Goal differential is a complete unknown. But Panama knows if they beat Mexico they are through. They can bunker and try to lose by less than 6 without their best players, especially their offensive ones. Then they can put their best, most rested, squad out there. Mexico has to win, they can't rest anyone against T&T. I feel Mexico did this by not starting Johnson against the USA. The idea was to bunker and keep the score down, maybe even nick a goal on a counter. At 4-0, the Mexican coach kind of had a nervous breakdown and went to his full strength attacking lineup to try and pull some back.
this is the way riley has the courage play and you compliment them for it. less emphasis on time of possession and number of chances missed, and more emphasis on repeated attacks at breakneck speed so as to put a high number of quality shots (many of which are missed while still outscoring the other side) on the opposition’s net. as fanoffutbol says:
I assume the key pass stat is there to give context to high passing percentage generated by the back four just passing it around
Im not sure it's a positive stat to have a percentage of completed passes in low 80s but have ur key passes in the 40s.
Don't know if he'd adjust against a bunkering team since no one in the NWSL parks the bus. If Riley had the same history of trouble against bunkers Elis has Id be disappointed if Riley just kept trying the same old thing against them.
i'm sure there are people who argue, like you, that ellis is still doing the same old thing now that she did against sweden in 2016. but you guys are in a mass choir of 2 or 3.
We still do not know what the US will do against a well played true bunker. Mexico did NOT play a true bunker as they delayed getting players behind the ball. Panama was so horrible as to make what looked like a bunker just usually became just a bunch of people standing around and waiting. T&T might bunker but they could and should still feel they have a chance to advance and Mexico most probably will put up a huge score against Panama. So T&T will need a win, no matter how unlikely, against the US and if they get the win they know they have a slim chance of advancing. A bunker against the US by T&T would be unlikely to produce anything better than a tie which just will not cut it. A win playing somewhat open soccer is more likely, by far, against the US to produce the win. T&T knows they do not have the players to hold the US to only 2 or less goals by playing a bunker. They also do not have the players to open up and beat the US but that is their only chance. The only time we are likely to see a true well played bunker is in the semis when we, probably, play Jamaica. Jamaica has some decent defenders and mids and they have some skill at forward to hold the ball and allow the bunker to break out and attack. I do not think it will work but the people are there to have a slight chance to win by bunkering for T&T. Personally I would like to see the US set up and take a lot of shots from outside against T&T once we are assured of the win as we REALLY need to find a player or three that can shoot and score from outside and so far no one has shown the willingness and ability to do that.
I've come in late, and I'm not going back to look at the particulars, but Jill Ellis doesn't have to prove her coaching chops to anyone. Seriously. Do you people actually pay attention to women's soccer? It was wildly successful for about a year and a half. That was two decades ago. Trying to gauge coaching acumen without context is naïve at best and disingenuous at worst. International women's soccer is a huge money losing enterprise. Why don't we have "real" World Cup Qualifiers with home and away games? Because it's too expensive. It's really hard work to bring in the dollars (mainly sponsorships). It takes years to get the general public to know just one women's national team player. In 2015 that was Alex Morgan. Years of being placed in the background of Lebron James commercials, and SI swimsuit issues and so on had made her the face of the program - something needed to keep the money engaged. If the women's team were the men's team, she probably wouldn't have been on the roster for Canada - but then Arena did take John O'Brien to Germany, so there's that. But the only way she was missing that World Cup would've been a publicly broken leg (like Wambach in 2007). Jill Ellis works under pressures that almost no coach in the men's game operates. There is no "purity of sport". The financial interests matter. Without money there'd be no viable WNT or NWSL. There is a dance or tightrope walk to balance the need to create marketable faces and to maintain a level of quality. The one thing the WNT head coach can't be most of the time, is truly independent. The last person to try that was Tom Sermanni and we saw what happened to him. To be honest, the only time we've really seen what Ellis can do with the WNT is after the gloves came off halfway through Canada 15 and the immediate need not to bomb out took precedence over other concerns. These games in Cary are almost completely meaningless. Other than the Mexico game, a 6-0 stroll, the first truly meaningful game since we got bounced out of the Olympics two years ago will be the semifinal against a team that probably doesn't stand a chance. Trying to parse the Four Nations Tournament or Algarve Cup or SheBelieves Cup is a fool's errand. They just don't matter. Back when those sorts of tourneys were played in anonymity we usually didn't win, because we used them for player development, not marketing development and sponsorship activations. The reality of Ellis's situation is that there's really no good way to judge how the team is doing until we get to France and then a year later to Tokyo. She did great in Canada once the restraints were dropped and Rio was a huge disappointment. Trying to say one way or the other based on two years of endless relative friendlies is all but intellectually dishonest. The two games in the last week are the only real games the team has played in two years, and we stomped Mexico and never got out of second gear against Panama. Wednesday's rain-soaked game against Trinidad should be even less revealing. Ellis gets a lot of hate. It's really hard to say whether it is deserved or not. I'm not hear to praise her because it's really hard to say whether it is deserved or not. The one thing she has done - is survive in a situation that has no real parallel in the men's game. At least in Europe and Asia the top teams have real competition for global and continental tournaments. Their qualifiers are real games. With the expansion to 24 teams, World Cup Qualifying barely registers to the USWNT right now. --- The only real analysis I have is that it does appear that Ellis has paid some attention to the NWSL. Not a lot of people have talked about what Paul Riley has done the last four years, but he's instituted a faster speed of play and speed of thought than I've seen anyone else execute in the women's game (club or national team). The Courage don't have a better roster than Portland, they've just spent the last four years learning to play the game a lot faster. They miss a lot of passes, they miss a lot of goal scoring chances, but if you pay attention to the speed, the one touch, the pass and move, you realize why they're missing things. But they practice that way and play that way every day. They know when they miss what recovery runs to make. They blitzed the NWSL this year. Teams weren't prepared mentally to keep up. It's obvious that Jill Ellis has been paying attention. The play I saw against Mexico was very Courage-esque, though not as polished. Mexico has good players. Hell, Panama has good players. The difference this year in the quality of athlete and technical ability of the bottom tier compared to four years ago is amazing. But the USWNT made Mexico look stupid once the defense crumbled. I think we're on the cusp of an inflection point in the women's game. Over the next several years we're going to see more and more teams push the pace of speed of play and speed of thought (not necessarily more running, mind you - just keeping the ball moving). France next year will be the real reveal. The real question with Ellis that we may never know the answer to is how much freedom does she really have in player selection. Three years ago Wambach and Morgan probably shouldn't have been on that roster and Crystal Dunn should have. Will she have enough roster selection freedom to take the players necessary to win? Leading up to China 2007, everybody loved Greg Ryan. He went 51 undefeated straight. It's really hard to judge the USWNT head coach fairly one way or the other given how few games that 1) count and 2) are competitive that we play.
I agree that Ellis has a difficult job balancing the USSoccer direction and of course win too plus the restrictions the CBA places on roster selection. I think she has done a good job dealing with these things and in general I think she is good at the management aspects of her position. I think she has done an especially good job dealing with player situations like Solo and Hinkle where u can question her decision but at least she has always shown resolve. The questions with Ellis have always been on the tactical side and her personnel decisions with the players she has regardless of who she is stuck with. (btw, look to Boxx and Chalupny for the spot Dunn was robbed out of). I find it odd that ud choose the 2015 WC as her proving grounds as it would be the perfect place to highlight her weaknesses. She doesn't evaluate talent very well. She didn't know what she had with Dunn and changed her story at least 3 times trying to explain why she wasn't on the team. She tried desperately to ignore Julie Johnston into oblivion until she had to play her at Algarve and suddenly u couldn't get her out of the line-up. How do u have these two players in every practice in every camp and suddenly be surprised by them? Then there was the big idea to move Holiday to the #6 which accomplished nothing except take a good attacker out of the offensive mix. Ellis famously stumbled on this deficiency when Holiday had to sit out for card accumulation and Brian moved to the six. Brian not only played well but when Holiday returned she was moved up in the midfield where her attacking talent could be utilized. Brian had also been a lost soul in the Ellis pecking order. Then there was the defense which won the cup for the US with a record goalless stretch that kept an anemic US offense in matches. Ellis went out of her way get as many offense types like Klingenberg and Holiday in defensive positions and even Johnston who had secured her position more by what she added to set pieces than her CB abilities. It was an awful WC for Ellis yet somehow cemented her position. Things didn't improve afterward. Ellis tried formation after formation included the ill fated 3 back where Allie Long somehow became a CB. There was the Olympic roster carrying an injured Klingenberg and an out of shape Rapinoe. It's still my opinion that the reason Klingenberg has been expelled from the US roster despite good play in the league is Ellis blaming her for hiding how bad her back really was. Then there is the stream of very young players brought in based on little and after being touted by the coach, disappearing soon after. And after all that two things still hang in the air...can the US stop a counterattack and can they breakdown a bunker. This is what Ellis had on her todo list following the Olympic exit and I don't see ground being made on either front. As to comparisons between the Courage and the NT, speed of play is about it. Riley has done two things that Ellis has yet to accomplish. First the relentless Courage defense completely sucks opponents space before they can do anything with it. It is such a pleasure watching NCC, not the team I root for BTW, work other teams into frustration and smother their offensive intentions. The pressure on NT side is also difficult to play against but is less about denying space and more about harassing ball carriers which is probably why it's less effective against the best teams. On offense NCC knows who it's stars r and can accurately pass them the ball. Sure it doesn't always work but if u watched the difference in passing accuracy between the two teams ud see that many attacks NT fail because an open wing can't make a good cross to an open attacker. I think it would actually be fascinating to watch Riley and the Courage play the NT and see how they faired.
WWC 2015 depends on how much you think she controlled player selection. I think she was under immense pressure to take several players she would rather not have taken - and to play them. When it started to all fall apart, it felt like the restraints were taken away and she was told to do whatever as long as it worked. Just my own personal guess. As far as how Ellis is doing now? I try not to get lost looking at trees when they don't really matter. The problem is, people look at trees, because we have no idea how the forest is doing. Endless friendlies are terrible, but there's no real way around it. We are in CONCACAF. And even a merger with CONMEBOL (not happening) wouldn't help the WNT much in that regard. We're stuck hoping Canada and Mexico offer us some semblance of real competition every four years in WWCQ and OQ. It's almost beyond hope that Costa Rica or Panama or Suriname or Haiti or anyone else will step up to join us. Adding in Brazil sounds nice, but are Colombia or Argentina really going matter? and an Americas group would have even more qualifying spots. The reality is that WNT is almost always going to be in a weird developmental purgatory where we play a series of pretend tournaments during the three year break between the Olympics and the following World Cup (especially now that actual qualifying is all but guaranteed with 3.5 spots). Conversely you're looking at the two European Championship finalists playing each other home/home for one spot in France. The other finalist won't be attending unless they buy tickets. It's increasingly going to be a struggle moving forward for the USWNT to be ready for the WWC. And it's almost impossible to grade the current head coach until after the fact. Did anyone see the Greg Ryan disaster coming? Holy hell. Talk about not ready for prime time. Of course NCC does it better. Riley has been working for four years with this squad. And a well run club team should always, in the long run, prevail over most national teams in that national teams can't compete with clubs with regards to comprehensive and near continual training and roster cohesiveness. We're finally reaching the point where the top NWSL and European clubs are leading the national teams instead of the reverse. At least the WNT is less of a sorority than it used to be, but it's still more club-ish than national team-ish. The spots aren't fully earned by merit. It used to be that once you got past 5 caps, you were all but guaranteed to get to 100. That's less true than it used to be. The days of running Kristine Lilly out for 85 minutes/game every game to get over 300 caps, the vast majority in friendlies while completely ignoring player development are gone, but never that far away. While I certainly don't agree with all of Ellis's choices (seriously, what does Franch have to do? Has Ellis not seen Naeher in NWSL?), she has brought in more new players than any of her predecessors since Dorrance, except maybe Sermanni, but as Tom learned, it's a fine line.
I understand USSoccer and especially Gulati thought they understood the game better than the coaches did. U see it on the men's side as well. But at some point Ellis either went meekly along or didn't fight hard enough. Dunn was a no brainer as a 23 yo up and comer. How she got displaced so Boxx, who hadn't played in two years, Chalupny who hadn't played OB in forever and showed in France she no longer had the legs to do it, and Wambach who gets an exemption from play club soccer is Ellis just caving in and a lot of coaches wouldn't have done it. As for who they play the schedule has improved markedly in the last two years. After the poor showing in Brazil Ellis got a little leverage and one of the positives was a better schedule. Unfortunately she used it badly. Instead of trying to improve the team she was dead set and getting younger. The problem was she seems to believe that if u take young kids with potential and let them practice with the NT they become NT players. Most didn't. For every Horan and Dahlkemper who stuck there were Sonnetts and Hinkles who needed those couple of years of pro ball to mature their game. Numerous really young players who were supposed to just step in like Pugh and didn't. Now the roster always evolves moving between cycles but this wasn't about the next wave. This was Ellis believing that the answer was better players. If she could only find better players she could retain the title without that nasty business of learning how to stop a counter or beat a bunker. And so the faces changed but the problems remain. IMO one of the problems is living and dying by the press. Ive asked numerous times both here and in other places why the team presses in friendlies? Wouldn't those matches be better spent playing more possession and trying to pass the ball thru the midfield. Wouldn't they be better off having to create goals thru an offense rather than getting most of them off turnovers? Wouldn't it be constructive to be defending more than just a few times a match? Wouldn't it be nice to have the GK see some shots? This notion that the only way u can press is to do it all the time rubs again fact that the most effective pressure is when u situational spring it on teams and make them react to it. And yes a good club team that practices together daily has an advantage over the average NT but the US isn't average. They play way more matches than any other team and practice together much more. I believe the NT beats any other team in the league besides NCC.