Now I'm not saying we should line up in this formation, however, the only way I would advocate this is if the irreplaceable Stevie C. goes down. With the way Stevie is built though, I think there's only a slight chance of this happening, since we won't be playing against dirty hackers in the tournament.. hackers, yes, dirty, not as much. My reasoning is we don't have a true right back to back him up. Therefore a squad of... --------McBride Beasley-------Donovan -----JOB--Reyna------ -Lewis--------Mastro--- --Gibbs--Gooch--Pope--- starts to make sense. You can maybe swap out Pope and put Boca on the left with Gibbs on the right depending on form. At most points in time I could see this as more of a 5-4-1 to be honest but it would alleviate some of the pressure on the right side that honestly, I don't feel comfortable having Albright handle. This I think has run through Arena's head and is the reason why he elected to take so many centerbacks. i really feel when partnered with better players, Conrad can be serviceable in the back if worst came to worst Any opinions?
If you read what I posted it would morph fairly easily into a 5-4-1 and it's a fairly free flowing midfield with JOB and Reyna more than adequate to support on defense when lewis and Mastro push forward. With DMB and Donovan up front it could at times resemble a 3-4-3. As i said, i hope this never gets put into play, but I would rather see this before I see albright go a full 90 at right back for us.
keller has a castle... he could make a 2-3-5 work... too bad we don't even have five forwards in our entire system
You can play 3-6-1 but you need wings for width... ----Pope---Gooch-----Gibbs ----- ---Mastro--------------Convey-- ------------Reyna------------- Dempsey----Donovan-----Beasley -------------McBride----------- It's doable as long as the defensive assignments are followed. It's a very fluid formation that requires a lot of experience to pull off. There's nothing wrong with it, inherently speaking. It was wrong for the '98 squad however due to the players on the pitch. It could conceivably work for the US in Germany.
The Brazil Club Champions managed by Luxemburgo use a 3-6-1. Just pointing out that it's been used with a high degree of success recently.
The game Japan played against us was their first of the year. Try to remember how we did against the Canadian A-leaguers.
The 3-6-1 is so awesome that not only did it lead to us getting humiliated in France, but it also led to a Japanese A- team get demolished (yeah it was only 3-2, their 2 goals were in garbage time) by our C team. No thanks.
Honestly, I think it COULD work, but it takes a lot of time to adapt to, and frankly we don't have that kind of time between now and June 12
We'd go 3-4-3 before 3-6-1. Pope --- Gooch --- Boca (or whoever was left because defenders would have to be out for us to line up with only 3 backs) Dempsey -- Reyna -- Maestro -- Lewis/Convey Donovan --- McB/Johnson -- Beasley
I'm sure the right team in a 3-6-1 would be fine. The issue in 98 wasn't the formation, it was the manner in which the formation came about, too late in the game, and not really making sense to or for the side. As for it's four letter word status, three, six, one, never had it.
Steve Sampson is a bad coach. Mike Burns ********ed up by leaving the post. A 3-6-1 is never playable. All wrong.
This is basically the same lineup as the original poster's, except for you're calling Donovan and Beasley forwards, not midfielders. It's just semantics.
Japan went 3-4-2-1 and IIRC, Zico's four defensive midfielders were playing in a Flat-4 formation. Once again, this can work if you have very good defensive/2-way mids but the Japanese were getting beat one-on-one constantly and had a horrible time getting out of their own half ... and they had no luck clearing the ball long because they lacked the size of the Americans and they had no numbers going forward. In any case, many formations are workable. Wenger played 4-1-4-1 vs. Villareal with Henry on the left wing far off-center and Fabregas, Hleb, Pires and Ljundberg running into thusly vacated forward slot. Arsene plays this formation because his roster is midfielder heavy and most of his mids are superb with the ball at their feet. And, he used the same formation at home and away because it was flexible enough to allow a two-way game at home and a slow low-pressure defensive game away. Pellegrini still responded with Villareal's standard "Riquelme + his support team" squad and almost snatched a tie anyway.