Post-match: USA v. Ecuador [R] - October 10, 2025 - International Friendly

Richards needs to tighten up his footwork. He fell for Valencia's feint and got turned. He can work that out with good coaching.

 

This could be the turning point where the experimentation phase transitions to the fine-tuning phase.

 

Did we play a 3-6-1? I don’t like how isolated we left Balo.

but overall good game.

I’d love to see the numbers on this…..we attempted a lot of through balls. By farrrrrrr the player that played well weighted balls was Arfsten. It was weird how bad everyone else was at it, yet Arfsten was excellent. I’m not sure anyone else for us hit a well weighted thru ball.

 

I especially appreciated the positional adaptability all over the field, covering for other players who'd moved with the play (as they should). I saw this a whole lot of times today. And the team never looked like they'd lost their shape even with all the positional switching. It was very fluid throughout. Well done, team. Well done.

 

From the point of view of the WC roster, based on this game the biggest winners are Arfsten,Tessmann, and Freeman. Put themselves so close to 26 tickets that avoiding sudden form drop it seems they will be there. Morris and Roldan got closer, but central midfield it's where some good players won't make the team.
Miles has never been a lock, but his principal claim today is that the rest are worse. Luna should step up. The nose or not he isn't making the team the way he is playing now. Wright didn't improve his position, but he is still #2, probably, and at least 3 will go, and maybe 4.

 

Absolutely. This team had been so frustratingly easy to break down defensively.

 

I posted about this in another thread, but Poch gave a couple answers in the post-game press conference about the formation tonight.

One person asked Poch how he felt Weah did in his first start as a wingback, and Poch just completely rejected the premise of the question, because he didn't believe Weah played as a wingback. Instead, he said he was a winger.

On multiple occasions, he said the formation was a 4-2-3-1 (with Weah on the right, McKennie as the 10, and Tillman on the left in the attacking midfield 3), and then a 3-2-5 when we were building out, with Weah and Arfsten pushed up higher on the wings.

He also didn't think we played the sort of 3 center-back, two wingback formation we played against Japan, but he said we might return to something like that against Australia.

 

I think we played 3-4-2-1. With Wes and Tillman playing behind Bologan. Wes was moving all over the field though. Pulisic would have played behind Bologan, or next to him pushing Wes back and Morris or Tessmann to the bench. Or just Wes to the bench.

 

One of the overall best U.S. performances I've seen in the last several years. For me, Balogun stood out as our best player... by a wide margin. Even beyond the goal and his movement and combination play, this might have been the best holdup play by a U.S. 9 in a long time.

A question for anybody with an opinion: shouldn't Freese have come further off his line on the Ecuador goal, to cut down Valencia's angle? I'm no expert on goalkeeping, but it sure looked that way to me... and yet I didn't hear any mention of that during or after the game.

One other negative observation, and this kind of thing makes me crazy. In the final minutes of regulation, Haji Wright got played into the left side of their box. As a defender closed him down, you could see Pulisic streaking (unmarked) into empty space to Wright's right. A simple well-weighted pass there, and we probably win the game. Arrrgggghhh. I hate it when guys can't make that kind of obvious play.

 

Whoever asked that question didn't watch the game. Weah was absolutely NOT a wingback today.

 

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Yep. Now let’s get some reps in.

 

I'd like to give a special shoutout to Matt Freese--the way he came out and snatched that cross in the 77th minute was nothing short of spectacular. The guy may have some faults, but he seems like he's on the same page as his teammates as to what's going to happen and what each player's responsibilities are. But that 77th minute play he made really showed off his understanding, positioning, quick decision-making and pure athleticism. Props to him. Guy is locking in his number 1.

 

Interesting. I mentioned in the PBP that I was flummoxed by the tactics (especially Wes’ position) since I also thought it was a 3-4-3. This helps explain my confusion (though not entirely)

 

Yes, he should have, but not sure he had enough time for that.
And yes, about Wright, what's worse it looked that farer to the right was Tilman all alone in front of the open net. Comentators btw attributed that pass to Wright to Pulisic while actually it was Roldan.

 

Just back from the game. What a great stadium and atmosphere. Some thoughts:
McKennie may have a role on the team but he isn't good as a 10. He isn't decisive or skilled enough for that role.
Balo was fantastic. He really terrorized the Ecuador back line. They were wrestling him, grabbing shirts, anything to slow him down. The dude is good.
While he may not be a great defender, Arfsten is super smooth in the attack. People who bad mouth him are not watching.
Luna changed the tempo of the game. Well done.
Both Tessmann and Morris were quite good. Ecuador stopped trying to play through us.

 

That was a very difficult catch. Good hands to hold on the ball.

 

Its a good point. The boys definitely looking more motivated and hungrier than I've seen in a very long time. I thought we pretty much dominated and brought alot of intensity that Ecuador really struggled to match most of the game.

 

I don't know how he looks in a real life, but from tv he is moving too fast crowding players next to him. In this case Pulisic and Arfsten. He never should be on the field with Pulisic.
Talking of Pulisic the first thing that he is doing is taking the ball from Tillman on a corner and happily passing it to the keeper. Somebody should explain him that just hanging around the penalty box with his quickness and reflexes he would be scoring plenty more goals.

 

Pretty solid performance, although they punished our worst mistake.

As usual, I would've liked to see us turn the possession into more good chances, we still lack the quality pass in the final 3rd. The one time we did it, we scored.

Really need to work on our corners, I think we had 8 or 9, and only turned one into the Richard's chance.

I have no idea why it took us 13 of Christian's 20 minutes to pass him the ball, seriously?

I don't think there were any questions that Balo was our # 9 after the last game, but they should be settled if there were…

 

Oh, it absolutely was. It is just semantics. I'd call it 3421. I don't care what Poch says, he just wants Weah to feel like he didn't get demoted from the attack.

But it IS fluid. Weah and Arfsten provide almost all the width and Weah does stay high a lot. The threat of that speed in behind helps loosen the MF. Mo Farsi does the same thing for Nancy in Columbus.

I half jokingly said you could call it 325 in attack for that reason.

But again, it is much more fluid. The ball side outside CBs can get forward to act as defacto MFs in possession while the other 2 stay back. It helps us outnumber the opposition in MF. The two AM/Inside Fs/supporting attackers can drop back to form a MF box with the CMs, or a triangle if only 1 does & the other stays high. Or it can be a box again with a CB involved. Or 5 with both AMs, 6 if a WB comes inside. Someone said 361 earlier ,and that isn't crazy either.

CMs can come forward some (witness Morris' almost goal at the end of half). It is about shifting guys around and trying to get the D bent out of shape & making runs into space.

The only guys who really don't come forward atcall are the GK and CB.

You will never get me to believe Arfsten was a FB that match.

 

FWIW, ESPN players ratings:

9: Balogun
8: Tillman, Morris
7: Ream, Robinson, Weah, McKennie
6: Freese, Arfsten, Tessman
5: Richards
------------------
Subs:
7: Freeman
6: Luna
NR: rest
------
Poch: 7

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...-finish-earns-usmnt-draw-ecuador-9-10-showing

Too harsh on Richards, not hard enough on Weah. Notcenough love for Tessman and a touch too much for Morris.
IMHO.

 

Ideally, he'd be a RCB, like he is at club, and our CB would clean stuff like that up. But we don't have anyone else to play in the middle. Ream could do it positionally, but would have speed/aerial issues.

 

I had the same thought. I mentioned Wright's failure to make a simple play to give CP a chance to score a winner, but I forgot about Haji also failing to pass (via a header that he instead played out wide) to an open CP at the top of the box several minutes earlier. I think I got a deja vu tonight re Wright's lack of vision and ability to combine well.

 

When even TruCrew feels that Morris is graded to high. Robinson was easily the worst player on the team until Luna subbed in.