Post-match: USA v Paraguay friendly 11/15 (R)

I think McKennie will. Weah was a starter because we didn't have anyone else in the past that was better. With the emergence of Freeman, Poch can now contemplate with the option of putting Dest as a winger.

 

2-1 was fair but 1-1 would have been more fair than 3-1.

yeah, most of the xG for Paraguay came from the goal, but xG is supposed to work all that stuff out and at the end, it is a fair expression of expected results.

 

xG does not account for clear penalties that weren't awarded by an awful ref. Getting both and converting both to win 4-1 would have flattered us a bit, but I think 3-1 would have been more reflective of what happened on the field than 1-1. We were definitely the better team.

 

In terms of rankings, I don't see it that way at all, especially after what we just saw. Arfsten seems far more effective as a winger, and on either side of the field. He controls the ball well while maintaining vision to look for passes, and he's showing consistency when it comes to beating defenders with the ball at his feet and making accurate crosses. On the other hand, Aaronson did numerous U-turns and recycled the ball to the back line, and lost the ball in traffic far too much due to his head being down. While Arfsten shows calmness and poise with the ball, BA often looks frantic. He runs a lot and pressures well, but that's not exactly an elite skill, and much of his movement and energy seems wasted (so I don't feel much desire to give him credit for a lot of his running around). BA had one nice attacking move is this game that I recall, with a good pass at the end of the sequence. But in addition to all the times he lost the ball, he also had another sequence where he weighted his pass into the box poorly, and forced the recipient (I think it was Tessman) to have to go too wide and lose precious time to look to get his cross in. I don't know how many times BA turned the ball over, but it felt like a lot to me, and that's my primary complaint about his game.

 

Paraguay is a decent team, but Uruguay is two levels above. I'd rather judge the team after that.

 

That may be true. To be fair to Paraguay, they beat URU at home and left with a 0-0 draw away in Uruguay. I’m not sure if PAR brought a more full strength roster compared to URU for these friendlies. Looking forward to Tuesday though

 

The Uruguay team that played Mexico was pretty poor.

 

When people are discussing why Freddy Adu didn’t make it, I always chime in that one big problem was his decision making. Too often, he passed when he should dribble, dribbled when he should shoot, and he shot when he should have passed.

With Brenden my critique is more narrow. He dribbles too damn much. And he’s too experienced now to have much hope it’ll get better. So, in short, I agree, his vision isn’t good enough.

It’s a 48 team cup and we’ll be in Pot 1. If we run out of gas in R16 like we did in Qatar, Poch I’ll have failed to properly rotate the squad.

Of the 10 field players, I hope there are about 4 spots where Poch just alternates two guys.

 

Aaronson’s ability to change direction is elite. That’s part of why he presses so well.

 

No, not until he does it in the WC.

 

In some ways, I think Gio got a bit unlucky with Poch. When he came back from WC22 into the pool and even when Berhalter was back, no one had an issue with his maturity and he played both well and hard.

Like the whole team, he had a shitty Copa and it seems like he was likely ********ing around in March with Scally ... but I'm not sure that aspect is tied nearly as much to some of the prior problems. There's no doubt that Poch is right and justified in asking for a team in a funk to not ******** around ... but I'm not sure whatever screwing around he was doing was all that tied to WC22 nonsense, if that makes sense.

The bigger thing for me with Gio is still unanswered. I have no idea if he's not getting time at club because he's not healthy enough to defend or if he won't defend. It's clearly the issue; it's always been the issue. He's always been inconsistent.

He can clearly bring positive impact on the field even as he is, but he's not going to reach the player he could be without that having improved. As I noted, I don't think this game tested that at all -- I'm not saying it's not there; I'm saying it's still an open question for us as fans.

I think he was pressing, trying to prove himself. It's not his game and he needs to play to his strengths. He should never be dribbling into traffic.

 

I would agree with this. I know when I was both a free safety and a center fielder you were taught to not always go 100% at a ball or pass and to give yourself the ability to change direction or alternate your route, in most cases your initial run was 90%. Most can't stop and start like Aaronson does. Definitely a strong point. My biggest complaint with Aaronson is he typically does that while he keeps his vision down and tends to lose the ball or lacks field vision. But, each player has strengths and weaknesses and the coaches job is to utilize the strengths while making the weaknesses not as glaring.

 

I'll just tag on that I think Brenden has some very strong offensive skills.

He's actually very strong on the half turn. We don't see it as much with the Nats because of the number of times we're bunkered against and the more possession system Berhalter ran, but he's very good at transitioning into attack mode in the midfield off the half turn. His issues comes when he holds onto the ball too long.

He's a very good passer on the break. He has a nice leading through ball to strikers, and good vision. He needs to pass more and dribble less.

He has a very good sense of timing on entering the box and making runs. Again, this on ball role is a bit of a struggle for him because he's far better off playing behind a playmaking winger who hits the Man City cutback for his shot than he is on ball.

His issues have always been clear. He's a subpar finisher, so the times he makes his runs, he doesn't convert at the level you'd love. His sense of timing gives him lots of chances but fans tend to ignore that and then punish him for a subpar conversion rate -- overall, he still gets more of these goals than most of our CMs but it feels like he's wasteful.

He's not big and strong enough, nor tight enough on the ball, to beat guys one on one or survive much contact. His decision making needs to improve, frankly, because if he used his turning ability and got the ball to someone else quickly to make his run, he'd be better.

But he tends to make a nice turn, get into space and then wait too long and try to dribble guys. He needs to stay in space and get rid of the ball quickly; I don't really love anyone holding onto the ball but Brenden doesn't have Christian or Sergiño's ball skills; you need to recognize that and play to your strengths.

I actually totally get the the idea of playing him opposite the strong side in the last game. Unfortunately, we never really generating enough out of the right for a back post run to be helpful -- hell, we never even got the ball to Balo until late much less over to Aaronson. But theoretically, if the ball is going to be right, having a largely off ball CAM isn't the worst idea.

The ball just rarely got into the center of the box, though, much less across, which goes to my whole idea that we can't say the right side bossed it when it didn't get out of the right corner all that often.

 

Yet he almost never scores or assists and that is the point of the game.

 

Paraguay had 3 starters missing.

 

1. GIO is feel being loved. This team now is Captain Ream’s team, and Grandpa Ream is always on GIO’s side, and also was the decisive vote to keep him in WC 2022 team (not being sent back home).
2. When Paraguans saw they cannot win in world football game, they decided to play an American Football game. Freeman: Are you serious?!! Let’s tackle.
3. US team’s only previous normally brawl were against El Tri, now it would become vs. everybody. Now please don’t call them sissy team.
4. Tanner needs to cut down the careless passes he made in the game. He caused his Lyon team twice troubles recently.

 

Ream has said publicly that there was no vote.

 

Less than we did!

 

Brenden's not an amazing offensive player but let's not discount him, either. He has 9g and 7a in 2,600 US minutes. Certainly not an insane production rate, but he's at over a goal production every two games.

He has goal contributions against Morocco, Canada, Switzerland, Jamaica, Honduras, El Salvador. Only two are against Grenada-level teams ... both Grenada.

He's tied for 30th on the All Time US goalscoring list and 30th on the assist list. All time.

He just turned 25 in October.

Tim Weah has 7g/5a in 3,100+ minutes.

Tab Ramos had 8g / 14a in 81 matches. Brenden's been in 55.

His goals + assists/match are also higher than Earnie Stewart -- Earnie has 17 and 10 but in 101 matches.

It's just that they tend to occur where we makes something happen off ball ...

Brooks' shitty play stole the glory here but we should've beaten Canada at home:



That's Aaronson -- win the ball, pass it, make a run. No dribbling.

 

I don’t remember the penalty shouts. I’ll go back and look. What minutes were those?

 

No idea, sorry, though they were both on Balo. I mean, everyone knew that ref wasn't calling a penalty on Paraguay that didn't involve blood, but I think he should have.

 

I watched the recording of first half last night. Going to watch the second half tonight.

My biggest takeaway?

This team now looks like a much better team under Poch than Gregg. More urgency. More determination. I’m not a tactics guy, but our ball movement feels radically better and dangerous. Love how the team swarms and closes in on defense like an Argentine side.

It’s nice to apply the pressure to the other team. It’s normally us getting pressed and isolated under pressure!

 

Ahh got it, I thought you were saying that Paraguay were not really pressuring the ball. I think we are probably mostly in agreement on Gio regarding his strengths and weaknesses. I really value his strengths however.

In any event, as things stand now, Tillman is the likely starter. Gio is trying to secure a roster spot. He also has to stay healthy, which is easier said than done for Gio.

 

That was always where Berhalter’s tactics failed us. We were never urgent, even though I would argue it suited our personnel. But even if it didn’t, you have to be at least a little flexible to what your opponent is doing. Like, a football team may like to lean on the running game but if the defense stacks the line, you have to throw deep sometimes.

The typical style of defending by our peer opponents was to push up and dare us to play quick and/or go over the top, and we just wouldn’t do it.

 

The ref was wildly inconsistent. Good prep for qualifying — maybe not for the WC.