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

So I rewatched the first half, because I have a problem. However, I am writing this a bit later because -- and I am not kidding -- someone drove a car into my front porch mid-watch. Fairly new Porsche Cayenne, too, so at least I know they can pay for the damage.

It reinforced some things and changed some things.

• First things first. Gio's defense. The good, as I put in another thread, is that he never completely shut down. He moved and got into position. He also got back on at least one counter to help. He was generally marking someone or at least playing what looked to be the right zone.
• He also basically loped and jogged the whole time. This wasn't the biggest issue -- the guys near him for Paraguay were often doing the same. But I think anyone that wants to bag on Roldan and Aaronson and praise Gio's offense needs to understand that Roldan and Aaronson, in particular, were the reason Gio could jog around on defense and not have it hurt us. They did the work to stop counters, to win the ball back, to cut off attacks.
• If you subscribe to the idea that Gio's offense is so good that he doesn't have to play much defense ... remember that someone has to and in this game, it was generally Roldan and Aaronson covering.
• Speaking of Brenden, I said he was crap but that was not true in the first half. It might have been in the second, but in the first, he played really well. He didn't dribble too much and -- this is fun -- he was in on some of the best combination play we had. In fact, Aaronson spent a decent amount of time on the right side.
• In fact, there was a lot of interchange. Reyna would slide left. Tessman came on the left some. Roldan started a number of the best combination play with quick passes to Reyna -- I would not be shocked to see a ton of connection on a pass chart between Roldan and Reyna.
• I am more convinced we had a plan to attack on the right, but it was even more than overloads over there. We would intentionally run the ball left, but we'd run it to Arfsten with only Aaronson in front of him. There was no serious attempt to drive forward there -- Arfsten would wait for the defense to shift and then he or Ream would hit the switch -- Ream hit quite a few good ones -- or they'd shuttle it through Roldan, who would find Reyna most times.
• Okay, so it was a good plan. Why didn't we get more chances. Well ... I'm not sure there was any one thing. But I can toss out a few. One, on the first half, on the rare times we did get the ball to Balo ... he wasn't great at retention. That was only a couple of times, though -- the bigger issue is that ball rarely got anywhere near the center from the right
• Number 1 culprit in my mind was that we were repetitive and predictable in that we almost never attacked the endline. And when we did, we did score, but because Scally wasn't much of a threat, Tessman was not leaving the top of the box, Reyna's not making speed runs and Dest simply came inside. every. single. time ... we ran into an overloaded central defense. We had a lot of guys there, and all their defenders, but everyone was waiting for the ball, relatively static and mostly in similar places. We needed more movement.
• Number 2 culprit or missed opportunity was honestly that guys like Reyna, Dest and Tessman had a number of chances to shoot from the edge of the box and were pretty shy. I think Dest took one, but there were probably five or so chances. We weren't going to penetrate the box very easily; sometimes you gotta take a shot. Our first goal came off the rebound from hopeful chances -- we probably needed to pepper the box a bit if we weren't getting through.
• All in all, a lot of back and forth, but we really didn't penetrate what Paraguay had very much. They are a good defensive team, but we do need to find the next pass, etc.

 

Dude, that sucks. I hope nobody was hurt!

 

I understand that it changed some things. Perhaps your rocking chair was smashed or your screen door was removed. I'm confused at what was reinforced though? Can you incorporate the Porsche to strengthen your foundation somehow?

 

The driver was clearly in shock and likely broke her hand. But all in all, fairly lucky. No one else was hurt.

 

I'm not going to closely watch the second half but I do have it on ... and I will just say that Brenden had a really nice couple of sequences there get lost in what happens after.

He made a great pass to Balogun and Balogun should have gotten a pen but the ref and apparently Kyle Martino think getting shoved to the ground is not "enough."

Then he recovers a ball, makes a nasty turn, passes to Arfsten who makes a mediocre cross that ends in nothing but it was a really nice and dangerous play.

I definitely think I saw him dribble into a turnover a few times and it somewhat overrode what is a lot of nice play.

 

Well put.
#1 Berhalter ball at times seemed like endless crosses like that were an end to itself. I really hope that the "completed project" has a good mix of attacking approaches that in the end make us more unpredictable. Dest, Weah, Jedi (fingers crossed) and Arfsten (with stepovers that make Frankie jealous) can all get to the end line, so hopefully the more compact focus is adding to what wasn't there rather than going away from some previous "strengths".
#2 There were definately several balls played to the top of the box that should at a minimum, have been first time shots just to keep their defense off balance.

 

The second goal is also kind of hilarious in all the context of the discussion.

Luna bulldogs the Paraguayan player. Roldan comes over to help and knocks the ball loose. The Paraguayan player panics and taps the ball back to his teammate -- wait, no, it's a PERFECT PASS to Balogun. It's heads up to lay it off and heads up to be the streaking Gio Reyna, but then Reyna's cross is clearly intended for a very heads up Cristian Roldan who has come all the way back and is making run to goal ... and is intercepted by Paraguay ... and kicks directly back and softly to Balogun who buries it. It's a great finish but given how it just sat for him I doubt anyone could have passed it better.

Incredibly smart and tenacious play by everyone. Also incredibly lucky twice!

 

When Pulisic & Weah are out there, the 3421 (as I call it) plays more legit 343, as both those guys can play effectively as wingers. But when you have Reyna, Tillman, Wes, Zendejas, or Luna in those spots, those guys tend to play more centrally, it plays more 3421 with the 2 AMs forming s box with the CMs. It lets you win a numerical battle in CM vs a 4231 team who play 3 in CM.

If Poch wants to call it kind of a 4231 when Scally/Freeman are at RCB/RB, I get it. They do get forward (like Moreira does for my Crew) when the team is comfortable in possession. Much more sobthan Ream. But when McKenzie or Robinson are in that spot? Not buying them as FBs, at all. And that does mot get into how high the WBs play. Though Poch isn't quite as aggressive there as Nancy, who usually has Farsi, his RWB and best long speed, highest on the pitch. Hard to call that a FB. Dest nor Arfsten are THAT high. But that is all largely semantics. Everyone gets the basic shape in atrack & defense. Though it plays a bitcdifferentvwith different personnel and is adaptable.

 

In 2024 WCQ Paraguay:
Drew Uruguay away
Beat Brazil at home
Drew Ecuador away
Beat Argentina at home

You're drunk if you don't think that's a quality win.

They are mostly defend & counter, and scrappy. But they are good at all those things.

 

It was a 4 man backline because when we were defending, it was a 4 man backline with Scally at RB and Arfsten at LB, and in the end, that's the convention when referencing.

If it were a 3/5 man backline, then Dest would have come back at some point with Arfsten when we were defending in a set defense. But he didn't.

(I'd also argue given how much Scally was forward, it's pretty hard to position it as a three man backline than rather a four man backline with the LB far more attacking. That's very typical.)

But to your point, aside from the defensive elements... if we're talking offense, it's semantics.

Scally stayed back a certain amount and attacked a certain amount, and that same thing is true if you call him a CB or a RB. The important thing is how much he did get forward and where he played.

Far more interesting was that in build up and attack, this was a very asymmetric set up and intentionally so.

 

Again, I will disagree around the edges, here. Scally wasn't back all the time. The strongside ourside CBs (yes,,I'm calling it 343 or 3421) do get forward some. Not initially (where it is obviously 3 CBs), but once we have possession. Scally was overlapping, he gets forward some, Freeman does, too, in that role. Now, Scally & Freeman play it more advanced than Ream or Robinson or McKenzie, for sure.

 

A car crashed into your house and you are still breaking down the usmnt performance?

Dedication.

 

There's very little to do tonight. I'm fairly lucky -- my porch has a very solid concrete base and it basically saved everything. We'll see the damage tomorrow better in the light.

 

And if we had given up a goal like that, we’d be 20 pages deep into a discussion about why at least three of our players should never be called again.

 

The only person that would drive me nuts for Paraguay is the guy who passed it back to Balogun. If you are going to take a wild stab at a pass, you're better off being aggressive and going forward. A turnover in front of you isn't a big deal.

 

Like Gog, I didn't watch the full game until later since I was visiting family this weekend.

I gotta say. I didn't really have an issue with any of the players. It really looked like everyone was doing the best that they could. More on that later.

Overall, this felt much like the Ecuador game where we generated the more consistent chances and the goal against came from one play. Three in the back is vulnerable to well timed long balls yet at the same time it also allows us to play better against low block teams. So far, we look better with this new formation and familiarity will probably helps us later.

I heard a few complaints about Scally but on rewatch he looked decent enough from the hybrid RB/CB position. It's a hard position. You need go forward, drop back, do 1v1 and deep lying passes. To his credit he attempted all those things and was reasonably decent. I think that except for the one goal he was very good defensively. The list of players that can do both RB and CB is not that long so I think he has a chance to earn a spot. Dest will most likely be a RW/RWB hybrid. The important thing for Scally is that he looked like a good fit for the current system where as he used to be way too different from Dest.

Freeman with only a few minutes looked better offensively in that same position. I'm not 100% sold in transition defense so there are still questions but I'm ready to see him play with Dest. He really looks like the young player that has grown the most this year.

Ream looked quite good in my opinion. The current system protects him quite a bit with mostly the RCB and Central CB being exposed with long balls which, IMO, is the right thing to do since he is the CB who does the best in possession by a large margin.

Reyna also looks like a player who might be worth protecting and allowing them to damage in possession. His off the ball work rate is abysmal but that's part of the package with him. He just gets injured to easily. When surrounded by pressing busy bees like Aaronson and Luna he shows by far the most awareness in transition.

In sum, a positive outing where we see the whole pool really striving to earn spots.

 

Considering all the work you did in the rewatch, the one thing you didn't mention was the reffing. In game, I was losing my ----, I know for sure we were denied one blatantly obvious penalty, there was another instance in which I believe Balo was shaking his head, but I don't think it was a penalty, but I think there were 3 calls for penalties, and at least one of them was definitively a penalty, denied, not sure about another 1 (I rewatched one claim that was on the far right of what we were attacking in the second half, and I think the dude got all ball before I think it was Balo went down)...

For me, I'm at my wits end with this region, so I think I come in with a chip on my shoulder with Concacrap reffing, and Conmebol reffing too, and I sometimes can't tell if I'm overreacting, or if I am seeing the ridiculous quality of the reffing. I think the ref contributed to the sense of hostility that lead to the stupid throw in/gimme the ball fight, I think our guys were so sick of being ----ed with and nothing getting called, and Paraguay gettin periodic calls right after pummeling us, that we were primed for a fight.

What did you note re: the reffing? I will concede part of this is probably me reacting to the strangling and eye gouging in '19 and '21, the Gold Cup insanity of '23, Copa America nonsense in '24, Gold Cup in '25 (people have already forgotten the absurd penalty/hand ball that went uncalled against El Tri for instance), and at this point, as I mentioned, I just expect the refs to be antagonistic, full of ----, permitting violence, causing games to escalate, then losing control, I've seen it so many times ('19, '21, '23, '24, '25) in qualifying and tournaments in our region that I do wonder if I'm being unfair to refs. But Saturday just really did seem ridiculous to me. What did you think in rewatch?

 

I'm of two minds, high level.

On one hand, I've kind of given up. At this point, I count it a win if we don't get called for a flopping penalty against or a bad red against us. I really do -- my expectations for international refs are so low that I simply don't want them to fall for embarrassing flopping.

I don't think this officiating was all that egregious relative to what we normally see.

On the other hand ... I really do fundamentally believe it's holding the sport back in CONCACAF. Look, as a no-talent ass clown in pretty much every sport I played who used his brain and perhaps some questionable physicality to survive, do I entirely understand the motivation to play physical if you can't keep up? Yes.

Did it make me better? No. It was a crutch that replaced better play. And it's just not that hard to simply call the game tighter.

That said, I think my first recap did mention it ... The officiating definitely brought the two teams closer and made it harder for us. I think it particularly affected Balogun, who is a bit soft in the sense that he can be pushed around and it definitely affects him. Given how much of a difference maker he's been for us, that's a real impact.

Aside from play on Balogun, I didn't think Paraguay was that dirty, and I think guys like Roldan and Tessman did a good job of getting their licks in, too.

The ref was largely even, even if I hate the idiotic thing that fouling a striker is okay but you can't breath on a defender. But he let us hit Arce quite a bit as well.

That said, yeah, pen wise ... I think I saw one that still seemed deserved. Balogun goes down easy and the refs know it -- I think he does not have credibility. Still, that one in the second half was a pen and was bizarrely waved off.

I'm not sure about the Dest one. With no VAR, I get why no call.

I think we probably deserved one. I'd be more pissed, I am sure, if we didn't score the second.

 

We scored 2 goals that Roldan played a direct part in and controlled the This is a weird game to imagine any ambulatory male would have done better. A thought you captured below.

 

You and I have disagreed (and agreed on somethings) on Roldan's USMNT performance over the last few years, but his last few games have been really good across the board.

I didn't notice it so much on the initial viewing, but I watched the first half in detail and the second half again sort of half watching ... and at this point, if you are criticizing his play, it's pretty clear you are looking to pick, ignoring the good and straight out have no ********ing clue how soccer is played.

I don't even know what the complaint is with Roldan's game this game. He backpassed a couple of times early when he could have progressed, I guess. I'm sure he a couple turnovers -- everyone does -- but I don't remember them and I don't think any were dangerous as a result.

According to the stats, he was dispossessed twice and was 33/38 passing ... but he had 7 balls into the final third, had quite a few recoveries/interceptions (six combined, I think), kept ball moving on offense and got it the attackers well aside from those early two backpasses and defended like a demon. He started a ton of sequences with an initial progressive pass.

It's nothing spectacular but it was close to flawless and it was necessary given the other players on the field and how they were playing. People seem to take that for granted until it disappears.

And of course, when he is goal productive, that has also been written off. He's been very good this fall for us, and he was the guy called on to solve the pressing/defensive issues we had all the way through South Korea. He's not the only guy who can do it, but I think people underestimate the likelihood someone can do it at that level of efficiency.

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I spend a little too much time thinking on this, but I think there's an argument I find compelling that other people find insane.

And that's that Cristian Roldan played a role in two goals this last game and Tanner Tessman, to kind of randomly pick on him as a guy in the similar position, played in zero IIRC. I could really start a shitstorm and choose Dest, but that's going to create confusion.

I really like Tanner, for the record, and always have. He's an excellent passer and that's his best attribute -- he's got a nice long distribution and a soft touch on through balls and a nice one touch game.

But he absolutely provided very little danger relative to his positioning and how often he received the ball. His timing was poor, he was static, he didn't shoot when open and he falls in love with his dribble a bit much. He was not bad in the traditional sense at ALL -- he had a couple of nice passes, including some creating flick ons. He wasn't great at keeping the ball, but he wasn't losing it left and right. He got back on D and I liked his toughness at times. But the skill moments did not translate to much danger and he was very forward for a CM.

And then there's Roldan.

For one, his defensive work is WHY Tanner Tessman could be that far forward, and it's part of why we can play Gio as we did. People are going to contrast them, but one enables the other.

For two ... he factored into both goals. Yes, the first required an insane amount of luck and other players ... but he did force the turnover. Can other players do that? Sure, but he (and Luna) did.

On the other goal, it's again an impact that people will say anyone can do. And yes, anyone can hit a hard shot into the defender, get the rebound and make the smart, easy (but also very accurate) pass to Arfsten, who made a great play and Reyna, who made a great play.

The question is ... would they have? People mock Roldan's shots there but I bet Poch is happy he took them. I would have liked better accuracy on the one that went down the middle, but it's better than hesitating and losing the moment. It's better than not making the run.

It's the same with the pass to Arfsten. Easy? Somewhat. But the fact that Roldan didn't try to dribble, didn't think (very long) about shooting again, just made the quick decision to give the ball to a better attacker with a better position ... there's more value in that that people want to admit.

I can't possibly measure the % of times Roldan does that against the % of times Tanner does that versus other things, blah, blah, blah. I'm not even really trying to rank so much as contrast.

And someone is now going to say I think Roldan is amazing for doing this. I do not. I've said that a lot and it will still be said.

But I think people should appreciate more when a player is making the right play at this consistent of a level within their role. Because this is not the default within the US pool.

 

Is Aaronson able to dribble with his head up? I don't know that I have ever seen him pull a Cruyff (head up) in the run of play ... would love to hear if someone else has seen it from him.

 

As someone who watches Roldan week after week, you’re picking up on what I like about him. He does the right thing for the team a really high percentage of the time. He’s a clever player, he makes quick decisions and reads danger quickly.

A lot of stuff he does looks boring because he’s made the right read and does the simple winning action. It’s like his assist to Hoppe in 2021, anybody can stand one up to the back post, theoretically.

Poch is playing him in the role he’s been dominating for the Sounders and he looks comfortable because he’s just doing his day job in a different shirt.


Also glad that you saw the good work Aaronson did on rewatching. He’s another guy who does a lot of right things for the team but also has an extra touch of class on the ball.

I was really pleased with the team performance. I don’t think there was a stinker in there.

 

He dribbles with his head up very often and makes lots of useful passes after dribbles.

 

I love Brendo, and have a ton of respect for what he brings. But I have to say this song is…strangely appropriate.

 

Funny, I’ve never listened to the song despite having watched the video a few times.