I really have no idea but I "think" it was, at least marginally. It is hard to compare things like records between generations but it is not as hard to see when the foot comes off the petal. In the current team when we need to win by two and we get up by two we ease up and try to play possession. On the teams with the players I listed when we got up by two they buckled down and tried to score four, five, six or more. That is what I mean by "killer instinct" it is not coming back from behind but it is taking a lead and beating your opposition to death with it. The ability to come back and/or overcome problems is not the same as killer instinct. In some matches the old team had problems with recovery from problems but, usually one our two would step up and make the difference. I remember that I thought we had lost in the '99 knockout round when Chastain (I should have included her earlier) scored that absolutely stupid and horrible own goal against Brazil. But she recovered and went later to the other end and scored one for the US. Unfortunately killer instinct and tenaciousness are not often around at the same time and the latter can come and go as it is more about the now than it is about the always. But I am not saying that the ladies today are weaker than those of yesteryear but they are different and the ladies today are often just too nice. Edit to add: I saw a bit of the killer today when the US u20s got up on Paraguay by enough to assure advancement if they beat Spain and they just kept piling it on. I found that refreshing.
Remember what I just posted about subjective impressions? Your memory clearly is not 100% accurate, anyway...
Doesn't this have something to do, however, with the quality of the opposition? I an understand your critique of not keeping the pedal to the metal, whether or not I agree with it. But, you're trying to justify your critique by pointing to a completely different era when teams were much more imbalanced than they are now. With your CV, you must understand this isn't a legitimate way to justify your critique. Give me the scores and opponents you were talking about "back in the day," and then we can have a good discussion about whether back in the day the players were more blood thirsty.
As I said in an earlier post I recognize that there is no really good way to compare generations and performance across generations is simply subjective due to many factors not the least of which is the big difference in quality of the opposition. I have made my point and you have made yours and we both have at least partially valid viewpoints and partially invalid viewpoints that are impacted by our somewhat foggy memories adjusted by what we believe to be true. The fact is that there are so many factors that make the generations so different that we really should not make direct comparisons. I realized that I have been a bit over the top in my criticisms of the current group of ladies when I should be directing my criticism at the people that are directing the whole thing. The men's catastrophic failure has, hopefully, shaken up the men's side of US soccer to the point where they will make the selection process and the development process and the preparation process will be better for the men and, again hopefully, this will filter over to the women's side. The whole discussion that has taken place in this thread and several others has gotten me thinking, a dangerous thing at my age, and earlier "Total soccer" was mentioned and my old brain has been processing the ideas those discussions generated. I have realized that over the last 30-40 years that I have followed, coached and played soccer in the US I have seen US soccer at all age groups from U10 all the way up to over 50 I have seen something that I did not realize I had seen in the US. That something is the tremendous level of talent that exists in the US. I think that true "Total soccer" is the best form or soccer there is and, if properly played almost unbeatable by teams not playing total soccer. The problem it ran into in the past was that few countries or teams have had the talent to implement it fully. I have seen, in the US on the women's side, that we DO have the talent throughout the age groups to implement "Total soccer." It is not something that can be done overnight and definitely not before the next World Cup but it is something we should begin to implement as soon as the World Cup is over. If we can, with our over abundance of talent, implement "Total Soccer from the youth levels up then I think we could become as dominant as we were in the past. That dominance could last for several years just from a simple emphasis of the "Total Soccer" format of training and play. Of course if we do become as dominant as I think we could other countries with similar talent and depth to do so will also implement "Total soccer" and thereby catch up with us but that will be a problem for future generations to solve. I think we need to implement a training and development system aimed toward "Total soccer" or the gap will continue to close and we will more and more become just one of many good soccer playing nations. Of course the gap will close anyway but I thing "Total soccer" will delay it for several years as few countries have both the talent pool and the development system that we do. This has been a long post and I apologize for that but it is not often my old brain has such a clear thought. Of course I do realize that US soccer is probably too set in their ways to take the big step I suggest but there is always hope and at my age hope is often all that can be retained. I do really envy those that will be able to watch what football will become and what the play level will evolve to over the next many years it should make the past look like nothing new ever happened. It should be "interesting" but I am unlikely to see any but the beginning of the evolution.
FanofFutbol, I'm wondering, isn't Ellis at least trying to implement some aspects of "total soccer"? I mean her apparent emphasis on players who can play multiple positions, outside defenders who can move way up into the attack, and so on? Especially for the younger players. Or is she more traditional than I think?
Actually that is why I have not been as harsh as some are about her coaching BUT for it to work the policy must be applied at all level from at least U14 up and preferably all the way down to U10. Also the idea of "playing multiple positions" has to be dropped in favor of "playing soccer." There really is little difference in the skills needed for anyone on the field except the goalkeeper. The only thing that change with field position is the level of risk that can be taken. Defensive third is low risk, middle third is medium risk and attacking third is high risk. That is a simplification but it does get the idea across. Players can adjust if they are just allowed to play.
The one thing I can't accuse Ellis of is not being receptive to trying things. She has been very open various changes in formation and personnel. The problem is Im not sure any of it has worked. Despite defensive woes a lot of soccer pundits r touting the improvement going to a 4-3-3 has made in the offense. I think u have to be a little careful with the praise there. Is the 4-3-3 the difference in player performances or is the fact the Morgan and Rapinoe r simply unconscious making the formation look better than it is?
Formation is meaningful only to sportscasters and people that think a given formation makes a difference usually because they had success playing/coaching/watching it at some time in the past. The fact is that just about any formation can play like any other formation given the correct instruction to the players that will play it. 3-4-3, 4-4-2, 3-5-2, 5-4-1, 4-5-1, 4-4-1-1, 4-1-3-1 and any other that someone comes up with are all exactly the same with proper instructions to the players. When I coached I always played a 3-4-3 simply because it was the easiest for me to change by player instructions when needed. I am not saying that it was superior it was just easiest for me to change so I never had to think about formation just how I wanted the players to play in a given match. Formations are generally just an excuse for coaches to avoid the details of how a match is to be played and it gives clueless commentators something to talk about rather than actually describing what is happening on the field which they mostly do not understand anyway.
Or perhaps, since "playing soccer" doesn't convey enough information to most people "playing anywhere on the field." That communicates a lot. Your observation that the US may have enough depth of players to be able to play total soccer is most interesting.
I'll actually take that a step or two further. The US does have the depth in the current pool to play total soccer but there are some players, no few of them stars, that would struggle with the concept because they have always been what they are now. But players like Ertz, Dunn, Rapinoe, Horan, Lavelle, Mathias, Mewis, Short, Zerboni and some others already have most or all of the skill set to make a success of "Total Soccer." More than that I was talking about teaching the ideas and skills for "Total Soccer" at the younger ages. I would like to see in just a few year that no player younger than U16 and soon no player at all is labeled as a defender, forward, midfielder or any other label that self limits their fitting into any "position" as needed during play. Players should think of themselves as "soccer players" and if they lack a skill set to make that work then they should be taught that skill. The time youth coaches waste in teaching formations could easily be spent teaching the full concept of soccer and thereby producing fully enabled soccer players instead of the partially hamstrung ones we often see today. One positive side effect I see from this approach would be an even greater depth at the national team level and making it MUCH harder to choose a "best" 23 at any given time. (That is a good thing)
OTOH, in this day and age, specialization increases pattern recognition, which directly affects speed of execution. Memorizing one subset of typical configurations is surely easier than spreading your time over the entire range of configurations. For example, I wouldn't trust a forward-as-right-back to judge correctly when to press, when to sag, what angle to play, and how (and when) to slide-tackle in the box. That's like expecting the second trombone to know how to do vibrato on strings. A full-time specialist will always outperform a jack-of-all-trades. Soccer motor skills on the ball might translate across all positions. I'd disagree even with that. Forwards probably should spend (much) more effort training spin-to-instep-bend and twist-header shot motions, because scoring is worth it. Those practice hours are wasted for a defender who rarely shoots. Soccer judgment skills, esp. when you don't have the ball and you're trying to sync a trap line, probably do not translate. We evidently have enough trouble learning these skills with full-time effort. Cutting your training time to (say) 1/3 of that cannot possibly result in better performance. Would the effectiveness of the team be improved if players could switch around freely, but played slightly worse at every position? I don't see it. If it were a winning idea, somebody would be doing it and winning titles.