Freeze won't win a game for us, he is limited, the wall was poor. Weah was stupid. Basically everything more less as expected including poor Miles Robinson play. Weston was ok, but he can play better. Balogun played pretty well, but Pepi reads Pulisic better, wish they had more minutes together.
Nice performance. We moved well without the ball and looked cohesive. I guess Poch does know what he's doing. This is by far the most technically skilled team we've ever had. We played out of the back effectively when the opportunity to do so was there - against a very good team. Freeman showed his inexperience. Relying on pure athleticism will work against lesser teams, but not against the big boys. He'll learn. Dest was a bit wasteful. He skied a couple of our best chances. It looks like we are committed to the high press, which, combined with the likely weather, will mean that the subs will play a major role. It's nice to see that we have options after the lock starters. All in all, two impressive performances.
Richards and/or McKenzie have to come in for Miles. I think Pepi needs to start over Balogun. I think Pepi has just looked fantastic. I rate Balogun of course but Pepi has just been super impressive in these friendlies. His touches, his understanding with pulisic, his hold up, his passes.. no goals but still.. just great.
Maybe. Frustrated because they just interviewed Jedi and did not ask one question about the leg, really wish I could have heard him Confirm that it’s nothing. But maybe that has already been confirmed and I missed it
Likely size matchup. Ream and McKenzie is a small pair and neither is stellar in the air. Did not work out since Miles got beat in the air.
I thought he was very poor. His defending was pretty good but nothing more…and his passing was terrible. Sometimes I change my mind after a rewatch, and that might happen here. But as I was watching him with the ball, one thing I was thinking was, an MLSer would get murdered in these boards for these touches. Yeah, but really, that’s the nature of being a centerback. If we play the 5 matches that we should expect, and he only is at fault for one goal, IMO that’s ok.
Yep. Just looking at that match-up, 100/100 people will call that in Tah's favor every time. But the Premier League has toughened Aaronson up quite a bit.
Decent enough for a final warm up. Created little in the way of great chances despite some impressive front foot stretches. I wasn’t ruling out conceding four in this game so it was also nice they didn’t dominate in loads of great chances either. More importantly, I’m hopeful of a really nice group stage.
Most of these comments assume that the starters will play every minute of a tournament that already has an extra round. Sorry to disappoint you, but the heat, injuries, cards, and tactical decisions dictate that we'll need to rotate players. Be happy we have both Balo and Pepi. Hope that Tillman and Reyna both excel. Pray that Richards is fit.
This is what happens when you get Conmebol and Concacaf refs who allow nonsense and are slow to card to ref high level matches. Please note the idiot who let the '23 NL Final game spin totally out of control? Yeah, he's reffing at the WC. What about the idiot that Berhalter warned the team about before the Copa America match with Panama where Matt Turner was obliterated and neither card was issued nor foul was called, leading to Weah totally snapping, how about that guy? Yeah, he's reffing the WC too. At least the two idiots who let McKennie get strangled in '19 and '21 weren't selected, nor the guy that let Aaronson get eye gouged, so there is that.....But Barton is a notorious fool, at one point handing out 7 reds in 4 consecutive matches involving the US? Hmmmm.....If you're wondering about Said Martinez, he was an official in the first, "strangling Weston McKennie is okay," match, and a ref in the Aaronson Eyegouging game, and a ref in the Dutch-Argentina murderfest QF at the WC in '22..... So definitely some of this is basically we end up drawing horrible ref technical decisions from UEFA (see Frings Handball, and Ghana bogus penalty by UEFA refs) and we have pure idiocy (Coulibaly in WC '10 vs Slovenia) and then we have the notorious pro violence, lose control of the match idiocy of the Concacrap refs mentioned above and Conmebol refs as well, confirmed by studies of ref foul and card habits around the world....the guy today was a Conmebol guy and I would imagine he falls in to the let them commit murder style of reffing that causes games to spin out of control. And yep, this game missed Luna, and like a lot of others, I was also of two minds about Weah, trying to figure out if he was out of control like Panama, or trying to set a ton, which I'm fine with, but after Copa America '24, I've lost a lot of trust in the guys judgment (somewhat unfairly) so I can't tell.
I simply cannot watch Miles continue to play and give away goal after goal to the opposition. i might ********ing lose it if I see him starting in the WC. Four goals score against us in these two matches and the guy was directly or atleast partially at fault for 3. Good god this guy is just not at this level.
That was quite the Jedi mind trick! I was screaming for someone to take a shot when we spent the first 20 minutes or so passing the ball around the top of the box, and it finally happened. We really need to do that more, Aaronson almost scored on one outside the box later in the game. We need to keep Robinson Miles away from the pitch… Absolute garbage basic ********ing defending, not goal-side of their center forward on a free kick, and then get nutmegged by a grass cutter. That's 3 goals you can put on Miles in two games. Richards better be healthy or we are in deep shit. Except for giving up the free kick that lead to the first goal Adams was excellent, Ream was fine, and Christian Pulisic really had the eye of the Tiger. I did think there was one time that Christian should of gave Balogun the ball, and another time when Balogun should have given Christian the ball. If you're that selfish, you better score. We were definitely out physicaled for a while, and then started giving it back, props!
We are soo screwed if we are relying on Miles to play significant minutes in this tournament. God I wish I could be this much of a ******** up in my own profession and still just be given absolutely everything.
This U.S. team has been giving cheap goals away for years.. No reason to think it will stop at the WC TBH. Too many self inflicted wounds.
I thought it was quite a good performance considering the opponent. I really liked the grit and determination. CP looks like he has found his groove and I really like Tillman at the 8 in the double-pivot w/ Adams. A couple of negatives... I am left scratching my head as to how we couldn't bring better players than Roldan and Arfsten. I think each can do their part against inferior teams but will be over-matched against the big boys. I still think Gozo should have gotten the call as a WB/W option over Arfsten... I also miss Luna but it is what it is. Did anyone else notice how bad we played w/ the ball in the relatively few minutes we played in a back-4? The injury(?) to Jedi forced the formation until a sub could come in and it was painful to watch.... just passing around the back from FB to FB until the wide player gets stuck on the sideline. Brutal. Thank goodness we went to 3ATB while in possession.
I watched that play a half dozen times. The German who looked like Miles’ mark made a horizontal run. The defense as a whole didn’t adjust. Havertz was definitely NOT Miles’ responsibility as the play started. We’d have to have been in the tactical meetings to know who was at fault. Not saying it wasn’t Miles. It might have been.