Im a bit confused as to what Ellis is doing. If she s still experimenting then Im surprised she left two roster spots unfilled and even more surprised she didn't use all he subs to look at all her options. If she is done experimenting and inexplicably gelling her team two years out then the holders r in a lot of trouble. They can't connect passes, can't create good shots, can't run a set piece and aren't winning on defense.
Some possible explanations: --It could have been too difficult to fill the roster spots last minute, considering this was an overseas trip. (Not only hard logistics-wise for the manager but for a player getting called up who may have already made plans for her FIFA break.) --The players Ellis wanted to call up to fill the empty roster spots could have already been called up for the U23 Nordic tournament, which Ellis knew would be nearby and available in an emergency. --Both Norway and Sweden also limited their subs, even though they had full rosters available on their bench. The teams could have mutually agreed to play with more limited subs (possibly 4?), in order for Norway and Sweden to prep for the limited subs of their upcoming Euro tournament. Even then, in the Sweden game, Ellis used all of her available subs, except for subbing in Leroux, who perhaps Ellis decided is not fully ready. --On our holding midfield, I don't think Ellis is set at all. Brian is still out injured, and is certainly still in the mix.
Instead of starting a whole thread, I'll just put it here. The U23 team competed in the Four Nations Nordic Tournament while the full team was in Europe. The roster: GOALKEEPERS: Casey Murphy, Jane Campbell DEFENDERS: Ellie Jean, Christina Gibbons, Kaleigh Riehl, Natalie Jacobs, Tegan McGrady, Kristen McNabb, Hailie Mace, Zoey Goralski MIDFIELDERS: Danielle Weatherholt, Brianna Pinto, Jaelin Howell, Sandra Yu, Michelle Xiao, Jordan DiBiasi, Mayra Pelayo, Margaret Purce FORWARDS: Sophia Smith, Ashley Hatch, Savannah McCaskill In the first match, the team beat Norway 3-0, with the goals coming from Howell, Smith, and Riehl. In the second match, the team drew with England 0-0. In the third match, the team beat Sweden 2-1 with goals from Hatch and Howell, but did not have enough goal differential to win the tournament and finished second behind England.
ussoccer practicing their "if you're good enough, you're old enough" creed (tho, the best youngster, in my eyes, ashley sanchez, is nowhere in sight). in this match, note the ages of the key players. first goal scorer, howell - 17 second goal scorer, smith - 16 assisting on the third goal, pinto - 17
The USWNT should be able to find 3-5 midfielders with good first touch, good pace, and good tactical awareness. They should be able to move the ball through the midfield to the forwards quickly and accurately. If this is not true, then our entire womens' development is broken (this could be the case). I don't remember seeing that type of midfield play in the last 10 years. Yes they won these friendlies, but they played terrible for long stretches like they have since the WC. Simple passes go wayward, players dribble at speed and lose the ball or pass wildly, they pass around the back then kick the ball long out of bounds. Many times you see the players gesturing that their teammate should have went that way not the way they did. They force the ball into situations where they are numerically inferior instead of rotating the ball to the other side. Lavelle is fun to watch, and her first touch is good, but how many times did you see her dribbling and her second touch is like 20 yards ahead of her and picked off. She was the #10, but many times she gets the ball around the half way line with no teamates in front of her. Dribble, dribble, lose ball. Pugh does not have a first touch and she doesn't seem to have any idea other than beat the defender and do something. Nobody seems to have any idea of where their teammates are going without the ball. Eventually, everyone stands still because they are all so confused. JE seems to do things randomly with lineups and rosters. All the USA does by passing it along the back line and then into the DM, who passes it back, is allow the other team to get settled in defense. They have a lot of time before WC19, but I don't see any evidence JE is the coach to fix any of this. Not even sure she understands there is a problem.
None of which apply to Allie Long or Horan. Each of the other mids, whatever their issues, at least check one those boxes.
Having the u23s close is a good thought. I don't buy any restrictions because Brian was dropped and not replaced before Morgan was replaced. If they had time to add Williams they had more time to replace Brian. As to what Sweden and Norway did, both were chasing the game in front of their home fans. If anything the Ellis sub patterns fits the famous theory that her subs r scripted and not related to game situations. One sub she should have made was take Dahlkemper out. I get the medical staff must have cleared her but seeing her drop to one knee a minute after that blow to her head was pretty scary. Better safe than sorry is my opinion.
I agree completely. My understanding is that the concussion protocol is this: If a player has any symptom of a concussion (which is what the medical staff on the scene determines) then there is a series of steps the player must go through before return to play. They take about 5 days, at a minimum. They are something like this: 1. The player cannot engage in any soccer-related activity until determined by a physician to be clear of all concussion symptoms; 2. The player, for one day, can engage in light exercise; 3. The player, for one day, can engage in more demanding physical exercise; 4. The player, for one day, can engage in light, no-contact play; and 5. The player, for one day, can engage in full play. If the player can go through these steps with no return of concussion symptoms, the player is back to regular playing status. If the player experiences any concussion symptom while going through the steps, then the player must go back to step 1 and repeat the process. I thought it was very clear Dahlkemper had at least one concussion symptom. If I'm right, it was irresponsible and dangerous to allow her to keep playing, and there's no excuse for it. Yet I see this happening in soccer over and over, as well as in other sports. Maybe it needs to be made a crime for a coach to allow a player to return to play in a situation like this.
with all the updated information these players have, shouldn't some lesser responsibility begin to be placed on them as well? or does a concussion prevent them from making decisions? and/or is the fear of losing their spot too much of a counterweight to expect them to take themselves out?
Gotta say if these kids are so good, then why did the u17s on which they featured prominently, (although Smith was used as a super sub) tank so badly in Jordan?
Because the other 8 players were winning their battles, instead of losing them? ... also, because we weren't playing U-23 Japan
You're referring to three kids. If you figure what a national team is looking for from each birth year's players, 3 players is about right. Maybe even a little high? But, 3 players don't make a full birth year team. Which I hope illustrates why looking only at how the youth national teams do isn't sufficient. It's more complicated than that. That seems to be something that Gilmoy was suggesting.
Lately when I watch the WNT play, I notice how they could really use a player like Julie Foudy. Someone who is not the fastest or explosive or tricky, but who sees the whole field, keeps the ball moving, passes accurately, links up play, communicates.
I think Morgan Brian meets this description, no? Definitely not the most dynamic athlete on the field, but good vision and ball skills, good soccer IQ, etc.
Judge for yourself. Are these transcendent players clearly superior to and being held back by the others? Who created the Japanese first clear GSO within a few seconds of kickoff? My opinion is that the hype the USSF puts forward in regard to these young players is not good for their development.
I thought she was exactly that in WC2015, but less so in the Olympics and she has been repeatedly injured. But JE has also, when she has been available, been playing her all over and more up top. JE seems to prefer Long. But under any pressure she just passes it to Broon. It could be nobody is showing for the ball; or that she is not comfortable with the ball under pressure.
Agree unfortunately has not proven very durable. Really hasn't shown much for the Dash but again match fitness has been an issue for all of her professional career. Wondering why she was held back from Scandinavia, while playing the full 90 for the Dash? I watched the Swiss friendlies again from last year. Sullivan was excellent with similar characteristics.Hoping she comes back strongly from her ACL.
What are we supposed to look at if not how the teams and players do against good competition in a WC tournament when teams care about the results? They not only didn't get results, they were outplayed by both Ghana and Japan. Ghana outshot them 24-11, Japan outshot them 22-10. If I recall, the US midfield in those games was woeful. Don't Pinto and Howell play midfield?
First time I saw Pulisic was at the U17 WC. He was obviously our best player; but the team was not good. He would make an impact in the first 20 minutes, but then blend in more. Probably, teams we were playing quickly figured out who was dangerous and who was not and rotated to cut him out. Nobody else on that team kept them honest. Sanchez at the U17 was very similar. I agree that the midfield for the girls was terrible too. Much like the senior team. The world has learned they can press US women and girls and cause havoc. Nobody can break a press, they just pass it back to a CB or FB who sends a long ball into a side channel for a forward.
The US midfield has rarely excelled at the youth level. Even during successful years where they tended to use speed up the flanks rather than possession. In my opinion that has more to do with development, tactics, and coaching than anything else.
The U17s have never won the WC. They've only placed one time, in 2008 when they were runnerup to North Korea. Some years, they haven't even qualified through weak Concacaf. The U20s have a better record. They at least placed finishing 4th in 2016 but again the quality of play was poor. If you're right about the development, tactics and coaching, you would think they make adjustments given the poor results and play -- either change the coaches or the players or both. The US has the biggest player pool, the most resources, the most camps, the most prep, etc.
Howell was the 6 and Pinto was the 8. They were indeed fixtures of the very poor midfield performance in Jordan. Pinto to me had some decent moments, but transcendent? No way. Not even really special. I think there are many 99s who would have performed as, or more, strongly. Howell was completely outmatched by the speed of play and I am grossly confused as to the basis for her elevation. They are in no way comparable to Pulisic who I believe won the golden ball in the Nike friendlies which is the pre WC big event for the 17s and has always shown exceptional, technique, tactical sophistication and creativity. Further, he was a physical late bloomer and has matured over the interval. As in most if not all female YNT players, Howell and Pinto were early maturers. We completely lose the female late bloomers because of the early fast track and lack of a real pyramid. If you watched the video, do you see these American players demonstrating exceptional technique, tactical sophistication and creativity? Sanchez was head and shoulders the best player for the US but has apparently fallen out of favor...at least temporarily.
I just watched the Norway match. My impressions To me, we clearly played a 3-5-2 with O'hara as a wing and Becky as the Rcb/br I'm tired of watching like 80% of he attack go through O'Hara. She's where attacks go to die. As I say that she receives the ball in tons of space, has no ideas so the the fullback closes her down, pretends like she has some moves, and gets pressured into dribbling the ball out of bounds when she started out w/ space and then had a 1v1. Just aweful. It looked like Norway was inviting us to pass the ball to her on the wing. I'm still baffled why Ellis won't just play Rose on the left. She, (Ellis) is outsmarting herself. Let Rose play her natural position. On positioning, was bummed to see Dunne played anywhere but forward. She does so well at forward, I think she should be locked in there. That said, she did some nice things on he left in the 2nd half. I'm a little surproprised that JP and Ally were pretty effusive in their praise of Rose and Mal, but barely mentioned Crystal. One weird thing about the we we're playing is that our CM's - Mewis and Long - almost never pass to each other. It's going to be dam hard to uild through the middle when our middle players won't use each other.
Japan has a way of destroying our midfield play. Our mids were almost nonexistent in the second half of the U17 game shown above (and our right back was bad)--they rarely had the ball. The exact same thing happened in the most recent U20 WC when we played Japan--our midfield play was terrible in that game (and throughout the tournament). You have to possess the ball against Japan or they will run you ragged--they are the Barcelona of women's soccer--and you can see how tired our players were. You can't win the ball and then just clear it forward blindly--something our back four did time and again--that is playing into Japan's hands. Not smart.