There is a kick off strategy where you float a ball toward the sideline and a midfielder (Sometimes a forward or an outside defender) heads that ball back to the center or further down the line. It then becomes about winning the second ball. But for that to succeed the first ball must be hit deftly and the ball must be controlled correctly. The US AGAIN fails to clear a ball and fails to mark in the box and they give up another. It is now 3-0 and it does not seem that close.
NK is winning EVERY SINGLE SECOND BALL. It is embarrassing how much lack of effort the US is showing. Jones has upped her game but nobody else has. The GK just punched an easy ball that she should have caught. That is third rate goalkeeping. If I were coaching I think I might sub Jones as she is getting a bit out of control and could get a card or get hurt and the game is pretty much out of reach the way the US is playing or not playing.
Everyone seems to assume that Germany will have an easy time against Cameroon. I am not so sure. Cameroon is so aggressive and fast that they could give the Germans real problems. It would be interesting, although unlikely, to have everyone in the group enter the last day with three points.
I have NEVER seen any US team, men, women, boys or girls, Fail to mark so badly in the box on set pieces. These girls need a strong chewing out. It is rare that I would recommend that a coach or player really get on a girls team because girls react differently than boys to that kind of action by a coach but, in this case, I think it might be caller for. Something needs to wake up the inner mean in the girls and everyone knows that girls are meaner than boys.
The game is over 3-0 North Korea. The US girls should be mostly ashamed by how badly they played in this match. Not even one player played even well enough to think they truly should be playing at this level. But these are kids and kids can be up and down faster and more often than an elevator in a busy office building. What is also concerning is the US could go out in the group stage just like the U20s did. Success at the youth levels has never been a good indicator of future success at the senior level but...
The US are done Germany will handle Cameroon. (Cameroon have 2 starters including Keeper suspended on Red). Even if it were to somehow shake out to go into last group game even we have little chance to beat Germany or have GD come into play The USYNT System is broken
What I witnessed earlier was probably the worst team (men or women) I've ever seen in my life. I don't remember us possessing the ball once nor shooting it once. We moved in slow motion and couldn't even complete a pass as if our players have gone 270 minutes without rest three days straight. Our set piece defense needing work is an understatement, it's basically non-existent. At this current moment, those two "hot" players that signed with UCLA wouldn't be good enough to start at Cypress Community College. Maybe things change for the last game, but I'm already calling this squad a failed opportunity. Why we suck so much in the youth level but somehow end up one of the best teams in the whole world really continues to be a head scratcher.
The kids are arriving at an age where they should be able to hopefully understand responsibility and accountability. However if anybody's going to get chewed out I'd rather it be the adults. Specifically the coaches and other personnel in US Soccer. There are issues with several if not all of the following: Selection of the team, preparation of the team, motivation of the team, philosophy of the team, and strategy of the team. All these issues fall on the youth coaches and US Soccer youth program. This team is their product. The kids aren't failing the adults. It's the other way around.
We have talked about it before, but aren't the kids who come from tough financial situations at a disadvantage? It has to be expensive to send these kids all over the world.
I am currently bellied up to the table with my fork and knife about to consume the above post Cameroon 1. Germany 0 Still doubt we get out of group but things just got much more interesting
While I do agree I also know, having coached a LOT of girls at this age and younger, that they have been taught how to mark and at least the basics of playing defense. While the adults around them have failed to some extent any time a performance is this bad the players also have a LOT of responsibility in the failure. One of the problems with youth sports, and youth in general, is that too much responsibility is taken away from the kids in an attempt is insulate them from personal responsibility. But team play, while being about team, is also about taking personal responsibility for both the successes and failures of the team. The team failed to do even the minimal needed to be effective in marking on corners and set pieces and that is the fault of the team on the field. The adults (coaches ect.) try to prepare the team for play BUT the team must execute to at least a minimal level or the preparations go to nothing. I am not saying that the overall failure in this match is all the teams fault but I am saying that the girls were the ones actually playing and it is they that failed this time. The match coming against Germany is the real test. If they win they go to the next level and if they lose or tie they go home. That is what the adults must point the team toward and often the best way with kids is to make them a bit angry, give them a bit of time to stew on it and then show/tell them what needs to be done to succeed going forward. The chewing out is one way that the first step is taken in sport and after that go on to try and get the best out of the team. I have even gone so far, on the rare occasions I had to use this with girls, as to inform my captain(s) what I was going to do and have her/them begin the progression to correct what went wrong. Coaching in the youth age groups at any level is as much psychology as it is just understanding and teaching soccer. As I said I do not absolve the staff from fault but no matter where the fault lies steps must be taken in just a few days to fix the problem or the US gets on a plane home. The bigger problem, if it truly exists, has to be addressed later.
50% of the time, the USA player simply made the wrong decision. When a US player made a good decision, 50% of the time they would fail to execute (e.g. miss a pass to a wide open teammate) or their teammate would fail to execute. Now the odds of two good things happening with those odds are pretty small. Now add in that you are mostly starting every possession deep in your end and have to put 6-8 moves together to just get near the other goal and you can understand the problem. There is no reason any YNT should have such a problem simply making the simple correct decision. But they did today because they were pressed. Cameroon pressed them and showed the USA midfield was not press resistant. Cameroon just couldn't finish and the USA got some improbable goals. It looked like the USA had never been pressed. That they needed to make decisions a half second faster, take one less touch than they did, all game and they couldn't. They had a lot of the same problems against Cameroon. But Jones was very good against Cameroon and was very poor today. Plus, Doms was in instead of Fishel and was particularly bad keeping possession.
If we were talking about one player or a few players sure. But when almost the entire team plays poorly that’s a reflection on the leadership. True in sports as it is in life. When many collectively underperform it’s more than individuals simultaneously having a bad day at the office. If you focus on curing the symptoms you won’t remedy what plagues you.
This has infested girls soccer at all youth levels in the US. Some idiot sold coaches on this being a good idea without why or how to implement. On the performance of the team, that looked like every Carr coached team in his history. He has been politically connected his whole career despite barely performing at an average level. Hendricks has carried him everywhere because US Soccer operates on who you know, not what you have done.
Probably no coincidence that my little Mia's GDA team implemented the stoopid kickball kickoff strategy in the 2nd week of the inaugural season, one week after installing the 4-3-3. Two years in and nothing has changed, development isn't noticeable, and creativity is completely absent since all but two players are worried about making mistakes and losing playing time.
I think you have noticed a bad trend in youth soccer. What I have seen is that there are many many youth teams that implement a formation/style of play that emulates a team of professional players. This is NOT appropriate for most youth players. When I coached I use a formation and style that I was very comfortable with and allowed me to make adjustments by simply changing instructions to two or three players. The purpose of youth soccer is teaching first and wining second but so many clubs reverse those and thereby actually fail the players. I usually played, whenever possible, my weaker players as much or sometimes more as my stronger players. I also placed them on the field in situations where they could excel to boost confidence as the problems were as much belief in themselves as it was an actual lack of some skill. Of course I often fell under criticisms for now winning enough but, fortunately, teams I coached mostly markedly improved through each season so the results pretty much silenced the critics. Now I am not saying that what I did was perfect, far from it in fact, but I do believe that my direction for the teams was much better than those coaches that emphasized wining at all costs and tried to force feed formations and styles that were too advanced for the age group. Kids will be fine if allowed to play and develop. They can be led and even strongly criticized but they must also be allowed to play to fix any problems. There really is no problem with the kids, the problem is elsewhere. "The only problem with youth sports is the adults." I had an advantage over many coaches, as my ex wife will attest, I never really grew up. I guess what I am saying is that in the younger age groups (u18 and down) I think that the game has become over structured and too much time is spent teaching and having the kids worry about complex positional issues when the are not fully technically sound. It is too much for many of even the best kids and those still learning skills make mistakes because they have to worry about too much crap to concentrate on execution. Formations are easy to teach if the skill set is well developed but nearly impossible if the skills are lacking so until skills are well developed the formation should be very simple and, in my opinion, the 4-3-3 the way it is played by the US is too complicated to allow the kids to play it well at this time. But it is too late to change so we are stuck and we will just have to see if the girls can figure it out.
I just rewatched the last match and I watched Sophia Jones' play in particular and I noticed that, most of the time, she played extremely timidly. She did not go strongly into any challenges and she held back when faced with hard choices. I do not think the US can win with the kind of poor play from her that I saw. In fact I doubt the US will score much unless she steps up and plays like I have seen her before. She usually is a strong aggressive player that disrupts the other teams attack and starts the attack for the US. In this game she only made a good strong play about twice. Mostly she seemed to actively try to avoid contact or getting stuck in. If she plays like I have seen her in the past the US has a good chance against Germany but if she plays like she did against North Korea the US' tournament is effectively over and the only thing left to do is to try to sleep on the plane home. While one player does not usually make or break a team Jones' play does seem to make or break the US' play in most of the recent games.
Well nobody posted during the match in this thread so I thought I would report that the US is deservedly going home. I hope they get some good sleep on the plane because the were clearly sleepwalking through the game against North Korea and they picked up the play against Germany but the score was even worse. 4-0 for Germany. The US lacks leadership and have no real direction and I think they need a major shake up in the entire staff. I am disappointed but the blame clearly lies at the top. One bad game can be the fault of the players just not performing but the US consistently failing at all youth levels is caused by the staff not the players.
I'm not familiar with women soccer, but a twitter emerged on my twitter timeline, so I decided to share here. It’s not like there’s a document that outlines exactly what’s going to happen from 10 years ago that we can reference...oh there is, I guess I’ll just leave this here. [thread] https://t.co/z9444oxNfB— Anthony DiCicco (@DiCiccoMethod) November 21, 2018
Saw this tweet a couple of hours ago from Chris Henderson, regarding Coach Snow: "While hindsight may be 20/20, I do wish someone had the foresight to realize that hiring a coach who had gone 6-29-2 in WCC play in his last five years at USF may not have been an inspired selection for a national U17 team."