I would let Pulisic drive the 2 hours it takes to go home and let him stay there. He looks checked out and needs a break.
Robinson did a lot of good things...but he got beat twice for pace by the Bolivian C team. Not the Jamaican C team, the Bolivian C team. I really liked Sargent's movement, and the front group's dynamism in general. Often overelaborate in the box. Green is getting compliments, but I thought he wasn't playing the same game as everyone else.
Joe Benny was doing a lot of the dirty work next to McKennie. Sargent earned more callups. Parks looks interesting. Zimmerman was good. Our kids play in Europe. Bolivia’s play in Bolivia. We should dominate. I didn’t see Pulisic make a deep UCL run. Why is he so tired? I also was wondering why McKennie wasn’t coming to receive ball off back line. Dave addressed it at halftime. Still tough to change club tendencies during a short camp before a friendly. The reboot is real.
Zimmerman has done nothing but impress in limited opportunity. Give him a chance in the European matches and maybe he can showcase himself to make the move there finally. Nothing has really stood out to me about EPB when it comes to playing CB. You add multiple traits when he protects the back 4 however. The biggest of which is range. Now that teams pose a greater challenge hopefully he moves up into McKennie's role, who plays the 8. Rubin definitely has improved wheels, and he's playing with intent. Good for him. Thought he was about done as far as bigger accomplishments between injuries and stunted development. Sargent's an obvious player. Just was always a matter of when not if. Weah is an if still. Inconsistent in terms of ideas and technique. But confidence makes him a lean toward making me a believer. Similar analysis for Parks, only with clearer strengths of technique and vision, questions of speed and defense. Think we should put him in better position to succeed by playing him up the park instead of pretending we should play him like Pachuca days Gringo Torres picking the ball off the cb's and building up slowly while not having speed and mettle defensively. Saw some positivity there from Robinson between speed, dribbling, and crossing. But I saw more reason for concern than most. He had to recover defensively due to lack of positioning. He'll need to tighten that up or better teams will punish.
I don't think Rubin is gonna be able to hack it at this level. Those injuries really hurt his speed. He is still young, so hopefully he improves. We need to keep bringing in younger players.
My theory is that Sarachan wanted to show / test why certain players should NOT be in the spots they are in and why some others are important. So, Pulisic is not the 10 in a 4132 like we played in Trinidad. Corollary to the above: We need a Delgado/Parks presence to get the ball moving thru midfield with venom. See how that works Bruce? McKennie isn't really a 6 because we don't get the use of his best skills. Weah doesn't have a wide enough set of skills to start for the USMNT but obviously shows great promise for a guy so young. Sargent is a player. Next stop Bremen for a full BL season and then we'll talk.
Im getting nervous with people saying they want to see someone start for 10 years after1 half vs Bolivia u23s/ C team. Maybe we havent learned from the MB debacle. Also, its dangerous to get caught up in style over substance. Parks looked good but the result didnt change when he came on. I like what I saw but im not going to pencil him in for 10 years.
Parks is more of a personal preference thing. He's just so pleasing to watch that I could watch him play for 10 years and never get bored. I'm not penciling anyone into the lineup unless their name is Pulisic, McKennie, Sargent, Weah, Durkin, Steffen, Yedlin, Miazga, Palmer-Brown, Carter-Vickers, Robinson, Adams, or Carleton. That's it.
Pulisic has suffered from having been forced to play too many scales at Dortmund while Weah suffers from not having been forced to play enough scales at PSG. A music reference there for long suffering piano students who wish their mom would have let them go outside and play football instead. Man, was I a bad piano player
It's a straw man. I'm pretty sure the evaluation of Sargent was made on a lot more than this match, i.e.: u17, u20, and the reports from Werder.
Dont get me wrong. I like Parks, a lot. I just think we need constant competition and constant testing to see what works. I would start him alongside Mckennie and Adams. If we continue a 4141
The best thing about this match is that there were no serious injuries. There is nothing that happened in the match that should be taken to drive any players stock up or down. I knew Bolivia was going to be weak but I did not expect them to be truly bad, but they were. When you play a bad team the tendency is to play bad and the US did rise a bit above that, but not much. A lot of the bad play and poor decisions made by the US was offset by even more horrendous actions by Bolivia. I know we will face better opponents in Europe as we will be playing teams in their warmup for the World Cup. I just hope the changes that the announcers alluded to during the game happen pretty much piecemeal. Over half, maybe two thirds, of the team we saw tonight need to not play in the next few games. But I do think that this team would have had a better result in T&T, at least they would not have mailed the game in like all but one or two did and we would be going to the big dance instead of listening to the music from outside and dancing in the parking lot.
the only thing that worried me about Parks was why he was taking those shots on goal. Was the psychology in camp wrong? C'mon, Sarachan. Parks is a smart guy. You can talk to him. We need Parks to make the team succeed. That's what he and Delgado are for.
I disagree. If he was "only" a connector, he probably wouldn't even be at this camp, nor would he be at Benfica. You gotta let him play his game. Maybe thats more apt of Delgado. Parks does many things well. He doesn't just link play.
I don't agree that Bolivia were bad and give them a big hand. Take away one header on a set piece and it's 0-0 at the half. So, they tried to come back from the 1-0 deficit and got burned - that's what their manager was trying to show them. I thought they were fine.
I'll leave a sticky note next to my computer to remind myself never to question Sarachan's coaching in a thread which you might participate in.
Corona will be hated but he was solid. Good delivery on set pieces and does a little bit of defensive work. Not a shiny new piece but underrated. Lichaj was solid too. Another underappreciated player in the pool
when he took one of those shots, there were guys open and a fake could have wrong footed the keeper making it easier for his teammate to score. Maybe I"ll take that back on re-viewing but that's how I saw it in real time. I had the impression he had been psychologically prepped for making an impression and I don't want that out of Delgado and Parks. I do think Delgado is an 86 and Parks is an 8-10 who we might need to score for us but scoring often means getting the ball to a striker.
McKennie - He is the real deal in our midfield. All over the pitch making plays. Make ugly tackles no one want to take. He is our destroyer, our killer. He's the answer against our dirty CONCACAF opponents. Robinson - We might finally have our answer to the LB position. Hope his game continue to grow. Sargent - This kid will be monster as long as he can stick it out over there in Euro and battle day to day against some of the very best. Already very strong physically for an 18 year old. His soccer IQ and killer instinct of a striker is already there. Can't wait to see him develop further in the next few years.
Oh pulisic has played some soccer games? And he’s super tired? That’s crazy. Our other players must’ve been resting all year. I won’t understand this coddling of this player. The Stu holden line “go put your feet up kid” was so embarrassing. He’s been poor for months and was absolutely terrible tonight. By the way, BVB just got another attacking player today. He better use this ‘much needed’ time off to prepare himself to be better next year, or he won’t have to worry about a long club season.
I feel for CP, but he sucks. He has to unlearn all the crap forced on him this year at Dortmund and start playing soccer again, the way he did last year. Robinson, Weah, Sargent, Parks, Zimmerman-yes. Rubin, no. He certainly buzzed around in a wasteful unproductive fashion. Novakovic, Lichaj, maybe. I feel the first set mentioned can scale up their games and continue with success against better teams.