International Friendly: USA vs France June 9th, 2018 Groupama Stadium Lyon, France 3 PM (ET) ESPN and UniMas
Last game for 3 months and it kicks off a string of 7 straight really tough friendlies. I expect us to get absolutely murdered but I really want to see how some of the younger players do, especially the FB's Moore and Robinson. This should probably be Sarachan's last game too right?
id like to see steffen behind yedlin, parker, miazga and robinson. same middle three (trapp/mckennie/adams), hopefully weston and tyler are pissed off watching tape of todays match and bring some heat. wood up top, hopefully saief is fit on the left. the right though? zero good options. no interest in green or rubio. dont want to move adams wide (espeically since that makes us even more raw in the middle). weah isnt ready- and id really like him, along with the sargent, coming off the bench in this one...but gooch? corona? im going to go against my general rationale and give weah the call. a 3 or 4 goal loss may be our best case scenario here. too many kids who arent ready and too many that are semi-proven pretty average. it was real sexy seeing our kids against an inexperienced, frankly really bad bolivia team but today was a wake up call and next week could be very, very ugly. im not looking for exciting im looking for guts and fight in this one.
There is little good that can come from this mismatch. The squad the US has taken to Europe is quite poor, immature, inexperienced and virtually untrained to play as a team. I expect this to be a France win by between 4 and 8 goals. The US, at this point, simply has shown nothing that even remotely looks like they can hold their own against a team as good as France. France beat Ireland 2-0 and it could have been much worse. and Ireland beat the US 2-1 and the US was outplayed for much of the match. Admittedly France and Ireland are two very different teams but France is a LOT better than Ireland and a lot more adaptable the any team the US has faced in recent history. As much as I believe that playing good to great teams in unfriendly venues at this point all this is doing is teaching the youngsters how to lose and I expect they will get pretty good at that.
---------Wood------Weah---- -----------------Parks--------- ---------McKennie--Adams--- -Robinson---EPB-----Yedlin ----------Parker--Miazga---- ---------------Steffen----------- The U.S. pulls off a shock 3-2 victory w/ that, sending Les Blouses into tumult and one of their classic World Cup meltdowns after coming in with high expectations. Dembele walks off mid match.
Let's see if we can play McKennie at #6 to cover our CBs this time. Good game to test Robinson at LB for sure. I want to see what Parks can do against some real pressure. Kid is smooth as silk with the ball at his feet and he is huge. This is a bunker and counter situation. Weah and Saief out wide. Sargent is probably the best outlet guy. Possibly with Nova? Going to be tough. We are playing a World Cup winning capable squad in a tune up game before the World Cup.
Does anyone know what to make of the late scratches (ie Saief) from today's lineup? Will they still likely be available next weekend or not?
I’m thinking I may not have too much fun watching this one. I really just want to see some of the kids do something positive in that environment against that level of competition.
If all players are ready to go I'd like to see Steffen Lichaj-EPB-Miazga-Robinson Adams-----McKinnie----Parks Weah-------Nova------------Saief Sargent, Yedlin, Green, Parker, Trapp, and Wood as the subs. Just full energy and test France on the quick counter. Maybe even flip Adams with Weah and sub Weah off for Trapp and use Weah off the bench.
I'd rearrange them a little but the right idea. Parker, b.t.w., plays well in mid and bad in the box which is opposite of CCV who plays well in the box and bad in mid. If we expect to get backed up into the box we will be better off with ccv. If we are playing in the other guys' end we want Parker.
What's the over/under on how many goals we lose by? 3? I'm an optimist by nature, so I almost never expect us to lose, but after what I've seen of this team's setup, and considering the opponent (and that this is going to be taken seriously by a French team that has a lot of steam going into the WC), I'm already assuming that we lose. Having said that, what can we look for to indicate that our players are adjusting to international play? All I'm looking for is composure in possession. If we can avoid panicked balls back to the GK, or playing constant long-balls, I'll be happy. This last game, CCV, Hamid, and Trapp in particular were extremely poor at keeping possession. CCV, because he was panicking. Hamid because he was god-awful commanding his box, distributing the ball, and making himself available for a backpass. And Trapp because he was easily marked out by Ireland's midfield, and he rarely linked play with the 4 attacking midfielders.
Trapp rarely linked play with the attacking 4 mids because you need a savy partner so the dmid can dump the ball to him and shuttle the ball up to the best option. Neither Adams nor McKennie specialize in that. I knew Trapp would get douched in this one and said so before the game. It's not like Trapp doesn't know how to pass, right? But he cant pass to somebody who isn't in position to receive!
Are you even disagreeing with me? I'm not saying he's a bad player or anything, just that he played poorly, along with a host of other players. And that his poor positioning meant that we never really got control of the game.
I rather see Sargent go the full 90. We've seen enough of Wood. He is what he is. This game won't change a thing.
Take a look at the 3rd goal where Miazga got "beat". Trapp has to stay centrally to guard some guy because his partner (where is the right cmid?) isn't there to pick up the central guy to allow Trapp to follow the play (ball). This means Miazga has to guard both sides of the dribble. Do you see Adams? When Delgado and Bradley were playing the 8 (strong) cmid next to Bradley (6), they did this all the time and it's why Toronto was a winner. I said before the game that Trapp would be hung out to dry and that's what happened. In the case of Miazga, he not only had no help on the scorer from his 6 but he had a second guy to defend on his left hand. i.o.w,, he had to defend 3 places. If he steps up the guy on his left hand is still onside because his back line is behind him at that point. Maybe somebody has a gif and we can decide if Trapp had bad positioning as you suggest.
It'd have to be a pretty long gif, considering all game Trapp failed as an outlet for the CB's. That's what I'm getting at. I don't particularly care about the specific defensive breakdowns that caused the second Ireland goal, I care more about how our team dealt with Ireland throughout 90 minutes. It's why most of my posts were railing at the fact that Sarachan's formation was bad, and his lack of adjustments did us no favors. Far from improving the play, Sarachan substituted players who were unsuited for the 4-1-4-1 roles that he was pigeon-holing them into (Corona and DLT as wide mids? what the hell?). Trapp was neutralized and failed to get on the ball as much as would have been ideal because he was taken out of the game by Ireland's press and overrunning of the midfield. I'm of the opinion that partnering him with McKennie as dual 6's in a 4-2-3-1 would've been much better, for example.
That's not really what it's about. It's about putting a team on the field who is less likely to get bludgeoned and which will allow the prospects you do play to shine so you can evaluate them properly. I would have started Novakovich last match. But Sarachan didn't. Now it would be trial by fire.
Lefthand attacking mid, I guess. Can't imagine he'd be worse than Rubin. I think Parks/Green would've been good at the AM spot underneath the striker, but to be honest I'd rather have Saief at LAM in that formation, not Adams.