Ugh! I have rarely seen the US lose the physical battle quite that badly. Bunch of real lightweights out there. Aaronsson was the worst, weak in the tackle, weak on the ball, and weakly shooting. And it's not we showed a whole bunch of skill to make up for it. Some of the worst midfield "playmaking" I've ever seen from a US team. At our set pieces continued to result in absolutely no goals.
Our corners were very good, free kicks not bad. Aaronson is 19 who is still growing. Just too young to play with Colombian MNT. On U-20 YNT, while playing with kids of his age, he is way better than Cowell, not even close. But Cowell is ready to play with adults and Paxten isn't, but at least he was fighting. What our "strong" midfielder Williamson was doing, and why he was mostly invisible is another question.
I didn’t think Paxten was all that bad. Maybe not yet ready for prime time, but you can see that the tools are there. I was mostly impressed with Matthew Hoppe tonight. He had some bad plays....sure.... but I thought he offered something unique with his speed, size, and tenacity. It surprises me that he can’t figure things out with his club. But he’s still young. And I don’t think we should write him off yet. Paul Arriola was dynamic tonight. Ferreira had some moments that made you hold your breath but he wasn’t special. Vazquez wasn’t able to find the game tonight. But he’s still worth calling up the next time. DeJuan Jones could be a decent depth player. I really want to see Tolkin with the big boys. Long and Zimmerman were kind of meh. Acosta was good on set pieces but he was kind of meh the rest of the time. Williamson and Sonora were both mostly invisible. Gressel wasn’t on the field long enough to impress. I thought Neal and Rogers looked like they had some promise.
I know Aaronson is young so i'll cut him slack. but he got pushed off every ball he had, probably around 85% of the time. I actually thought Hoppe showed a bit better, he definitely should have squared the ball to the post but he had several good passes in the box to others including Aaronson that missed. Hoppe was better at connecting than I remembered. He needs to find playing time. he's only 21 so there's still hoppe for him Neal looked pretty good in his time. Once again I felt there was no connection through the upper mid field, much like vs Serbia. I would have liked to have seen Cowell come in for Hoppe around the 75th minute or so. This game was really sloppy, Long was bad I thought. Zimmerman wasn't much better. For our two most experienced guys on the pitch they didn't show. Jones showed some positives. I would have liked to have seen more of Sabbi. Tolkin looked good. He looked incredibly nervous before the match during the anthem but once he settled about 10 minutes in he played well. I'll have to rewatch it to mention much more I think.
January camp is almost always going to be something we have to suffer thru to extract bits of info. That's why the last match was a breath of fresh air in this regard. This game was more the norm. Just speaking about this match, not the camp: *Vazquez - had moments in spite of a terrible midfield, looked the part in context again *Tolkin - fantastic given the high degree of difficulty of his job, outstanding rotating on d, tough in challenges, some negative passing but also nice escapes and longer balls *Jones - drop-off from last 1, but 2-footed w/ some nice escapes, when he made mistakes he recovered, mf couldn't allow him to get high much where he does damage * Ferreira - he did well if you don't view him as a 9, passing and pressing * E-Will - he's stop-start, but helps progression & has moments in d, he's very much like flawed cm's below our starters *Hoppe - some people seem impressed he tries, but he's got some of the most extreme tunnel vision we've seen, not good or even average right now *Sonora - very non-descript play again *Aaronson - he was pretty brutal, pushed around, slow/bad decisions, not a cm, long way to go *Sabbi - 1 of the worst performances in our shirt, nothing new for him across levels
No one behind the front line will be making a serious push for the full team any time soon, I don't think.
Tolkin's better than any lb we've been playing, outside of ARob. He's got excellent d awareness, poise, can win some physical battles, and play out of trouble along the sideline which is very important for a fb. W/ moderate improvement in age I could see him surpass ARob. As for Jones, he's got some escapability in possession. And when he makes a mistake, he has the recovery speed to fix it. He can recover for others. Dangerous taking on guys and getting in targeted crosses in the final 3rd. At worst he could be the 5th fb who covers both sides. Even when it comes to the CM's, the bar's really low for someone like Morris or E-Will to potentially be able to clear it and make the 2-deep at one of those positions. So I think you're being hyperbolic.
Some of results of this window are more damning than others. When it comes to our midfield being invisible, at least Aaronson has excuses. 19, tiny, not even a CM, but at least he was near the ball enough to be pushed off it. What were Williamsons and Sonora's excuses? Those are two grown as men playing in real leagues who couldn't be bothered to control the ball or drive forward. Acosta too, but we all know who he is at this point. I can't believe Williamson has a fanclub in the "paid by MLS" circles. And in the first game, Pomykal and Morris weren't much better, but at least if you squint hard enough you can pretend they are still young and have promise.
The only hesitation I have with Tolkien is that I don't think he took a touch in the final third all game? At least I can't remember one. I know there can be many reasons for that and I'm not dumping on him but he certainly didn't look interested in pushing forward at all. He was pretty sturdy in defense and held his own. But that just makes him a 19 year old Sam Vines. But compared to all other players in this camp, he certainly came out looking like one of the best.
I'm a Tolkin supporter. His first test didn't go that well. His tools are borderline. Jones wasn't bad, but he's not putting a lot of pressure on anyone ahead of him yet. Neither Morris nor Williamson are anywhere near putting any pressure on anyone. The game got significantly better once Soñora replaced Williamson.
Colombian player: I have speed. Arriola: Me too. Colombian player: I work very hard. Arriola: Me too. Colombian player: I have skill. Arriola: eh P. Aaronson: I have skill too. Colombian player: I have muscle. P. Aaronson: eh Cade Cowell: I have muscle too. Can I play, Coach?
I think you're really not contextualizing he had to hang back to hold Long's hand, as we've seen before from our fb's. He managed to escape out of some really tough situations to maintain possession for the team. Occasionally found a forward runner astutely. Won 50-50's. Rotated to snuff out danger. That's a strong performance on a team who was being overrun. He wasn't one of the reasons before it. The cream that rose to the top of the swamp water.
Vines isn't nearly as strong of a ball-winner, such a beast on d rotation, and slick in escaping pressure. That's before they get to the final 3rd. Then Tolkin is a superior crosser from deeper, and more capable of playing slipped balls across the front of the box. As for them not getting to the end line, that was the tactic. The RB was camped much further up when the CB's & GK had the ball. Tolkin's not typically flying up and down the wing to get to the end line, but neither are a lot of big club fb's. Their teams can competently possess & progress like our a-team though.
I am. Apart from a bad giveaway early in the game, Long was actually solid in the back. Tolkin, on the other hand, could barely hold his own 1v1. That isn't Long, or anyone else you want to blame it on. Tolkin is... more borderline than I thought he'd be. Then again, these Colombians were pretty good for C-level players.
My take -- Hoppe is awful. Seriously. 2 games of an absolute dumpster fire from him. That was a huge takeaway for me over these 2 games.
Was about to say am I the only one that isn’t surprised Hoppe isn’t playing at his clubs? he is almost good at a number of things but isn’t good at them at the end of the day. That said, he could be a pick up for some MLS teams. aaronson looks like he should have been with u-20 team. jones lacks top level touch but looks like a good depth defensive piece.
Davis, Pearce, and Conrad hated Hoppe and liked Aaronson acknowledging that he needs to learn more though. Liked Vasquez and Zendejas and kind of Tolkin.
Hoppe and Aaronson were holding the ball too long and the ref wasn't calling fouls on an aggressive Colombian defense. Hoppe not rolling it across to Arriola for the tap in was disappointing. The outside backs were solid. Soñora was a nice calm presence in midfield. I'm looking forward to watching Neal in MLS. I wasn't expecting to enjoy these 2 games; fun seeing all the new faces.
I've read a lot of comments that this camp was a waste, that many of the players called in should never have been there, etc. Actually, any camp with whatever players that are there can serve a purpose. Coaches always learn something. I also believe that although the purpose of the camp is strictly about the USMNT there are byproducts of players being here such as being in the shop window. So for someone like Hoppe perhaps an MLS club might take a flyer on him. You want to cast the net as wide as possible in the January camp and call in players that for various reasons weren't previously called in. I remember several years ago certain fans wanting to see Sabbi. Well, he got his chance and now the staff knows that they'll move on from him. With Mikey Varas in camp it provided an opportunity to see a few of his U20 players to see where they're at relative to the older players. I'm guessing that he's satisfied with how Neal has progressed and feels some confidence that he can cope at the U20 WC, esp. if he gets playing time with the Galaxy first. The coaches realize that he's a "project" for the full USMNT roster but will probably tell him to keep grinding because his time might come sooner than he thinks. They'll know that Paxten needs work to beef up physically before he can get serious looks with the full team, but that he has some good qualities worth monitoring. Probably no player showed enough to where the staff could say that he's a definite call up from here on, but several did show that they're worth monitoring with the hope that they show enough growth to warrant a call up with the main guys.