As you posted the problem is the US was ball chasing and not team defending. The French players were not going to unravel and panic on the ball leading to turnovers by the US speed. That's what the US WNT players do.
IMO, the train was already derailed last year at the 2014 Algrave Cup. Hopefully, it's NOT to late to fix it.
All coach r like that to an extent. In the case of Ellis I think it's more philosophy than anything. Take Klingenberg and Chalupny. Ellis wants her outside backs to get forward and is willing to play OBs who do that ahead of better defending OBs like Krieger and Dunn. The flaw here is the US cant hold the ball long enough to get there backs forward. I saw Kling in the attacking third once and never saw Chalupny there. So basically she gave up a more stable defense for a pie in the sky hope of better offense.
Ellis was in a 4-4-2, the attacking width should have came from the wingers Lloyd and Heath. Heath is not a winger she is an attacking mid. As for Lloyd well she is a holding mid. The 4-4-2 would have been more effective with O'Reilly and Rampino if healthy as the wingers. If she wants her fullbacks to get forward more then Ellis needs to revert to a 4-3-3.
I'd like to think most coaches see the mistakes and try to fix them... if not, what is the point of the coaches? It's one thing to have favorites, but it's another thing to not even work on their problems. If that's the case, playing Kling makes no sense. All she ever does is cough up the ball when she goes forward. And you'd have a hard time convincing me that Chalupny goes forward better than O'Hara... so I really don't think that's the case. Ellis just seems to prefer those two for some bizarre unknown reason. No she's not. She's a CAM.
Then ur argument is why didnt Ellis either remove Lloyd for HAO who is still a great sideline defender or more likely switch Lloyd and Brian. Brian isnt a speedster but has a great work rate and would have defended the sideline. No matter which player failed to slow down Thomis, the real blame is on Ellis who didnt foresee the problem and didnt try and correct it until the match was out of hand.
To be fair, at one point in the first half Lloyd and Heath switched sides but nothing changed on the lack of coverage of Thomis.
If she is considered a CAM. As I posted prior, US WNT doesn't have a true #10. Louisa Necib is an ACM, on mens side think Iniesta, David Silva or Luka Modric. If anything Lloyd is a box to box midfielder (#8) in the mold of a Gerrard or Lampard.
I agree...the first thing I said when the line up was posted was HAO for Heath. They need at least one wing who could get to the corner. HAO also is fast enough to has helped with Thomis. That would have left Brian on the Necib side and Lloyd back in the 8 hole.
A nice write-up about the game and other comments from Jamie Trecker on foxsports.com http://www.foxsports.com/soccer/sto...ndly-eugenie-le-sommer-jessica-hourara-020815
Well Chalupny got beat a lot but I think both goals saw her get caught inside more than just out run.
If it were me, after dropping Ellis into the English Channel, Id try and find a good defensive coach like Mark Krikorian or similar and spend the little time I have left trying to get the defense right. A solid defensive team with fast forwards to grab easy goals on counters could still win the day if things broke right.
I do agree Lloyd isn't a true #10. She really isn't creative enough. She's been tried as a #8, but the problem is she frequently forgets her defensive responsibilities in favor of attacking. But I disagree that the USWNT doesn't have a true #10. The problem is Ellis is choosing to play the two best #10s as DMs. This goes back to a post I read earlier (forget who it was by, sorry) that mentioned how the USWNT try to play the best 11 players, but not necessarily the best players for each of the 11 positions. There just aren't enough positions on the field for Holiday and Lloyd to both play their best position on the same team (well unless they were to go for that Spain lineup where they had no forwards...).
I don't know about your last sentence. Your suggestion sounds like an attack that bypasses the midfield. Today, we had a lot of attempts to bypass the midfield that popped like balloons. Maybe the US is caught between two worlds, one of which didn't need great technical midfielders because it was a defender-to-forward-actually-works-well world and one of which now needs great technical midfielders because it is a defender-to-forward-actually-doesn't-work-well world. It certainly looked like the latter was true today. I remember Lindsey Huie, who was the highly technical attacking mid who fed Christine Sinclair a lot of balls for goals in college (averaged 12 assists per year), saying that with April Heinrichs then at the NT level, there was no chance for a player like her. Maybe that "no chance for a player like her" era has ended -- except that maybe those in charge are dinosaurs who aren't evolved enough soccer-wise to know it? Addition: If I were going to drop someone into the English Channel, I'd drop Heinrichs before anyone else.
I never said anything about speed forcing turnovers. Speed is great, but intelligent positioning can be just as effective. The faster team doesn't always win (see '08 Olympic Final). There were a few instances in the game where the US defense looked capable and forced France to play long balls or low percentage passes. That needs to be done consistently, not three or four times. Of course, when the French were forced into turning the ball over, the US did it right back, compounding the problem.
I agree except that Ellis didn't appear "visibly frustrated" as far as I could tell. That's what bothers me about her. She just sits there with that same blank stare and stoic expression on her face regardless of how the game is going. She doesn't seem to have any particular response at all when the team starts falling apart. Meanwhile Gustavsson is on his feet, up-in-arms, shouting at the players to correct the problems he sees [as a good coach should be]. Couldn't we just [battlefield] promote him to head coach?
It's become a joke to people how uninterested she looks. I don't blame all the team's faults on her, but I do not think she's fit for the position and certainly blame some things on her. Pia could make me crazy sometimes, but she instilled confidence in the team. Her passion trickled down to them and their play, no matter how awful they were playing. They bought what she was selling. It just doesn't look to me like the team has any confidence, passion, or urgency with Ellis.
From the Trecker article: "Until today, under manager Jill Ellis, the USA had looked solid. They stormed through regional qualification for the World Cup this past October, winning five straight games, most by lopsided margins."
USSoccer will always put on the best face when it comes to the USWNT. Often, IMO it's not about reality. It's about the sponsors, screaming little girls and their dads at games. This is the good ole girls club. This is the Club of April Heinrichs, Jill Ellis and their friends. Why is Michelle French still in charge of the U-20 team and at the European tour as a coach? They had a disastrous U-20 World Cup last year. Most coaches would have been fired months ago. But not friends of April and Jill. Why? Because for the past 8 years it has become the good ole girls club. And until USSoccer makes changes from the ground up - nothing will change.