I wish the coin flip would just be the winner chooses side, or first/second. Rather than two independent flips.
In a vacuum, that makes a lot of sense. That said, I don't really think, rhetoric aside, that we were trying to make a point in the most superficial sense. I think we were primarily playing to our best strengths. Do you want to try and win playing to your strengths or mitigating your weakness? I think it's a viable discussion that probably varies with a whole ton of variables. But the idea is the same: dance with who and what brought you. I don't think this team is any good not playing aggressively. That doesn't mean constant high press -- we clearly didn't do that all tourney and you can apply midblock pressure. But I do think that this team was crap sitting back passively and would be pretty crap doing that. I think the Netherlands dissects us anyway. I simply think they thought this gameplan was our best gameplan. And that said, we WERE playing defensively. We just weren't sitting back and passive. Part of the reason for our offensive struggles is that our 8s held back far more this tourney than they did previously. How often did you see McKennie in the box? Not a lot. We played defensively, we just didn't sit passively and give the ball away. And I'm okay with that -- that strategy can drive an upset, but for our overall aspirations, it isn't really repeatable long term. Teams that go far can play defensively in terms of offensive commitment; they can focus on counterattacking, but the bunker and complete abdication of the ball is not one that works across a full tournament.
I know you risk skying it, but seems like players at this level would go top bins more. Much harder to save. And...AGAIN. Garbage. Spain
I never let my players take weak run ups. I stand by that decision after watching penalties these past two days.