My hope is that this thread doesn't become a thread about Robbie Findley. Rather I want to discuss the allocation of a starting forward spot to a player whose job is to cover a lot of ground, stretch opposing defenses with speed, and apply high defensive pressure. Those are the potential benefits. And we must be honest here and say that even before this player took the field, we knew with some confidence that he would not be a strong finisher and was unlikely to combine well with his teammates. Did any of the other teams choose to play a forward based upon similar considerations? The closest I could come up with was Heskey, who is a poor scorer but does the "little things" that supposedly help the rest of the team. Even the Heskey situation is a bit different because he has more of an ability to make a pass that will produce a good scoring opportunity for a teammate.
Almost every other team in the WC has better forward options than we do. Our forwards job is to clear space for Donovan and Dempsey and try to hold possession. If they were better, we could play another system. But they're not.
Did you see the World Cup? When we looked our best, we didn't utilize a "Findley role". Lesson is, play to your strengths rather than put square pegs in round holes. Bradley was married to a first half system that set us up to underperform. Key: Findley = Square peg International soccer = no square holes.
I can think of one option that spent a lot of time on the US bench. The question I'm interested in discussing is the allocation of playing time at forward to a player who brings Findley's attributes to the table versus one who brings the more traditional attributes of a forward. We had Buddle and Gomez as options (imperfect as they may have been). Moving Dempsey to forward was also an option (perhaps only a viable one once Feilhaber had shown some good form against Algeria). Against that you have the set of attributes that a Findley-type player brings. It just seems to me a particularly interesting choice, especially as the tournament wore on and we were able to see what Findley was producing and how some of the other players were playing. I'll come out and lay my cards on the table. Findley against England made some sense given the expectation that we would be chasing the game. But as the tournament went on and it became clear that the shining moment against Turkey where Findley chipped that ball to Donovan was not something that was likely to be seen again that the balance of the argument shifted quite a bit against playing Findley. Especially starting him. Maybe as a late sub to defend a lead yes. But I just don't see the argument for starting him against Slovenia and Ghana. Anyone want to argue the case for that? This is the time for that sort of post mortem.
Basically we'd wait util halftime to sub out a striker for Feilhaber, put Dempsey up top, and then score goals. This happened three times
Exactly. I think this proves that you put your best soccer players on the field rather than the "best available for a role" in the eyes of a coach. Probably understandable given the success at Confed Cup with Davies' speed, but I think BB may have underestimated the other aspects of Davies' game. As for the OP, I can't think of any other teams that did this but I would say that all had more depth at striker. Your England example is close, but flawed imo. Heskey and Defoe are obviously very different players but both proven professionals from a big league with (arguably) a similar level of talent, at least similar enough to both be proven players in the EPL. In other words, Capello had to choose between two top players and was able to think more purely about tactics when making his choice - good "speed guy" or good "target guy". BB's decision was different. Aside from Jozy's marginal record, all other strikers were equally unproven. So he really had an above-average player in Jozy and then a bunch of unknowns from an international perspective. It's easy to say now - but I think the results would say he would have been better off without trying to replace specific roles (e.g. speed) with unproven players, but instead putting the best soccer players on the pitch.
the findley role was used very little at this cup because: 1. many teams played variations on 451/433 and 343 2. teams tended to set their defenses fairly deep thus presenting nothing to stretch i'll also add that stikers in general haven't been scoring many goals at this cup. plenty of teams had modest striking corps findley at the mundial was pretty pointless in the end
To add a little spice to the discussion, I think Findley over Adu was a very interesting decision. Remember the Holland match. Findley was just coming off a disappointing performance against El Salvador. EJ and Adu had shown glimmers with Aris. Findley and EJ get called in but not Adu. Findley gets most of the minutes against Holland and turns in a disappointing performance. EJ and Adu go on to play more games with Aris. Findley gets off to a poor start with Real Salt Lake. But Bob decided we needed that "defensive forward" with speed.
I just can't understand for the life of me why BB continued to start Findley. I can't find any logical reason at all. Like an above poster I will let the first game slide, but after that what in the world was BB thinking? Insanity.
There were two reasonable alternatives. Play Buddle more. Move Dempsey to forward. As I wrote earlier, starting Findley against England was understandable. Against Slovenia less understandable but not completely baffling. By the Ghana match (given his performance against Slovenia and how the team had played without him against Algeria) I think baffling is a fair word.
I know why (I think) and it's all Charlie Davies fault! After the Confed Cup BB came to the conclusion that if we can put a hyper speed threat up top that forces teams out of shape it will open up play for his true play-makers. What he didn't factor in was that person needs to be a true threat to score. Davies scored and forced defensive help, Findley not so much. He was trying to recreate the dynamics of the Confed Cup without the same ingredients. It's like trying to bake a cake without flour by adding something that looks like flour, then being surprised when you end up with a pie.
This is it. Oddly enough, Bradley would routinely adjust by having Dempsey as a withdrawn striker in a 4-4-1-1. Yet, we kept going back to the 4-4-2. Our group games were deceiving: we were one of the few to use two true strikers, with England (for reasons I'll never understand) and Slovenia being two others. Brazil, Holland, Germany, Argentina, Ghana, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Portugal mostly played with 1 true striker or 3 forwards. This is also Spain's dilemma right now - as a team, they look better with one pure striker instead of Torres and Villa. We were asking a ton from a 20 year old striker to play as the lone guy up top, but Altidore-Dempsey ended up being our best and most productive attacking option. I think within the 4-4-2, its not enough at the top level to have a forward who only does the things mentioned in the "Findley role", just as no other country has a #10 that doesn't track back at least a token amount (or, the "Adu role" ) Replace Findley with Davies; those same skills of stretching the defense with speed and applying pressure looks great, because that same player can also score and hold the ball with his back to goal.
findley did a yeoman's job on the defensive side of things. that's the logic of continuing with him. the flaw in the logic was given the deep defensive lines teams were using there was 0 use for him. one of the sorriest sites in us campaign was findley dribbling at a backline
Actually I give Bob credit for seeing the limitations at the WC level of Ching and Casey. My critique is based more on what I see as other superior alternatives, mentioned in an earlier post. Given the composition of the roster, the two better alternatives were Buddle or moving Dempsey to forward (with either Feilhaber or Holden coming in at midfield). There is a third alternative that he should have made available to himself: Freddy Adu. Freddy always brings out crazy responses around here. So I will put out my own crazy spin on things: If Freddy was played the exact same minutes that Robbie Findley was played in this WC and everything else about our lineup was held the same, our results in this WC would have been better. No way to prove it and reasonable people will disagree, but that's what I think.
Wow, you had me listening until this one. Freddy is not a viable option for the USMNT now or in the future. Freddy has not even been talked about as an option lately. He will be on his next club in late summer. He would be lucky to get a job in the MLS right now.
The issue we had in this cup wasnt with the Findley role, but instead have a very aggressive 4-2-2-2 as a whole. The problem is that playing with 2 very aggressive attacking mids had a tendency to isolate the central midfielders, so that link up play was sporadic. The attack as a result was much more sporadic. When Feilhaber came on Dempsey played more withdrawn, and Feilhaber did a better job of linking the central midfielders to the attack. A bit less aggressive, but a better connected set of players on the field. So while the Findley/Davies role is a tremendous asset on the counter, in terms of build up play its a liability when you play Donovan and Dempsey as aggressively as we chose to.
Should have clarified: whenever I mention a #10, I always think of it in the classic sense with two other attacking players in front. Agreed that Sneijder doesn't track back as much, mostly because of the indefatigable Kuyt is usually one of the attacking mids on his line. Even still, Sneijder will close down an opponent's deep-lying center mid if needed. Ultimate point related to the Findley role: I think an all-industry, little-result forward is a luxury, and certainly one we can't afford.
Except he didn't. His defense was really non-existant. And if we wanted someone to play defense, why not just play with an extra midfielder in a 4-5-1???
Given the utter ineptitude of our group of strikers, I wouldn't mind if we had lined in a 4-2-3-1 like this: Howard Dolo-JD-Boca-JB Bradley-Edu Holden-Feilhaber-Landon Deuce That formation would have put our most talented players on the field. BTW, I have seen deuce play as a lone striker for Fulham in a 4-5-1 (or some variation) formation so the role would not be unfamiliar to him. With Deuce's touch he can hold the ball up better than many of our strikers. Also, he generally comes up with better ideas then "let me run real fast into space and dribble over the friggin' goal line".
What I would give to see that line-up just once. I'm not making any projections about how good or bad it would be, but I'd love to see how that would play out.