We have Pulisic, Wood, Dempsey, Jozy. Throw in Morris as well. How do they compare to past attacking line-ups in the World Cup rosters for us? Our top scorer in a single WC was 3 goals in 4 matches by Landon in 2010, who is still our top WC scorer with 5 goals in 12 matches across 3 World Cups. David Villa scored that many in 2010. Just as a comparison. We've never had a player score a brace in any WC match. And only in 2002 did we have 2 players to score at least 2 goals. Is it simply that we can not score goals at the WC? is it the line-ups or the formation? Next summer, with the right draw could we score goals? Could our strikers/attacking mid-fielders be counted on to put the ball in the back of the net?
No, we don't. We have a one man offense right now. Depends how he plays. He could create a bunch of goals or he might not. Its a lot of pressure for one player to do everything. The help is not yet playing pro games, so we'll have to wait for these guys to help out Pulisic. Might not be this cycle. The others have proven their level, for the most part. Its not a very high level.
David Silva is cherry picking a bit. Here's some other comparisons: Pelé- 12 World Cup goals in three cups. 14 appearances. Won all three cups. Beckham. Three goals and a red card in three cups. Rooney- 0ne goal and one red card in three cups. C Ronaldo- three goals in three cups. Messi- five goals in three cups.
The point of my comparison was that our best scorer scored as many goals over 3 WC's as 1 player did during a single WC. Also I said David Villa.
Not yet. But, there is time to get there, and more importantly Bruce Arena has done a good job of improving the defense. So there is a foundation to build from. We have seen a lot of pieces tried in the attack. Aside from the home game at Honduras, the US attacking numbers are more or less where they were when Klinsmann was fired. And the biggest issue remains the issue that Arena identified early on - midfielders who can create scoring chances by connecting with the forwards. We have seen a number of auditions. Personally I thought Rowe showed some promise. Nagbe will never be a consistent last ball player. Bedoya and Acosta are more worker bees than creators. Corona disappears when spaces get tight. Zardes is not, IMO, that guy. And disappointingly, Feilhaber seems out of favor. Dempsey sure can create, but it is a pretty big risk to count on him for the rigors of a World Cup. Arena is turning over the rocks. I wish/hope Rowe and Feilhaber get more looks.
We have forwards up the gazoo but they aren't scoring a goal without mids to get them the ball as Arena is about to find out to his dismay. Jones got the ball to Dempsey for an early goal against Ghana. Then Jones stepped up and smashed one from yard, against Portugal I believe. In that same game, Zusi pulled a Donovan diagonal run that brought him to the 6 yard box for an assist to Dempsey. So ask yourself who is getting the ball to the forwards. Dax has done it enough to know that he's a guy we can count on for that. Arena hardly played him so far. Obviously Pulisic can, but let's say he makes up for Jones' absence and we ask ourselves who else can do it. I could see Dax with a couple of assists in the WC and Pulisic with a goal and assist. Right there you have made up for Jones' assist and goal and Zusi's 2 assists. We have to continue looking for others. I'm pretty sure Zardes scores a goal or gets an assist coming out of midfield. I'm guessing Jozy will be swamped as usual. Maybe we could get a goal from Wood and an assist from Morris. Yedlin? Lookin' good for an assist, as long as he keeps up the form in EPL. In any case, with Fab on the other fb side, I'd expect one assist from the fb position anyway. Mid is a black hole. I'd start working in Roldan and Delgado along with Rowe if Arena likes him.
If you want to move him away from goal, yeah. Personally I want my gunslinger 1 on 1 vs the keeper as often as I can set that up. don't you? goal vs Bayern a week ago, hello? You say you wanted him further back so he couldn't score that? Nah. Take a look at the goal he fired in against Trinidad. You don't put Billy the Kid in the chuck wagon.
Games are won by offence, tournaments are won by defence. US offence is quite good anyway, I'd say, so no reason to worry. Arena can balance the team, so US will have a solid performance next summer, or so I would expect. Pulisic, Jozy, Dempsey sounds like a credible firepower for mid-ranked team like US.
When your best offensive player is twice younger than the second best that's usually not a very good sign.
We need an impregnable defense (notice the "s", Jazzy....) and a counter-attacking offense that is good at set plays (which I don't think we're good at atm). Above all, we need to limit turnovers in our back third, which makes us look even more defensively oriented. Actually, above all, we need a lucky draw......
Other than Dempsey and Pulisic no. Time to start talking about Luis Silva, finess players have been ignored for too long.
Man, just thinking about this question bums me out a little. I don't think we have great personnel to be dangerous on the counter (can you imagine anyone currently on the team creating/scoring goals on the counter the way Donovan did in 09-10?). Maybe if Morris raises his game, he and Pulisic can make it happen, but I don't know. We also don't seem to be as dominant on set pieces anymore (in terms of headers off of corners or free kicks). Who on the team is a real aerial threat? Brooks? That's about it, right? On the plus side, maybe we're better at scoring directly off free kicks than in the past. Dempsey and Altidore both had nice goals in the GC, and Acosta has done it for Dallas. Then when it comes to generating chances from sustained possession, it seems like we still don't move the ball fast enough or creatively enough as a group to create chances that way and have to rely on Dempsey or Pulisic to manufacture something out of almost nothing. But Dempsey's too old and Pulisic is probably still too young to carry that whole load against high-level competition.
If I am the coach right now, this is my starting 11, no more coward tactics. 1. Howard 2. Chandler 3. Cam 4, Brooks 5. Fabian 7. Luis Silva 6. Jermaine Jones 8. Benny 10. Pulisic 11. Dempsey 9. Wood I don't think I am missing anybody that can make a bigger impact.
This is a great question --- but I agree with what seems to be the consensus -- 'no'. The midfield is absolutely key here and while we are getting better, we aren't quite there yet. This gets to one of the goals that Sunil had in hiring JK - we need better development overall in the US. Some of this was echoed by Steve Cherundolo in his recent interview - though he focused on the 16-18 range. I do believe, however, that we should be competitive enough to expect to get out of our group (short of a horrendous draw -- IMHO, until we get ranked we will almost always be in a Group of Death, but we should expect to get out of them much more often than not) and win a knockout round game or two.
Once again all I can say to Mr. Rivas is I am dang glad you are not the MNT coach. Your midfield .....well just smh.
you call it "coward tactics" while acknowledging that we have significantly less talent than our WC competitors (presumably even with this lineup). I'd call a defensive oriented strategy as highly sensible. I'm guessing you're not a believer in Moneyball type analysis where you try to maximize your percentages and that you admire Mexico fans' philosophy as it is essentially the same as yours (style is more important than actually winning games).
I think other players will step up besides the obvious of Dempsey, or Pulisic.... Examples: Zusi in 2014: 2 assists Brooks in 2014: Goal Young Bradley in 2010: Goal Young Jozy in 2010: Assist Sanneh in 2002: Assist Potential players to get assists or goals are... Goals: Jozy, Wood, Dempsey, Pulisic, Morris, Agudelo, Bradley, Cameron & Brooks Assits: Jozy, Dempsey, Pulisic, Agudelo, Zardes, Saief, F Johnson, Bradley, Williams, Feilhaber, McCarty, Kljestan, Arriola, Yedlin, Villafana
Are we as offensively talented as a lot of teams? Heck no were not. But the other side of the coin is that most teams do not score a ton of goals in the WC, unless they draw a really weak team that really doesn't belong (expanding to 48 = joke). This is soccer. Goals are hard to come by and in the WC they are even harder to come by.
We are not as talented as the Germans or Argentinians but to play defensive vs a non top 10 teams is def being a coward.
If you never take risks you will never be great. To me coaches like Mourinho are simply a disgrace to soccer. Klinsmann took risks, he was a terrible coach but he did take risks sometimes, I respect that.
You sound like my Mexican friends crying every time we beat them: "you play such an ugly game - it doesn't count!" I just laugh, say "scoreboard" and watch their heads explode. You may be too young to remember Cobi in the corner... Good times, good times.....