Reyna: POTM & Cap't

Discussion in 'USA Men' started by kingwho, Oct 3, 2002.

  1. BenReilly

    BenReilly New Member

    Apr 8, 2002
    No, not just for a forward. Do any of you EVER look at stats???!!!!

    He simply does not get enough assists and there is NO EXCUSE for this. He is uniquely horrid at this. His inability to get assists for the Nats was mind-boggling. Eddie Pope AND Jeff Agoos have each got more assists for the Nats than Reyna over the past two years. This is unbelievable! Last year he got 0 assists for Sunderland. 0 in 17 starts.

    I fully realize that Reyna has offensive talents, but I argue strongly that he's overall a net negative offensively. Take him out and replace him with a reasonable substitue (the guy on the bench) and your team will score more goals. Your team will probably allow more goals as well.

    Overall, he's a reasonably good player. I'm not bashing him, but he's vastly over rated by many.
     
  2. Eliezar

    Eliezar Member+

    Jan 27, 2002
    Houston
    Club:
    12 de Octubre
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Reyna is a lot like Carlos Valderama. They both are able to hold the ball and find an open teammate under intense pressure.

    The differences are that Reyna is very strong defensively while Valderama is not and that Valderama makes a lot of dangerous passes in the offensive third and Reyna would prefer for someone else to make the dangerous pass. Reyna would be amazing for Colorado because he would get the ball to Chung, Valderama, and Henderson and all 3 of those guys will create scoring chances.

    The weird thing is that Reyna use to be very good at creating scoring chances. Find a few tapes of him playing circa 1994 when he was younger. Something changed him while he was in Europe.

    Oh yeah, and while Reyna has not had amazing stats in the past year I do believe he scored at least twice for Sunderland last year and already once this year. Was it Alex Fergusen who said each midfielder should contribute 5 or 6 goals in a full year? Reyna is on his way to doing that.

    He was also productive in the World Cup. Against Korea he set Donovan up with a 1v1 on the keeper which Donovan missed, he created a goal against Mexico, and could very well have scored against Germany if not for Jeremies. He, like the rest of the team, was poor against Poland.
     
  3. metrocorazon

    metrocorazon Member

    May 14, 2000
    Uuuuhhh..... Valderrama's whole game is one touch quick passing. No "holding" here.
     
  4. art

    art Member

    Jul 2, 2000
    Portland OR
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Do you look at anything other than stats?
     
  5. BenReilly

    BenReilly New Member

    Apr 8, 2002
    He's played 21 games, nearly every minute, and scored 3 goals. That's not bad.
    The one assist is horrid. We get similar numbers for the USA. Again, I think he's a fine player, but most certainly an offensive liability.

    Sure, players miss goals that maybe they shouldn't have. But overall, to justify Reyna's assist figures over thousands and thousands of minutes would is nearly impossible.
     
  6. BenReilly

    BenReilly New Member

    Apr 8, 2002
    I have this strange idea that people should at least have some factual basis for their opinions.
     
  7. BenReilly

    BenReilly New Member

    Apr 8, 2002
    2001/02 Sunderland

    Reyna started 17 games for Sunderland last year.

    Let us compare the 17 games he played with the 21 he did not.



    Without Reyna:


    17 goals .810/gm
    21 GA 1.00/gm

    With Reyna:


    12 goals .706/gm
    26 GA 1.53/gm

    I'm not suggesting that these stats are a fair represenetation of Reyna. Heck, if they were he would be just about the worst player on the planet.

    But we've already established that he doesn't score and he doesn't get assists. All I'm saying is that he looks better than he really is. He can make a zillion pretty passes but what does it amount to? I would argue it does not lead to goals. Because it simply doesn't He's very good defensively, of course, though it doesn't show up here.

    2002 Nats

    2.19 goals per 90 minutes without Reyna
    .709 goals per 90 minutes with Reyna


    1.28 goals allowed per 90 minutes with Reyna
    .733 goals allowed per 90 minutes without Reyna

    With Reyna 5-9 635 m

    Without Reyna 27-9 1105m



    Teams did a lot better WITHOUT Reyna in 2002.

    2001 Nats

    Here the numbers are VERY GOOD for Reyna. Incredibly good, BUT even here we are more potent offensively without him, best exemplified by the Mexico match where Mathis replaced him.

    G-GA Min G/90m GA/90m

    with Reyna
    5-1 492 .914 .183

    without Reyna
    9-12 858 .944 1.26

    There's just no way anyone can show that Reyna helps offensively. That is just so much nonsense. Even being an MVP like here, the team is scoring less.
     
  8. Eliezar

    Eliezar Member+

    Jan 27, 2002
    Houston
    Club:
    12 de Octubre
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Did you ever watch him in his prime? He was amazing at shielding the ball with 2 or 3 players on him. I'm not sure that I remember him ever being like that in MLS though. He could also dribble surprisingly well.

    His game now is try to move as little as possible and try to play the ball on first touch. But that wasn't the way the Copa America MVP and South American player of the year played.
     
  9. Eliezar

    Eliezar Member+

    Jan 27, 2002
    Houston
    Club:
    12 de Octubre
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Ben you really can't compare 2002 results with and without Reyna.

    With Reyna we played who? Ireland, Italy, Poland, SK, Mexico, Holland, Germany

    Without him we played who? There just was a complete difference in quality of opponent without Reyna.

    I think to make the point more clear check the difference between having Tony Sanneh in the lineup and having him not in the lineup. I think you'd find the same result.

    I do think Reyna will turn out a 5 goal 5 assist year for Sunderland and that they will be happy with that. And let's be honest about his team, they are a relegation battle team that would not be able to win MLS.

    One of Arena's biggest flaws was the Armas/Reyna central midfield. It basically gave us no attacking options. The JOB/Mastroeni central midfield was much, much more offensively oriented.
     
  10. BenReilly

    BenReilly New Member

    Apr 8, 2002

    We played Germany, Korea, Portugal, Uruaguay, and Mexico without him.
    But take the 5 goal match vs. Jamaica. With Reyna for 45 minutes we get one goal. Without him, we get four goals. Without him, we score 3 goals in the World Cup in 90 minutes. With him 4 goals in 360 minutes. Even when we need him, like against Germany in the friendly, we still score 2 goals. I have no problem with quibbling with some of this (and you make a good point about the extreme difference in the figures in 2002), but there is no arguing with the thrust of the point that our offense was weaker with Reyna.
    1.32 goals per 90 minute with Sanneh
    .709 goals per 90 minutes with Reyna

    86% more goals per minute with Sanneh

    I can't do anymore as it takes time to dig out how the team does with each player! I don't even like this type of analyis all that much. My problem is that Reyna doesn't get enough assists. So people say that we score more with him anyways. Well, we don't. So I felt I needed to do this. Actually, it usually starts out with people saying he doesn't get goals, but he gets assists. And then I have to show that he doesn't get assits. That's much easier!
    If he does that, it will be a marked improvement over his play up to this point. I agree that if he can do it, then we should be happy. In EPL matches, though. I want to see something close to a .4 goals+assists per 90. This below .2 stuff just won't cut it. It's really awful.

    Agreed!
     
  11. metrocorazon

    metrocorazon Member

    May 14, 2000
    This is the way I've ALWAYS seen him play. Sure he might have held the ball from time to time, but I've also seen him play defense and make a few tackles from time to time(even in MLS). His whole game has always been to receive the ball and quickly spring someone. He was never meant to be dribbling around slowing the play down. That would just mean going against EVERYTHING Colombia was during the early 90's.
     
  12. Eliezar

    Eliezar Member+

    Jan 27, 2002
    Houston
    Club:
    12 de Octubre
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    When I watched him in person recently I found that El Pibe made a lot more passes right back to the person who just passed to him or square than he did attacking passes. Probably a 5 or 6 to 1 ratio. Which is how he's very similar to Reyna.

    I haven't seen a lot of him this year, but this was how he played in the 2 games I saw of the Dallas/Colorado series. And about 10 to 15 years ago he would get swarmed and touch out of high traffic a bit and 90% of the time when he lost the ball he would fall down and get a foul call.

    He's always had the quick 1 touch pass to someone he often isn't even looking at, but the attacking pass has always been in the minority of his touches.
     
  13. art

    art Member

    Jul 2, 2000
    Portland OR
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    yes but do you look at anything other than stats? I feel like many people have tried to tell you this in the past so I apologize for being tediously repetitive, but Reyna's game isn't about assists/goals neccesarily. His strength lies in his ability to hold the ball and control the tempo and posession of a game. There's not a stat for that as best I can tell; will you not accept anything other than stats as a proof of an aspect of a player's worth? After all this isn't baseball we're talking about.

    Goals or no, the US has performed better with Reyna in the lineup than without, and so far Sunderland seems to need him desperately, as most Sunderland supporters will themselves gladly admit.
     
  14. art

    art Member

    Jul 2, 2000
    Portland OR
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: Re: Reyna: POTM & Cap't

    That's 15 goals! Most Forwards don't score that much.
     
  15. DoctorJones24

    DoctorJones24 Member

    Aug 26, 1999
    OH
    Ben, every one of your "stats" to show how Reyna is an offense killer could be equally applied to any number of the best midfielders in England: Hamman, Roy Keane, Viera...

    As others have noted, stats in soccer are probably less useful than in ANY other sport. Sure, used in conjunction with actually studying the games, they can be worth "something." But your approach is to take the numbers as meaning MORE than eyewitness accounts by soccer experts: journalists, coaches, fans, etc. The silly vanity of thinking that you have figured out what world class coaches and commentators haven't is comical.

    This is not to say that Reyna ALWAYS plays great. Like every player, he puts up stinkers often, and there have been many times when he HAS hurt the US team due to off games at bad times. You've seem to taken such games and blown them way out of proportion in your mind. Let them go...

    Finally, don't bother with the Assist stats from Europe. First, they only give out 1 per goal, and are in fact stingy with those, so the numbers are nowhere near MLS' tallies (which I prefer, btw, since rarely is a goal the result of a single good pass). Secondly, the Assists that are given tend to go to wings like Giggs, Solano, etc. as the British game is based on crosses into the center from out wide.
     
  16. Noah Dahl

    Noah Dahl New Member

    Nov 1, 2001
    Pottersville
    Reid Out

    Premier Focus: Reid exit was inevitable
    By Dale Johnson

    "The time had come for change, it was inevitable, and maybe the performance in north London was the final straw for the board. Reid had run out of ideas. At the end of the day hoofing the ball up to Niall Quinn/Tore Andre Flo can hardly add unpredictability to the team's play."


    Geez, maybe he should have made his biggest signing a skillful center midfielder/playmaker type.
     
  17. art

    art Member

    Jul 2, 2000
    Portland OR
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Re: Reid Out

    ironic then that they hired Wilkinson, one of the few coaches who is more conservative that Reid. Don't expect the punt and chase to stop.

    I predict Reyna will be sold off in january. Ok, I'm exaggerating. A little.
     

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