Entonces una manera de ayudar a evitar eso seria bajar la cuota de extranjeros en Chile. La mayoria de los equipos traen "puros paquetes" que lamentablemente "tapan" a los juveniles .
You've pretty much described how we played in the group stages. We already have this way of thinking... in fact, had we won, it would have been yet another match we win without being the favourites. We just ran out of luck (and legs) this time. I am rather surprised we made it this far to be honest. Credit is due to Salas for picking this abandoned team up and making it World Cup worthy. I would not choose him to stay for one reason only and that is that he has hinted to an exit already. I don't wan't fickle coaches that will abandon ship after short stints. We need someone who will stay long term like Tocalli perhaps...
Hahaha... no need for violence. This Uruguayan U20 is surprisingly disciplined and defensively effective (I believe they won the fair play award in qualies!). They played a very tight double line of 4 with wich it was easy for them to double mark the most dangerous players, they also needed only 3 players to build an attacking play... Laxalt was an absolute monster with a huge engine to help in defence and offence, Rabello is nothing next to him. During this whole cup I felt this Chilean team would have benefited from an old school 4-4-2 because it covers our biggest weakness which is our fullbacks. Instead we played a very stretched 4-2-3-1 or sometimes even a 4-2-4 when attacking, which left our flanks 1-on-1 against superior opposition EVERY TIME. We suffered way too much against Egypt, England, Irak and specially Ghana. So what if Castillo and Angelo are a bit isolated upfront, if there are two players in Chile who don't need much help in creating goals, these are Angelo and Castillo, they first two they scored were ridiculously good. Castillo got a shot from an impossible angle and Angelo managed to turn and shoot around his marker on his own. In a compact 4-4-2, Rabello's role would have also benefited as he would have been able to launch long balls behind the defence like Castañeda used to do with Salas and Zamorano. Anyway, no point thinking about it too much, as the saying goes everyone is a general after the battle. Salas did well to get us here, I just wish he had tried a more conservative 4-4-2 in friendlies at least. A little flexibility will go a long way...
Link is gone by now, it came up in La Tercera before the match against Croatia, they were saying he was going to quit if they didn't make it to quarters.
I'm just gonna put this out there cause a couple of people have brought it up: I'd rather lose every game than go back to playing the kick and pray football that we played with Acosta. I don't mean to offend anyone with this comment, because we're all entitled to our own opinions, but looking back on things, it's embarrassing how much we relied on two players (Za-Sa) and how badly the team crumbled after they retired. I don't want to go back to that, I'd rather lose with pride and dynamic soccer like we did this last match. Sometimes winning isn't everything. The people who watched our team go out, even the Ghanians, gained so much respect for our team. That, for me, is priceless. When someone comes up to me and says: "Your team played a hell of a game, they've got a bright future", it gives me endless pride in how these guys played. May not match how I would feel had we won, but pretty damn close.
La cuota en 5 extranjeros igual está bien, o sea 2 cupos menos que la actualidad, así los clubes pueden pegarse el chiripazo de que les salga alguno bueno de vez en cuando. Clubes chicos lo han aprovechado, además, la competencia siempre es buena. Y no sé si tapan tanto a los juveniles, de igual manera jugaría un veterano nacional, lo que no entiendo es por qué los entrenadores del medio no apuestan por seleccionados juveniles, a todas luces son jugadores de calidad en comparación a los extranjeros que suelen venir o peloteros chilenos que cambian de club cada 6 meses. Ojo, que no hablo de poner toda la cantera y nada de experiencia, sino que los seleccionados a nivel sub 20 debiesen ser titulares en sus equipos. En los tiempos de hoy son futbolistas hechos y con altas probabilidades de ser parte de la absoluta en el futuro cercano.
Al final "cagan" por lo mismo que nos significó caer en este mundial. Lamentablemente, fisicamente, están en condiciones de desventaja en relación a muchos de los jugadores un poco más maduros. En cualquier "trancazo" el que sacará la peor parte será el más joven, al que aún le falta alcanzar madurez física. Frente a esto, ningún entrenador en su sano juicio arriesgará perder un partido, solo por darles tiraje a los jugadores promesa. Más aún, cuando por arriesgarse a utilizarlos, esto puede significarles pérdida del valor potencial de los mismos (cosa que no les gustará a los repectivos dirigentes tampoco, que son quienes le pagan el sueldo al entrenador). Hay que darle tiempo al tiempo, y en la medida que crezcan se fortalecerán, al punto en que serán verdadero aporte, en el futuro, en sus respectivos equipos. Son muchos los casos de jugadores jovenes, que por jugar antes de su tiempo, terminan perdiéndose para siempre como jugadores, por lesiones prematuras al tratar de apurarlos. Prueba de ello, es que a veces cuando un equipo extranjero compra a una de estas promesas, lo ceden a préstamo a su club de origen por un tiempo, para que maduren en su propio medio, pues si se los llevan a medios más exigentes, pueden terminar perdiendo una buena parte de la inversión hecha por ellos (un ejemplo muy claro, fué el de Alexis Sánchez, que estuvo a préstamo primero en el Colo y luego en River, antes de dar el gran paso al club dueño de su pase, Udinese).
On second thought, fellas, we should've won. Jesus, the amount of imbecility coming from the African fanboys comments...you'd think we lost to some demi-gods or something. Kudos on the Emilio Estevez inspirational speeches!
Its their moment to enjoy, you must try to understand them, as when all these kids grow up, they will not win much of importance, and most likely is that the same teams that they now beated, are going to be the ones who will beat them in the near future at NT level, when things matter the most. Let them rant on it, and don't try to argue anything with them (their time is usually shorter.........
I'm with you in general, man. I'm not an advocate of kick-and-pray football either; it is and was absolute garbage. We have made so many leaps forward since that era. The next step for our teams is to learn how to switch to another game-plan when the momentum changes. At 3-2 up and with minutes to play, we should have: - Switched to a 4-4-2 and closed the lines. - Given orders to both full-backs to drop back, defend and (a) pass off to open players/send long to Henriquez or Castillo, or (b) clear to safety. - Given orders to players in front of both full-backs to close the gaps in front, as their opponents were much faster. We basically need to learn what it means to be stoic, which is not synonymous with violence or ultra-defensive football. It's also interesting that our first 2 goals came from quick transition play, where both attacks were direct and caught Ghana off-guard because they did not have numbers back. The goals did not come from our usual, high-possession football.
To be fair it was bad that I associated the 4-4-2 with Acosta because there are ways and ways of playing it. If you are a proper coach you can play 4-4-2 and build up fast clever counters quite easily. Ask Uruguay who are still in the cup and who also withstood the relentless attack from Spain without conceding once, not even in extra time, they also played a lot cleaner than Chile and their attacks were anything but kick and pray, if anything our game was more kick and pray than theirs was at times... Rabello and Maturana's passing success must have been around 50% or lower as soon as they crossed into opposing territory. Then you look at Uruguay. Most of their attacks consisted on Laxalt holding the ball and bombing forward on his own, he was amazing, the sort of player Rabello was supposed to be but is not even his shadow, he could either hold the ball for his teammates to move forward or make a run on his own. Ideally I'd like Chile to use Sampaoli's 4-3-3 and 3-4-3 in every level, but the fullbacks and wide men of this generation were just not good enough, add to this the fact the we had two awesome strikers in Angelo and Castillo and then you are just asking to play 4-4-2. I'm of the idea that all teams should at least manage 3 formations comfortably and be able to mutate depending on circumstances. Sampaoli is the most flexible coach we have in this regard, I have seen him use Bielsa's 4-3-3 and 3-4-3, as well as a 3-5-2 among others. Salas was 4-2-3-1 to the death, which was a good formation to start with, but once Larenas was out injured (or exhausted) we should have changed to a 4-4-2 and make Ghana work for it, I'm sure we would have managed just as much chances with long deliveries to Castillo and Angelo as we did with the expanded 4-2-3-1 with the added bonus of not killing ourselves running all over like headless chickens.
Amen, specially with the 3rd point, we would have stopped so many headaches had we played a bit tighter... we played fast counter attacking 4-2-3-1 football and were the most violent team in the qualies. Uruguay played a classic 4-4-2 and got the fair play award, why is this? Because our players were not fast enough to play the expansive 4-2-3-1 and were caught backtracking or late too many times, this results in late challenges and desperate fouls. I'd go as far as to say we didn't enjoy much possession football during the whole tournament anyway, at most 10% over our opponents, which matters little as long as you make it count (just look at Barça vs Bayern). The 4-2-3-1 is very expansive, requires a lot of stamina, pace and more importantly fast and precise passing (we failed terribly in this point), it is a formation to win on counters and is won on transitions, which is why Mourinho likes it so much. It is very difficult for the midfielders and neither Maturana or Rabello were up for the Sneijder/Özil/Muller role. Their one-touch passing missed more times than I can count. It was also difficult for our defenders to reach the midfielders as they also missed many long passes to the opposition. Rabello and Maturana are more classic 10's who need more time on the ball and have teammates much closer to them. This old school 10 is dead, the only way it can survive in the modern game is if you build the team around him in a 4-3-1-2... the way Boca or Villarreal did for Riquelme. Even then it can be easily neutralised with man-marking, unless the number 10 is extraordinary, which neither Rabello or Maturana are. This is another reason why I think we would have achieved similar amount of chances with a 4-4-2. And just to be clear... I don't like the 4-4-2, it's to reactive for my liking, but sometimes you have to play with what you've got. Once our only decent fullback got injured (Larenas) we should have just abandoned the expansive 4-2-3-1 and reverted to a compact 4-4-2 to cover our weakness, at that point we were starting to have less and less possession anyway so it would not have mattered much, but at least we would have stopped the highway through our fullbacks and we would have created just as many chances. Those who watched the Uruguay v Spain match would have noticed how the charruas would double up on the sides against the attacking wingers time and time again. Laxalt came back to help more times than I can remember. In our case, it was the center backs who had to come in the rescue of our fullbacks. Leaving huge holes in our area.
The way Uruguay defended their lead it was abundantly clear. It does not require a genius of a coach to set that up. So I am surprised as how many posters here want to retain Salas and on top of that give him the U17s! I see that as a point blank shot in one's foot.
Basically the same thing Chewie said, 4-4-2 with close lines (close enough for the player ahead of the fullback to come back and double up marking on the wings) and both Castillo and Angelo as a striking duo up top (which is something most of us had mentioned in this forum before). Keep in mind there is no such thing as a superior formation or proposal applicable to every opponent and every situation. Even Bielsa had two formations. But sometimes, certain situations scream for a particular change. In Chile's case, after the exit of Larenas the fullbacks that remained were too weak and constantly beaten almost. Every. Single. Time. In addition, the team was too stretched in a 4-2-3-1 and everyone was too tired to get back and help each other out. Tired legs... crap fullbacks... team too stretched... what should you do? Close up! Two close lines of four, make Ghana work for it a bit more. It was too easy for them to get into shooting position time and time again. Congest the area and attack with long balls behind the Ghana defenders, both Angelo and Castillo showed they could take them on 1 on 1, plus the effectiveness of Ghana was horrible, they had to take a million shots on goal against a few of ours, imagine if we had cut their chances to half! Salas said he never wants his teams to renounce attack, but what good is the idea of an attack if you can't build up anything because you have no legs left and your link-up of Maturana and Rabello are so exhausted they can't complete a simple one-two. Might as well skip those two and look to pass behind the Ghanian defence or to the wings in search of a corner, It would have had similar passing success rates without the exposure of the 4-2-3-1. I think there is a fear in Chile, which I also have BTW, of trying to play a more defensive game, which is understandable because our defenders suck, almost all of them (I would not try it with the adult NT for example)... except this U20 that is. This U20 had already shown in the qualies that when we had to play conservative football (due to the red cards) and had to compact our lines... our team was more than capable of holding the fort against wave after wave of Argentinian, Colombian or Paraguayan attacks. Honestly, watching the Chile Ghana match I was almost hoping for a red card for Chile. It would have been the only chance for Salas to close the back lines a bit more and for our opponents to go all out.
Agree with you Posteador, interestingly enough Cristobal Guarello says the same thing and I agree. This term we have developed, "ratoneo" is mediocre and never ever mentioned in the developed nations futbolwise. Good defending is part of futbol, and a person who really likes and understands futbol will see the beauty in that. The problem is that you gotta know how to do it, a couple of guys tried it horribly and gave it a bad rep.
I meant "proposal" in terms of who Toepunt thinks is better suited and interested in taking over the youth NTs should Salas decide not to continue.
I wholeheartedly agree with many of your points Posteador. Unfortunately, for this game, I don't believe compressing would have helped us much. The main problem was that the Ghanian forwards were making a meal out of us in our third. They had many players were tactically skilled, and that threw our weak defense into the deepest pit of hell. For example, look at how all the goals, aside from the first one, were scored. There were always at least 4 or 5 defenders trying to take the ball away from Ghana. Defenders started to get desperate and reverted to the type of defense you'd see at a pee wee football match with everyone running after the guy with the ball like a headless chicken. We lacked discipline and mental strength, and that's the honest truth. Uruguay has it, we don't (currently). It's a mentality that we have to build into our players from a young age. You play the position you're told to play no matter what happens, you hold strong tactically. I know we had to park the bus a lot in the sudamericano with less players, but you also gotta remember how lucky we were not to get scored on in many of those games and that Ghana plays a different style of football. I don't believe there is a simple solution or analysis for this game. It's definitely one that, once things are carefully studied and figured out, will help this team become a thousand times better than it was. I'd rather them lose today as 20 year olds and win something great as players of the senior team. Furthermore, I don't believe in this "ratoneo" bull anymore. If we have a lead, it's time to play defense. If anyone want's to criticize that, they've never played the game themselves and they definitely don't understand it.
I thought that is exactly what you meant. I wish I had a list of names to throw into the ring, but I don't. One could consider the coach of Uruguay U20 team for instance since he seems to have a grasp of how to arrange players for an effective defensive shape. So I would throw his name into the mix. Will the ANFP make an offer to him? (dream on). There may be others of course. The ANFP needs to look at the big picture and not just a small band aid view. Their technical department should constantly be on the lookout and building databases on coaches who could fill in certain needs as soccer evolves and countries do likewise. Be proactive I would say!
But notice as many of the goal scoring situations developed because our defenders were 1 on 1 with their attackers. Very few teams allow this to happen, trusting so much on 1 defender. Not even nations with the best centerbacks in the world allow 1 on 1 to happen.
Point blank, Toepunt doesn't rate Salas and thinks he's a poor coach so he'd rather we go backward by finding someone else (specially if Salas leaves).
If Salas decides to leave his coaching post at the U20 I would not said we go are necessarily going backwards. Why would we? unless of course his replacement was less qualified.