Yep. I’d call that a success. (Assuming Jedi is good). Disappointed in the first goal, but it should focus the team on defending set pieces, it could pay off in the long run. I was concerned xG might be closer to 1, because the US didn’t seem to translate its often decent attacking patterns into shots, but I believe 1.6. Much better at counter pressing on turnovers overall, which is probably the biggest key. Interesting to see how committed to playing out with Freese in there the US was. Pulisic and McKinnie have to do better in that phase. This team can get out of the group. But it will be an adventure. They probably won’t overpower anyone, even if they have good field tilt. Just not enough nous near the box and weakness in the middle of the defense. So it’ll be a question of whether the breaks and the calls go the wrong way.
wright not getting a runout is a little curious, but hes behind pepi and balo by a country mile (and poch is going to get the starter wrong anyways). very slightly (but potentially very if jedi has any degree of injury) more concerning is i thought freeman looked really off yesterday. weve apparently dismissed any pretense of our wide mids playing defense- which makes arf a much more viable option for us- but he looked sluggish yesterday. he didnt overlap at all, but he didnt show any quickness. he had no impact at all. a mass sub friendly with a glut of players in that left channel-sideline area explains some of it, but similar to seb without fks if arfsten isnt getting up the left side his value is lessened significantly. hes a guy i was higher on than most when the roster was named, and as i said with defense no longer expected at all it was just really surprising how subdued he was. he could be unspeakably bad news away away from hugely important though- its not like we snubbed any fit lwb options (if one of you yahoos mentions bello so help me god...). im not going to argue any of what happened yesterday cause youre all pretty dumb and exhausting, but one thing i will say is pochs quote about being on the right path due to all the chances created is one of the stupidest f'ing things ive heard in my entire life. the wild, not even close to on goal lashes we were taking were liga mx-esque. and those of you parroting that line are the same ones who whine about our finishing ad nauseum. like i said, pretty dumb and exhausting. the idea that we are going to outscore our defensive shortcomings (which we are intentionally increasing) in the world cup is going to be denied and retconned a month from now quicker than the undying devotion to berhalter was. and people complain about being called disingenuous...
No. I think he had a poor game in possession, or at least subpar. (Everyone always tends to remember the turnovers as worse more than they are so I'd like to rewatch). And he absolutely played a role in both goals. It was his foul that gave the dangerous free kick for goal one -- obv. that's mostly on Miles but it was an unnecessary foul. And on the second, he's extending right, leaving Tillman to cover a pretty big middle while not cutting off the passing lane into the middle. I'm not sure whether he's wrong or Tillman's wrong to not rotate more or maybe Germany just executed really well, but he wasn't where Havertz was and that's his part of the field. But more I'd say that Tyler is simply not quite the same player I remember. He's not able to blow up as many dangerous plays at this point -- or maybe the comp over the last year is just stronger. We can't rely on him to be superman as much, I think. There's been a lot of ink spilled about not being able to play the same way without Tyler as with him, and I'm not entirely sure we can play the same way now WITH Tyler as we could with 2022 Tyler. We can't leave him alone as much as have him save our bacon.
Everything I've seen is something like 1.34 Germany and .98 for the US, which seems a lot more accurate. I don't see where our 1.5 xG could come from even with 16 shots. Germany was very good defensively.
They absolutely get away with it, which is why Miles needs to be more aware of the pick and react better. So does Ream, for that matter -- if you are going to get a call, you actually need to get picked, instead of stopping before real contact. Go right into him and force the situation. It's a pick, and it was well executed, but there are ways you need to react to that.
I thought Germany was absolutely fantastic defensively. Our way of scoring with that lineup is with the pace of Dest, Balogun, Pulisic. They expertly dealt with every longball, every counter, every breakaway. Brown was fantastic dealing with Dest on that side.
Yeah. He even deflected it -- it just luckily for Germany went to the worst spot possible. The reality is that most of that goal is Germany being brilliantly good. The one time entry pass from Havertz is just class. They did everything incredibly well and then still had to get that deflection luck from the partial block to score -- I think Freese has it otherwise. If there's a breakdown, it's that Tyler pursues a player wider, but despite a lot of our defenders to the right, the pass into Havertz is untroubled and easy. Tillman is the only CM in the middle, so he has too much ground to cover, but he probably should have rotated right more to be able to react to Havertz. He hasn't so Havertz is completely untroubled. I'll have to rewatch but after that, Germany then has more attackers in the box than we have -- which again, someone didn't react well to Sane's entry. But it's also just incredibly well executed by Germany -- there's no hesitation and every pass is perfect.
Yeah, the biggest difference between playing Germany and playing Senegal was that when we broke through Germany's press or got a turnover, they had more guys back, more guys in better position, and individually, their guys were just very good at stopping us. We have our defensive issues, for sure, but Germany didn't tear us apart like Belgium did. The big difference was that Germany was incredibly good defensively -- just so solid against how we've been creating goals. We were lucky to get Jedi's thunderstrike because while we had 1 xG and this "deserved the goal" we had 1 xG over 16 shots which really means that we were only going to score on a banger because we didn't really generate any great scoring chances. We did generate a LOT of them -- just hoping to get a bit "lucky."
You know Germany was solid except for two very uncharacteristic giveaways that somehow they magically took back. I still don't know how that guy on the ground somehow got the ball back in the box.
I don't think there is any way that's a foul on whoever the German player is. It's a pick, but there's hardly any contact, and it would be easy to argue that he just making a run to play the ball. The best chance for a call there is hoping the German player was in an offside position when he interfered with Ream's ability to track, but it looks like he's barely held on. Miles' timing is off on the play so he's a step behind in being able to get into position to challenge. It's still a well executed play that would have been hard to defend, but better timing would have given him a chance and would have put more pressure on Havertz. The thing that stands out to me about the play is the lack of physicality, which is the result of the zonal marking approach. I prefer a mix of man and zonal on set pieces because I think a big part of defending them is not letting the attackers get into the position they want to get into, and the only way to do that is by getting a body on them. The other thing that could have helped is if Freese is able to read the service early and punched away. That probably would have required a more aggressive starting position, and even then it would have taken an exceptional play from, which I don't think it's fair to expect. Probably a bigger issue with Freese's role on the play - was a four-man wall really necessary?
You learn what a player can and can't do over time. Tessman has the physical tools to be very good. He's also very good with the ball and really quite a strong passer across the board. He's one of the few guys who can do consistent long ball passing from the back, but he can also play the shorter stuff in crowded spaces. But he came up playing more like a 10 than a 6, and it shows. He's never liked contact -- the guy is like a linebacker but rarely uses it. He's athletic but not overly quick, but moreso, he doesn't seem to read the attack really well or think like someone is a defensive stopper. In the fall, I watched Tanner a bit with his club, and he did actually seem like he was learning to be more aggressive defensively and even with the US, showed a bit more intensity defensively. But in the Spring, I have heard he regressed at club a bit, and with the US in the March window, he really failed to provide any defensive support in the role that stays back -- it was supposed to be Tanner helping Weah while Weah was getting destroyed by Doku. And the attempt to play him in between the CBs in distribution didn't click. I don't know why. The result is that Tanner played best for us only being forward. He didn't show the defense or the offense under how Poch wants to play to really be a great option for backing up Tyler. If he was competing with guys, it was Tillman and McKennie and Berhalter. I think Poch liked Berhalter's skillset and more importantly, his aggression, better than Tessman's size and skillset. Tessman doesn't suck. Poch just preferred Berhalter for that more offensive 8 backup. Poch spent a lot of time trying to get the most out of Musah and Tillman, two other athletic guys with skills that perhaps needed some mental unlocks. He got it out of Tillman; he didn't get it out of Musah. He didn't get what he needed out of Tessman. But Tillman shows that sometimes it's worth the effort.
I'd also say that when we did have what looked like a chance in the box, it was closed down and blocked expertly. On multiple occasions Pulisic looked like he might be able to get a shot on goal, and all of that was snuffed out. Blocked out for corners (which the USMNT rarely capitalizes on). Against a lesser team like Australia, we would have had a lot more dangerous shots on target. I feel that. Maybe I'm wrong and naive, but I feel that. Some of those breakaways and balls over the top work. Some of those chances in the box come thru. Germany was really good, and that game was close. Set pieces are going to make a difference at this level. Every team at the event now has film on Germany beating our defenders on that corner.
That's right. You start with a high line, but abandon it after the ball is kicked. You keep Havertz, or any other player you're marking, in front of you no matter what. There are various ways to do that without getting a PK. And keeping everyone in tight with little space between restricts movement.
Funny that 4 USMNT managers don't blame Miles for the first goal but the Internet still does. He definitely wasn't to blame for the second.
That’s not true and you were quoting posts that I had removed. It just makes more work for mods. Kinda like now. It’s for soccer not “politics”.
1000%, if they did xG back then, I'd absolutely imagine we had the higher xG. We were the better side in the match and were unlucky to come away with nothing. The Italy game was the same thing and it's wild to realize that apparently it was Regis whose errors resulted in each loss? I knew it was his screw up that cost us an Italy game in I think it was March '02 where we should've won, but I didn't realize he was also to blame for the Dutch winner. Anyway, yeah, '02 featured explosive performances from Mathis and Donovan in that weird Gold Cup, from Mathis I think against Germany, great performances against Italy, the Netherlands, Uruguay and a beat down of Jamaica, I think we beat Ecuador as well.
Going toe-to-toe with teams, like Holland, Brazil, Belgium, and Germany is chasing fool's gold. Win on possession, shots, corners, but lose the game---typically handily.
Indeed, Adams was ball-watching, Sane ran right by him, and MRob was the one to react quickly to try to collapse the space. Adams should have followed the run but failed hard on that. Having reviewed both goals repeatedly in slow-mo, my opinion of MRob's responsibility in them has flipped completely from what I thought in real time (where my brain assigned him the bulk of fault on both).
Perhaps this focus is because the CB's are the one thing we can actually change and improve? The Defensive Midfield is what it is, starting Ream and Robinson, two guys completely out of their depth due to age and injury is a CHOICE. I have no quibble w/the rest of the take, I imagine you could be right, but starting Ream and Robinson is an ERROR, full stop, and making that choice inherently weakens the chances of avoiding spilling said goals in really any scenario. Ream is washed beyond passing and his brain, Robinson just hasn't been a USMNT CB since his injury in '22. That's the only thing we can actually fix in this roster w/regards to giving up loads of goals.