This chart suggests to me that we DEFINITELY would want Adams in the middle against good opponents, where he can influence the game by covering every blade of grass and that we can use his direct passing instincts to our advantage, but perhaps would rather have a Bradley/Trapp in the middle and Adams wide in games against weaker opponents where we're expecting them to bunker in and we want to be more patient in our build-up approach. Clearly, Berhalter wants us to control tempo, though I wonder if that's our greatest strength, and I certainly disagree with sticking with that approach when playing against strong sides and in less-than-ideal conditions.
Statistics are quite good at explaining what has happened but they are also quite poor at predicting what will happen. No coach/manager should rely on statistics to choose players unless those statistics include the type of players/teams/conditions they were obtained with and also include all the variances that occur in the real world. That is in sports like soccer, as opposed to sports like baseball, objective evaluations like using statistics are inferior to the subjective mainly because the numbers from the past do not reflect things that change very well at all. Choosing a lineup is NOT a science in the traditional view of what a science is but rather successful national level coaches use more art than science to choose their rosters. While there is a level of interest in the statistics as have been presented here they are really pretty much meaningless as to how the "team" will perform in a given match.
The thing is that when Adams is there RBL have an incredible 0.2 GAA and still score tons of goals. That's not due to the other DMs being crappy. It's because Adams has been exceptional. Ten games is not the biggest of data sets but the swing is so extreme and unusual that causation seems likely.
What I don't get is why our narratives have such short memories. We spent a whole two cycles complaining about not having a DM who doesn't roam as much. Quite a few were advocating Cameron. Now we want to put Adams as DM but his biggest characteristic is the amount of ground he covers. The one thing you can say about Berhalter's first scheme, who knows if he wants to keep it, is that Adams is in a position that allows him to roam forward and we keep a stay at home DM. You may disagree with it but it is far from brain dead.
I remember it a little different. Nobody cared that the DM didn't roam around. They were down on him (there was only one) for not actually covering the space he was tasked with covering. Not because he left that space to attack or roam, just that he wasn't quick enough or dedicated enough to do it. All the fancy passing charts don't show you any great passes Bradley had in the Hex that led to a goal, because there were none. They don't call to mind any great passes in the Hex at all. Adams is clearly the best #6 in the pool and has been for some time. GB can build around him or just keep ignoring it. Playing him at RB to allow him to "roam" is not an improvement. If that was the best use of Adams, RBL would be playing him there.
Let’s talk about how RB use him. Basically they play 2 deep CM’s and they do the classic trade off where when one goes forward the other stays back. The wrinkle is that they have much less horizontal distance when doing this. The whole team’s goal is to deny the other team time to think so they put a lot of numbers in the space around the ball. Tyler’s best attacking moments come in transition when one of the turnovers this tactic causes catch the opponent in their field-stretching offensive shape. He can play vertical and risky (as long as it’s quick) because the team crams a lot of guys into a channel planning to either suck the defense in and break out with subsequent passes to pacey attackers or use those numbers around the ball to win it back right away or stymie any counter.
This century a Brazilian manager picked his seleção based on astrology and a French manager had a preferred “ethnic balance”. For all its flaws I still respect a healthy dose of empiricism, not even just in comparison to outlandish alternatives.
Since this is the philosophy thread, maybe Rangnick/Klopp/Marsch are on to something that is no secret. That moment of turn over, when the other team is stretched, is the time for a high risk/high reward line breaking pass. It does seem our three best players are made for this. Contrast that with Berhalter/Favre who prefer a slow build-up to get the whole team in offensive shape. This allows the other team to also get in the defensive shape they want. I'm sure Adams can do anything we ask him but this does not play to Pulsic's or McKennie's strengths. We barely got a goal against Ecuador playing this way. It looked quite like a Dortmund game with lots of perimeter passing but very few, or any, good looks at goal.
Berhalter has stated multiple times that he wants to attack an unbalanced opponent but what we've seen so far is that our regista isn't the type of player to avoid pressure by shielding/dribbling and then passing up (i.e., beating two lines); they are far more likely to make the safe pass backwards (which given their limitations is probably a good thing). When they are open they are able to make longer passes to the wings. Unfortunately, this has been ineffective as our weaker opponents have been playing defensively by having numbers back and conceding the far wings.
And our wingers are trash. Morris and Arriola aren't going to get anything done one-on-one, that's for sure. Neither will Baird or Ebobisse. Course, 3/4 are out of position, but who cares, anyone can play left back, right?
Sadly no. Guess that means we should play bad people out of position then! Better not start Lewis, Arriola's the one racking up minutes and doing nothing for DCU! Woo! Hey, Morris has gone cold, let's shoehorn him there too!
Like all of this post except that it fails to characterize Adams’ role as the deeper, more conservative of the two holders. For every 4 forays Kampl makes, Adams makes one. Adams is definitely the “6” for RBL when deployed centrally.
Just because a team doesn’t press often doesn’t mean they don’t want to counter. These tactics just create less countering opportunities. I’ve witnessed Sancho ravaging opposition in transition and Puli’s goal against Chile was a lightning strike.
Got any data on this? It didn’t look as defined as say Gilberto Silva behind Patrick Viera. I saw it as one was the RCM, the other LCM, with the ball-side CM closing down the ball and the weak-side CM sliding over and supporting behind them. So generally if there was a turnover the more advanced, ball-side CM was more likely to go forward. This doesn’t fully account for attacks that start through goal kicks or deeper turnovers and the like.
For Berhalter it seems that counter pressing is more important than high pressing (based on comments and his strategy).
Berhalter's stated attacking aims were to spread the field field and attack quickly. Pulisic's goal against Chile would fall within the ambit of his 3G's tactical goals.
The wingers are there to spread the field, track back, and beat up the opposition's fullbacks. Against weaker opposition, ideally, more skillful wingers would be used.
Do you actually have a quote where he ever said quickly? I don't think anything is suppose to be quick. It is methodical possession to unbalance a defense and create scoring opportunities. That doesn't happen quick. The goal against Chile was a mid-century English tactic. A long GK to a CF who knocks it down for a 3rd runner. Basically, the offense you see on any U9 field or any High School in this country.
I do not see that as a problem unless it is the only option for attack. Attacks should be varied and unpredictable. The problem I see with the US is that we want to play possession soccer but the way we play it does not actually produce much attack at all. As soon as we progress to a point where we encounter resistance we kill the attack by passing the ball back with the idea of safety. It is actually unsafe because it happens almost every single time so the teams playing us know exactly how to defend us. Much of the time we don't attack we wait and hope for a major mistake by the opposition. We should attack fast through the middle from time to time and we should try to build wide some of the time and we should build through the middle some of the time and we should attack wide some of the time and we should attack in many ways I have not mentioned from time to time. U9 was mentioned and that is a bit young but our lack of attacking variety could be defended by many decent youth teams upward from U12 or so. That is why CONCACAF teams are able to contain us, we have no variety at all so teams know exactly where to go to defend us quite well.
A goal is a goal, no problem with any goal! Someone called that particular goal a counter attack, I just pointed out it wasn't. It does seem like the long GK when the other team presses high is a feature of the GB game plan. We saw it not only against Chile, but Costa Rica (the Arriola goal) and it was tried in the Panama game. I ref a lot of U12 games and it is amazing how a team will possess and play beautiful and the other team will kick it up to the fast kid. The latter usually win.