There was nowhere else for Dest to put that ball. It’s like a back shoulder throw in the NFL to a well-covered receiver. Sometimes these guys have to be counted on to make difficult plays because those are the only plays to make. It was a brilliant ball and a clinical finish.
Agree on the effort thing. The one track back where he gobbled the ball up was great. The thing about the dribbling is WHEN he does it. I don't mind taking someone on when if you beat him, you can create an odd man rush or there is space behind. It is another when there are six guys beteween you and goal waiting on you. Just duck in and make a pass, or go wide & try a cross. There was one play where he took a guy on and got a fortunate richochet to get by him, and then took on the next guy, and got a lucky bounce to get by him, and then took on the third guy and got the ball stolen. Come on, you got lucky twice, give up the ball.
Arriola disrupts, collects, connects. Not everyone is good at it. You have to want to hunt people down. He was very good at it in this game and his speed of play set the tone for the rest of the team, which was the best it has been so far over the course of the two prior tournaments and qualifying. When a player does that, you start them as often as you can.
I don't go that far back, but since I've been watching (kinda 1990, much more seriously circa 1994/1998) this is probably the worst side I've seen. I paid no attention to the team that got banned in '90 but this is the first time I've seen them consistently struggling to beat inferior teams. They have a great coach so it isn't him and honestly, I don't think enough is being said about the fact that they are aggressively poaching American's of Mexican descent. A decade ago there was some low level bitching about the Dos Santos brothers being more Brazilian than Mexican etc if memory serves, now they're out right just pulling starting players out of our system, four in all since the '17 hex wrapped only 1 of whom could be claimed to at least be as connected to El Tri as to team USA at the youth level. That's a big deal. Honestly, I don't really understand it. I see no reason their play should level off as it has, but it definitely has. They've produced a handful of relevant young players in the last half decade, and until their U23 team played superb at the olympics following an excellent showing of their U17 side in '19, they'd gone more than half a decade since being impressive in any way shape or form at the youth level after so much success circa 2005-2011. Maybe the success in '19 with their U17's says something, ditto their U23's, but I'm not sold. They struggled and needed Soto to make a catastrophic gaffe to beat an absolutely dire US U23 team last march, and yeah, they did well at the olympics, but all things being equal, they looked like garbage in qualifying which made sense since that team was mostly probably built from parts of their '17 and '19 and '21 U20 teams, the former two of which sucked. What makes me wonder about them, and why I have consistently said this Mexico basically sucks, is that their level, should be able to annihilate this Concacaf. If they were anywhere remotely close to '97, '01, '05, '09, '13 or '17 Mexico they would absolutely obliterate this Jamaica, this Panama, this El Salvador, this Honduras etc. Instead, they looked toothless against everyone except us in the June window (when they looked marvelous in the attack but pretty crap defending), but they stunk otherwise, and at the Gold Cup they lost to what was basically a B/C/D (equal parts really) US team while bringing most of their A guys. Along the way they tied T&T (thought they played well), struggled against El Salvador, were largely beaten by Canada, but the fix was in in that game, and then justice was served when we beat them. Now look at them in WC Qualifying. Vs Jamaica: They needed a last minute goal to beat a gut punched Jamaica side that had been screwed over by England. @ Costa Rica: They needed a just before halftime penalty to beat the worst Costa Rica team I've ever seen. @ Panama: Shut out by Panama. Vs Canada: I know that Canada had the xG advantage at least in half one, and had a sequence of four separate chances in the 77th-81st minute or thereabouts. Brutal. The ugly truth right now, and I don't expect El Tri fans to be reasonable about this, but if you look at their record in 2021, they really do, kinda suck. They're soccer is pretty to watch, but has little end product, but unlike our issues, they really seem to just lack talent on top of end product. We need to figure things out, their issues seem more endemic. On the other hand if Jimenez can get back to full fitness and comfort, Lozano and Lainez can get going, maybe they get rolling again. They are a more confident, technical, skilled bunch then any of the other Central American sides. I fully expect them to qualify, but if I had a an attack to buy from Concacaf through WC '26, I'd take us first, then probably Canada over Mexico. Canada just walked away from twin roadies to USA and Mexico without a loss. That's fantastic. But Mexico? This is ugly. Hopefully for them the young players that showed well at the olympics are legit. If they aren't, it's conceivable that they could've, and perhaps still might, miss a WC, indeed if we weren't cohosting in '26, I'd view that as a genuine risk. This is a team that's struggling against 2nd and 3rd tier concacaf sides right now, and not due to cohesions and youth and coaching issues like we are. They have a great coach, if they can't get it done, it's mostly on their players.
Because we hadn't broken Jamaica yet. In the first half we created a couple of chances. They resulted in yellows that should've been reds. Otherwise, we were wearing them down. In the second half, as a result, there was scads of space. If Zardes had his finishing boots on, we would've wiped the floor with them, but that's largely because they were already well and truly beaten.
I think it’s what I’d characterize as a “one-note exasperated sense of disbelief” that defines half of his airtime. It sometimes feels like maybe there might not be that much going on upstairs. That’s mean, but I find him really hard to listen to.
I noticed something in the Nations League final that I had never seen from El Tri before, and I commented here on that at that time. I was shocked by it. They psychologically deferred to the US “stars”. Much like our guys used to do to the big world stars. It was a weird moment for me and I didn’t like it at all. I would much rather the Mexican side be a bunch of arrogant punks trying to put us in our place than to be deferential to us. I hope a new Cuachtemoc, Marquez, Pardo, and Hernandez rise and soon. I don’t like the idea of Mexico taking a step backward or not being able to keep up.
Totally disagree. This is a National Team. Any player can, and should, give the effort. Then it is down to skill. And Weah is a much more skilled soccer player than Arriola.
Oh wow! He made a run? Arriola had absolutely nothing to take credit for on the first goal. It was all Musah, Dest, and Pepi.
You guys need to learn how to lean on a referee. In Central America or Mexico, those would've both been reds, not yellows. Cheering and chanting is nice, but hostile, angry booing at the right moments is better.
Including set up the first goal with his off-ball running. The type of fans who complain about him don't see or understand that.
It seems like the players who attract complaints about overdribbling (Dest, Pulisic, Gio, Davies) are the ones at the best teams. It might be a pattern.
pepi rarely had any poor touches or sequences when he had the ball. I can remember one poor pass, and a shot right at the keeper. Besides that, everything he did was fluid and productive.
Its the first time US fans have had an intimate view of top players. When the player is on the opposition doing that to your guys it looks intimidating and kind of embarrassing because they pull it off sometimes and one of your guys is megged and twisted up.
Mexico is struggling in no small part because Guardado is completely done and Herrera has also lost a step. And they have no midfielders to replace them.
You take that shot at the keeper every time. It was decisive and on frame…helps you establish rhythm.
I don't think that list is relevant at all in any way shape or form, those guys were relevant more than a decade ago, eons ago. Whether Arriola's relevant or not has ---- all to do with MLS and everything to do with work rate, runs, defending on the wings, he's a specialist (defending and work rate) who also has another pair of tools in his kit (boundless energy when healthy, and a Zardes-like ability to find beautiful runs into space. My loathing for his game is about his ridiculous inability to finish consistently. He does literally everything else so well, and yet one piece, that honestly to my mind is easier than what he does well (beautiful runs into space, off the ball runs, defending all night long no matter how tired you are) that its mind boggling. I ----- about him because I think he has no business starting ahead of Pulisic, Reyna, Aaronson, Weah, KDLF, and Hoppe, but you know, this game made me rethink the KDLF angle, because this was Arriola doing what made him such a key prospect during and after the 2015 U20 WC (that cup where nearly all our best attacking players were injured and we were left with Rubin, and Arriola and nothing else, and somehow they helped get us nearly to the Semifinals (lost in the QF's on penalties to the eventual winners, Arriola scored a goal in the tournament, and was one of only 5 guys to actually make his penalty out of 9 in that shootout, oddly, Rubin missed the opener). It had the destabilizing runs, one of the Total Soccer guys argued his run helped open up space for Pepi's first goal, and it kinds did (pulled #20 away from Dest so that went Musah gave it back, Dest had just enough space for his cross), it had the fanatical work rate, it had what should've been potentially two red card worthy fouls from his energizer bunny runs, one dogso, the other a potential PK, and it didn't involve his sketchy finishing, so everything was what he does well. At bare minimum, even w/o his finishing boots, Arriola's gonna offer a Bedoya but with attacking skill, emergency sub late in games defending a 1 goal lead type possibility. Basically a Cobi Jones type dude. The MLS angle is irrelevant, what you're thinking about this guy is: Does what he bring trump what he costs you. My answer to that hinges entirely on how many wing oriented players we bring. I've got at least four guys I want more, probably five, but Arriola made a great argument for himself tonight. Tonight was everything he does well, everything he brings of value and it helped us win the game, and with a. competent ref, probably would have helped us win 3-0 or 4-0 instead of just 2-0.
Oh I did too. I have no doubt they're trying to be careful with Weah but over the next couple of windows we should never see Arriola again baring injuries. He's not in our top five wingers.
Yes, I've definitely been down on him. Over the past few years, the combo of horse ---- finishing, often comically bad finishing, just insane wastefulness in front of goal was of the pulling your hair out till your Picard level bald, with him getting reps over younger and generally better players was infuriating. Add in the health issues and it made it even worse. Today, however, was a great example of why he gets that kind of run with Egg, and why he has value. Today was everything that he's great at: Defending, work rate, fantastic off the ball runs, incisive threatening runs that should have given us 1-2 red cards on Jamaica players and a PK with a competent ref. It was a reminder of what a healthy Arriola can do for you, and it was blissfully free of open shots he was likely to shank (based upon prior viewing experiences). If he could finish, he'd be a top 5 winger for me easy, but at this point, I've been watching him since 2015, so I tend to doubt that's ever gonna come.
Which is why the moment that I first saw the MMA midfield (in Wales) I knew in my heart that we had Mexico by the balls. I remember saying so here and the troll farm immortalized the post on their longest-running thread. I'm still not sure that they really get it yet.
Do note the game plan seemed poor, and literally everyone looked like crap against El Salvador (to be fair, I'm sure someone looked good, I'm just not aware who), I'm not gonna just KDLF harshly when what Egg was trying to do was just dire nonsense and made elite players who scare the hell out of CL sides look like 2nd division Guatemalan lifer's instead. Lets see KDLF play with these teammates, with an open, more direct approach, and see how he looks. I don't say that to condemn Arriola, I thought he was brilliant, but I thought the game plan, and the opponent tonight made everyone look much better, play against a better coach/opponent like El Salvador on match day 1, and w/a crummier game plan, and Arriola probably looks like the god awful version of himself he looked circa '19-'21, instead of tonight. Tonight he was fantastic, and I'm glad he was. I hope KDLF finds his game, right now he's doing okay, but has cooled off substantially from the form he was showing March-August of this year. I have no issue saying I'm glad we had Arriola with us tonight, he played a role in nearly everything good that happened on his side of the field.
FTR: The first DOGSO shout: Tough call. In spirit, I think it was DOGSO and a red. Last defender. No intent to play the ball. Technically, not so sure, because the ball was going toward the sideline, not toward goal. And Lawrence was going to be able to recover his inside position. Could go either way. I'm glad it wasn't called. The second DOGSO shout: I didn't even think it was a foul. 50-50 ball basically, and Lowe got there first, with minimal contact.
In this day and age, it shouldn’t be that difficult to get it up and running a few days before the game. It can’t be that expensive..