As I write this, it's 2-0. Still no goals conceded from open play. Weirdly, our headers haven't been accurate. But really, it's the only part of the team that's competent.
Bad giveaways and ball watching on the second two goals; just undisciplined play and very dissapointing. But hey, at least it wasn't 7-0.
How much cleaning up of the midfield disaster can any defense maintain? The coach hung them out to dry
Brooks was beat on the 3rd goal, and Birbaum had a bad mistake on the 4th, but overall I think the defense was pretty good. Only so much they can do when we have 0 midfield presence.
Birnbaum isn't even a top-tier MLS defender. I don't know why he was here. Brooks had his first less-than-stellar game of the tournament. Looking forward to seeing him in Manchester blue this year though - should be a lot of fun to watch his development. Yedlin is fast. That's pretty much all he's got at this point. And he's still our best RB, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Cameron is a fine CB, but he should be moved to the DM role ASAP. Brooks and Besler is a fine CB pairing. Johnson isn't a defender, and he was horrible for almost the entire tournament. Guzan should angle for a move to China or something. He's not a good enough goalkeeper for any of the big leagues, nor for the national team. Pray for Hamid's health.
It's a bit harsh. I thought Yedlin was okay, did much better going forward than Johnson who was invisible. But I don't think Johnson was horrible. I agree that Cameron is better suited for DM. I think he's the best DM the USMNT has available at the moment. Guzan is okay, but he's clearly not a Howard/Friedel/Keller. We've been spoiled with top goalie talent for a while.
That may be a comparative opinion. Cameron is good as a DM but not consistently so. He has some real howlers there. Guzan has been very good this tournament...until this game. Primarily at fault for the first, completely at fault for the second, relatively blames on the 3rd and I don't even remember the 4th honestly. Yedlin was fine. He is never going to be an asset in possession but he can be dangerous if he has appropriate cover to 1-2. Everyone wants to blame the players and i get it but they were put in the worst possible position by Klinsmann. The only time they could hold possession was when Nagbe came on and even then. It's like his game plan was to counter vs Argentina while absorbing pressure but had the incorrect personnel to do so. Sad display of tactical understanding especially where he had apparently given Brooks instruction that regardless Brooks was to close down Messi. Pulled our line out in all sorts of weird ways.
Johnson was a replacement-level defender for the entire tournament. If you slotted in Jorge Villafana or Eric Lichaj, you wouldn't have seen much of a difference. And that's fine, because he shouldn't be playing in defense. Yedlin has no ideas going forward. Today in particular, it was just hoofball. He needs more seasoning, and that's also fine. He's played one season in a league where defensive positioning and awareness matters, so there's a learning curve. He'll get better, but he wasn't good today nor throughout the tournament. Guzan just flat-out sucks though. I've watched him enough in the Prem to know that his performance levels have ********ing plummeted. If he gets an offer from an MLS team, he should take it to the bank immediately, because he is done as a top-level goalkeeper.
The blame for the first two goals goes mostly to Lionel Messi being the best player in the world. Inch perfect on the second, and hitting the pass on the first perfectly such that Guzan would be stuck in no man's land. It might have helped if Beckerman didn't ball watch and lose his mark. And the last two were on the midfield. I would have thought it would have made more sense to play Nagbe as an 8 and Bradley as a 6 from jump and to play Pulisic from jump. Yeah, he's too green. But you're not going to beat or even be respectable against that team with Zusi plodding on offense and too slow to cover for Yedlin when he bombs forward. Last night was mostly on the coach and the midfield. The defense was decent.
Birnbaum didn't cover himself in glory by any stretch, but Bradley should never have passed him the ball in the first place. With Messi hovering around, that was an accident waiting to happen. I think more like Bradley 40%, Birnbaum 60%.
Turn sarcasm meter on hi. Birnbaum is trying to hook up with Israeli League team and Miazga is right behind Birnbaum at Chelsea. We watch all the players and Miazga is just a little bit behind.
Messi had no one within 10 yards of him on a set piece. No one. Messi.... completely unmarked....on a set piece. Messi....I just want to really let it sink in. No one thought to keep an eye on the best player on earth? JK has no idea about tactics and defensive organization. We should be unstoppable on set pieces with our physicality. All of that aside. GCam had a great break up on that quick free kick. Brooks was OK and ball watched that goal. Yedlin tried really hard. FJ was asked to play a position he doesn't play....again.
Agree with most of that, but we have a long history of being awful defending set pieces going back to Germany sending it's diving team to play soccer against us in 2002, and it succeeded. Either it is a cultural problem or a congenital defect.