Musah - US Men N&A Thread

you have the funniest spin on things. "in the picture." let me remind you of reality here. pulisic and sargent are involved. it's debatable if musah and dest are miscast at the wrong positions but they are involved. yedlin i am not sure if he makes the team under another coach. reyna got benched. pepi got dropped for the final roster. trapp got cut. miazga got cut and even occasionally ominously but vaguely disses the coach on twitter. i have advocated for mendez without success. so, your spin that only trapp is being screwed is inaccurate. and you're the one insinuating i am wrong about vague "somethings" then making such mistakes every post.

also, this is not the whole U20 team, from good to bad, including not just weah and richards but also indifferent players like keita, when you say "decent hit rate," this is the YNT system player of the year. that should be near 100%. ironically, if it's not, i think GB is a poor judge of talent.

next to last point, when you pick dest over weah or richards on that particular U20 team, after dest got beat for a goal by ukraine, sorry, that's "rep" or "buzz," that's not the reality i saw. i thought dest was like the 7th or 8th best player on that team, including mendez llanez ledezma soto ochoa. i still think weah, richards, and others are going to be better pros, and may already be. richards in particular has struggled to find a good consistent platform to play like he did the other day for palace. anyhow, my point being that dest's award probably has less to do with how U20 went than the buzz associated with GB being a senior team fanboy who fast tracked him ahead of more talented peers who proved more reliable later on. to then say "but see how they are involved under GB" is to miss the sort of bandwagon effect here. the senior coach likes them ergo they get the express lane ergo you then say see how involved this list is. i deconstructed that above but on the more recent ones, the award seems at least part constructed from who GB likes as opposed to the best player off the youth teams. which makes it an "on the list because the NT coach likes them and still involved because he still does" tautology. the NT coach likes who he likes. duh. personally i think half the problem with GB's 4 years has been ignoring what sarachan uncovered or how the U20 teams actually looked.

you miss how bad for how long trapp had to play to get dropped. dest sent us home from the world cup. etc.

 

mendez, along with miles, sargent, weah, and others, was diverted to the U23 developmental squad. i forget if he ever got camped but i am pretty sure, as someone who argued for him, he has zero caps. i personally thought we could use a MF who could hit shots top of the 18 and dead balls as he used to for the YNTs.

the latter (deadball shots and service) has become a popular concern but the fans discussing it tend to trip over their feet in that they don't seem to get the relation of favoring hustling "tanks" or "two way mids" and having no one capable of hitting a sufficiently precise shot or service off a corner or free kick. and i say this as someone who comes from defensive soccer. i just believe in division of labor and that if you don't put enough finesse on the field don't expect accurate set pieces. the players exist, they just are out of fashion. some were on that U19 team. green, holmes, a few others. reyna could probably have hit a decent one if he's not eating sunflower seeds and picking up splinters.

 

Excellency: I would actually be fine with a true 10 and two 6s for the toughest games. i doubt adams less than you do, but from the perspective of someone who at times (say frosh year in college) found myself putting out too many fires, it's exhausting. klinsi's frenetic 2014 cycle team looked exhausted 50' in. this bunch looked tired at half of wales. i think that has something to do with is the triangle pointing up or down in the MF.

i find the whole 8 fetish to be in between mush. to me you want either 2 AM or 2 DM, 2 producers or 2 destroyers, pick a priority. get the whole hog and not some in between mush. which whole hog do you really want.

what i have seen suggests adams can't do it alone or we would be exhausted trying. so we need the 2 DM version, double 6s, 10 in front of them top of the triangle. in such a formation it's idiotic overkill for that AM to be a mere 8. sit them right under the strikers and make them a 10. that gives us a central direct attacking element who can also support the 9 rapidly.

i think it's silly to have your 10 running around like a chicken on defense. they are not adams. division of labor. the 6s and backs are there to do the sweeping. tell the 10 to mirror the 9 in jogging around on defense in ways designed less to press than to box teams in, push the opponent to a side, cover passing lanes, or entrap for the benefit of those behind. as someone who used to get people to make bad passes just by running at them, you don't have to fully commit. all you have to do with the high attackers is have them parked on passing angles or forcing bad angles or getting defenders confused where to go next.

your choices are either that or have a trequartista, 2 fowards, and no dedicated wing attack, which would be silly with this talent pool. if there is one thing we have, it's wing talent. the one thing we're not sure about is who to play striker. so to me more wings and mids, fewer forwards. 451, 361, 442.

pressing is childish stuff. i was always taught don't compound mistakes on the ball by running right up to the guy who won the ball and getting beat twice. thus enabling the other team to quickly get number advantages. i know we are copying europe without much thought but it's regressive stuff. the players are better than 20 years ago on the ball. but they are being force fed absolute crap tactics and GB's 433 generally looks useless. i think we had a better grasp of team defense in the 1990s or 2000s. i think right now we get by on personnel, and then when we play holland, an actual good team, we don't get by anymore. they see the AMs who can't string passes, they swam them, they see the wingbacks who can't mark, they go after them on the outlets, and they take advantage of the overall concept to push up very high, either to possess on the other end, or to press. i think we walk right into the woodchipper.

i say that because i think a lot of the team is being picked to run around high upfield like madmen which is not working fitness wise and is silly tactics. it's no wonder we think 433 tiki taka still works if in practice our defense is naive young players diving in high upfield. yeah, you might get one of those 20 pass once a year wonders then, if the defense plays right into your hands.........but no one else does that. they seemed to sit back and dare us forward. ok, you need an exploit for that reality......

 

if the triangle points back then there are two 6s and you don't have to diss adams to get him on the field. he just has to be better than the second 6 choice. he and adams can coexist.

if the triangle pints forward and you sincerely are looking for offense, then adams is 6 and he needs to win an AM slot.

i think right now he benefits from a confused coach who while nominally pointing the triangle forward, is so concerned about defense the top 2/3 doesn't have to produce -- and we look like it. if this coach is not extended i think the roles will be more clear of a division of labor and he will need to fit that.

 

Everybody knew exactly how to beat MMA. Japan, Saudi Arabia, Holland, et al, just not concacaf.

If you look over on the Gio thread you'll see people criticizing Gio for not dishing to overlapping fullbacks.

 

Are you employed, Mr. Lebowski?

 

I see no reason Wes can't play either the Roca spot or the Aaronson spot. He has done both in his career.

 

It will be interesting to see the final transfer fee for Musah...

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He can’t be worth 37 million anymore.

 

He can’t be worth 37 million anymore.

 

But im glad hes not at chelsea!

 

West Ham have paid plenty of foolish sums in their recent history but agreed

 

I want to see more Musah at the 6. Granted Mexico presented little threat last night, but we were very bit as solid defensively with him there as we ever are with Adams and he provides more on the ball. If I have to pick three of McKennie, Musah, Adams and Gio, I'm not sure Adams isn't the odd man out if Musah can play disciplined defense back there.

 

Celebrating the moment ...

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New head coach Mauricio Pochettino earned a debut win and midfielder Yunus Musah celebrated his first international goal as the U.S. Men’s National Team defeated Panama, 2-0, in Saturday’s Hispanic Heritage Match, ...

 

Agree on those 3 of 4 and seeing if Musah can handle the 6 for 90min.

Adding Morris, Johnny, Luca, and Busio into the mix, the central midfield competition could get intense. There are not going to be 8 seats on the bus for that group.

 

But now after the Panama game, I'm not sure we are looking at the same calculus. I really liked having more passers and fewer guys who like to run with the ball in midfield and we got a goal out of Musah on the wing. Interesting times moving forward.

 

Having Musah as back up for wb isn't a bad idea. Paredes is ambidextrous but we basically have 3 wb's in Weah, AR and Paredes. A 4th in Musah would be nice.