Keeper was 6 of one; half a dozen of the other at the tournament. No clear #1, which maybe was a problem. But ultimately, not the reason we were knocked out. That was one hell of a strike by the Ecuadorian. Maybe on another day its saved. Sometimes you have to tip your cap and say "Yup. That was pretty good." Ecuador was better than us on the day overall. Outcoached and outplayed. But overall another positive cycle for the program. U20 CONCACAF Champions and World Cup Quarterfinals meets our expectations.
Ecuador dominated about the first 15 minutes, but the remaining 75 were pretty even if not slightly in our favor, especially the second half. Just couldn't break through.
Idk...I think figuring it out on the fly is a huge part of the USMNT nowadays...many camps without the full :"A team"...I want the coach to base playing time on PERFORMANCE ...nothing else...not who is good in the lockerroom, who is "cool" who is "established" etc.... I know we've become accustomed to the last slew of managers playing favoritism with certain players (sometimes ridiculously so) but I'm not going to ever co-sign that practice or write it off as some kind of inevitability. It doesn't have to be that way.... In the insular world of US soccer - where connections are everything - that's the way it has been...but i think it is bad for the team. And Ramos has shown that he follows that operating procedure...so I'd be wary of him with USMNT (for that reason and others).
The latter part of the 2nd half was misleading. While the U.S. did have better possession during that stretch Ecuador had realigned themselves to see out the game. They only made forays into the U.S. end when a counterattack was clearly on, otherwise they just set up their defense. 2-1 was a fair result.
Yet another person (you aren’t the only one in this thread) who can’t help but compare him to Bradley or Trapp, two hated players on the NT. Some of you have cooked this into your minds before you even watch him play. It’s incredibly transparent.
If that’s the extent to the NT potential for this team, this will end up being a bad age group for players that made the U-20 WC roster. The 2013 team (that was terrible) has 3-4 USMNT players.
Do you find it strange how in a matter of three months he’s become an 8 in a lot of quarters when he’s been a 10 his whole career and claims his best position is a 10?
So disregard his whole career up to this point because you want to have some hot takes after a youth team loss?
What do you think are the two biggest basics for a player at the position and what is your preferred formation and tactical set up for the midfield?
To be a regular in the USA Men's team you need to be skillful but also lucky. Lucky that the coach believes in you and will gill give you many chances to prove him right. If you don't have the support from the coach, you will get ONE shot at proving him wrong, usually, with the wrong formation or weaker teammates.
In my expert opinion and this is all science really, not opinion, players are going to have recurring hamstring problems for two reasons: 1. Overtraining AFTER being out of shape. The player works overly hard to get back to the shape he should have been all along. The muscles say, wait a minute... 2. Vodka. Beer. Wine? Gin Tonic. Moscow Mule. hair of the dog. Side car. Negroni. martini. mescal. Basically any and all alcohol. Don't know how many times I've hit the bars with athlete friends, and two days later they are showing up with a hammy problem. 3. Then there is genetics and well, sorry for calling you lazy Jozy, it was your genes that are lazy bastards.
Seems like the ceiling on the players we have is way higher at least, but only a small handful of guys at the full NT level isn't really below average for these teams. Hell, maybe one of the bench players turns into a Dempsey (who only got about 30 minutes when he was in the u-20 squad IIRC).
I never said Durkin was a bad athlete, that was someone else. I said he is not a DM. A DM is born, not made. Psycho mentality. Bone crunching tackles. Smart enough to cancel transition goals before they start to materialize. East/West quickness. Quick 5 to 10m pass forward, not back. Guys like Durkin, Trapp and Bradley can be played as DM. But you can also miss the world cup two cycles in a row realizing they shouldn't be. Maybe it takes the US three cycles to figure it out.
This is right, but also I'd add you need the same thing from your club situation. Always interesting to see how certain players can go from crap to exciting to crap and back when put in certain club situations, especially in Europe.
Totally agree. That should be his game. He is on the wing right now because the US thinks speed wins games and realistically he has not positioned himself on any roster in the US as a striker. Beats me. Ask the coaches.
So I'm going to overgeneralize *a lot* here, but... Something that bothers me right now is that our youth programs seem to keep picking up more technically skilled but less athletic players but those players still aren't developing into guys with the technical abilities needed at the adult level all that much better than the old brute force guys of the late 90s. When we hit we hit the jackpot in the Pulisic and McKinney, but we're way less consistent it seems in getting consistent prospects out of it.
Yeah, I'll tell you why it doesn't work. Half your team can play soccer and half can run fast and press. We play many times two teams on the same pitch that can't play with each other. In my opinion this is why we can't seem to stick with latin players on our squad. They aren't playing the same game.
Though those Latin players of the last few cycles don't seem to be moving much beyond "halfway decent MLS pro" levels, if that. My god, that 2013 squad...
Position wise it's fair game to compare. From what I saw he's not as smart as either Trapp or Bradley, soccer wise. He's as slow as old Bradley is now but passes similarly to Trapp. He's young and I'm no expert on his game but the Ecuador game sure brought those comparisons to light for me. Maybe he was gimpy and couldn't go his top speed but if that's his footspeed, he's not a fit for international play.
It's not an American idea that fast players are good.Going through the big transfers and best 11s you will see a lot of really fast guys.
Take Pulisic, he is a finesse player very skillful but easily can get knocked off the ball plus he seems to get hurt quite easily. His ace in the hole is they need to catch him first. Now McKenzie is a lot stronger with good hops for only being 5'10. He throws his body around against bruising opponents and lately starting to get hurt. Do we have a skillful bruiser? No.
Late to the party, haven't read the thread. But, 2 comments. We lost because Ecuador wanted it more. We repeatedly gave up wide open shots at the top of the box. Ecuador didn't give us space anywhere. Our guys couldn't breathe once we got to the midfield. Mendez is a give away machine. I don't see what's so great about him. He has a hard shot, but that doesn't mean he has a good shot. How many shots did he take this tournament, how many went in? It reminds me of Roberto Carlos (a truly great FB). Everyone thinks he was this amazing offensive threat, because he kicked the ball hard and had a couple of spectacular makes. The guy had like 5 goals for club and country in his whole career. Yedlin may end up with more goals. Right now, Mendez is a give away machine who is all thunder and no lightning. And, he doesn't put in the work on the defensive end.