I've seen all New England games this season, and honestly, Benny hasn't shown well enough to warrant a call-up. I'm hoping that changes because Benny at his best has a role on the USNT.
Absolutely, the concern of course, is that there was little on the bench to give the team a different look if things were not working on the field. A team needs balance, some of this, some of that. Often some of this balance is not always "what the coach might like". If things were clicking nicely, this would not be a concern. They are not. Again, Feilhaber may not be the solution, but I believe we need more of a variety of players that can make a difference rather than possibly folks that have what JK likes (but can't help us). I am referring primarily to younger players happy to get the call and hopefully learning for the future.
You're not watching closely enough. Benny's among the league leaders in fouls drawn (while committing very, very few himself), chances created from the run of play, "big" chances created, and passing accuracy in the opponent's half. He's also near the top for ball recoveries among attacking midfielders, and is above-average in interceptions. Since he moved to the central midfield slot the Revs are 3-2-4 - not great, but better than Sporting's last 9 games, for context. Also, he's probably the only ********ing guy in the pool who can do this: EDIT: And FWIW, Zusi won all the Camp Strudel fitness tests. Feilhaber was near the back of the field.
I don't consider him a midfielder and I don't consider him a creative player, so the fact that you consider him to be the most creative midfielder on our team says a lot about Klinsmann's selections.
Thanks for the advice, but I stand by my assessment. Nguyen has been more effective for us this season.
I haven't caught as many Revs games as I would have liked this season, but my sense is that he's still the same player he's always been for good and for bad. As a CM he doesn't boss the midfield or get as many touches as he should, and as an attacker he doesn't create as many chances as you'd like (although if Matrim has stats to the contrary on these points I'll gladly stand corrected), but the type of chances he does create and the quality of his touches (in playing out of pressure for example) translate to the international level a lot better than those of most of the players who are more consistent in those areas in this league. I also wouldn't be surprised to hear he has a bit of an attitude problem as well. He threw a fit after being subbed off late in the game today, and that's definitely not the first time I've seen something like that from him.
Threw quite a fit when subbed off for Joseph in the 70th minute today. I suppose that's the sort of thing folks are talking about.
We need players who can change the game as subs. Williams or Edu or Beckerman or even Zusi aren't that type of player. Torres is to some degree but Benny, Adu, Shea, and Gomez fit that description. In our pool when it comes to long throughballs and the vision and technique to hit that pass it's Freddy and Benny and Donovan then Mike and Clint and JJ and JT and then a pretty big drop off after. So while Feilhaber won't stretch a defense with his pace his range of creative passing allows our team to take advantages of the gaps that open up in the last 15. As far as his form this year I think he has more to give but what he does few can. Sigi specifically chose him over Szetela for his work rate so hopefully it was a temporary blip at camp.
I think this has been a glaring weakness of JK's roster selections from an offensive perspective. I think there is a little to much Phil Jackson/Coach K-inspired "let the players learn to work it out" at play. Of course the players who could provide a creative spark like an Adu or a Benny need to step their games up enough so that JK sees their upside as higher than their downside. I think this will be addressed by the Hex and certainly WC2014.
i agree with this. Again im not too worried about it as long we advance to the hex (which we should barring an unforeseen collapse), but at least before the WC i'd like JK to start calling up guys like feilhaber who could provide that element off the bench. I think another issue that i thought kind of showed up was regarding dempsey. If we are going to try to pull a legit 4-3-3 like we did in this "5 game tournament", where does dempsey fit in?? i like dempsey but he doesn't really fit the winger mold. I like him being in or around the box as much as possible, not really trying to give us width. I understand that the design was for him to pinch in and to have fabian johnson give us that width from the LB position, but at the same time it still felt kind of awkward to watch.
I think Zusi or Adu is more likely at this point. Zusi is piling up the assists (8) in MLS and JK has singled out Adu over the last few months as someone who if he delivers productive numbers will be on the roster. I think that the #10 slot right under the striker in the 4-2-3-1 is Dempsey's best position however I think that as long as JK playes a strong midfield trio we will see the morphing 4-3- (2-1/1-2/3) we saw against A&B.
I know you are making a point, but you'd probably admit that the closer Dempsey is to the goal the better. I don't think any other USMNT player has the nose for goal to score like that off Ramos' touch...he did a similar thing to Chelsea this year as well.
Let's not go too nuts of Zusi, shall we? He creates chances at a lower rate than Feilhaber, and of his 8 assists 7 have come off of restarts. He's purely a north-south player with zero ability in traffic. I'm happy a kid like him has gotten the most out of his talent, but he's not the type who'll help the US retain the ball or break down packed in defenses. Now, if we were going to double down on high pressure, frenetic, counterattacking soccer, then Zusi's our guy. And judging by what Klinsmann's done so far, that's the plan. But I don't think it's the best use of our resources.
I just posted who I think is more likely to be an attacking sub at this point in time. Zusi and Feilhaber both went to the January camp fighting for a spot as an attacking midfielder on the USMNT A team roster. Zusi clearly impressed and is now on the fringe of the first 23. Feilhaber's performance and attitude actually hurt his case and now is not even on the radar. His performance in MLS since that January camp has not been good enough to raise him above the background noise level. He has 1 assist in the MLS this season. He is just not making any case for his inclusion even as a B team/January camp 2013 callup at this point in time.
Nice assist from Jones. But to me anyway it's still not as impressive as Benny's assist to EJ. Jones' was a ball floated over the top of the Polish defense for Altidore to run on to. Feilhaber's was bent with the outside of his foot and perfectly weighted to filter through the two Argie defenders. Fantastic technique and vision required to pull that one off. Again here, this time against Italy, you can see him do something similar (at minute 3:35) to earn us another penalty. Must be a 70-yard pass that finds Altidore, and Benny had his back to the goal when he received the ball so he only had a second look up and find him before hitting it. I just have a hard time thinking of anyone else in our pool capable of hitting passes like this. Not on a consistent basis anyway...
Since unlike gymnastics you don't get additional points for degree of difficulty we can't be objective. I like JJ's better but I agree that Benny does hit a nice long ball as does Freddy Adu. At 5:25 of your video you will also see the downside to Feilhaber and also Adu, sometimes not strong enough on the ball. In this case that mistake led to an Italian goal. To be fair, that pass from Dempsey was a very poor decision.