Yeah, the problem with a knee as opposed to an ankle is u cant just throw a boot on and hop on the bike.
And a lot of this goes back to Sundhage and her shallow pool. LePeilbet was a stop gap and Krieger came from outside the program. Mitts was already on the last go round which left Cox and Klingenberg. Where were the up and coming generation of outside backs?
What I dont like is the talk about playing her at DM. Not that anything is guaranteed but with concussion issues I think she is much better off in a wide position.
Chalupny is quality and should be on the team. Pia switched KOH to a different position to have her on the team. I think Ellis would be well-advised to play O'Hara in a prominent midfield position and let her get comfortable. JJ and Dunn are both US quality. Dunn needs to get healthy. Johnston needs to be integrated into the DM position.
she plays in the middle most of the time for the red stars, who take a very robust approach to the game. nothing is guaranteed. she could get a concussion in practice any day. but she may be the best dm we have. so, if she helps the team there play her there. i'm not worried. johnston cannot play dm at the international level. jmo. however, she shows all the markings of a great cd.
not true, tho often said. pia had a full pool of players that were kept on in order to win the wc and the olympics. her job was not to prep new players for the next cycle. there would be two years available to do that job. the next generation was playing u20/u23/college/club soccer where we always find them.
Then Im confused where the outside back problem came from. The four outside backs on the 2011 WC roster were Krieger, LePeilbet, Mitts and Cox. Krieger was unavailable do to injury. Cox was simply not selected for whatever reason. Mitts, who was Krieger's backup was not considered starter material so LePeilbet changed sides and reserve midfielder Kelley O'Hara got a crash course in left back. Klingenberg was taken as an alternate. What I take from that is neither of the back up outside backs were considered good enough to start and the next full back in the pool wasnt consider ready to step in. How is this a full pool of players?
you continue to conflate prepping for the new cycle with pia's task of winning the wc & olympics. you keep the team together in the best way you can because winning is your primary objective. right after you win you or the new coach could even change the player who started at a certain position if you can get a better one ready in two years.... ...or you could have expected retirements.... ...or maybe unexpected injuries.... that doesn't mean that pia didn't have a full pool of players. she did. there were players and backups for each slot (even tho we didn't necessarily like the coach's choices). and she won the olympics with them.
Well I guess this comes down to whether u think Sundhage's job was to accrue statistics, which she did quite well, or perpetuate the program. She famously capped 19 players for the first time. Of those 19, 7 played on an an Olympic or WC roster. That's probably not a bad ratio. The problem is she made no effort to develop players deeper in the pool. For example,she carried three CB, Rampone plus two she developed, Sauerbrunn and Buehler. Behind them apparently was Whitney Engen with two caps by the end of 2012. If one of those CBs had been injured before one of the majors it could have been a disaster. To compare the current US pool has five CBs with caps at the half way point in the cycle. They r even deeper at outside back.
if you still don't know what i think her job was.... how she did it was certainly different than the next coach. doesn't make it wrong. she got to the finals of the wc, and won the olympics. and what her alternate plans were if there was an injury at any position, we do not know. i'm sure they had backups written on paper. but you can run your practices and camps based on the possibility of injury at each of your key positions. she just chose not to. there's nothing wrong with that. it's just her way.
I'm not an Ellis fan. I think it would be a mistake if KO didn't make the final roster. Seems like we're still trying to find the right player for Dmid, or the central mid combo for that matter. I don't think the 4-3-3 is the way to go or even a 4-4-2 against the better teams that overload the middle to maintain possession. I don't know why we don't try KO at DM or even Kriegs at DM if we were confident with someone at RB...maybe Dunn or KO on her natural foot or Klings. I'd like to see us play a 4-5-1 and clog the middle and take our chances with Morgan and Press on the counter. Maybe two deep mids, one destroyer (Kreigs or KO) paired with Holiday as the distributor. ..................Press.......... .....Pinoe.......Brian.....Morgan ...............KO....Holiday....... Chalupa...SBrunn..Rampone....Kriegs Sub Lloyd for Brian late if we're down and need a shooter...Wambach subs late. Morgan as an flank attacker cutting in from the right for the left footed shot. Kind of a ramble, but basically KO is too good to leave out...she'd be the perfect harasser of the other teams playmaker...or a solid overlapping RB if Kriegs is the Dmid.
I like O'Hara on the outside but Krieger might be interesting at DM. I dont really like Press on top of a one front either. In fact the only decent back to goal forwards they have r Wambach and Holiday. Not sure Id like a one front but would be handy in certain situations. Here's the way Id try it just for fun with the players u named. .....................Brian Pinoe...........Press............Morgan ............Krieger.........Holiday Chalupny-Sauerbrunn-Rampone-O'Hara u could flip flop Brian and Holiday
Neither. Her job was as luvdagame writes to win the WWC and the Olympics (winning one and getting close to the other counting as acceptable performance), her secondary task was development (but far second to winning those tournaments or at least one), but that was very secondary to winning (USSoccer had made that quite clear)
My first reaction to a 4-5-1....NOOOO! This is not the MNT! However, considering recent performance, having a 4-5-1 in the back pocket to play against certain opponents might not be the worst idea. (But we have better counterattacking forward options than Press though.) Its essentially what we were playing against Brazil in the first half anyway. I'd hate to see it as the go-to formation though.
Well, it certainly is USSoccers goal but shouldnt be the goal of the coach. The coach has to build a winning program not a winning team. That's the way this team was originally constructed. When Dorrance replaced a lot of veterans with young kids who werent ready to play yet he wasnt thinking of winning in 91, he was looking beyond that. When Neid brought in young players this cycle she was looking at the big picture not just how to win in 2015. The win now mentality is why the US doesnt play more of a possession style. Why change the stle and risk losses when the team can continue to win this way. It also why there wasnt a deep pool at many positions. Why risk losing matches to give caps to young players who may not be factors until the next cycle when u can give all the minutes to the same players and worry about the next cycle when it comes? This type of thinking comes with a cost. Sermanni tried to change this thinking. He tried to give international experience to the next generation of players while preparing the veterans for the two big tournaments in this cycle. If left to do his work he still may not have won the WC, but the program would have been set up for the next cycle. Instead USSoccer took a step backwards and here we r. Most people remember Pia Sundhage as the coach who almost won the WC. I remember her as the coach who almost didnt qualify for the WC.
Of course, none of that has anything to do with what Pia was actually asked to do, with what she agreed to do, or with the limitations created by the CBA. But other than that, your reasoning is sound, I guess....
I dont get this idea that she couldnt get both. No one said to he dont build the program and dont develop young talent. The CBA has built in provisions to bring players in on trial. Identify ur next generation, gets them some camps and some caps and ease the transition. No one is saying ur fifth outside back needs to be a USSF contract player but she also shouldnt need to wear a name tag if u need her. If u want another example of this approach in action look North. Herdman's biggest problem is Canada stopped developing young players. He got there and most of his players were 25 and up. He's spent the last two years bringing in young player who for the most part arent going to be ready in this cycle just to get the program back on track.
She was asked to fix the existing NT culture. April and Jill were hired to run the pipeline. It is common isn't it for foreign coaches hired to run NT's to expressly refuse responsibility for development; I think with the idea that someone domestic should be in charge of that so that any mistakes are in house? IIRC Pia expressed something along those lines when she was hired, but perhaps someone else has a better memory than I do. And if the fed is already contracted with players and must pay them, then there is a pretty strong incentive to play those players. Plus of course, they may actually have contracted the right players.
The way she's played this year, she's earned a starting spot. Which is more than I could say for some players who continue to start.
Im not talking about her running the feeder system. That's whole different argument. The coach needs to be responsible that she has depth at every position. About a mile back in the conversation I mentioned the outside back situation. When Krieger got injured the coach didnt feel his backup, Heather Mitts could simply step in. Now I always liked Mitts and would have been happy to see her play more but obviously Sundhage didnt. That begs the question why have a 30 something backup u dont trust to start when u could be developing someone in that spot? Even if it turned out to be O'Hara she could have been ready to go instead of fast tracked and they could hve been developing a midfielder. The contracts r yearly so if the fed gave out the max contracts in 2012 they were already paying 6 people who wouldnt make the Olympic roster. That was another opportunity for player development.
Hmmm-- as I remember it Mitts wasn't the backup any more, and was in effect called back because Kreiger got hurt and Cox got pregnant, creating a shortage at the position which had not previously existed. Called back to back up LePielbet, that is... And again-- before you can "develop someone at that spot" don't you have to have someone that you think will develop better than what you already have?
Mitts was on both the WC and OG rosters. Cox played for the Sounders in 2012 had her baby and joined the Reign near the end of 2013 As to who to develop. The two field alternates for the Olympic team were Klingenberg (2 caps) and a capless Christen Press. Maybe she could have developed one of those two.
This takes the position that having players be field alternates for the Olympics is not part of developing them. That seems not correct to me.