Pre-match: USA vs Mexico -- Gold Cup Final Sun 7/7

Not much to disagree with. I'd take Steffen over Ochoa, otherwise I agree that US has better defense, Mexico has better midfield and Pulisic is better than Jimenez and Tata is better than the Egg. I do think Egg has made the most of what he has and is for all practical purposes on same level as Tata for this game considering that Tata is missing his stars.

Steffen + US defense + Pulisic > Mexico.

 

Not to mention at 2-3 we hit a crossbar and Bradley missed an open goal albeit from distance at 2-4. Mexico took full advantage after Cherundolo went out and Lichaj had to switch sides. That wasn’t Bradley losing the team; that was a really good game that we lost.

 

Could be. That’s what I recall though - it was clearly time to move on from BB (whom I was a supporter of FWIW)

 

I don't believe you, Sunil.

 

if this team beats mexico without the younger better reinforcements and knowing what those younger better reinforcements have shown via a vis their Mexican counterparts what does it say about the state of el tri

 

Agreed, the A/B team thing is almost always nonsense. The only time it makes sense to me to bring up is in a case like the 2009 Gold Cup, where all of our best players are at a separate tournament entirely. Mexico could claim something similar for the 2013 and 2017 Gold Cups. In my mind, it just makes sense to label these teams as "B" teams to indicate they were a clear step down from the first team squad. Trying to accurately label them as a "C" or "D" team is just silly in my opinion.

Likewise, trying to accurately label a team as "A-" or "B+" based on injuries or who is actually first choice for a coach is pointless. Is the whole player pool available to the coach? Then it's an "A" team. Injuries may affect things to differing extents for each side, but this is going to be the case for just about every game and it's not worth trying to put a letter label on it. Having depth is part of the strength of a team anyway.

 

My recollection of that tournament is three things in particular: 1) The team played like absolute ass. Lost to Panama and barely beat Guadeloupe; 2) With Bob's blessing, Donovan and Dempsey skipped preparations and a match for personal reasons (I don't remember the exact details); and 3) It became obvious that Bob was out of ideas, relying on Adu -- who really didn't deserve the call up -- to insert any creativity or ideas into the attack.

The loss in the final, though, became insult to injury because it was Bornstein -- one of Bob's projects -- that was victimized badly by Mexico in their comeback, having subbed in for Cherundolo.

 

To be fair, this actually worked.

He was directly involved in 3 goals in 90 minutes of play.

 

The story of this tournament for me so far is that Berrhalter has found a way to extract things from just about every player on the roster. Guys come in and contribute.

I'm looking at the roster thinking that you could go multiple ways with multiple positions and not really feeling that there's any stubborn decision that he's making.

He has managed this tournament well, like a good manager does in the world cup...he's not burning every starter out (actually rested the ENTIRE starting unit for the final group round game...a really good decision that panned out really well). He has rotated strikers and wings. Rotated defenders.

Berrhalter deserves some praise up to this point. If he wins the tournament, he deserves some serious kudos.

 

I don't disagree with you too much. Most teams are carrying at least one or two knocks in any tournament, or dealing with other unavailability issues, and trying to precisely quantify the extent of those issues is usually just an exercise in excuse-making.

But it sounds like you view a B team in terms of rosters, i.e. it's only a B team when the entire first choice 23 man roster is competing in a different tournament (a situation that I can only recall once in my time following the USMNT). Whereas, I also think the concept has some value in describing lineups, i.e, the type of lineup you field in a major tournament when you've already qualified for the next round and want to rest all your starters, or the type of lineup you'd field in an off-year Gold Cup (or in the 2007 Copa America) where you're bringing at least 9 or 10 players who would otherwise make a 23 man roster, but mostly as depth.

Then, personally I would still reserve the term "C team" or lower for the type of situation we had in the 2009 Gold Cup. Our starting lineup in the finals featured nobody from our first choice 23 (because of the Confederations Cup); instead it featured players who would never otherwise make it onto a 23 man roster, like Jay Heaps, Logan Pause, and Davy Arnaud, and nobody who played in the World Cup the following summer (save Stu Holden for a brief cameo). I think it might not be totally pointless to have some sort of shorthand to distinguish that (super rare scenario) from your typical B team.

But I'll also acknowledge this is all kind of nerdy, obsessive fan-forum semantics.

 

You know is hard to play with 12 starters, FIFA tends to frown upon that.

The Mexico defense is there (well missing Layun) + Guardado and Raul (who may be an upgrade on Chicharo).

So it is really the midfield (outside Guardado) and the offense (outside Raul) that Mexico is missing.

Mexico will be ok defending, the question mark will be if they can put away the chances they will create, they did not look great vs Costa Rica or Haiti.

If Mexico can set up Jimenez a few times, I think Mexico will win. Maybe 2-1.

 

If I remember correctly, in 2011 we had a 2-0 lead early (aided by the play of one Freddy Adu, if you can believe that!), then had to make an injury sub on the backline about 20-25 minutes in...

That injury sub was Johnathan Bornstein. At that point, I knew we were doomed.

 

I hope to be proven wrong, but I'm thinking Mexico wins 2-1 or 3-1. Even though we've only given up one goal, I can't help but feel our defense is a bit shaky. We all know Bradley struggles to deal with speed at the #6. Ream is good for 1-2 bad gaffes per game. And the team still gives the ball away too often when trying to play out of the back. The opponents so far haven't been good enough to capitalize on those weaknesses, but I think Mexico will be.

 

Ochoa gets no respect.

 

1-1. PKs goes to...

 

My opinion is that a "B team" should just be a vague, context-dependent term that refers to a sub-optimal lineup. The "B team" in the context of a tournament where you've already qualified for the next round would just refer to the bench players mostly starting. The "B team" in the context of playing in a friendly would refer to intentionally not calling up typical starters in favor of calling up more fringe players to evaluate talent. You're right that there could be some confusion with 2 simultaneous tournaments, and maybe it'd make sense to call something a "C" or "D" team at that point.

Excluding that scenario, I find it pretty difficult to perfectly define an A/B/C/D team. Is Altidore on the A team? Is Zardes? If we suddenly switched to a 2 striker formation, would that mean now both are on the A team, or does that mean we're starting a B+ team? What if we had a "super-sub" type player who we always brought on in the last 20 minutes. Is he part of the A team or do we consider all subs to be the B team?

It's too nuanced to properly define. And, maybe more importantly, usually when people are throwing around these terms, it's to preemptively diminish the opponent's win. There could be value in using the terms sometimes, but using it to facilitate a preemptive excuse for losing is where I have a problem with it.

 

Dos a cero

USA!

 

Puli, MB, Boyd, Altidore, Wes

I have absolutely no data to back up my assertions.

 

Pretty much why I never dismiss the Gold Cup despite the tournament's other shortcomings. A final against Mexico is always a big test for us, and one we haven't been good at passing.

 

After 33% dilution it was the shittiest Gold Cup in terms of quality, 16 shitty teams playing shitty games.
We have shitty team with unproven coach, but on Sunday we will beat MEX because their team is even shittier - they have shitty defense, shittier midfield and shitty offense line.
3:1 USA.

 

When the tourney began and the US team had just tied Chile and lost to Jamaica and Venezuela, I was sure they would lose a game or two and definitely get beat by Mexico if they made it that far. But now seeing how they are playing and seeing how Mexico barely got by a poor Costa Rica squad and then squeak out a win against Haiti I'm feeling a little more confident. Still it's Mexico vs. the USA in the championship and anything can happen.

 

We lost to Panama because Tim Ream conceded a dumbass penalty and Wondo missed an open goal sitter late (none of that should be surprising).

We beat Guadaloupe 1-0 but outshot them like 900-1 and this game featured Clint missing about 10 sitters from within 10 yards.

Bradley excused Donovan and Dempsey from practice ahead of the Jamaica QF to attend each of their sister's weddings. Both were back in time for the game (which we won) and Dempsey scored.

Bradley trotting out a 4-6-0 with Adu playing the Totti-at-Roma role was not because Bradley ran out of ideas. It was because Altidore's hamstring exploded against Jamaica like it usually does in major tournaments, and the only other striker we had on the roster was an 18 year old Juan Agudelo (and the aforementioned Wondolowski who missed said sitter). Using Adu in that role and letting a front three of Dempsey/Donovan/Adu roam around and switch worked very well considering the circumstance.

We lost to Mexico not because of Bornstein. None of the backline played well. Cherundolo got hurt, Lichaj had to switch sides and everything fell apart. None of the midfielders played well. Tim Howard let in 2 near post goals and fumbled a rebound. Mexico was better than we were and backed 90-10 by an amazing crowd and they were still only a couple inches away from 3-3 with 15 minutes to play.

Bob got fired because Sunil was pissed about the Ghana loss (which he shouldn't have been; Ghana was good and we outplayed them and couldn't finish) and he was infatuated with Klinsmann who was telling him exactly what he and a large chunk of the fanbase wanted to hear.

 

Comparing Holmes to any of the guys you included on their side is criminal, to be fair.

 

Friendlies with experimental lineups and formations are not the same as real matches.