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

I think the idea was to let your idol McKennie sit on the bench and watch Musah play the r-mid position which McK himself will play v Mexico. That way Wes won't gum up the works and he can concentrate on the stuff Allegri had him doing last season. That will get him out of crowded areas and protect his shoulder, mcl, etc.

 

I think people get too upset over this. Sometimes the opponent is playing good defense and there's no clear way through. It's okay to be patient, watch how the opponent reacts, try to get them to shift, etc.

Not everything works, and not everything works right away.

 

That's an exaggeration, but only slightly! I could make out the lead announcer's voice under the crowd noise some of the time, but Martino's voice was rarely audible to me, even when I tried turning my tv's volume up to twice the normal level. What a complete joke of a production by TNT.

? I'm not sure that they would have deserved any blame for the problems that occurred. And it's not like this was the first-ever tv broadcast from Q2. But it might be the first one aired from there on TNT (?). I don't know. All I know is that I'm really beginning to notice TNT Sports coverage of soccer... for the wrong reasons.

2024 marks my 50th year watching international soccer on tv. I'm still no expert on all the things that go into producing a game for tv, but this was one of the worst viewing experiences I can recall in terms of production. We take it for granted that we're going to get decent video and audio, but when the basics can't be handled, and the wheels start to fall off, it's really noticeable.

 

I mentioned this in the game thread, but the double save was only really necessary due to Turner’s horrible distribution. McKenzie played a very easy ball back to Turner, who was under practically zero pressure. Turner fizzed a ball wide left about thigh high…really tough to control. As a result, we had to panic clear, which was intercepted. A couple of passes later, Turner is making the save(s). So yeah, good shot stopping, but never should have been a dangerous chance to begin with.

 

Poch buffered the defense with

-----------passing mid---------passing mid

---cb-(passing)-------cb(stopper)--------cb--(passing, Scally)

here is berhalter

--------musah(dribbler)-------mcK(wide player or cam wide on top of fb)

--------------------------tyler-
-
---cb-------------------------------------------cb

which would you prefer if you were a good keeper who wasn't the sharpest passer?(In truth, Matt has a very usable long ball. Berhalter was afraid of using it because he wanted to change the way people look at American soccer.)

At best, Berhalter would keep Scally back and have a 3-1 situation in back but the point is that the middle had to be avoided - that's why BS faithful were raving about dribble Dest. how would we get the ball forward otherwise, they were asking? By golly, without Dest we just can't play, they would say.

If you listen to Conrad's impressions, he was mumbling about "structure" after this game.

 

It was only 15 min, but I thought Tillman was very poor. Has there been a bigger gap between perceived club form and perceived Nats quality before?

 

Congrats on the 1st cap. It's a pretty special experience.

 

Most people here have no interest in understanding how Poch adjusted for absences. They want to go back to the good old days of just saying we can't play without Dest or Weah or this guy or that guy. Berhalter had people conditioned really well to give up and leave him alone with his group so they could continue falling down the ladder of world soccer into a happy complacency.

 

Agreed. Loved that busio and Morris turned with the ball almost everytime and found forward/square options. Rarely did they one touch it back. Constantly getting into a pocket and the other pivot adjusting to be a quick option.

Saw a tweet about how close the MFs spaced together, allowing for the quick pings. I absolutely love that style.

And yes.. rarely saw CP isolated with the ball 50 yards away on the touch line. Like him centrally.

 

From my pre-game questions:

Intensity

Better, but not great. Pochettino definitely didn't want us to counterpress hard every second -- there was definitely a more selective approach. But there were a few turnovers where we didn't, and it cost us possession / an attack.

The subs were awful in terms of this -- I had hoped that we'd see a much more rabid team trying to prove themselves and instead got better but hardly anything near "intense." This may have been a choice -- resting up for Mexico, focusing on focus over intensity. But I'm also just not sure about half these players have it in them.

Of particularly concern was losing duels and getting beat to balls deep in our own territory/own box.

Build up tactical changes - will we see numbers?

We did not need as many numbers in the build up as Panama applied little pressure, but we did see a definite more detailed and effective plan.

I don't know if it was more attitude or a better plan, but the most impressive part was Morris and Busio's aggressiveness to progress. Where we often got in trouble previously would be a lazy pass from the CB to a midfielder who would not even try to turn or find a guy but rather would tap it back, creating an easy press situation.

We did this a lot less today, as Morris and Busio were much more aggressive in turning and finding the next guy quickly.

Some of that may be mentality, but some was likely knowing where the help would be -- reasonably close as people were coming back. And we set up a TON of give and goes -- just a lot of clearly intentional help coming back very close to 1-2.

Still, count me on the Busio had a good game crew. I think he might've disappeared a bit (and Morris was more active, but I didn't see him being ass at all.

I also really liked the clear plan to outlet deep to Robinson and have Puli play off him. It was Turner and others' set outlet play if they couldn't get through, and Jedi's athleticism really made it work. A very simple pattern of play, but it was effective. I also think it helped to simplify the decision making.

Will we see the central overloads he's used so much?

Nope. Aaronson and Pulisic played in the more traditional half space and wider. The attacking pattern of play was Pulisic/Robinson interplay and Aaronson/Musah interplay on the edge of the box out.

We did avoid a lot of big long crosses, but it was an inside out attack.

We rarely ever saw six in attack -- Busio and Morris would make some runs but were largely VERY disciplined. I was hoping to see a more aggressive offense tactically and this was largely not it.

There were a couple of small changes -- the attackers were given a lot more freedom to roam -- Aaronson came over to Puli's side a lot, including on the first goal. Jedi and Pulisic interchanged a lot.

I would also say the actual wide attacking patterns were much more focused on the Man City endline run as well -- that was the clear goal of our attack.

Any different position - player combinations? Is someone playing in a new role?

Musah at RW/RM. Poch mentioned post game that this was more about confidence and getting pressure off him than anything, but I like it. Musah's played wide before, his speeds plays there, and it clearly worked.

Who is playing CB and Keeper?

It's not wrong to say that the big difference between this and the Copa Panama game was the red card plus a keeper who made the big save when needed. Good to see from Turner.

A lot of people were impressed with McKenzie, but I wasn't. He wasn't terrible, but he wasn't nearly as involved in the offense as I'd like and he got beat for speed a couple of times -- far too often to be comfortable.

Ream was basically on his own in terms of passing, so that and leadership are why he's there. But Mark can do more ... he just didn't. Get the ball to Ream and Ream will get it to a CM.

Oh, and we really need an option beyond Scally. He's the Bundesliga's Daniel Lovitz at this point -- good defender, but is his offense going backwards? I remember youth team Joe Scally would rampage forward and the biggest issue was the space left behind. Now he looks afraid to do anything, and we can no longer blame Berhalter's complexity.

I really don't know that we can keep playing with a hand tied behind our back. Perhaps we would keep someone back to cover our CBs anyway, but it's hard not to interpret Scally's role as "he can't do anything with the ball."

What's the possession / transition balance?

Very Berhalter-esque. I would say that there was definitely more willingness to attack quickly through the build up, but we didn't generate a lot of transition and didn't force it. The reduced counterpress also reduced chances.

A few other observations...

• The set defense breakdown late is probably the most concerning thing. Difficulty clearing, getting outmuscled in your own box, slower to balls in your own box. I don't really think they had many chances until after we scored, but then we just got slow and a bit lazy. That's where the intensity was worst and clearly not intentional.
• The starters probably had something like 60% possession but when the subs came in ... just dogs defensively. I'd be pretty furious if I was Poch.
  
• Overall, the attitude of the team seemed more proactive and confident. It's a friendly so we will see. However, I would like to see us be a bit quicker to shoot -- seems like there's still a bit too much waiting for the perfect shot.
  
• We did a great job early on of focusing offense to Pulisic.
  
• Pulisic is now good on set pieces but we have no one to finish. Turns out it was not all his fault -- we don't have the targets. No McKennie. No Miles. Maybe Wright would be better?
  
• I thought Brenden overall was okay. Still some little brothering, still a few times where he hung onto the ball too long. But his MLS to Pulisic was a fantastic example of composure to wait for the right moment to pass, and I actually think his shots were good. We can't praise Pepi's goal in terms of placement and power and act like Brenden's were somehow worse.
  
• I would be really intrigued to see McKennie play the role Musah played.

 

Who is your left footer who can effect that pass to AR up high where he can cook? Here's the Musah goal. As an aside, smart for Aaronson to be in the box, there. Opponents will be wary of mugging him and giving up a pk. That gives him that extra split second to effect a truly wonderful flick to CP.

 

Man... I know we have heightened awareness of his terrible distribution but damn it is really bad. That play especially. Terrible and unnecessary pass to the corner flag. I try not to be hyper critical of his passing but it just hasn't gotten any better.

 

That wasn't a very hard pass. It's a long ball, not under pressure. And it wasn't an inherent connection. ARob won a 50-50.

Who can do that? Probably McKenzie himself. He's ambidextrous. Richards is somewhat. Heck, true righties like Zimmerman & MRob may do it a good % playing it right-to-left under no pressure.

Regardless, everything's a cost-benefit, & the costs out-weigh the benefits from the cascading problems having to push our line back because of Ream creates.

We could have made these arguments for starting Brooks the last several yrs, but we saw how that worked for us overall.

 

Regarding Scally, I thought it looked like a back three, particularly in possession, with Jedi and Musah pushed high and wide as wingbacks. In that role, I don’t expect Scally to be impactful going forward. I also thought it was a good answer to the Turner problem in the build, put another guy back there and don’t bother the keeper with that stuff.

 

So having missed the game because I'm in England the feedback seems to be:

- Busio and McKenzie are in the pool
- Pepi continues to be an effective goalscorer from the bench
- Aaronson and Sargent have a lot to prove
- how to get the best out of Musah?

 

Yes, but did we play a back three in possession because we wanted to, or because Joe Scally isn't helpful going forward?

I'm inclined to believe it is a decent amount of the latter as he wasn't even particularly active as a passer out of the back.

Maybe it was primarily a build up move -- we certainly will see a bunch of different 3 ATB styles because of that (an alternate version is dropping a CDM back).

But I suspect also that it has a lot to do with Scally's limitations.

 

Another way to do that would be to camp in the opponent's final 3rd so whenever you're forced to pass back to him he has a ton of space to clear or hit a teammate rushing back.

I did like that they were just sending goal kicks long, which 1 of the goals was scored off. There's more cost than benefit playing out of the back in that situation for us, let alone if our gk is Turner.

That's his best role. But he still over-cooked a great crossing opportunity, when he rushed fw still got there late, & back-passed unnecessarily a lot. So the deficiencies still showed up. He's a situational rb/rcb. Dest can't get back soon enough. And we still need to cultivate a situational offensive option in the event Dest isn't available or is actin' a fool.

 

I think Soto might be my most ridiculous take ever. I was just out over my skis like one of those famous agony of sports ski jumpers eating it on him. I just watched him in '19 and was so completely all in. Totally all in at the U20 WC, 1000%. Llanez too. I do think with Llanez, there may be some off field stuff, family or something, it sounds like he just wasn't in his right space circa 2020-2021, and it totally derailed things. I don't know if he's over, but it certainly seems like he's moved on, which bums me out for him. He definitely seems like a guy who probably would have stuck if he'd just stayed in MLS, closer to home and family, the fact that covid broke out right when he moved to Europe I think really hurt him, but yeah, that U20 team from '19 that was so damn good, has had an enormous attrition rate. Soto, donezo, KDLF donezo, Llanez Donezo, Mendez donezo, Durkin Donezo, Ledezma's a travelin man but seems to have found a spot maybe, but really, the whole team seems derailed at this point, even Paxton Pomykal, just ruined by an endless litany of injuries, the defense is the only thing that produced any guys who've stuck, in Dest who cost us the WC opener, and Richards who was a mountain, and then there was/is McKenzie who was hurt for the bulk of the tourney.

 

The second goal doesn't happen without him.

 

Everybody has limitations. What are you going to do about it?

 

I am firmly convinced that the striker role at youth levels is so dramatically easy compared to being an actual striker because CBs and keepers make so many mistakes that using youth goals is pointless.

I don't think these guys really start learning the position until they hit the first team.

 

That needs to be underlined times 1000. It's their first window w/a new coach and the lineup was missing 8 of our top 10 field options for a starting lineup.

RB was our backup RB who pretty much everyone, everywhere wants to be our #3 or #4 RB because of his lack of attacking utility.

CB: Mark McKenzie, whose generally been our CB 5 or worse because everyone is terrified of the next bonehead per game mistake he'll make and how deleterious it might be regardless of his passing prowess.

Tim Ream was our other CB, and everyone pretty much agrees its time to retire him and he shsouldn't be top 4.

LB: Jedi, one of two first stringers.

#6: Aidan Morris, a guy who wasn't in the top 3 for the DM position like 10 minutes ago.

Musah: Basically has been made a backup #6 backup #8 and backup RB, or RW by people recently.

Busio: Basically out of the pool quite consistently since window 2 of WC Qualifying in 2021 until 2024.

B. Aaronson: Out of position and way too easy to be little brothered out of the play in CM, he's basically a utility, Winger, wing forward and CM.

Josh Sargent: Basically then a try out and a pair of starts at the WC, he's been out of the pool at striker since fall of '21.

And Pulisic and Turner.

The truth is what you saw yesterday was a pile of mismatched prospects, a handful of starters, and backups, mixed in with deep depth guys....and it looked it.

Poch has a lot of work to do, and so does the pool, but as you mention, the pool is as injury riddled as its been at any point since the fall of '21 when Weah, Musah, and Pulisic were all hurt, Reyna got hurt and McKennie got suspended (and I'm sure there are other injuries I'm forgetting).

 

Now that futsal kick saves are the thing it's better to shoot at the keeper's head or legs.

 

Yep, if you turn it into starts, its basically 9 starts over 5 years in total minutes, in truth, its 2 starts since the disastrous window 1 of WC Qualifying, both at the WC, until yesterday. You can check my #'s to see if I'm on point or not, but I believe he has not played, at all, in 12 of the last 16 full international windows open since Window 1 of WC Qualifying in 9/21.

He's simply not been a part of the pool, partly due to performance, and partly due to injuries.

 

That’s a very expansive definition of line breaking pass and, for the second one, controlled.