That's antithetical to how Busio played in the GC. Busio was even more extreme than Lletget in opting for safety, while having more issues in the physical battles, & providing less of a final ball. W/ the same circumstance or a more favorable, Lletget finished much better in the ratings. I even saw unnecessary back passes and dribbles under zero pressure by Busio v. Costa Rica. He'll be pressured more by a fresher, younger team. Obviously ability to play against tired legs in a slowed down match helps almost everybody. It did Lletget as well, to a greater degree even, as I outlined. As does the home-road factor benefit who plays in the friendly confines. Busio enjoyed the more favorable circumstance there. Lletget was sacrificed for the road, in a setup where almost everyone who played in the 1st match was dramatically worse too (see Turner w/ his distribution). I do see Busio's better role as a double-pivot or DLP eventually anyway, not as a progressor nor final 3rd creator. These are weaknesses for him right now. If you want to bump out Lletget, look for alternatives like Reyna, Ledezma, Ferreira, etc. Someone who can pick out a final pass and has scoring instincts. Otherwise he maintains a situational role in the interim, and you actually play him w/ ball progressors behind in a tighter space match - average opponent at home or off bench. Otherwise he shouldn't play. The alternative may well be better.
This response lacks any positional nuance (GKs, CBs and strikers tend to have the longest careers, and certain types of CMs as well). And also doesn't acknowledge the Italian NT.
You don't need to belittle me. I was sharing a thought I had in the moment it happened (not after hearing someone else say it--not that I watch any of the various podcasts/youtubers/Matt Doyles and whatnot). I honestly think that Gregg might have done it on purpose to try to gain a small advantage early in the game. Which, of course, was completely wiped out by the 1st minute goal anyway. It's totally logical that he'd think we'd need to score early to prevent CR from bunkering. It wouldn't be the first time a coach has pulled a similar stunt.
Goalkeeper is completely different than field players. I thought that was obvious, but evidently I overestimated this thread. The US has had top goalkeepers playing in Europe for years, we are just getting field players to that level.
#1 Pepi might have been fine, but he needs some degree of service to score, he's not Pefok in terms of spinning bobbled balls, and random nonsense in the box into instant goals, he's a guy that needs a coherent attack constructing legit chances to put the ball on frame and that wasn't happening against Panama. The reason for my preference for Hoppe is his style of play, raw and sloppy and all. Hoppe would attack the game, he's an aggressive, reasonably pacey, hungry, crazy junkyard dog, in that sense he kind of reminds me of a way less technically skilles, but similar in approach to the game Dempsey. He is full DGAF, at all times, and I felt that goals in Panama would be the product of weird mistakes and randomness based on the available players. When that is the situation, I want a guy that attacks the game and the ball, I don't want a guy known for off the ball runs and looney finishes off other peoples work (Zardes) or guys that need coherent attacks (Pepi). I think I was right because the chances were few and the game was begging for one more aggressive, attacking player. I thought we should roll out with Aaronson, Hoppe and Weah because the three of them would be able to connect ideas effectively. Instead we went with Weah, and a tired Arriola, and Zardes, and they produced nothing in no small part due to the breakdowns caused by a negative central midfield, and little to nothing beyond confusion caused by our FB's. #2: Agreed on Scally, sort of, I just think his floor was what happened, and the most likely scenario was more coherent attacking, and a bit more sound defense, instead of the messiness from Bello, who just seems like a lot of skills and tools, but no "game" yet. A guy who just is half cooked as a player, and just needs to go to school, and fits the experience tag some of the vet posters talk about (experience mattering basically, and not bringing in too many teenagers and kiddos, well, with Bello, I agree with them. He and for that matter Mckenzie, are a mess as players right now, and just need WAY more time to develop and refine their games before they get trusted with serious starting minutes ever again). Scally is producing against top sides in Germany. I had no idea he had this in him. I don't remember him being thought of as a stud with the U17's in '19 but what you notice when you look at him is that he goes and starts at the U17 WC disaster in the fall of '19, and a few weeks after that tournament wraps, Scally is snapped up by Bo Mo. They must have saw something I didn't (admittedly I averted my eyes for most of that tournament), because he was signed just a few weeks later, allowed to play out his '20 MLS season, and then joined Bo Mo (I'm just going with that) in Jan '21, and breaks through as their starting FB just 8 months after arriving as a 18 year old. Kinda nuts. #3 Was it Zimmerman/Robinson against Jamaica? I'd be fine with that as long as Zim was good to go. As for hindsight, this aint a hindsight thing, it's something I was calling for ahead of time, and tons of others too, and it played out as expected in a lot of ways (the attack was even worse than feared, and the defense was shockingly bad too, leading to Turner having his first bad game). That being said, yep, can't say it would automatically be great if they rolled out what I wanted, it didnt happen, and plenty I've wanted has sucked when tried. I just tend to think it's nearly impossible to see a worse performance with better players rolled out instead of the inferior ones, but who knows, good players also have crappy games all the time. It was just so bad against Panama, it's hard to imagine, possible, just hard.
I'm an Acosta fan, and I agree, though I'm not sold if Busio is playing the 6 when we're defending. When on defense, I'd need Musah handling defensive "6" duties.
The first thing that came to my mind when the change was announced. Because when the original lineup was announced my first thought was Arriola has to be dead tired this can't be right.
The 6 has to be positionally sound. McKennie is an elite ball winner. Musah showed some bite against Costa Rica and also in some of the friendlies he played at the start of his time with the Nats, against Wales and Jamaica I believe. Busio is ok positionally. But he doesn't the kind of speed that comes in handy when defending a counter. And he gets muscled off the ball a bit too easily. His defense is improving with Venezia. His whole game has really been developing very nicely.
Wait -- when did Adams become the permanent captain? I thought that it was Pulisic with the armband when both were available, but maybe I wasn't paying attention. Don't get me wrong -- I think that Adams SHOULD be the permanent captain. But I had not noticed that it was the case, if it is.
Yeah, that is a LOT to ask of an 18 yr old that doesn't play anywhere near the 6 for his club. The position isn't for everyone.
So I saw a vague reference on Twitter about Lletget not celebrating with the team after we won the Costa Rica match. Anyone know if this is for real?
Saw the tweet but think it's kinda silly to be honest. And i'm all for bashing on Lleget these days but this feels more like tabloid style.
I noticed that much of his best play against CR came along the right sideline. He's currently much more comfortable there than in the middle, and I'd much rather him take his chances on the line than in the middle of the field. This is backed up by his giveaways centrally against Panama. I think it's a coach's decision to have him go wide against CR and (a bad coaching decision) to go more central in Panama. His future may be in the center, but right now he should not have that responsibility (against most opposition, anyway).
This goes back to summer in terms of extra time. It’s not something from this week that I’m referring too w/them.
What do you mean by long career? There have been some older goalkeepers but I'm never that confident in them ( remember Brianna Scurry back in 2003 IIRC ? ) and if by older you mean 34-35 ok, but that is really pushing it in this sport, and there's really no getting around it. I'm not as obsessive about following the sport like some here ( it is in the end, like all sports, just a kid's game and watching adults play it is purely for our entertainment, nothing more, which is why I get pissed seeing a team play like the US has at times because they can be dreadful to watch ) but I am hard pressed to think of a team, like CR, that hasn't suffered when they rolled out a bunch of 30+ players. In fact, I don't follow Italia but were they not a shadow of themselves last cycle, and wasn't that due in part to age? Serious question...what would be the peak age for different positions? There's probably actual research on this somewhere ( for example, we know that the month you are born in can actually make a difference in whether you make it in a particular sport; this is because of how ages are grouped, with kids born in some months being younger and therefore slower than kids 8-9 months ahead of them, who then benefit from more attention from coaches; ask Malcolm Gladwell he wrote about this I think ) So there's probably someone out there who has studied peak age performance for soccer players.
Well, it is almost exactly 5 years. 5 years, 17 days, to be exact: Weah: February 22, 2000 Arriola: February 5, 1995 So, the average age of the U.S. starting lineup against Costa Rica was about 22 years, 61 days. That has got to be pretty close to a record for any national team in a competitive match.
I remember Brazil sending their U-23 team to the Gold Cup in 1996 (Brazil was invited). They got to the final and lost to Mexico's full team, and most people were of the opinion that Mexico won for that reason: it was "only" a U-23 team from Brazil. So, the U.S. has that built in excuse.
There is a lot of information available but I can only give you a distilled version. The gist is that "young men" tend to be best in the positions of FB and winger--away from the center of the field. Those positions (wings particularly) rely on speed, which is the young man's game. In general, as you get closer to the middle of the field the older the average age of the player who occupies the spot. This particular US team is absurdly young aross the board, no ifs ands or buts. This site gives the breakdown on average ages of national teams that competed in the last WC. The youngest team was Nigeria at 24.9. WC winners France were 6th youngest at 26.4 years, which is well beyond 2 years older than any possible "best 11" representation of our NT currently.
Both he and Weston spent a lot of time wide with the fullbacks further up the field. I'm pretty sure that was the game plan. Possibly based upon what Costa Rica was giving us. The formation and personnel we used against Costa Rica are flexible enough to encompass a plan where Weston and Yunus look to attack up the middle more. Neither Yunus nor Weston are defensive mids. In the setup Berhalter uses most of the time including against Costa Rica they are hybrid 8/10s. They definitely played wider than usual against Costa Rica. Against Jamaica Yunus attacked up the middle more. Sometimes this is just a function of what the other team is giving you.
They were really going after Costa Rica's left side. Dest, Musah, and Weah looked really good attacking that side. Almost all of the dangerous chances, and the 2 goals were on that side.
True. We were more dangerous going up that side. I think Weston had a really good game, but there wasn't the same synergy on the other side. Maybe the Costa Rican defense is strong on that side.
None of this is a surprise, really. Every team is weaker on their left side, as a rule. There are just far more right-footed people in the world. That's why we USMNT fans are happy to have the equivalent of a younger Yedlin at LB. Compared to other LBs (Alphonso Davies excluded), A Rob is excellent.
Musah is a CM and everything good happens if we get him centrally running at the defense. Greg said he wanted to use the ball to unbalance the opponent well :
It's interesting to see these conversations come back around year after year. There is nothing new under the sun, as has been said. I remember about 14 or 15 years ago, shortly after the 2006 World Cup, debating someone here who was lobbying for keeping on an old US goalkeeper because 'keepers regularly improve right through their 30's' (and used Friedel as an example). So I pulled up data from the previous 7 World Cups in my spare time and got an age range for each team in all of them. I found that the average age of listed attackers was 26-27, for mids, 27-28, defenders 28-29, and amazingly for keepers it was also around 28-29 -- and this was over a 30 year period of World Cups. There will always be specific players who defy time a bit longer, but at the highest level soccer requires too much athleticism -- even at the keeper level -- to be anything other than a young man's game. And clearly national team coaches agree, when all the chips are on the line. Of course, the current crop we have is obscenely young, so I expect to field the youngest squad in the 2022 WC, if we make it (which is not ideal either).