How the USMNT Under Klinsmann Scores Goals

I made a similar thread a couple years back, but the overwhelming majority of the goals I looked at were from the Bob Bradley era, so I decided to do another one of these threads exclusively for the Klinsmann era. The criteria is the same as before: I’m looking at goals against top 50 Elo ranked teams at the time of those matches (excluding January camp and off-year Gold Cup matches), and looking for statistical leaders and common trends.

Once again, I’m limiting this to top 50 Elo sides because I’ve generally found that to be the approximate cut-off point for World Cup quality opposition. (And once again I’ve excluded January camp friendlies and the off-year Gold Cup because of the tendency for both sides to bring weakened squads to those.) We’ve played 29 matches that fit this criteria in the Klinsmann era: Mexico (five times), Belgium (twice), Ecuador, France, Slovenia, Italy, Scotland (twice), Brazil, Jamaica (twice), Russia, Honduras (twice), Costa Rica (twice), Germany, Panama (twice), Bosnia, Austria, Ukraine, Turkey, and Nigeria.

We’ve scored 43 goals in these matches, and we’ve let up 39 goals. The main contributors to our goals were as follows:

Goals

Dempsey – 10
Altidore – 9
Donovan – 4
Bradley – 3
E. Johnson – 3


Assists

Bradley – 6
F. Johnson – 5
Altidore – 3
Dempsey – 3
Jones – 3


Overall Production (Goals + Assists)

Dempsey – 13
Altidore – 12
Bradley – 9
Donovan – 6
F. Johnson – 6


MLS Assists (Assists + Secondary Assists)

Bradley – 10
F. Johnson – 7 (was credited for a secondary assist on his own goal)
Jones – 5
Zusi – 4 (plus one pass leading to a PK)
Altidore – 4
Dempsey – 4

(For assists, I used USSoccer.com match reports. For secondary assists, I used those same reports and my own eyes.)

No surprise here: our main goalscoring threat is Dempsey followed very closely by Altidore. Our primary provider is Bradley, followed very closely by Fabian Johnson.

 

Set Pieces, PK’s, and Run of Play Goals

Three of our goals were Penalty Kicks: Dempsey scored two and Altidore scored one. Fabian Johnson drew two of the three (with Zusi and Chandler providing the passes leading to them).

Two of our goals came off Direct Free Kicks: They were scored by Gomez and Altidore.

Five of our goals came from Corner Kicks, with five different goal scorers: Bradley, Cameron, Dempsey, E.Johnson, and Orozco. Zusi provided the delivery on two of those; Bradley, Donovan, and Davis provided delivery on the others.

If you exclude these statistics, we scored 33 goals from the run of play and our statistical leaders from the run of play look like this:

Goals

Altidore – 7
Dempsey – 7
Donovan – 4
Bradley – 2
E. Johnson – 2


Assists

Bradley – 5
F. Johnson – 5
Altidore – 3
Jones – 3
Dempsey – 2


Overall production (Goals + Assists)

Altidore – 10
Dempsey – 9
Bradley – 7
F. Johnson – 6
Donovan - 5


Assists + Secondary Assists

Bradley – 9
F. Johnson – 7
Jones - 5
Altidore – 4
Dempsey – 3

 

Recurring Themes From the Run of Play

Crosses

Around five of our goals came from traditional crosses from outside of the box. Beltran, Chandler, Davis, Fabian Johnson, and Zusi each provided one of the deliveries on these goals. Another nine involved a centering ball from closer in, but I grouped those separately. Fabian Johnson had four of the latter; Shea had two; Diskerud, Donovan, and Jones each had one.


Through Balls

Somewhere between six to eight of our run of play goals involved a defense splitting through ball that sent a runner in behind the opposition defense. This was a subjective call, but I found that Bradley made the key pass on four or five of those. Cameron, Jones, and arguably Fabian Johnson contributed on each on the others. (Fabian Johnson and Altidore were each twice on the end of those balls.)


Possession and Penetration

I tried to identify goals where we strung together at least four deliberate passes in the opposition half before putting the ball in the back of the net. I found at least six instances. There might have been a couple more, but probably not too many. In two of those plays (against Honduras and Panama), we strung together at least 6 passes in the opposition half before scoring. Bradley and Jones had the final pass on two plays each.


Long Distance Strikes

Five of our goals (plus two more from direct free kicks) were fired in from outside of the 18. Bradley was the only player who scored on more than one of these.

Target Play

I’ll divide this into aerial and non-aerial target forward play. We only had two goals that resulted from aerial target forward play, both against Russia, with Agudelo and Boyd as the primary contributors. But, six of our goals involved a forward in the attacking third holding up the ball or holding off a defender with his back to the goal until he could find a teammate. Altidore did it at least three times, Boyd did it twice, and Gomez did it at least once

One v One Skill

Four goals involved someone taking on a player with the ball at their feet and getting past them with one v one skill or speed. Shea did it twice (both against Mexico); Fabian Johnson and Diskerud each did it once (against Bosnia and Mexico respectively). (I didn't count it if a player used skill to gain a little room to get a shot or cross off.)

Rebounds

Three of our goals were scored off rebounded shots. Dempsey scored twice on those goals. Donovan scored once.

Deep High Pressure Turnover

Two goals were scored by forcing a turnover deep in the opposition half with high pressure. One resulted in a Germany own goal. The other resulted in a goal by Buddle against Slovenia – the turnover was forced by Dempsey’s pressure.

Long Ball

We scored only one goal off a hoof it long approach – Johannsson’s winner against Panama, started from a Guzan punt.

 

I'm planning on posting a bit more when I have time, but I wasn't planning on posting that one so I appreciate it.

One thing I only realized after my first post is that one of those 29 -- Belgium, the first time we played them -- was technically ranked 51st at the time by Elo. But we didn't score any goals in that game, and it's inexplicable that Belgium was ranked that low anyway, so I think it's okay to keep that in the appearance tally.

 

Just need to point out that those stats use a different match criteria than the one I'm using in this thread (and the prior thread I made).

Nothing wrong with that, but I figured I'd just make that clear so that there's no confusion.

 

So, I promised I would update this. Here are the numbers for Klinsmann's entire time in charge against top 50 Elo opposition excluding January camp friendlies and the '13 Gold Cup. I've excluded player with less than 2 goals, 2 assists, 4 goals+assists, or 4 MLS assists.

Goals

Dempsey – 12 (2 of which were PKs)
Altidore – 10 (2 of which were PKs)
Donovan – 4
Diskerud - 4
Bradley – 3
E. Johnson – 3
Brooks - 2
Gomez - 2
Johannsson - 2
Jones - 2
Orozco - 2
Wood - 2

Assists

Bradley – 9 (1 of which was a corner kick)
F. Johnson – 6
Altidore – 4
Jones – 4
Zusi - 4 (2 of which were corner kicks)
Dempsey - 3
Boyd - 2
Chandler - 2
Davis - 2 (1 of which was a corner kick)
Donovan - 2 (1 of which was a corner kick)
Yedlin - 2

Overall Production (Goals + Assists)

Dempsey – 15
Altidore – 14
Bradley – 12
F. Johnson – 7
Donovan - 6
Zusi - 5 (plus one pass leading to a PK)
Diskerud - 4

MLS Assists (Assists + Secondary Assists)

Bradley – 16
F. Johnson – 8 (was credited for a secondary assist on his own goal)
Altidore - 7
Jones – 7
Dempsey – 4
Zusi – 4 (plus one pass leading to a PK)

If I made any errors while rushing through this, my apologies. I don't have as much time to work on these as I used to, but there shouldn't be any major errors.

 

I thought it was going to take us a long time to find anyone who could come close to matching Landon Donovan's contributions as a provider, but those assist and secondary assist numbers are not that far away from the type of production Donovan was achieving at his peak.

Moreover, somewhere between 7-9 of those are killer/through balls, which for the most part wasn't how Donovan created goals.