Pre-match: 2024 Friendlies v Panama {Oct 12th} & Mexico {Oct 15th} (Poch's 1st Window)

We need to bring Pefok and Vasquez in to light a fire under Balogun and the other strikers. No score, no play.

At RB, I want Fossey and Reynolds - Scally brings nothing offensively.

At CB, we're screwed. Ream needs to be retired.

Can we convert a midfielder to CB - maybe Maloney, Aidan Morris, Cardoso, or Musah? None offer anything offensively.

 

Maloney for sure. He's played CB.

........................Tessmann played CB with the Dallas academy at times. If he actually was converted to that position in club soccer, I think he'd be pretty good.

As far as CF goes, I have no idea what any USMNT coach would do. We have nobody actually scoring goals in a top 5 league. Nobody. We can rearrange the deck chairs. Sargent, Wright, etc. scoring on secondary levels doesn't tell us anything with regards to how they'd play at the elite level.

Sargent never scores for the USMNT.

He hasn't scored against a team other than Cuba since October of 2018.
He's been in and out of the team. But even when we play him, he doesn't score.
Heck, he only has one assist in his USMNT career.

At some point if we keep building and building and building this pool of wingers and attacking midfielders (we could have fielded two Olympic rosters at those positions)..................maybe we use a false 9. Berhalter actually did this. That was actually what Ferreira was doing in many of his caps under Berhalter. He even used Lletget as a false 9 in a friendly.

 

Pefok and Vazquez are not really Poch-style players. I would shocked to see Pefok especially.

I expect Balogun, Sargent and Pepi to come out in the wash right now. Balogun for talent, Sargent for style, and Pepi because of talent and work rate. I think Wright has an uphill climb.

We should also look at Richie Ledezma at RB. I have no idea if he can really defend and playing at PSV doesn't tell us crap, but I 100% agree, we can't have an offensive black hole there.

I think CB will actually pick up under Poch. He's very, very good at creating build up patterns and we'll suddenly have a lot more open passing lanes. Defensively is another question.

 

Maybe it's time to try Pulisic or Weah at the 9 again. Can Malik Tilman play the 9? Or Reyna as the false 9.

 

Agree. A lot of the problem with the CB's poor passing is more the fault of midfielders standing around not getting open. Supposedly lots of running will be the new norm so standing midfielders should be an endangered species.

 

Pochettino also tends to try and overwhelm with numbers up and down the pitch. So I also don't think we'll see us necessarily try to beat three guys with three guys, either.

 

No doubt Poch and his staff have and will be studying film of our player pool. But with only a few weeks to name a roster, I wonder if Crocker or someone else at the Fed will be advising him on whom to consider.

 

They also have nothing to do but watch film of our guys. And they will be watching all their games between now and the window (along with USSF scouts).

They will have plenty of time for an initial sense of the player pool.

 

I'll try to make a case for Maloney. As a team we are soft. Maloney is pretty hard. He is very capable of sending a message that his team won't be intimidated. His skills aren't great but have you looked at the BL table? It somehow works.

 

Oh God. If he was the solution I need a new sport.

 

Where have you gone Jermaine Jones, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you…?

 

I wish Maloney was as good as Jones. He was a fiery mofo who was a very good soccer player!

 

I’m not necessarily suggesting this roster, BUT, if I was Poch, this is how I would feel like the team was left to me.

GK Patrick Schulte *work to do*
GK Matt Turner *work to do*
GK [open]
~ Contenders: Ethan Horvath, Roman Celentano, Gabriel Slonina, Matt Freese, Diego Kochen

RB Joe Scally *lock*
RB [open]
~ Contenders: Marlon Fossey, Richie Ledezma, Bryan Reynolds
*Sergino Dest is OUT*

CB Chris Richards *work to do*
CB Mark McKenzie *work to do*
CB [Open]
CB [Open]
~ Contenders: Auston Trusty, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Miles Robinson, Walker Zimmerman
*Please drop Tim Ream*
*Anrie Chase might be #3 or #4 if he accepted a call up.

LB Jedi Robinson *crucial*
LB [Open]
~Contenders: Kevin Paredes (injured), Kristofer Lund, Caleb Wiley, John Tolkin

MF Weston McKennie *lock*
MF Yunus Musah *lock*
MF [Open]
MF [Open]
~Contenders: Johnny Cardoso, Lennard Maloney, Gianluca Busio, Aidan Morris, Tanner Tessmann, Luca de la Torre, Jack McGlynn
*Tyler Adams is OUT.

AT Christian Pulisic *crucial*
AT Tim Weah *lock*
AT Giovanni Reyna *work to do*
AT [Open]
AT [Open]
AT [Open]
~ Contenders: Brenden Aaronson, Paxten Aaronson, Taylor Booth, Haji Wright, Josh Sargent, Kevin Paredes, Luca de la Torre, Malik Tillman, Diego Luna, Cade Cowell, Rokas Puktsas, Griffin Yow, Alex Zendejas, Djordje Mihailovic, Ben Cremaschi
*Luca Koleosho is the other dual national to compete for.

FW Folarin Balogun *work to do*
FW [Open]
~Contenders: Ricardo Pepi, Josh Sargent, Haji Wright, Brandon Vazquez, Jordan Pefok

 

I imagine Poch sees Cardoso as the type who will flourish under him.

 

I imagine if Poch has been watching recent US matches, he won't be too impressed w/ Cardoso, & might even leave him off next roster, demanding improvement before his return.

Ah, who am I kidding, he'll probably be back and effing up again.

 

Since we don’t have any CBs in sight who will be ready for 2026, the low-hanging fruit is to convert defensive midfielders to CBs, as well as going to a 3 CB setup with ARob and Weah on the wings and bringing Scally or CCV into the middle

 

If so Crocker probably has an idea of the type of players he likes.

 

What if he decides to look at some club matches instead? Will he be impressed? Why do you say he should judge recent matches under the manager we fired and the interim USA manager when he could look at the matches of Johnny under Pellegrini? Pellegrini managed ManCity 2013/2016 acc to Wiki. Seems like he must be a pretty competent guy.

 

I don't agree. Go to 47" mark of vid below which shows our goal v. Canada starting with the Aaronson press (Balo assisting in this case). Scally anticipates and intercepts the clearance with a one touch header forward to Luca who gets it back to Scally for the square pass to Musah who gets on his bicycle and dirbbles into 4 Canadians and they delete 4 sec of the action but the ball does end up with Aiden who sends a pass to Scally who starts the re-cycling and sure enough there Scally is at the end, perfectly situated to keep the ball in play in the box for the hockey assist on Luca's goal.

As somebody who has viewed Scally as a 3 atb cb, I do think he is getting better and better as a rb. I certainly prefer him to leaky Dest.

 

I think we'll know a lot more about who is a good fit or not and what types of players will be most appreciated under the new guy after this window. Right now, we have a lot of guesswork and speculation based on what Poch has done with various squads but absolutely nothing about what he will do with this one. I'm interested to see how he works with the players available this window and I expect most of them to be the same familiar faces with maybe 2-3 differences if there is a specific few guys who turn his head or guys he's not enamored of. If there are more significant changes, I'd expect that to happen further down the road, although the clock is ticking. More than players, I'm interested in how he will want them to play since I think there is likely to be a greater difference in approach than personnel with the change. But until we see him with this team I have no real ideas what that will look like.

 

I think the higher a new manager is in the global food chain, the more likely he is to take a sledge hammer to the team he is taking over and start from scratch. After all, the team he is taking over is in the mold of the manager who was fired, right?

I believe Oct window is friendlies and Nov window counts for NL/Gold cup so there is the element of preparation for Nov in those Oct games. However I believe we don't know who the opponent is in the Nov window? If somebody has a synopsis on Nov window, I'd love to see it, i.e. who potential opponents are and how much the results count.

 

I'm not saying he should or will get called up, but with Poch having met with MLS about player development, and knowing what he likes from outside backs, I do wonder if he may give someone like Griffin Dorsey a look. This is more me thinking out loud cause IMO Scally is a bit too conservative with how Poch wants to play and Dorsey is showing he can get into an attack in a variety of different ways.

As for rest of roster, I'd love to say the roster will be based on form but it's still so early. Our most in form 9s at this very moment are Brandon Vazquez and Jordan Morris and I don't know if anybody would advocate for them coming in.

Will be curious to see if Nemanja Matic's injury is long term for Lyon as IMO Tanner Tessmann is his direct replacement

 

The only guy who got Morris right was Klinsmann. And Morris actually played for Klinsmann before tearing his ACL and learning how to play with his left foot during re-hab.

Not only did I suggest that Morris play 9 for us in Qatar, I said Berhalter had to make sure Morris controls his weight after end of MLS season before Cup started because he is diabetic and controlling weight can be hard. As it turned out he looked like a beach ball in Qatar.