Yeah, Booth is not unique, I'm sure, and it's not a bad look if you've got the calves for it. Again, to me, it just seems a bit odd. Either socks have to be pulled up (or not), full-sized shin guards have to be worn (or not). I guess what I find odd is if this were just left up to the players' personal preferences.
I think most of us learned (the hard way) the value of shin guards, even in practice or a friendly scrimmage, let alone in competitive action.
The only people who are down on Jedi are those who as Bruce Arena often says, just don't understand the game.
Again, you’re being obtuse for the sake of an argument and missing the larger point. Our roster is MUCH more accomplished than El Salvador. Nitpicking my statements is not necessary. You said it yourself, the talent gap is significant. If we look at 538’s club rankings system — just one way to rank clubs and admittedly a subjective standard — there are exactly 3 El Salvadoran players who are even on a roster of 641 clubs. Only one has significant appearances at the MLS level, which range from 118 to 486. The vast majority of the ES roster is playing in the domestic league which doesn’t have a single team in the 641. On the other hand, every single one of the US roster has significant appearances with clubs in the top 641. Even a club like Leeds is ranked 70, Celta Vigo 31, Valencia 74, etc. There is absolutely no doubt that there is a massive disparity in the quality of players between the two sides. Yes, scouting is not perfect, there may be some gems in lower leagues and clubs, but I think we can generally agree that clubs are scouring the globe for talent and are pretty efficient at finding it. Your assertion that ES players are far better than we’d like to admit and our players are not as good as we think… It’s true, we don’t have an Mbappe. And it’s hard for us to score. Why is that? Is it that our talent levels are low? Or is it coaching, organizational dysfunction, poor scouting, poor tactical preparation, conditioning, or what? It is easier to defend in a low block, and particularly when it’s two teams that have similar talent levels. But at a certain point, when the talent disparity is so wide, there should be a bit more quality chances on goal. I have this image of you sitting back with your ascot and craft old fashioned looking down your nose at anyone who has an opinion different from yours, watching the match and completely content with losses to T&T, Panama, and other minnows. I’ve lived a fair amount overseas and I can assure you, the French, Brazilians, English, Spain, the Dutch, Germans, they all expect excellence from their national teams. Mindset is incredibly important, and if you represent the American soccer mindset, I find that disturbing. I’m not expecting the USMNT to destroy the Panamas, Honduras, Guatemala every single time out. There will be the odd bad result. But given the history of this program, when are we going to be introspective enough to admit that we’ve played well below our capability in Concacaf and make significant changes to an organization that we are supporting by buying jerseys, attending games, our children playing youth soccer, etc. Having our say and airing our opinions on a forum are part of that feedback.
I'm not being obtuse. I'm being specific and analytical. I don't think that's accurate at all. I really don't think we've played well below our capability in CONCACAF. You ever say it yourself: "I’m not expecting the USMNT to destroy the Panamas, Honduras, Guatemala every single time out. There will be the odd bad result." I guess I'm missing where we're performing "well below our capability." We have a few bad results to my eye -- losing to Canada in the Nations League, losing at Panama in WCQ, maybe you feel bad about the WCQ loss and tie to Canada though I think that's a tough one to be too angry about. We won the last Gold Cup. We won Nations League. We are headed to the Finals of this Nations League. We were the only CONCACAF team to make it out of the group in the World Cup, and while that was not an overperformance, we certainly aren't one of the 8th most talented teams in the World. Do we reach our full potential? Of course not. But we were a very young team that was riddled with injuries, had to deal with COVID (and more experienced teams were hurt less by that -- we needed more time together), and the worst we can say is ... well, we didn't first first in the Ocho, we don't blow out enough teams and we didn't overperform at the World Cup. How does that necessitate significant changes? I'm not a proponent of everything staying the same, for sure, but this screams evolution not revolution in terms of the senior team. And in terms of player development, too, frankly. What are the significant changes you are wanting to make? How are they precipitated by a win over El Salvador? Yes, and it's a forum, so people are going to respond. Well, take a crack. I'm sure you have some ideas why. Just shouting about accountability and change something doesn't actually work. It's interesting to note, for example, that our xG was much higher in WCQ than our actual Goals -- that doesn't mean we were better, but it does mean that we took shots from places that were much better than our scoring. In my opinion, it's a combination of a bunch of stuff: We are terrible on set pieces. National Teams get 25-40% of their goals regularly from set pieces and we have been basically terrible since really relying on them in summer of '21. Want to take a gander on why we might not be scoring well, especially in bad weather or crap fields? Complete inability to take advantage of it. Why? Oh, it's a combination of stuff -- crap service, player selection to be more skilled and less large, maybe bad plays, no good FK takers (our best one was injured). We brought in a specialist and it did jack shit. I'd love to improve this, but I have no idea how aside from having a few bigger guys on the field and changing from Christian. We are terrible decision makers in transition. Maybe a better coach can train transition better, but a big part of it is that we have a group of guys who really like to dribble more than they like to pass. Go back and watch our transition attempts in the World Cup. Aside from the one Weah goal ... they are disasters. We don't have any really good strikers or finishers. There's a lot of national teams with our issue, actually; high level scorers are hard to find. Pepi and Reyna may change that. Balogun may change that. But look at even the guys you've listed -- even when they were playing, there's not a ton of goal production. We've definitely traded offense for defense at times. Tactically, we were incredibly defensively sound and continually made choices to protect that. A lot of people don't like this. YMMV. I am definitely not an expert enough to know if smaller tactical choices also were an issue -- I don't have the knowledge either of what works or what we wanted to do to know if things are executional or tactical. That all said ... our offense wasn't really that bad. Unless your expectations are that we should be blowing teams out. Yes, we only beat El Salvador 1-0, but we beat Panama 5-1 and Honduras 3-0 at home. So the bottom half of the Ocho we won 9-1 at home over three games. Is that terrible? Toss in CR, and it's still 11-2, right? For non-Mexico, non-Canada teams. How much of our underperformance offensively was set pieces? Like, maybe up to half? How much was a young team struggling on the road? Most of the core team only played about half of the Ocho -- Reyna missed most of it, Dest played about half, Wes missed about half, Pulisic had his injuries, etc. If you adjust for these things ... I still don't think the offense was great. But I'm not entirely sure it was this unmitigated disaster that's implied. I'm perfectly willing to be wrong here. I'd like a new coach that can help solves some of these issues. But I don't think there's a massive Federation problem here. And I don't think it's beyond the pale to think that maybe we're overrating some of our guys in terms of putting the ball in the net. And I really get personally tired of unspecific complaints. Every single word of crap like this is tired. From your ridiculous projection on me to the idea that the gap between us and Brazil is merely expectations, to the weak attempt at a personal insult. My mindset is fine. In everything in life, when I see a problem, I analyze it, try to identify a root cause, and then work on specific, actionable things to improve it. I've worked on a lot of problems, and never have I ever seen people simply demanding excellence actually work. You need a plan that is based on reality and facts, and you need to execute against it. And if you spend your ranting about unrealistic things or focusing on the impossible, you don't accomplish much. That's my experience. Effective change is nearly always incremental.
Maybe he just likes pain and is hoping to get kicked. I do find it hard to believe that players use such tiny shin guards. They provide no protection to speak of and, contrary to many people's belief, do not really increase comfort or make you faster. I played for many years, but it was as a goalkeeper so maybe field players simply got kicked more than I. I do not remember even one time I was kicked in the shin and I never felt the need to put myself in unnecessary jeopardy like many of these "minimalist" players seem to want to do. I also coached youth for many many years and not even one of the kids said their shin guards were uncomfortable. I feel about shin guards in soccer a bit like I do about helmets in hockey. They are important protection and players that ignore available protection are showing a marked lack of intelligence.
The thing is most of the changes that one can make are things that have an impact in the long term or short term. We can improve our developmental system to improve our player pool and we can improve our coaching development. But even if we took steps to do both, it would take time for those efforts to come to fruition. But there’s no coach that we can hire who will suddenly turn us into Brazil or Argentina.
I think Grealish does it to help retain ball control and actually draw the foul. I agree with you .. but Jack the Lad has turned it into an art form.
Zendejas———Pepi————Arriola ——————-Ferreira—————— ————Acosta—-McKennie——— Cannon—————————Reynolds ————Richards—Zim————— —————Hollingshead————-
On second viewing - saw most of it - what struck me was that the gulf in talent between Gio and the other mids/fb's was wider than the Pacific Ocean and he was actually good defensively. TacManager said he was the biggest winner this camp. He was at the game and he remarked on how much better the atmosphere was among teammates than it had been during the Berhalter tenure. I wish Gio had the opportunity to play with Scally/Aaronson, plus Pepi, of course. For the Aaronson haters, check out minute 78' on the game clock. Aaronson gets decked. You'll love it.
McKennie Everyone just take a look at Weston McKennie’s performance against El Salvador last game. He was cooking pic.twitter.com/6Fo1YXaT2F— Sanjiv (@USMNTvideos) March 29, 2023 Reyna Gio Reyna vs El Salvador March 2023 pic.twitter.com/YG6r0WflOl— alden ⚖️ (@aldeneats) March 29, 2023 Miles Robinson 1640933533421117442 is not a valid tweet id Pepi Ricardo Pepi vs El Salvador 3/27/23 (1 GOAL) pic.twitter.com/cM91QwueQz— USMNT Comps (@USMNTComps) March 28, 2023 Booth
Unless you're Messi or Ronaldo EVERY player in soccer is a "support" player. It's a team game. The problem with the US the last 20 years has been trying to build the team around our "best" player. And we haven't gotten past the second round of a WC since. The world has figured Pulisic out. Surround him with 2-3 guys, don't let him get started dribbling, and if he slips through, foul him. CP is too one-dimensional to adjust. It's too predictable ... and slow. Build your team around that and we go nowhere. The same thinking is behind everyone's pining for a #9. Norway and Poland have the best #9s in the world and still struggle to score. We need more creativity and soccer IQ across the lineup, but especially in midfield ... period. I could care less what their role is at club level or even what club they're at. /end counter theory rant.
... Btw, we need a coach with the gravitas to look Pulisic in eye and tell him that he's not taking corners or free kicks anymore.
It was pretty wide…I mean McKennie was so much better that it’s hard to even put the two guys in the same paragraph.
I mean, that is one way to counter it, but I think that's reductive of a lot of player. There's been countless players who have regularly taken games over that teams and fans look to/expect to pull off something to get the needed goal(s). I mention Donovan and Dempsey because they were that guy for Galaxy and Fulham and it transferred to USA. It definitely goes beyond Messi and Ronaldo. Shoot, look at Mbappe in the last final. Aspas for Celta Vigo is another example. Ronaldo and Messi were seldom the only "that guy". Ronaldo had guys like Rooney, Bale, & Modric while Messi has had Neymar, Suarez, Xavi & Iniesta. Big teams have multiple guys who sometimes take "support" roles. Now, neither could singlehandedly win a World Cup because you need better support for that. You still need good support players. Sometimes "that guy" is going to fail but he is still there. But we aren't talking about the World Cup, we're talking about El Salvador. If Pulisic is too easy to stop, then he isn't "that guy". Not yet. And it doesn't have to be the goal scorer. Gerrard and Modric often lift(ed) their teams without necessarily getting the goal or assist.
This is some rose tinted viewing. Gio played the 10 for 73 minutes against El Salvador and his most dangerous plays were two shots he probably shouldn't have taken. He didn't even get a key pass. It was an OK performance. If Hudson just wanted another shuttler in the midfield, he should have started LDLT.
I actually think Pulisic has adjusted well many, many times. Whether at Chelsea or for the US, he's really good at making the back post run, really great at making high runs from midfield for overhead balls, and pretty good at the sort of give and go at the edge of the box. The problem is that he (and the rest of the US team) seems to need to learn this lesson way too often. He didn't try to dribble the world at the World Cup and he was super effective. He played team ball, and aside from missing a couple of passes on the break, was really, really good. But then one good game against Grenada and we get a half of him trying to do it all again. It should be that difficult to see more than one defender, and to find the open man rather than attacking it, but there's this periodic reversion. He actually has really good off ball movement and work rate in attack. I think Scuffed said it best -- on his big goal against Iran in the World Cup, a player like Gio Reyna doesn't make that run -- he's coming from very far away and starts his sprint a long time before he knows there's a real play. Not a lot of guys do.
Isn't it funny that El Salvador and their coach get plaudits from many US fans for doing exactly this when they play us yet when we do it against better teams than us it gets criticized?
Honestly, when did any such criticism happen? When Berhalter came in his mantra was "we are going to use the ball to unbalance our opponents and score goals". He never said we were going to be Greece and defend first at all cost. The majority of the fanbase was onboard and in fact many of GB's controversial selection decisions were rationalized by the explainers as serving the "using the ball...". Now there seems to be a full blown attempt to spin Berhalter as some kind of tactical defensive coach. It's revisionism and I am not buying it and neither are most fans.
I think the issue with Gregg is a lot of times he says things that don't match what he does. Now personally I do think some of what he said that caused uproar were taken too seriously when they were just coach speech but that's somewhat of a different topic. I will say though, with all due respect to Hugo Perez, the reverence some in thr US fanbase have for him on social media does confuse me a bit. Not trying to downplay anything he's done with El Salvadore but I also don't see anything that makes me think he'd be a great manager for the US... especially when by Hugo's own admission he gets a lot of questions for how he coaches back in El Salvador
I wandered in today sarcastically wondering what we could possibly be talking about on page 10 of the El Sal post match analysis... Itty bitty shin guards Bigsoccer, you do not disappoint.
I'm amazed that nobody has talked about how this team has yet again underperformed xG. This is an ongoing topic that I am tracking and for which I have some thoughts.
The number I saw was like 1.58? And about .5 of that was the Pulisic header which... yes, a header from there is usually a goal if you get it fully, but Pulisic wasn't getting that pass fully. Would be curious to hear your thoughts in general.