Post-match: USA vs Uruguay Friendly 11/18 (R)

Depends on how we define that. If this means one that certainly makes the team better, Richards - yes, McKennie not sure.

 

Yeah, and MLS teams simply don't need money.

They've been burned recently doing try and buy. MLS teams won't sell someone for like a million dollars, but numerous times they've sent out a guy for a $5M purchase option or something -- like Sands with Rangers.

The dude plays, often plays well, and then isn't purchased. Most likely because Rangers were never going to pay $5M for a CDM that isn't a star for them. But he was more than good enough for them.

So NYCFC didn't get their sale value, and they didn't get Sands for like a year or whatever. Waste of time, really. I'm sure they did it at Sands' request, but still.

At this point, MLS teams will sell. But loaning up has not been helpful unless it's a timing of money thing and the purchase option is basically required.

 

Couldn’t watch as I’m abroad but the score vs this opponent doesn’t lie.

Poch has this team turning a corner and playing our best ball in years. Credit where credit is due.

For the first time in ages I’m pissed we don’t have another match for months.

 

Someone got Old Takes Exposed, and then deleted his tweet so I can't embed:


Freezing Cold Takes reposted




Tactical Manager
@ManagerTactical
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6h

I hate to be that guy but this is close to the worst possible USMNT starting XI with this roster. If Uruguay loses, they should give up their sovereignty and join Brazil once again.

 

Preseason starts earlier and risk/reward doesn’t make sense.

 

I don't really see him as physically limited. He's not a burner but his speed is pretty good I think. And he doesn't get pushed off the ball easily. Tries stuff that doesn't come off - yeah, but I think that's part of his role - to try stuff that may be higher risk.

 

It's difficult to complain about anything after this team performance, but in terms of looking for minor complaints, I was going to mention Morris also. He made a couple of "clearances" (one essentially a beautiful pass to an Uruguayan at the top of our box) that we just can't have at this level. When you're up by three or four goals, in particular... CLEAR the damn ball- either way downfield, or into touch. Even giving up a corner would have been better than what he was doing. The same can be said (not about Morris, in that case, as he didn't appear to have been guilty there) about the sequence where Uruguay scored. When there's chaos going in your box, no need to try to cleverly combine your way out of danger if you're up three goals.

As others have mentioned, when I saw the lineup pregame, I had some serious doubts. Hats off to the way these guys responded today. One of the most satisfying games I've seen in years, considering the expectations I had going in. I was jumping off my couch every time we had a threatening attack- even if Uruguay had sufficient defenders back. That's how crisp and smart we were playing, and I thought we could well have scored one or two more.

After Balogun got his yellow and drew blood, I knew there was going to be some trouble. It didn't get as bad as I expected, but I'm glad that Berhalter wasn't injured by the red card tackle. Did Tolkin get concussed? I never saw how that happened.

 

It's actually good to play without him because the team can't delegate everything to him.

 

Yeah. Defensively they looked disorganized or maybe demoralized after the second goal. And they didn’t look all that organized for the first twenty minutes either. Bethalter’s goal was lovely, perfectly struck. But that’s easier to do when the defender coming out of the wall is loping in your direction rather than sprinting.

They defend ridiculously right from the opening whistle. Watch the kickoff sequence in the highlights. The whole Uruguayan team gets lured into their own left side, most of them in a square of about 20 x 20. Look at the space Tolkin is running into.

Someone for us can’t quite settle and connect but he did see Tolkin and tried and it would’ve been one of the most embarrassing goals of all time for the Urus if the ball came to him alone in the center of the field 25 yards from goal while the entire Uruguayan team is watching from the suburbs. .

 

The ones that weren't there.

 

Don't drink too much of the Kool-Aid. This Uruguay team was missing almost as many starters as us.
They barely tied 0-0 to Mexico, and Paraguay beat Mexico 2-1.

 

The 26 man roster just got real, real. excellent.

 

6 of the 11 players that started for Uruguay today are among the top 11 players with the most starts in World Cup qualifying for Uruguay this cycle.

 

I get the take, otoh, there was not a single moment this Euro Fairy Dust guy posting here disliked about any of it (other than the bike) including the hilarious obliteration of the Uruguay player by Tim Tillman leading to the third goal. Just spectacular. I enjoyed every last second of it. No shambles, no irritation about them proving me wrong, just proud of how they came and bossed the ever living ---- out of that game, and that Uruguay team that kicked its way through a reenactment of that Japanese Film "Battle Royale," against El Tri over the weekend. Just amazing.

 

That game was so much fun, but now that my high is wearing off I'm leaning towards something being wrong with that Uruguay team. Either in their stomachs or in the locker room. I mean, we don't look this dominant against Trinidad and Tobago.

I think by tomorrow I'll be filing this under "things are never as good as they seem or as bad as they appear."

 

The problem with this post is that you aren't a Euro Fairy Dust guy.

 

Of course it's not as good as it seems -- if we consistently beat Uruguay 5-1 without any mitigation we'd be World Cup champions next summer.

But I also think this team still has a ton of talent, and we still took them behind the woodshed with a team none of us were excited about. They were clearly pissed they were getting beat, too -- they weren't throwing the match.

I think people can sometimes undermine the good too much. We aren't winning the World Cup. This was still a very good win.

They might've tied Mexico 0-0; but we won 5-1.

 

Freese - 6
Freeman - 8.5
McKenzie - 7
Trusty - 7
Tolkin - 6.5
Dest - 8
Berhalter - 9.5
Morris - 6.5
Tillman - 7.5
Luna - 7
Wright - 6

Poch - 10

Berhalter with one of the finest all-around USMNT performances you’ll ever see.

I can’t help but think we attacked better this match because we didn’t have Ream in the back. When he’s back there everyone funnels the ball to him and he takes his sweet time on it. I think his best position is what he played tonight: bench coach.

 

You misinterpreted my comment, which asserted that the quality of the MLS players was quite high.

 

we saw some weird shapes for sure. freeman got forward, of course, but our resting shape was trusty/mckenzie/freeman with tolkin tucked in above them, morris consistently buzzing above the backline and seb regularly sitting back on the right side- so a 3-3 block with tillman/luna/dest an attacking 3 behind haji.

thats after we moved tillman out of the right sided cm "role", anyways.

tolkin would move forward and combine with tillman, freeman popped up everywhere, seb pushed up and right quite a bit but i think an aggregate heat map might show us as a 3331,

it was a really weird match in every way, but the most absurdly fun part (for me) was a stretch in the first half between freemans second and lunas goal where we were absolutely working uruguay with 5 dudes (tolkin, seb, dest, luna and tillman) who are like 5'8. i just checked because i know tillman isnt quite that small but im finding him at 6' pretty hard to believe.

 

the last thing ill note is that our defense functioned as well as ive seen it under poch tonight, especially the back 3 as a "unit". i just mentioned tolkin playing as a "falseback", morris sitting on (and in) that line and seb dropping in a lot, but staying organized, connected they were fantastic.

mckenzie was outstanding, and trusty did really well, too. one of the most impressive things was (and this was mostly trusty) we would skip mckenzie moving the ball side to side occasionally, which actually moves the (opponents) attack rather than left to middle to right (or vice versa) exclusively, which is our norm. our painfully slow norm that renders moving the ball side to side (in the back) virtually useless.

and while people cant say fast enough how well we do (when we do) with seb, or luna when wes and puli are out, i have a feeling im not gonna see much "we can play just as well or better with trusty or mckenzie as we do with ream and miles"...

or whoever.

 

Tac didn't delete his tweet.

 

Does that count as a signature win?

 

amen - and Betancur was surprised he got a straight red?

 

I will say it again - man to man (including Freese) no one hung on to the ball very long - they always kept it moving - credit to Poch for getting that burned into their brains. When you move the ball quickly you reduce their ability to physically hit you (except for Betancur) - it is about possession but also about making the ball do the work for you instead of hero ball.