Is that the Hajj Wright poor touch? I can't bring myself to see that as a lost goal when he scored the weird one a minute later. Hard to imagine that heel "flick" goal happening if Wright scored the first chance and then NED restarts with a kick-off.
It's way off topic, but the pushing forward of Gonzalez is what irks people, and no, it didn't make since. Omar was, is, and never will be a DM. If he got subbed in to play like Zimmerman, head the ball the F out, maybe he's back there and does, instead of being further up field than Jones in your picture there, out moving out to chase Ronaldo. Dumb.
I said that before the games so it counts more. . I also think we might have done better against England had we seen them first but hard to argue with how we played against them and they might have played differently had they not just destroyed Iran. I just come back to the fact that I thought we were embarrassed by the Netherlands- we didn’t lose because of fatigue - we lost because they were men and we were boys. We need to get stronger in possession, in the tackle and much better in first touch and passing.
You know a lot of stuff irks people, much of it is not based in reality. Omar was never asked to play DM, he was brought in as a CCB to win headers. The important point in that pic is even Yedlin's tactical poor choice earlier, even with with MB90's failure to secure a simple lofted ball with zero pressure we still had numbers advantage on the transition. The last player error issue; Look at everyone's eyes, they are all ball watching except for JJ who is actually focused on tracking Nani.
Baloney. First, there are thousands of videos we can find of players beating the keeper in this situation. Second, Pulisic doesn't need to "round the keeper". He just needs to score. Those are two different things. He just needs to move the keeper one way with a feint and slot the ball in the corner. Third, what Pulisic did do was wholly ineffective. He can do better, and so can any other attacking player at this World Cup.
Thank you, OWN(yewu)ED! I've been wondering who we have coming through the pipeline at center back and worrying that there were no prospects on the horizon. These guys all sound promising. I'm hopefully we'll have a sturdy center back pairing for the 2026 WC.
Best analysis I've heard todate. Start at minute 2:21, ends 7:38. Would only quibble with first point made about Pulisic having to score. With a lob like Adams made to Pulisic, there's time for the keeper to take up an ideal position which this keeper did. Pulisic was missing power and sharpness due to the knock he took v. Iran. I'm leaving him off the hook on this one. Otherwise, I'd say this stuff cuts to the chase and nails the salient points of this match. Excellent analysis, 2'21" to 7'38". "Athleticism v. football". Next manager needs to avoid that trap. I love the expression on the faces of the Brits as Heath takes over at 7:38 or so. They're like 'uh, yeah, sure, yeah, " (strokes chin). We've got a long way to go
And if worms had machine guns birds would be afraid of them. He made a split second decision that wasn’t unreasonable and he left it in the middle. He rounded Courtois in the CL semi-final by being calmer than most would have been, so he can definitely do it….but Courtois got his hand on the ball before he scored. Game of inches.
His 2002 strike against SK is all you need to see for his greatness on the world stage, and that got us the point to get out of that group and make it to the quarters. Stop talking about Mathis "what ifs" - and recognize how exceptional that goal actually was.
I know he can do it. Who can forget his brilliance and calmness against Real Madrid? That makes it all the more disappointing, and also reminds us of how mediocre he has been since then.
Don't let your facts get in the way of my story here. Okay, I got one thing right, Beasley being the only thing between Ronaldo and the goalie is probably a bad idea. The rest of it was the product of my colorful imagination and unreliable memory lol, at least in terms of the #'s of defenders anyway.
Thierry Henry was a brilliant player. God given talent. It is really rare for a player like that to bea bale to mentor, coach, evaluate... They see it differently than most people.
This kind of thing is almost always the case. Tight games are the nature of the sport. They don’t get credit from me for being this or that away from a different result.
Heck, we just needed more games period together. There were multiple important players out for every freaking window it seemed. How are the players going to build any continuity like that?
Upon (painful) rewatch, a couple things... - 1 of the reasons the MF & fb's are tired is they have a poor touch, pass control, or decision; then need to scramble to win it back, followed by a hero run. If they just got it right initially, that's little energy expenditure. It's 1 flaw in this midfield, which hopefully improves over time. - Ferreira's actually more involved than I remembered and had numerous moderately positive moments in the press, or possession (deft 1 touch layoffs and runs after). 1 problem was the same as always - he's small so a non target. Another was in this current form he's bashful in the final 3rd, to squander those oppos. And then he had 1-2 uncharacteristic moments of confusion leading to a TO that I maybe chalk up to not playing for a while. These things more than offset his positives because they were more important moments. That said, he wasn't a total disaster like I previously thought, and as an int'l scout, maybe if you contextualize, you still see something as a player for present or future, if not necessarily as a 9. - Ream really fell back to Earth. He was a step slow thru much of the night. And he was forcing passes. The CM's and FB's were the main problems, but he was also 1, leading to the law of diminishing returns w/ our defense. This is the 1st match where I think we were hurt by Miles' injury leading to Ream starting (he'd been a rock up until this match). Though maybe it'd have been Miles + Ream. So it may have been a wash. Because Zimm played pretty well.
Actually, you can find 3 videos of the 3 Dutch goals and compare them in terms of difficulty in finishing vis a vis Pulisic's effort. How about our keeper's positioning vis a vis the Dutch GK's? Which of those 4 chances would you prefer from the goal scorer's point of view? How about McKennie's wondo-rous miss?
How much of Reams's difficulty was due to Berhalter not adjusting to LVG's tactics? Put yourself in Ream's position: He has the ball at this feet, the opponent is inviting him forward but their 2 forwards are positioning purely to cut off the passing lane to Ream's fullbacks. There's basically 3 mids to pass to who are being man marked by the Dutch mids. It's mano a mano and our mids are not showing for the ball. Do you really think Ream can't pass? Bottom line is MMA can't hack it in the big leagues. Remember USA v. Japan in September? Remember Wales friendly 0-0? The solution was to start Aaronson in CAM instead of Ferreira and let him do his thing picking the ball up from Adams. They do it every week v. Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham et al. Why not v. the Dutch? I still haven't heard an explanation other than "Aaronson stinks" and the like based on Aaronson coming on in every game state except a 0-0 start.