U.S. v. Australia 7/29 (2018 ToN Round 2) pre/pbp/post

I think Ellis will change the lineup for Brazil--and she should. Who really cares who wins the Cup? It's a small friendlies round-robin dressed up as a "cup tournament" by the promoters and the media. I guess you can brag about it if you win it, but in grand scheme of things it means nothing outside of girding your team for the WC a year off.

 

Aaaahhh well, there is one slightly overweight Czech from Dallas. Point taken though.

 

Does anyone else think it's rather disingenuous, bordering on hoodwinkery, for Fox to present this as a tournament, to emphasize winning only, and never really mention that it is one big friendly? They presented the SBC the same way. It annoys me.

 

I thought Horan was good; and, I think she is finally finding her spot and her confidence in this team. I think she is important for our midfield. What about playing Dunn in the midfield until Pugh returns? Yes, I miss Solo's fantastic abilities. Rapinoe does try to force it a lot, and we rely too much on her. Our defense needs more work. Our team has very few speedsters. We need a few more players with pace. The rest of the world is definitely catching up.

 

I find it slightly annoying as well. My concern with Fox is the longer they cover soccer, the worse job they do. Ball goes out off Rapinoe and the camera focuses on her for ten seconds, cuts back to live play, sixty yards have been covered and I have no clue what happened. I don't watch soccer to see Ellis sitting on the bench, I want to see soccer. Venting over.

 

The World Cup coverage was, if anything, even worse. All the cuts to coaches, benches, fans in the stands and even fans at other places often while play is going on.

I do not want to see fans!
I do not want to see coaches!
I want to see the play on the field.

The set up for a free kick or a corner or even a throw in is a big part of the game but the other fluff is not.

One of my biggest pet peeves about TV coverage is when a player misses a shot or cross attempt and the camera gives him or her a close up while the walk back up the field doing nothing. That player just failed and by that failure they get extra camera time while we miss things that are possibly important and a good deal more interesting happening on the field.

I also detest replays of failures. TV world wide does not really cover soccer they cover personalities. Fox is one of the worst but they are all bad.

 

I'd rather see Long in for Horan.

I'm a big Ertz fan, but it was really annoying how Jill had them playing ever single corner (until the last), for the super low percentage Ertz header from outside the near post. She's great at that, but still, that's an extremely low percentage shot. Why not try to get it to her between the posts?

 

I'm a broken record, but I want to see Dunn there.

Yep, didn't think about that 'til you mentioned it.

 

"that useless LB"....Dunn? I'm not sure I follow.

Dunn can be the most dangerous player on the field when she plays as a back and gets into the attacking 1/3.

I hope Tobin plays better. I'm a Tobin homer, though, and my like for her as a player and a person sometimes causes me to see her through rose colored glasses.

 

I enjoy seeing fans and the crowds, in general. It's always interesting and usually fun. However, when the game is in progress, I want to see the game.

 

Problem is u can't do it with Dunn unless u have a left back who can be part of the attack. Maybe when O'Hara gets back they play her on the left freeing up Dunn but with Hinkle in purgatory and Short being more defensive minded, they need Dunn where she is.

 

Well if they had a coach things with Rapinoe might be different. Sundhage seemingly was in an on going battle with Rapinoe during her time here and there were rumors she was threatening to leave Rapinoe off the team if she couldn't play the way she wanted her to.

 

Never been to Pratt & Whitney before. Beautiful facility and surprisingly easy to get to. Unfortunately very hard to get out of. Spent an hour in line trying to move a quarter of a mile. Also may have been a portent that the section of I-91 heading into Hartford is named after Richard Horan.

 

I've watched Megan play starting in college.You get the good Rapinoe and the bad Rapinoe together, or you get neither. That's the way she is. She needs to play flamboyantly and instinctively without a lot of thought. That's where her moments of brilliance come from. So, if that's what Sundhage was telling her, then it most definitely isn't a recommendation for her as a coach. She failed to recognize the essential personality of her player.

 

I see posts like this often, so I started wondering whether the numbers actually bear it out.

Over the last 12 months, the US women's record is 14 wins, 3 draws, and 0 losses. (The loss to Australia in last year''s ToN is outside the last 12 months.) This is on a par with the one-year records of the very best teams the US has had (I checked). And, I'll make a guess and say that the average rank of the last year's opponents is better than the average rank of opponents in those earlier very best years (I didn't check, but I think this is a safe guess). This suggests that based on record, the US's comparative relation to the rest of the world is about the same as, and possibly better than, it was in the earlier very best years.

It's always possible that other teams are closing the gap but haven't closed it enough yet for it to show up in results. But whether that's the case is almost impossible to determine until after results start changing.

And, let's remember, whether the US continues at #1 in the world is not the measure for "catching up." It's probably more a question of whether the US continues in the #1 to #3 range, given that of the 7 Women's World Cups so far, the US has finished #3 in 3 of them.

And, let's remember that during the earlier very best years (as determined by win-draw-loss records), the US finished 3rd and 2nd in the World Cup. And, let's also remember that the US never has won the World Cup twice in a row.

 

But it's the coaches job to control the players. What Ellis decided, right or wrong is she was better having bad Rapinoe than moving Heath over there and putting Press or Dunn in Heath's spot. I think if Rapinoe is on that's one thing but I don't think bad Rapinoe is better than Heath. It's a different case if u don't have a quality left sided player to bring in.

 

That's not necessarily true.

Ellis has a fixation with the overload. (Have the fullbacks be the playmakers, it's like the Spanish Inquisition, no one ever expects it!)

But, it doesn't have to be that way. She could add an actual playmaking mid-fielder to the mix and we wouldn't have to be so reliant on the attack coming from the defenders. She's stuck on that (in the last WC, she had Ertz play making from the CB spot. Sweden snuffed that out so easily. They gave her space to dribble into, laid off her, and when she inevitably passed when she approached midfield, easily picked off her passes).

Put Lavelle in the middle three. Or, Dunn. Or Pino. Or, Long. she has the work rate to do it. Then you don't need the fullback marauding up the field. And, if a fullback is not marauding up the field, you don't need 3 dmids in the middle.

Also, I don't get to watch much NWSL (though I watch it more than MLS), so I don't know what's going on with Kling, but she was incredible in the attack in the 2015 WC. She overlapped so much that Pino, played more defense than Kling did - and Kling was an incredible playmaker. Her passing was so precise.

Against Australia, Pino and Dunn were kind of (I said "kind of") recreating that dynamic. When Dunn got forward, Pino covered back.

You could play Dunn in Tobin's spot and play Kling at LB. Pino will cover Megan's forays forward. She did it for Dunn.

Another thing about Dunn at LB - she's playing like she doesn't have complete freedom to attack into the box. As good of a passer as she is, if she's is not allowed to attack the goal and get her own shot, then I think Kling is better passing around the box.

If you're going to put Dunn in that spot, let her attack the goal, try to get a goal, when she's forward. Otherwise, it's a waste.

 

My bad...I didnt mean LB... but RB... Dunn was the best defender on the field. THe other side was weak

 

Why Kling? Why not Casey Short?

 

Not as much as how ESpiN presents everything that has happened in the last 5 minutes as the greatest thing that has ever happened...as if yesterday didn't exist.
All about eyeballs and media greed.

 

Since its new, I see your point but if it keeps on in an annual tradition, I could see it as a nice little competitive competition as it ages and becomes more tradition. If we lose we lose, BUT I still want to see us win just because....

 

I rarely watch ESPN anymore, since (international) football is the only professional sport I really follow.

 

Not to mention at one part during the match the ball went off Australia and the camera didn't pan over, totally missing the Rapinoe quick throw in and about 5 seconds of playing time. The camera person definitely went to sleep for that one.

 

Someone mentioned they thought it would be good for the USWNT to travel more. I agree. Playing these friendly tourneys against high ranked teams is good, but traveling and playing away from the US home crowds is reality.