November 2018 Portugal and Scotland games

Discussion in 'USA Women: News and Analysis' started by lil_one, Oct 26, 2018.

  1. AndyMead

    AndyMead Homo Sapien

    Nov 2, 1999
    Seat 12A
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    Ball don't lie.

    That was not a penalty.
     
  2. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Pugh draws a penalty. LLoyd misses the PK. Horrible attempt. Did not even make the keeper make a save.
     
  3. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    From the run of play Lloyd again misses VERY badly. She should be first sub just to say that kind of pathetic play is unacceptable.
     
  4. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Lavelle can't hit a free kick to save her life. She should be 2nd sub.
     
  5. Crazyhorse

    Crazyhorse Member

    Dec 29, 2007
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Casey Short>Sonnett, and maybe Fox
     
  6. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Also the US can't defend a set piece. The US is subbing McDonald for Sonnett and dropping Dunn back into the defense. That might help the defense quite a bit, and it needs help.
     
  7. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    A very good sign: Pugh has taken quite a few hard to very hard tackles and bounced right back up. Her tentativeness coming back from injury seems to have been mostly overcome.
     
  8. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Looks like it may be starting to snow (or maybe a VERY cold rain) but it should not impact the match unless it distracts the US. We know the Scottish players are used to it.
     
  9. Cannons

    Cannons Member+

    May 16, 2005
    nice to see Scotland subbing. Wonder if jill knows that its ok to use some subs?
     
  10. AndyMead

    AndyMead Homo Sapien

    Nov 2, 1999
    Seat 12A
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    If we want to put the best team on the field in France, we have to at least consider using Hinkle at outside back. With the injuries, aging, and thin pool, it's becoming almost criminal to keep excluding her from at least being able to make her case on the field. I fully understand all the social and political hot button issues revolving around her - and her own terrible missteps and statements. But a lot of great "team sport" players have been awful, terrible people. At this level the main objective is to win the World Cup. I'm not sure trotting out Crystal Dunn at outside back is a viable solution against teams that would force her to defend (as opposed to CONCACAF WWCQ). Dunn isn't even a top 5 choice at outside back on her club team. Mathias gets the odd camp call-in, but anyone that watched the NWSL final can see that Hinkle is currently well ahead of anyone else - even Casey Short - in the WNT pool right now. She's not perfect. She makes one terrible turnover every game, but her recovery runs are the best, and few true outside backs put as much pressure on the other team's midfielders/wingers to defend, without sacrificing her own defending, as Hinkle. And I really like Casey Short. She's phenomenal and one of the best "field awareness" outside backs in the game. That's Taylor Smith's biggest weakness - speaking of which, what happened to Smith and the WNT? She was getting regular looks in 2017.

    I'm sorry, but Sonnett is not an outside back. The fact that we keep trying to convert other players like Dunn and Sonnett (not to mention O'Hara), and we're using an amateur college sophomore in this game - without any consideration to Hinkle (or even Taylor Smith) is frustrating.

    And, yes, her tweets from years ago and this summer's 700 Club interview were terrible. Her understanding of the issue is abhorrent. It also doesn't seem to affect her club team which 1) has a lot of gay players and 2) has played in the last three NWSL championship games (winning two) and won the last two NWSL Shields (the last one obliterating almost all the U.S. pro women's soccer season records.

    She would definitely be a distraction with the fan base, but amongst the players themselves - they're in it to win it.

    I hope we're not stuck in some ruts. In a game where we watch Lloyd being very old, and as I go to hit "post reply" - Allie Long enters the game. Sigh.
     
  11. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    LLoyd gets clobbered. However she seems OK.
     
  12. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Game over. Another 1-0 for the US. There is a lot to work on BUT these last few matches are really meaningless so not much can be judged at all from them.
     
  13. McSkillz

    McSkillz Member+

    ANGEL CITY FC, UCLA BRUINS
    United States
    Nov 22, 2014
    Los Angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Why Jill didn't make any subs until very late in this game was strange. You travel all the way to Europe and some players barely had a chance to come in and play at all. I don't get the thought process, can anybody help me?
     
  14. Crazyhorse

    Crazyhorse Member

    Dec 29, 2007
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I agree with most of what you say. Hinkle is definitely the best outside back and should be starting in the world cup. I am just frustrated that Sonnett is continually trotted out there and now Fox, meanwhile Casey doesn't even dress for the game. There are a lot of players more deserving than Sonnett.
     
  15. AndyMead

    AndyMead Homo Sapien

    Nov 2, 1999
    Seat 12A
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    I actually don't have too much of an issue with that. We are getting closer to the World Cup and at least 8 starters need to play the full 90 minutes, and in the knockout rounds 7 will need to go 120. A lot of games are decided as the physical or mental lapses come late. Better to find out now which players can't handle playing full games than when it is too late. In the 2 1/2 years of really meaningless friendlies between the end of the Olympics and WWC Qualifying, I would agree with you - use all the subs. The more the merrier. But I understand not using all 6, or using them early at all.
     
  16. Cannons

    Cannons Member+

    May 16, 2005
    well that was certainly two fairly unimpressive games in a row. Yes we won but we certainly did not look like a #1 seed for the WC in doing so. I don't know what Ellis thinks after these games but she should be nervous. Neither Portugal or Scotland were special and yet they gave us all we could handle. Meanwhile Ellis wastes 90 minutes on Lloyd who basically showed she is in fact too old. She certainly should not take PK kicks no matter how good she thinks she is. Meanwhile a player like Mewis gets no minutes. I bet she's glad she made a long flight for nothing.

    I don't want to be all negative as I think we do have a lot of good players. The other thing we have is a poor coach and that's where my frustration comes from. Last WC we were headed out early when Ellis was forced to change her plans due to Injury. The result was as we all know. The point is, it was not anything brilliant by Ellis... she was failing. She got bailed out by bad luck. I don't like things Im seeing as we get closer. Ellis ignoring some players that maybe could help. Ellis holding on to some players past their expiration date. Goalies are shakey. Defense sometimes too. We have trouble against bunkered teams and that's not changing. Most of our offense is drive to the corner, cross and pray. These are some of the things that bother me. I hope we do well but at this point, we could lose to anybody in the WC
     
  17. AndyMead

    AndyMead Homo Sapien

    Nov 2, 1999
    Seat 12A
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    Yeah it's really weird. I usually defend Jill. I've followed most of her career and she is really good at what she does. But the outside back thing is total puzzler. Not just Hinkle, but the appearance and disappearance of Smith last year and the odd exclusions of Short at a time where most of the regulars are either 1) old, 2) injured, or 3) both. Instead of using an honest to god NWSL Best XI level outside back we're converting players (Sonnett) or calling in college kids (Fox).

    It's one thing to convert a forward to midfielder (Cheney), but the one place you really can't ******** around is on the back line. You usually don't see rookies on the backline for soccer league champions. You need a lot of experience to go with the physical tools at this level. If Cheney turns over the ball in the midfield, the backline is there. If Fox or Sonnett is beat, we're probably down to Harris or Naeher coming up big. The margin of error on the back line is too thin to either try to convert someone at the last minute or pull up some relatively inexperienced player and hope for the best. O'Hara is a really good outside back. Klingenberg is a really good outside back. Graham Zusi is a really good outside back. DaMarcus Beasley is a really good outside back. Their conversions worked out - in the long run. It took more than six months to work. The USMNT lost to El Salvador in Beasley's first game on the back line if I recall. El Salvador. It takes time.

    Ugh, It's really frustrating. Yeah, the pool isn't deep, but it's not empty. Put Short in.
     
  18. AndyMead

    AndyMead Homo Sapien

    Nov 2, 1999
    Seat 12A
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    That's the exact opposite of the narrative I follow.

    We were failing due to the overwhelming exterior pressure on the WNT program from corporate sponsors with specific players being 1) forced into the squad and 2) impacting starting XI selections. Jill was coaching with one hand tied behind her back. As the first couple of games when sideways, the handcuffs came off and Jill was finally allowed to play the players (limited to those on the roster) she wanted and line them up tactically accordingly without any consideration whatsoever as to who various big financial partners of the team had marketing relationships with. In my reading, we got to see what Ellis offered only after the handcuffs came off.
     
  19. kernel_thai

    kernel_thai Member+

    Oct 24, 2012
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Back at the beginning of this thread I questioned why they bothered with this trip after they lost their original opponents. Im asking again...why did they make this trip? The good reason to do it were get some matches away from home and gel the starters for the WC buildup. Yet neither happened. Both of these possible pros for the trip were negated by the lineup Ellis chose to use. The current starting lineup didn't play 1 minute together. Even beyond Heath passing on the trip both lineups were populated by players who wouldn't be in the first 23 if Ellis had to pick it today. Now if Ellis just want to end the year by looking at some new faces she didn't have to go to Europe to do it. About the only thing this trip did accomplish was make UEFA teams over confident.
     
  20. hocbz

    hocbz Member

    Feb 15, 2016
    #145 hocbz, Nov 13, 2018
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2018
    I'm sorry but... what? There were two players at the last world cup that you could argue possibly had big sponsor money and a marketing narrative behind them - Morgan and Wambach. Press was also being trotted out as the next big thing but I'm not sure that the federation has ever cared that much about her. Neither Wambach nor Morgan played much during the early part of the Cup, IIRC.
     
  21. MRAD12

    MRAD12 Member+

    Jun 10, 2004
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Can someone please tell me how Colaprico played again with the time she had?
    I'm really hoping this kid has a chance at making the WWC team. She is a true #6.
     
  22. Cannons

    Cannons Member+

    May 16, 2005
    I decided to go back to the 2015 posts and see what the story was around Ellis and the team. I have to admit my memory was a little fuzzy on the details but there was plenty written about the subject then. To make a long story short... it wasnt injury that forced the Ellis change as I said... it was yellow card suspensions. The rest was basically as I said. Ellis's hand was forced due to two players being suspended and THAT caused her to make formation and player changes that worked out. No suspensions and who knows what would have happened. So it wasn't a brilliant move by Ellis and it doesnt appear to have anything to do with corporate sponsors. It was simply making a new plan because she was forced to. Also, she had selected a team to start that was not as good as a combination of players on the bench so her judgement was also faulty.

    Many people really hated her then and later after the Olympic and She Believe Tournament failures.... wanted her gone.. Things have mostly calmed down lately but I for one still dont think shes the best we could do and am worried that we're heading for another big fail. Hope Im wrong
    . .
     
    RalleeMonkey repped this.
  23. Dundalk24

    Dundalk24 Member

    Jul 20, 2007
    PA/OH
    I don't think she fared any better or any worse than anyone else in the midfield. Not really the best type of game to assess.

    Mostly this game was idle pinball passing at the back for width or occasional probing, a medium/long ball to the sidelines since the opponent was clogging the middle of the pitch, then trying to win the ball back when Scotland countered. She neither distinguished herself nor embarrassed herself. Most players were tentative and conservative with the ball. There was one play that made me grimace. The opponent steer wrestled Colaprico to the ground along the sideline. But she bounced up.
     
  24. hocbz

    hocbz Member

    Feb 15, 2016
    I don't even like Horan that much and I think it's ridiculous to say she threw a tantrum and decided to go home. Why is no one chewing out Press and Heath for taking the entire camp off for "personal reasons?" Especially since Heath is probably just tagging along with her girlfriend.
     
  25. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    The only really good thing I take from these matches is that Pugh seems to have played out of her post injury funk. She seems to have her "mean" back. She is taking on and beating players and bouncing right back up when tackled hard or fouled.

    We will need her at the WWC and this is a good sign for her and the US.

    The rest of the US squad really had little to work through and they successfully worked through that nothing.

    I just hope the rest of the year and the parties involved do not have too deleterious of an impact on the players. I would like to see the US start off next year dominating everybody and then improve from there.
     

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