Trapp has good vision and field awareness. Defensively, he tends to mark a man and not just space. I’m sure that’s what the coaches like. As far as spreading the field, we need to play with a balanced team, not one with a ton of CMs on the field at the same time.
I think it's also because of our culture's heightened emphasis on individualism. Great creative players know how to use their teammates and exploit weaknesses in defensive coordination. Pep subbed Henry off after he scored a goal because he came inside too early and didn't maintain the width the team needed to stretch the field and open up the space for everyone else. Maybe the problem with our rigid coaches is that they are dumb and thus being rigid about stupid things.
Back when they played with Cavani, Lavezzi, and Hamśik in a 3-4-3? The center of that defense was protected by two defensive midfielders in Inler and Gargano. More recently has have evolved into a 4-3-3, with Ghoulam and Hysaj as attacking fullbacks. The defense is shielded primarily by defensive midfielder Allan, covered by two-way midfielder Jorginho. So whether their previous 3-4-3 or their current 4-3-3, Napoli has depended on very good defensive midfielders to shield their backline. Either way, Napoli's may not be a bad model for the US, but the US has to develop additional attackers to replicate it. In the next 18 months, it is not hard to imagine the US lining up like this in a 3-4-3: ---------------- Sargent --------- Weah ---------------------------- Pulisic ???? --------- Adams --------- McKennie --------- ???? --------- Brooks ----------- Miazga ----------- CCV Again, in the next 18 months, it is not hard to imagine the US lining up like this in a 4-3-3: -------- ????? --------- Sargent --------- Weah ---------------------------- Pulisic ------------------- Adams ------ McKennie Robison ------ Brooks ------ Miazga ------ Cannon* I like the 4-3-3 model better because I think Amon takes the open left striker. But time will tell. Getting back to your original point, either way, you end up with Adams and McKennie shielding the back line as a tandem.
He's not the kind of mid posters have been banging on about. He's an 8 who provides more of the defensive balance in a central midfield.
Pulsic doesn't provide the defensive coverage/workrate needed from the a-mid in a 3412. See how Almiron plays the position for Atlanta. In 3412, CP would be one of the forwards. CP isn't central midfielder at this point in his career.
More than the workrate, I'd say it's the lack of vision. When the guy is dribbling he completely forgets it's a team game. The CAM has to be aware where the other attackers are. He could score things himself against weak teams, but against strong ones it's going to end in turnovers.
In 433, Pulisic would be a wing-forward. Mayber over time he will develop into a central mid. -------------------------------------------------------- Destroyer: Claude Makelele::: US analog = Pablo Mastroeni, Jermaine Jones, latter day D Will, Geoff Cameron Defensively oriented Super-8::: N'golo Kante:::: US analog = Stuart Holden, pre-injury Michael Bradley, Jermaine Jones, D Will Deep-lying midfielder:::Michael Carrick::::US analog = Wil Trapp, Kyle Beckerman, post-injury Michael Bradley.
Just got to watch the replay. The US was pretty bad. Mexico was better, but also bad. Midfield was a complete mess. So messy that green for mckennie actually helped a little. Can someone tell Adams he's not playing youth ball anymore and that stupid turnovers matter? Thanks Miazga for giving the game a little juice.
Miazga was our best player against Mexico, but I'm not sure he's good enough to keep his starting spot with Nantes. Right before the international break he had his first good game for them, though. So he may be hitting form only now.
I could get behind something like this against equal or lesser competition: --------------------Steffen------------------------ ---Yedlin---Miazga---Brooks---Robinson--- --------------Adams---McKennie-------------- --------------------Green------------------------ -----Weah---------CF*---------Pulisic------- CF there is a placeholder until Sargent is ready, it could be any of Novakovich/Zardes/Wood, or Jozy if you want to bring him back. Against superior opposition, if you want to go more defensive, you have a few tweaks you can make. First would be to drop Green for a dedicated DM (Williams, Canouse, Roldan) and ask McKennie and Adams to contribute a bit more offensively. Next, you can keep the front line as is but if you want a bit more defensive coverage you can swap in Arriola for Weah (and can always slide Weah inside if that's the route you want to go), alternatively if you feel like you need Green's creativity you can stick him up on that wing.
Guessing from you're posting in here you're from the USA. Think it's rather funny people get snarky about the Orange team never have won a title almost always come from countries that can't even match our number of semi-final WC (most of them are from countries that even havenot reached that landmark at all), let alone ever played a final once. Come back when your country matches what we managed.
Your team constantly underperforms relative to talent. To me it's confused to commit to a certain free spirited approach and then talk smack about results. To be real, I'd say the same thing about Spain, who has one title to their credit. And getting back to my point, which you missed with your counter-snark, is that whatever level you have achieved, it's not holding the trophy up. If that's our goal then why are we mimicking a mere semi team? And being further real about it, part of the reason I raise the issue is because I feel like x% of domestic snob fans do not know the relative success rates in world cups of the systems they are advocating. As with Holland, there is a potential tension between maximization of results, and playing pretty. There are some Dutch teams that SHOULD have hardware but didn't play like they cared if they did. That can be an end in itself. But then admit, domestic snob, that you'd rather risk losing than play like Sarachan. And we can evaluate that in light of missing Russia and whether we enjoy that trade off. And I realize that Holland does varied things, is not always the stereotype of the eredivisie or clockwork orange. It's just that when Holland or its league teams make that choice, it's usually a trade off. To me there has been one purely joy of soccer pretty team that has won a world cup in decades, Spain a couple back. And that was an incredible generation of players. You look at the rest for the past few decades and it's like Italy twice, Germany twice, France twice, Brazil twice, Argentina, all pretty balanced and some fairly defensive. My point is when people sell us get out there and knock it around I am kind of wondering who the template is, and ok, lay out their actual success record. You're trying to tell me this is a winner, ok, who won playing this way. Put differently, I think the fans who want to change our style miss that that should be really implemented at U10 and not the senior team, and it's like they want to imitate certain Brazilian teams, or Dutch ones, for the sake of pretty, without acknowledging how many trophies that got. There is a running tension in Brazil about how much team defense and organization they need. Sometimes they are drilled, sometimes they are loose and playful. Sometimes they win, sometimes they get creamed 7-0. But kind of like UEFA is implementing financial fair play at the same time people here talk about shedding salary caps, we are mimicking a cardboard cutout of what we think others do.
We just did miss the WC playing like Sarachan. Good grief! I'd rather risk losing friendlies. AND ANOTHER THING! Don't preach at us about changing youth soccer. We've been apoplectic about the state of youth soccer since before you became a frontrunner fan of Juve and Chelsea. It is not inconsistent both to believe that youth soccer is still in need of a paradigm shift and to believe that the men's team needs to reorient itself now -- without wait.
Would prefer to move on from the Trapp discussion. There are a lot of hardened opinions on the topic (mine included) that aren't going to change. So as not to dodge the question... yes, ball winning is one of the qualities you want in a 6. Along with reading the game exceptionally well. Always showing for the ball in support. Cutting out passing lanes in the middle defensively to push attacks back or wide. Never getting caught in possession. Playing quick passes to spur the attack when there's an advantage. Short/long range of passing. Ability to shoot from outside. Many also prefer the dark arts of physical intimidation. Does Trapp have all of these? Of course not.
Dude, I became a fan of CFC (and Fulham, to be real, since you want to pretend this is frontrunning) when I lived in their physical neighborhood in London in the 90s, and watched games in person. Most of the people on BS, likely including yourself, have probably seen few if any of the games of the Euro teams they root for out of snobbery. I come by mine honestly. You picked on the wrong person. Juve is a personal thing dating back to the 80s. I don't still watch them really, but it's in my name since my name is a decade old. Get your facts straight. You're essentially saying I am right about youth soccer but giving me grief about it, which sounds personal as opposed to analytical. See prior discussion about misreading my name. My point on that is uncomplicated, which is that you can't magically make a senior team into dribblers and passers at 22. However, I have also argued, and you don't address in your arrogance, that looking at teams like Germany or Italy, technical ability is not at odds with substantial organization and a commitment to defense. It's like people have never watched B.1 or Serie A for how they ACTUALLY PLAY. Or like people miss why Italy and Germany won their titles. We have already gone through a cycle, with Klinsmann, of passing for passing's sake. We in fact didn't win a ton of friendlies doing it, since we failed to create many real chances. I do think the pool has evolved since then, but I continue to believe that some idea of defensive firmness is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY FOR CONCACAF. The USA last cycle was one of the better teams in the Hex in GF, but was abysmal in GA. Guess which one dictated our position? I think we can also play flowing soccer. My thing is I don't see how the two are conceptually opposed. I meant Sarachan vs Holland more as a false choice. There is in between. Defend like crazy, but don't necessarily bunker, and then come out of it fast and counter, and that to me can be done as pretty and flowing as the personnel can do. But my thing is reality check, you can only play a system the guys can do. You can't force a pretty team out of less than pretty parts, eg, the first half of Mexico. You have to have the right personnel out there and in the pool to pursue a tactic. You can't wave a mission statement about style and change the pool.
I'm jumping mid conversation so excuse me if its a little off topic. But I was thinking about coaching and players this morning and this hit on some thoughts. The more I think about it, the more I think the coach is probably Berhalter and they already know it. The timeline that they have expressed line up with MLS playoffs. There are two names that seem most likely. Tata and Berhalter. I am good with either with a preference for Tata. I doubt Tata is in the mix. The only thing that gives me any inclination is he is being coy about sticking with Atlanta and is talking up international options. But its likely going to be Berhalter. With that in mind, I think the most likely base system is the 4 2 3 1- as both prefer it as a standard (though both show other systems at times. Tata just rolled out a 3-4-1-2 this weekend). I am cool with that being a base mostly. We seem one player short imo. I see it being this way right now. ------------------------------------------Jozy ------------Weah -------------------------X----------------------Pulisic --------------------------Nagbe---------------Adams Robinson----------------------------------------------------------------------Yedlin ----------------------------Brooks--------------------M ----------------------------------------Stephen We are lacking one more attacking player to pull of that with all of these guys available. I prefer the diamond as I think it fits our pool better but if the 4231 is our base, we are close to being able to put together an interesting squad with it. Sargent can come up and eventually push Jozy, but I think Jozy is our best #9 in the pool right now. Perhaps Weah could as well, but we need 4 attacking players and moving him to the #9 just creates another hole. I am not necessarily calling for a true #10. We don't really have one. What we do need are three players dynamic, high level attacking players that can interchange. Right now, I think we have two. I don't know who the third could be. I think people are sleeping on nagbe. With either Tata or Berhalter, possession is going to be the goal. Nabge simply helps break the press. I was extremely excited to see him avalable after the previous World Cup cycle, because breaking the press was nearly impossible for us. We need guys who can handle the ball under pressure, and I don't think anyone in our pool does that as well as Nagbe. He has been mistyped in my opinion, as an attacking player, when he is a #8. He needs a strong defensive presence next to him and with McKennie and Adams coming up in the pool, we'll hopefully have some depth there. The rest is pretty self explanatory. If the base system is a 4231 and the coach is Berhalter then I think that is close to how we start rolling things. We're one dynamic attacking player way to potentially being quite competitive... Of course thats a huge hole and we really need that role to be two players deep to handle all of the injuries, form, and call up issues that go with international play over 4 years. Any ideas if there is perfect player in the pool for that? I thought Green's addition last game was key not because of Green but because he facilitated the correct system shift.
I would suggest they were bad because they tried to play 4 d-mids. Adding Green fixed that and they were all a lot better. Sometimes getting all the top talent from the current pool on the field at the same time can't be a priority to getting the right mix of players on the field in the right way.
Oh, now I got it. You are smarter than, more informed than, and a superior analyst to everyone else because you lived in England. That's an unusual position that I've not encountered before. Also since here we believe in magic, I can see that this can cause us to talk at cross-purposes. For example, what you call insight, I call platitudinous. In light of this, I'm going to go ahead and concede your brilliance, but I kind of also want to point out that in 2016, Klinsi went 6 W, 0 L, 1 D in friendlies.
I agree on the diagnosis, with a caveat. I thought some of it was 4 DM. I also thought some was 1 F, and some was Lichaj at LB. The first and last were corrected by subs. They go to Sarachan's selection. As with Clark against Ghana, I find it damning when a coach has to fix his own lineup. Reason #1234 that he shouldn't be hired, up there with 2 subs in a friendly, new formation every game, modest results overall, etc. The question of if we should play 2 Fs hasn't gotten the same attention. I thought his tactics were crocked because Zardes is not a back to goal guy, and his personnel choices gave his forward no support. So even if we managed to pass out of the back to mids, we struggled to find a forward to feet, and then support them with anyone. If we're going to play a lone forward he needs more company. Green became de facto company. More broadly, they need more attackers in to do a 451. Done right it's not that you really don't have many men forward, so much as you're coming from different angles, or sometimes using central mids as another striker or wide mids as another forward. Otherwise it comes off like we were just playing for a tie. We basically showed up to bunker. But he didn't even put enough skill on the field to get out of our own end.
I have mentioned I lived there 1 time on this thread or any other in this whole forum, this morning. The suggestion that my name is some sort of call-to-authority is malarkey. it reflects I used to like 2 soccer teams more than a decade ago before MLS sent a franchise here, which is my favorite team even though they suck now. But do read more and more into my name. Your soccer argument is similarly not accurate and worse misleading. Klinsi's period when he tried to institute "ping-ball" was the first cycle when he had just gotten the job. That was when we spaced it out, frenetically ran around, and dominated possession while creating few chances. Mexico August 10, 2011 1–1 United States Friendly Costa Rica September 2, 2011 0–1 United States Friendly Belgium September 6, 2011 0–1 Belgium Friendly Honduras October 8, 2011 1–0 United States Friendly Ecuador October 11, 2011 0–1 United States Friendly France November 11, 2011 0–1 France Friendly We basically won 2 games the rest of 2011 after he was hired. Tons of possession, few goals, few results. He then steadily moved away from a finesse passing game emphasis -- Kljestan being its epitome, all touch, little defense -- towards Jones/ Beckerman/ Bradley/ Bedoya and the 3 DM stalemate defense we played in Brazil. That set of players then continued into the next cycle, but aged out one after another save Bradley. He abandoned his sales pitch of making us pretty, to get results in Brazil. That got him extended. But then the players he relied on got too old and neither he nor Arena ever quite figured out how to reconfigure the tactics to the pool in a competitive fashion. But, in any case, he abandoned pinging it around for lack of chances and results. You can't magically make us into dribblers and passers to get balls to feet in the box, or make Jozy some back to goal technical stud. Few players in the pool, I dunno, Kljestan, Nguyen, were technical wizards, but they were also defensive liabilities. We lacked a Villa or Pirlo. So the sales pitch actually wasn't suited to the talent. This is one reason I resist decontextualized calls to play pretty soccer. Go get me pretty soccer players to do it first. The new coach, whomever it may be, is going to be blessed with a lot more talent, so he will be less concerned with merely milking the pool far enough to qualify. But I continue to see an issue where the idealists bang up against the reality of the pool, and expect for a senior pool to change itself. If you want more ball skill go back to age 10. But I also think that line of argument is somewhat misleading because the Italians and the Germans probably demand a higher technical level but while demanding a similar or perhaps even slightly higher level of organization and defensive effort. Germans or Italians would laugh away the argument that kids shouldn't be expected to organize and defend. You don't see the field if you don't play 110% and defend. Demanding that effort has not turned them into dead end teams like everyone wants to suggest our emphasis on results and organization and team effort does. It's a fake argument to suggest leaving organization curbside in service of free play to induce more skill. The two are not opposed. You can simply use more of one, one way, then more of the other, headed back upfield. Just watch a German team play. It's not that it's not tried, the Spaniards and Dutch love to knock it around. But they are over the long sweep of time second tier European soccer teams. Italy, Germany, and France are the ones racking up trophies. I think the argument about pretty soccer for its own sake is neck deep in its own sort of abstracted, who cares if we win, snobby pretense.
There's such a baseless notion Dutch just play pretty and win nothing. No, it's just a matter of millimeters between a WC title or not. Basically just before end of the match vs Argentina and going into extra time Rensenbrink hit the post and against Spain Casillias barely touched the ball Robben set towards goal with his toe, just enough to put it sissling along the post. Millimeters and were these going our way and those titles were ours this bloody nonsense of Dutch rather like to play pretty and loose than win ugly never would have been raised. That nonsense is copy pasted for decades now by foreigners, but without accompanying facts. It probably is caused that when we beat a strong opponent we most of the time do it in an obliterating, jaw dropping way (WC finalists Italy/France 2006- World Champion Spain 2014). I think that causes that stupid romantic notion foreigners put into their perception of the Orange team. When we win we're hailed, when we loose those foreign fanboys are disappointed and then fall back to that stupid mantra instead of analyzing why we did loose.
Technical wizards? I can maybe think of Freddy and Zelalem who recently have elite technical skills and a bunch of guys who are decent/meh at the major league technical level. All are not athletic enough to get any playing time unfortunately....