The Ringer: Own Goal: The Inside Story Of How the Us Missed the World Cup

Usually.

 

Not much to add.
There have been some fine posts on here,even though we are trodding some well battled ground ,setting off some unexploded ordnance as we go.

One thing we've forgotten.Juergen was pushing for this job in 2006.Bob Bradley would never have been US coach if Sunil had acceded to Jurgen's demand for total control at that time.

There is no doubt that to pull results with our player pool for the foreseeable future,we need a coach with in game tactical nous who is a sound man manager.

Sunil Gulati was bamboozled by Juergen's sales pitch.Heres to Earnie Stewart understanding our needs and not falling for another siren song.

 

Spot on. I like to think that Ernie will represent the silent majority, those who feel both Arena and Klinsman sucked and both made the team less than the sum of their parts.

And that ill defined intangibles, like Euro fairy dust, native fairy dust, being a famous player, understanding the domestic American exceptionalism, etc. Are all completely worthless if not tied to the one thing we really need, proven modern tactics.

 

wow! That what you meant by changes take time and messing should start in goal for Argentina. I guess I missed it.

Tactics matter and coaching can help, but people exaggerate what it means in this game and specifically for our national team.

Klinsmann is not a tactician. I'm not sure anyone would disagree with that. I know it is hard for people to grasp that I dont care about Klinsmann the person, but am more focused on the philosophies that many are trying to discard because they didnt like him.

Our players are too one dimensional and decent professional soccer players have games that are well rounded enough to play multiple positions. Players should find them in multiple areas of the field during the course of a game that they are in essence playing different positions throughout the game.

I'm sorry that I chose simple examples to make to point clear. The players I chose had very well round skillset which is partly what made them good players and what enabled them to move around the field easily. I gave other examples of US players who played different positions for their club than they did for the usmnt (obrien) and player who easily adapted to different roles for both club and country (reyna). I could give tons of examples of everyday players that switch positions and instantly settle in. It appears Arriola has recently done it for his club. Pick a criteria and I'm sure I can come up with multiple examples.

Lahm doesnt invalidate anything about my view. He criticized the lack tactical direction from JK. He also criticized every other coach he had played for. That doesnt change that he is quality player that can move around the field.

The debacle against portugal was due to Gonzalez? Him being totally lost is way down on the list and his movement was the sign of a poor soccer player with poor instincts. In order, Yedlin should have let the ball roll out to let the clock roll down and the team get set. Bradley should have done many things beside give the ball away. Beasley should have fouled one of the best players in the world to allow us to get set. Cameron should have marked his man. I've always been amused that Gonzalez being told to sit in front of the back line gets translated as playing dmid. I viewed as putting on a third central defender but not disrupting the the back line. He should have been in theory perfect for the play. If Beasley fouls Ronaldo, then he is great to have on the set piece.

 

That is another way of saying that people dont understand the game. I dont get the impression of many folks on here actually played the or at least not at a reasonable level. They learned watching the US defend and counter, MLS games and discussing the game here with people with similar backgrounds.

Totaalvoetbal is completely foreign to them or discarded for not winning world cup. While the game has evolved, it is a great concept for learning the game. Instead the dream is finding a coach who can set up defined roles and hope our players can execute.

 

You take issue with that? Isnt that exactly how people view LD. He is their idol that they love and can see no wrong. It seems innocuous relative to the names people call people who dont idolize the guy or dont hate Klinsmann.

 

Is Bruce Arena a tactician?

 

20 pages to hit the "did you ever play sports, bro?" phase of the discussion. Better than I expected.

 

The issue is not just players but, it seems the players had no idea how Jurgen wanted them to play. Unfair comparison to Jurgen but, compare him to say Pep Guardiola he has played players out of position. He played Lahm in midfield, converted Mascherano to a CB, played guys like Yaya, Busquets and Alaba in CB , etc. But, the big difference is Pep is known for his attention to detail, he even tells the grounds crew the exact height to cover the grass. Pep is known to tell players exactly where he wants them to be, what passes to make, their body position when they receive the ball, etc. Here is an example



While Pep has more time to work with his players since he is a club not a national team manager. But, all reports from his time with Bayern and his time with the US national team shows that there was not an attention to detail under him. Players did not know how Jurgen wanted them to play.

 

That is what everyone was saying in 2016. We were so lucky to be getting such a solid coach who would define roles our ignored talent would flourish.

I personally have no comment on the question. He has been a disease within US soccer for some time. As I've stated before, he is in the running for most damaging individual to the progress of the game in america.

 

Pep is a phenomenal and revolutionary coach.

I thought JK just told them to go out and play (or was it Express themselves?). It is vague but pretty clear. I'd think talented players would appreciate both completely different approaches.

 

That's certainly the impression one gets from your posts...

 

All that is trite. What matters is that we already qualified for 2026.

 

I would say so, he tactically orchestrated Sunil to be replaced by his buddy Cordeiro. Then he used his superior tactics to make the whole world feel sorry for us and won us the WC in 2026. If you wait a little while, he will say that the Trump and Kim Jong Un meeting took place because of him and if he would have been involved much sooner he would have denuclearized Russia as well. What can I say, the guy is a genius!!

 

American football is far more strategy and on-the-field decisions than soccer. It’s not even close

 

Listened to the Ringer FC podcast interviewing the authors. They said they thought going in that the locker room was going to be more divided on whether Klinsmann should go but that it was widely accepted with some guys conflicted because he gave them their shot.

 

Also say that Bruce was the only guy considered and that he was an overcorrection from an ineffectual change agent to a past his prime insider when maybe an effective change agent was needed.

 

Whether it's far more strategy than soccer is doubtfull. Strategy is the plan how to play the opponent. Tactics are the decisions within the plan to counter the tactics the opponent has to execute their strategic plan how to deal with your team.
It seems to me a little bit odd to claim on the field decisions in Am. football is far more present, let alone not even close exceeding soccer, when in soccer the ball stays in play and the players constantly have to adapt on the situation while in AF after each about 10 yards the game is interrupted and the coach is frantically instructing the tactics for the situation that has arisen. A soccer coach only has the chance to reinstruct his players in the half time break, or when there's a player being treated for injury. So your trying to tell me that soccer players are going about their business on the pitch for 10ns of minutes without making on the field decisions by their self or far less than AF players, while those games are interrupted about every 10 seconds. What's the longest spell an Am. football match had without the ball being dead?

 

I can see that argument. But IMO, that avenue was blocked when JK wasn't fired in the spring, or the year before when we lost the Confed Cup play in game.

 

Respectfully, it's pretty obvious you have no idea what you're talking about wrt American football.

On every play, every player on the field is engaged in the play and is actively seeking to create advantage. Teams work in concert with multiple options on each play depending upon what the other team is presenting as well. All 11 players are active for the play while in soccer that is infrequently the case as usually there are only a modest fraction of the players on the field who are active at any one time. Teams create patterns early in the game to lull opponents to sleep and carefully monitor reactions to see if they can detect opportunities to be deployed later.

Furthermore, there are few one-on-one "battles" in soccer while there are hundreds of them in each football game. If you don't know much about American football (and it's clear that you don't, which is fine), you end up saying that its full of dumb brutes (which is simply wrong). If you see the progression that a QB walks through at the line of scrimmage and then throughout the play, it's amazing. Same thing on the defensive side as DBs are trying to read the QBs eyes (who then try to look off the DBs and back and forth thereafter.) Wide receivers have route trees where which route they run is determined by what the other teams shows at the line of scrimmage. Each of the WRs have to diagnose what defense their opponent is playing and work in concert to create mismatches - if one player gets it wrong, the whole scheme is thrown off.

TL;DR: The strategy and tactics of American football are far far in advance of elite soccer: it's not even close.

 

Both are quite tactical, but brute strength is a must in some of the football positions. That's not a requisite in any of the soccer positions.

 

No idea would be like me claiming you have no clue about soccer.
Obviously I'm not an expert on AF, but enough interested as a Rugby fan to the inner workings of it. Decades ago I was on Hawaii and looked at the football games of the university team and wondered about the popularity of it. I had the impression Yanks were people that liked action and activity and what I saw (and still see) were matches with constant interruptions and resulting reformations on the pitch.
What you described in your reaction is in fact rearranging of the tactic from a static position (the interruptions I mentioned) with bursts of actions to gain yards progress
What the AF players do, soccer players have to do constantly in a fluid situation.

That's precisely the weakness I was pointing at. AF is rigidly system based with bodypower. One player falls out of line and the whole framework is in tatters. You call that superior tactic and strategic attributes of AF, while each position like QB, WR etc. have a rigid task.

Soccer on the other hand combines strategy and tactics with the individual brilliance and creativity of players.
For those interested this article (use google translate) describes how Aussie rule football adopted tactics from Louis van Gaal's AZ team.
(https://www.ad.nl/offside/aussie-rules-footballers-kampioen-met-hulp-van-gaal~a58f7a83/)

I guess you need to study more tactics and strategies deployed by the elite soccer teams as there is a stark difference between the two.

From: https://www.diffen.com/difference/American_Football_vs_Rugby#Football_vs_Rugby_Strategy
Football vs Rugby Strategy
American football is a game of set moves and counter moves (similar to chess). On the other hand, Rugby is a more free-flowing spontaneous game.

 

To go back to my original post DHC1 reacted to. It wasnot about the tactical qualities of the game itself, but about the tactical awareness of players themselves and the capability to adjust themselves.
Someone wrote about the tactical differences of AF and soccer in this way.
Take the AF top team in a match against the bottom team and Arsenal against the EPL bottom dweller. Tha make both the AF top team and Arsenal go into the match without the coaching staff, while the opponent keeps them. He says in that case the top AF team probably will loose while Arsenal still is going to win, due to the fact that in AF the tactical twiddling during the match by the coaching staff is supreme.
The AF team has for every position a specialized man in the team who can be thrown in without restrictions, while in soccer the tactical plan has to be executed by a limited number of players, thus demanding from them thinking on the pitch themselves.

A kid from Saint Louis Scott Gallagher academy, who was at the Feyenoord academy (they have a cooperation) asked what was different at Feyenoord answered that the Feyenoord coach asked him during a match what he should change in his play while in the USA he was told what to change.
That's what my point was of bringing in the AF analogy.

AF is highly tactical....from the sideline. You can compare it to chess. The knight on the board cannot do anything else than what is locked in his piece identity. The same goes with AF players. They are extremely specialized in the tasks linked to their position, so their "thinking" is very restricted. An AF coach would go berserk if one of his players suddenly decided to go outside the tactical instructions he was given when he was moved into the game.

But of course I've no clue whatsoever about American football, so probably it's complete nonsense I put down.

 

This is what you originally said.

1. Players are not dumbos - they need to make far more on-the-field tactical decisions that soccer players do. Each play has multiple decision trees that each player must choose from. What coaches on the sideline do is a bit like a chess match as they call in original plays, personnel and formations. However, in the modern game, the players on the field for each side immediately begins flexing their setup to seek advantage. It’s not at all a simple chess match between coaches and players who are confined to a set role (like a chess piece). On each play, players become the chess masters.

2. The breaks are there because of the ferocity of the plays and that there is so much strategy and tactics between the two sides, not that there’s too little.

Finally, I apologize if “you have no idea” is too strident a phrase. I wouldn’t doubt that your knowledge of soccer tactics/strategy is higher than mine but I’m confident that I’m at least “above average” in my understanding. For goodness sakes, I was told that after 100 BS posts, I would get coaching accreditation...Conversely, your use of a vacation in Hawaii where you observed the university of Hawaii football team leads me to believe you don’t meet that standard for football.

 

That was my first live encounter with AF. Since then I watched many superbowls and highlights of NFL/AFL matches. Probably you watched more quality soccer games than I did with AF games, but I certainly watched more and better AF teams than the Hawaii uni team.