Optimistic take on the year for USMNT

Discussion in 'USA Men: News & Analysis' started by Pragidealist, Nov 23, 2019.

  1. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #76 juvechelsea, Dec 3, 2019
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
    Your argument is misleading. What the continental powerrhouses generally do, is defend with organization and physicality, but then get out and play attacking offense when they win the ball. I think you are trying to suggest they have adopted Dutch offense. This is malarkey. Watch Juventus play. The Italians in particular are quite content to defend with discipline and shape, then go forward in a disciplined fashion with fewer players, risk giveaways playing the ball into space. They could give two sh*ts about stringing passes or possession for possession's sake in the Spanish or Dutch sense. But apparently this sort of more thought-out soccer is at odds with being purely "pretty." The amount of "pretty" teams that just play positional zones on defense, that actually "win," is very short.

    Re defense, my issue with selling "Dutch" is that there are endless successful examples of teams that win world cups with organized defenses. I see it as a basic necessity if that level of trophy is the goal. The leading teams in the world do not treat team defense, hustle, and organization like it is an illness. That is some false theory constructed by aestheticians who didn't look very closely at what wins, or at the ever-varying fortunes of teams like Spain or Brazil or to a lesser level Holland that might favor passing and prettiness over organization. There is literally zero proof that defensive organization makes the big dogs suck, or is what our problem is.

    You watch B.1 and many teams in fact play tough defense and then attack with panache. The two are not at odds, and selling that they are is absolutist rubbish. It is what certain countries/teams like, is just have the kids play with the ball and no organization, but many of the countries employing that strategy are inconsistent or mixed bags. Those teams tend to come and go at the top in terms of talent and whether that specific cycle they have a more defensive coach. Brazil tends to come and go depending if they defend that year. Holland, for all the interest their style triggers, is often heralded more for style than actual finish. Once the great generation disappeared Spain became meh again. The idea of everyone imitating Spain was trendy c. 2010 for obvious reasons. Their 433 is even still in the global DNA right now. But that was a one-off with specific talent that can't be xeroxed without creating similar players for yourself.

    Which gets into the next issue on "going Dutch" which is that based on the pool we have not already done the Ajax-esque or Barca hard work of bringing up skill players since age 5. I would agree that we could use more technical players. But I do not see this as anathema to organized defense. Plenty of teams train their players to be more skilled than ours, and also get stuck in. Nothing says that an hour practice that spent much of the time on organization has to flip completely over to an hour on skills and free play. There is an in between. Most of the elite live in that in between. They expect technique. But they also won't put you on the field if you don't get stuck in.

    Last, there is a certain naivete to going "Dutch." This is not the eredivisie. Mexico and Canada didn't sit back and play us to 6-4 scores. The proponents of this style have not considered that while it might help against crap teams -- Cuba, TnT, so on -- whether it is an advantage or detriment relative to hex sides. IMO the hex is inherently physical, particularly on the road, and any formation or style not built to reflect that, is off in dream land.

    At this point I reiterate that Holland missed the last world cup and routinely does so about every 4th cycle. That suggests that while Holland thinks it's about system, it is in fact a talent issue, because the system guarantees nothing, and in fact the team is vulnerable when core players like Robben age.

    If I am going to back something new I want German or Italian styles that balance disciplined defense with offensive risk taking, and have proof of concept ie trophies. I have known for decades that Clockwork Orange type stuff has its appeal to artsy types here. I also remember that in college the strongest adherent for art for art's sake, and anti-MLS, on our team, was a guy who was a great technician but rarely saw the field because he could care less to defend. I think Dutch adherents are often impractical and at the moment overrate the ability of the pool to execute the finesse demanded of them.
     
  2. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #77 juvechelsea, Dec 3, 2019
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
    See, I think Holland does a great job training players up. So do England and Germany. But we seem to be on some odd, unthinking binge of just going around grab-bagging foreign ideas we don't fully grasp. You can't just slap a brand label on a youth team and call it an "academy." You can't do a half a$$ job training kids to be technical and then at age 20 declare "we are a possession team now." There is hard work that needs to be done, and tactics/formation need to be thought out and triangulated between what our pool has and what will work in this region. And we need coaches who can game manage and fully understand what they are doing, as opposed to have some catch phrases and confuse the team.

    But, I think it's myopic to not also look at what the WORLD CHAMPION is doing. We have huge participation. We have some history of being top in the region and top 8-16 in the world. I thought we had aspirations. Why are we acting like some mid table moneyball team, going around looking at how plucky teams like the Crew and Holland do things? How does France do it. How does Germany do it. How does Italy do it.

    This was sold as we will advance deeper or maybe win. This was not sold as some people would be content to look better and win, lose, or draw, so be it. Changing the team is politics. You sold me on a chicken in every pot. Where's my chicken? Election over and coach hired it's not ok to now switch over to some new mission that people should just eat poultry instead of beef. This is why I am on and on about objective milestones. You promised a chicken. When do I get my chicken.

    I grant maybe we don't need to go back to 451 bunker ball. But 451 bunker ball was thoroughly thought out, drilled and disciplined, chosen in light of the pool, and took into account regional concerns. If you want to give me something else it needs to look as thought out, coherent, drilled, responsive to the team and the region. Not like you just walked out with abstract ideas and the team walks right into some Mexican buzzsaw and looks the most lost we have in decades.
     
  3. It's quite funny that we're being put down as neglecting defense. I wonder if you really watched the Orange team in 2010, 2014 and now with the new stars rising.
    Those 2010 and 2014 Orange team were based on solid defense first, nice play later. In fact many Orange lovers world wide didnot like our style at all. The current team also is based on solid defense first, nice play later. So I think you're stuck in the preset mode "Dutch donot defend", which is in contrast with how we really play.
    The whole point of 4-3-3 is that it's the best system as it allows you to morph into different configurations on the pitch when needed.
    There's no difference in this day in how the Germans, French and Dutch, also the Belgians included, play. You're trying to spot differences that donot exist nowadays. The only difference is in quality and experience of the players.
    The core key to these teams style of play is the tactical know how the players take with them on the pitch. These four national teams can switch in a blink from one tactical formation into another. It's the fruit of that educational collaboration since 2000. Plus the technical capabilities to execute them.
    You are pointing to a world the Germans, French and Belgians and the Dutch too have left behind as outdated. These four now operate on the same blueprint.
    Maybe you should take a look at how the Orange team scoresheet in timing looks. We now beat teams late in the match after exhausting them in the first hour.
    One should never take stereotype views of play as a leading narrative, because you then end up in a dead end street.
    The way of play you describe as typical for the German/French winners doesnot exist anymore, neither does the pretty at all costs of the Dutch.
    Their core play is the same, only the quality of the players makes a difference.

    So the question is if there's a high enough level of tactical and technical quality in the US pool to be able to play the Euro post 2000 style.
    If not and if it forces to play the outdated pre 2000 Euro style, the conclusion is that your not going to make waves.
     
  4. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    The deal is I think this bee got in their bonnet c. 2011 with some aesthetician fans moaning about how pretty Spain looked versus negative Bradley soccer or results plateauing. JK got the job to address that, like now. But he dropped "pretty" after 3 years once he saw what the pool had. By 2014 we were back to defensive soccer. Because that's what works for us. But I am hearing the same aesthetic arguments as 2011, and we kind of picked a 2011 solution of possession soccer. Spain is not Spain anymore. Holland missed the world cup. It's 2019. The team that won last year is not Holland or Spain. Can we make 2019 decisions?

    Kind of like I think some people at USSF wanted GB in 2015/6 when he was taking second, and didn't update the thinking beyond then. Arena got the caretaker job instead. GB then fell back to average in MLS. But we act like we hired him in 2015.

    The team in 2018 was top of the hex in scoring but 4th in GA with 13 allowed. We didn't need offense. We still don't if the selection is done right. We need defense. This mission statement crap is responding to the 2011 debate again and not why 2018 went how it did. If we had handed the team to GB instead, when JK tripped, do you really think he fixes that? I think we might have been done before the last game with him.

    This has nothing to do with the timely issues we have, development failure of the middle of the last decade, youth bubble now, team that couldn't defend last time. This is a revival of an abstracted debate about how to do better than 2010 round of 16 happening after failing to qualify in 2018. I thought we decided the 2014 debate when JK essentially said the technical mids (Kljestan, Gringo, Benny, etc.) weren't good enough and get me Jones Beckerman Bradley. Fast forward 5 years and same debate but without a coach who seems interested in whether the tools on the roster exist to do what he wants to do.

    But we apparently are going to pretend 2011-14 didn't happen.
     
  5. As I stated the Germans style isnot the one you refer to anymore since 2000 and yet they have a title to show for it, as do the French.
     
  6. You jump around, running after the last hot item. That's not the way to get into a systematic high performing powerhouse.
     
  7. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    Re how does this relate to optimism, I have optimism about the talent. In a couple years this could be better than last cycle, easy. But that talent has to funnel through the coach and the system which turn this team into a gang who splits with Canada and Jamaica. The coach makes it worse, not better. That doesn't make me optimistic. That makes me scared for the hex. I am absolutely certain now he will be around until then. I am absolutely certain he is clueless on selection and tactics and making the talent look worse. When the money is on the table optimism disappears and he either gets results or not. Based on how this year went, I would only trust him to get points from El Salvador, among current Hex level teams.

    The article is wrong in the basis for any optimism as well as wrong that by merely trusting in the coach things will get better. If things improve it will be in spite of the brass and not because of it.

    The Dutch discussion basically gets into how this particular coach is confused, which is why I am not optimistic. We are copying a team that couldn't make the same world cup we missed. There is rarely such blatant proof the very magic beans you are trying so eagerly to plant -- and that this article lays out as the basis for optimism -- in fact guarantee nothing.
     
  8. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #83 juvechelsea, Dec 3, 2019
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
    I jump around? Horse hooey. I am about back to fundamentals. What has worked for us is disciplined defense and then get out and run. Not possession obsessed, counter and take risks. Creating chances over holding the ball.

    If you want technical get with the 5 year olds and change that. I think we have some better technicians than McKennie, but reality is these ideas have to flow through the existing Pomykal Mendez Yueill Green Holmes Gall Morales McKennie etc. players we have. This team fits the mold of get it wide and counter with speed, as we have often done before. It doesn't fit possession soccer. If you want possession soccer go make me a half dozen guys who can turn on a dime and pass with precision. I see athletes with decent technique. I see the teams we light up, we do so down the lines and not in half court. Play to strengths and not abstractions.

    The put up or shut up line is if you hired an elite coach who didn't say what he would do, and handed them this roster, how would they run them out. 95% of coaches wouldn't try to turn this team into some possession concept. The technical players aren't there right now and the defense under construction gets exposed when teams press our mids.

    I am ok with people pushing this technical over time. But that needs to reflect completed development work ie 20 year olds trained to play technical ball.

    I would also be ok with simply fielding a bunch of our more aggressive attacking players, which we don't, and just try and overpower teams. But that is selection and not tactics. Tactics if you put our best players out there I would say let them run and take risks and who cares with this set right now about holding the ball. That is not their strength. You can play to that "strength" when you develop kids who have it.
     
  9. That's what I for posts on end try to get through, those basics are non existent in the current after 2000 world of Germany, France etc.
    It's going back to something the powerhouses dropped long time ago.
     
  10. manq360

    manq360 Member+

    Jun 17, 2009
    Portland, OR
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Unfortunately, this will never happen. The US has football, basketball and baseball that take up a lot of the talented young athletes. Until soccer becomes an accepted US sport, we will never have a world cup team. The only thing that keeps us going is that unlike the aforementioned sports, soccer players can come in all size and shapes. But soccer will probably never replace the big 3.
     
  11. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    This is the important take-away and all of optimism in this thread is about our offense being better against lesser teams - that wasn't our problem!
     
  12. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #87 juvechelsea, Dec 3, 2019
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
    I mean, to me, when the tactics lead the personnel by this much, this is not a working system intended to optimize the unit, that I can be optimistic about and think makes this better than the sum of the parts. This is instead a power play or placeholder for efforts that will take place over time prospectively. We could wait for the technicians to come up, and play natural until then, but that risks people falling in love with those tactics, or someone else with power coming in and taking this some other direction. So we instead will go ahead and change the senior side to what doesn't suit it, in anticipation of iterative development afterwards. Lock it in. This is why I fear GB has been handed a project for years regardless how we actually play.

    The flaw in this theory, unless a cabal can control whether GB stays employed and/or who replaces him, is that as with every other coach lately, our supposed new "national identity," since it is an imposed fiction, is subject to change with every new regime. The new coach can come in and say the "national identity" is now "x." And everything will change again. This process is a fairly convincing argument no such national identity organically exists. That it is more akin to a politician's platform they come in with.
     
  13. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #88 juvechelsea, Dec 3, 2019
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
    To clarify what I was saying, I feel like we are having a discussion in 2011 terms. And people are so used to that debate they just step back into the old positions. "Negative soccer" vs "technical and possession." 7 years passed. We were not sitting back in a defensive shell in 2018. If anything we routinely exposed Bradley on the counter with numbers forward, and like I said, 17 GF 13 GA, and finished 5th. The debate should be framed up different but is still being discussed in 2011 terms like we had 11 men back in a bunker. We weren't.

    I mean, one of my Arena complaints last cycle was that he came in to fix Klinsi, one of Klinsi's issues was this Bradley getting flooded on the counter issue, and at the end we had the same issue. At which point don't talk to me like this is us vs Algeria in 2010. JK got hired and we went free wheeling in 2011. We did that for 3 years. We kind of opened it back up a little after 2014.

    I say this because from where I am sitting, it's like, do we want to tighten up the team defense a la 2009-10 or 2014? Or go back to slickness a la 2011-2014? Cause kind of muddled and in the middle is what got us 2018. Not offensive enough to roll regardless how the defense plays, and not defensive enough for the hex really.

    I think the pretense is this possession stuff is a response to the last cycle. I have never heard it connected up. That feels like a 2011 discussion. The 2018 team would throw bodies forward and get countered. That is 2019 terms. Is the idea that if we possess we don't get countered? I don't see us possess. I see us get pressed and stripped and countered even higher up field than before. And we seem to be trending back towards the same ideas of "defenders who get forward" that gave us Villafana last time. I don't think we've learned a thing other than GB doesn't have JK's cajones to stick a bunch of touch players out there and knock it around.
     
  14. Patrick167

    Patrick167 Member+

    Dortmund
    United States
    May 4, 2017
    Yes it was. We scored 4 goals in 5 Away games for a total of 3 points. That is a problem with the offense. Even against the 3 weaker teams, we scored 3 goals in 3 games.

    We needed better offense in general. Scoring a higher percentage of set pieces than 2 in a million would have helped.

    I don't know why Gregg and Earnie don't explain the problem they are trying to fix or if they are just trying to do something more noble, in their minds.

    If you take out the 6-0 and 4-0 results, at Home, against two of the weaker opponents, we scored 7 goals in 8 games.
     
  15. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    do you consider Bradley to be a part of the core that you like?
     
  16. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    we led scoring in the Hex (it's not like Mexico doesn't play those same teams at Azteca) and the constantly used line is that we need to be better vs. bunker/counter teams. Well, those teams bunker and counter the most when playing us in the US so that's not our problem we have to solve.

    We need to be better at defense, not offense. We've leaked goals at a far higher rate than we've ever have and @juvechelsea is right that that's where we ought to focus to get out of the Hex.

    I do think that we can best score on narrow crappy away fields by leveraging our dead balls and elite aerial capabilities but I don't think it's attractive enough for Berhalter.
     
  17. Patrick167

    Patrick167 Member+

    Dortmund
    United States
    May 4, 2017
    Honduras didn't bunker and counter us, which is why we killed them. They were full of themselves and tried to play with us. They probably didn't do that against Mexico. Ditto with Panama, whose coach was ridiculed for not bunkering in Orlando.

    This cycle they might. But it is not the home games against those teams that are a problem. As the Canada game in Toronto showed, the USMNT doesn't travel. Even in the Cayman Islands we were worse by 3+ goals.
     
  18. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    ok. the answer is to not give up any goals when traveling. trying to rely on a possession game at away stadiums is folly IMO. Let's get back to shutting out teams with regularity and giving up single digits goals in total throughout the Hex.
     
  19. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    the pivotal stats are low GA with a positive GD. in 2016 my Dynamo kept defense ok but had no offense and a negative GD, no playoffs. in 2017 we had good GF for a change and the same exact solid GA as the year before, double digit positive GD, and made the Western semis. we had almost the same exact GF the next year but the GA ballooned, even GD, and we missed the playoffs.

    my theory was that the GA problem manifests in those late game home result-killers and in away losses. contrast i would make is 2019 Gold Cup vs 2015 Gold Cup. if you give up 2 goals the whole tournament, and only one at a time, and have any offense -- even just dead balls -- you will be in every game including the final. when we ship 2-3 goals to canada, jamaica, venezuela, costa rica, guatemala, tnt, you are going to be chasing games and have problems. the difference between giving up say 8 goals vs 13 is that second or third goal that kills you in close games.

    last time, Hex:
    Mexico late winner
    CR blowout
    Panama equalizer
    Mexico equalizer
    CR blowout
    TnT 2 goal head start

    that's 3 games the defense got whooped to the point we were uncompetitive and then 3 more where we had a result and lost points to a goal scored after us.

    best i can tell only Honduras did we chase a game from behind and gain a point. this from a team that led the whole hex in GF. that's because when we did win it was like 2-0, 4-0, 6-0. nothing close.
     
  20. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    in terms of has this changed, this year every single game has been decided by the first team to score, us vs them, except chile and uruguay, both ties. against chile we lost our lead. then 5 of the 6 times we gave up the first goal we lost. we came back once all year. -- only in uruguay did we battle back for a point. every single win we scored first.
     
  21. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    It's much easier when the country is small because it doesn't get in its own way. Selections are pretty obvious and you can work on creating instead of herding a swarm of cats and thinking you've done something.
     
  22. An Unpaved Road

    An Unpaved Road Member+

    Mar 22, 2006
    Club:
    --other--
    I'd consider Bradley a part of Berhalter's core thus far, although I wouldn't be surprised if he's not featuring in the majority of qualifiers. Not a favorite player of mine, although I don't think he's as bad as many say. I liked him in the Gold Cup.
     
  23. First, Italy wasnot one of the power houses that came to us to learn. Second what I'm telling is that the powerhouses that won the titles in the last decade did come to us to learn how to develop the players for the modern game. They didnot come to copy our way of play, but the development of the players did influence the way they play. Germany pre 2000 was a boring team to watch and a pet hate team to Dutch. After 2000 Germany changed in play style and reluctantly we Dutch had to admit they werenot boring anymore and gradually the German team turned from a hate team into an admired and more or less liked team for the Dutch.
    How much you try to spin your biased views, the facts about the powerhouses are different from what you project. Both France and Germany changed their style of football, including current top country Belgium, because of their adaptation to our development system. Those countries made that leap with a purpose and that wasnot to do business as usual in the style before 2000. You keep banging a drum those countries have dumped at the trash site. Seems a great way to become relevant.
    Oh, and by the way, that Italy powerhouse did miss the 2018 WC too, so where does that fit in your narrative?
    And to add to that Italy has been pretty meek the last decade, in contrast to the countries that came by in the Netherlands.
    And about defending, just make a list of the top defenders in Italy.
    Spoiler: it contains alot of Dutch.

    So your justification to reach back to practices the top countries have abandoned, because with the change in development practices the way they can play changed, means you reach back to a time in which certain qualities or the lack of qualities in players forced a certain way of play. This means you must be of the opinion the US pool can't play the way the top countries now play. That makes sense, but it also means thinking about getting further in the ko round is a fata morgana.
    Put it simple, with top countries playing modern soccer the chances to advance with a relic system is almost zero.
    So what does this mean for USMNT prospects if one wants to make the next step? Do as they do and learn.

    Your whole plea is coming to the battlefield with a gattling gun, while the rest has armed themselves with laser guided gear.
     
  24. Well, one thing I think could solve the problem is to choose a populated region/state as the core state for the USMNT and concentrate on developing players there and making clear if you want the biggest chance to become part of the USMNT is to move to there. If it's problematic to role out country wide what you want, choose the opposite and concentrate it in a relative more dense environment.
     
  25. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    That is the European system which doesn't do it for me and I don't think we will go for it here in USA. We are too big. In the United States of Europe, which state would you choose to develop the team in ?

    Don't answer that.
     

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