Post-match: USA vs Panama friendly 10/12 (R)

WTF the goalkeeper is doing? LOL.

 

I like that we looked to transition quickly to attack after winning the ball. Performance aside, I feel like we finally departed from trying to be 2012 Barcelona.

Looked like a 4-2-3-1, yes? Interesting Poch’s use of Musah on the right, but with instruction to attack aggressively. I know he likes Musah, he tried to buy him at Chelsea. Busio also looked comfortable, and McKenzie looked assured. Some good things from such a meaningless, low energy match.

 

He wouldn't be Musah. You can't take the ball away from him, unfortunately it's not needed either.

 

Too many players are just ass. Not much can be done about that. I liked the extra man to build out, but not much clay for coach to work with.

 

We have like 15 guys out injured right now?

 

The camera angle was just too low for my taste, it's the reason you couldn't see what was going on at the far side of the field…

 

He appeared in 14 games and played 708 minutes since he scored. It's not much over 5 years.

https://www.transfermarkt.us/josh-s...018-05-29/ende/2024-10-13/nurEinsatz/0/plus/1

 

They looked good in spurts, causing turnovers here and there, and at least tried different things on attack instead of the robotic slow things down and pass it around the perimeter approach. Definitely saw them slip back into bad habits at times, which is understandable. Work in progress for sure, but they're trying.

 

It's gonna take more than one game for Poch to undo what 3G did to these players for years.

 

ZARDES

Damn!

 

I liked McKenzie. I'm glad he got a chance. Ream seemed to let him distribute and organize. He looked comfortable and no notable gaffes.

 

The pool is the pool.

He can't, for instance, create an elite #9 out of thin air.

I know people love to say that Berhalter held the pool back.
But the pool is the pool.
Poch's job is basically to put this pool in a better position to get a result.

Pulisic and Antonee are a step above.

Antonee is the best LB we've ever had by an extremely wide margin.
In his prime RIGHT NOW.

Poch just needs to elevante the levels of a few more in that group.
If he can be part of the process to get Musah back on track, that would be an awesome development.

We'll see how he utilized McKennie against Mexico.

 

Also.......................Josh Sargent.

Can't score. Hasn't scored against a team other than Cuba since 2018.

I know he hasn't had a ton of opportunity compared to others, but at some point he has to bury chances if he expects to win the competition for the starting job.

If I'm Pochettino I start Pepi against Mexico and bring Vazquez off the bench.

 

Call me crazy...but I thought we played well. Enjoyed alot of this from us.

Played quicker thru the middle than what I remember in a long time. Some fantastic interchanges with Morris, Busio, CP, aaronson. Felt we rarely just chucked in crosses from wide.

Loved the high press and aggressive counter pressing. We created the type of turnovers that I don't recall us doing in a long time.

Panama is a precent decent team, good core of young players should be good for a while.

 

We seemed to look for more opportunities to play through the middle instead of always going out wide, but that's just a feeling - would love to see heat maps back that up.

It is interesting that both goals came from line breaking passes in the air that were controlled by the receiver.

 

Okay, here's my two cents from my first ever in-person game. And sitting nearly close enough to touch the field no less! Amazing night to watch soccer.

First, attendance was amazing. No, be quiet, yes it was

• The Saturday night headline event of ACL Fest was going on downtown with Dua Lipa's only US performances of the year. So that's about half a million people.
• Longhorn - Sooner annual rivalry game. So in addition to the all weirdos going to Dallas for it, there's another, I don't know, 10 million people watching. It's bigger than the Super Bowl here, because Texans are Texans.

Getting 20 thousand for a friendly vs Panama against those two things is kind of absurd. And it was not 20k Panamanian fans either. From what I could see, it was about half for US, a quarter for Panama, and a quarter of people who were there for Pepi and Zendejas

On to the actual game. It's odd and fun to see it from the other side, where the in person observations are so different from the people who watched on TV. Fwiw, here's what I saw:
Busio was a**. Absolute utter waste of space. Didn't control anything, was completely out muscled and out worked by everybody who bothered to notice him.
Jedi was an absolute beast. He owned his entire side, going both ways, and Panama could do nothing about it.
Puli was completely gassed. At kickoff.
Brendan was Brendan. One moment he'd be sprinting in their box, the next moment he'd be sprinting in our corner. It was insane. If only he had better skills, or really any skills... His shot at least was hard and on frame.
Morris looked really really good. He made some dumb plays, but unlike Busio, he also did a ton of good things. More of him please.
Slotting Lund directly into Jedi's spot seems like just a way to mock him for not being Jedi. He simply can't do that stuff. He also loves to pass it back to Ream.
Matt was great. Yes, he still can't kick the ball where anyone would ever want it to go. Didn't really matter because he wasn't expected to be a midfielder out there under Poch. Hallel*******ujah. He stopped shots. This is a really good thing.

The team looked great for the first third of the game. Panama was extremely fortunate not to be down a couple goals before half. Man it was nice to see fast, direct attacks, line-breaking balls, crosses into the box, even if none of it ended with the ball in the net. There was so very little of the pointless, slow possession that never came close to threatening the attacking area that we've grown used to.

It was a good thing it was a friendly, and Panama was mostly on good behavior, because I think the ref forgot her cards at home. Lines crew was excellent though, and at least on our side nailed every single call for both teams.

Credit to the players for showing appreciation for the crowd. They not only went and did the clap to the fans thing, but we had at least 3 Nats up in the stands by us at the end (and I was nowhere near the supporters section), and lots of them went off shirtless after giving their jerseys away to the fans.

 

Not a bad start and some interesting things, good and bad. The intensity and pressure on the ball was much better, probably the biggest overall improvement. I thought the first half was mostly good. I would still like to see a few more clear chances created but we should have had at least 1 goal and gone in with a lead. I think a healthy Balogun makes that a very different half. Sargent does some good things out there, but je too often lack a cutting edge to create chances, and he blew a big one that fell to him. We came out and got the goal pretty early in the second, but things kind of fizzled out after that with the substitutions and perhaps fatigue. The late goal put a shine on what was otherwise a labored second half.

Turner did well and made a couple big saves, handled the ball well. He still didn't do great passing out, but overall, after his recent run of form, this was better.

Antonee was outstanding all night, Ream was better than we've seen recently, and Scally was good defensively and didn't offer a ton going forward. The big news for me defensively was McKenzie. He stepped up and looked confident back there. I also liked that he was able to take an equal if not greater part of the distribution alongside Ream. He's got a real chance to win a spot back there.

Things were interesting in midfield with Musah pushed out to the wing and I would not have expected Busio playing a deep central role but he was excellent. For me, Busio was one of the best performers on the night. The combination of him and Morris had us passing more through midfield and not holding the ball too long as we tend to do otherwise. I thought Musah did well enough out wide and he got the all-important goal. I may prefer him wide. Mostly this is down to my dislike of too much standing on the ball or dribbling through midfield, Good things happen when your midfield passes instead of runs with the ball.

Pulisic was Pulisic, a very nice assist on a good team goal and he worked all night. Aaronson plays well without the ball, which coaches love. But he shot poorly when he had a clear look and didn't create much, didn't much help or hurt himself. Sargent did some good things coming back to get the ball and keep things moving, but he blew a golden opportunity. If he buries that chance, we're having a very different conversation today. I feel like with a lot more balls coming into central areas, Balogun is going to look better when he gets backs.

For me, Pepi didn't really offer as much in the buildup, but he finished and you can’t ask much more from a substitute striker than to come in and ice the game. Wright is an interesting player at this point. This is the second time we've seen him deployed a bit deeper and looking to create more than score. Seems like there's some potential there, but not sure it's enough to win a lot of minutes when we get healthier.

Tessman is an interesting player to me. He's really got a nice way of spreading the ball around. But he can also be a bit rooted to a spot and I'm not sure how he fits with our midfield. He's going to play deep but definitely needs someone mobile with him. But he has some interesting passing qualities that I really like. Still, we definitely looked worse when Busio left the midfield. Had had a lot of good small movements and smooth passing to maintain possession and develop play.

Tillman was involved in the final goal with a nice pass to slip Wright into position to make his really nice pass for the finish. But I didn't seem much else from Malik. I really think there's a player there, but he needs to find just where he fits in the overall picture. He does seem to be able to make at least a few key passes every time out and he comes out of a lot of tight situations with a good pass that creates something.

Zendejas seems to have an effortless touch on the ball and some quickness but he's not at all in synch with the team. I can't tell if he makes bad decisions or we're just watching styles clash. Lund was fine but he's a clear downgrade on both sides of the ball when he comes in for Antonee. I'm glad we've got a backup for emergencies, but if we ever get into having to rely on him for a full game or more, we're going to struggle on that side of the field.

Overall, happy with what we saw from Poch putting this together. He's not afraid to sit a guy like McKennie. I totally believe it was fitness related and not wanting to harm the player, but he didn't feel the need to take a risk in a friendly and trusted his other players. For me that's good team building. I really liked the greater emphasis on passing through midfield and not just always pushing the ball wide and defending space in the middle. It will be interesting how that plays out in Mexico. The front three playing a bit more clustered with Pulisic playing free seems a good fit. Will be a lot of changes all healthy up front though. I think only Pulisic makes a top 11 in those spots. I look forward to what this will look like when we have more of our top options back.

 

this is what my main takeaway has been for the last two windows so far. Morris has been bringing to the US what he was bringing at Columbus. Columbus was nearly impossible to press with him and Nagbe in the double pivot.

 

Of course, saying he hasn't scored in 14 games is not impressive either. Sarge is what he is. Lower-end top five, upper-end "next level" striker. The only real question is whether anyone else we run out is better. Pepi remains to be seen, but he certainly is also showing he's an upper-end "2nd level" striker, even with limited minutes. Not sure he's a great fit for the US style, however. Hopefully Balo's shoulder heals and he gets back on his rejuvenation run as he's probably the best fit, style-wise, after Sarge/Wright (if we continue the press and quick attack style, which I think we have to - we're not chess players out there.)

 

I do agree with the poster above who said Pulisic looked gassed really early in this one.
I'd be tempted to not play him against Mexico. I respect Pochettino's decision not to play McKennie against Panama as a means to control minutes. And the same makes sense for Pulisic. As much as I want to put us in the best possible position to beat Mexico........................

Really, I think the best player on the night was Antonee.
I think we kinda take for granted that we have one of the best left backs in the World. No joke.
Cuz if you're one of the best LBs in the Premier League, then you're one of the best LBs in the world.

The guy is an animal. Beast mode all the time. What an incredible motor that guy has.

Frankly, I think he may be our second-best player since the start of 2022 WCQing behind Pulisic. And you know what? Antonee was more consistent in WCQing, by the way. Pulisic missed half of those games.

Antonee will be transferring to one of the biggest clubs in the world in one of the next two windows. When AC Milan tried to sign him years ago, we all just kinda said "what??" He was on a truly terrible Wigan team in the Championship at the time. Then his heart problem nixed the deal. Milan, as it turns out, knows talent.

 

This is funny to me because I agreed with most of what you said, but I had a completely different impression of Busio. I admit I was not there and TV can hide some things, but I saw a player who made simple short passes that kept the ball moving all night and rarely lost it. I remember maybe 1 time he got outfought for the ball, but mostly remember him moving it smartly and giving a great chance to Sargent. I could have missed something but I though the team started to drop off once he was removed.

 

Wretched.

 

How much luck was Pepi’s finish? Great run. On frame. One touch.

But do you intentionally go five hole when the keeper’s alone on his line?

 

Hitting it first time and keeping the ball on the floor from that range is very, very often a goal. I don't think he placed it precisely, but he knew when and how to hit it and executed that part well enough to get the goal.

 

Although fans rarely judge forwards on their defensive skills, I noticed that Sargent's defensive skill set is pretty poor compared to our other forwards. He is slow to react on defense, easily deked, and dribbled around. He hardly applies any defensive pressure. His lack of defensive skills was noticeable last night in some Panama attacks. He looks to be a bit overweight. Maybe if he dropped a few pounds, his defense would improve.