U.S. U20 March 2023 Friendlies: PBP When Available

So that defense needs some work, huh?

 

Paredes and (Owen) Wolff combined on both (outstanding) goals. Here they are.

What a goal from Kevin Paredes for the U20’s against England 😳

(via @USYNT) pic.twitter.com/fmRYARpYmg

— USMNT Only (@usmntonly) March 26, 2023

Building from the back ➡️ lovely finish pic.twitter.com/0nj9CUMzI0

— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) March 26, 2023

Certainly (Owen) Wolff has earned a spot on the roster, and imo he should start. I'm flirting w/ the idea of an ostensible double-pivot w/ Buck. Buck would be the DLP and guy typically tasked with staying back. While Wolff could be the ball progressor and roving destroyer.

BTW, the 2nd goal was good hold-up by Yapi. We could need that too come the WC. If Pepi's not on the roster, certainly Yapi should be. Maybe both would, if Ricardo was available.

 

4-2 away to England sounds like a decent result. I would like to see the game to be sure.

 

D'oh!

 

There are generally a lot of English tourists in Marbella.

 

Gutierrez had two assists Saturday. In the two games since he started at CAM (Shaqiri is out injured) the Fire have scored 6 goals and he has 3 assists. Lots of talk locally that he should force a healthy Shaqiri to the wing, or the bench. At that level of production I doubt Gutierrez gets released.

 

Shaqiri is a ball progressor at this point anyway. He's not a goal creator. The issue is that your other CM is also a weak ass defender, which anyone should have seen coming a mile away.

I don't know what Gaston Gimenez has on Heitz, but the latter, despite all his history, probably needs to go because I don't understand how anyone thought a midfield of Shaqiri and Gimenez was going to work.

But Gutierrez is such a good and smarter passer, and he makes great runs. Honestly, he has a lot in common with Djordje Mihailovic, who the Fire traded away, except he's doing it much younger, and I think he's a bit of a better dribbler.

 

Neither Guti, nor Shaqiri is effective tracking back so they need a terrier at the #6. Fede Navarro fills the bill, but he thinks he's an #8, not a #6.

Don't start Fire fans on Gimenez! It gets ugly fast.

You're the 3rd guy I've seen today making the Guti-Djordje comparison. Maybe Guti can grow from 2022 to 2023 the way Djordje grew from 2021 to 2022. Guti still gets bodied easily.

 

Yeah, he's young and he's an attacking mid. He needs to learn to track back, press and play D -- not doing that will limit him and where he can play. But that shouldn't be his focus.

The Guti-Djordje comparison is kind of lazy ... but here's what I like about it. Most 10s are pretty dribbly and they do a ton of damage off the dribble. Neither DM nor Guti are that guy. They can dribble on the break, but off a standstill just isn't super effective.

What they are really good at is picking out an incisive pass. DM was master of the through ball at Montreal, and he added in his second breakout year some nearly nice off ball runs into the box for goalscoring.

Guti makes great runs already, if not as many. He's also a fantastic passer and a very smart one. And he has better ball control than Mihailovic at the same age. He doesn't quite do as well in traffic or see the lines as well against a set defense, because DM got so good at that in Montreal, but you can see it happening.

I don't know his ceiling, because it's kind of unusual set of skills, but I really like his game

 

Kind of an interesting discussion because soccer runs in circles. Years ago the #10 was the guy who made incisive passes for easy shots (think Valderamma) while the dribble guy was probably the off forward. When teams changed to 4-3-3's the #10 mostly went away replaced by two 8's of one or both has some #10 skills but also play a lot better defense than any (or I should say almost all) #10 did back then. Is this the cycle where 4-4-2 diamonds and 3-5-2's come back as the main formations? I do know one thing and that's like New England in football there's a ton of great players available cheaply if you don't play the prevailing popular style and a smart club would look for coaches willing to play differently and use players who fit off styles. The rich boys can buy all the expensive players who play the in fashion styles.

 

The 10 never really went out of style in MLS, but I don't know if the old school type ever completely comes back at the highest levels.

I don't mean to say the formation can't come back... but I think the sort of "single offensive fulcrum" type -- perhaps with crappy defense -- is just really unlikely with the current economic climate. The best players get funnelled to a few teams instead of distributed, and teams with overwhelming talent tend to both play wide and distribute offensive responsibilities because they can.

There aren't that many guys who can play it at that level, and they tend to get hoarded. And there aren't that many teams at the top level who play all that offensively.

I could see a niche for more counterattacking 10s -- like Almada. He'll probably go to a bigger team and be shifted to the wing. But if he went to a counter team that played a 442 or something made to punch back up the middle, he could be pretty good.

At the younger levels or in MLS, though, I like it for developmental reasons. You can always move them around if they have that kind of talent. (But they do have to defend).

 

Something that every developmental academy should be teaching kids from day 1. Too many seem surprised years later when they are a talented offensive player that can't find a team that will play them.

 

Or back to the players we used for qualifying and stop introducing weird players that don’t fit the system like Yapi and Wynder

 

Also that HT sub is confusing, Cuevas off...then who's the right back/wing back?

 

Wolff, maybe?

Looks like we went 3 ATB because we were sick of giving up four goals.