Unfair to judge Polster harshly for stuff that happened 60 minutes into the first preseason game of the year. It's entirely possible that his legs were giving out on him a little, and he was fading as a result.
ok, but as soon as somebody got behind Opara it was a yellow card from a clumsy move by Opara - and that was a Bosnia u23 team.
Fullbacks have to cover 90 yd runs back into defensive positions and Polster isn't a 100 yd dash guy.
I agree, I'm no big fan of Opara. I agree that his challenges are clumsy, and his overall athleticism is way overrated, in my opinion. He doesn't move that well, and I don't think he's a good passer. He jumps well and he's physically strong, but I think we have a number of better options at the position. He was fine in this game though, I don't think he played poorly.
I fell asleep half-way through the first half and woke up at the half. The players that I was interested didn't get to play (Ramirez, Lima). The only 2 players that did well were Sapon and Rowe, the rest? I wasn't impressed.
MOTM: Me. 9.8. -I went to bed after walking home from the Roma game with absolutely no regrets about potentially missing my first camp cupcake match in like 10 years
i took a look at some various sites and saw some bizarre player ratings -Goal had Polster as their second highest rated player at 6.5 is exhibit A. From my standpoint, I really didn't care about how guys played in the game as much as what type of potential they have to make be useful. Here are the players that fit the bill for me: Adams - Kid covers a ton of ground and is a great athlete that has pretty good touch and pretty good vision. Plays like he belongs and seemed like the only player in the midfield that could trouble attackers. Didn't realize he had the hops he does. Wasn't great in attack, but I see him being valuable in a more defensive role. Steffan/Hamid - Hamid is an amazing shot stopper but his feet don't seem to be at the international level. He's the kind of keeper I'd bring in if we needed someone to stand on their head for the US to win which he has the capability to do. Steffan seems like the most complete package we have - not much to judge in this game. Morris (Bud man of the match btw) had a poor finishing day to say the least, but was able to beat players at will getting a good cross in with his right and a decent ball in with his left (he's finally using it to cross after 2 years of contorting his body to hit with the outside of his right). Really the only dangerous player we had in attack. Makes good runs, scares defenses with speed, has decent touch and good vision. Needs to clean up touches in final 3rd to be top level, but even now is a nice option to have off the bench against tired defenses. Guys I wish I liked more: Trapp - I've been a fan ever since I got to watch him in one of the showcase games. Always have liked his vision, intelligence and solid technique. However I don't think he's athletic enough for what we need. Zimmerman - Seems like he has all the tools, but has looked very unreliable. Lot of seasoned vets at CB that are just as good but less prone to error. Roldan - Really like his grit and think he does a lot of the pretty well, but does nothing special enough. Seems like he's constantly improving so I'm not writing him off. The rest to me are either serviceable players that don't offer anything special or really aren't part of the solution. Biggest concern is up front - I'm really hoping Sargent has not peaked physically.
Guys that have been playing three weeks together should not look as out of sorts as they did. The Bosnians did not. I'm going to blame that on coaching.
Morris, Trapp, Arriola did enough to keep them in their previous spots down the depth chart. Zardes and Aguadelo fell a bit, although to be fair Juan wasn't exactly involved from the start. Hamid and Steffen weren't really tested, except by their own mistakes. The rest? Congrats on earning your callup/cap, but we don't need to see you again any time soon. Disappointing to not see even one bright start shine out of this bunch. FFS, our A team struggles against central american teams made up of MLS B teamers and now our C team struggles against college sophomores. No wonder most of the couple thousand fans in that empty stadium were Bosnian.
You can't always hope for the ref to bail you out. A great play is taking the ball away, not getting yourself into a 50/50 challenge. A good play followed up by a teammates boneheaded play does not combine to make a great play.
Why are games even played in Carson, CA anymore? Barely even 10 thousand fans in the stands. Can’t we rotate this? That whole game was dull from start to finish. Positives...no one was so bad that they stood out as a negative. Both sides looked like they were playing with a hangover.
Most of it was a pathetic excuse for soccer. The tactical intent was to boot the ball long, and hope Sapong and Zardes could hold the ball for trailing midfield runs. There was little intent to play the ball through the midfield. When that predictably did not work, the equally predictable response was to throw more forwards on. Unsurprisingly, that did not work either. Hard to blame the failures on players when the problem was bad coaching. This was the culmination of work done by the current US Soccer Coaching Fraternity Presidency, minus Bruce Arena and Bob Bradley. On the bench you had Dave Sarachan, Richie Williams, and John Hackworth. These are most of the same guys who created a lost generation, and who failed to prepare a team to qualify for the World Cup. I really hope this is the last time any of them are in charge of any US team.
It's a team with no identity, where each player seems to be talking a different language. Surprising, considering they all come from the same league. PS: The point of Camp Cupcake is to review talent that can be used by the coach in the current system for the coming tournaments. At this point, we have no coach, no system, and not coming tournaments, so it seems the definition of pointless. Why is the coming manager going to use what happened today, considering it was all tinted by what Sarachan asked from the players in the dressing room???
What exactly was the tactical plan? Looks like a transition attack setup but all I saw was slow passing all night long
At this point in the "cycle", I watched particularly looking at very young MLS players to see if I could glimpse how high their ceiling is in a game where the speed is above MLS. I was particularly watching Roldan and Adams, hoping to see them shine. First, given it was an off-season friendly between two rebuilding teams, I didn't think the speed/intensity was particularly fast. Second, I thought both Roldan and Adams were ok but they didn't differentiate themselves as I had hoped. Not bad but not players who has the look of someone ready to make the leap to the major leagues at this point. Thankfully, they're still quite young.
That line of four behind Sapong was a horror show. Doesn't matter who it is. all 2017 and now to start 2018, our midfield is getting outplayed by mediocre opposition. The only match we looked decent was vs Portugal with Williams and McKennie, both deemed not good enough by the country club boys. I mean, I could of told you, most could, that Zardes and Morris aren't wingers. That made no sense. And it showed. But Adams and Roldan provided zero support in the attack, link play, off the ball movement or creativity. Just no individual skill on display. Polster was non existent in overlaps or getting forward. Trapp overrun defensively as he so often is. Neither GK could distribute. Neither CB could play on the ground. I don't buy the preseason excuse. The lads have been training for almost a month. That's plenty of time to shake off most rust. Individual skill should still show. I wasn't expecting midseason form but in sports when you've got skill/talent, it shows. It's not like when playing basketball you suddenly lose the ability to cross someone up because you're not in midseason form. Same with soccer. You can either dribble players or you can't. Ours can't. After sleeping on it the only positive for me is the hotdog provider for the stadium sold a few frankfurters.
U.S. Soccer still doesn't get it Now let’s talk about that lineup. The Americans started a 30-year-old Justin Morrow at left back and handed a debut to a 28-year-old central defender, Ike Opara. Out wide, it played 26-year-old Gyasi Zardes who has already demonstrated to lack the capacity to do a job at the international level. And up front, a 29-year-old C.J. Sapong plainly has nothing to offer the program in the long term. Yet there they were. As if this were just a regular World Cup-year January camp, useful for unearthing a role player or two to fill out the back end of the roster at the big tournament this summer. Rather than the beginning of an almost half-decade rebuilding process, a total reboot of a national team that had stagnated and then badly regressed after the 2014 World Cup. This isn’t the time to be handing minutes to 30-year-old left backs. Or blooding center backs who will be 33 when the U.S. next has a chance to be at a World Cup. Or to get wingers on the field who have proven only that they don’t belong in 37 prior caps. Or to play through strikers who have recorded 10 or more goals in just one of their seasons in Major League Soccer. https://sports.yahoo.com/u-s-soccer-still-doesnt-get-051541958.html Anyhow I'm off to work. See y'all later.
I see potentials in Adam. If he has any desires to bring his game to the next level, and be a regular contributor to the USMNT in the future, he should get his ass over to the Bundi 2, Dutch 2, or Belgium, etc. He'll learn a tons more over there the next couple of years, then he will ever learn in MLS. If he stays in MLS, the only improvements I expect to see from him are getting bigger and running faster.
I disagree with this. If he stays, I'm sure he'll have a lot of opportunities to be a regular contributor to the USMNT. Let's not kid ourselves that the USMNT's general level varies greatly from MLS - the reason our players play there is because it's the right approximate level for us. This has been true since MLS has started and we as a fan base should be thrilled that MLS has been and is continuing to improve. It's a good league, albeit still not at the major league level, and our players can learn and improve a lot there. We cannot throw our baby out with our bathwater and publicly slagging MLS is truly counter-productive for the USMNT (duh, JK). Do I think that our high ceiling players should go overseas as young as possible? Certainly, but it's not a path for everyone and quite frankly is best only for those players who have very high ceilings. If they don't have a particularly high ceiling (and I'm not quite sure of Adams/Roldan, which is why I was watching them with interest last night), a strong case can be made for the USMNT benefits of them staying in MLS, although I do worry about the slow closing speed in MLS. This is particularly true of 22-year old Roldan.
Sure. But you want a CB that can defend and pass the ball. If you can only do one, I guess you should at least defend (Opara). Zimmerman had two plays on defense, Opara took care of the rest. The first he completely flubbed and Hamid has to make a great save. The second he gives up a PK. He couldn't defend at FCD last year either. CCV is 19, five years younger than WZ, but if he made either of those mistakes in an EChamp game this weekend, people would be posting that his career is over and he will come to nothing.
You watch enough of these January snoozefests and you realize how little practical purpose they serve other than to give the Fed employees a couple of So Cal weeks, spread a little travel money around and let Stu Holden play cheerleader. The idea is to MAYBE find a warm body or two that could be reasonable depth players in matches that actually count. Did we spot anyone with the ability or potential to be a place holder against a decent Euro side or in an away CONCACAF qualifier? Kudos to the oldsters Opara, Morrow and Hamid for putting in an honest shift. I like Hamid's demeanor. What does Nick Rimando have that has put him ahead of Hamid all these years?