US - ivory coast post game discussion [R]

Segroves is right...

Adu fades in and out like a nuclear blast, Apoo. He drew the PK and played Johnson through in a position dangerous enough to get the other keeper sent off.

He's a home-run hitter right now and he needs to stay on. We've got loads of guys throughout the US systems who are grinders. [/QUOTE]

I think you might be right. But Freddy's play still leaves much to be desired. I have no doubts that he'll start against Argentina. I was just theorizing thats all. I certainly hope that Rongen at least thinks about this. But I think everybody would agree that Freddy has to improve his play if he wants to be at all effective vs Argentina. I was just wondering if he has the ability to improve his play enough as a very much developing 14 year old who has the world's attention. I mean his main priority should be to support the triplets (Convey, Mapp, Johnson). He shouldn't be making Kamakazi runs at 3 defenders like he did today, or busting out the Christiano Ronaldo impressions like he did vs South Korea (500 stepovers, loses possesion). But is he mature enough to realize all this on the field?

 

my emphasis

Have you watched Leeds lately? They've dropped Alan Smith to the midfield, with Viduka alone up front. It works very well for them, because-and this is key-their midfielders are very aggressive about making runs to work off of Viduka. If a team in a 4-5-1 commits, really commits, to having its midfield make aggressive runs, it's a great formation, because it's so versatile.

ManU does this, too, when they list Scholes as a forward with RVN, but that's more of a 4-4-1-1 than a 4-5-1.

 

Huh? He made three or four pretty stops, but was caught out of position (badly) several times as well. We're lucky that we've got so many good (or better) keepers, but Cronin's match wasn't great, in my opinion.

 

I wish you guys had been able to see other IC games. At their best in their draw against Ireland, they looked absolutely unstoppable and incredibly collected. At their worst, their keeper came out of the box, handled the ball and got a red (sound familiar?), they lacked good decision-making/finishing in the box and botched a few offside traps.

In short? With their skilled attackers, IC was always going to make our defenders look foolish-- the skills they have are simply on another level-- but they need a lot of chances to score. Going the other way, they were vulnerable. So this was a good win. Against a more lethal team, the US would have been in trouble, but I doubt any other team in this tournament has the skills that IC does (although I admit I haven't yet seen the consensus best team, Argentina, my opinion of the Ivoireens is that high...)

 

If you don't believe this last point, go back and read the pregame write up. http://www.fifa.com/en/display/article,73381.html

No mention of Convey and Mapp.

 

Sorry, this was worth repeating.

Looking forward to the Argentina match. We're better than we think and can actually win this game but I bet it will be our toughest challenge yet. Argentina expects to win. This could be their downfall (If EJ finishes one of those nice 1v1 chances!)

 

Could it be that I was the only one who predicted we would be in the quaterfinals by now? I started the following thread before this championship started https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=84468

and I correctly predicted a victory against paraguay and south korea!!! (go to the beginning of that thread for proof) Nobody else predicted such things before the tournament started, at least not in bigsoccer.com.

I never had any doubt the US could make it to the quaterfinals, hence the name of that thread "will the USA advance to semis in UAE?" The US has met my expectations so far. The only question I had was wheter the US could make it to the semis. For the answer we'll have to wait until friday when we play argentina (south american champions) our toughest challenge yet!

Somebody needs to congratulate me for my optimism and my correct predictions since the beginning of the tournament

 

Congratulations. But why stop? How will we fare against the Argies, oh omniscient one?

 

I congratulate your optimism, but every team has a homer that will pick them no matter what. If you want credit for your prognostications, then pick teams like Canada to make it this far.

 

catch me if you can...

 

I think for any case where you saw him try to do things individually and fail (which still impressed me with his speed and awareness--he usually beat any single guy marking him), Adu had more than one very good play in support. I thought at the u-17s that while his goal scoring was nice as a striker, I was more impressed with how he was able to create and see potential on the field against Brazil. I think the role on this team has mostly been that of support. He, Convey and EJ have worked some really nice combinations in the attacking third (I can't believe he got to the ball in time to draw that PK). I don't know if other players would complement them nearly as well. In particular, he seemed to be able to see EJ trying to make a run through the middle each time he had the ball on the left and served up pretty nice balls for the most part. While the attack flows through Convey, I am sure it is nice for Convey to have somebody he can pass to that can create an opportunity with the next touch.

I thought Freddy did a very good job out there today. His defense was more pestering than solid, but his offensive contributions were incredibly important to us developing any flow. Also...if Freddy didn't try to attack the goal on his own, I don't know that his passing game would be as effective. Defenses show a lot of respect for him.

 

we would like to thank our three fans at the game! thank you!

 

guess which way i am going to go...

right? no, i always go to the left? idiot.

ching, rack 'em.

 

I can't predict anything against the argies, that's a crushingly difficult one! The only thing we have going for us is that the overconfident argentines expect and easy win against a "minor soccer power"
that might prove fatal for them. And thanks god they don't have their superstar tevez!

 

We must have a little hope. Argentina did not beat Egypt easily, needing a overtime goal to win the match. That means we can beat them this time. Let them be overconfident.

 

Generally i would agree with Nutmeg's ratings with a couple exceptions.

Cronin i would only give an 8. His stops were wonderful, his positioning and play in the air was atrocious. Couple plays he got downright lucky on.

I though Marshall was big enough in the air to merit a 5. Same for whitbread who got juked a couple times early but settled down and also passed the ball quite well.

Both Clark and Grababoy were 3.5s to me. Not only didnt they do much in stopping up the middle of the field, but they each had more good passes to Ivory Coast than they had to their own team.

Not only does EJ always go to his left on PKs he apparently does it on break away too. If he went short on his 2nd break away he would have scored.

Adu didnt have a good game, particularly in the beginnig of the game. He started getting better with about 15 mins left in the 1st half. At that point he not only drew the pk on a nice run, but later put Johnson in on what should have been a goal and had a couple other nice link ups. I certainly wouldnt say that he only made kamikaze runs at defenders. His 1 on 2s werent particularly successful today (he did have a couple nice carries down the line) but he needs to make them to keep the defense honest. Defensively he tends to run to a spot as fast as he can... more often flying right by a cut back or nicking but not winning the ball. Needs a lot of work there or to just play forward.

 

All the keepers in this tournament have played hot and cold like that, even the best ones. They play like teenagers. In Uzbekistan vs. Argentina, for example, the Uzbek keeper was playing out of his mind, making a half a dozen highlight-reel saves--and then in injury time he rushed out and needlessly tripped an on-rushing striker to give away the penalty that cost his team the game.

You can see how goalkeeper is a position that you really need to be a bit older to dominate.

What surprised me was how the Ivorians just up and folded in the second half. The second goal and then the expulsion on the brink of halftime really devastated them. They hardly had any fight in them in the second half. Been a long time since I've seen a team just give up like that in an elimination match.

At any rate, our last two games have been half games really. Too bad we don't play our next oppenent on Wednesday: our biggest advantage against them is the fact they had to play a hard-fought, golden goal game and we cruised through the last two matches.

 

What? You mean you're not?

 

At least USA gets to the quarter finals... England, Germany and others didn't....

Convey is making strides... Adu is maturing and Johnson is getting there...

Our defensive will cost us against Argentina...

 

Convey and Mapp appear to play well together (they both have a bag of tricks). If only we could get them together on the same club team.

 

It All Starts in the Back

I've been one of those making these kind of arguments about our tactical weakness. It kills me to see the U.S. consistently settling for a counter attacking approach. My kid played on a counterattacking team last year, so I know how the drill goes. If the counterattacking team executes really, really well, it beats the stuffing out of the crappy teams and occasionally upsets the very best teams. Just like the U.S. senior team.

Well, that wasn't good enough for the kid, so he now he's on a youth team that is the best. The new team played his counterattacking ex-team earlier this year and beat them 4-0. That's what happens when you own the damn ball and you exert your willpower over the opposition. Like Brazil does at the senior level.

But -- and there is a point to this rant -- this success only occurs when defense gets the job done. When I compare my kid's new team to his old team, there isn't much difference at forward and midfield. But at defense, there is a huge difference. Kickballers on the old team, real footballers who take the ball up the field and make plays on the new team. They make the whole attack possible; they enable the midfielders and forwards.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, you're right. Ellinger looks like he plays scared and Rongen looks like he plays scared and the youth teams overall like they played scared ... but maybe they're not scared. Maybe they really want to play good soccer. But they can't, because of the defenses that they are saddled with.

Which then leads to a separate topic -

Where are the good U.S. youth defenders?
Can we do a better job of training defenders at Bradenton?
Can/should MLS be a better home for young U.S. defenders?

 

is that orlando perez on the left holding the flag?

 

I would assume, like Jonathan Spector, that they're playing forward.

One thing that's always noted in baseball development circles is that a sizeable majority of the best players in the game were shortstops coming out of high school or college (even the outfielders and first basemen).

A future major leaguer is almost always going to be the best player on his youth team and they generally wind up playing shortstop because of this.

The obvious youth soccer version of this is the best player on the team playing up top in an attacking role. It isn't exactly the same because I've also noticed some coaches (who probably deserve a bit of criticism for it) who take their most technically proficient player and stick him at sweeper and use low-skill runners up top.

If there's one thing I think the US can get better at immediately, is not being so positionally rigid and making sure our players are trained as players first and specific position players second.

 

Let me tell you from the perspective of a DC United supporter that's just rubbing it in....

But, from your smiley face, you knew that. Oh well, the coaching brain trust that never gave that combination much of a chance are gone now too...