Pre-match: 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup - Group Stage: USA vs Martinique

I haven't seen enough of Larin, nor am I a good enough talent evaluator to be definitive, but dude tore up Turkey with 23g and 6a in all comps. Yes, Turkey is a step down from the BL, but those are big numbers.

 

I think you have to get hurt before the first game, like Davies did.

Arriola is apparently okay to go ... for now.

 

I like this a lot. Gregg seems to be gravitating towards the 3-5-2 lately. Perhaps he actually runs it out, and I hope he does (and lines it up exactly as you've got it).

 

Start DIKE! 'nough said.

 

Wow, this line up is very defensive.

 

Does anyone actually know anything about Martinique? I don't, though I recall that in 2017 they played us pretty even the first half of the game in the prelims. We got a couple early in the second half, but then they tied it up with two more goals in rapid succession, requiring a Jordan Morris late winner to eke out the three points.

The scorer of both their goals was Kevin Parsemain, who didn't have a distinguished club career but was Martinique's all time leading goal scorer. Seems this guy is no longer around, but the new danger man is Emmanuel Riviere, a former France u21 player who now plays for Martinique (which given Martinique's status as a French state I'm not sure is mutually exclusive). He's a striker for Series A Crotona, having spent several years before bouncing around Ligue 1. He scored the goal that briefly put Martinique up against Canada in the 10th minute.

Beyond that, how they play and who else they have is a mystery to me. Having seen us play a lot of smaller Caribbean teams, they always seem to have enough speed and athleticism to make them dangerous on the counter. My guess is that we'll see them do the standard thing smaller nations in Concacaf do against us--bunker up and hope for the quick strike.

Given that the team we've brought is not that competent offensively, I worry about breaking down that bunker. And while I think we're all right defensively, the Haiti game showed that we can be prised open by speedy counters, so that makes me a bit nervous.

I think we'll win this game, and I hope comfortably as Canada did against them. Haiti was a tougher foe. But these games against smaller Caribbean teams are often not as easy as they seem like the might be. There was the 3-2 squeaker against Martinique in 2017 the nervy 1-0 win v Guadeloupe in 2011--and those were with much stronger complements of players than we brought this time. Last time you may recall everyone licking their chops before the quarters against Curacao, and then a general sense of "yikes" as we emerged with a thin 1-0 margin of victory. And of course the all time sphincter-tightener, the 2-1 win in Antigua and Barbuda in WCQ that was almost a 1-1 draw before a late Eddie Johnson goal.

 

FYP

 

Gregg Berhalter on Paul Arriola/Reggie Cannon: "Both have made progress with injuries but are out for the match." #USMNT

— Larry Henry Jr (@lhenry019) July 14, 2021

 

YouTube just popped up a 2017 Gold Cup game vs. Martinique. Just out of curious, I am surprised so many players were there 4 years ago.

Guzan, Johnson, Arriola, Acosta, Roldan, Zardes.

Also if Morris is not injured and he would be here.

Speechless.

 

If it's a 3-5-2 I would like to see:

--------------Hoppe--Dike----------------
-Bello------------------------------Moore-
---------Williamson----Busio------------
-----------------Acosta---------------------
---Robinson-Sands-Zimmerman---
-----------------Turner--------------------

Is it even possible for Gregg to put out such a lineup with no Lewis, Yueill, Zardes... not even Vines or Lletget? We will see...

 

I thought Vines was quality now that he's going to Royal Antwerp in Belgium. Sure a few days ago he was bad because he was still with the Rapids but just watch how much better he is now.

 

Why are you speechless?

 

With injuries and the roster construction sticking to a 433 would be a very bad decision. Since we don't have very much quality CB depth, I don't know we can play 3 at the back without mistakes. With that in mind this is what I'd do. You could slide Sands back but I just don't know how good it would be to play that with no real practice. Dike would also start but probably only needs to go 30 or so for rest purposes. I'd rather have him fresher for Canada and going forward.

-----------Zardes---------Hoppe
---Busio---------Lletget-------Acosta
----------------------Sands
-Bello--Robinson---Zimmerman---Moore

Embrace the narrowness we have with this roster and let Shaq roam and Sands stay at home for counter clean. Really asking a lot of Lletget being the only CAM-ish player.

 

This is by far the easiest of the group matches for us. I'm sure the plan all along has been to rest a lot of the main guys in this game. The newbies will get their chance and I'm sure many will do well against Martinique. It will be hard to assess what that means.

I'm hoping Haiti gets a tie or win against Canada. Which would force Canada to play their best team against us. Otherwise that game too is likely to be one where it will be hard to assess player performance.

 

He still isn't good enough for the usmnt.

 

FYP

 

I believe the plan from the beginning was to play a lot of different guys in the first two group stage matches for two reasons.
1. Get a look in an actual game on who is in form.
2. Keep players fresh so best XI can go against Canada.

That got a little messed up with the injuries to Cannon and Arriola but it also gave chances to get looks at others. interested to see who GB sends out there tonight.

I want to see Bello, Dike, Hoppe, Sands, Busio, and Pines start.

 

Um that was heavy sarcasm. Example below combines heavy sarcasm with violence. I don't recommend this combination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranha_Brothers

 

Yes, I was aware that it is sarcasm. MLS fans use it all the time in this manner. They whine all the time that there is bias for players in better leagues all the time (when it isnt necessarily true) and then actively do the exact same thing against players who play in leagues "lesser than MLS".

 

This may be the match to throw Sean Johnson a bone. Otherwise you're probably going to have two backup keepers who came here for nothing.

One of the things I hope for the most is Roldan can get off the schneid. He's had tough luck not to appear on the stat sheet yet. A few goal productions would be a cleanse.

It's going to be tough to know what to do with the info from this match. It's more going to indicate negatives if guys don't perform well, as opposed to positives.

I think the Canada match needs to involve some experimentation as a result. The biggest downside is a worse knockout draw. Pales in comparison to getting ko'ed or not gaining much from this tourney to take into wcq'ing.

 

The Canada game will get something close to our best 11. But if both teams have qualified it might be a fairly low intensity affair, which would reduce its value for the purposes of player evaluation.

 

I think whoever is put out there is going to want to win the group and beat their geographical neighbors.

It's Gregg's job to not take it overly seriously. We're not going to know who are best xi is after the Martinique game. Circling back to the perception pre-tournament would be a double mistake. Test some things out.

 

I agree the Martinique game will be the least informative in terms of player evaluation. But you learn a little from each game. A couple players hurt their standing in the Haiti game.

 

I really like that lineup. I could see any of the three in the middle play the 6 or the 8.... and I am a fan of any lineup with Sands in it... either at center CB or CDM.

 

Im not so sure Canada will beat Haiti. We will probably win... even with GB bungling the lineup tonight (Im sure he will). Im more concerned about Mexico. They have 4 points with El Salvadore left. They could end up being the second place team in their group and if we win the group... we would face them after the group stage completes. We would have 6 points after a win tonight. and if Mexico wins their last game and have 7 points to win the group... then we will want to beat Canada to avoid Mexico. If Mexico loses against El Salvadore then we might want to lose to Canada and let them win the group and face Mexico