We're just going to agree to disagree. I think the Underhit passes to the wing was the weather. Holding the ball for Pulisic was so the Honduran defender committed to his run, which he did. If he released him early the middle defender slides over and pushes Pulisic wide. The pass came at the right moment, just was behind him instead of at him and I belive that's weather related. I have seen maybe 5 full games of Heracles, and I don't see him making assists. I see him getting the ball off the other team, and bringing it forward and getting it to a player who makes the assist while continuing his run to open up space. We praise Arriola for doing it, and rightfully so, it's a trait not a lot of our players have. It's usually head down and run. He was much better in one game with his movement than Lletget has been in 2 years. His ability to get the ball and bring it forward is better than Lletget. The one area I think Lletget is better, is ball circulation. He is a better hub, but we don't play that way. And he is directly competing with Lletget and Roldan to make the roster. Adams, Musah, Acosta are locks which leaves a few spaces for the 23. Now in terms of style of players he may be competing with those guys, but not for the roster. Anyway, like I said I would have liked to see him gotten some of those early Lletget minutes to see him against better comp. We don't have that now. In terms of open field play the team just has to be better.
Gregg seems to have shortcomings in training for the attack. The defense seems to be well organized. But if Weah is not playing and getting behind the defense along the goal line, the attack just doesn't seem to know what it's doing. Do we know if Gregg has an "offensive specialist" on his staff? Gregg not only seems limited in ideas for creating goal-scoring opportunities, I don't think he's ever had the chance to have his first-choice players together for training for a reasonable amount of time. Being young, and relatively inexperienced, they may simply not know each other well enough to create chances — on top of having a manager who is good with D, but not so much with O. Someone in another thread said it's not just us — this is happening all over the world in WCQ due to C-19-related loss of training opportunities. Wish I could remember who, but you know who you are... Maybe lesser youth coaching than in other countries, but coaching in the US is better than it's ever been. More opportunities for young players than ever before. This particular group will be much better in 4 years, and much better in 4 months. I hope...
Everyone should watch LDLT’s post game press conference. Sounded like a guy who knows he belongs on that team.
Fair enough. Either way, it was only one game. Against the worst team in the Hex. There are some things that can be taken away from the game but context matters. Cold. Opponent. Amount of time with first team (timing etc).
You absolutely can’t defend the timing of that pass. Yes he held on longer to draw the defender in more but he was wrong. Pulisic is very quick, if he is played in with space he easily beats the backpedaling, turning defender and is in a 1v1 with the GK. If the pass is underhit or poorly angled it’s an iso against 1 defender. The longer he waited the tighter the margins got and eventually it was cut out by a trailing runner because the vertical space had been exhausted. What % of Lletget’s npG+A/90 should we expect from Luca? That is an area I would track. Lletget got his early minutes in 18/19, Luca played 146 non FA cup cup minutes that season. In 19/20 he played 7 league minutes, 6 in the FA cup, and 270 in other cup competitions. I’m not sure if Luca had ever started two pro matches in a row until November of 2020. He was not in serious contention until that next window.
The US in general is way less dense then Europe. If we were as densely populated as France for instance, the population of the US would be about a billion. Now that doesn’t mean there aren’t some areas of the US that aren’t fairly dense, but even those tend to be less dense then their European counterparts. Now I don’t think this has anything to do with soccer players and their spatial awareness. More that it makes it harder to scout and identify players.
Gregg also said Roldan probably deserved to be a starter after the Gold Cup but has then gone on have 0 WCQ starts unlike Lletget/Busio/Accosta/Sands. I'd take Gregg's statements with a lot of salt.
it’s not so much the scouting at this point ( although still an issue) it’s being able to get the top talent within range of each other to push each other and play together. Most other countries in the world can bring their talent together centrally if needed to make this happen due to country geography.
Well it’s more that with our country so big and spread out, there’s only so much ground that 25 MLS teams can cover in terms of development. And the rest of the developmental apparatus still has a ton of work outside of that. Indeed alot of the MLS clubs themselves have a lot of work in that space. Just an example if you look at the state that produces the most professional athletes per capita, Louisiana, there’s very little going in terms professional clubs trying to develop players. In a country like England I think it’s less an issue in terms of being able to bring players together centrally, and more the case that the whole country is so saturated with professional clubs that it’s really hard for a player to get missed or overlooked. We obviously don’t (and probably never will) have that level of saturation.
I absolutely can defend the timing there. That's what he thought would be the best option to try and draw a player away. If the pass is 1 foot further in front, it's a goal scoring chance. Played early, the defender slides across easier to cover the area. But again we will just agree to disagree on this topic. 2 different philosophies and that's fine.
Just as a comparison point to bolster your argument, England is about the size of Oregon. So that would be like taking the best players from around Oregon and having them meet in Portland. That’s what England can do with St. George’s Park. I get England has a more dense population than Oregon, but geographically it’s just a heck of a lot harder to get elite kids in the US to a given location.
You would think that with basketball being so popular in our country that we’d look more at that sport to see how they move without the ball. The best basketball teams pass, move, and create space when they don’t have the ball. Today’s NBA is all about spacing the floor and moving to get players open for three point shots. Much of our current offense is like the old isolation basketball of the 1980s where one player takes someone on while the rest of the team stands there. My son played basketball for four years, and I’m convinced that the concepts of pass, move, and keeping the floor spaced helps him greatly as a soccer player. He is very much like LDLT in how he’s always moving after his pass instead of pointing at his feet while standing there. Steve Kerr is a huge soccer fan (Liverpool in particular if I remember right). Maybe he can sit down with Berhalter this summer to go over some ideas about what the Warriors do with movement and spacing.
2nd pic, it’s on like Donkey Kong. Luca de la Torre starts making these passes more consistently and he’s a €10m player. h/t @dis_possessed for the footage pic.twitter.com/UOzMA5GxeK— Bob Morocco (@bob_morocco) February 5, 2022
The red pass is one of those that looks great theoretically if you play a lot of FIFA. In reality the pace and placement of that pass is much more difficult to get to Puli without the back CB cutting it out.
One person’s scouting report on LDLT — The part of his game represented by the minute or so of defensive sequences (begins at about the 5:45 mark) is what surprised me about him. And I to really like his press conference afterwards.
This is really Luca's best chance to shine yet. With McKennie out, there are a lot of minutes to go around in midfield and he was well-appreciated last window after his performance in the Honduras game so I'd expect him to get a lot of them.. We should really find out if he can deliver now.
It's hard to imagine that we won't find out if he can deliver during this window. Of course, Berhalter also said in the press conference that both Aaronson and Reyna might get time in the McKennie spot.
Agreed. Watching his PC after his MOTM performance last window was just so satisfying. If he gets the nod at the 8 at Azteca (or if BA or Reyna do), I expect great things.