Our press gave them issues early on. And we have to capitalize on those moments. Because Portugal is not going to do that the whole game.
Yep. We played pretty well. Overall. Just lacking that touch of class. Wes turned it over & we got punished by Vitinha & Fernandez (both top 3 guys in the world at their spots). And then collapsed too deep off a corner and they score with a pinger off the post. We turned them over plenty but could not capitalize. I mean, anyone who thinks we are a legit contender is delusional or stupid. But Rd16 is possible. Maybe even QF if we get a break or two. Freese, Richards, Trusty, and Freeman were all pretty good. Morris & Berhalter were much more aggressive & impactful than Tessman & Johnny. Jedi looked good on twice. Some real positives for me. ayers let us down in a critical moments. We pressed well. Turned them over. Got into some decent spots. Our two best pl
Poch’s ambitions are probably get out of the group somehow. Have a steak and chimichurri with Andres Cantor. Then get out of dodge and sign with an EPL team.
I know we want to play strong teams but I wonder if we bit off more than we could chew with these friendlies in the run up to the tourney. We might be crushing all enthusiasm in the locker room and the stands.
Disagree, he was solid. Sprung a number of attacks and linked up well often enough. Some bad moments too but he certainly wasn’t alone there.
Agreed, if we have to play the 4-4-2 can we and how would it look in the beginning and in the 75th. I think Poch going with a false 9 will confuse future opponents even more. we need grit from those fringe players and we saw it from Ageymang freeman Berhalter and Trusty. Sometimes grit wins you games in the 85th.
Poch needs to see some of these guys play against top level competition. This window, is about as close as you're going to get until the actual World Cup. I think he probably learned something, maybe not what he wanted to learn.
Martino was pretty milquetoast for most of the match, but he was biting during the postgame, claiming the lack of having to qualify- the lack of meaningful, competitive matches- has hurt us, and saying little has changed since the US lost to the Dutch four years ago.
Results like the last two will really get the casuals amped up for the WC. On a serious note tho, I guess I’m going to choose to believe all will be ok and there is a silver lining somewhere, I just haven’t found it yet. my main concern is that Belgium and Portugal did not really look bothered at all, minus a few moments here and there. Even accepting that we are not quite at their level, it is still troubling that it appeared like they were not even breaking a sweat.
The problem with that is that a confused team may just try the unexpected and we do not handle the unexpected well at all. Better to keep everything as simple as possible (but not simpler) so at least we will mostly know what we are trying to do, maybe.
At the end of the day a friendly is a friendly. Not that next level success is imminent but the actual tournament will look and feel quite different to this window.
I hope so. I root for Milan. Pulisic is my favorite Milan player. I can't wait for him to recover his form.