PBP: 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup: USA vs. Colombia, 6/10 3:30 AM EST

Discussion in 'Youth National Teams' started by ussoccer97531, Jun 5, 2015.

  1. deejay

    deejay Member+

    Feb 14, 2000
    Tarpon Springs, FL
    Club:
    Jorge Wilstermann
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    That's because our team is actually a good bit younger than the Colombian team. They're primarily 95's. Not so our team.
     
  2. ArsenalMetro

    ArsenalMetro Member+

    United States
    Aug 5, 2008
    Chicago, IL
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    If he hadn't been penalized for the foul, he would have been penalized for the reaction. You can't run off, kick the ad boards, then go scream in the ref's face and not expect a yellow and more. Even if he wasn't on a yellow already, he could have been sent off. Graham Poll would have happily given him 3 yellow cards.

    I get that he's young, but that was a hugely unprofessional reaction. I stand by that.
     
    ussoccer97531 repped this.
  3. Peter Bonetti

    Peter Bonetti Member+

    Jan 1, 2005
    1970 WC Quarterfinal
    Barcelona have a small midfield as well. They are a small team, but they play their best players and teach them to force the other team to react to Barcelona's strengths. THAT is the problem. Our players aren't yet good enough at what they do well to force a good team to react to US instead of vice versa. Soccer is about taking whatever you do well and doing it so well that others cannot keep up with you. We need to be careful not to pigeon hole ourselves into playing big guys if our better players are smaller. Let's focus on making our best players better instead of throwing out big players onto the pitch whether or not they deserve to be there. That is the problem with all age specific contests - people want to go with the bigger, faster developers so that they can win the game in front of them, even if these kids are not strong pro prospects.
     
  4. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
    I was responding specifically to your statement that "he has a lot of maturing to do before he's going to be a serviceable professional," but thanks for the clarification.
     
  5. Thegreatwar

    Thegreatwar Member

    Seacoast United
    May 28, 2015
    New Hampshire
    Just starting to watch on DVR. Jamieson hits his head on the ground. Looks bad. Also, my dad complained at the WC about those primitive bucket-type stretchers and how they can actually be dangerous for eg spinal injuries if not strapped down (like w/ Neymar ...) Cobi Jones sucks as an analyst too.
     
  6. Hararea

    Hararea Member+

    Jan 21, 2005
    I stumbled upon a tweet from what appears to be his mom saying he's ok.
     
  7. ussoccer97531

    ussoccer97531 Member+

    Oct 12, 2012
    Club:
    --other--
    I hope Bradford is okay. Is there any update on him?

    I really liked how we played. Credit to Tab. I don't say that much. They were good on the ball and all their players passed it well, but they weren't too good at creating chances and they made a lot of mistakes in the back. That game plan was very good.

    Rubin and Steffen were so clutch. Exactly what you like to see from your best players. Carter-Vickers and Miazga as well were excellent. Very good performances from Arriola and Payne. That right side with those two is really stout.

    Now for the bad, Zelalem had a bad game. Tried too much 1v1 stuff in a game where we didn't have all that much possession. Thats the player that he is and it works in some games, but you need more quick ball movement and teamwork in a game like this and less 1v1 trying to beat the whole defense and do everything himself play. It works against New Zealand who can't take the ball from us, not against a good team. Allen was pretty mediocre once again. He had Rubin for an assist late in the game, but chose the selfish route. Delgado was awful. Lets not sugar coat it. Absolutely out of his depth. Nearly cost us a few goals. Hyndman had an up and down performance. Not good enough defensively in the midfield winning back possession. When he got on the ball, he was excellent, but he didn't get on the ball enough. Acosta had a lot of trouble with their players. I had a bad feeling that someone was going to get red carded. Didn't think it would be a red card and PK, but Steffen came up with a big save.
     
  8. Bolivianfuego

    Bolivianfuego Your favorite Bolivian

    Apr 12, 2004
    Fairfax, Va
    Club:
    Bolivar La Paz
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    We were DAMN lucky to walk away with 3 points today.

    Colombia both had us physically/strength wise and skill/passing wise. they couldn't finish though if their life depended on it.

    We made the most out of our times at goal. I think we had something like only 7 shots compared to Colombia's 25? Ridiculous numbers.

    Steffen was a beast. We continue to churn out quality at the GK position.

    Desevio-Payne is our next Fabian Johnson at RB. He's skillful, great defense, and knows when to also play it simple and distribute tidy out of the back.

    Our CBs were strong, good in the air and 1v1. I want to see more out of Maizaga and CV though. Both horrible in their distribution.

    Delgado is out of his league and struggled with the pressure Colombia put on our team.

    Acosta, despite decent appearences in MLS was out of his league and had trouble with Colombia.

    Arriola was the grit, speed, and passing we needed on the wings. Both on defense and attack he was phenomenal.

    Hyndman as usual was class, but he was at times overwhelmed by Colombia's strength/pressure and often had to pass it back or eat some physical tackles. Good player, but at times having trouble.

    Zelalem, same as Hyndman, at times our best player. I heard Cobi jones criticize his style of play as too relaxed...say what?? That's his 'thing'. That's a aprt of his trickery. Defenders think he's about to stop or has run out of ideas and then he sets you free with a through ball. He too though had issues with the physicdality of the game. The red did the USA no favors and often times til the last 20mins was calling everything COL's way. Our team too didn't do enough of a job looking for Zelalem who changed the game anytime he had space or got the ball.

    Jordan Allen, how did this guy make it on this team? He has NOTHING but speed. Another Jamison for me. Colombia easily overwhelmed him and pressured him to make the wrong choices. Why a guy like that is there over Junior Flores? No idea.

    Rubin, wow! This guy really was clutch when he needed to, and put up with a lot of punches, elbows, and physicality by the colombians that the ref should have looked out for more. He still scored the lone goal in a fantastic volley off of a bobble.

    TT, not enough to really say.

    Requejo, same. Showed good defense poise though as we went down to 10. Worked his ass off on the left side where they kept attacking us through.

    Of the starting 11 today, I'd say about half are at the level they should be to do well--the rest are not. It still shows me we are ways to go.
     
    Namdynamo, ussoccer97531 and Thegreatwar repped this.
  9. Reccossu

    Reccossu Member+

    Jan 31, 2005
    Birmingham

    I can go with two of these, but I thought Zelalem looked fantastic. Clearly the best midfielder player.

    I had the benefit of watching after knowing the result, so maybe that affects opinions?
     
  10. ussoccer97531

    ussoccer97531 Member+

    Oct 12, 2012
    Club:
    --other--
    I'm not sure. My main problem with Zelalem is he stops attacks and has a lot too much confidence in his ability on the ball.

    His main problem has nothing to do with skill. He's about as skilled of a player as we've ever had. Its learning when is the right time to toy with a defense and when is the right time to make the simple pass, pass it quickly, not take so many risks, etc. People were calling @Suyuntuy crazy the other game when he said he doesn't like Zelalem's play, and I actually kind of agree with parts of what he was saying. No one's questioning his skill, its the decisions he makes.
     
  11. Bolivianfuego

    Bolivianfuego Your favorite Bolivian

    Apr 12, 2004
    Fairfax, Va
    Club:
    Bolivar La Paz
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    I see NOTHING wrong with his play.

    The actual issue lies with the players around him and finding space/losing their man better to make good use of a guy that can actually toy wit defenders and hold on to the ball instead of releasing too fast and losing possession in a bad place.

    He's a player that may be at a level that's being wasted with the talent we have around him. Put him in that Colombia side and they score 3 on us. He was just toying with them at times creating room for guys to do crosses or dribble more into space while he held down 3 defenders.

    Against Colombia he was often man handled by them and not protected by the ref like he was vs. NZ. A good ref protects skill players like that to let them do their thing. This red did not. Often times too, our boys had troble turning the ball towards the middle of the field instead only looking to options to pass to on the wing. TOo many times GZ was WIDE open in the middle but fear of losing te ball, or just fear of turning your hips to FACE the middle of the field scared our gys from looking at him more as an outlet.

    He didn't see enough of the ball. It's that easy with a player of his skill, you FIND him as much as you can and do it as often as you can. That's how it works.
     
    lmorin repped this.
  12. Reccossu

    Reccossu Member+

    Jan 31, 2005
    Birmingham
    I don't think his decision making was worse than anyone else's. Maybe his skill makes it seem like his decision making should match it? And he gets judged more harshly?

    He has a style and it may not always be the perfect style for the situation, but I will take it because he executes that style very well.
     
  13. Werdman89

    Werdman89 Member+

    May 27, 2008
    Boston, MA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    If Zelalem didn't have that confidence on the ball he'd still be at OBGC. He's the only player in our pool that has the skill and decision making to match his confidence. He's the anti-Romain Gall.
     
  14. ussoccer97531

    ussoccer97531 Member+

    Oct 12, 2012
    Club:
    --other--
    I hope no one thinks I dislike Zelalem or don't rate him. I just think he has areas to improve in, and the good thing is that those areas have nothing to do with becoming better in any specific skill, except shooting, but he's probably a #8 long term anyway, so his shot shouldn't matter that much.

    We can say its because his teammates aren't talented enough, the ref didn't protect him, we don't play a style suited to his style, etc. but Zelalem plays a very specific style that isn't very similar to the style that we play. Like @Bolivianfuego said, if he's playing for Colombia, he probably would've had a few assists. Thats not necessarily a bad thing that he plays that way and I'm one of the biggest advocates on big soccer to go more towards skill players and away from athletes and workers, but his style of play doesn't really seem to fit our style of play when we play big teams. Thats where the struggles might come from. It might not be a problem at Arsenal, but with the USA and if he goes on loan to a bad team, I think he might struggle.
     
  15. ussoccer97531

    ussoccer97531 Member+

    Oct 12, 2012
    Club:
    --other--
    I had the same feeling watching this match. Steffen is a clutch GK and like you mentioned when Hyndman took the PK against Ukraine, the pressure of taking a PK in an important match sometimes gets to players this age. Its much different having a 30 year old veteran who's been a professional for over 10 years at a high level take one than a kid who's played five professional matches.
     
  16. Bob Morocco

    Bob Morocco Member+

    Aug 11, 2003
    Billings, MT
    Defending is a huge part of the modern game, you need players who relish doing that at the pro and international levels, just look at JK's squad selection. I thought that this past game GZ really stepped up in that regard. The 20s are different than the 17s, this is when players need to become fully rounded professional players capable of getting results in group and knockout matches. Last night we played too direct/quick based on our strengths/weaknesses but we limited a tough matchup to 2 quality chances and advanced. That's an important lesson for burgeoning pros to learn, especially American ones.


    Delgado bites on upfield body fakes way too hard, as a 6 you can't give up room to turn towards goal for a slim chance at a turnover. Better overall defensive cover and org helped, that's one in Tab/the staff's plus column.

    When our 14/15s go overseas one of the takeaways has been that refs allow more physical jostling than ours do, those kiddie gloves played out tonight as a more lenient ref played into the hands of a team who grew up playing a man's game.

    Again when we broke past midfield and there was only a speculative forward option I want us to play square/back and combine through Emo and GZ, we can kill the game and create better chances that way. Colombia was really keying on GZ, other guys would have been open. We should have made them chase when we went up.

    Our clearances were very poor, I know some are complaining about losing too many 50/50s but our average outlet was more like a 20/80.
     
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  17. ussoccer97531

    ussoccer97531 Member+

    Oct 12, 2012
    Club:
    --other--
    Unfortunately, no. Their best player and one of the best players in the whole tournament Zivkovic plays RM for Serbia.
     
  18. ussoccer97531

    ussoccer97531 Member+

    Oct 12, 2012
    Club:
    --other--
    Come on, thats a foul on the defensive player like 95% of the time. The other 5% is when the ref doesn't see it or makes a bold call to call it on the attacker. I'm not saying it shouldn't be on the attacker, but that is rarely not called a PK and Acosta should've known better.
     
  19. bballshawn

    bballshawn Member+

    Feb 5, 2014
    Delaware
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    i would like for us to play more like the senior team did in the 2nd half vs germany. Guys always had a player to pass to
     
  20. Hararea

    Hararea Member+

    Jan 21, 2005
    The foul call itself was justified, but I don't see the yellow there. With the amount that both players were grappling with one another, it isn't as if that was a tactical foul.
     
  21. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
    #796 Dave Marino-Nachison, Jun 11, 2015
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2015
    Agree that they were both grappling, but the whistle came at the end of the play, when the attacker had already rounded Acosta and had arguably claimed the ground between him and the goal. Acosta had no play on the ball. At that point, it could be seen as a tactical takedown from behind.

    In any case, I don't feel really strongly about this -- the call as made didn't seem unthinkable call or an absolute must. (Though I wonder what I would think if I were Colombian; at least, what I thought before the PK was saved.)

    I did kind of wonder whether Acosta needed to take his first yellow. It was a pretty straightforward tactical foul, but it looked like he might have been able to beat the attacker to the spot on that play. Easy to say in retrospect, of course.
     
  22. Hararea

    Hararea Member+

    Jan 21, 2005
    I expect you're right that the referee would offer this interpretation, although as I said I disagree with that. More generally, it bothers me that some referees punish fouls as "tactical" inside the box but not outside, even though tactics dictate that you should only ever foul outside the box.

    http://www.fifa.com/u20worldcup/matches/round=271600/match=300269559/index.html#nosticky
    [​IMG]

    The image above is from FIFA's link to its Match Highlights, and I'm pretty sure I remember the play and could find it on the video. Two handed pullback of an opponent's arm with the ball far out of reach- a cynical and obvious foul but in the middle third, so no yellow.
     
  23. Agoos'd

    Agoos'd Red Card

    Jun 10, 2015
    I agree with that.

    I think that's part of the reason our midfield gets overrun.

    We forget how much the difference of a couple of years can make in development when you are between 16 and 19 years old. I played up a couple of years for most of my time in soccer and there are some times when the difference in physicality is huge, and it seems to be pronounced between the freshman and senior years of high school.
     
  24. Dave Marino-Nachison

    Jun 9, 1999
    I, too, have been known to disagree with referees' interpretations of events on occasion. ;)
     
  25. DaPrince84

    DaPrince84 Member+

    Aug 22, 2001
    MD
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    On Zelalem, I don't think American fans have seen a midfielder like him in the team before.

    Not saying Zelalm is as good as these two, but Riquelme and Özil were/are guys who create space and are patient. In teams that know the runs to make, these guys shine. On teams that do not, they "look bad."
     
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