Adams has NOT been the same player since his long injury layoff. I don't think he's a lock starter going forward. He isn't a liability but he doesn't provide the dynamism we are going to need to challenge WC sides. His game has become much too static.
probably because in the US we "crown" the normal fields for natural drainage .... even most high school football fields are crowned.
okay fellow homers (me included) .... anyone remember us playing a qualifier in the snow storm in Denver? haha. sometimes you are the windshield and sometimes you are the bug. just have to deal with the conditions as they are. at least we were not England losing 4 - 0 at home to Hungary. ouch.
A lot more investment for soccer (particularly when it comes for referees and fields), but it has to be hand in hand with alot of these federations being much better run. China is actually building a new soccer stadium for El Salvador (and they did for Costa Rica too), and without getting into the geopolitics of it, hopefully that has a much better field.
I think his positioning was off - you always need to cover the near post and he simply did not. He needed to be a full step to his right with initial positioning. Now if folks say he did not because of the mud - well then maybe. But in terms of positioning for a shot or a cross from that oblique angle ... he was off.
The ref wasn't great but most of the issues to me were more of an argument as to why it's important to have VAR for these games. I don't know if it's the case that we frequently make bad decisions on this front. The only time it happened this time in qualifying was the Minnesota game, which was poorly thought out and which we shouldn't have done. The only time it's come up in the past in my memory was the snow game against Costa Rica. That game was alot of things, but those were not conditions anyone should have been playing. Now of course that wasn't planned and that amount of snow was fairly unanticipated for that time of year in Colorado. The CONMEBOL will never happen and makes no logistical sense, but the reason other countries would be interested is that if the US, Mexico, and Canada all came and potentially others, they'd bring World Cup spots with them. And I think an expanded World Cup is a bad idea, but given how many spots there are, I think we'd be ok qualifying from South America. But it's still never happening.
Scroll to the bottom for an 11 min video discussion with Doyle and CD9 “The group grows with moments like this”: Berhalter salutes USMNT as June camp closes | MLSSoccer.com I agree with most of it except: 1) I give Scally the benefit of the doubt (Doyle said he was terrible) on what was his "debut" with Berhalter vs. Morocco and Uruguay. Basically, he gives us an inverted lb in a thin position whose attribute is good passing on a team that needs more/better passing in the back. My point is that we need to see him again in September, not that he is guaranteed a ticket to Qatar. 2) I think CD9 is crazy to think Aaronson should not start when we've clearly seen that a 4 man front line of Puli, Aaronson, Ferreira and Weah has given us the most play with the ball. If that means the dilettante McKennie sits then so be it. I can see McK coming on to make the "big play" if the aforementioned 4 just arent doing it and we sense we need subs for a change up. But honestly I think he comes on for Weah because that's the position he plays at Juve and I noticed that they played on top of each other and made each other worse when McK and Weah played together v. Uruguay.
England learned a lot more about themselves in the 0-4 defeat where both teams could play soccer than we did in that pig slop.
That was my cirticism of him at Leipzig for a year but with young Musah as his partner we have somebody who can carry the ball forward but needs somebody to back up on defense. In a perversely happy way, Adams and Musah make the perfect couple.We can't afford to drop Musah with his astonishingly good play going forward in the middle third but we need a defense first rangy player in the back to cover and that's Adams. If not Adams then who?
USA 1, EL SALVADOR 1* ES did everything to steer the ball from dangerous central areas (and made solid saves)* Good transitions are evidently hard in mud* Hooray, set pieces!* MVP: Jordan Morris* MDP (most dangerous player): Yunus Musah* Let us never speak of this again pic.twitter.com/RvpcQQfUmZ— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) June 15, 2022
for the xg experts: Does xg look only at the location of the shot and whether it is kicked or headed, or does it look at anything else?
You see from the attacker's position, the goalkeeper is preparing for a cross, not a shot. The GK should be in the center of the goal, and he was. But then the attacker shoots and the gk does not see him shoot because he is completely occluded by the defender. Then the gk just watches the ball sail into the goal, frozen like a statue. Why? Because his mind has been conditioned to move his body when a player shoots. Since he did not see the shot, there was no preparation, there was no movement from him. It was like a stray tennis ball had flown on to the soccer field. There was no response at all. He easily had enough time to stop the shot, but he did nothing.
Nope. He should be at least a step closer to the near post if only to get a better view of the ball. Shots like this one and deflections happens, not often, but it happens. Even with a step close to the near post, he would still have had time to get into position for a cross.
He cannot see the attacker at all. He knows he is there, however. The goal had zero to do with his position, and everything to do with him freezing. He did not move one inch.
It wasn't him, it was the fact we threw the kitchen sink at them. They got the Red Card in the 79th and then we were even so we put every forward we had on the bench into the game. Had nothing to do specifically with T.Adams. We held 1 person back on D. It was putting all the forwards we had, we overloaded the field against a very poor opponent. You can't play normal games like that.
I think MMA will always perform better than any sub combo. In the ES game we didn't see MMA until the second half. Aaronson was part of the starting midfield and he just did ok. DLT came in and right way did better. In the previous game, it was the opposite, Aaronson had a better game.
Agreed. I think that there was only one time that I thought he should have handed out a yellow to El Salvador for persistence. Otherwise, he was fine.
Musah was great. I was surprised when he took that freekick that made the ES goalie come up with a great save.
You explain exactly why he is not where he's supposed to be and then just say he's where he should be. You act as if crosses only go to one place. He needs to be one large step to his right for the very reason you say, he's blocked visually and balls can go anywhere including where it went. He shouldn't be leaning or thinking where the ball will be going he should be positioned and simply reacting to where the ball is going not where he thinks it will go.
The next guy to replace him has a big drop in performance. If Adams sits, then I expect both Musah and Mckennie to play further back and have a Bonafide 10 play in front of them.
You are too kind. That was a horrible play. 100% shot, Horvath has chosen to stay behind Cannon and could have been sitting on his ass with the same success.
All that may be true but I’m sure once a game is moved because of crap field conditions once, it won’t happen again. ES has enough control over the venue and over the field conditions. They are choosing not to repair it or make it up to a certain standard by choice. I’m not suggesting they need to build another Jerry’s World. I’m just suggesting they have a few fields that are not unplayable if it rains, thereby risking injury to the players. Apparently Zimmerman was hurt the day before in that field and this didn’t play last night. ES is choosing not to provide a standard field for a national team matchup.