Here are the average ratings from WhoScored, SofaScore & FotMob for our four matches. Thought this could serve as a jumping off point for a player thoughts post-mortem for us. Pulisic 7.24 Adams 7.12 Carter-Vickers 7.04 Robinson 7.03 Turner 6.89 Ream 6.89 Musah 6.79 Weah 6.78 Zimmerman 6.75 Dest 6.65 Wright 6.60 McKennie 6.55 Sargent 6.51 Reyna 6.51 Acosta 6.38 Moore 6.34 Aaronson 6.33 Yedlin 6.25 Morris 6.25 Ferreira 6.22
I think they hammered Dest for the goal against Holland. His ratings for that game are brutally low, and I didn't really see that. It's hard to score well off the bench, because these ratings are heavily weighted towards counting stats. That said, what did Aaronson do?
true on Dest. Aaronson is odd, because when he came in for Pulisic after getting hurt I thought he had some really nice passes into the box and was doing well. But at other times he seems to get pushed off the ball. Plus we weren't really getting others making runs and I think that makes Aaronson less useful. the more I watch Aaronson the more I think he may end up being more of an 8 than anything else. I would like to see him put on some weight but with his work rate that's going to be hard to ever do , LOL.
One reason I don't like ratings is you get penalized for being a sub. But in general I did not think Aaronson had a good tournament. Actually I think most would agree he did not meet expectations. Pre-WC some were calling him our best player and better than Puli. He certainly did not walk away from Qatar having showed he's a top 3-5 player for us.
What I like about Brenden is that he has the Clint Dempsey "try sh*t" gene. Get him the ball near the box and you feel like he might actually do something with it, which is always a rare quality in our pool. He's not a god tier athletic specimen, but he's quick enough and slippery on the ball, with a great work rate. I really like him as a valuable role player with this setup. Regarding the list in general, I'm happy to see Pulisic play a good tournament. I felt he had a bit of a stinker against Wales, but after that he cranked it up for the next three games. That crossbar hit against England was something I didn't know he had in his locker, as my biggest criticism of him has been that he doesn't shoot the ball especially well. A lot of his goals are from positioning and making runs, with relatively simple finishes. He's craftier than Donovan off the dribble, but Landon could smash it. Christian is still developing that part of his game. Signs of some progress. I think the big winner from this tournament is actually Yunus Musah. Tremendous athlete. Good skill. All of this at 19-20 years old. We didn't see a great final ball from him, but as an intermediate player to patrol the pitch and progress the ball with running, I like what I saw. Big teams will be in for him. He's likely to be in the Premier League within a year or two, IMO. By and large, the team played well. Weah took his chance nicely against Wales and nearly had that great offside goal against Iran, which was a cool finish. He's going to be a nightmare against slow back lines. Probably boosted his club stock, seeing as Lille don't seem to know what to do with him. I felt he had a much better tournament than his ballyhooed club mate Jonathan David, who was thoroughly unimpressive for Canada. I felt Wes was maybe slightly below his best this tournament, but still solid. That ball to Dest to set up Christian's goal against Iran...chef's kiss. Progressive passing is an area where MMA can continue to grow, but we've seen glimmers of it. Tyler seems to be improving in this area, even if nobody is comparing him to Pirlo or Alonso quite yet.
I think people expected a breakout from Musah. I would say he treaded water if you knew him; impressed if you didn't. Overall, I was somewhat disappointed to expectations, but I expected a lot. Wes had no stinkers but was a bit up and down, but clearly wasn't fit and played well for that. I think Dest came within one play of coming out the best. For three games, everyone was saying that Barcelona clearly made a mistake. I think the goal given up feels like vindication for the spotty playing time. I'm not sure that's fair. Pulisic is the other big winner. I think he was helped by being the focal point -- he was not overly clinical so more chances helped -- but a goal, two assists and generally being threatening is hard to ignore. I don't think it changed the minds of very top teams, but the next rung down is probably thinking that he's being wasted. Adams likely got some casual bump, but I don't think scouting changes much as he's doing this at Leeds. Jedi is the same -- Fulhams will love him, but top clubs have to question the offense.
Our top talent is incredibly young and this tournament is something to build off. I agree with above posters that Aaronson needs to put on more weight and get stronger to realize his potential. Love to get to a 4 man midfield with MMA and Aaronson and Reyna rotating with them. But those 2 need to get stronger.
I'm not particularly keen on these ratings, to be honest, though I agree that it got our two best players of the tournament right: Pulisic and Adams, both over 7. In my view, CCV was not our third-best by any means (he was decidedly so-so in the game in which he'd played, though I think he was the right choice for that match), Robinson was one of our more middling starters, Ream was the anchor at the back line, Turner was good but not outstanding, Musah was good apart from the last game, Zim was mixed but more good than bad. Dest is being significantly underrated here, IMO, minus the big checkout that allowed the second goal. McKennie was mixed, as was Sargent. I'd say our best sub was likely Aaronson.
Havta say, never have I found the ratings guys more useless than in this tournament. Example: Adams scores .08 higher than CCV. Oh, wait, McKennie scored the worst of all our starters. I take it back. The ratings guys are aces
OK I went ahead and scoured the internets for player ratings from media sources, i.e. humans, from each of our matches as well. I found at least 14 unique raters for each match. The humans and the bots are in in very close agreement. The scales are bit different (humans rate lower) so I added a change in ranking amongst the 20 player list for the humans vs. the bots. Pulisic 7.03 (n/c) Adams 6.86 (n/c) CCV 6.85 (n/c) Ream 6.60 (+2) Turner 6.54 (n/c) Musah 6.41 (+1) Weah 6.39 (+1) Dest 6.38 (+2) Robinson 6.18 (-5) McKennie 6.16 (+2) Sargent 5.95 (+2) Zimmerman 5.79 (-3) Yedlin 5.72 (+5) Reyna 5.67 (n/c) Aaronson 5.66 (+2) Wright 5.58 (-5) Acosta 5.47 (-2) Moore 5.28 (-2) Morris 5.14 (n/c) Ferreira 4.43 (n/c) Looks like us humans penalized Jedi a lot more for the 3rd Netherlands goal than the computers did. Jedi's game against the Dutch actually was also the most inconstantly rated by the humans with the highest standard deviation amongst the raters (got some 7's and then Soccer America drops a deuce on him.) The humans see Wright's goalaaazoooooo for what it was, but the bots just see gooooooooooool.
should probably just merge into https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/usmnt-player-ratings-world-cup-edition.2123794/ @bungadiri
Shaq Moore: 1.5 DeAndre Yedlin: 3 Kellyn Acosta: 2 Jesus Ferreira: 1 Giovanni Reyna: 4 Cameron Carter-Vickers: 7 Brenden Aaronson: 4 Haji Wright: 5 Josh Sargent: 5 Weston McKennie: 6 Walker Zimmerman: 3.5 Sergino Dest: 6 Christian Pulisic: 6.5 Timothy Weah: 7 Yunus Musah: 4.5 Antonee Robinson: 3.5 Matt Turner: 6.5 Tim Ream: 6.5 Tyler Adams: 7.5
Shaq Moore: 1.5 DeAndre Yedlin: 3 Kellyn Acosta: 2 Jesus Ferreira: 1 Giovanni Reyna: 4 Cameron Carter-Vickers: 7 Brenden Aaronson: 4 Haji Wright: 5 Josh Sargent: 5 Weston McKennie: 6 Walker Zimmerman: 3.5 Sergino Dest: 6 Christian Pulisic: 6.5 Timothy Weah: 7 Yunus Musah: 4.5 Antonee Robinson: 3.5 Matt Turner: 6.5 Tim Ream: 6.5 Tyler Adams: 7.5
Here's how I'd characterize the performance of our guys, by tier. Excellent: - Tyler Adams: we would have been dead in the water without him. - Tim Ream: hardly put a foot wrong the whole tournament. Very Good: - Christian Pulisic: hard to argue with his impact, with 1 goal and 2 assists. - Sergino Dest: he was constantly dangerous in the attack, and solid defensively except his lapse against Netherlands - Tim Weah: scored a beautiful clinical goal against Wales and was dangerous in attack, tidy on the ball, and worked hard. Good: - Yunus Musah: showed the world what we'd seen through WCQ, all the more impressive given his age - Antonee Robinson: he's so valuable for us with his motor and his ability to cover ground & contribute to the attack. Final product wasn't as good as in qualifying. - Walker Zimmerman: won tons of headers & snuffed out opportunities, but gets downgraded one tier due to the penalty he gave up against Wales. - Weston McKennie: I thought he had a good tournament and battled hard considering he clearly wasn't at 100% fitness. - Matt Turner: was mistake-free through our four games and made some good saves. - Cameron Carter-Vickers: solid performance against Iran, despite a couple shaky moments. Decent: - Josh Sargent: I thought he was solid and displayed good hold-up and combination play, but he wasn't goal-dangerous enough. - Haji Wright: gets credit for for his goal, but he was also wasteful with other chances and I was very unimpressed with his work rate against Iran. - DeAndre Yedlin: I thought he was poor against Wales, but solid off the bench against Netherlands. Poor: - Brenden Aaronson: he disappointed in this tournament after having very high expectations from his play with Leeds. I thought he struggled to impact games, turned the ball over too much, and didn't force as many turnovers as we're used to seeing. - Shaq Moore: he wasn't as bad as some on BigSoccer have claimed, but was still shaky in his two sub appearances. - Jesus Ferreira: was a complete non-factor against Netherlands. Reminded me of Jose Torres' 45 minutes against Slovenia in 2010. Incomplete (not enough playing time to properly judge): - Gio Reyna: decent against Netherlands but was miscast as a false 9 for part of the 2nd half. - Kellyn Acosta: I'm shocked he didn't get more playing time after how much we relied on him during WCQ. - Jordan Morris: I was a big proponent of including him on the roster as a vertical threat on the wing and he has mostly delivered for the USMNT since converting to the wing in 2019. He didn't really get enough playing time to properly assess.
The only ratings I didn't expect are Wright (too high, although he was somewhat okay vs England) and Aaronson (too low). Shocking to see these guys at the bottom, no one could have possibly predicted such a thing... Acosta 6.38 (used as 8 not 6) Moore 6.34 Yedlin 6.25 Morris 6.25 Ferreira 6.22 The people who defended these guys (plus Long or Roldan) should have all their social media accounts tagged with some sort of warning label, so others know to dismiss their opinions.
We had leaders emerge. Puli was a good leader of the attack. Adams was a great leader of the midfield. Ream was a great leader of the defense. That is good. You want players who are thinking about the whole of the game. We may not be a Top 8 but we're going to finish the tournament as #14, about. Considering how young the team is, that is a very good result.
Nice post and thanks for doing the hard work! I will just post my few differences: It thought that Musah and McKennie were decent. I think the reason that they get marked as good is one is young and the other is not fully fit. In that context, they were good, but overall, we needed them more impactful in the second halves of games. Musah gave up a couple of silly fouls which with better fitness and experience that he won't do in the future, but the one restart that Kane had a good opportunity really pissed me off. Moore was decent. He was fine in defense and while got in good position in attack, there were struggles. No change with Aaronson. Some additional comments. Since I haven't seen him play, but read a bunch of positive stuff on BS, I was expecting more. However, looking at his club stats and how he played, I didn't see the hype. He may be a player whose club play doesn't translate to USMNT. Good news is that he is young so a lot more opportunities for him.
You haven't seen Aaronson play before? I gonna be kind of a dick here, but if you haven't seen Aaronson play before, you probably shouldn't be posting in this forum.