9/9 US vs. Brazil - the Coaching/Tactics - Post Game Discussion [R]

Agree on point 1. I'm not opposed to using Wolff in a limited role during the upcoming qualifying campaign. But we already know what the guy brings to the table and at age 30 it ain't gonna change that much. This would have been a wonderful opportunity to bring Altidore into the team, but unfortunately he was injured. Given that, the logical thing would have been to reverse the minutes allocated to EJ and Wolff.

On point 2, I'm not sure I agree. The thinness as forward led him to play Dempsey at forward. Dempsey isn't really a forward and is especially unsuited to play as the lone forward. Would you have played EJ as the lone forward? Maybe in a setup like this:

---------------EJ-------------
DMB-------Donovan----Dempsey
-----Bradley--------Feilhaber---

 

That was exactly the lineup that I called for pre-match. Either that or a standard 4-4-2 but with Clint withdrawn (which, not coincidentally is what we saw them playing on Clint's goal).

Someone has to convince Bob that he can use Clint as a forward... but not as a target forward. The only reason I supported the 4-5-1 was because it would prevent Clint from being pigeon holed into a role he does not fit.

 

Yep, it's his turn to follow the path of Tab Ramos, Earnie Stewart, Joe Max Moore and Cobi Jones and help us in qualifying with no shot of making the World Cup roster.

I could see Wolff playing the harrassing sub for 20 min if we're up a couple goals in CONCACAF play. I have trouble envisioning a scenario in which I'd want him starting. That includes a friendly against Brazil.

 

OK, I'm going to give in to temptation and ask the following question. Suppose Bradley had to choose between two forwards, who I will name players A and B, to start and get most of the minutes for qualifying.

Player A is 23, leading the MLS in goals scored by an American this season, has excellent size and speed, and played for Bradley at Chivas last year.

Player B is 30, playing in the second division in Germany, has been an occasional starter for the nats in the past, hasn't scored much in the last few years, has lost some of his speed due to knee surgeries, never played for Bradley.

Which one do you think would have started against Brazil yesterday?

 

Based on the way Wolff played yesterday, I would argue Dempsey did play as the lone forward.

All kidding aside, while Dempsey may not be the traditional forward, he may be the best option we have, especially now that he's playing forward for Fulham.

I also believe the notion of a target forward ala McBride is somewhat antiquated and limiting. Truth is very few teams, particularly the skilled teams, play with a "target" forward nowadays. Instead you see more going with the player who can take people on, pass well and, of course, finish his chances.

Bottom line, it's not really about formation as much as it's about getting your best attacking players on the field. If that means going with 5 midfielders and 1 non-traditional forward, so be it.

 

Never said that.

I was making two separate points. Should have been pretty clear by the use of paragraph spacing and logic (the logic being Bradley should have made like-for-like subs. ie Spector for Cholo and DeMerit for Goochornegra)

But I hope you feel better for having gotten that off your chest.

 

Seriously? Negrep? You need to call the wahhhhmbulance for that.

 

Yeah I was drunk and pissy. If I could undo it, I would....sorry bud.

 

Parkhurst looks great? I was at the game 8 rows behind the bench but didn't seem him on the field or the bench. I was drinking but you must have been really hammered.

This sounds like the usual "guy who didn't play would have been much better" stuff we hear game in and game out.

 

I haven't been a fan of playing Donovan wide but I think I'm in agreement with Bob Bradley now. You have two players you need to get on the field - Dempsey and Donovan - and both are withdrawn forwards. Unless you go with a christmas tree, which comes with its own issues, someone is going to have to play out of position.

Right now, Dempsey has the hot hand (er, foot) and so you need to put him closest to goal. Switch Dempsey and Donovan yesterday and we probably wouldn't get the goal. Of course, I don't know that Dempsey makes the pass to Cherundolo.

Against a team like Brazil we're not going to have lots of chances. It's all about manufacturing goals. And we got two, so I'm pleased with the attack.

I would argue that this game was a positive for Bradley. The attack did what it had to do while the goals given up were a bit flukey.

The obvious mistake was not having a backup for Howard, which is a very un-Bradley-like mistake and I doubt we'll see it happen again.

 

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/soccer/549711,CST-SPT-usa10.article

....

''This really was a very hard, competitive game,'' Ronaldinho said. ''They played us tough, and they played us tight defensively. They don't give much space at all. They were also very aggressive and physical. I had to work hard all match. They are really improving because they played us as tough as anybody.''

Bradley didn't like the fact his team lost, but he liked the way it lost.

''Eight months into this cycle, we remain a work in progress,'' he said. ''But we feel good about our progress. As a team, we were pretty solid for 90 minutes. Collectively, our defense was good.

....

 

This makes for a different point.

What was this friendly for?

If you look at using a relatively A-type friendly as the test for your own A-team, I doubt it was really necessary to have Wolff as a starter.

On the other hand, Wolff probably gave a better chance to keep the score low vs. Brazil because, while he is unlikely to score, his speed and tenacity kept the Brazilian defenders on their toes.

Plus, he reads the game better than Eddie Johnson and that allows him to combine well with Dempsey.

But ... playing against Brazil prepares you to play against the Brazil. It doesn't really prepare you to play anyone else stylewise.

Furthermore, if one wanted to attack against a bunch of realy good players then the formation should have reflected that. If one wanted to bunker against a good team, the formation should reflected that.

The problem was that we didn't really find anything of that nature out. The US played the same formation, the same tactics and essentially the same people that it usually does. There were no attempts to vary the approaches whatsoever.

The only thing you found out after the game was basically what you already knew.

So what good did this game do, aside of putting a couple of mil into the USSF pockets?

Not much.

 

4 goals allowed and an arguable PK not called (let's say, both Robinho's and Wolff's PK called and converted, it'd have been a 5:3 game) does not a good defense make.

Arena's and Sampson's squads had held Brazil to lower scores.

But the real reason for the low score was Brazil's decision (as I had predicted) to play 4-5-1, which is not an offensive formation. So, largely Brazil attacked with only 4 or 5 players, instead of the commonly used 7 and that's what kept the chances low on both teams.

Odds are that, if Dunga dropped a needless and useless Mineiro for Julio Baptista or Diego, the US defense would have been battered pretty harshly.

But Bradley can claim "good defense" because no one will challenge him on the idiocy of his remarks.

 

SFS, There were a couple of things we learned from this game.
1) Pearce is strong enough to contend at LB
2) Boca is better than his recent run of games
3) Bradley is deserving of his first team minutes
4) Bradley Sr. is still not sure what to do up top
5) Players not getting starts with their team are not deserving of a call up (Convey)

The question 'what did we learn" is valid, but in the end not important. What is important is to find out what BB learned from this game. (Other than we don't have a Kaka or Ronaldinho in our player pool).

 

What???

'Doomed' offensively? As opposed to what, starting Davy Arnaud, Charlie Davies or Kamani Hill? -with all due respect to all three of them-

First of all, he's not 'washed out' and he's certainly not 'bombing out' on 1860, but you should probably consider watching Germany's second league before talking. Three assists in four games, and only one 'rotten' apple, so to speak, where he was ineffective up front, a 1-1 draw was the result. If he was even remotely hack, Josh and his club would never be sitting around the table for an extension, but hey, what do they know, they're only paying him, watching him 24/7, and trying to climb up to the 1st division with him...

As for yesterday, I find it a shame that so many people simply don't seem to understand his role, or what he actually did for the team. He's not a striker, not a pure goal-getter, and his role in the team was probably the most defensively astute presence we could've had. Stop thinking so literally people! It's not upfront play + poor touch = bad performances, or attacker + no goal = not good.

As far as I'm concerned, he did a superb job pinning back Lucio, who always likes to overlap and worm his way forward, and he help prevent the Brazilians from erecting a high pressure system for much of the game.

I'm not even a big JW fan, nor have I ever been, but his presence in the team again is intriguing, and I think he showed that he can make himself very useful to the setup.

 

I think you raise some excellent points.

From a tactical standpoint, Bradley has not tried anything new - be it against Guatemala or Brazil. This, in itself, is troubling.

Now, if you're Brazil, Argentina, Italy or Germany, then you have the luxury of saying we play the same tactics no matter the opponent b/c if we play well then we win. But for everyone else, the US included, you have to occasionally adjust your tactics depending on the opponent.

So if you play Guatemala, you DON'T play 4 in the back and 2 defensive midfielders. Not when you know they will bunker down.

Likewise, when you play Brazil, you DON'T insist on playing 2 forwards at the expense of sitting a better midfielder. Especially when you know Brazil will try to connect through the middle.

We are not at a point yet where we have the luxury of playing the same tactics regardless of the opponent. In fact, even if we did, trying out new tactics is exactly what these exhibitions matches are for.

My fear is that Bradley is from the Arena-school. That he is overly concerned with perception (i.e. keeping it close with Brazil) at the expense of using these games to simply get better.

 

While I agree Wolff played a valuable role, I think you're missing the point.

So what if Lucio gets forward and makes overlapping runs?

Yesterday was not about trying to keep the score respectable. Yesterday was about trying to make the team better and developing young talent - especially at the forward spot where the cup is awfully empty.

Had Brazil won 5-2 (w/ 3 assists coming from Lucio) yet a younger forward like Hill, Adu, etc. showed they could play at this level and perhaps even scored a goal, I would have considered that a success. But to play a savvy veteran just to keep the score respectable, which is the only conclusion one could draw from starting Wolff, goes counter to the whole reason for an exhibition.

The games do NOT count. So try new players. New tactics. The US is far from a finished product, especially at forward. So why recycle, when the original product was not good enough to begin with?

 

1) Pearce had played well enough for Rostock and Bornstein awfully enough for the US to swing this debate loooooong time ago.

And, btw, Bornstein didn't even play that well for Chivas last Saturday night.

This is not to say that I was not happy to see Pearce there. It was long overdue but Heath should have been on the field vs. Sweden at the very least.

2) Boca is a very mediocre international defender but is clearly better when he doesn't have to clean up Bornstein's shit. The guy is what he is. Anyone with a few Fulham tapes could figure this out.

3) Once again, this was not in doubt for most. What people wondered about was the effectiveness of the various pairings - Bradley-Mastro, Clark-Bradley, etc. The Brazil game gave us Bradley-Feilhaber, which we have seen before.

Where was Clark?

Playing at RSL.

4) But since he rarely had Dempsey-Johnson together, he may have tried them in this match from the beginning.

With the important job on the horizon being the WCQ, one has to prepare for it. Josh Wolff may be good enough to play away at Mexico when you're trying to stifle the game but the biggest probem facing the US is the lack of scoring. Bob has to find that first before he can get another worker-bee.

5) Julio Baptista is a (deep) bench player at Real and that didn't stop Dunga from calling him up.

Once again, Kamani Hill had some moments vs. Sweden. Maybe he is good enough, maybe not. At least, he is with the Bundesliga 1 squad while Wolff is with BL2. Give him half-hour with Dempsey. What will it hoit?

 

I'm not missing anything.

There isn't any set archetypal purpose for friendly matches, and they can be used for a number of means. Youth is great, but what you just described of bringing young players into the fold, testing them, and giving them experience is precisely what youth national teams were devised to bring, not senior teams.

Bob, just as reasonably, is using games like these to tweak minute details of his system, get his players familiar with it and one another, all the while drumming the tactics into his players' heads. You don't get a lot of time to gel as a national team, and every chance to develop one cohesive message with a new group of players is valuable opportunity.

People having pointed to his 'lack' of tactical changes as something credible to be levied against him. Look at Juergen Klinsmann, who refused to compromise on any tactical changes for two years before the World Cup, tweaked them slightly, and is now only remembered in a positive light for his accomplishments.

Also... why deliver the word 'recycle' with such a negative connotation? Players like Josh, among others, could prove valuable if used in a different way, and certainly might compliment the new group of players currently developing.

Do you want to consider bringing young players into the fold? certainly... is that requisite? not at all. The task is to work on generating the superlative team possible, not the youngest, not the best looking, not even the collection of best players, but rather best TEAM. If that means going to both young and old, by all means, it's valid.

 

I agree that he should've received a more convincing chance already, but to say that his hansa play has warranted is wrong. He got dumped from his starting role because of sub-par play, and isn't in it now; not to mention that the team hasn't racked up a single point.

 

Klinsmann - or maybe it was Löw - has made a lot of changes with the German team - players, formations, tactics, etc.

And since 2006 Löw has changed them even more.

 

Klinsmann really stuck to that 4-4-2, usually in a kind of oblong diamond, along with his idea of a very quick defense, and two-striker pairing. He stuck with it, changing players along the line, to put them in exactly the same roles. At least, that was until the World Cup, when he finally realized the need to not play high pressure high tempo all of the team, and finally decided to play a more rounded system at the back.

Whether it was really klinsmann or just his tactics-man Loew is another question. Joachim devised most of the system, while Klinsmann brought all the elements together, and set the tone.

Since taking over for Juergen, Loew has tended to favor a similar approach tactically, although he's been a bit more experimental with certain players -having been forced into it as well, through a lot of injuries-. He's letting the team grow organically, and if some key players like sami khedira manager to elevate their game, the system might change for the like.

 

One thing US can take out of this is a shift of mentality. After we gave up the second goal, we started running with the Brazilians. I felt like with Arena's crew and even with Bob's crew until this game, when we play European powers our attacking players are scared to attack. We saw it with Sweden, when all of our midfielders were occupied with Ibrahimovic. So our midfielders dropped back and played for a 1-0 game.

Even in the first half in the Brazil goal, we played like this. I'm sure Brazil had at least 65% possesion in that half. Dempsey would hold the ball only to see noone coming to attack. Honestly we would only attack with 4 players max.

After the second goal though, we started running at people. Dolo was making overlapping runs, Donovan was freeing people, Pearce took a crack at goal ... very positive stuff. That change in mentality is what we learned in this game. That we can run with the best of em.

I, for one, am looking forward to this squad (minus Gooch and Wolff, plus DeMerit and EJ) playing Switzerland with this new mentality.

 

And yet we still lost by two goals.

Maybe I'm being crazy here but I will celebrate the day when we can actually score with the best of em.

 

I guess we can all have opinions on this but to me there is an overarching purpose for friendlies and that is to develop the team so as to maximize its chances of reaching the Big Show and going as far as possible once it gets there. And I would agree with those who think it is a waste to use an opportunity like the match against Brazil to re-cycle a known commodity like Wolff.