Just finished re-watched. I saw nothing to support Busio being rated lower than a 6 (average). I would still give him a 7 for constantly starting the team off in a positive direction. Yes, some of the things he tried didn't come off, but that just illustrates his ambition in possession. His passing is sharp. His set pieces certainly were not horrendous. A high percentage of them went into dangerous positions but nothing came of most of them (not typically his fault). I agree Roldan put in a decent shift, especially in attack.,
Yes, we are seeing things like Williams will be a problem against better teams and writing him off without even giving him a chance. Also, players should not be written off because of an initial poor performance. Do we remember how poor Dike’s first game was? This is a tournament, let’s let these players play into their stride.
2016 Olympics Q Playoff maybe? Of course Trapp was dreadful in that home and home but ... See 2:45 Miazga 3 and Parker 4 were the CBs!
Weah, Hoppe, Sargent are all combo CF/wingers. All creative, positive and direct. I cannot say that about those who compete with them for roster spots.
I believe each roster is for each game — you could theoretically have 69 players across a 3 game window.
I don't think we should do it, but it was mentioned we could fly one group of 23 to one spot, and another group of 23 to another
im going to make a quick defense of bello for no real reason- maybe not a defense but point out a couple of places hes not getting credit for in a lot of "he didnt do anything" posts. on the opener it was bello who got to the endline, drawing the defensive attention before dropping the ball to a completely open hoppe (beautiful cross, textbook finish from dike). thats not nothing. and on the second goal it was busio who played a great ball across/back to busio for the rocket off the post (commence bedlam). you nerds talk about "mls" assists and being part of the buildup to goals all the time, and theres no reason not to here. i have no clue if he can defend at all, it still wasnt a stellar performance i just thought id say he did some good things. he didnt waste any more chances at service than everybodys high school crush busio did with his 40 or 50 corners... ok, im gonna go back to not really caring about george bello very much now.
Yeah, I don't get the Bello angst. He got in a lot of dangerous areas, but just didn't get the final touch. Shocker, I say, that a guy in his first cap-tying event struggled with a final touch after getting in good spots. My opinion of the game was that Sands performed better than the other CBS (Robinson and Zimmerman), Williamson outplayed his fellow central midfielder Busio, and yes, Bello was better than his comrade Moore on the other side of the field. But that is just me.
Speaking of all those corners... I hope the manager draws up a couple of plays, maybe including some short corners, to take advantage of Dike, Zardes and Zimmerman, even the rather tall Mr. Hoppe. With all those hard-won corners we should have won by an even bigger margin. Plus, we're already in Mexico's head dominating the corners in the NL. May as well stay there.
The scramble play really impresses me as well. That was a play that brought me forward in my chair as I was watching. Not a play that will show up in a stat sheet, but plays like that keep clean sheets and win you matches.
I was also surprised by the few and too many posters who had Busio as one of the worst rated players. I thought he was terrific and close to MOTM. In his first start ever he controlled tempo, never panicked, hit every pass correctly, and even made some difficult passes look easy cutting lines. That's what a modern 6, Pirlo type is suppose to do. I don't know if historically fans only look at DMs to win tackles. These aren't the days of Chris Armas. He has a nice first touch, even with defenders closing, knows how to push the ball away for a few tight, short dribbles and turn to pick out a solid pass. Something Yueill or Acosta can't do. They have to one touch back to CD because their first touch is too poor to be able to turn and pick positive options at 45 degrees or better. Remember Acosta's terrible first touch on a perfect rolling pass where he couldn't keep it near him, so the running Haiti player just ran past him picked up his long first touch and Acosta had to accost him from behind to intentionally pick up a yellow. Busio's soft first touch doesn't allow it. He better start vs Canada because Yueill will struggle with any pressure. It wasn't perfect but it was very good. And I'd pencil him as my backup 6 right now behind Adams. I would love him as a ball controlling late game sub when we're up, or down for a positive possession player pushing it up field. I get he's not a great ball winner but we have better players on the roster for that like Adams, McKennie, and Musah.
No, I was right, U20 world cup Acosta got a red card, Steffen saved the PK. Rubin scored the goal. I'd forgotten that part. I remember the chat thinking we were finished. Lost to Serbia the next round IIRC.
The Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/2013063...tches/round=250464/match=10000022/report.html has the box score for the first leg. Of Barbados's starters, Paul Ifill played three Premier League games for Sheffield United in 2006-2007.
I remember that play from the year before the Olympics Q. I don't see anything egregious on that play. The attacker was just stronger than Acosta and turned him.
That's not how you supposed to start a post here. You say "Player X (Busio in this case) sucked. He was the worst player in the game (tournament)". And then echo chamber multiplies this, and it becomes an axiom.
He was burned over and over as a fullback that game. Check the PBP, we were all crying about it, that and our lack of strikers. Eventually, someone blows by him again, Acosta grabs his man and pulls him down, this time in the box, and gives up a pen. I'm illustrating that Acosta as a fullback has been a failure for years. It's not like he gave up a pen, and nobody's ever seen that before. This is not to say that Acosta doesn't have a place on this team. But Acosta at fullback is a bad player. If he's on the roster because of his utility, and not his ability in midfield, then he shouldn't be. Or, that shouldn't be a good defense of his inclusion.
Fair enough. I agree and said as much in the PBP, especially since he was playing with dead legs. I don't believe that Acosta is an international level RB at this point in time but he has proven to be a serviceable emergency LB. His first 4 USMNT caps were at LB IIRC (Iceland, Canada, St Vincy WCQ, and New Zealand) and I don't recall him getting beaten in any unusual manner in those matches. Remember the "anyone can play LB" meme occurred in a camp where the #1 LB Fab and the #2 LB El Homie were both injured in camp. El Gringo had to step up as the emergency LB and he was even less defensively capable than Acosta.
I was 200 posts behind and didn't bother to catch up this time. Busio was good and showed some weaknesses, but good overall with some exemplary plays in his first start.