poor player quality because all of Hackworths teams lack the ability or desire to play through the center.

Las is unbelievably aggressive. Maybe it was the score; but he came off his line a few times when he shouldn't have. Strange times too. His distribution was again terrible (so was the first guys).

After the wholesale subs there was one nice 10 pass sequence that ended up with a good headed shot and a good save. Other than that, the USA could not possess, did not press well, did not turn Holland over, didn't defend as a team, could not win a 1 v 1 battle anywhere.

Bello looked good again, definitely a stand out, but was trying to hard to do it all many times. Fuenez-Perez only other player that can keep the ball under pressure. Busio makes good runs, gets into dangerous positions, hasn't done much with it. Kind of like Bobby Wood around 2015.

Chavez had a nice finish on an offside play against England. Picked out the far corner on his finish in this game. If you can get him the ball, he can shoot. Can't seem to make space for himself.

You wonder if Hackworth took time off after the U17WC and didn't really put much prep into this roster or friendlies at all.

 

I only saw the first and the first 5 minutes of the second. Was Bello involved(reponsible) for the 5th goal?

 

Bello got up the field a few times and did nothing but give the ball away a couple of times, Busio had to cover for him at the left back position.

 

Is this the worst performance we've seen thus far by a US team at the Nike Friendlies? I've only been paying attention for a bit, maybe since 2011 or thereabouts but I cannot recall our side being thoroughly embarrassed in every game like this before. We've basically gotten grabbed by our collars and against our will been dunked in a garbage can along the sideline by our opponents in back to back games. I've never seen anything like this at these friendlies before.

It's how they play of course, not just the scoreline, but there's no solace there either. Again it just puts the lie to a gigantic pile of horse manure that is the argument Arena made that we aren't missing anybody. That we are locating all the talent. I can't say what I think of that, other than a word that's beyond inappropriate. Gotta move on from these guys and rebuild the selection process. As mentioned before, if the U-17 team this past year had no Californians, you know the system is flat out broken. Not saying there isn't talent everywhere. No doubt there is all over the country, but California was, is, and will always be a machine when it comes to generating soccer talent, and if you're telling me that kids born in 2000/2001/2002 in Cali couldn't cut it, I'm calling cattle poop on that.

Depressing. Hopefully the academies are digging up kids that Hackworth and friends aren't noticing as yet, as this is just beyond unacceptable.

 

They were awful two years ago, it was Carleton+10. I don't know if they are worse now or two years ago. I tend to think the '02 and '03 groups have some talent though, just not with this roster.

As I've mentioned with the California complaints, Llanez was the team's 22nd player, no one got injured before the tournament, so he didn't make the team. The biggest CB omission was probably Arteaga, somehow he was left off, didn't make sense to me. The 2nd biggest CB ommision was probably Araujo, I thought he should've made the team. It was weird that Holcomb got no call ups, Bailey, Hernandez, I'm probably forgetting a few players right now from California. The group of players from California from those years was fine, every state, region, team gets omitted from these rosters from time to time. People made way too big of a deal about that.

 

He looked fine skill wise and had a nice 1v1 moment in transition with space to move into but far to often he just did things with no understanding of the likely consequences or the next move. The Dutch players out positioned, and thought him as a group. He did not use or understand his teammates well enough. Forced into mistakes in bad spots/tactical situations. You know, that kind of stuff.

 

The Nike friendlies two years ago we lost to England 3-2, Beat Netherlands 2-1 and then lost to Brazil 3-0. As the cycle developed there were many players that either dropped out of the picture (Will Sands) or oppositely rose to more prominence (Josh Sargent) and I expect that to happen this cycle as well. Wonder how better this team would look if Reyna and Nyeman were on the roster (assuming Hackworth rates Nyeman)

 

There was a "comical" moment when two Americans tracked a checking attacker, he received the ball between them, and he simply turned upfield, leaving them in his dust. They barely closed the horizontal space, it seemed like each expected the other to actually close down and challenge the man on the ball.

The rotations/closing down was somewhere between tentative and late. The support to play the ball through midfield was nonexistent. Our pattern of play was either go long, lose it trying to build, or get into midfield and then get swarmed with no options and concede a counter. If I had been there in person I would have lost it.

 

Glad the youtube thumbnail spoiled the score. Only needed to see the ridiculous gk f up to be convinced not to watch

 

Lopez did better than Chavez did, even though he didn't score. The players that have looked good with the U17s are Las, Bello, Alejandre, Atencio, Gaines, Fuentes-Perez and Lopez.

 

It's not surprising because look at the coaching staff of our YNT program, still US Soccer's old friends club members dominate. Hackworth, entering the YNT program's core staff team since 2002, and except an unsuccessful MLS coaching experience, he always worked for U17 YNT. He and Richie Williams, nearly took in charge of U17 MNT for 80% time since U-17 Residency Program is founded.

When Richie Williams was fired of U17 MNT head coach after two pathetic cycles, I expected there should be some significant changes, maybe they would adopt some people with different background or ideas, but when "veteran" Hackworth was hired, I know this time it wouldn't. He is that old coach of old US Soccer. By the way, Richie Williams was even called into the assistant coach role of US MNT by Arena.

Meanwhile, I don't understand why someone like Hugo Perez was kicked out of our YNT program, maybe some day he will tell what happened.

I just hope, since MLS teams launched their own academies, and the path from academies to first team is totally open, US Soccer can adopt a more reasonable criteria to pick up coaches: choose someone who are proven that can develop decent players for MLS first teams or for Euro clubs.

 

Watched the first 15 minutes, didn't like what I was seeing and decided to check BigSoccer before committing any more time. Thanks for saving me 75 minutes guys!

My long-held hypothesis has been that we should be gradually getting better due to increased investment and improved organization at the youth levels. The last few years have looked promising, and I'll be watching to see if we can show consistent improvement over the coming cycles.

So far, not a good start to this cycle and it's a bit depressing watching players that don't look like they've been taught well. It goes back to what everyone always says about the coaching just not being good enough. US Soccer really needs to triple down (double's not good enough) on training and/or importing better coaches or it's going to be tough to realize our potential. And I know I'm preaching to the choir, but USNYT coaching positions need to be a meritocracy and not a retread of the same old limited options.

Still, it's early so I'm going to hope that the player selection was poor and that there are some better options out there.

 

If the USSF were a serious federation, they'd be firing all of these coaches.

They just plain suck at coaching.

This federation is an embarrassment. Why can't they all just do the honorable thing and resign?