Watch his hands on his runs. A tail sign of a well trained striker. 1350901906760204289 is not a valid tweet id
Please note the "chances" I mentioned. He's had four balls put on his foot, w/only the goalie to beat in a 8 days. It takes 5 months for Werder Bremen to produce half that many quality chances for Sargent to finish. If you don't think Sargent would've put away at least 2-3 of those chances, I don't know what to say to you. Sargent isn't seeing those chances, and when he does, they are rare and far between, that's the difference here, that and the clear confidence Hoppe is playing with. Btw, got no issue with nobody owning any of the top 4 positions at Forward for our next full international, put the 8-12 "who knows: shoulder shrug" options in the camp, Hunger Games style, and have them fight it out for positions 1-4. I'm not married to Sargent or anyone else starting (other than preferring us to move on from guys like Jozy and Zardes as anything other than emergency depth), just want the guys that work best w/our most talented midfielders to start and to fill out the roster no matter who they be (w/that preference for youth in place).
Tbh, not the most impressive highlights, and doesn't seem very good/clean with the ball at his feet. But nobody can argue with scoring goals for a team like Schalke. He's really taking advantage of this opportunity, one he likely would not have gotten for a better team. Doesn't seem to do much of anything in possession, but has made 4 good runs, had 4 good chances, and buried all of them. And these were no real "gimmes" either. Will need to see more, but he's catapulted himself to one of our best options at striker.
He's a big strong guy and moves pretty well. His skills are so-so overall, BUT he shoots well and is amazingly composed when he is near the goal.
Yeah, I was wondering about that myself. Would be a real shame if a center forward his size turned out to underwhelming as an aerial threat.
With teams as bad as Schalke and Werder, there's always an element of luck needed to get balls to hit in decent positions. This weekend is a good example - Hoppe is able to run onto the bloop from Stambouli because the Frankfurt defense goes to sleep. He gets a good shot off for a goal. In the other game, Sargent makes a clear run on the sequence that leads to the second goal, but the cross from the wing is so bad that it goes behind him to the unmarked Bug or whatever his name is. No way it was meant for him, but he was able to mishit the cross and still score. Werder have trouble doing the simplest things, just like Schalke, so being lucky helps a lot.
Definitely wasn't clean, agree there, was a slightly botched shot, but what matters just as much is the anticipation, the aggression, the acceleration and the taking of the chance in the first place. In just the past 8 days or so, he's both gotten chances which is huge, he's been clinical in taking them, and he's looked like a guy that could feast off opportunities generated by Reyna, Pulisic, Weah, Morris and friends. What's confusing is what happened before his promotion to the senior team. Why did he have a zillion appearances w/few goals? Similar situation to Sargent with Werder Bremen's toothless attack? Several years ago Haji scored a million goals w/Schalke's youth team. Just odd. I'm assuming their youth squad stinks because it doesn't really make sense otherwise.
Goalski ain’t got shit on Hoppe. Has he scored on his last 4 shots like Hoppe? [oh wait... don’t answer that. You never know with Goalski. It’s not out of realm of possibility for him to score 4 in 4 shots]
I think today his touch was a little heavy, but he showed in other games that his touch is well above average. Also, he could have bagged another hat trick today if his mates find him. The run he did when Uth lost it and decided to pass outside was brutal. Hoppe could have had an easy breakaway on that one.
That's exactly where I was going. Strikers don't get chances if they're not making good runs consistently and finding those pockets of space where the ball finds them.
The thing about Sargent is he is influential even when not getting the ball in dangerous positions. Recoveries. Tackles. Ints. Pressures. Key passes. Hold ups. He does it all. The algorithms and his coaches back his effectiveness. W/re to Hoppe, it's easy to understand why he may not have been so heralded coming from Schalke's youth team: if he's not getting the ball in good positions, he is not so directly influential.
Great. The team anti-Josh is all in in Hoppe. I am very excited about Hoppe. I don’t see it as proof anyone’s arguments about Sargent, however. I look forward to them both being invited to USMNT camps. Should be a nice competition at CF.
Been rough. Obviously I'm a huge DOOM fan. Hoppe springs eternal tho and Stones Throw is going to release whatever of Madvillainy 2 they were able to complete. Honestly, and a bit off topic, but I think DOOM was never going to want to release it because of the pressure for it to be as good as the first -- and all indications are it's not. Hoppeing it's good but not holding my breath. As for Hoppe, the most important thing by far in a striker is to finish your chances. All the other stuff is secondary. You can knock the ball 5 feet away from you every time trying to hold it up but if you finish your chances it doesn't matter. He doesn't look like a superstar talent but he does look like a guy that would be a really good CF for a team with as many creative players as it appears the USMNT will have.
Correction, we are all team Hoppe and Sargent, or team anti Jozy/Zardes my man. I love that Hoppe is essentially Gyasi, unpolished, just puts himself in position and scores blah, blah. Only you know, it’s the Bundesliga.