I could understand rotating captains if you were a young team also cycling through a variety of players. But in a tournament where we seemed to be settling on a group to be, for good or ill, the core unit, why aren't you also settling on leadership figure(s) within that core? It's kind of like, Sargent is the future. Know how I show it? One friendly and cut. So, these are The Guys. Know how I show it? I rotate for the final, and keep switching the captains.
The ref watched someone beaten senseless with steel pipe in the parking lot afterwards, and let them go with a talking-to and no card.
why do you premise the keeper's passing role on something he is unsuited to do? i want that ball launched in the next state when he gets the ball, and in this particular game that was also what the tactics demanded.
List of players this is true of. This is the problem when the lineup is set based on Guyana or Curacao and not Mexico.
Long is on the guy who backheels while facing away from net. That's not his fault. Bradley is chasing the man, then McKennie lets him drift goalside, pass, backheel, and then Miazga doesn't step. Someone besides Bradley stays with the runner, and then what happened to Zimmerman? You had a shutout streak and then you keep the guy who allowed a goal to Jamaica the previous game. Miazga is overrated.
It's absurdly contradictory to be playing Zardes/Arriola/Morris hustle central up top to chase them, and then behind them have Bradley who can't even stay with his man.
After I noticed we were basically playing the final at FedHQ, I had this weird idea about the dumb coaching choice, about how lock-steppy it has been to leave coaching choice until after the president election -- which cynically would remove that issue as a football. So you get that guy that way. Then hire 2 struggling ex NT as GM and HC who owe them their jobs. Then elevate Brother Berhalter after the coaching choice though that was probably the undisclosed idea all along. Telling that after hiring a GM to get hiring and firing nominally out of the executive suite, the response is Berhalter won't fire Berhalter. Someone should ask the Forgotten Man Mr. Stewart what he thought. Put some press heat on him. The odd thing with the Union, to me, was years of crap results, and then Stewart would do nothing to Curtin, and no one went for Stewart's job, and despite how they did the Union made us wait. And then missed the playoffs. So Earnie hasn't done much since AZ, the Philly team improves after he leaves, but he is basically in the shadows and no one mentions or questions his stewardship, and we all seem pointed at the coach or executive suite. And that with the benefit of hindsight this feels like fraternity rush with all sorts of connections linking everyone, despite being on paper an objective hiring process to get the best. As though we aren't struggling but are some fraternity evaluated by the best rolodex.
USA 1, Mexico 0 Sept. 11, 2018. USA – Tyler Adams (Antonee Robinson) 71st minute Lineups: USA: 1-Zack Steffen; 19-Shaq Moore (2-DeAndre Yedlin, 85), 5-Cameron Carter-Vickers, 3-Matt Miazga, 15-Eric Lichaj (17-Antonee Robinson, 56); 20-Wil Trapp (capt.); 23-Kellyn Acosta (10-Cristian Roldan, 85), 4- Tyler Adams, 8-Weston McKennie (16-Julian Green, 40), 11-Tim Weah (25-Marky Delgado, 90+2); 9-Gyasi Zardes (7- Bobby Wood, 80) just to point out some different choices, made previously, against roughly the same team, with more success. but this guy knows better. we were the team outplayed for a half, made some good subs, had adams, etc.
even his subs are basically like i have to manage against what you are doing to me, as opposed to, let me create my own imbalance your direction and take the initiative. and then the subbed unit basically does its own hoofball thing unlinked to the subs.
this is not the best 23 we have. i think we are still working through midfield and portions of the back but we have the firepower in the pool to play that to at least a tie. i think if you call all the good attackers we have, and don't pretend we have DMs to play defensive soccer, we could run people down their B team's throat all day and they'd be stuck playing defense. we would maybe get countered on, but our chances are better in an open game like the first half then pretending we're an effective bunker like the second. that and, like i said, when the situation demands it, we need to be able to whack balls over the top of exaggerated pressure to either tall or fast forwards. to punish a team pushed up. it's like we have "we're becoming a passing team" so tattooed on our foreheads that common sense has left town.
The problem is this game won't be taken seriously enough, not that we are taking it too seriously. This is what we are building towards, no? When that game shows up a few of your players, there should be roster consequences. But you will likely see many of the same players, and probably the exclusions will be bizarre eg Boyd who disappeared. Even taking for granted the U20 decisions, and Sargent, and the people left off......ok, some people played badly, we lost the final, if we have interest in changing that, we should be swapping back players the very next friendly. Not a darned thing will change if the same Coach's Favorites unit shows up. Chemistry doesn't do that much. All these people that got left off or impressed at U20s, in a competent team, they swap in next time. I instead expect Brooks, Yedlin, and yes Adams back, which is a mixed bag, who knows who from U20 or Sargent, and general weirdness. Very specific esoterica as opposed to all of us converging on the ones who play well, plus the pedigree kids and new ideas.
“We have a young team so there was a 10-15 minutes where we kind of lost the game...We’re trying to play out of the back and stick to our guns, but maybe we should’ve taken more chances down the field and get into their half. It happens, it’s a learning experience. We have to learn from this......There were still a few guys that weren’t here so if we incorporate them we could even be more dangerous." -Jozy https://sbisoccer.com/2019/07/altidore-substitution-questions-berhalters-tactics-late-vs-mexico
The odd thing to me is he was so emphatic with His XI those first few games -- "I don't need any changes" for TnT -- and he gets to the final and trots out only 7/11 of it. Maybe half those changes were wise (Jozy and Cannon), the other half weren't (Morris and Miazga). That wanders into: (a) why didn't you stick to your guns or (b) if you weren't going to be married to the XI in the final, why didn't you rotate more where players like Cannon and Jozy could get more time to make their own impressions Just oddly in between. Though if you go back to Jamaica, that's the same 11 guys. In other words, he didn't rotate one bit for the final. And then we look sharp for a half then run out of gas..... And then the subs have been debated to death but were even worse batting average. But two subtle sub notes I am going to make (a) he made the same subs in the semi and (b) in the group rounds Roldan would start or sub as a mid. He started mid Panama and came in for Pulisic/Bradley Guyana. In the last two games Roldan was Morris' RW sub. Boyd was subbed off for Morris with 20' left in the Curacao game not to reappear the rest of the tournament. Morris then started with Roldan pushed up to sub. Hmmm. I see some defending this as a work in progress but that comes across like he drew some conclusions about what he saw, and shaped the team in a direction, and got his butt kicked the second time he tried it. Also bears noting that in the big picture of the game, what happened is we dominated for a half, they come out strong second half dominating the midfield. He subs forwards. We then give up a goal, suggesting he pulled the wrong people. Down a goal, he then subs the left back. He never did address the primary issue, and the game left him. Lovitz and Roldan have neither a NT goal nor an assist to their names. With more thought, I assume the reason he didn't sub an attacker, is he liked his two forward subs, wanted to leave Arriola out there as a forward, and his roster gave him no effective attacking mid options. Holmes went home hurt and he left a stack of attackers off. He wouldn't consider moving Roldan or Arriola back and undermine his own use of them. Probably has it in for Boyd. So you're basically in this absurd head where he can't make any attacking moves when he needs one. To sub Roldan or push him back would almost admit screwup. So like he is so married to his own ideas in spite of how the game is going he can't even move them around or back and give something else a try. Put differently, in his logic, he actually expected Roldan and Zardes and Lovitz to work. They were the same people he used 4 days earlier. They were being played where he wanted them. And he wasn't going to put in another forward to help. Not even as a nominal mid. And definitely not Boyd. Once I mentally sorted this out let's say this did not enhance my impression of the man.
Y Bradley ran out of gas - I think he had 4 giveaways in a row. should have been subbed. Boyd was the more obvious choice than Zardes, who has the touch of a blacksmith. I put this one mostly on GGG...the fact that the same line-up was highly competitive in the first half and was run over by a bus in the midfield in the 2nd is about lack of adjustments.
agree with this. Would be good to hear from wiser soccer sages than I what adjustments we should have made in response to help us get the ball up the field, which were unable to do. Go down the wing more? Play more direct? I don't have that insight. Similarly impressed with 3/4 of the back line. Cannon was a mini-relevant. Dude can play, has serious wheels and is smooth. Ream is a placeholder at LB - our perennial position challenge. My blood pressure goes up every time he gets the ball, which gets passed backwards usually.
Read what I just posted. He thought he had made his big forward switches already. That's your problem right there. He gave himself very few midfield attackers (Pulisic, Arriola, McKennie) in his whole roster. He then benched Boyd and was married to Roldan and Zardes as forward subs, two games straight. You have Boyd available but shunned. And then you get into the general debacle of the list he left off, which deny him both starting ammo and some bench options, eg Lletget Weah Sargent Green Holmes Gall Amon Wood Nova etc etc. I pointed this out when the tournament started, that he would basically burn his useful midfield attackers with the starting lineup, and how many compelling attackers got left off. And then you have the proverbial Klisnmann piles of DMs but this bunch is older and/or less talented. Which is how you get to subbing in a LB when you need a goal, is bizarre ideas of who to rotate up top, combined with a reduced bench of options, combined with his inability to admit the switches made before the goal didn't work, combined with whatever he got into with Boyd. To me you could have pulled back Roldan and Arriola, pushed up Pulisic and a sub of Boyd for Ream. And beyond that you could have rostered a bunch of different people instead of rubbish like Trapp, Mihailovic, etc. who were so bad he dropped them basically. But to drop Roldan back and put Boyd in is admitting that decision sucked, and letting Boyd off the hook for his sin, whatever it was. He made his point, whatever that point was. To me only an arrogant or self obsessed coach drives the car right off the cliff subbing in a LB when he needs a goal. Put down your self regard and do what the team needs.
I think we did resort very late to whacking balls into the box.....but he'd set it up with Zardes Roldan Arriola to receive. So the personnel didn't match the concept. I think we are stuck in a serious identity problem where we have turned into that team in your league that commits to ground ball passing -- like on all the way back to the defenders and keeper -- but actually isn't the best skilled team in your league. I think we all know teams that almost do you a favor of trying to be cute for 90 as an identity, and are above hoofing it downfield. So we routinely put a keeper shaky balls to feet under pressure, and give away dangerous balls in our end, instead of having him bomb the ball to the other end. And so on up the field. [/QUOTE] Good post - i'm struggling to understand what Mexico did in the 2nd half that shut us down, and wanting to understand if Route 1 / Down the Field Passing (the adjustment) would have solved the issue. Did Mexico simply high press more in the 2nd half? Did they change formation? Push their wings up to shut down Pulisic? How could we have adjusted to get out of our own end, which we were unable to do?
While I hate to lose, and hate to lose to Mexico most of all, I am glad, for the long run, we did not snatch an underserved win out of this somehow. The second half was glaring for how vulnerable we were. The amount of time on our heels, the terrible passing, the lack of confidence or plan. At least it can't (shouldn't) be papered over. This team needs to play top-notch opponents as much as possible. Need much more seasoning.
Might be misunderstanding the sentence but are you saying that the US faced roughly the same MX team in that friendly? Because only one guy from that team started last night (Edson Alvarez).
Positive trend: GC 2015: 2 GA group 3 GA knockouts = 5 GC 2017: 3 GA group 1 GA knockouts = 4 GC 2019: 0 GA group 2 GA knockouts = 2 GC 2015: 4 GF group 8 GF knockouts = 12 GC 2017: 7 GF group 6 GF knockouts = 13 GC 2019: 11 GF group 4 GF knockouts = 15 fwiw in 2013 we scored 20 and allowed 4 in 2009 we scored 12 and allowed 8 in 2005 we scored 11 and allowed 3 in 2002 we scored 9 and allowed 1
where does it say that like definitional straw man [and we'll see what grounds you use to delete this one]