Pre-match: International Friendly: USA vs Mexico; September 6th

Discussion in 'USA Men: News & Analysis' started by Sebsasour, Jul 8, 2019.

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  1. Patrick167

    Patrick167 Member+

    Dortmund
    United States
    May 4, 2017
    I agree, but that is what GB said. But Sargent was on the roster until Lletget got hurt. So, hard to say he didn't perform in camp. If you believe 3G.
     
  2. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    to me the 5 year horizon at #9 is wood soto and sargent so i don't even get why we're bothering with zardes, and jozy is only acceptable in transition. we need to start building forwards instead of propping up backwards. ditto adams vs bradley at #6. there is literally no future in that choice. the present doesn't even work right.
     
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  3. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #103 juvechelsea, Jul 25, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2019
    personally i thought getting a shot on net -- i think our only -- in a game where we look horrible and he gets crap service, is performing.

    but i think if you look with the value of hindsight you see where he was in part the victim of a delusion. roldan and mihailovic didn't get him service. my response was these guys suck they can't get him service.

    but notice who makes the team.

    like i said, so much of this is if you de-program the way things are being done and just ask yourself, who would i call in and play, a lot of it fixes itself. he is then competing with different people for 9, and we are likely fielding more technically gifted attacking players who can get him the ball right.

    cause the way this works he could be seen as being judged for not clicking with two guys who make the team, who have no business being there in the first place. if we are instead watching gall green holmes wood weah etc., those are specialist attackers, he gets his service, he looks better, and he is in a normal world not competing with zardes for time.

    also, i think some other coach would be less emphatically building around older players like ream, zardes, jozy, bradley, etc. a more experienced NT coach -- as opposed to club coach who reboots each year -- would see that a whole chunk of his team won't last to 2022 and there is no sense investing in it even for short term results. like i was saying, a 2022 or 2026 oriented coach would see the future is the kids plus wood and not the two GB is favoring. either as performance/talent or as simple age. building the team around a bunch of people who turn 30+ by the time you would play on the biggest stage is dumb, and wastes what could be a long successful window running with the youth in favor of frustrating older players.

    put up or shut up is especially with the hindsight benefit of knowing how the final went, are we really still arguing the GB line? you know how it turned out. zardes didn't have a goal after trinidad.
     
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  4. Pegasus

    Pegasus Member+

    Apr 20, 1999
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    So Cannon is already one of our better outside backs for assists even though his offense is a work in progress? Dest could be an all time great with such a low bar if he can handle rudimentary defensive duties.
     
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  5. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    Not really. That's the position Zardes plays at both club and international level. Sargent looks a good emerging talent. So does Mason Toye. So does Brian White. So does Sebastian Soto. So does Jesus Ferreira. So does Novakovich. So does Brandon Vazquez.

    Five managers disagree with you.
     
  6. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    What are the odds that Jozy scores?
     
  7. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    no, wrong, historically he has been used wide. sorry. incorrect. this is a GB specific delusion. saying "he plays it at both club and international" is basically xeroxing your argument because we know who set up the system at the Crew and then brought it over.

    do i need to put this more bluntly, no, they wouldn't have been moving robbie keane and landon aside so zardes could play 9. N. O. he was a wing mid. at wing mid his speed and work rate are assets, he can be judged by his crossing, his lack of finishing is less pertinent, and he has green room to be sloppy.

    last, in practical terms, while he produced for the crew, the crew were a mediocre team (and continue to be so). it is debatable whether this quirk is beneficial for a team that isn't budget squeezed and has some talent it can get on the field. as we are arguing about, if we pretend he is a 9, and advance him well past what his strike rate merits, then actual 9s stay home. and then what we see in retrospect is he scored in the caribbean blowouts, and disappeared in the knockout round, including mexico. your 9 played all 3 knockouts and had neither a goal nor an assist. just knowing that much should give trepidation.
     
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  8. ifsteve

    ifsteve Member+

    Manchester United
    United States
    Jul 7, 2013
    MS and ID
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Here's my take on what I want to see from a backline (an old keepers persepctive). I have listed them in order of preference.

    1. Solid defensively and solid moving forward.
    2. Rock solid defender who stays home during run of play.
    3. Adequate defender and solid moving forward.
    4. Adequate defender and adequate moving forward.
    5. Barely adequate defender but rock solid moving forward.

    There is nothing wrong with defenders who can pass well out of the back.
    There is nothing wrong with defenders who can move forward well and support the atttack.
    There is nothing wrong with keepers who are good with the ball at their feet.

    BUT none of those attributes are why they are in the position they are in. A defender is there first and foremost to defend. And a keeper is in their first and foremost for his shot stopping ability. Sometimes I think we get too enamored with a players extras and don't pay enough attention to how they handle their main tasks.
     
  9. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    i already did this argument before the tournament. zardes remains on a pace of about 5-6 games per goal, currently i think right at 5. wood is 3-4 games per goal. sargent's 2 goals in 7 games are 3.5 games per goal. Jozy and pulisic are under 3 games per goal.

    i am sure people will do the sample size thing but last season sargent scores every 141 mins in club. jozy right now every 105 minds. zardes right now every 227 mins. wood had the off year and is over 400. give or take wood's swoon the per minute club rates aren't exceptionally off the country rate.
     
  10. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    No. He played as a striker his first two seasons with LA. Donovan played wide midfield. Zardes has been playing as a striker at Columbus. He been used at striker and at wide positions for the NT.
     
  11. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    We have Olympic Qualifying coming up. Sargent can do his thing there if he's good enough.
     
  12. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #112 juvechelsea, Jul 25, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2019
    i already ran the numbers before the tournament and nothing's changed. games per goal, NT:
    Zardes 5
    Wood 3-4
    Sargent 3.5
    Jozy and Pulisic < 3

    these numbers generally gybe with the club minutes per goal last season on transfermarkt:
    Wood 400+
    Pulisic 243
    Zardes 227
    Sargent 141
    Jozy 105

    wood of course had the nightmare. that is an x factor.

    and that's leaving out that zardes will be 30 and jozy 32. jozy comes out very well on the numbers but it's a risky age bet, and the risk of this approach is if jozy breaks then no investment has been made in the alternatives.

    and zardes just wouldn't be anyone's sane choice. i have told anyone that would listen sargent and wood or sargent and jozy, and that before i'd play zardes central i'd play pulisic as striker.

    last time i went through and showed that just about anyone any good (even ching, who comes in below 4 games per goal) we have ever had at CF was <4 and at best <3 games per goal (clint and landon are sub 3, mcbride just over 3). if you need tangible stuff, zardes finished gold cup with no goals the last 4 games.

    other thing is you can go to their wiki pages and see who has scored on whom and particularly when someone disappears for the knockout stage, i want the ones who have scored on good teams. i would have to admit for sargent he hasn't done it yet...but again none of these metrics favor zardes much less to start.
     
  13. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    he has 2 goals in his NT caps, at some point can we quit pretending he has any more a bona fides problem than zardes would? him and weah looked fine with the Nats in games against good opponents. but they apparently need to be banished to the kiddie pool so i can watch zardes.
     
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  14. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    in MLS, jozy has 8 G 3 A in like 800 minutes and zardes has like 7 G 1 A in almost double those minutes. the pattern continues.

    now, that does prompt the durability issue. but then you have sargent and/or zardes available to sub. you start the productive one and hope he holds up. you sub in the young or durable one.

    bears noting that if we call zardes a "slash" then he can be carried on the roster and used as a wing and still be an emergency 9. i never understood the "utility" argument because "utility" usually opens up roster slots, rather than closes them.

    in other words, i don't buy that roldan is a RF, but shouldn't his supposed versatility, swapped for the same with lletget, be opening room as opposed to closing it? it wasn't like we carried a dedicated specialist. i consider GB a high quality BSer and maybe what he really meant is i kept Roldan like Lletget because he was versatile. in which case, hmmm, he played a lot of positions, yes....poorly....in which case, maybe you want real versatility, landon, dempsey, and then people who know what they are doing.

    but anyhow, point stands,taken at his word, i'd think versatility should give roster flexibility as opposed to lock things in. like i was saying with zardes, it makes it where you can tell yourself you have 3 or 4 wings and 3 strikers.
     
  15. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    Re: Lleget's (and Holmes' injury). He had a 3rd striker, and was going to have Lleget (and maybe Holmes) cover the CAM/Pulisic backup and the LW/Arriola backup roles.

    Once he lost Lleget (and Holmes), neither Mihailovic nor Lewis were able to double hat. And apparently he was not comfortable trying to us Roldan in that role (or sliding over McKennie, etc).

    So he cut Sargent.

    So it was for DM and Lewis, both of which ... not good.
     
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  16. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    #116 IndividualEleven, Jul 25, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2019
    3G had Boyd and Ariola on the left. He didn't need Lletget to cover left forward.

    1. Altidore is the #1 striker under 3G.
    2. The only remaining senior level competitive matches of the year are Nations League against Cuba and Canada. Olympic Qualifying should be the priority.
    3. U23s are experienced young professionals, not kids.
     
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  17. I alawys find it a bit baffling, well more like stupid to read fans dissing the Dutch for never winning the WC (3 finals and 2 semi finals), from other countries that never made it to the last 4 in the first place. Think you might better take lessons from a country that despite being miniscule in population got into the last four 5 times and then 3 times into the final.
     
  18. truefan420

    truefan420 Member+

    May 30, 2010
    oakland
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Not to mention has produced several world class players and coaches both in the past and present.
     
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  19. Marius Tresor

    Marius Tresor Member+

    Aug 1, 2014
    Who is dissing Holland? They are/have been a top 10 soccer country, at least with regard to the national team.
     
  20. rgli13

    rgli13 Member+

    Mar 23, 2005
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    just bummed seeing talk about zardes- who of course will start. but toye, whos played like 4 games has 4g, 3a (to zardes' 7g, 1a). ferreira has 6g, 4a.

    its so disheartening arguing zardes v altidore (since those are the only options berhalter will use). we see how clearly thats not even a real argument for anything other than berhalters dependence on familiar things.

    but kids (not even talking sarge and soto) producing more in the same league, against the same comp...god, what the hell is there to get excited about?
     
  21. truefan420

    truefan420 Member+

    May 30, 2010
    oakland
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Nepotism
     
  22. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    no.

    I re-watched the first half and Sargent showed excellent moves to start off the game. A one touch vid for Josh would show that. I wont go into why the game tailed off as the half wore on but in general it had to do with the 451 and personnel which made it easy to cover Josh in the final third once Jamaica realized Josh was the only one threatening.
     
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  23. randomnoise

    randomnoise Member

    United States
    Mar 26, 2017
    Just a reminder that the US did actually make it to the last 4 in the World Cup.

    Sure, it was in 1930, but hey...

    That being said, we can certainly take advice from a number of countries that are better than us, with a strong soccer tradition, including Netherlands.
     
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  24. Pegasus

    Pegasus Member+

    Apr 20, 1999
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The US can learn a lot from the Dutch, Uruguay and even Iceland recently. I do wonder whether there is some benefit from being small geographically the is hard to duplicate with high population but huge land are countries - US, China and India. Brazil might be the only one that does it right in this comparison and a lot of their population is clustered on their east coast and especially the two huge metro areas of Sao Paulo and Rio.
     
  25. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    There's a huge benefit. It's something the DA and MLS have tried to solve -- the best players don't play each other enough. There's also an economic benefit to everyone being closer.

    If you look at how countries have become soccer powers or batted above their weight, there's a few models (and maybe more).

    Iceland -- UEFA doesn't distribute funds based on population, and Iceland gets a HUGE amount compared to a tiny population. Like massive. They took that money and built absurd facilties, trained coaches and incorporated soccer into their school system as the primary form of PE.

    The US doesn't have the money to do that nationally, but conceivably could do it on the scale of Iceland. Pick a small or medium city -- Omaha, for example. But politically, abandoning the rest of the country won't happen. And even if you picked a city the size of Iceland ... other sports are going to be popular.

    Uruguary -- The US can't replicate this. A soccer-crazed country with neighborhood teams from birth, where every adult can be a coach, with tons of clubs per person. Soccer will grow in popularity here, but even if it became the #1 sport, it'd still share interest with so many other things. Sports and Entertainment interest is too fragmented in the US to replicate.

    And culturally, we're a nation of organized sports, structure, etc. The cost would be overwhelming where many provide for free in Uruguay.

    Germany -- What we should be aiming for, and the closest to what we could do. Germany's Das Reboot, so to speak, took advantage of the club system to really invest in youth soccer. We don't have that professional structure yet, and again, probably will never have it at Germany's level. But we can have a professional structure 2-3x the current ... and that can slowly cascade. It's also worth noting that the budget of the DFB during that time was 10x per capita US Soccer's budget.

    There's lots to learn from other countries, but we simply have to acknowledge:

    * the sport isn't as popular here
    * We don't have the per capita resources most other successful countries have invested in the sport
     
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