It's quite obviously not completely offset because he was a key player in both goals last game. He obviously scored the second, the entire chance on the first was created by him bulldozing a centerback. I don't really see a ton of evidence with this team that with another striker we score more goals. Yes, he's fumbled away a LOT of chances, but I'm not sure why people watch the other striker options and think that they are making a ton more of those plays from start to finish. A ton of his touches aren't even touches for others because he's holding off CBs that someone like Sargent, we wouldn't even try to pass to him. It's not, because striker #3 is completely open. The Championship is not some special place -- ffs, Daryl Dike is at .47/90 npxG+xA in the Champo and .6 npG+A/90 if actuals are your thing. Agmeyang is absolutely no great shakes, but the reality is that Sargent and Wright and whomever else you put in that bucket are neither scoring nor otherwise helping so much that you can't look at Agyemang and write him off because he's the only guy who can win a ball in the air or simply manufacture a goal by muscling people off.
There is a drop off in CMs but I don't think it's too big and the possession numbers have been as expected. IMO, the biggest problem for this group is not the CMs it's the wide play. The drop off in quality is huge. Pulisic, Dest or even Jedi would have shown up a bit more and done much, much more to clobber these teams. Instead we saw minimal danger generated wide from relatively good positions. Haji arguably could have been used more but obviously there were injury issues. BA has what is needed to do better wide but it is still not in his tool set.
It's not like we have a history of great CFs. We have had one guy be decent at a top four league. McBride, that's it. The frustrating part is that we have three candidates to get above that level and they aren't quite breaking out. That means it's wide open for any good MLS CF to make the team.
His mechanics aren't great for some things but what I have noticed/like about him: He moves well before it seems like he needs to. See Mahtzo1's note a page back. He shoots without waiting for the perfect setup. He's not settling it and putting it on his preferred foot while the defense closes all the shooting lanes. Right foot, left foot, he lets it fly.
I'd say equal is the lack of wide switches from midfield. this is where we miss McKennie. Tessmann is also very good at this. It would seem Berhalter and McGlynn would be good at this but I don't remember them doing that so far. I also saw some runners going to space and the deep players with the ball never saw the run. That makes them not run if they are never rewarded.
My 'tactics' comment was a tongue-in-cheek response to an earlier post that none of us were in a position to comment on any players performance because only HE could understand Poch's tactics.
Yeah, this game was a real slog. I understand that we didn't need to win, but it's difficult to believe (and/or accept) that Pochettino wanted the team to possess the ball that much with so few attempts to get forward and create anything (let alone actual chances to score). ZZZZzzzz... Not exactly a good advertisement for U.S. Soccer as we try to ramp up interest in the WC. That said, I found it kind of funny during the second half when Holden began to get annoyed with our passive play, and then just as he's commenting that nobody is making runs to get behind Haiti's defense, two guys make runs to try to get behind Haiti's defense. Unfortunately, even though it appeared that the guy with the ball had his head up, no attempt was made to play the ball through or over the top. It was mentioned during and after the game that Ream's backpass to Freese was probably a bad idea (especially a bouncing ball, not a roller), but that should probably be emphasized. Not to let Freese off the hook, but Ream is supposed to be the smart veteran leader. Play the damn ball out to touch. But I'm still very much pro-Ream. I was thinking (again) during this game that his age doesn't matter all that much to me. It's just a number. As long as he can perform, I'll gladly take him at the WC (2026, that is... 2030 might be a stretch, haha). I can see Freeman's potential, but frankly he was scaring me in this game with some of his passes. There were a couple that got deflected (and very nearly picked off), and might have created serious problems.
A lot of you are seeing a front line that didn't move enough, but I was seeing front line players try to make runs behind, especially but not only Aaronson, and the midfielders/fullbacks would not take the chance over the top, or through the defensive lines. Lots of openings were wasted and DeLa Torre in particular could not connect well going forward. Late in the game they started to take those chances. I didn't know if that was by design, to lull Haiti into believing we'd never pass over the top. My husband thought the players looked scared to make a mistake, which is not a good sign. I suppose it's just a team that doesn't know each other well enough to pull off the combination plays consistently, but it was a boring middle of the game.
During last year's Copa America, there were times when I felt like I never wanted to see him in a U.S. shirt again. It's great to see him looking so much sharper and more effective now. The only caveat here for me is that "confidence", when it comes to passing out of the back, can be a slippery slope. Too much confidence can lead to too much risk, which can lead to... well, let's not talk about that. I don't want to jinx anything. And I really like his defensive positioning and decision-making, and of course his ability to create danger on set pieces. Keep it up, CR.
Agreed on Sullivan, I don't really remember the 2nd half, but the first half he was marvelous. No take lock for me: 1.) I was totally shocked that he became relevant, and was called up this window, 2.) I thought after watching him in '22 and '23 he'd be totally irrelevant to the national team to the same degree Chris Durkin became irrelevant from very relevant to me between '17 and '19, but 3.) I've seen his production pretty well explode past my expectations the past 16 months or so, and now this year, wow, and now tonight....got to be Bayesian, he was great when I was watching consistently first half. Really quite great, and monstrously unlucky to not open his account with one of the crazier first international goals you'll see scored by a player (Sargent's is pretty nuts too admittedly but not in the skillful way, just in the smart way). Great, great game. He's completely changed my view of him. It's been a weird 3 years since the U20 Concacrap Championship in '22, and the U20 WC the following year. A lot of stock went south since then, and while Luna being perhaps the prize of the group isn't terribly surprising to me (I think he was my #2 or #3 guy in that group), Sullivan suddenly climbing to #2-#3 or 4 of the prospects really does surprise me. Guys ahead of him at that time: Gaga, Brady, Cowell, Paredes, McGlynn, Wiley, Wynder, Tsakiris, Pokstus, Vargas, Che/Gomez options, Paxten, Guti etc. It's a sneaky good group, but with a lot of unfortunate directions afterwards with Gaga, Cowell (not surprising, he was either a grand slam or a strike out), Pokstus, Vargas bailing, Che Gomez flaming out....but it does look like we're getting something from I, and its kind of shocking how many guys are still, either senior pool players, guys with senior pool caps, or still considered legit prospects 2-3 years after these tournaments....In many ways, I don't think a youth team has had this many prospects w/genuine national team long term relevance before. The weirdest part is, none, or very few of them are probably much of a big deal long term beyond depth.....a genuinely odd bunch for an U20 team w/so many partial or legit hits in terms of prospects.... U20 Concacrap Championships/U20 World Cup: Promoted to Senior Team Prospects: Kevin Paredes Diego Luna Paxten Pomykal Jack McGlynn Quinn Sullivan Jalen Neal Cade Cowell Still Prospects: B. Guitierrez Gaga Slolina Caleb Wiley Josh Wynder Nico Tsakaris R. Poskutas
Couldn't agree more with this. Between Turner and Steffen over the past four and six years respectively I'm fairly certain both have either reached, or approached nearly half a dozen of these WTF?!?! moments, maybe more. Freese just had the first one I've ever seen, in the shirt anyway. I'm gonna give him some rope if Turner and Steffen had enough rope for 10 or more of these nightmare moments (hell, Horvath has rarely ever played in the shirt and I've seen at least 4-5 of his too). I'm pretty perplexed by people saying "well that's it, then, for Freese". Pretty sure he's 3rd among Americans in '25 3rd in '24 his profile over at FBref looks quite good enough. I'm letting it ride with him, period, what he did last night was nothing Steffen and Turner haven't done themselves, and worse, over the years....let's see how he bounces back from it.
Or you sit back, let them possess the game to death in our half, and counter. It has worked for us for years.
Totally agree. I do think that in that particularly bad segment right before we broke through in the second half, no one was moving. But to others' point, maybe they were sick of running and not getting the pass. I don't think they were afraid to try things so much as there's some conservatism to their decision making based on their comfort with their teammates, their own skillset, and a genuine tactical desire to retain possession. People get frustrated but we had a lot of good chances and they had very few. It wasn't a good offensive performance, but I think the minutes of doldrums is looming larger in people's minds that it probably should.
I would be absolutely stunned if we didn't score more goals with Downs, or as gag worthy as it may be to say, Sargent. Wright I don't really care for at this point, but he does have some versatility at least, so there's that. Agyemang is a giant guy who is just a black hole. I'm looking across 5 starts, 3 against crap teams, and it's been all hot garbage, even last night. I just don't see it, at all, I'd try literally anything else at this point, though I'm utterly shocked that Downs is not getting any run at this point after 4 consecutive --- performances, how many swings does this guy get? Poch gave Sargent one hideous start, and then he threw him down to Davey Jones Locker, this guy keeps getting free lives like it's some Nintendo video game from the eighties, it's nuts.
Also if they stink that badly and are an “embarrassment to the flag”, why we would need to wait to see what happens next? Wouldn’t we know that they’d stink? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It wasn't a great pass, but a CB absolutely has to be allowed that pass. And it wasn't that bad. You're exaggering how bad it was. To not have put enough on it on the slow-playing surface so that it didn't reach him would've been much worse. That goal was almost entirely Freese blowing a routine play because of simple nerves. He's the best passer on the team, and by considerable margin, except when a fully-healthy, in-form Gio Reyna is available. The most progressive passer, too, by an even larger margin.
I can't speak to Downs; I haven't seen enough of him. Sargent has his pluses, but I really don't think he'd have created nearly as many opportunities. He's not winning anything in the air and with us, he really doesn't seem to make good runs behind the defense. Lord knows he's not going to brawl like Pat has. It's just such a different style, I don't really think it's very easy to compare. Right now, it's just Pat v Downs v White. No one else is here. Downs is young and it's his first camp; I don't know if he's straight out worse in Poch's eyes or if he simply isn't as up to speed on certain things.
The floor is different with Pulisic and Weah on the field. His floor in that context is that of a useful two-way contributor who has to be dealt with.
Pat has had camp with Poch and made an impression. He brings a level of physicality very few in the pool can really match. “what if our best athletes played soccer?”
I've got no doubt that Sargent is a better player, but I think Agyemang is more likely to make something happen out of nothing, and I think his presence on the field promotes more direct play, which we often need. Whether those factors mean he's a better choice for 3rd striker is unclear.