Post-match: USA v Netherlands Round of 16

Discussion in 'USA Men: News & Analysis' started by OWN(yewu)ED, Dec 3, 2022.

  1. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    Zimmerman made one mistake and otherwise was very good. So did Dest, Adams and Jedi. I guess they were all "found wanting" as well.

    The reality is that you are just a really bad talent evaluator.
     
  2. theboogeyman

    theboogeyman Member+

    Jun 21, 2010
    If you want to ignore on-field results against similar competition, there’s no reasoning with you. Our defense was water tight against concacaf with Robinson and Zimmerman, but extremely shaky with the other two. Brooks was the main culprit in the first half against Honduras, which basically everyone agrees was the low point during qualifying.
     
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  3. grandinquisitor28

    Feb 11, 2002
    Nevada
    Important to always add nuance. 20 years ago Donovan scored the equalizer, and a Polish Defender took a dive to get it waived off (nobody on this planet is gonna convince me a 140 pound Donovan could knock over a Polish Centerback like that, it was ridiculous), and gave up the 2nd goal while screaming at the ref. Later we'd hit the post and add a goal.

    Polish were the better side no doubt, Bruce had an interesting take on one of the podcasts about it (basically the Polish coach benched everybody and started a squad they hadn't scouted), but I always felt that game turned on the waived off Donovan goal. We got hosed, in my view anyway, and then Poland was up 2-0 and that was that, especially when Mathis shot hit the post instead of going in.

    2022 was the most talented team, period.

    2002 was the best performing team, period.

    Full stop.
     
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  4. adam tash

    adam tash Member+

    Jul 12, 2013
    Barcelona, Spain
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    im not reductionist to league being the be all and end all.....but all of the results continuously showed that the mls players sucked. and gregg stuck with it. why the hell did he keep playing long over and over and over when he was poor? jordan morris has zero wcq goals/assists and zero wc goals assists...he shouldnt be anywhere near this roster.

    I AM EVALUATING THE PLAYERS.


    that's my whole point.
     
  5. adam tash

    adam tash Member+

    Jul 12, 2013
    Barcelona, Spain
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    zimmerman couldnt complete a pass vs england and the dutch. he had to give the ball to ream every time he got it.

    I dont know why zimmerman and ream are getting a pass for the 3 goals the dutch scored depsite barely threatening the us goal for almost the entire game. I thought he was such a good organizer of the backline. people wanna blam the midfield but the dutch were outnumbered in the box on every goal they scored.

    van gaal smartly made the cbs pass and it worked.

    the weakest players for the USMNT inQatar were the MLSers across the board. obviously.
     
  6. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    In terms of future potential, probably.

    Incorporating age and realized potential (not in terms of results, but how good the players are), give me 2009-2010 based on the distribution of talent across positions and skills.

    I expect that to change in 2026. But that 2010 was better than people give credit and it had prime age players and it distributed its talent a little more evenly.
     
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  7. Marko72

    Marko72 Member+

    Aug 30, 2005
    New York
    Had we managed to beat Ghana (a result that I felt was a tad unfair and very disappointing, more so than I feel that yesterday was) we all would've looked at the 2010 team very differently.
     
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  8. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    You don't, though. You have a pre-supposed position and then fit everything into it.

    Brooks is a great example. I actually watched the dude play for the US and for Wolfsburg -- I saw him getting released, dropping down and not getting PT coming. You were and still are trumpeting him as this amazing player when he's always been extremely erratic defensively.

    You just made a list a day ago claiming some dude was killing it and he's not playing. You gather lists of names off the internet and hype them up.

    If you were evaluating the players, you'd talk the players, not say "MLS players don't measure up."

    You pick and choose data points to fit your narrative, and it's readily clear to me that you don't watch a lot of these players you pimp.
     
  9. rgli13

    rgli13 Member+

    Mar 23, 2005
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    i didnt say anything about rotating heavily (in terms of x different starters from the game before), im talking about using our subs to manage the fatigue that did us in here.

    im not married to any "the subs come too late" beliefs, but we subbed weah, and musah, and etc. routinely. they didnt play 90/82/90 in three match windows.
     
  10. adam tash

    adam tash Member+

    Jul 12, 2013
    Barcelona, Spain
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    ive watched brooks play dozens of games. he is better than zimmerman. always and forever. form is temporary. class is permanent.

    yeah he did have moments where he lapsed defensively. but he was and is a big game player. great copa america. great world cup etc. zimmerman flopped in qatar. face it.

    if an MLS player was good enough, I would recognize it. ggg's pets weren't. it was nauseating watching him dig so deep into the MLS pool and come up empty handed in his quest for domestic adequacy.
     
  11. thedukeofsoccer

    thedukeofsoccer Member+

    Jul 11, 2004
    Wussconsin
    Club:
    AFC Ajax
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yea, that team got awful luck when it came to refereeing. That applied to the South Korea, Poland, & Germany matches. Otherwise, who knows, maybe we'd have made the final, given we'd have faced South Korea again in the semis, after getting hosed v. Germany.

    This tourney, the reffing was pretty fair, or we even got some fortune in that regard in the Iran match. If not, we may have been going home at that point. Unlike the '02 team, we hadn't done enough of the business in the group stage already to skate thru on our prior achievements.
     
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  12. nbarbour

    nbarbour Member+

    Jun 19, 2006
    Washington DC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #837 nbarbour, Dec 4, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2022
    The subs against Wales were too late and the wrong type. Scally and Reyna would have helped us retain more possession, also switching to Musah beside Adams to help shore things up. As it happens, Berhalter put in the conservative, defeatist choices and we ended up on the back foot chasing. We ended up with only one point out of the first game and we were chasing the rest of the group stage. Pretty sure any random big soccer poster could’ve managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like Berhalter there.

    Against England, a draw was basically useless. We knew we needed a win against Iran after we were on one point and Iran beat Wales. That was the time to mix things up a bit. Acosta early for Adams would have been a reasonable sub to save his legs and get some attackers on in front of him to go for the win. Reyna and Aaronson early. Pepi and Tillman should have been options at this point. LDLT as well (and if you say he’s not fit/not in form, then why was he there?). England was our game for 2-3 changes in the starting lineup and some early subs to roll the dice. Like I said, the draw basically did nothing for us, and we knew that going in. So yeah, drop that point, who cares?

    Against Iran, it was basically too late as our backs were against the wall due to poor tactics, adjustments, and player selection leading up to it. At some point prior to the Iran game, we needed to give Adams some help with another holding midfield partner (like at Leeds), give Robinson a break from sprinting up and down the left flank, and give Musah a breather. We didn’t. Instead, Berhalter ran folks into ground giving away two points in match day 1 and chasing a point we didn’t need in match day 2.

    None of this is hindsight. Many folks were saying these things on this very board before and during games.
     
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  13. Marko72

    Marko72 Member+

    Aug 30, 2005
    New York
    Good work, but perhaps we give the loudest and most blatant agenda posters a bit too much oxygen.
     
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  14. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    Zimmerman does have a weakness, but he's far from the only one. Ream is shit in the air for a tall guy -- and we almost gave up a goal versus Iran because he failed to win a couple of headers where he had inches on a guy. He's also shit in space -- part of the reason Musah and McKennie played less forward was to protect him.

    Every player has weaknesses, and it's quite alright for the team to accommodate it. McKennie is inconsistent on the touch. Musah gets lost tactically on defense. Adams is not a great passer. Walker isn't as good as these guys, but he made one error this whole World Cup. And we got past it. Pulisic was our best player, and he completely whiffed on a goal that would have changed the Netherlands game completely and we never overcame it.

    You want Walker to be shit, so you are calling him shit. But he's not. Just like Jedi, Adams and Dest aren't shit but they absolutely are at fault for those goals. Hell, Turner is SCREAMING at Jedi to cover the dude and he doesn't move.

    And oh, by the way, this all cascades together -- one of the reasons why blocking the fullbacks worked so well? Because our midfield, and Adams in particular, are easily marked and couldn't execute the passing needed to break it like the Dutch did on our goal. If we had Frenkie de Jong, I'm not sure LVG tries that.

    It doesn't mean Adams suck, btw. But he had a poor game against the Netherlands. Does that mean he can't cut it?
     
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  15. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    Of course, the metric is never "were they ever in the domestic league" the metric is "was the domestic league their peak. League transfers are often a lagging indicator as moves can't be done mid-hot-streak often. Many of Portugal's, Brazil's or Argentina's players at one point played in the domestic league, but well more than half of Portugal/Brazil/Argie players play in the "big 4 (5)" now and some of those still in domestic leagues will move (or are headed out by stepping down.) Ditto Brazil and Argentina. It's not MLS, it's "is MLS the top for a player, and if so, why?"
     
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  16. MayaDempsey

    MayaDempsey Member+

    Jul 29, 2014
    Club:
    Michigan Bucks
    Long was found wanting internationally, Miles wasn’t. The fact that the staff didn’t see that is totally unrelated to the quality of MLS so there’s no need to discount based on it…in this instance. I do dislike Camp Cupcake though because it sets up a predisposition toward MLS players. The predisposition doesn’t always dictate roster slots (see Pepi v. Haji) but it does limit opportunities to integrate (see Scally).
     
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  17. Marko72

    Marko72 Member+

    Aug 30, 2005
    New York
    Adams was excellent, verging on great, I'd say, for three games, and unfortunately poor yesterday. I think he just ran into the wall of how much energy he could expend, and the Dutch scheme confused him a bit. We weren't terribly well-prepared.
     
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  18. adam tash

    adam tash Member+

    Jul 12, 2013
    Barcelona, Spain
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    but there was a pattern of holding on so hard to inadequate MLS all cycle LONG. it wasn't just long by any means. it was arriola, lletget, bradley, yueill, trapp, lovitz, ferreira, morris, zardes, ...all these players had zero chance of doing anything positive in qatar from day 1...it was obvious.
     
  19. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    Agree. I'm trying to separate straight results as much as I can. Ghana was an easier opponent than Brazil in '94, Belgium in 2014 or The Netherlands here in 2022, I think, but I think we probably we the better team there, or at least deserved a tie in a non-knockout.

    That team wasn't the best it could have been without injuries ... Davies, Holden and Onyewu all suffered some pretty terrible injuries coming in. Like this team, there wasn't the depth so we had guys like Edson Buddle and Ricardo Clark.

    If you had everyone -- Davies, Altidore, prime Dempsey & Donovan & Beasley, young Michael, Edu, Onyewu, Holden, veteran Boca, Cherundolo, DeMerit, etc. And of course, Howard.
     
  20. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    Sure.

    My point isn't that Adams sucks. It's that Zimmerman made one mistake; that doesn't mean he was bad.
     
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  21. Marko72

    Marko72 Member+

    Aug 30, 2005
    New York
    That team played well and created chances (and actually finished chances occasionally!), but they never controlled the pitch and the pace of the match the way that this team does, though. This is a better team, albeit a team that has a harder time finishing with any regularity.
     
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  22. adam tash

    adam tash Member+

    Jul 12, 2013
    Barcelona, Spain
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    1599259646623350784 is not a valid tweet id


    USMNT lead the tourney by far in number of crosses......

    Also, interestig to note that the only teams that had as many or more corner kicks than the USMNT were: germany, france, brazil, argentina.
     
  23. theboogeyman

    theboogeyman Member+

    Jun 21, 2010
    Yeah I think camp cupcake held more use when we had more MLSers who were clear first teamers. I think that moving forward, it can still be used, but it should be focused on identifying young players who might be good enough for the senior team. For example, I’m excited to see guys like Tolkin and McGlynn get chances soon.

    As for league affiliation, it’s a decent starting point for consideration, but there are clearly always exceptions. Center backs being an obvious example this cycle.

    I will also add that I think we overstate how good some of the second-tier European leagues are. We have several guys doing well in Belgium, but it hasn’t really made them better than mls players. That includes McKenzie and Vines now, but also includes guys like Kljestan and Miazga from the past.

    Club performance (including league affiliation) get guys a look, but at the end of the day, performance with the national team is all that matters.
     
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  24. MayaDempsey

    MayaDempsey Member+

    Jul 29, 2014
    Club:
    Michigan Bucks
    Jordan Morris was on his way to success in England prior to blowing out his knee again. I think you underrate him based on league.
     
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  25. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    I know what you are saying, but I don't want to overrate pitch control and possession relative to actual scoring.

    Club badges are all well and good and so is dribbling, but it is hard for me to envision Landon or Clint missing a lot of these opportunities. I'd call that small sample size bias but they largely came up big over their careers.

    We can nitpick back and forth. I could be convinced either way. But I think they are in the ballpark and the 2010 crew I think is superior to 2014 and 2002.
     

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