did you see yesterday’s goal by Chawinga?(KC vs Gotham) ‘kick and chase’ is apparently still alive & kickin!….and sad to see it still happening with quite frequency in the supposedly high standards the NWSL claims it has set for itself to add yesterday’s, Emma’s Hayes Chelsea flopped again, this time loosing in the FA Cup s semis using the same 4-4-2 rectangular type defense(used in her Conti Cup) that barely had any versatility on offense. But got the feeling she keeps using this configuration in trying to win the much bigger prize, the Champions League, especially against next playoff opponent, Barca, as a deterrent to their successful short passing game. I just don’t see the 4-4-2 cramped style as an good fit for us(if thats Emms’s intention is for the USWNT)—-I mean touch to be more technical wizardly than athletic to make it work
How is this kick and chase? POETRY. IN. MOTION. 🤌@biazaneratto on the counter to Chawinga with the finish!@NWSL | #KCBABY pic.twitter.com/wI23yzDvAM— KC Current (@thekccurrent) April 14, 2024
It is not. But it is very direct play. Of course there is nothing inherently wrong with direct play except many people seem to think that even when it scores there is something wrong with it. The ideal "system" is NOT possession all the time and it is NOT direct all the time and it is not even a balanced combo of the two. The ideal "system" is to present to the other team what they do not expect and then execute it reasonably well. If the other team is expecting direct play use possession to open them up. (This requires the ball to move quickly) If the other team is expecting possession then use fast passes to open a slot and the attack without mercy. That is give the other team what they expect then quickly switch the play to what they do not expect. The teams from the 90s and 2000s were very good at that and, mostly, the current team does not do that very well. That is why we have such trouble when we face a team that shuts down whatever we try to do. That is we have almost no variety within a match and we absolutely cannot switch styles on the fly. I blame the coaches for that lack. The systems the coaches encourage are only one dimensional and, mostly, cannot change except at major stoppages like halftime. My hope is that the new coach, who is clearly not perfect and also clearly not locked into one system, will, over a bit of time, develop some system that allows the team to quickly adapt to what is happening and/or is good enough to force what they want on the match. Those two ideas are NOT mutually exclusive. But, like with any coach moving from club to country play we, at this point, have no way to judge what the coach will do. Club and country are so different that we cannot tell what the coach will do until they do it or, like many coaches the USA, men and women, have had make a statement saying the want to play some given style or system. National team coaches do NOT teach or train they adapt and develop a system that works with the players they have. They also do not try to force a style that they like on a team that has trouble playing it. The main player choices a National team coach makes is choosing players that can quickly adapt to the game situations. That is one area where Vlatko Andonovski failed. He had a style he wanted to play and when faced with a team that took that away he had nothing available to fall back on so the USA spent entire games reacting instead of creating and that leads to losses or at least matches where we vastly under preform. What we need is the ability to, with one or two subs maximum (and mostly with no subs at all), switch styles of play and present what the other team is not prepared for. I hope Hayes makes the team what I believe it can be. But if not there are large numbers other coaches out there that we can choose to hire upon failure. My only real expectation is change. What we have is not good enough so we have to go somewhere. BTW: Since the NT coach's job is to develop a system that fits the players it is NOT imperative that she/he spend a lot of time with the team. For players that actually understand football it only takes a short time to get them playing the "system" well and, if the system is well designed to fit the players, the players should only need one or two practices to implement it. What does take time is learning the specialized plays for set pieces and corners and defending the same. Lastly: There is nothing wrong with 50/50 balls if you win most of them. In fact a lot of the so called possession game is based on winning a number of 50/50 balls.
KC coached by Vlatko who couldn’t barely get an offense going at the WC, but now hires a foreign speed burner like Chawinga that nobody can keep up with to win games. my daughter’s an mid school coach, her two seasons been so far been up & down. The first one had a speed burner(with no previous soccer experience/though her dad owned the local CrossFit)pretty scored most of the team’s goals by out running her defenders half way don’t the field like Chawinga just did. This year has a loosing season & just watched her squad get burned by opposing speed burners. Her best player was small but incredible technical gifted. Her mom told me, she’s played in ECNL, ODP, had hired several personal soccer trainers as well, but her mom said; mid school soccer “was an entirely different beast”—-and it’s all based that some girls will temporarily grow faster than others. My daughter now says she’s recruiting all her track n field kids(which she also coaches) for next year’s soccer squad. so kinda surprised the same principal that applied in harmless mid school soccer(finding faster runners—-is now being used in the NWSL, and not just by Vlatko but by an array of league’s pro clubs as well .
If you watch the highlights...the play starts with Esther, the spanish player, on the spanish coached team, dribbling about 40 yards out from left to right. All 10 KC players are closer to the goal than she is, with 9 of them in about a 35 by 15 yd box. There's one Gotham player way out of the right side, arms up, asking for a switch. And the spanish player, who you'd expect to know better, decides "no, Imma drive a ball through 5 bodies to a player directly in front of me at the top of the box." ANd then they hit it poorly so that the player who wouldve had a direct line to goal if the ball somehow made it, had to turn towards the left corner to try and run it down....except a KC player gets a head on it. Then Chawinga flicks it on and it comes to Esther, who fails to take th eball out of the air cleanly (what, a spanish player with questionable technique...) and then gets bodied by the KC player. The way to not give up those counterattacking goals to teams with a speed burner are to control the ball. This is the bigger problem...we keep producing/selecting the one track always forward players in abundance, because it is easy to win with them to a point. I don't see much difference at the ECNL levels either. I'm expecting if we see more controlled play at the college level it's going to be due to the influx of foreign developed players. LIke FanofFutbol said, having players that can tactically adjust to different systems is the key. Kids who grew up here playing one way, which is barely a system, doesn't give us nearly the depth of an NT pool we should have for a country with our history and population.
There is nothing wrong with having and using speed. I, and every even moderately successful youth coach, use speed when it is available and we try to design a defense that takes away any speed advantage the other team has while allowing players on offense to use their speed. At the youth level, and probably at all other levels as well, it is hard to design a disciplined defense that uses speed well. It is much easier to design an offense that uses speed. The real trick at all levels is to not leave transition holes that the other team can exploit. I really hope our new coach comes up with some "system" that uses our speed in all facets of the game and negates the speed we face. The talent is there. We just need a coach to devise a simple adaptable system for the players we have. Ideal would be a "Total soccer" system like developed by Hungary way back in the 1950s. (Teams used a similar system way back as far as 1910) But that is nearly impossible today but some similar system might be developed where the players play "soccer" rather that always being worried about where the "system" says they should be. We cannot know what our new coach will actually do (as club play is NOT national team play) but I hope we see dynamic play at almost all times. I just do not want more of the "safety first" slowdown soccer that we have had for a while.
@CoachP365 as you know, speed is an asset, but it is not a substitute for other things. My issue is that some people assume that some players with speed who score at a level AND have a team set up to use that asset are great players. They may be, but its not a given. And no matter how many goals they score in a system set up for them to do so, it is still not a given. We can set up a team a a level to exploit the speed of a specific player, but as the level goes up, the opponents and coaching can neutralize that strategy. it may not happen till pretty late in the cycle BECAUSE of how the US system is set up re pay to play and the lack of real professional input in coaching/development, BUT it will happen at some point. I won't point to players who are an example of this because I have learned that people see that as personalizing what is not a personal issue. That said, its pretty obvious who they are.
that said^^^ I believe that coaches are not stupid. They know this. So what do I draw from that? At youth levels, there are two types of coaches, developers and winners. There are degrees in between, but how a coach acts in the pinch will tell you what they are really about. At the pro level, its about winning. The US playing to speed is, imo, a legacy of underestimating the level of coaching and talent other countries have and to be fair, they still won so who was wrong. They still can, even though it is not hard to sit in a lower block, make it a battle and force the USA to do something else. The harder part is doing that AND being able to create enough chances to win the game. Some countries have that, not than many do. College still has developers and winners. There are times when some fans don't believe this. I can speak to it first hand. All coaches want to win, but there are some who will sacrifice that at times to develop players. College stats can and do reflect the differences.
you probably meant the other Spanish player, Maytene, that fumbled the ball. Definitely Euro total-futebol concept as well as the other CB, Davidson, playing way too high, both overlapping their own FB’s/DM’s to take more part in the attack. I guess that’s what’s called the Libero system—and very hard to administer as both CB’s were caught off guard(on defense) after the initial fumble & Chawinga sensing this & took advantage of Gotham’s temp weakness at the back with her burst of speed. NWSL insistence of buying the world’s speed burners(watched out for Orlando’s newly acquired named Banda) is if it’s headed in the right direction, it’s more likely turning the NWSL upside down. Currently only two of the top eleven American/NWSL players on FOTMOB’s power ranking list are on our USWNT! FotMob rating - NWSL 2024 stats That’s exactly as of late how Emma’s been coaching Chelsea, lol
It was #9 that started the play and couldn't take Chawinga's flick. To your Total Futebol comment, at the start of the sequence, Maytene is in the CF position. And it's Brunina (rb) and Martin (left mid?) as the two deepest players getting outraced. I applaud the positional interchange Sometimes you just get beat. Breakaways are way more exciting to watch than a tactical battle that one doesn't understand. I fear like the men's 1st division they're focusing on casuals vs. soccer fans. Hoping USL-S takes a different route.
Are you just throwing out terms that you've heard? Because a center back simply showing a bit of positional flexibility and moving up to play out of the back doesn't automatically become a libero. In fact, a true libero would have probably broken up the attack you're talking about, but they're not used in modern-day soccer much anymore (mostly due to I think running a tighter line for offside). A libero is what we used to call in the States a sweeper (playing behind the rest of the backline to "sweep up" anything that gets through), and the best could also be described a deep-lying playmaker who would occasionally move up into midfield to play make, but they still were essentially sweepers who started behind the backline.
In an uncommon memory from when I was still following men's football (i.e. about 30 years ago), I'd say Franco Baresi was originally a libero, until Arrigo Sacchi implemented a defense in-line for Milan AC and he became one of the Center-Backs.
Perhaps I watch too much German soccer, who have an habit of sending at least one CB rushing up into the attack, sometimes even gate crashing/dribble drive right through an high press. So one German poster mentioned this is an Libero system, but maybe your right, I misinterpreted as an libero being the attacking CB doing all the work—instead the name of the other CB left behind to fend of opposing counters by his/her lonesome self, lol