Umm-- she did? She just didn't start. I think the three who started were the only three who were regarded as fit enough to go ninety if necessary?
No lazier than saying is a midfield issue. Probably less so. The success of a forward is measured by scoring, either as goals or assists. Nobody cares that CR7 doesn’t play defense as long as he scores. Nobody cares that he fails more often than he succeeds. He scores two goals, he’s had a great day. Some of our forwards haven’t done that in a year.
Why even watch the beautiful game? Everything you’ve just written can be taken from the most rudimentary box score. If someone makes observations beyond superficial stat lines that does go some way to making their commentary appear a bit more insightful. That’s true regardless of which players are being discussed. The midfield has responsibilities too. So how do you assess their performance without the idle convenience of having it supposedly quantified for you? Some of our forwards? Which ones? Pugh scored 2 against Denmark just in January and netted one against France. Morgan didn’t score at SB but previous to it had scored 8 goals in 8 matches in a stretch from August to January. So when you say some of our forwards haven’t been scoring which ones are you referring to? The ones on the bench? Fewer people were voicing concerns about scoring before SB. It hadn’t been too much of an issue since the Scandinavian trip earlier last year. FRA, ENG, and GER are top 5 teams. With an injury addled midfield it was unlikely they would show much offensive potency against such opposition. Ronaldo scored 3 goals in 7 matches in Euro 2016, 2 of them against mighty Hungary during group play, but the main thing is they won. Neither Ronaldo nor Portugal lit up the scoreboard. They scored 1 goal or less in 5 of 7 matches. But they went home champions. We can dwell on the lethargy of the offense at SB. But a stout and reliable defense is just as good of an indicator of success at the highest levels as any other aspect of a team. But most importantly you tend to either have it or you don’t. It doesn’t run hot and cold.
you would think the best time to let her go was after last's year's debacle(side by side losses to England & France), but a funny thing happened, those two coaches (who knew how to beat Ellis/US in their own game), got fired instead! and thus by defacto, Ellis is looking pretty good these days. Part of the problem is there's almost no one to challenge her; the 3 other SBC coaches moved back to their old traditional styles, plus offered no new up & coming players to get excited about(at least Ellis brought in two strong performing 19 year olds). Ellis is probably more worried about Australia(since their more current physical/high press give her the shivers (but their not a deep team as they only missed two key players at Algarve, yet flopped). The Dutch have been inconsistent(losing a friendly to Spain & trying at home vs Ireland in an all important WC qualifier). but who knows? in the topsy turvy world of woso, a lot could happen by next year
USSF/Gulati rarely fires anyone until well past too late. The one time was maybe Tom Sermanii, but that was Wambach (and others) firing him because he would've dropped her/them. Coaches are given not only second chances but fourth and fifth chances. I do think Ellis was going to go if she lost to Denmark in the friendly on January 21st. It is a credit to her that it was maybe the best game the team has played in past 12 months. Of course, not sure how motivated Denmark was... Now, she will not be fired and we will see what happens. Unless the #MeToo movement gets her or something similar.
I wouldn't be putting an abundance of stock into last year's SBC. I don't think that England or France had solved or unlocked something against the US at the tournament. The USWNT playing with a very unorthodox new formation was quite a departure for the US women and their typical playing style. Certainly not "their game." It greatly affected everything they did on the field, most of it not for the better. I'm not attempting to diminish those team's efforts last year but I felt both England and France had played the US competitively in other matches over the last few years that are probably a better indication of how those teams can compete and have success against the USWNT. A three back with Allie Long in the middle went some way to flattering the opposition in my opinion.
But Ellis flopped 7 months earlier at the Olympics, between the two she should of been fired Besides, you could say Sermani was experimental too(as,well as any coach) before he got the axe
The USWNT had a terrible Olympics. Ellis was kept on to fix what she decided went wrong. They trusted her with that after the World Cup I guess. She decided what was needed was a 3-back system with Allie Long as a CB who could pass out of the back. They didn't just trot it out in SB17 either, they practiced and played friendlies with it. Then the cure that Ellis devised was shown to be a bigger problem than the Olympics and was scrapped. Again, Ellis was entrusted to come up again with a solution. I think it shows a lack of ambition from USSF with regards to the USWNT.
You may be extrapolating my comments more than I intended. They were not meant to temper criticism of Ellis or the team's wider issues. I was just pointing out that the SBC tournament was a snapshot in time and doesn't necessarily reflect any sort of broad vista in terms of how England and France measure up head to head with the USWNT. Generally though, following up on some of Hotjam's comments, form in the women's game does seem more transitory compared to the men. The Netherlands being the most obvious example at the moment. I certainly wouldn't be confident setting any odds for teams next year in France until we get very close to the actual tournament itself. Of course as we've seen form can be a capricious and elusive riddle just within a single tournament. I'm more optimistic about England and France than Germany. England's coach literally just arrived. I'm not going to draw any major conclusions about a tournament right out of the gate. It could go either way. But England have a lot of solid players for Neville to build something for next year. That France will be playing at home makes them more of a factor and the recent turnover means the expectations may be relatively diminished which could work in their favor. They may face somewhat less pressure than is typical for a contending host side. Politics and internal strife seem to transcend coaches and rosters. If they can get out of their own way I can see them finding something and pulling it off playing in front of their fans. Germany's coaching issues and malaise seem like they may be more interminable.
I predict France to end up with the same fate as Germany on home soil 2011 if they don’t switch coach
I think people are misunderstanding both the effect and the intent of coaching at this level. 1. No coach ever won a game they coached. The players have to do that. 2. A game in the WC, a game in the Euros, mostly a game in the Olympics, coaches are trying to coach a team to a win. Other games, sure, everybody wants to win, but the coaches are more trying to build a team that can win one of the others. I think it is silly to think that Ellis thought the 3 back was going to be our regular formation going forward, and it is silly to think that Steffi Jones doesn't see what was going on with Germany this SBC. It doesn't matter to Jones that they aren't particularly good at short passes in a hex pattern. It does matter to her that they learn-- and the way to do that is play that way against good teams, which is literally what SBC is for...
Silly? It was the plan. "The U.S. women's national team isn't just testing out a new system because it has time to; this is a direct response to Olympic failures, Richard Farley writes Read more at https://www.fourfourtwo.com/us/feat...rs-bunker-sweden-olympics#72dpMddASzerlzBP.99 "
I'll repeat a question I asked earlier: Tell me one coach, of women or men, who won the last World Cup and whose team, a year before the next World Cup, is ranked #1 by FIFA, that got fired. It's a no-brainer. Ellis is the coach through the 2019 World Cup and will continue after that if the US wins it, and probably if they don't win but do well. It doesn't matter what anyone who posts here on BS thinks. Get over it.
funny though, they fired the 2007 WC coach after loosing just one game in something like over 30 starts. I've read it was because of the high score(0-4 vs Brazil, semi -final). But the poor guy found his team down & one player down after what seemed like an unfair red card to Boxx. So what was he suppose to do? Park the bussto at least keep the other team from scoring again? or go for the win with just ten players> you could say that Ellis flopped at least 3 times in a row if you consider the loss to Australia at TOA.. But now she's definitely now on top, partly that the US goes so deep, partly due that the other 3 SBC teams are only highly rated #2-4 in name only (all three flopped as well at last years Euro's) FRA & GER have said there not interested in participating again. So who should take their place? This would be my picks; AUSTRALIA; they still got a win over the US & their loss vs Portugal was a bit suspicious, they didn't start Kerr, Gory & Kennedy, Plus Foord, Raso & Sykes weren't part of the Algarve Cup roster, But it goes to show that their not a very deep team. At full tilt, they're definitely be contenders NEDERLANDS while their been a bit inconsistent since winning Euros. It's partly due because most of their starters play in various different leagues around Europe, so hence they got a disadvantage, when they got to prepare for friendlies or their current WC qualifiers with just 1-2 days of practice. But they've proved to be phenomenal tournament team/ So giving enough time to prepare/WATCH OUT. Their style now is so eerily similar to the US playing a fast, direct pace with double wide's attack. They also got a couple of newbies that will have an impact in the future. My fav, the very athletic 20 year old Jill Rood, who I predict might become an even bigger star than either Miedema or their current FIFA poy, Lieke Martens. Roord currently plays for Bayern Munich/ SPAIN their still not rated in the top ten, but they look like the team of the future. Their coach makes them play several different styles, they won the recent Cyprus Cup vs Italy, 2-0 by copying the US with a 4 back, high line that compressed the Italians back to their own side & then hit them with the usual high press. They got a recent friendly win over the Dutch as well. Sometimes they do go with an over tedious passing/tiki taka version that someone needs to tell them; its out dated! lol. But what they do have is possibly the best youth player in the world in 19 year old, Patricia Guijarro. She's kinda has become their main brain thrust/playmaker of the team. Watching her play CM besides Vicky Losada(who had decent NWSL creds)/ Also helping the Spanish is momentum in their current domestic league, in which one game drew 22K last week
Interesting that France and Germany have opted out of the next She Believes. I wonder why; teams don't get that many opportunities to play other top 10 teams, do they? I think the tournament involves too much travel in too short a period of time, and the weather is an obvious issue as well. It's a lot of travel to play in cold and wind, and then back on the plane to fly to another part of the U.S., and then again. Hope they return soon.
Travel and logistics is the main reason coupled with the Champions League quarter-finals in nearby proximity. The last two France managers Echouafni and Diacre complained about going to the USA and said, we only go there because we are contracted. Bergeroo signed the contract
It would be interesting go back and see if they voiced this complaint before the champions league or after the results.
I like the sound of England, Japan, and Australia for next year. Three very contrasting styles of opponent.
The FIFA ranking is a joke. They are probably only #1 because they technically didn't lose to Sweden in the Olympics and haven't played a competitive match since. The team was ranked #2 at this time last year after the disastrous SheBelieves2017, so if they had changed they wouldn't have met your criteria. Ellis has the worst finish in the Olympics of any USWNT head coach. Lots of teams change coaches after WCs, whether they win or lose. It has been the experience with US Soccer that coaches going into their 2nd or 3rd WCs do very poorly. I will not be surprised if Ellis leads the USWNT to the same kind of finish in the WC as in the last Olympics.
In real life, the FIFA ranking is pretty good. I've studied a number of ranking systems, doing detailed statistical analyses of them, and Elo-based systems are as good as any. And, in predicting the outcomes of games, legitimate statistical systems do better than most humans. There typically are a few humans who do better, but it's not clear whether it's because they're better at predicting game outcomes or just are at the lucky end of the human predictors' bell curve. Humans think they apply good thinking and analysis in making predictions. Most don't.
the FIFA rankings are way too much based on the long haul results. For instance, the Dutch only got ranked #7 right after winning the Euros despite an incredible performance, winning all 6 of their games/the last three playoff ones by 2-0, 3-0, 4-2. I think their the 2nd best team in the world right as they just came back from an impressive Algarve Cup(beating Japan, 6-2). But because they were less than stellar during the previous year(switching coaches/experimenting while loosing games), they still get a lower ranking than the big 3 out of Europe/ Now look at FIFA's #2 pick, Germany; wipe the slate clean everything that happened prior to the Euro 2017; they get eliminated in the quarters by then #13-15 ranked Denmark, They then play in the all games that really matter to them, the WQ qualifiers, where upon they struggle to beat #35 Czechoslovakia(after being dominated play wise in that, an Czech own goals seals them, the 1-0 win). Then the real shocker, they loose at home to #20 Iceland. One more loss in WC group/qualifiers and I doubt if they got enough points to even make the wild card playoffs. They got now a return match with the Czechs next month with an new interim coach, who's going to stamp his own style & inherit a team almost devoid of any speed or athleticism, thanks to the previous Neid/Jones handpicks. Japan & Australia play us in the Tournament of Nations all ready(is it renewed?). Japan should be out of the top ten anyways by next cycle(they just lost to the Dutch, 2-6, both Canada & at home to North Korea, 0-2) Australia's Catlyn Foord(a vital part of their upset of the US last year) is out on an long term injury. They were missing Raso & Sykes as well at last week's Algarve Cup(where they flubbed/only 4th place) but in all fairness, the Euro teams are at a huge disadvantage; they played their league games on Sunday, fly over on Monday(the poor English flew economy) get perhaps a full day of practice on Tuesday & play their first SBC game by Wednesday
It's not a perfect system, but it's far less of a joke than whatever lame formula the men's ranking uses. Honest question: Do you think it's a joke just because it doesn't fit your doom and gloom narrative? That might be true on the men's side, but DCicco is the only coach who was there for more than one WC and he went from 3rd in his first to champion in his second.
Yes,, it does seem a bit better than the Men's ranking. But that isn't saying much as the Men's ranking is an utter failure. I would say it is a joke the USA was #1 after losing to France, Australia, and England in the same year. And over 12 months they lost to those teams and tied Colombia in a major tournament and tied Sweden in the same tournament. But the USWNT should be a seeded team at the next World Cup, so no harm in ranking them #1. Just hate that the ranking, which must be flawed, is used to overlook the real problems on the field. If the USA was ranked #4; would you be more apt to focus on the lack of coherent midfield play?