to emphasize a point i buried in there. the best two players on the squad are Pulisic (20) and McKennie (21). they were capped as teenagers. ever considered that we went off the rails someplace and that the current talent is probably young or under a rock?
I think we have a general issue at 9, 6, and in the back with wanting players for the opposite of what the position truly demands. I want strikers for scoring not chasing, DMs for defending not passing, and backs who can defend too. But this could be used to try and paint me in a false corner. It's not that I mind players with "plus" attributes. But what we should do is first find people who play their position well, and then tiebreak amongst that group by some "plus" attribute we'd like as well. That way, the forwards can score, and the DMs and backs defend, before we get cute. The cuteness is a bonus rather than a trade off. We instead seem to seek out the tack-on attributes first and try to coach the players on basic competencies. But good forwards and backs at their positions are made from years of work. You can't just "make" Yedlin a defender. It's a lot of coaching plus a knack.
You all can complain all you want but GB brought in the five best new players possible. That's enough for this particular call up. Now let's see if he gives them starts or minutes.
Couldn't agree more. Having a traffic cop at the 6 instead of a ball winner is killing us. As other's have said, making a long diagonal pass is not that difficult. Some one please tell Morales to practice 30-40 yard lofted passes. Get a trash can out there and try to hit it. Give it a week and you'll be a pro, it's not that hard. Berhalter should just recruit Abby Dahlkamper to the men's side. She hits as good of a long lofted pass as anyone in the world (now that Pirlo has retired).
I am happy with many of the new call ups but why is that enough? shouldn't we want even more? If the thought is that there is no one else who deserved a call up, that's another matter entirely but I think what you are saying is that if we have the 5 best, we shouldn't bother if there are another [5] that deserved it.
I get bored with people making "name your" arguments when their people can't cut it but the game is settle for them because they lack imagination or knowledge to identify others, or risk to put them on the field. Not. My. Fault. I get bored with having to prove and reprove Brooks isn't very good. I have listed out the games with goals allowed. I have posted tape for many of them. It isn't one or two games. It's several including as recent as the end of last year. I could get if this was "Adams was on RB Leipzig's team defense that allowed 29 goals in a top league and finished 3rd." That is not club snobbery. That has some teeth to it. This is instead club snobbery. He is a domestic defender on a midtable team that allows midtable goals. They allowed nearly twice as many goals as Leipzig. He is not the linchpin on a dominant defense. He marks air for a mediocre defense. Nothing but club snobbery dressed up as analysis. I watched all Dortmund's games last season and personally watched them victimize Brooks twice on the way to two wins. You want to act like club matters why not require a REAL PERFORMANCE FOR A REAL EFFING CLUB. How is that for club snobbery??? If he was that good a defender there would be a bunch of great tape of him marking players out of games, even in Concacaf. Last time he was a regular starter in a Gold Cup we finished 4th. We left him and others out and got up to second. I am into moving forwards and not backwards. That being said, I expect for him and Yedlin to over time move back into the fold because we are nostalgia driven, conservative, and clubby, rather than future oriented and performance driven. This is odd because the general historical process of US Soccer is when you have a "Robles versus Haiti" game you disappear. We punish poor performance. Brooks was burned for 3 of the 4 CR goals in qualifying last time, as well as in several other games. Yedlin has a similar pattern punctuated by being back doored by Peru and Chile for equalizers in games we should have won. Under less snobby and more performance driven coaches they would disappear. The game is to argue "who else." "Who else" did not work as an approach to the backline last cycle. The other teams don't care that you settled and lacked imagination, and didn't resolve your holes. They exploit them. You either patch them or not. I thought GC saw us make strides towards rebuilding the backline, if not so much DM, which was exploited. I am amused that the first instinct is to tear that right back down in favor of snob favorites. Which is why we are where we are.
Well said. I'm just repeating what you said, but I don't want a solo 6 that doesn't win balls, a left back that can't run, or a forward that can't shoot straight or create his own shot. You have all three of those and you're going to have a crappy team. I don't care what else they bring to the table.
Juve your posts usually make a lot of sense. And pointing out that Brooks isn't teh greatest since sliced bread. But who are the 2 CBs that you'd rather have back there than him?
Are you arguing for 50% new players in the call up? What is your golden number? Personally, I would be uncomfortable with more than 8. I feel incremental change is much more manageable.
It depends on when in the cycle. We're in the first year of Berhalter's program and I think it's very important for a new coach (after a disastrous run under Arena/JK) to look broadly. More importantly, I want the best players brought in and if we have areas of weakness (and we always do), I'd look under every rock for those positions. Where I do want continuity is to pick the core players (usually in the spine) and get those players used to playing with each other in the optimal style. For this cycle, I'd have Pulisic, Weston, Adams and Brooks as our core pieces and would have them play together as much as possible (and as well as quickly determining who the best partner for Brooks is). I'd try to find back up players for each of those in case we are missing one of them (now that Adams is out, I'd look at similarly wide-ranging Pomykal/Morales and certainly not Trapp/Bradley who is nothing like Tyler). TLDR. There isn't a number or a limit on new players. Get players who belong in the mix. If the worry is that each camp is too chaotic, there should be a series of camps (at least one in Europe) where the non-core players get rotated to play with our core.
This is really not complicated. I feel like I am going in a circle since I already made the argument. That argument then prompted the "who would you pick instead." Which then engendered "well, but who shouldn't be on the team." Which is where I started, I think. If the following scrubs make the team: Guzan Johnson Ream Lovitz Trapp Roldan Morales Yueill Zardes Baird And that is a long list Then there is plenty of room for swapping out. Those players are not very good, have been given their chance, and did jack squat. For reasons unclear to me, they get another shot before someone else gets theirs. The idea of putting the onus on me is based in part on the pretense that these guys are awesome and that it therefore is on me to come up with Awesome Times Two. Do these guys look awesome? Or are they the ones many of us complain about or wonder how the heck each time a roster list comes out? I could get if this was an immaculate roster. It's not. Given the proper framing of this end of the roster, and the acknowledgment that a chunk of starters like Pulisic etc. are reasonable and not what I am talking about....... What would it hurt for it to be Frei instead of Guzan What would it hurt for it to be Lichaj or Laursen instead of Lovitz What would it hurt for it to be Sabandzovic instead of Trapp What would it hurt for it to be Soto instead of Zardes etc etc These guys will be subs for one or two games and get one start tops. I am merely saying that given a long list of frustrating people actually named to the back end of this roster, try some others. Since they are probably bench I think all the scare talk about "too much change" and such is horse hooey. These are at least initially just adjustments in who gets 10-30 minutes at the back end of a game, to try some people who hopefully don't suck as bad, or aren't nearly 40 years old. A lot of people talk up "system." I believe in personnel. I think half our problem is how much we resist personnel churning. We seem almost scared of finding out if we have backs better than Lovitz or mids better than Trapp or Roldan. That is freaking weird. I could get the complacency if we were first in Gold Cup and not losing a thing. We got trashed in friendlies and lost the final. We didn't get a #9 goal after the knockouts started. This should be a work in progress and the only people immune to competition should be the short list of people who play good every game or close to that, eg, Pulisic, Adams, McKennie. And repeating myself the funny thing is almost all of the people I can say that about....... are kids.
More to the point, having Trapp/Bradley play every minute as a regista doesn't count as positive "continuity" for me. It counts as a waste of time as the continuity that's important is the Pulisic/McKennie/Adams/Brooks core and playing Trapp/Bradley actively impedes that core. FWIW, I understand that injuries prevented this group from playing together - my point is that the style of play should match what works for this group.
What does this have to do with my post you quoted? Are you asking these questions to me or just generally writing?
We can't be stoked that Dest, Morales, Boyd, Sarge (I'm sure I'm forgetting some New P player) were called in, but mystified that Lovitz was called in and apprehensive that Trapp is going to start and play 80+ minutes because "he knows the system"? Regarding the system, I think GB is making a mistake trying to install something so complicated that it takes multiple camps to learn. To me, as a NT manager, you have a teachable system that is intuitive and that a new player can plug into. The hurdle with adding new players to the pool should be getting them familiar with their teammates and building chemistry. There shouldn't be this preliminary hurdle where "this is only my second camp - I'm still have to figure out what my position actually is before I can think about getting used to playing with players x,y,and z." My guess is that Berhalter's response would be "if everyone is doing their job, they don't have to have 'chemistry', they'll all be in the right places." That, as we all know, is bullsh*t. If you have a national team with a super small player pool, where you *know* you're going to be playing the same 13-14 guys year after year, then you can install some unorthodox system. Otherwise, you've got to keep it relatively orthodox. The other thing, is that our player pool is not so bad that we can only win with some goofy, never before seen system (which, as all systems do, will get figured out). We have one of the best (judging by club form), if not THE best, player pools we've ever had. The downside is that by U.S. standards, the pool is super broad. There are a lot of guys that warrant looks. To wit, other than Pulisic, McKennie, and Adams (when healthy), who would be your "locks"? And, there are people on this board who are not McKennie fans. It's just silly, with the size of pool, and with the ability of the players there in, to be messing around with gimmicky systems. But, ya, stoked that Dest, Morales, & co were called in.
Sigh, since at least one person has called Morales a scrub there is no way we can make head way here. Carry on. I'm dropping out.
I get your frustration but I think @DHC1 nailed it with his post. In other words, when that roster consistency started in Camp Cupcake, that's a problem. I wish Egg had done a bit more experimenting earlier in his tenure so that we could have kicked a lot of the guys like Lovitz to the curb long ago. The fact is he created this problem where he needs to call in multiple new players because the ones who have the "experience" aren't up to the task. This roster is a step in the right direction. I would make a few additional changes but I'm excited that we have new options at two of our three biggest trouble spots. If Trapp and Zardes play the majority of the minutes at those two spots, I reserve the right to withdraw my praise.
Brooks is a lock. He's not perfect but we ought to do for him what we've done for Bradley for years: find a partner that makes him better by shoring up his deficiencies and highlighting his strengths. Thankfully, that's a lot easier for Brooks than it has been for Bradley (and I was a big fan of Michael's in his prime but the USMNT has been looking for the right partner for Bradley for over a decade).
The thing is the Gold Cup including in particular the final should have underlined how we were getting killed on midfield defense. Plus the Jamaica game etc. I think we overrate the value of the 6 long ball. How many actual assists does Bradley have recently doing that? Transfermarkt said one for the whole Gold Cup. And then you trade off for that. If we netted out what we lose for what we get I doubt it's positive. I agree that I am sure Adams and others can hit a creative ball too. Delgado had an assist to Adams last year. I also think -- and this would be getting at more big picture stuff -- that hiding behind this desire to make Bradley into a Pirlo is we aren't trying that hard to find actual 10s. Instead we play Pulisic out of position or some hustle player. How about instead of playing 8s as 10s and then trying to find a passing 6, we get a defensive 6 and some real passing 10s??? I know I know crazy talk.
I'm not here to argue about Brooks, that's not my point. My point is that the pool is very flat. There are a ton of guys that are at a very similar level. We don't have the luxury of a narrow pool where the same 12-14 guys are at every camp, mastering the system. Our system should be intuitive and easily understandable.
I think a certain amount of my frustration is in fact what you say, that I expected to see more of this already and instead got Camp Cupcake Extended. I have been pounding most of the drum I listed for a year or so. I think a lot of the critical emphasis against me is on the drive to experiment -- though I feel like it's harmless at this stage and don't get the backlash. But at least part of this, from my perspective, is the converse. That I don't think the team as presently structured is ready or optimized. That a few starters and most of the bench don't belong. That we just took second and that should be unacceptable and no basis for complacency.
He had 13 uneventful senior team caps already -- he is not a noob -- and did zero with them. No goals. Wasn't creating and was kind of soft like too many of the DMs already. Just kind of "there." Scrub. At this level. Period. I don't care if he plays B.1 every week.
Exactly! That long ball looks impressive. But, while it's floating to the forward player, everyone is adjusting. By the time the forward player brings the ball down, he will be marked. And, other than Puli we don't have anyone in the pool that would be a big enough threat iso'd against a defender on the wing to make a big sacrifice to try to get that situation twice per match. (And, Puli isn't even that big of a threat). I had thought that Columbia killed is with long diagonals when we played them. I went back and watched the hilights on Youtube. Ya, they used the long diagonal as a pressure release valve several times. But, nothing came of it - no goals. I'd I'd venture to say they've got better isolated 1v1 wingers than we do - by a stretch. It's great for the women to have Abby hitting those balls occasionally, because we don't give up anything having her in defense. It's a great add on. But, to sacrifice an ability to do the essential element of a position to get that? No thanks.
Klinsmann was playing him out of position, as a OM in his vaunted 3DM formation. It provided no basis for evaluating him in his natural position.