Well, if there's anyone who can/would complain about a 6-0 victory, it's definitely you @Cannons. LOL!
I guess I assumed you could follow. She used 3, 6 were not used. That totals 9 subs available; One is a goalie so throw that one out. That means next game she could use up to 8 different people is she wanted. She wont, but it's important in a larger tournament to have a bench that you can actually feel confident using while resting your key people. I consider using Lloyd, in a game you're clearly winning, is a waste of a chance to build your bench. Better to give the minutes to someone else like Mewis or Press that she will need later on. Lloyd might make it to the WC bench but her starting days are over.
And being content on beating up on a second rate team is what got us in trouble early on the last WC. This was no big deal... Not Japan, France, England, Germany or even Canada here. Its nice to win but looking at the big picture.... we have to do better and rotating the bench should be a priority I did think it was some of the best possession we've shown in a long time though. Lets see how we look after the group stage before getting too excited
was disappointed with this when I first saw it, but heath played well (altho I still don't like it when she dawdles on the ball). i'm thinking that heath's skill on the ball and pugh's smoothness and speed are 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. either of them could start.
Good possession and clean passing all over the pitch for most of the match were a joy to watch. Can we focus on that for a while? Regarding Japan, France, England, Germany, and Canada... we have beaten all those teams several times in the past couple years. That's not our priority! Our priority, IMO, is beating teams that bunker, like Sweden.
a team doesn't look good or bad in isolation. yesterday's uswnt team would very likely have looked worse, and we would now be heaping criticism on them and jill had they been playing france. and yes, yesterday's mexican team would probably have looked much better, and we'd be pointing out the good players, had their first game been against panama or t&t. none of this is absolute, of course, because upsets can always happen.
agreed! truth! for the moment. we are going to need to beat canada in a couple of weeks – not to qualify, but for peace on these boards!
Every play has a positive and negative side. Take the first Morgan goal. It's either a brilliant run and a perfect corner right on her head from Rapinoe OR a goal that never happens if her mark doesn't completely lose her. There is a bad side to everything if u want to find it.
Who cares about the final? Seriously. There's one important game left. The semifinal against a third tier team. That's the only game that matters. Any "First XI" player with a card should be shelved until that game starts. Any "First XI" player should only get as many minutes in the next two games as needed to keep match fit - and coming at the end of a long NWSL season, it shouldn't be much. The next two games should see the bench get long hard minutes. As for the final itself? Knock yourself out, who cares as long as we've qualified for France.
Have to agree on the Lloyd sub....why bring her in with the game in hand at 4-0? Wouldn't u have been served looking at Brian or Mewis in Lavelle's spot for the final third of the match? The only way I could have justified Lloyd entering the match would have been to give Rapinoe or Morgan a short match in a tournament with a tight schedule.
Ellis - if u tell me the game plan was play so fast that Mexico couldn't keep up with the high tempo then Id question why ud play faster than ur own team could handle. The first half was a flurry of one touch passes but few resulting in good chances on goal. Team Ellis had the ball in the Mexican end for most of the 45 minutes and managed only 1 goal off a hustle play by Horan. Add a second hustle goal by Ertz right after the break and Mexico is done. After that came four mostly uncontested goals by a Mexican team who seemed to thinking ahead to the more important group matches yet to come. This is standard bully soccer. Ud think Ellis blessed with 20 players better than anyone on the Mexican roster could simply play Mexico straight up and beat them without the press and the high tempo. Yeah, I get that this is WCQ and Ellis can't afford to take chances and I agree with that but don't call clubbing baby seals great hunting.
I just believe the CONCACAF group play is all about the US not getting Canada in the semi. The rest of the tournament is enjoying teams like Panama getting a chance to shine. Last time despite the de facto conclusion the highlight was watching T&T almost achieve their dream.
hmm. I asked you once, after the u.s. won the 2015 world cup, why you found it so difficult to compliment ellis. you posted something to the effect that you'd be glad to if she did anything right. ... waiting.... i'm sure you have given her lots of compliments. they're just hard to find amidst an avalanche of kt criticisms.
Still waiting. This was a perfect situation for for Ellis to show she's figured something out since the loss to Sweden. Mexico came out in in a 5-4-1, a totally defensive formation. The Ellis response was ramp up the speed of play and force mistakes. This works against inferior teams but also leads to most US attacks ending in a turnover. A team with equal quality takes those turnovers and goes the other way which Mexico couldn't. What I would have expected was a calm approach to breaking down the defense by completing passes and forcing the defense to work. Instead I saw the same approach that failed in 2016. What do they say the definition of insanity is...doing the same thing over and over but expecting the results to change?
Saw the InStat numbers for the match. The one that stuck out was the US attempted 30 key passes and only completed 13.
Panama can't afford to rest players verse the US, not when they have a legit shot of going into the Mexico game with an edge in goal differential. They probably think they can hold the US to 3-4 goals and as far as I'm tracking Mexico's all time biggest win vs T&T was by 4 goals....so...if Panama plays well vs the US, they will only need to tie Mexico. That said Panama won't hold the US to only 3-4 goals. If the US plays like they did vs Mexico the US will score at least 6 goals and probably closer to double digits against Panama. If Mexico holds the gd edge verse Panama in the final game, then Mexico probably golazos Panama as well. Unfortunately I didn't catch the Panama-T&T match, but I did watch Panama-El Salvador in the previous round. Both Panama and ES were better techically than I expected, but Panama ultimately won easily due a distinct advantage in athleticism. Needless to say, Panama won't have such an advantage vs the US and probably won't vs Mexico either. Panama is not a truly 90 minute fit team. They snipe at eachother on the field evem when things are going well and they ball watch both on offense and defense. The US (and probably Mexico) will get lots of chances on untracked runs, will kill Panama on corners and will easily regain possession cause Panama's ballhandler will have at most one teammate working off the ball at a time. Panama does a competent job of making overlapping runs down the sideline, so they could pressure the US (and definitely Mexico) on the flanks if our wing defenders play high. It will be interesting to see if Panama even tries to push numbers vs the US. Panama's center forwards don't make particularly sophisticated movements so we should be able to deal with their wing play by tracking back. Panama also shoots from the 18-30 yd range about as well as I've seen any women's team (granted it was under minimal pressure vs ES). If the US keeper gets challenged, it will likely be on a low cross that dribbles awkwardy into the box or on a long shot following a US half clearance of a Panama cross.
A lot of T&T's problems against Panama were due to the very short time they were together before the first match. I actually think that talent wise they are superior to Panama and near Mexico but their federation's incompetence has caused a huge under performance in the first match. They will get better in each of the upcoming matches. But even with that I think Mexico beats T&T quite thoroughly (by at least 4) and I also think Panama gets beaten by the US by at least 6. They are not nearly as good as they looked against the woefully unprepared T&T. Against the US Mexico chose to not play a true bunker but also not to go for attacking or possession play. That is they played a half way match and were punished for every mistake. Mexico is not going to make that kind of mistake again and they will clobber both T&T and Panama. Panama's only chance against Mexico comes if Mexico self destructs again. Mexico is too good to do something like that twice in a tournament. In situations like in this group it is well to not look at the last match but rather at the overall performance of the teams involved. Any peaks or valleys that happen in the first group match in a tournament are usually corrected in the rest of the matches. A team that under performs in match one usually rebounds in the subsequent matches and plays up to form in the second and third rounds. Also it works the other way as well. The rest of the tournament in the US's group will go true to form. Now in the other group there is even less problem because Cuba and Jamaica are so horrible. The only question in that group is how much the loss of their GK will impact Costa Rica both in the play and mentally because of the severity of the injury.
That was what I thought as well. I also liked the fact that we attacked the semi-bunker that Mexico played instead of simply passing the ball around like we did against Sweden and against many other bunkering teams. We just do not have the shooters to make that strategy have much chance of success. We do have the players to break a defense by quick tight passing and that is what I have hoped we would do for a long time. We do not need to breakdown defenses by waiting when we have the players and skills to do it quickly. Yes we will miss a few extra passes BUT or final success rate will be higher when we do connect. That style will not work against every team but we can also play a more patient style against teams that play a more traditional offense/defense set up. This is actually a change that I welcome and I hope we put it in our arsenal to be pulled out as needed. In the past we have been much to much of a possession team against bunker style defenses and that is not how you really break them. You break them by attacking and attacking and then attacking some more. Most teams that go into a shield type defense will give the ball back quickly if it is lost so a few, even a pretty large number of. lost passes matter very little. In soccer there is really only one stat that matters at all and that is the one on the score board. While stats might help explain a win or a loss they are really meaningless in most situations.