So watching the game this morning I came to the realization that we are doing the exact same thing England did in the 2006 world cup (and are still doing.) England were doing everything they could to get Lampard and Gerrard on the field at the same time, essentially exposing a central midfield with absolutely no bite to it, but since they're such great players, reason stood that they should both be on the field at the same time. As we saw, and can still see, it didn't (doesn't) work! So what is the US doing? Playing Dempsey out of position at forward, playing Feilhaber out of position on the right, arguably playing Adu out of position at forward, switching Beasley around like he's a bishop on a chess board and it isn't working. Ok, we won today, but we won very ugly. The center of the midfield lacked any creativity due to it being two defensive mids, Spector and Cherundolo were constantly covering for Benny, our "forwards" didn't get much service at all and we essentially played a 4-6-0 formation with the listed personnel. I admit, missing Donovan today did mess things up a bit, but for crying out loud, learn from England's mistake and realize it's not about the "best 11" players, it's putting the best 11 players at each position on the field. It's a team game and as England proved, even if you have two of the best players in the world at the same position, the team can suffer when they're both deficient at the same thing. And for the US, there are a lot of deficiencies when you simply trot out the "Best 11." I'll take the win today, but if you put us back in a group with the Czechs, Italians and Ghanians... do you think we'd make it out of the group playing the players in the positions we played them in today? I didn't think so...
Yes and no. I think Arena did this in 2006 - Convey was outplaying Beasely and Dempsey owned the right. But to keep Beasley on the field he shifted Beasley to the right and sat Dempsey. I don't see anything of that level going on here. What I think is happening is the lack of a genuine striker options (Josy!) is forcing a lot of juggling. If Josy develops, you can play Dempsey and DOnovan as withdrawn forward/right mid (either combination) and then the competition for the rest of the midfield gets clearly defined.
Ugh... no (to your whole post) Bob made a team for THIS GAME, not to get out of a group stage at the World Cup, so it's useless to compare the two. There is no comparison to what England did during the tournament, or over the course of the past few years. Feilhaber/Adu/Dempsey are simply versatile players, and this was a way to continue building chemistry, while testing a system and the players to be used in it. Gerrard+Lampard was a pairing forced together over something like 6 years... please tell me how many games Maurice Edu, Benny, and Michael B. have worked in the same midfield? Feilhaber was poor because he's off form more than anything, not because he absolutely cannot play out wide (or did you not watch that HSV-Arsenal champions league game, at highbury?). It's certainly not his best position, but he's hardly ill-suited under all circumstance.
The US is gettting to the point that we need a foreign coach. The Adu/Bradley generation are the first to have solid technical skills from 1-11. Bora was teaching good athletes how to play soccer properly. We've now got a young player pool who know how to play the game and aspire to be the best - not to compete but to win. Bradley is trying to coach his son's travel team. Feilhaber is part of that travel team. Bornstein and Kjestan are carpool members from the Chivas days. This is a parent doing an awesome job. We need a coach who has a tactical strategy that is aggressive toward goal and will not play 45 minutes of keep away for a tie in a friendly. The second half taught us nothing about any of the players; it taught us everything about coach Bob. We need a coach who can objectively assess the talent and current form of players. Little Bob has shown he belongs. It's the other kids in the carpool that coach Bob can't let go of. 'Having trouble getting minutes for your club? I'll give you a ninety minute showcase on the international stage!' Get a foreignor with some tactical acumen and let's turn up the volume on goal-scoring. Bob could be put in charge of player development and self esteem training and everybody-gets-a-trophy-day!
I thought he had a very strong game against Arsenal too, but he was playing as a fullback in that one, and although he got forward a couple times I thought the responsibilities of his role there fit him better than those of wide midfielder in Bradley's system. But you're right, rust probably had just as much to do with his poor play today.
Bob fielded a team today that got their asses handed to them and were lucky to pull off a victory. And you can wear your rosy glasses and call players versatile all you want, but their deficiencies are blatantly obvious when they are played out of position. We've seen Benny a few times on the right and it hasn't worked on any occasion, he's simply better suited to playing in the middle of the park. I love Benny as a player and hope he develops, but playing him out wide isn't working in the slightest. Neither Dempsey or Adu are speed guys and need the ability to run at people, not try to outrun them. Thus having them at forward is once more, showing deficiencies. A pairing up top with Altidore and Donovan is something I'd like to see because though LD is decent running at people, he is the type of guy that can outrun defenders. With that pairing, having Adu playing attacking mid and Dempsey wide right so they can both run at people could be very entertaining and we simply need to find a defensive midfielder out of the 5 or so that we have at the moment that can be stuck in on his own and hold things together. I'm not saying we have to play in a WC group right now, but this team out there today... I'd be hard pressed to feel comfortable with them playing in qualifiers in the formation we had today. As far as the England comparison, do you not understand the concept of giving a real world example to support your claim? Did I say we have two genius central attacking midfield players? Or did I say England tried to do a workaround to make sure those two "important" players were on the field much like we try to get a set of our "important" players on the field, regardless of where we've been playing them and how poorly it has worked in the past? While you have every right to disagree with my assertion, I do believe you missed the point that was trying to be made.
2 in a row. Once is fine but given the poor form Feilhaber displayed last time this wasn't the right time to try it again. However given Landon's injury we don't know if this was really Bob's plan.
I second that. It is obvious to anybody by now that the teams movement and tactics has not improved. There are no developements of two or three men game on break aways. In all the team looked sluggish, slow and at times preatty much lost on what they were suppose to do. I thought Dempsey played very well some bad luck and inaccurate passing preatty kept him of the scoreboard. Adu did a great job. Unfortunatly much like every sport its all about adjustments a well coached team like South Africa made them and the US never cought up. In all it was great the US won however they looked bad doing it. Sure one could say that it is the result that matters but in cases of a friendly the aim is not to win as much as it is to see the progress of the team as whole specially under a new manager. I am sorry to say that this team still has no identity and is playing well below it potential.
again, TWICE!!! and they were both meaningless friendlies. Lampard and Gerrard have played together in the middle for well into the double digits of matches. It's a terrible comparison, born only out of impatience. <-- the one thing that you could easily compare to something English: the Public. Apparently, players and coaches aren't entitled to an off-day in the sport, in the eyes of a fan. If it's hack, it's out after 5 minutes. Some of you would have substitutions made just minutes after a player came on, just because he touched the ball clumsily. We'd have a young team that wouldn't get a result, and after every game, nearly the whole team would need a wholesale change, because everything needs to be tinkered with. Winning is also only acceptable if done in massive increments, and winning -even ugly- is no longer a virtue.
I am not ready to throw my arms up and call BB a traveling coach or anything like that. I do feel like a certain amount of our options have been truly limited by our inability to have a striker that is either good enough internationally (TNT/Johnson) or healthy enough to play (Ching) consistently. So with no striker our best right mid is forced to play in a striker role where he is playing with his club. Not a horrible decision, per se. But here is the catch, IMHO the best coach's in the world implement the system that is best for their respective teams. With Dempsey, Donovan and Adu, I am becoming more and more convinced that a twin d-mid bucket system is not the best system for the US. Adu plays: Withdrawn striker or #10 type a-mid Dempsey plays: Right mid, a-mid or withdrawn striker Donovan plays: Withdrawn striker, a-mid or right mid If we play the bucket I think we are forcing one of the above two players to the bench as they all play forward similarly (more withdrawn/playmaking type wanting the ball at their feet). I think Altidore will eventually earn one of the forward positions and that will solve part of the problem but like I said BB twin d-mid formation will force one of the above three to the bench. I also think that I don't have a problem with the empty bucket if we had two pure two-way midfielders there. IMHO, Feilhaber is like Reyna. Pure two way MF who needs another pure two way MF next to him (Reyna's best "partners" in MF were Barry Ferguson and JOB two very good two way MF'ers). If we put Feilhaber with a d-mid (like Pablo) then we aren't offensive enough in the center. If we put Feilhaber with a pure a-mid like say Adu/Donovan, I don't think there is enough bite defensively. I our best two way central mid (next to Feilhaber) is Clark. Bradley is getting better offensively, but he is a defense first MF (I know how many goals the kid has scored for his club..but I am honestly not even really thinking goals, I am thinking possession with dribbling in the middle, controlling the ball just outside the box and sliding some passes through, etc. Not just deep runs where Adu/Dempsey/Donovan/someone finds them and they score). I think Edu will get much better offensively with more games and more confidence. There were several times this game IMHO where Edu gets the ball right in front of the defense and with very little pressure on him quickly one touches or two touches to another player around him rather than noticing who is around him (or lack thereof), getting the ball, turning and moving the team with his dribble up MF. I don't know if this is tactics instituted by Bradley or just a young player being overly cautious, but IMHO Edu was much more aggressive offensively on the ball in his first cap then he was in his second. I think over the next six months we will begin to see whether BB is determining tactics and sticking square pegs into round holes or whether the available personnel (lack of Forwards) has more dictated playing Donovan and Dempsey out of position.
I agree. And exhibition games are the appropriate time to do this sort of thing - to play people in different roles and see how they will perform with various changes. It's the only way to determine who should be playing where, who the starters should be, etc. because I'm sure Bradley doesn't want to do that in the middle of big games like World Cup Qualifiers or confederation tournaments.
Lack of genuine striker are you serious? We have plenty of strikers what needs to be done is that we actually use in the game, or actually give them a chance to prove there worth. Overall I agree with Wyatt, and its something needs to be done lets put our players in there best position.
Where some of you get the idea that we should dominate every match we play I have no freaking idea. Take a look at the Euro qualifiers. Portugal ekes by Armenia. Italy wins ugly no matter who they play. Holland beat Luxembourg by a goal. Look, this is international football. It's not always pretty and the games are always a battle. You're always "lucky to win," to a certain extent. You take your results and you move forward. I don't so much mind the wild overreactions about players and coaches on this board, but the wacked out sense that the US should all of a sudden be a world power and beat teams by three goals on the road is simply out of touch with the realities of the world game.
Regarding Feilhaber, I think his crime - like Spector - is that while he might be marginally better than others like Bradley, Edu, and Clark in his main position, he's much better at a secondary position than those same guys. Thus, Bradley tries to get the most "skill" on the field by playing Feilhaber out of position - certainly Bradley and Edu don't have the versatility to play out wide. If Kljestan were the main competition, I bet Feilhaber lines-up in the middle. Though he's a talented player, I'm done with Feilhaber out wide. His skills don't match up well with that role. I'd rather see him start on the bench, get 30 minutes at center-mid and learn something than waste him outside for 80 minutes.