Post-match: USA v Germany WC tune up

I feel better about Turner.

Neither gives me much any confidence but Turner has performed adequately at the WC previously and I have seen him stand on his head before at the international level.

Freese.. I just haven’t seen play a very impressive game at the international level that I recall.

But .. with regards to “A” level international football they both suck tbh. I guess I just think Turner sucks a bit less.

 

Hard not to think poor keeping won’t cost us a big goal at some point in the tournament (if not multiple)

It’s an ugly situation and its easily our worst position.

 

I get that theory. And I could see Poch et al subscribing to it. The counter argument would be they feel they can manage Turner's psyche well enough and his command of the box and reaction speed outweigh his poor read of the game (which is one of the reasons Ream is there) and nervy distribution.

At the same time, you are one of the fans least confident in Turner's abilities - and he does hold up for his clubs the majority of the time. But also, you and I have seen him turn to jelly and get the 1000 yard stare one or two times too many.

At the end of the day, depending on what is seen in practice, I probably go with Freese as the safer choice, but I also bet that if they each rotated on the same team over 40 games or whatever, their stats would be very similar. But a 3 -5 game tourney is a different beast.

 

If he sticks to the goal line no. If he is where he should have been, gets there easily.

 

Listen to Guzan and Berhalter if you don't trust Arena.

 

We are mixing a few issues here. Could Turner prevent that goal? Probably. Is Turner a better shot stopper? Certainly, and that's not close. Will Freeze handle press better? Yes, and that's not close either.
I'd pick Turner and pray, as I don't believe we can go far without outstanding goalkeeping, which we might get from him if we lucky, but not from Freeze. If Poch or someone else believes that decent goalkeeping would be satisfactory the choice is Freeze. Basically pick your poison situation

 

Turner was fine in 2022.
He wasn't the reason we were eliminated by the Netherlands. In fact, when you rewatch that game, you realize that they could have scored 5 against us that day. He made some nice saves.

Matt Turner, to this day, has a lower goals against average for the USMNT than Tim Howard and Brad Friedel. Matt Turner's is 0.95. He concedes less than one goal per game on average for the USMNT.

Freese will be fine in 2026.
I have faith that when we're eliminated by some world power in the Round of 16, we won't think that it was the goalkeeper's fault. Was Matt Freese the reason we lost to Germany? No. We see when we watch our recent friendlies against Belgium and Portugal, that there's a gap between us and those nations that's more than just the goalkeeper.

We won't have a Tim Howard-style game in which we're kept in the match when we don't deserve to be. We won't have that. Of course, lest we forget, we lost that Tim Howard game in 2014.

 

Speaking as an ex-keeper there is no way on earth Frees would have got to that. It was curling away from him at pace. Had he gone for it he would have looked like a complete idiot.

Ream was marking Havertz. Nmecha(?) made a dummy run, Ream picked him up which left Havertz free and Miles didn't react to the switch fast enough. But it was a brilliantly worked goal.

 

Do you recall a bad game?

 

Regarding the bolded, that's exactly what this discussion is about. And a lot of people would answer "Yes, that's why we lost (instead of drew) to Germany".

My gut is go with Turner. My brain says Freese is the starter (unless he f*cks up badly) for Poch. I there's likely to be "I told you so" opportunities no matter who it is.

 

I don't fault Freese for either goal.

I was mistaken about the set piece. When I saw a replay of that first set piece goal, there was no way Freese could get out to it. Not a chance. It was farther out than I initially thought. He wouldn't have gotten there. That would have been a no-man's land flamingo job. He made the right choice to step back.

That set piece by Germany was perfectly executed. Was the problem that the defender was beaten? Yes. Miles was beaten. He was "picked." But also, that happens a lot on set pieces and an absolutely perfect cross doesn't come right on the forehead of the attacker the perfect distance from goal.

Sometimes you do have to tip your hat to the opposition and say: "That was perfectly executed."

Our problem against good teams is actually scoring goals.

Its like whenever people talk about Turner at WC22. The bigger problem was we played four games and could only score 3 goals. We couldn't SCORE enough. If we need any goalkeeper to pitch a shutout every game for us, we're not going to go far.

Teams the quality of Germany and Portugal dealt with our attack just fine. Balogun, Dest, Pulisic, etc. were dealt with by Germany. If we need Matt Freese to pitch a shutout against those teams we're in trouble. If we need a once-in-a-lifetime, wonder-volley from our left back to score against good teams, we're in trouble.

When we concede goals, everybody on this board for some reason points the finger at the goalkeeper. Defense is a team game. Germany passes their way thru our defense for Sane's goal, and that's Freese's fault?

I think the same of the goal we conceded to Panama at the last minute at the Nations League. Panama counterattacks thru our defense like its not there (what was Scally even doing?), giving the Panamanian forward a one-on-one against Turner. Everyone blames Turner. Yes, maybe if you give Turner 10 chances at that..........he saves it a couple of times. The angle was tight. But that goal wasn't Turner's fault.

 

I asked AI to compare marking at set pieces at Cincinnati and Charlotte.

I found this snippet about Cincinnati interesting:

"Current Vulnerabilities: Because a man-marking system requires absolute concentration and physical dominance, injuries and inconsistencies across Cincinnati's backline have led to recent defensive struggles. If an opponent pulls a marker out of position using decoy runs, gaps open up quickly."

That's exactly what happened for Germany's first goal.

 

Seems to me that much of this board is in camp Turner or camp Freese, and once there, a lot of confirmation bias takes place. Differences are exaggerated or explained away—and sometimes totally imagined. I also think there is a lot that we can’t know about how each melds with the defenders and what happens in training.

I do like the fact that (really like the fact) that from all reports Turner is the kind of guy who will keep striving to be the starter without creating a problem about not being the starter—whether he should start or not, he’s going to support the team, be ready if called on, and has experience when he comes on.

(I would still lean slightly towards Turner as a starter myself, but fully concede there is stuff that I don’t know that could make me wrong. But I hardly think it is foolish to be on the other side.)

 

To my view, the issue was with the foul conceded and even that is sort of hats off to a masterfully drawn foul. I do expect a little better from an experienced player like Adams but frankly the referee was disturbingly biased and he didn't know that.

 

C

Maybe this will make us all feel better? The UK Green(e)'s howler on Dempsey's drive in WC 2010.

 

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If Greene saves that, the US and Slovenia would both have had 4 points with 3 goals scored and +0 GD. I think.

 

Same, it's been clear that Turner's been the better goalie in club play since Turner moved back to MLS, and it's been by a lot rather than a little if memory serves statistically. The awful mental errors and WPITOTBGW type mistakes have been absent. While I would be concerned we might see a return to those problems, and the lack of reps with the D and set up would concern me in terms of communication, a better shot stopping goalie is just a better goalie period in my book. I'm looking for my goalie to keep the ball out of the net, and Turner just does that better, Freese looks about league average to slightly better for MLS historically, and w/a reasonably small sample size (I think 2.5 years as a full time starter or is it 3.5?), so this is a clear mistake in my view. We can't afford too many of them and for now it looks like we'll be making at least two (Ream and Freese starting) possibly 3.

It's a clear unforced error to me anyway and at this level it can come back to haunt especially in the knockouts.

Looking up Turner at WC'22, looks like he was ranked 22nd in PSxG+- per 90 in that WC, not exactly great, and not as good as I remember either. Otoh, the Argentina keeper finished behind him according to AI, so maybe there's better data from a non-AI source.

 

Turner gave up a classic WPIOOTBGW goal a few weeks ago. That's his first in a while, but he's still got them in him. Clip is at the top of this Reddit link.

 

And his unnecessary foul that led to the free kick and first goal was just stupid. Really poor decision-making.

Defense could have defended better, of course, but you don't give Germany free kick opportunities like that. (The old guys will remember WC02.)

 

Either one is fine. I would like to see them rotate each game.

 

This is like astrology -- say something common and vague enough and people will apply it.

You know nothing you google here is actually doing analysis? What you are working with is merely a language model pulling the next character from what it reads on the internet.

 

Yes and if you have half a brain you can use it productively.

 

Oh my. That's not even like an "nuanced mistake" where he maybe didn't quite get enough pace on the ball, or his pass was a wee bit off, or he made a bad decision. That is just a lack of basic skill type of error. I mean, things happen and all pros make errors here and there....but it seems like it is really, really rare for a top 30 national team goalie to do something like in that clip (just my opinion, I didn't use AI to do exhaustive research on this subject, I just watch a lot of soccer).

That being said, I'd still say he's about even overall with Freese. We just don't have a super, great, legendary option as in the distant past (2014 and prior).

 

Now I'm just sad