Not that I want any US players - let alone MMA to get a yellow card, but of the MMA trio, thankfully it was Wes and not Adams or Musah based on form and fitness.
im replying to your post on zim simply because there are two entrenched sides and i dont want to get down with either of them... i both think zim is our best available cb at the moment and also that people have deluded themselves into being shocked by this. i dont think its an exclusively mls problem, but i absolutely think its a "level" problem. ive talked about it multiple times- its absolutely valid that zim has simply not faced comp at a level like this before. this was always a very real possibility. that said it was a naive, bad, shitty moment of play. it freaking happens. its not a referendom on anything, but its also disingenuous to say the likelihood of a guy playing in germany or england or france diving in there are exactly the same as zim, who has exclusively played in mls. reams been bent over in the epl, epb in france etc. theyve dove in and given up plenty of goals before. that matters. you cant succeed without failing first and all that... boy, im feeling repetitive but we have to swallow it and move on. he may keep his feet against kane and that makes all the difference there, who knows? man, people are trying so hard to prove some old shit that simply doesnt matter now, you know? zims got to shake it off and move on. make this mistake mean something. lets. go.
guatemala with a buttload of talent, which makes it at least 14 times more infuriating. it was like being repeatedly shot by a bunch of pescadito in a barrel...
Yeah, I can’t take the Sky ratings seriously. Wes rated higher than Adams!? Zimmerman rated same as Ream!? Turner rated same as Dest? Puh-leeeeze.
in a team that tactically attacks so grossly underwhelmingly, id argue sargents role in our only goal (on our only shot on goal) showed that he was a demonstrably better option than a false 9/ferreira. no one- and i mean no one- is going to confuse sarge with even giroud, but his being an actual striker was a part of our scoring our pathetic one goal. not in theory- it happened. he made a play ferreira simply isnt equipped to.
It looked to me like the defense as a whole is caught off guard by how quickly the danger materialized from the the throw-in, and Zimmerman reacts without full awareness while trying to clear the ball away. When the challenge starts, he's focused on the ball, not even looking at Bale. It was a bad individual play, but also a collective lapse on the throw-in.
Here's a couple of frustrating screen shots to me. I don't know if this is just the players lacking confidence, just playing safe, or it's being instructed, but you've got to look to take advantage --- play the ball forward or move into space forward. It's our goddamn slogan that they've pasted everywhere for Christ's sake! Sorry for the double blasphemy, but ONLY FORWARD!! Adams receives the ball from Dest. Look at the space in front of him. But Adams has ZERO intention of taking it. Immediate backpass. Sargent receives the ball. Has Pulisic right next to him running forward into space and Weah making a run along the backline. Layoff to Pulisic there and he can split the CBs with a through ball to Weah running central,.. exactly like the goal. But no. Immediate backpass to McKennie who's not even in the screen frame. Sigh.
mckennie, who hasnt played a minute in like a month and a half. or was that a rhetorical question? do you recognize at all how often you post, ranting like a 5-year-old having a temper tantrum, about people ranting like a 5-year-old having a temper tantrum?
Even the good first half, it still remains some games in qualifying and friendly. Tons of control but not much chances created.
oh man, speaking of things i tried to immediately block in my mind forever- that was worse than p-funks shank vs mex. i wonder if anyones gonna argue ba should be out of the team forever
Another thought I hadn't yet penned to the BS postgame thread. I'm not against Ream and Sargent starting. Hell, I thought Ream was in contention for MOTM. I thought he should have been in the last camp. But how does G, in his mind, have two players he throws right into the XI in the WC yet has largely kept them outside of the team for most of the year? He subbed Sargent on vs Japan, then didn't play him vs Saudi. He started Pepi instead who obviously he didn't bring to the WC. Unless I'm mistaken vs Japan were Sargent's only mins for the NT in 2022. And Ream hasn't been called in since well before that. I have never seen that before. From a coach who used lack of familiarity as a reason to not look at other players in previous camps.
Call me cruel, but I'd penalize Zimmerman a little more than that. It was only one error, but it was a bad error that cost us 2 points.
that would be a decent argument if it were true. the best and only proven chance creator we have is reyna, and pulisic is also ahead of aaronson there. i get wanting aaronson over reyna, there are valid arguments for that...but chance creator isnt one of them. reynas the guy for that, just as clearly as aaronson is the guy if you want to press/win balls back and pin opponents in their attacking third.
I haven't been keeping up with the USMNT for a while, but can someone tell me how we regressed so much at CB? How are Zimmerman and Ream even on the team, much less starting? What happened to John Brooks and CBs like him?
The bad.... Zimmerman cannot foul in the box when the man has his back to the goal. Inexcusable and cost us the win Weston has been in bad form and injured for a while now. He should not start at this point Crosses and free kicks. Just really poor. Pulsic has never been good at them. Try anyone else at this point. Dest? Weah? Obviously Gio if in. Acosta in the game and not taking them is absurd. It's the one benefit of him being in the game Too much backwards passing missing runs from Weah and Sargent MMA is not creative enough. Play Gio, sit weston. Aaronson over westin works too. LDLT or Gio skill set was much needed in this match. Both possibly not fit Doesn't matter who plays the 9 if they never get the ball Prevent defense gave Wales confidence and possession. Questionable subs The good... Turner made the one save he needed to make. Great effort at the PK. If Bale hits an average or worse kick there he would have made the save Ream was excellent. Jedi always solid although would like to see him and weah bomb down the sideline a bit more Adams defensively great although needs to be better attacking Weah goal was very good. He continues to be dangerous 1st half dominate possession and winning the ball back quickly
Brooks was dropped pretty early in qualifying for reasons that still aren't entirely clear (though the official explanation was some combination of poor play in our early qualifiers and an inability to play the high-line/high-pressing style that we shifted to in order to maximize the strengths of our player pool). It was initially the source of a lot of controversy around here, but Brooks then didn't really help his case by getting buried on the bench at the club level and not really playing at all for the past 6 months or so (not even training with a club for a big chunk of that time since he was out of contract for an extended period). As a result there's far less controversy about his WC omission now. Ream had seemingly been phased out at the start of qualifying, and hadn't appeared for us in nearly 15 months prior to yesterday, but he's forced his way back into the picture by being the most in-form CB at the club level right now. He's captaining and starting every game for a surprisingly good Fulham side that currently sit in the top half of the Premier League this season, and he's been a big part of their success. It's probably hard to believe if you haven't followed the USMNT in over a year or so, but Ream was a very popular pick this time around. Zimmerman's someone who didn't really seem to be in the conversation in the summer of 2021, but he ended up getting his shot when some other options were dropped or unavailable, and he turned out to be one of our most consistent players in qualifying. Our other two CBs through qualifying (Miles Robinson and Chris Richards, who have both looked very good for the most part) unfortunately were ruled out of the World Cup due to injury -- probably the biggest injury-related blows we suffered this cycle. Once those two went down, the general consensus prior to yesterday was that Zimmerman was probably the best CB option remaining.
It's a bit of a weird narrative to say we were better defensively when in the end the Xg for Wales was 1.93 but for us was 0.99. I agree with Keller, being dispassionate, it was a fair result.
I'm not getting any younger and these things come around once every 4 years so it'd be nice if we didn't have to wish it away till next cycle
We weren't overly defensive nor scared. The team did exactly what they needed to do in the first half. Wales kept their whole team in their half, well-organized and boringly patient, hoping that the US would make a mistake so they could run a fast counter. The US never gave them a chance and still managed to score a goal. I think it's important to note that the first time Wales had a sequence of team possession in the final third came in the 43rd minute. That's right. The 43rd minute. The second half was a different story. Berhalter needs to recognize that in such circumstances where you've forced the other team to attack you (by taking the lead, for example) counter attacking is an appropriate tactic to utilize. Some people have complained that various players missed opportunities to counter attack yesterday, but I'm not sure that's the problem. I think Berhalter just really doesn't like the team to break their shape at any point, and so by design counter attacks are squandered. If I'm right about that, that's a mistake and Berhalter needs to allow and even encourage the team to counter in such situations.
To be fair if walker didn’t clumsily clatter into Bale and we held i am not suggesting Adam’s was perfect with a 10 out of 10, but if I am going to highlight areas for improvement for the team not much is on him.
I can't see the original post because it's been deleted, but I assume it was a response to me. Good job, @CleetusInMexico, using racism to defend your ignorance. Doubling down!