The Big USA World Cup Recap: data-infused analysis of everything

I ain't gonna lie, I can't look at a page of that many numbers when it comes to soccer and make many conclusions but just from eye this is something that popped out at me throughout the tournament and even before in how this team plays. I feel like I always see talk about how this US team has plenty of chances but doesn't finish them and I think a lot of that talk is because people mistake just getting the ball into the attacking third as creating a chance. Sure, that's generally step one of creating something but without additional steps it's not really crating chances, it's just getting the ball into the attacking third. If this team wants to be better and become more than a defensive juggernaut, they are going to have to figure out some ways to create chances.

I also agreed with your conclusions that Pulisic if anything gets underrated as to how much he adds to our attack. We created very little outside of moves he was involved with. And Gio actually looked creative in his scant minutes. If this team is going to have an effective attack, getting those two involved as much as possible is the way forward. My only worry there is that they seldom seem to combine with each other. Not sure they sync up in some ways. Getting these two on the same page will be vital to developing a solid attack. That and stopping with the crosses, always crosses to no one, always working the wing to generate more crosses. Every cross to no one is a lost chance to try something else. If we had a powerful finisher I would think differently, I don't dislike crossing in general. But to focus most of an offense on generating opportunities to cross when you have no players capable of finishing regularly in the air and seldom get numbers in the box is just insane.

 

This is a fantastic writeup that really provides a lot of context and insight. I plan to reread.

One thing on first reading that I found interesting were the relatively low marks for Weah. And the contrastingly very high marks for Reyna (small sample to be sure). During the tournament, I managed to convince myself that Weah for Reyna was a reasonable choice given fitness/form considerations. Not so sure now.

 

Thanks for posting. Really interesting.

 

I think Reyna is hands down a better player than Weah. The only reason I see Weah as a reasonable choice to start over Reyna is that the way the US plays with no one able to score in the middle the only chances come when the wingers are able to run past and go directly to goal, which is way more Weah's game than Gio's. And I like Weah, but Gio is special relative to the US talent pool.

 

Good stuff. It pretty much confirms most experts observations.

 

The other part I found interesting is the defense/offense asymmetry between Dest//Jedi. Watching the matches, I felt our opponents tried to force us to the left. And targeted Dest. They seemed to have a plan there based upon the obvious asymmetry.

Also the lack of dominance from our center backs. I think Richards and a fully-recovered Miles Robinson would fit in much better with the style we played in the WC.

 

As a corollary to the above, I would like to see Scally incorporated into a rotation that involves moving Dest to the left so we can have him and Pulisic working together. One more way to achieve squad rotation and keep fresh legs on the field in what could potentially be a long tournament. Uncertainty about which side Dest plays on would make it more difficult for opposing teams to plan for us. We can also protect him from certain matchups and free him up to attack.

 

I added a little to my post. Scally is 19. I think that speaks volumes. But there is also Bryan Reynolds developing.

 

Personally I think we are going to use MMA (or any combination of three non-attacking midfielders) both our "wingers", need to be creative attacking midfielder/winger hybrids, rather than traditional wingers, we just lack creativity otherwise.

 

I try to use the word opportunities, or danger or something like that. If you recall halfway through qualifying someone got a hold of Herdman's presentation and he called them something like AVPs. In positional play terminology, they are advantages.

To me, the break point isn't getting the ball into the final third; that's not a dangerous situation. It's getting the ball with an advantage. So I try to use opportunity for those situations.

When we had a 3 on 2 with Sargent, Weah and Pulisic on the break, we had an opportunity. It didn't yield an actual chance, which requires a shot, because Sargent doesn't see Pulisic. But it was a better goal-scoring opportunity than many shots because if Sargent had passed it to Pulisic, he's one on one with the keeper.

In the game in Hamilton, when we had Pulisic one on one with a Canadian CB with no one behind him, we had an opportunity. Pulisic doesn't need to beat him everytime, but the 0 for 3 means we didn't generate even single shot from our best player against a relative weak link.

Sometimes we have a problem generating these opportunities, but a lot of times, we generate them and a shockingly low percentage of them become actual shots, and then an even lower percentage become SOG.

When I think of the path to goal, it's sort of a Getting the Ball --> Progressing the Ball --> Creating Advantage --> Converting.

In a few games (like @ Panama), we couldn't progress the ball. In a decent number of games, we really didn't do a good job of creating advantage. And in most games, we didn't convert.

 

This is a very interesting article. Thanks for posting.

Very well thought out. There's obvious limits to the stats in terms of the in between steps and the whys, and I'd be curious to see more team level context outside our own players against each other, if that makes sense.

 

Weah's relative strength to Reyna isn't going to be on the ball. That's what shows up here. A big reason for Weah is his off ball movement and threat, and the space created.

Also, even on the ball, a certain offside by a couple of inches changes his goal production numbers significantly.

 

Weah provides spacing as well. Stats like these ignore shape and off ball movement, and they are incredibly important.

 

I don't want to bag on the guy as he has talent, is young and I hope this coming cycle he takes his career to the next level.

But I thought Weah was the most overrated player for us at the WC. Great finish vs Wales, had a nice play/cross on the flank before that goal but largely did nothing of note the next 3 games. Just offers very little in the general run of play.

Also, on the opposite side, I agree with the OP that Puli still is relatively underrated. For whatever the reason every mistake he makes gets picked apart. Yet I keep asking myself, imagine Puli with an actual creative attacking mid and a striker who could so something. He still largely is stuck on an island under G in a relatively elementary attack. Yes he doesn't release the ball early enough at times. Of course, the 2nd layer is often ignored. The supporting runs are largely non-existent with no secondary options for the receiver.

 

I think the best situation when everyone is healthy is that Pulisic shifts his USMNT game more towards a scoring focus and closer to goal. Pulisic currently does a lot of playmaker work, and that's where Reyna is going to be strongest.

Whether it's Reyna as CAM/attacking 8 or Weah/Pulisic as dual 9s or whatever, we need to continue to maintain width and vertical spacing or the defense gets to collapse on us. If we simply have Reyna, Pulisic, Dest, Musah all sort of dribbling to the top of the box, we're pretty easily defensible.

That's where a lot of these stats miss. The forward line creates the space between the defense and defensive midfield to get someone into a dangerous situation. And you can't make an assist from there without an attacker making a run. With most of our forwards support types (Sargent, Ferreira), you need Weah and Pulisic to head to goal both to create that space but also to receive the ball.

We simply had Weah and Pulisic occasionally. Makes it tougher.

 

Scally as a left back is simply a defender. He's not currently a strong offensive LB, and he certainly can't play high and wide like Robinson. If we want to hold back the LB in defense (say, to put Reyna at LCM) then he makes sense to me.

 

The challenge is that in attack, you need those creators, you need scorers, and you need to maintain some level of width and verticality.

What Berhalter was trying to do was use Jedi as width/vert on the left side, Pulisic as primarily a creator+off ball finishing, Weah as verticality/width on the right, and Dest as right side creator.

The problem here is that there's not enough in box runs/finishing because the CFs were insufficient. Sargent did a good job with hold up, but once the defense is set ... what was he done? Ferreira was like a third creator (and didn't do well)? Wright is more the right type but he's simply not good.

There's options to make it better, but many come with trade-offs or personnel changes

• Get more offense from CM. Whether it's McKennie pushing up more, Musah developing the game or Reyna in CM, it's all the same. The downside is defensive coverage, but adding an extra attacker adds overload potential, and Pulisic would need to push forward and play more of a Weah/striker role.
  
• Variation on the above without the defensive issue. Hold you LB back, make Pulisic play forward and wide, slot Reyna at CM and do all the same but not with the overloads. Striker still a really big issue.
  
• The real issue is that the striker is useless. So play a false 9, but push Pulisic into an inside forward role. You maintain more defense. You don't get the size and aerial ability of a real striker and you lose some of Pulisic's dribbling, but Reyna/ Dest as playmakers + Weah/Pulisic attacking and Jedi providing width is role-based okay. Please note, this is basically the same theory as a two striker system with Pulisic and Weah.
• Get a good striker. It's the best solve but it ain't tactical.

You'll note how many of the changes require Pulisic playing differently. That's tough when he was clearly our best player and the player you'd be moving him around for was constantly injured, was 19, and still hasn't played 90 with his club (and played more than 66 minutes once in the last ~15 months).

I know people think Berhalter's reluctance to play Reyna was stupid stubbornness, but you are asking the team to make him the primary playmaker and alter your best player's role for a guy in that situation with one week of practice.

I think it far more likely we see it going forward. I think we would have seen it had there been the usual 3-5 weeks of camp.