Look we might all have our differences. But can we at least agree with Bruce that we shouldn't be making any changes and that it is unfair to Sunil to place one bit of blame on him for the failure to qualify? Look, if there are two people who don't deserve any blame it is Sunil and Bruce. Let's just agree on that.
If nothing changed we would be in the same situation in 4 years. Look at the German federation. They got together with the Bundesliga and developed a system that benefited both the Bundesliga and National team. This article is a few years old, but it show what they're doing right and what England isn't and look who is and isn't winning. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/may/23/germany-bust-boom-talent
Because the election isn't until January. The real question is why hasn't he kicked the retread lacrosse coach to the curb already.
When the ball is on a wing the strong-side shuttler should be, in conjunction with the fullback, applying direct pressure to the man on the ball. The DM should have slid over into a close support position. The weakside shuttler should have rotated into the DM spot covering right in front of the CB's. The AM should have dropped to provide back pressure and prevent an opposing CM from having time and space to pick a pass if the ball is played back and inside. I would probably ask the FW on the strong side to cut out the passing lane to the nearest opposing CB and then have the forward on the weakside drop about as deep as the AM and watch for a switch. The biggest overall failure in this instance is the huge vertical gap between the backline and the CM. Earlier in the buildup I thought that Yedlin needed to step off the backline to assist Arriola in trapping the T&T LW. The problem is that there is a huge gap in the lines and that means he has to make a longer run, taking more time, making his pressure less effective. I also think Nagbe needed to start from a deeper position, covering closer to the CB's. Basically the CM should be a / instead of a flat v shape. When the lines are tighter that is not as dramatic and the tradeoff should be less pronounced. If Nagbe had been covering the DM position, staying tighter to the backline, he would have given time for the rest of the midfield to rotate and drop and would have had a better angle to step to the man on the ball instead of chasing from the side and would be defending more valuable real estate. This is not an English solution, asking the entire midfield to run all over the field getting into people's faces. It's an Italian one, ceding non-threatening space to occupy and defend dangerous areas in numbers.
I never said anything about taking matches lightly and yes I expect my coach to be smart about formulating a lineup, but we should be getting the results we've gotten in the past nearly every time.
Nagbe should have been over the left side in front of Alvin Jones when the US lost possession. That's the answer. He was MIA. He was way out of position. The last youth team I coached played better defense than the USA.
Well there's a bit of a problem with this. See, the Bund and the DFB decided it's their job to develop better German players. Here, MLS says it's not their job to develop better American players and Arena, our NT manager, just said it's not the USFF's job to develop better Americans. Essentially, all of Germany wanted to come together to develop better German but here in the US, no one wants that responsibility.
True, but the cost of not developing them could be greater. I've read the USSF in total might miss out on 200M from not making the WC. Also both the USSF and MLS will see their tv revenue in the current deal cut back. MLS' current tv money just got slashed. Further complicating US Soccer's financial situation in lieu of missing the World Cup is the SUM TV deal where USSF gets shortchanged.— Kartik Krishnaiyer 🇺🇦🌻⚽️ (@kkfla737) October 13, 2017 Reputation for both likely will take a hit in the next five years too. How that manifests financially, I don't know.
Serves both entities right for really not [half maybe] giving a shit about the sport. One is holding franchise fees, market analysis, and stadium plans as better indicators rather than the passion of the fans and willingness to work hard. The other has had some inexplicably high ticket pricing and crap with the women’s team. I still think back to Garber making that comment about Chattanooga being a waste of time for a REAL sports league. Garber appears to literally not care about growing the sport beyond the bottom line. And USSF just enables these MLS executives and owners. Both deserve the hit and a wake up call. Part of me wants that NASL suit to get some legs, but I’m not sure where that’s at right now.
Earlier in the week, I was outraged by this quote. But after finally watching Bruce's comments in full context, I understand the point he's making. He wasn't even talking about the senior national team. He was talking about the youth development system, and referring to the last few years of expansion that are going to take time to pay dividends. He's right about that part. The very first fully MLS academy developed players who entered the academies at U-12 or younger... are still eligible for the U-17 national team. If anything, the USSDA needs more clubs, and more importantly, a lot more free or low-cost clubs. As for the senior national team, it's obvious some big changes need to be made. But I wouldn't blow up the youth development system and start over either.
No, I'm referring to the distances between players in defense and when, where, who, and how many players are applying pressure.
The first part is wrong, the last part I don't have enough information on to make an accurate comment. The defensive positioning I am describing is how Milan played in a diamond or x-mas tree under Ancelotti. If the ball is on the right side and the RCM and DM have shifted over to prevent the ball from advancing up that side who is covering the area right in front of the CB's? Defenses should cover back to front, inside to out. The area right in front of the CB's is the most dangerous spot on the field. If the LCM is staying wide to cover the opposition RB or RW then there is a huge gap in the dead center of the field. That is defensive suicide. When the switch is on Nagbe should chase over harder and the rest of the CM should follow suit. That doesn't make a solution to one scenario, that creates an even bigger structural weakness, the answer.
Nah on the first paragraph. You tuck in, but you don't put the entire team on one side of the field. Carlito would never support THAT. Plus,.......where was the LB? On that play there was no one on the left side. The problem was compounded by the lack of effort to get back. Nagbe was jogging in the general direction and Vila was no where to be seen, Worse was the time when Howard was handcuffed by a ball bouncing in front of him and he had to go all out to defend against the rebound with no defender/MF in sight. Tactics in this game were amateurish at best. If you can even call them tactics. is this on Bruce or the players? I suspect both to a degree, but frankly I blame the wandering and lack of effort primarily on the players.
I know you're talking about AC Milan. But it doesn't matter what system or formation is being implemented. You have a wide open player with a massive amount of space in front of him. The midfielder playing on the left side (Nagbe) has to be in front of that player covering that space. The left back is covering another player (winger) who is out of the picture, so the left midfielder has to cover that space. I don't disagree that the defensive back line should be much further up the field, closing the space, but they weren't. So the left midfielder must be in that space. It was a clusterfeck all the way around. I think we're on the same page.
I get what you're saying here. When we played this, if we were beat on the weak side the standard MO would be to recover to the middle to close space in front of the CBs...flairing just a touch to the weak side. If the ball was played short to the middle, it would be coordinated with the strong side CB. If the CB goes to pressure, the weak CB slides over and the recovering mid is now the weak CB. Otherwise it's the mids job to get it. If the field is switched wide to the weak side, it's run like hell time to close the space. Which brings me to your point on the weakness of the entire formation: it is susceptible to field switches because it relies upon the compact nature of the central midfield. If your opponent is a young/fresh team with good team speed that is maybe technically lacking a bit, why play this? You can play with more width because closing the middle of the field isn't as important as it would be with a team capable of building play through the middle via short passes. If those players are under pressure in the middle, the instinct is to play longer passes into space. If they're going to beat you, it's going to be wide because it plays directly to their strength/our formational weaknesses...which is exactly what happened on both goals.
I am watching Bayern play right now and when Freiburg has the ball on Bayern's left side in midfield Bayern's RW is maybe 2 yards wide of the dead center of the field. Their RB is wider but the vertical space between them is much less than what we see in that screenshot. They aren't even playing a diamond! Ball access. The LB is in line with the rest of the defense tracking T&T's RW who is advanced and wide, so wide he is out of the picture. The lack of effort is on the players but we did not come out looking to make it hard for T&T to play through us.