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

Maybe. He made a good, obvious pass, but the ball sort of fell to him in plenty of space and Wright made a good run. So not really sure the goal doesn't happen without him in that you'd expect any pro to make that play. I guess others in the pool could easily have overhit that pass, though (sigh), so on that basis, maybe you're right.

 

WELL I'M VENTING TOO!

(And I wasn't really talking about you -- relating back much more to the tweets, etc.)

 

No one in 2018 earned their spot by club play. It was very much a youth movement, and Sargent wad placed in the team for the same reason as others - he was a star youth player who was getting playing time in a strong league and showed real promise.

 

I give it a strong B+

Poch took a total Mulligan Stew of a line up and got a 2-0 result against Panama. 1-0 before the mass of subs. Our dual 6/8's have barely, if ever played together. It was a new formation. You can't expect a lot in that situation.

It was very Berhalter-y, my perceived differences:

We were much more decisive in attacking situations. When we got the ball down to the final 1/4 of the field, and often before, we attacked.

After the world cup, I said I could live with Berhalter ball, with one big adjustment. In the WC, Brazil played very similarly to us, except that when their wide players got the ball high, they attacked into the box. In the WC, Gregg had Puli just repeatedly playing centering balls on the ground and hoping. Last night, Puli was getting into the box.

The other big difference is that Poch didn't have so much of the team push up into attack, leaving our defense so exposed. Oversimplification: Berhalter - slowwwww build up, slow to initiate the attack while pushing a lot of players up. Poch - methodical build up, quick to initiate the attack when in an attacking zone, good field balance. There's no way Jesse counter attacks us to death with Poch as our manager.

Like, on the first goal, while Puli and Aaronson was combining, you can see Jedi hustling back to give us field balance. We weren't going to knock it back out to him from the box, like we did with Berhalter. And Jedi got back to give us defensive cover, even as Puli and Aaronson were passing in the box.

Players: I thought all the starters played well. Re Sargeant's miss, that was a tough ball. It came in pretty hard, through a crowd, knee-high, and he had to hit it with his left foot. I thought it was a touch chance. Other than that, I thought all the starters played well.

The subs, hell, these are guys that have played zero minutes together. It's going to be a mess and it was.

Zendejas has a bad give away in the back 1/3 of the field. But, he was trying find someone in a tough situation. The play at the top, where he missed Haji, that was tough too. He's doing two outside of the foot cut-in touches, then trying to feet Haji making a very fast diagonal run across him. Tough pass under any circumstances. Having basically never played together, it would have been a miracle if it came off.

I'm dying to see Pepi start with something resembling an A team.

Looking forward to the Mex match. Not so concerned about the result, looking to see the top players build chemistry.

So, does Wes start in the dual pivot with Morris or Busio?

 

The ball played to Sargent on his big miss was deflected by a defender. I still think he should have scored, and it fits easily into his NT narrative, but it might explain why it ended up in the stands.

 

I think him being the cause of the double save is overstated.

McKenzie's pass back is a mistake -- McKenzie knows that he's sent a slow pass back that Panama is going to press. He sprints wide quickly to try and create an option.

Turners pass isn't great -- it bounces, but Tim Ream takes it down just fine. Ream, like Turner, probably should have booted it, but then he makes a forced, bad pass. Then we fail to win a duel and then both Musah and Busio take a poor angle ... it took a lot of misses and there were a lot of chances to shut that down.

Turner's pass wasn't great but a lot of others contributed. McKenzie's pass back is actually what frustrates me the most -- Ream was open and unpressed and McKenzie got a bit scared.

 

He didn't get into the box much at all. He did attack the edge a lot. We played wide but we tended to go endline over longer crosses.

Berhalter rarely committed more than 5 to attack for that exact reason. Poch didn't either, yesterday, but this is very similar. Both are positional play adherents. I actually hope Poch will be able to commit more in the future.

If there's any difference, I guess we were slightly more likely to mix and match with the CMs than late era Berhalter in terms of players committed.

This is basic soccer and something we did all the time under Berhalter.

Christian, Wes and three others have been sent home due to minutes or injury.

 

I feel these two were related. Often Robinson was far up the left side and Musah was similar on the right. So I felt it was a purposeful 3-4-3 at times when the circumstances were right. Call was then one go the three center backs so he wasn't schemed to attack on the right that was Musah.

 

I'm about to go mow the lawn, so I thought Id get in on this action by telling you to get off of it.

 

I'd probably call it a 3241 in attack as Jedi, Musah, CP and Aaronson were often all in the same line but the double pivot stayed back. Same diff, though. I suppose Jedi came back a bit but Musah stayed very high because Scally was behind him.

This is a pretty Berhaltery setup -- or vice versa, aside from using Musah there specifically.

But I think there was a lot of work on the spacing and options on the build up -- Berhalter tended to try and create space by spreading out and Poch seemed to bring guys closer together to create easier passes and quick help.

And there was a lot more flexibility and focus in the final third in making 1/2s or triangles wide.

 

I’m putting up solar bistro lights and filling sand bags in the back yard. I’ve discovered calling my wife “coach” while she directs my manual labor is the best approach to maintain the peace.

Good to have you in the fray!

 

The obvious answer is Tessmann. He can hit those all day with either foot and did hit one to Wright on the left that may or may not have been off side. With him it's more if he does the other stuff necessary to get minutes.

 

This is fascinating to me. If we look at a few different 1st halves of US football I'd love to know which of these suggests "domination" and which do not.

Here's the format -- US stat vs opponent stat


MATCH A:
47 % poss. vs 53% poss.
1 shots (1 OT) vs 4 shots (0 OT)
1 shots in box vs 3 shots in box
0 big chances vs 0 big chances
115 acc pass (76%) vs 124 acc. pass (74%)
53 opp. half pass vs 58 opp. half pass
8 acc long balls vs 12 acc long balls
0 acc crosses vs 3 acc crosses
1 corner vs 1 corner
4 touches in box vs 6 touches in box
3 tackles won vs 4 tackles won
23 duels won vs 25 duels won
1 block vs 0 blocks
6 INTs vs 6 INTs
10 clearances vs 8 clearances
0 saves vs 1 save


MATCH B:
83% poss. vs 17% poss.
9 shots (1 OT) vs 4 shots (2 OT)
7 shots in box vs 3 shot in box
0 big chances vs 1 big chance
345 acc pass (90%) vs 40 acc. pass (25%)
192 opp. half pass vs 11 opp. half pass
20 acc long balls vs 7 acc long balls
5 acc crosses vs 0 acc crosses
4 corners vs 1 corner
17 touches in box vs 5 touches in box
2 tackles won vs 6 tackles won
32 duels won vs 20 duels won
1 block vs 5 blocks
4 INTs vs 7 INTs
11 clearances vs 8 clearances
1 save vs 1 save


MATCH C:
56% poss. vs 44% poss.
6 shots (1 OT) vs 5 shots (1 OT)
3 shots in box vs 1 shot in box
0 big chances vs 0 big chances
280 acc pass (91%) vs 208 acc. pass (87%)
96 opp. half pass vs 78 opp. half pass
12 acc long balls vs 29 acc long balls
3 acc crosses vs 0 acc crosses
4 corners vs 1 corner
11 touches in box vs 4 touches in box
6 tackles won vs 4 tackles won
14 duels won vs 18 duels won
3 blocks vs 2 blocks
3 INTs vs 5 INTs
4 clearances vs 6 clearances
1 save vs 1 save


MATCH D:
65% poss. vs 35% poss.
4 shots (1 OT) vs 3 shots (2 OT)
4 shots in box vs 2 shot in box
0 big chances vs 0 big chances
340 acc pass (93%) vs 159 acc. pass (81%)
134 opp. half pass vs 82 opp. half pass
16 acc long balls vs 7 acc long balls
2 acc crosses vs 0 acc crosses
2 corners vs 2 corners
8 touches in box vs 8 touches in box
7 tackles won vs 9 tackles won
28 duels won vs 25 duels won
0 blocks vs 1 block
3 INTs vs 5 INTs
3 clearances vs 11 clearances
1 save vs 1 save

 

Most of the twitter guys strike me as morons, or one take posters at best (pot calling kettle black in some ways with me, I concede), but there's a juvenile, 20something, have not seen the game for decades tone to their takes which makes reading twitter posts by most of the twitter dudes w/some reach. Not a lot of perspective, again, admittedly a bit of pot/kettle/black there for me other than age (I turn 50 later this year ).

I do get the sense w/someone like Sargent, they're just over it, they feel like he never, ever scores in the shirt, and they're kind of half right about that, but right for the wrong reasons-they think he just can't score goals, when the truth is, he hasn't scored any AND he's barely played at all, and when he was playing regular, the team was not scoring goals through striker, ever, to begin with, unless we were playing caribbean teams. It was at least as much of a Berhalter/design issue as it was striker talent, though obviously it was both (I mean, Berhalter rolled out Lletget as a striker in our first game back in a year back in November 2020 after all). People forget just how putrid the striker goal tally #'s were from EVERYONE during the Berhalter era, especially when you strike out matches against Caribbean cannon fodder at home (Ferreira's specialty).

I would be stunned if any striker other than Pepi had more than 2 goals scored in matches against teams outside of the Carribean between 2019-2022. I'm pretty damn sure it's Pepi, and that's it.

That should tell you something.

Just digging through really quickly: Goals scored since Berhalter arrived against non-carribean sides (Guyana probably should be honorary Carribean, but they are a South American landmass/country):

Pepi: 6 goals (Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, Uzbekistan, Oman, Panama)
Balogun: 5 goals (Canada, Oman, Ghana, Bolivia, Panama)
Zardes: 5 goals, 4 of the 5 scored in 2019 (Ecuador, Guyana*, Canada (2), Qatar)
Ferreira: 3 goals (Panama (2), Mexico non fifa date friendly)
Wright: 2 goals* (PK vs Morocco, Netherlands)
Pefok: 1 goal (Honduras)
Jozy Altidore: 1 goal (Panama)
Sargent: 0 goals


Okay, I may have forgotten guys, and if so remind me, but let me add, Jordan Morris appears to not count because in all but one or two starts under Berhalter, he was used as a wing forward, rather than a striker.

So essentially, our leading striker during the era that Sargent was actually playing (late 2019, and the 6 months between March and September of 2021) was Zardes with 5 goals, but all of them save the Qatar goal in the Gold Cup, were scored back in '19. So essentially, our strikers in that era between 2019 and 2022 NEVER SCORED VIRTUALLY EVER unless we were playing total --- Caribbean sides. None of them, save Zardes, did anything EVER.

So is it really Sargents fault, if noone was scoring? I mean, technically Ferreira bagged a bunch of goals in 2022, but they were all against ---- sides other than Panama, and the Panama goal was a put back at the goal line off a rebound, much like his late goal against Mexico in that '23 spring friendly. Basically our strikers were NEVER scoring ever during any of those years between 2019 and 2022 other than Zardes in '19, and Pepi who bagged 3 in 2 games against Honduras and Jamaica (a Caribbean side) and then was shut out for the rest of '21-'22, and Ferreira who did all of his damage against straight trash, and at home.

So yeah, basically, strikers have not scored.

The only thing that's really changed since that era ended with WC '22, is that Pepi has turned into a legit starting caliber striker for a WC side, and we poached Balo off of England, and that's it. Wright's gotten a few more goals, but they were against Jamaica in extra time of a NL joke of a game.

Strikers simply have never scared. As for pilloring of Sargent, it's factually based, he hasn't scored in a half decade, but it's also an argument totally lacking in nuance as my evidence illustrates. Unless we were playing total trash teams at home (typically in friendlies, or the Gold Cup), the only people who scored goals for us were FB's, WF's, CM's and the occasional headed goal by a CB, none of the strikers EVER scored on the regular, or even intermittently during the Berhalter ball era, None of them. Hell even Balo and Pepi's hot hands periodically in '23 and '24 were largely tied to Reyna's presence, and home matches, and yep, almost always against crap sides.

 

Not sure Poch knows yet what Zimmerman can do.

 

Sargent scores on his big chance what he, probably, does 9 out of 10 times and he is MOM, right?

 

One of the undeniable positives of this match was the fact that Turner kept his focus all game long, looked to regain some lost confidence, can still stop shots like a top-tier GK, and Poch didn't ask him to carry the heavy distributional load that just does not suit this player and seems to wreck his confidence.

 

What you say is true, but the slowness on the ball in the back, the relatively stationary and easily-defended passing options, these have too-often been the case for us for so long that it's borderline triggering to see it happen still, even if it isn't always especially problematic.

 

Was it just me or did Pochettino seem like after he made a point of trying to shake every persons hand and not just the players.

And that Panama’s coach looked so excited to talk to him.

 

We do need at least one old school style American who splatters people (especially when Pulisic is fouled hard) and can be a force in the box for headers.

 

Weak foot, half volley off a close-ish range deflected cross that’s a little behind him… that’s not a 9/10 chance.

 

That's a Latin cultural thing. Had some players on my son's teams do that to every player, coach and even parents nearby. I think it's a nice, polite plus. BTW, speaking of culture I'll be glad when all of our players sing the anthem like every other country we play. Not sure when we started mostly not doing that but if you can't sing the anthem are you sure you want to represent the US?

 

Was I the only who saw his left footed blast later?

 

yes Panama (a completely underrated team on these boards) had all kinds of issues with our pressure for a good portion of the first half. We just didn’t really create those dangerous moments that most of the fans have been clamoring for. Panama always, I mean always, creates chances to score; their issue has always been finishing those chances. (Panama is my 2nd favorite team.... so I watch them regularly)

 

let’s put it this way.... Sargent was so active that I kept getting him mixed up with other players. He was all over the place. Him, Morris, and Aaronson were hard to keep straight.