Pre-match: International Friendly: USA vs Brazil; September 2018

We should be so lucky to see Acosta on he bench. So lucky.

 

There is zero riding on this game other than the play of individuals. Sarachan will not ask the team to bunker. He just wants everyone to perform as well as possible under the circumstances. Now those circumstances include the fact that Brazil is playing. A bunker might be forced upon the US, but not by Sarachan.

 

This Korea-Costa Rica is a fun game, fast on both sides, decent passing, and a lot of width in attack. David Guzman (Portland) and Francisco Calvo (Minnesota) representing MLS on the field.

 

Rising costs....

My fricken back yard was free.

 

That would make sense, but ignores everything Sarachan has done the last 10 months. Sarachan and the Media seem very happy the USA drew 1-1 with World Champs France. Nobody seems at all upset that the system used that day by the USMNT had zero ability to attack. It was 100% defensive with the two forwards just the first line of defense. a 5-5-0 just about. That a goal was created from a France midfielder knocking the ball to Shaq perfectly in stride, then Shaq's off target cross being completely bungled by the French fullback directly to Green is beside the point. The point is they tied and they will, "build" off it.

I expect the same set up, maybe even lineup with Brooks for Parker or CCV, as against France. It was a glorious result that can be achieved again.

It is laughable how the media will tell you results in friendlies don't matter, but that is all they talk about. There is zero analysis beyond the score for ESPN, SI, SBI, etc. We tied France! We can tie Brazil too!

 

You defend then take the one or two chances you get. That's the way these games, friendlies or not, go against the big boys. The other path is to go out and get slaughtered.

Who wants to travel thousands of miles just to get humiliated, even in a friendly?

 

I'm not disagreeing we are a team that will have to bunker against Brazil. I was responding to a poster that suggested we will not.

 

There are maybe five or six teams that don’t bunker against Brazil.

 

given the current constraints i.e. coach, roster etc....yes a bunker is probable.

but i disagree that if that situation were different that it would be an inevitability.

Brazil isn't THAT good, imo.

I think with the right coach, roster etc...the us can play straight up vs anyone.

 

I don't really disagree too much, but you neglect to mention that we scored a second goal to take a 2-0 lead early in the 2nd half that was only "just" whistled back for offside due to a mistimed run from Wood. essentially if Wood is just a touch better there, the approach would have yielded a likely US victory.

I think one of the problems with friendlies is that there a ton of things you want to get out of them that sometimes aren't mutually alligned but instead contradictory.

You want to try out tactical approaches and see:
*how effective certain players are in them
*how effective certain combinations are.

You want to try out different players you don't normally see so:
You can evaluate them individually.
You can build their chemistry with other players.
You can evaluate how they play in combination.

You want to build up morale through playing in a proactive/confident style:
*but this can result in getting taken to the woodshed by teams that have the abundance of attacking talent of a France or Brazil.

*but this doesn't really train players for a likely approach against teams with significantly more talent and depth then us. We won't typically play a super open game against a Brazil, a Belgium, a France or a Germany in a World Cup or Confederation Cup, so why utilize an approach that doesn't reflect what the game plan would be most likely to be. Wouldn't it make more sense to strengthen player familiarity with a counterattacking approach (not bunkering, but still defense first approach) that is most likely to be used?

You want to have players leave the game feeling positive going forward but...

*is it worth the risk to play a proactive style to achieve that goal or is it...

*better to play a counterattacking style, cede possession, risk lower morale but a better result?

Listening to Conrad's latest podcast you see that "more open," don't just sick back, play defense and absorb pressure, what are you gonna get out of that. Didn't like that with Bradley. Preferred Arena's more confident style (ceding the disaster in the cycle while mentioning that)."

I understand what he's saying, but for me, one of the biggest problems is sorting out which things are your priority and there are many more that could be mentioned.

I wonder what the main objectives around here are for people?

In my case, it's familiarity between guys we projected to either be starters positionally or first off the bench, and so getting an opportunity for those guys to play together and build that chemistry, and practice a counterattacking system that creates legit chances, but mirrors what we'd be most likely to do in a real contest vs Brazil and Mexico.

 

the passive/defend 100% approach is the problem.

it has to go.

yes it will lead to some blowouts and embarrassments but the defend 100% will too, while also lowering the ceiling of the team in the process. (the arena/sarachan style did miss the last wc iirc)

when coaches are coaching for their lives and want to survive it is an easy go-to...but in the long-term...the program must transition to the way the big teams play. it might not be pretty in the short-term but in the long-term it is the only option.

if you play an open game and get destroyed...you will still be able to see which players can thrive in such a setup and keep those. rinse repeat until you have a squad of such players.

if you play bunker...you will never know which players can really play toe to toe....and especaially in a meaningless game....i'd much prefer to let the chips fall where they may.

this mandatory bunker style just strikes me as giving up before the game starts....not the way to do it.

 

Really interesting article. It all rings true. Our local high school built a golf course over the summer...go figure. Not that I have anything against golf, but would much rather see the kids play soccer. Such a sad course of events has befallen this country.

 

JK decided to give Bedoya a first runout in deep central midfield. At the time, he had next to no experience in the position. So JK decided an open match against Brazil was the perfect opportunity to experiment. Bedoya got embarrassed by Willian. The team got humiliated by a Brazil that never got out of first gear.

Bedoya went on to become one of the top 8s in the league. He could have been useful in the Hex, in central midfield. But, yeah, he sucked against Brazil, so...

100% defending against a major power is not the problem. Even France rolled with 36% possession against Croatia and Belgium. You take what's given instead of going out like suckers then protesting with claims you 'dominated' possession.

Mexico aside, against Concacaf comp, the US will need to learn to play with possession, as the opposition will be playing on the counter. Brazil aren't the team against which to practice possession and expansive play.

 

jk was a bad coach. he didnt set the team up well in that game....or many other gamed for that matter (i personally dont care about the humiliation/public relations side of it AT ALL - he didnt say anything wrong in his post-match comments about bedoya not playing well that everyone was so offended by)

they lost a friendly. badly. who cares? i dont.

in fact, i think friendlies are the PERFECT games to practice going toe to toe....the result is irrelevant.

playing an open style wasnt necessarily the culprit and reason for the bad loss. it could be that the specific strategy and lineup was the problem not the overall startegy itself. perhaps there would have been a lineup that jk could have put together that would have won the game in an open style - we will never know - but dont confuse the failings of a bad coach as a referendum against everything related to what he did.

so JK couldnt find a way - or didnt want to find a way - to get the USMNT to play an open aggressive style - that doesnt mean another coach who actually knows what he is doing couldnt!!!

dont throw the baby out with the bathwater.

bottomline: why are the games being played? to prevent humiliation? is that really the purpose of these games? if so, then sure...let's bunker and defend.

if, on the other hand, trying to make the best possible 2022 WC team is the goal...then bunkering and defending every game against good teams is not the best path towards that goal..not even close.

 

Klinsmann used the Brazil friendlies as such a benchmark. The idea is to try to play them toe-to-toe and see where we were in the process. We lost 4-1 in 2012 and 4-1 in 2015.

I would like to see us try to play them straight up with a midfield trio of Acosta, McKennie, and Adams. Those are 3 of our youngsters with the athletic prowess, tactical awareness, technical skills, and most important, the mentality to not be afraid and to go after Brazil. Green has scored against Belgium and against France, in both cases great individual effort goals.

The score does not matter, let's turn the young dogs loose and lets see what they have!

Wood Weah
Green
Acosta McKennie Adams
Robinson Brooks Miazga Yedlin
Steffen
​

 

That formation might work at home against Panama.

The players, and not just Bedoya, cared about that humiliation against Brazil.

For his NT career, JK did about as well as Bob did. Both were solid coaches.

Friendlies are great to practice going toe-to-toe---depending on the level of the opposition. Given that, going toe-to-toe with a major power teaches nothing useful in getting prepared for games that matter.

We've been going at Brazil in matches spanning the Bob and JK's tenures. Time to get smart.

Friendlies provide insight into the quality of players and efficacy of tactics. But what will another 4-1 blowout show?

 

your bar for solid is so low....

relative to what us soccer has been...jk and bob were similar but like i said the usmnt has never had a great coach. (which is a big reason why coaches like jk and bob who failed spectacularly in big 4 leagues can be considered "solid")

i agree with houston hoya...these players havent failed against anyone like the ones that came before them did...might as well go all out until they prove they cant. your approach imposes a low ceiling on the team at a time when the sky should be the limit.

i wonder how you might respond if houston hoya lineup was used to great effect and the us won the game? what then? your whole approach goes up in smoke...and that would be a good thing.

on the other hand, if your defense bunker 3 dmid approach is used ...what has been established that we dont already know? nothing. as usual.

 

Nothing. I don't really understand the preference for it over just utilizing the tactics that make sense considering what you'd normally do in competition. When you play a team as technically skilled and athletic and fast as Brazil, it doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm not arguing for bunkering, just more of a counterattacking approach which is what we'd use anyway. If we just try to play a team like Brazil in the same way we'd play El Salvador, they will run us off the field, it serves no purpose since it doesn't test out tactics that are utilizable, or provide an opportunity to evaluate players in combination and independently in scenarios that actually reflect what we'd do in a normal situation.

I'm not arguing for 10 behind the ball and pray, I'm just arguing for a sound counter-attacking approach grounded in the same approaches we'd use if we were in a World Cup Round of 16 match against Brazil. We haven't even brought all the players most likely to contribute skills necessary to make us more of an even up bunch. Right now we're young and raw at forward+Wood, we're basically bringing a defensive minded midfield to the game, and a quality defense. We don't even have the players that might allow us to play more aggressively available to begin with. Sargent's not there to provide those picture perfect runs and movement, Pulisic is out, no Amon, no Sabbi, no Siebatcheu (one can dream) etc. Instead we've got basically some tough minded central midfielders who aren't playmakers in the way an O'Brien, Reyna, Donovan, Mathis, or Ramos could be, and a quality defense. Build on their skills in a counterattacking approach, we shouldn't be asking them to do something that by and large is not there game, especially against Brazil and without guys like Pulisic etc.

 

well it will be 10 behind the ball and pray.

when you use 5 defenders and 3 dmids thats what happens.

i disagree that an extremely defensive approach should be used b/c it is "normal"....i dont see it as an inevitable normal. it IS the normal in terms of what the approach has historically been (though, even then, in the only WC QF the USMNT has ever played they played pretty stragiht up vs Germany, iirc!) ...but i prefer to look forward and not to the (underwhelming) past for answers. bottomline i do not take it for granted that the USMNT will always play submissively against the top teams....and to that end, the decision must be made to reject that option in order to pave the way for it to become a reality. until it is, it will never happen.

also from a pragmatic sense: what happens once your bunker gets broken and you have an extremely defensive team on the field? then what?

that, to me, is a big reason why the last brazil game was indeed such a humiliation....you let in some early goals with intention of playing defense and have no one that can score on the field.....an early goal or two and everything collapses....

look at the lineup in 2015 4-1 loss to brazil: where was the scoring supposed to come from????

you had 5 defenders and a mid of jones, bradley and bedoya.....behind zardes and altidore......it was never going to happen!!!! from the beginning! (and i predict something similar from sarachan as well)

going out to score and create chances is what you have to do sometimes no matter how defensively you want to play ...might as well practice that now against the best, imo.

 

If we get destroyed, would that speed up the search for a coach not named David Sarachan?

 

Okay, let's go with a 1-4-5 then

 

Cocaine is a Hell of a drug....

 

I might be more open to what your saying if the squad selection was different because at least we could experiment w/that approach with players that might be able to accomplish something, but that's not who we brought. There's not a ton of creativity in that midfield to my mind. It's an improvement over past iterations no doubt, but most of the young blood brought in is still a work in practice in the attacking third and significantly better on the defensive end. I don't see the point in directing a team bereft of the options necessary to pretend they've got options like a Belgium or France when they emphatically do not.

By late '19 to late '22 I suspect we will see an infusion of significantly more attacking talent to the team it will come in drips over the next 3-4 years rather than a steady flow but if all things go well in terms of development, and health, they will come, and in my view represent the most attacking talent we've had in the midfield and at forward since 2002 when Donovan, Beasley, Mathis, Wolff, McBride, Reyna, O'Brien, and Stewart were all healthy and playing at the same time. At that point we'll be able to take greater risks and begin moving more and more to an aggressive approach, but I don't see the point in using a roster like this to play a game they flat out can't play. Some guys can, no doubt, a Wood, a Weah, maybe a Roldan on his good day, maybe Zardes when his touch doesn't fail him, maybe a Nova etc, but that's way too many "maybe's" and "no's" for it to make sense in my view. The roster he brought was a roster to play for a tight game, and hope for a counterattacking goal at some point. Not really pretty, but it's what we've got right now.

 

You are correct. O'Brien, Reyna, Donovan, Mathis, or Ramos are not walking through the door and frankly in the modern game only LD and Reyna would be useful. Sargent, Amon, Sabbi, nor Siebatcheu have not established that they are even as good as, much less better than what we have tonight.

What exactly are you advocating?

I am advocating that we let the boys play like they did v Portugal not the scared 5-4-1 bunker we saw against France.

Sapong
Agudelo Acosta McKennie Adams
Williams
Lichaj Brooks Miazga Yedlin
Hovarth​