US vs. Mexico 11/12/2021: the pre-pre-pre-match thread

Understand the thinking here and have been a proponent of a 3-5-2. Dest and ARob should be smart enough to understand when and when not to push forward and having Adams, MRob, and Zimm/Brooks in the back should be able to cover when they are up too far.

But the real issue I have with this suggestion is that it leaves off Aaronson/Reyna. No way one of them isn't starting.

 

I'm a big proponent of a 442 with this team. I think it suits what we do best and limits where we struggle. Not so dependent on Adams being healthy and keeps our most effective offensive players where they can be most effective. It won't happen, but against Mexico I'd start
-------------------------Turner
-Dest----Brooks------Robinson----Robinson
-------------Adams------Musah/McKennie/LDLT
Aaronson----------------------------------------Pulisic
------------------Pepi---------Sargent
Play it more like a 4222 with Sargent defensive and pepi high. Allows for the most fluidity and subs can change the game as it can easily morph to any formation with little change.

I think most of the same players we've seen over the summer and the last windows unless they are unavailable. Big window. Gotta be better.

 

I agree with nearly everything that you say in this post, but I'm not sure what Couva has to do with it, since I was referring only to the way Central Americans teams play against us, not Caribbean ones. And my own viewpoint about how hard Central American teams play against us goes back more than 30 years before Couva.

 

In spite of rotation not being an absolute necessity for this camp, I still want to see a bigger than normal roster to be style, travel, & integration flexible.

Who I'd select as of today:

FW - Pepi, Hoppe, Dike, Zardes

Wing - Pulisic, Reyna, Weah, Aaronson, KDLF/Morris?

CM - Musah, McKennie, Adams, Sands, Acosta, Lletget, Ferreira, Busio

FB - ARob, Paredes, Dest, Yedlin, Scally

CB - MRob, Brooks, Zimmerman, Richards

GK - Turner, Steffen, Horvath

Base lineup for this camp that requires defense first:

fw: Pepi
w: Reyna, Aaronson/Pulisic
CM: MMA
LB: ARob
CB: MRob, Brooks/Zimm
RB: Dest/Yedlin
GK: Turner

Definitely worried about Dest this camp. 2 sterner tests defensively. I presume he won't even be supported by an outside cb in a 352.

Wish we had started the integration process w/ Scally this camp. Maybe he'd be ready to start one of these matches then. Araujo bounced, and none of the "vet" rb's have staked their claim to the more defensive rb role.

 

i guess i just assumed, but i agree with your intended point, as well. ive had that same argument here more than once.

 

I appreciate these points (from @Casper as well) and I understand the appeal of the Scally choice. He's playing very well in the BL1. But he's played a total of *seven* games for BMB, which is a very limited sample size. Many players start hot and then tail off, especially rookies. And he has no reps with the MNT, so we have no idea how he'd integrate into the team, plus he'd be on a learning curve with respect to Gagg's system (such as it is), the players, the whole experience, etc.

Of course, you have to get him involved sometime, and it's not like we're going to have a relaxed pre-WC period with some low-key friendlies for a more relaxed chance to blood him. But this cycle isn't a good time to introduce anything new. These two games are critical: Mexico presents the highest risk of dropping home points, and Jamaica the highest chance of gaining road ones. Plus with only two games the roster will be compressed. So I'd prefer to wait til the next three game window where the pressure and stakes are a bit lower and the roster a bit roomier to take a chance on Scally, or anyone new for that matter.

I'm not saying the argument for calling in Scally now makes no sense--that would be ********ing stupid, of course it's a plausible position to take--just that for the above reasons I think it's not the time for him just yet. And this is also an instance where I'd love to be wrong, so if Gagg calls in Scally I'll be rooting for him 100% and would happily come back to this discussion and confess error.

 

On form alone, Scally should be called up. The only issue is that this is Scally's first year in the first team rotation. At some point there will be a rookie wall. Ideally his call ups should happen during a lull in his club starts and not in this high usage period.

 

Absolutely. Rookies often start hot and cool (and I would expect Pepi to also). I think the strongest case is thay his competition is really Bello and Moore. No question that having played seven games for BMG is a much better record than starting none in the Spanish second division. At this point he needs to be integrated in case he keep going into next year. We don’t want to be having this conversation about whether to integrate him in January. Sounds like we BSers are all on that page.

 

Interestingly, Dest is playing up at right wing in a 4-3-3 for Barcelona today ahead of Roberto as RB and de Jong on the right side of midfield....

Musah is no the bench again

 

FWIW, Moore started the last match for Tenerife.

 

yay! Great news!

 

Absolute locks for camp (13).
GK: Turner; Steffen.
FB: Dest; A. Robinson
CB: Brooks, M. Robinson, Zimmerman
CM: Adams, Musah, McKennie
WM: Pulisic, Aaronson
F: Pepi

Good bets (9)
GK: Johnson
FB: Yedlin
CB: Richards, McKenzie
CM: Acosta, Lletget
WM: Weah, Arriola
F: Zardes

That's 22. IDK how many more Gregg will bring.

In the mix:
1. Reyna: a lock if healthy.
2. Anothe FB: Bello, Vines, Scally
3. Another CM: Busio, LDLT, Sands
4. Another CF: Pefok, Dike, Sargent
5. Another AM/WM: Roldan, Hoppe
6. Another CB: Ream, Miazga
7. Another GK: Guzan, Horvath

I'd be pretty surprised if someone outside this bunch gets called. A healthy Morris? Maybe an MLS attacking mid with some prior camps (Mihailovic, Ferreira, etc)?

 

At least for me, I hang the primadonna label on Reyna, Dest, Pulisic and to a lesser extent McKinnie because they seem so often intent on trying to dribble multiple defenders as opposed to releasing an early pass. We saw an absolute ton of it the first three games until all four guys were off the field against Honduras and then we looked effective. Pulisic was hurt on exactly this kind of play.

Conversely, the most recent round of games saw generally better vertical passing and attacking in the first and third games. Ball movement was better, passes were released into space earlier and generally, Dest and McKinnie refrained from trying to hero ball their way through the low block.

I personally think it has to do with some combination of immaturity, distrust of teammates and arrogance that their club affiliation gives them the right to play selfishly. I don’t think that the people seeing this think it’s anything to do with MLS; players like Adams, Aaronson and Robinson, for example, don’t seem to play the same way. I also think it’s a coaching issue to be addressed by Berhalter. Given that we’re obviously a better team with those four in it than with them not in it, I’m hoping it gets worked out sooner rather than later.

One final thought is that England’s first “Golden Generation” underachieved and imploded because of selfishness, club rivalries and managers unwilling to drop stars for the benefit of the team. Their second “Golden Generation” currently playing seems to have learned from that experience, as has the coaching staff for England (generally). Hopefully we can avoid the issues with our first legitimate generation of stars that England had, but team chemistry can be a fragile thing and absolutely could torpedo what on paper should be a group on a positive trajectory.

 

Hmm. The notion that Valencia on a level with Barca is taking a bit of a beating, with Dest doing a lovely job on the right dancing around two defenders to set up the pass for a Countinho pass from the 6 yard box while Musah again showing the falling asleep to stay with Coutinho that I seem to see when he plays for Valenica (but not the USMNT. Go figure)

(In full disclosure, I'm a Barca fan, but I'd LOVE to see Sevilla or Valencia win the league. The big three gets REALLY tedious)

 

heres another theory- maybe the idea of digging in, fighting and holding the ball for a draw on the road is abhorrent to guys in more competitive environments- which the prem and bund and serie a inarguably are. in every way from the constant threat of players behind them to pro/rel. so when the primary supplier of the ball is lletget (whos more intent on supplying the cbs), and no one else is trying, or able, to move forward at all (because we dont have an attacking game plan we have principles and platitudes) then yeah, i can kinda get how pulisic gets a little antsy and decides to go himself.

if you want to hold up the honduras match as some template to follow i dont know what to tell you. we were a dumpster fire who were behind at the half. you can try to call that a good performance in the second half, but it was one team collapsing physically (though ive been assured pulisics many runs dragging multiple mids and defenders around dont have any correlation to that, nor where the any signs of fatigue in the first place ) and another throwing on much fresher, and more talented, legs. our breakthrough came from a lb hanging around in the box to volley home as a handful of guys were scrambling around on the ground- which certainly doesnt seems like a repeatable tactic, but what do i know?

its really hard to solve the equation of a fed (and fanbase) who lives by win at home/draw on the road ethos/mentality with a manager who cant set up a functional attack and whos best players are wired to win...so we go with guys who arent. zardes won a title however many months ago and wont sniff the playoffs this year and it doesnt matter at all, so how much external pressure could he possibly feel? im not questioning his drive individually im just saying he doesnt have any concept of what guys at higher levels face any more than we do. we can sorta guess how it is, but we dont have a damn clue.

you dont get where reyna or mckennie are by settling- that shouldnt need to be pointed out. but what gregg does to close that gap between them and the arriolas and roldans is to slow down the guys who are too far ahead. its the same thing youre doing by calling it "hero ball", and if someone trying to make something happen is a bad thing. why is arob being in the honduras box more than he was to the left of ours not "hero ball"?

personally im in favor of getting the "bottom" end up to speed instead. thats where arob and ldlt really come in. theyre not somehow magically more humble and team oriented like a bello or a lletget- theyre better.

 

You’re conflating “we have 4 guys who need to learn to release passes sooner and stop playing iso 1v4 ball” with “we should play inferior players because they hustle and grit their way to success in MLS” and I’m really confused at who, anywhere, is saying the latter.

 

Did anyone ever see what happened in the first place or was it at training? I can't remember him getting injured in the way it was obvious Pulisic got injured. Just can't remember it period (not doubting it obviously, just wondering when it happened). So frustrating, guy has been out for basically something on the order of 5 weeks, like Pulisic and to learn that it's a 7-8 week injury is wild. I don't see how they're locked in to be available in early-mid November. That's not that far away. less than a month. Tend to think if he isn't able to start a match by the end of October, he's unlikely to be match fit period. Might be usable as a sub, but not a starter.

 

Or maybe playing with a midfield not hampered with Lletget's back passing the USMNT was able to switch play easier and gain confidence progressing up field without having to worry about covering for less technically capable teammates. When things break down, you are likely to see guys panic and start trying to create themselves. Doesnt help when players like Pulisic are used to support in the final third and look up seeing themselves surrounded 2-3 defenders with not a teammate in sight.

I dont think a bunch of 20-23 year olds who are used to clawing their way into a lineup in the top 4 leagues in Europe are necessarily caring about being prima donna's yet, nor has the US fanbase progressed to such stage of development where we can start pinning this label on our first generation of real world level talent.

 

I cannot speeak for others, but the prima donna thing for me comes from a perceived lack of effort. Jogging around in Couva, for example (Altidore).

Now, sometimes that perception can be wrong. The player may have an injury. Or the heat/humidity has impacted the player negatively (which can happen, especially to guys not as used to it). Or perhaps they are out of gas. Or they do not show their emotions as much.

I certainly do not Pulisic in that category. He has always had some grit and bite (and fight) to him. That has been apparent. That was one of the great things about NL. The guys showed a ton of grit & fight as a collective. McKennie. Reyna. Robinson. Even Horvath. It was beautiful. Ditto the guys at GC.

Dest only lasted the first 60 minutes of that. I was impressed with his grit the last window as well as the goal. Westin obviously had some off the field issues related to his commitment & judgment.

But I do think there have been issues with overdribbling. Combination of trying to do too much, frustration of no support, and perhaps not taking the opponent seriously.

 

Brooks for Zimmerman, but everything else dead on.

 

Some context:
#1: you forgot Couva, he scored the goal.

#2 Essentially the US has scored 4 road goals in 5 completed matches in WC Qualifying with Pulisic scoring 1 of the 4. In his 6th qualifier he was injured, I believe we had one goal in the bag when he got hurt?

2016-2017:
@ Costa Rica: 0
@ Panama: 1 (Dempsey)
@ Mexico 1 (Bradley wondergoal)
@ Honduras: 1 (late scramble poach by Wood)
@ T&T: 1 (Pulisic)

#3: If we're gonna trash Pulisic for failing to score against Costa Rica and Mexico in '17 WC Qualifying, what do we say about Altidore who registered a 0 for his entire career in World Cup qualifying against those squads? 12 games. Zero goals, unless I'm missing an injury somewhere. Indeed other than the random goal in that off year '17 gold cup against Costa Rica, Jozy never scored against Costa Rica or Mexico in any game of any sort, ever. Friendly, Qualifier, Tournament. Anything.

Why am I dragging Jozy into this? Mainly just to remind people how whatever struggles Pulisic has had with injuries, and production, the issues with production are of a piece with the team (he wasn't scoring much in qualifying, but he was scoring more than anyone else, we had all of 4 road goals in 5 road games in '17, we needed two games to equal that this cycle and that's w/the attack playing like ----, and us rolling out basically an U23 team every game) and that he still managed to lead a USMNT in scoring as an 18 year old in 2017, lapping Altidore's production several times over, despite the fact that Altidore was in his prime at the time (27) and was nowhere near as productive or helpful as a teenaged Pulisic (heck even Dempsey was more productive, and he was post-heart surgery at the time). I'm just trying to underline here that whatever his struggles might be, they pale in comparison to the veteran '17 team, and they are basically in line with generalized production. The team isn't scoring, so unsurprisingly neither is Pulisic. The only guys with good production #'s are Aaronson and Pepi, and that's at least partly due to small sample size, and in Aaronson's case, having a good chunk of his games being friendlies against cr@p sides.

 

I acknowledged that quite some time ago.

 

Jozy did score a goal against Mexico. Granted, 13 years ago. I remember thinking, this kid is going to torment Mexico for years to come. Oh well.

Goal sequence starts at about 2:22.

 

I never 'trashed' Pulisic. And numerous times, I've highlighted Jozy's shortcomings. I have done so in response to outsized claims of his accomplishments.

My take on CP is that he should be played centrally and closer to goal.

 

Clearly Busio is doing well in Serie A but could he do it on a cold rainy night in Panama?
https://streamja.com/05Xm6