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

I think we got the best part of the deal you get jogi and we got JK. We aren't going back on that deal now. Do not think that Big soccer represents American attitudes about JK. The dissenters are merely shouting louder and more frequently. Most of the folks that are mad will settle down and be back on board before our next friendly and few will hate him forever for holding LD accountable for abandoning us when we needed him. Unfortunately for LD, it turned out we can do okay without him and now we will play as a team instead of waiting on a hero to save the day. Ld will be off in an ESPN booth somewhere doing his best Alexi Lala's imitation of a jaded, cynical, and bitter old pro.

 

Actually we had a sluggers chance against Belgium, a missed sitter, or a Zusi swing and a miss, that wins it at then end in what would have been one of the greatest smash and grabs of all time. I am not hating on Wondo, but that was a very very bad miss. His coach put him in the position to do exactly what he is good at and well within his skillset and he failed. It happens, but we did have chances we just did not take them.

 

Well there is a slugger's chance and there is a slugger's chance. Sure we had a couple shots against Belgium. My point though is that we could have increased our chances quite a bit by not making the three mistakes I listed. We would have still been underdogs against Belgium. That should be emphasized. But let's say we start the game with Dempsey and Agudelo at forward and have the option of bringing Donovan off the bench. Then our chances go up to maybe 25% from 5%.

 

The USA did well in the tournament when you look at the surface. The results were pretty good. I don't think Klinsmann has to go, because he has done some really good things with the program. I just don't like his overall approach to this World Cup. I expect more.

 

I'm not ready to do this yet, but in addition to watching the US-Belgium match again, I think it might help to watch Belgium's group stage matches as well. Belgium is a talented team, for sure, but did they dominate the run of play like they did against us vs Russia, Algeria, and at even strength vs Korea? My hunch is they did not. So either they cranked up their level or our play had something to do with it.

 

Watching the game a 2nd time only reinforced the opinion I had before and during the game, which was that Belgium, while a very, very good team, was completely beatable. The shot disparity mostly came during a 20+ minute stretch in the 2nd half where our mids (Zusi and Bedoya in particular) were abysmally bad, and we couldn't get the ball out of our final third. A lot of their shots, though, were straight at Howard. Their finishing was pretty poor, considering they had like 15 shots in that 20 minutes. Taking nothing away from Howard, there were only a couple saves that you'd consider "difficult" for a keeper of his ability to stop. It was more just the constant pressure than anything that was amazing about it.

Apart from that stretch, it wasn't really that one-sided. FJ's injury screwed us, because that probably forced JK into waiting too damn long to use his 2nd sub. When Wondo came on, Clint and Michael played a lot more effectively and we created some chances after that. Wondo himself was really poor, but just being where he was made the team better. JK messed that up.

1st goal, we (really, Cameron) get caught too far upfield, Besler needs to take down Lukaku and doesn't, and then overcommits on the cutback. 2nd goal, just a counterattack.

Green's finish was nice, if a little lucky. But you need luck. Him coming on as that 4th nominally attacking player had more to do with us pushing them the last 15 than it did Belgium just sitting back, because they really weren't trying to sit back. Their CM's were completely gassed; it wasn't them defending, it was us pushing them back like they did to us from minute 50-70. I give full credit to Yedlin, Green, Dempsey and Bradley, because they were trying to be aggressive every time they got on the ball, in large part because they were all in the right spots for once to do so. Lukaku and Miralles were trying to counterattack us, but made bad decisions every time. Their mids were defending like ours were during their dominant stretch; fatigue had them just booting it like a panicky high school kid.

The free kick, I'm convinced if we execute it like that 10 times on 10 different keepers, we score 8. Courtois just made a good play. He came out fast, Clint took a tired touch, and the margin for the finish was reduced. But if Courtois hesitates a split second we tie the game. I thought Jones's first shot was in. Wondo looked like he was a mess after his miss in the 90th; Yedlin's ball in to him late should have resulted in a chance.

Not for nothing, but there should have been closer to 3 minutes stoppage than 1. There was a goal, two corners that they wasted 30 seconds each on, and a goal kick that Courtois was literally waiting to get carded for 45 seconds before putting the ball in play.

Bottom line: we could have won the game had JK made the Wondo sub sooner, made the Green sub sooner, or we had a marginal bit of luck finishing in that final 15, which I'd largely attribute to fatigue and good goalkeeping by Courtois. The guys on the field all did the best that they could do relative to their ability, energy level and tactical position they were put in. Had Jurgen been a bit more bold, especially with the Wondo and Green subs, I think we at the least force penalties. I ended the 2nd viewing feeling a lot more positive about how the game went in general. Hopefully JK learns from this experience, and learns to trust his subs and trust his players late in big games against good teams, because as good as Belgium is, that game was there for us to win.

 

I should dig up the 2005 predictions that this World Cup would feature Freddy and his brother Fro as the two U.S. starting forwards. Yeah, people were serious.

 

Lol. Not sure why you're trying to start a war of words with little ole me. I very clearly said both of those players, Shea and Adu, had themselves to blame as well. Maybe in their case, especially Adu, they started playing professionally in MLS too soon. Obviously there are other factors as well. Shea seems immature to me, though I don't know him. Look, if you read my post again, I just gave those 2 players as an example of guys that were in our player pool at one time that had the skill set this team needed but did not develop. Why do we put out all of these hard working defensive types and so few capable attacking players? We've had Donovan and Dempsey the past 10 years. Meanwhile, Mexico can put out players with elite attacking ability. And please don't start giving me Mexico's results at the WC, that's not the point.

 

Measuring success, after all the drama of injuries in the first game and narrowly advancing out of the group, you have to say it was a success. If you want to dissect our short comings as a footballing nation, that is another thing. We still do not develope or have not found the attacking midfielder type, hazard or debruyne or james r...you get me. I have followed the program since 90. We fight as hard as anyone and that only goes so far. Eventually the team that is a machine with all special parts working together prevails. I have not been the biggest fan of JK, but maybe this is a step in the right direction. By that I mean, the defensive posture and counter. We just don't have half of the equation in place. I do believe it is a mentality thing where you defend until you can control your opponent. We did that in the Portugal game. Just a little let down at the end. We also did it to Germany. One moment of quality. Both cases were fighting as hard as possible in defense to make up for machine like accuracy on offense. Which you have to do to put your opponent on his heels. I'm still hopeful. We're only seriously at this 25 yrs and we have come a long way. The rest of the world hass been in WCs a lot longer.

 

Agree with both points. Klinsmann did great in putting together the back line. I am not so complimentary about how he assembled the midfield.

 

I tend to agree with most of your statements. However, I would place a lot of blame on the players, themselves, and the US soccer culture. I remember Brian McBride's mother stating that he use to practice for hours heading and kicking a soccer ball into the garage door. Do these current group of players donate that much time and dedication to soccer? I cannot answer this, but I am tired of blaming everyone but the players. Also, I agreed for a while about MLS being ok for our future soccer stars. I don't anymore. I truly believe that in order to improve not only their skills, but to soak up true soccer culture, players have to spend time playing in Europe.

It totally blows my mind to realize that Belgium is the size of one of our states (and I am not talking CA or TX). Unfortunately, we have too many competing sports to get the elite players of this nation. I am not sure it is possible for us to ever have a world-class team. We will have to continue to rely on the team cohesiveness and physical attributes.

I also agree with the hype these young guys get. It is next to impossible for it to not go to their heads and make them somewhat lazy in their training and attitude. So please do not ruin this next generation by over-expecting greatness from them. Let them develop away from the limelight, actually somewhat like Nagbe, who is quite good but seems to be a very unassuming type of person (although he may need a bit more fire).

 

Belgium were rather pedestian in the group stage. Your's is a very valid question. It will be interesting to see which Belgium shows up against Argentina and the tactics they use in that match.

 

That was a very good post.

For the tl;dr I bolded that for emphasis. Add that to no Jozy in a roster that was selected with a lot of defensive options in mind and it is becomes a hill too far except for the very top echelon of teams , and even then it is still a pretty big ask.

 

Strictly talking about of my backside, but I think our set up favors young athletes. If you are an elite class of athlete in association football in America you can play for a select team ( if your folks have money) and are not really forced to develop skills until much later. If you are twelve in England or Germany or most of Europe and South America to play for a top side you have to be a natural athlete and a futbol player. As more kids take up the game here the same dynamic is likely to follow.

 

Yeah, pretty much that. If you take the roster construction out of your thought process and just kind of look at how we were set up to play, Jozy going out torpedoed the whole thing. JK needed to have more faith in the guys he brought to mitigate it. Had he picked his spots a bit more aggressively to do so, we are probably still playing. That's something he needs to learn from. Even still, more than half the guys who saw the field in the tournament, IMO, played pretty well. There weren't that many terrible performances. The players held up their end of the bargain, by and large. It was just too big a hill to climb given all the variables.

One other thing that I wanted to mention from the 2nd viewing: Omar Gonzalez was really good in the game, defensively and offensively. There were 3 or 4 occasions where he dribbled his way past defenders into the final third. For a guy we all kind of collectively thought of as kind of a goof, and not particularly good with the ball at his feet, I thought he stepped up big time and made some very good plays trying to drive forward.

 

^^
And lets not forget the saves he did not have to make.

 

And who can we thank for their injuries?

 

In the end he put together a good group of defenders. But I thought over the course of the cycle he wasted an awful lot of playing time on guys like Orozco Fiscal, Bocanegra and Goodson.

 

Years ago we were hard-working "kick-and-run" team with mediocre players, outstanding goalies, no depth, no creativity, relying on fitness, some luck and perseverance. This WC we still have perseverance, no depth, middle-tier outfield players, fantastic goalie, but surprisingly low fitness level.

 

I don't think I'll be watching that game any time soon.

It's annoying seeing your team thoroughly outplayed, and lacking ideas in attack except for pre-made plays, as if it were football and not soccer.

I rather see the Algerians bunkering and countering properly versus Germany, actually.

 

Too much micro perspective and not enough macro. Yes stealing the game would have been great but that would have been one of four needed and you'd have a better chance of winning the lottery than give up 20 shots on goal in 4 consecutive games and hope that Howard bails out the defense 4 games in a row. It's not a tenable long term solution.


As for Belgium they struggled in group due only having one player who had ever played in the WC. The pressure to succeed on both the team and Wilmots, Algeria and Russia bunkering and Wilmots wanting to make sure that Belgium won the group.

Belgium does give up opportunities and their lack of experience was evident in the final 15-20 minutes of the match.

Belgium's strength lies in it's counter attack so had Jurgen opened it up Belgium would have 7-8 breakaways.

My criticism was that he played too much of an in between style of attacking and bunkering the fact that the game was 0-0 was not due to great tactical planning but poor finishing and poor final 3rd play by Belgium.

While most would have despised it, the best tactical strategy against Belgium would have been to bunker and look for a few select counters and try to steal a goal or keep 0-0 and go to penalties.

Too many people are reading too much into the result and not the manner in which the game was played.

What transpired was a massive statistical outlier. If you play 1000 matches where you get out shot 40-10 winning 1-0 will probably occur at the far end of two to third standard deviations, which means 2.5% or .4% so anywhere 4-25 matches out of a 1000

 

His walk about sure made me pucker up though. I thought OMG is he channeling his inner Clarence Goodson or his inner Pique?

I thought that was pretty smart, if they sag off the center back and never close him down he has to keep going forward until somebody leaves their man and comes for him. IU saw Clarence doing that in the gold cup[a nd it wasn't all that scary, but OG doing it agsint Belgium? Well done Omar you truly are an OG.

 

Do you believe JK when he says he wanted the US to attack aggressively?

 

Well, for starters, we were outshot 39-17, which is closer to a 2:1 ratio than your 4:1 ratio.

Passes in the final third were favoring Belgium as well, but only to the tune of 182 to 165.

I'm not sure if you've given the game a second or third viewing, but if not, definitely do so. Their dominance was limited in duration to a 20-25 minute stretch in the 2nd half, and a lot of their shots weren't even on frame (39 shots, 17 on target).

 

I'm not sure what your question is but I'll respond anyway.

I think that the coach's decision to put in a defensively skilled team and exhorting them to play aggressively is viable and almost won us the game against a better opponent. I'm against putting in a more creative team (where we are not particularly skilled relative to our opponents) and asking them to defend. I think we differ in that you stated that if we had put a more attack minded team, we would have "definitely" dominated Belgium. Apologies in advance if my memory is incorrect but I distinctly remember being shocked at how differently we think b/c I think we would have lost by 3-4 goals.