After a more objective second viewing of USA vs. Belgium...

This is a parody post, right? Mexico qualified to the WC winning 2 matches out of 10.

It's a cake walk to qualify out of CONCACAF because the safety net is so large. There are 3 competitive teams.

Honduras would never qualify if Honduras had to qualify through UEFA.

 

Usually Cameron + one other midfielder dropping too deep - sometimes Zusi, sometimes Jones or Bedoya.

With 6 US players back + Dempsey up top, that left the remaining 3 US midfielders to deal with 5 BEL midfielders + Vertonghen pushing up from his left back slot. Small wonder that BEL could generate so many opportunities when they were playing 6v3.

I think this was an issue for the USA throughout the tournament, not only vs. BEL, and have the data to prove it. There are still 2 matches to be played, but once all the data are in I'll be posting a quantitative look at how the USA's performance compares to the other 31 teams in the tournament, so keep an eye out for that.

 

The answer is "because he is looking not for the better player but rather the player who can give him a particular performance and result in a certain situation".

As far as inserting Green against Belgium - we were down 0-2 at the time and as between Mix and Green my guess is that he went with the option that would look best politically in a situation where it would be difficult to sort out who would be the better choice and getting a result looked unlikely.

I dont disagree with putting in Green instead of Mix necessarily. We have seen Mix deliver in those situations as a sub. Maybe Green gets closer to goal or draws a foul to get a set play. In a pressure situation like that my guess is that JK went with the political choice that would keep people happy when a loss was analyzed post game (which turned out to be superfluous when Green scored. 'S for every one. Except Mix )

 

Sure and Mexico, barely qualifying but getting to r16, kind of underscores my point. To be fair they are a much better team than they ever showed under Chepo. They qualified for a play off because of our dominance and all the ties in the early fixtures.

Not really, go look at the groups and then the play off pairings with home and home. UEFA is pretty much a cakewalk if you are a top ten or fifteen team like we are. If you do end up in a group with two good teams you still have a safety net with the playoff.

I get that UEFA has a lot of good teams, but they have a lot of spots too. They also have plenty of cannon fodder. My original point was that the MEME of "yeah but it is concacaf " doesn't mean what people think it does. Three unseeded Concacaf teams made it to the R16. Good enough for concacaf can obviously be good enough for the world cup.

Please forgive me for having pride in our region and not being a typical self loathing fan that diminishes all that my team does and magnifies the accomplishments of others. Three unseeded teams out of four advancing is too good of a performance to just dismiss Concacaf. Ask all those who went home early how they feel about Concacaf.

 

@NoSix I thought it was Bradley entirely too often for a guy who was supposed to be functioning as a CAM. Even when we were attacking I thought he was slowing things down some by coming so deep to get the ball. I know it is who he is and what he does, and he does it well, but I don't believe that is what we wanted him to do.

It did not work out great,merely good enough to advance to R16. I do think it stood a chance to have been another moment where JK showed some real genius. Unfortunately it did not come off. MB will probably never say, it is not his style, but I suspect his foot surgery played some role in his limited effectiveness or ineffectiveness if we are being honest.

I might be wrong but I thought much of Belgium's attack came as a result of counters, or at least very direct play after a turnover. In mins 45-70 where we were totally pinned back, we missed a couple of outlet passes, Zusi was a passenger, and we kept getting deeper playing more and more back footed, until Wondo gave us another outlet.

I would venture the data shows we are a more forward and a better attacking side when down a goal if you look at the data in a game state status. It would be nice if we could get our opponents to play like they were a goal up and we could play like we were a goal down.