He’s way too slow to be a CM. Way, way to slow. He also does not have the instincts to sit in front of the back four and cover for the aggressive positioning of other players. He needs players to cover for his positioning.
The result is now final. FT | The U-17 #USMNT falls to Denmark in Assen, finishing 2-1-0 at the 4 Nations Tournament. 🇺🇸 1-4 🇩🇰— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) September 9, 2019
This isn't really the forum for this thought but while I view the "What if our best athletes..." argument as a sign that someone is a novice to the soccer world. It usually comes from a place of American superiority, believing that if we just tried hard enough and cared enough we'd roll everyone else. The USA has had plenty of great athletes play soccer. That said, there are countless kids who play basketball with a spark of creativity and skill that have absolutely no future in the sport but could be difference makers in soccer. I work in a high school and I see kids all the time who can do incredible things with a basketball due to both intense practice (on their own) and an innate ability to turn a spark of creativity into action. They're also 5'9" or shorter and are convinced they'll make it to the NBA. What if those kids played soccer? The truth is that the USA has produced some decent players, but who's the best creative player we've produced? Who can play the ball like Ronaldinho or even Wilf Zaha? They're out there but somehow we've got to get them playing soccer. Imagine Aquille Carr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpZRRaAbdzo or Trae Jefferson with the ball and 14 years of practice.
As I said, I go back and forth on it. I don't think it is naïve or only a soccer newbie that thinks athleticism at the elite level, combined with years of soccer specific adaptation and game playing would lead to a better pool of players than we have. Weston Mckennie is a good example of a true athlete that played soccer. Not sure what is 40 time is, but if he runs a 4.4 or 4.5 I could see him in the NFL. Having more kids like this wouldn't not hurt but we also need the vision of the Modrics or Xavis. But yea, stick Trae out there with a ball at his feet all his life, playing in the backyard and park every day 4 hours a day and see what he would do in soccer.
I think that regardless of sport, the national team coach should be a player-first type of manager that can create a simplified plan that is tailored to their players and can be implemented fast. Tata Martino has been able to do this with Mexico. He understands his player pool, and has created a plan that's easy to digest in a few training sessions and execute. Gregg Berhalter needs to understand that he's not with the Crew anymore where you get continuous weeks of training with the same players. He needs to create a simple game plan tailored to the strengths of the player pool, then dentify the group of players who will carry that out the best.
I'm happy with the results of the tournament, despite the loss today. The idea here is to mimic the group stage of the U17WC by having three games against good opponents in a short period of time. Mexico, Holland, Denmark is strong trio of national team programs (I have no idea about the quality of teams they brought). If that was our group at the World Cup................we would have very likely advanced on 6 points. Hopefully the coaching staff learned what they needed to in order to make the final squad selections.
Completely agree. There also seems to be this new phenomenon in its American coaches that runs from youth to pro and NT level. For some reason, many of them feel they need to have some kind of “mad scientist” about them in order to be accepted or noticed. Football at its core, is such a simple game, but I see too many coaches that want to prove they are some kind of genius by implementing concepts that are more complicated than what’s called for. All the great coaches have been great man mangers first and foremost. Some of them get credit for being tactically astute, but often times it is because they are able to get their best out of each and every player. I’m not quite ready to call it a trend yet, but it’s quickly approaching. This is the one thing that has impressed me with Luchi at FCD. He manages the person and gets the best of out them with passion, communication, and patience. His instruction is a basic as it can be. When you have the ball, keep it, when you lose the ball, get it back.
Just looking at the stats, superficially it looks like you guys were definitively more threatening. Outshot us, outchanced us, every basic counting stat supports the idea that you just weren't finishing chances, but were creating more. Of course I didn't see squat, so who knows.
Well if this was based on, "We're a bunch of entitled, choking dog, losers," then I could see it, but I don't think it's that. I think it's high minded b.s. We're a possession team, we're a counterattacking team, we're this, we're that. It's just nonsense to me. We're whatever the best available talent, maximized, can be. Beyond that, i just don't give a bleep about the "identity" question, especially considering unlike the Dutch, previously mentioned, or the English, we are a haphazard collection of players growing up in wildly different soccer environment. To suggest we have some sort of identity is just kind of ridiculous to me. During the Bradenton era, during the '92-'98 era, okay, I can see that, that '90's iterration played together in camp america '94 for years, integrating as a team since so many didn't have club affiliations. These days our players grow up in wildly different soccer cultures, and often come of age in Germany, the Netherlands, England, and the American South, Midwest, Northeast, and West. I don't get how identity plays into literally any of that. When things are so disparate how is any of that unified? To me the only thing that makes sense is looking at the player pool, identifiying the bulk of the best talent aged 17-27 or thereabouts, and defining the best way they can play that way. Basically over the next decade or so, what's, in general, the skill set of the pool, the strengths, weaknesses, where do we lack depth, where do we have it, where do we have a lot of depth suiting a certain style, where do we lack it etc and build around that. It just feels like we're doing every arse backwards, just trying to force something into being because you want it to be. The vast bulk of the '22, '26, '30 era is already at least somewhat identifiable, they should build the team w/those guys in mind, and vets should only be relevant as glue guys unless they are relevant for '22 and beyond. My perception anyway (although probably I shouldn't extend any further than a 5 year window considering how much can happen to a pool across a decade in terms of injuries, plateauing, failure to develop, and late bloomers etc).
I think you may have an interesting point about 2012-2013 w/Tab, but it didn't matter anyway. No matter who Tab called in, it was irrelevant. The 1993 and 1994's he had at his disposal in 2013 were god awful, no matter what style they played, and no matter what ethnic background, or state they hailed from. The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is a barren wasteland of relevant US Soccer players born in 1993 and 1994.
We even missed from the penalty spot. And it was a Feyenoord dude From the scarce info about the match it seems we dominated, but failed in front of the goalie. Is he scary
The keeper is actually the most intriguing player on the team. He used to be just the tall lanky kid and supposedly he put some muscle and and turned himself into 220 lb monster. Got sold To Leicester.
This aligns with my USSF Presidential Campaign, in which I'll work with the US Government to make it illegal for any kid with parents in the bottom 50% of height to play basketball growing up. 5'7" dad? Yeah, have fun on the right wing, kid. Left-footed and 5'1" mom? Hope you like left back from ages 2-22.
I’m more concerned with our defensive shape. It’s awful. Playing out of the back should be the goal but it cannot be the only method we have of advancing up the pitch. Our opponents know that we’re determined never to hit it long and therefore they press the ever-living crap out of us. Seeing Gyasi as the runaway threat has to be comforting for them too.