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

No doubt.

I do not understand these folks that think Pochettino is going to tear the whole thing down and start over.

Is that what international managers do when they come in?

Our pool is pretty shallow.

When Berhalter named his group for Copa America, these boards agreed with about 95% of the selections. The squad kinda picks itself. We were all arguing about the fringes. The last couple of guys on the roster. Shaq Moore, etc. We weren't sitting here saying "let's take Cole Bassett instead of Malik Tillman." Tillman, who doesn't start many USMNT games, had 24 goal contributions in the Eredevisie last season.

If you're somebody like Lee Carsley and you're taking over England........................you have intimate knowledge of the player pool. Pochettino wouldn't know 98% of the MLS players from Adam.

Who does he know? Well, he's talked about his admiration for Yunus Musah.

The current guys are the guys he knows. Because our starting XI against Uruguay in Copa America was all guys who played in top 5 leagues the previous year. Guys he's seen with his own eyes. Guys he's scouted as opponents, guys he's scouted in case his club wants to sign them (like Musah), etc. etc.

Its going to take him and his staff a little longer for him to evaluate the fringes.

 

A few wrinkles to include Weah. leave him on the right and let him press and counter press while letting Dest (when he's back) cut into that inside channel when attacking in numbers like they already do. It's one of the few effective things the team does and when McKennie was also there the three would play little triangles with movement in that right corner that was fun to watch trying to spring one of them in on goal either wide right or more in that inside channel. Weah has also and could also play on the left where he likes to cut in and shoot and where he plays more narrow. As others have mentioned he could also be a fit at right back but with little time playing there at club I'm not sure that's such a good idea at national team level.

 

This isn't just something we've struggled with at times, this is something that as a nation we have struggled with for most of our history. And this specific team hasn't been good at passing in tight spaces at all. I'm skeptical that Poch can really fix this and more hopeful that he either finds ways to work around it or he is able to find that small number of players we have who can do it well and get them into the right positions.

 

Weah bouncing around between club positions and spending a ton of time on the bench or out injured makes it tricky to figure out just what you can expect to get from him. Looked like he was going to settle as a wing back last year but now he's back up front. But I'd agree that one of the things that worked on the team was often Pulisic coming centrally while Antonee ran the wing and letting Weah stay wide as Dest cut inside. It was the only balance that clicked much for the most part. But, I do think if we just want to keep doing all the same things than getting a big name new coach starts to be pretty meaningless. Hopefully he has new ideas that he can get to work rather than falling back on a single, specific way to play from last cycle. Maybe he just keeps that piece and works on fixing the central areas.

 

Koleosho's competition on team Canada is not that great compared to other positions on the Canada side. Ahmed played right sided attacker v. USA. Ahmed plays all over the place for Whitecaps in MLS. His defensive stats were good v. USA

Koleosho likely considers himself ahead of Ahmed at the end of the day, as an attacker, anyway. He scored @ Leeds playing on the right side with a solo hero run. I don't think he makes Italy team, anybody can make the USA team if he has the badge but it doesn't necessarily mean he'll play in the WC. With Canada I'm pretty sure Koleosho plays in WC. With USA? 50/50 depending on how much he improves over the next 1 1/2 years and probably just as a sub.

 

Heck, a lot of us will make up our mind about players with a whole lot less information.

I remember the reporting on Arena when he was first hired to manage the US. (1998? '99?) It was quite a big deal that he had videotape and live satellite access to US and US-eligible players' performances wherever in the world they were playing.

It's easier these days to keep tabs on players from a technology standpoint, but much harder from a pure numbers standpoint.

 

On the other hand he’s got significantly stronger ties to the US and actually grew up here. It’s where his family still lives and why he came back here while recovering from injury.

And he’d get plenty of opportunity with the USMNT if he picks us. Maybe Marsch just does a really awesome job recruiting him, but otherwise I don’t particularly likely he picks Canada over the US.

 

I think Emmanuel Sabbi also deserves another shot - can challenge Aaronsen and Wright for minutes on the wing.

 

I think it's easy to fall for fallacious stuff in football. For instance, "one of the things that 'worked'" may just be an illusion because nothing else worked. But if nothing else worked with that lineup, are we going to keep it because that single thing worked?

People are convinced Johnny had a bad game v. Canada. Actually, his sofa score was within one tenth of a point of Musah's score, even as he lost close to a whole point for error leading to goal and played 9 minutes less than Musah.

Johnny's sofa specs in black, Musah's score is in red.
Minutes played 62 - 71
Touches 49 - 36
Accurate passes 34/38 (89%) - 27/29 (93%)
Key passes 0 - 0
Crosses (acc.) 0 - 0
Long balls (acc.) 4 (3) - 1 (1)
Dribble attempts 2 (2) - 1 (0)
Ground duels (won) 7 (5) - 4 (2)
Aerial duels (won) 3 (1) - 1 (1)
Possession lost 6 - 3
Fouls 1 - 1
Was fouled 2 - 2
Clearances 1 - 1
Blocked shots 1 - 0
Interceptions 1 - 0
Total tackles 1 - 0
Dribbled past 0 - 0
Error led to goal 1 - 0

Johnny is pretty much better or even in every category except his error leading to goal and losing the ball 6 times to Musah's 3. Johnny didn't have a good game but all I heard after the game was how bad he was over all.

 

I hope Crocker takes over recruiting from Poch so the latter doesn't get bogged down. There's about 1 year and 8 mos left to put together a roster for FIFA.

 

I think they both had poor games. But losing the ball twice as much, and one of those losses directly resulted in a goal? That's pretty bad if we must compare. That is a lot of giving the ball away in the most important place on the field to keep it.

I had high hopes for Johnny going into the window and have thought his club success should lead to more chances with the US. And, I still think that could be true and that he may look much better with some changes around him in how we approach things and who he is paired with. But, I'm not about to say he had anything other than a very poor game, even if others played poorly as well.

But yeah, I do agree that it is hard to pull things out in segments since so much of what happens is interrelated. Change one thing and that other bit you were happy about may change as well.

 

Players are going to want to talk to Pochettino though since he’s the one who is going to tell them what their role is on the team is. And that’s a role he’s used to as that’s the sort of thing a club coach does with potential transfer targets.

 

I believe (but not sure) that Sofa counts in-accurate passes as loss of possession. Fotmob has Johnny dispossessed 1 time and Musah with 0 dispossessed. A difference of 1 i.o.w. Against a team we should beat, we will usually try a lot of riskier passes (and press if incomplete) to get on the scoreboard but that would up "dispossessions" with the way Sofa scores it (if I'm right).

Notice how Musah has 1 dribble attempt and it was unsuccessful. All I hear is how he dribbles thru teams with the greatest ease but I never actually see it. Johnny has 2 dribble attempts, both successful and never a word.

 

Having more players central is what he is known for so that alone could change the dynamic. I'd add making sure the CF is in the box when those four wide players attack is a necessity and I'm not sure that always happened. Myself I would look at spacing. Someone needs to be at the near and far post and others deeper in case of any rebounds or pinging around balls. One of my other gripes is on corner kicks when a team (ours does this) doesn't have anybody on the far side of where the corner kick is from and the ball goes past everybody to no one! So easy to have one person there running to that ball with either a shot or a possible easy pass.

 

If memory serves, Tata never spoke with recruits but refered them to the federation. Julian Araujo was the example used recently iirc. He wasn't called in apart from some tangential stuff and in any event was little seen under Tata. Nevertheless he was brought to Europe by Barca, loaned out and just recently transfered to Bournemouth. His competition at USA was Dest and Julian declared for Mexico just after Dest was brought on board USMNT.

Club coaches aren't told their performance will be graded on how many non residents they can bring into the club which is what we tell our managers in the USSF. It's insane. However, a lot of things don't make a lot of sense IRL and as long as recruiting is a reality, I'd just as soon Crocker do it so Poch can concentrate on football.

 

A lot of the recruiting of these types of dual-nationals is done at the youth levels and behind the scenes within the federation. A USMNT coach then will put on the finishing touches.

I don't think the attitude of somebody like Gareth Southgate is all that different from other senior national team managers. It didn't seem like he was particularly invested in recruiting young dual-nationals that weren't ready for the senior team. That was the domain of the U21 coaches, etc.

There's a whole group of fans on this board that seem to think the purpose of USMNT camps is to recruit dual-nationals. Meanwhile a guy like Poch should have his entire focus on the pool for WC26. its probably a year and a half until he needs to start making roster decisions. So yes, if he thinks Koleosho is of interest for that (which he should)................recruit hard.

 

Martino did speak to both Ochoa and Araujo and both said as much when they explained their decisions. Ochoa even said it meant a lot to him that someone who coached Messi wanted to talk to him.

Dual national recruiting is just part of the job as an international manager. And isn’t much of a burden given the slower pace of the international game. Players are always going to want to talk to the coach compared to the sporting director. Crocker’s job is to be tracking this stuff, help Pochettino figure out who he should be in touch with, and make sure youth players who aren’t close to the senior team are hearing from USSF.

The biggest thing is other than Kolesheo there aren’t much in the way of dual nationals who we should go recruit who are likely to help the senior team before 2026.

 

Anrie Chase is probably level with Luca Koleosho as far as importance; simply for the fact that our center back options are not the greatest, and when we look at the young generation of center backs, there really is no one.

 

6 turnovers for a #6 is a bad game.

 

Koleosho is pretty firmly in the Italy camp. I think he's one that we will live without.

 

I don’t think that’s at all true. Berhalter was pretty public that he was in regular contact with him and someone who has no interest doesn’t continue to have regular conversation. Berhalter may have very well got him to switch had he not been injured.

 

That was my reading of the tea leaves in the spring too. It seemed like Berhalter thought he could get him to sign on for the Copa, but then he got hurt. It's just that Pochettino doesn't have a looming big tournament to entice him with.

 

Adams had 5 turnovers playing the #6 as host to Mexico in NL final this year. Did he have a bad game? It was only 1 less than Johnny's 6 v. Canada and Adams only played 45' v. Mexico. Johnny played 62' v. Canada.
USA vs Mexico live score, H2H and lineups | Sofascore
(Click on player in lineup graphic for drop down of stats for the game.)

 

I wouldnt say that. It's all about his career management. If it turns out he will make more with Yanks he'll switch.

 

with how Japanese citizenship works, Chase switching to the US is asking a lot