Post-match: USMNT v Saudi Arabia (Gold Cup)

Can he hang with Alvarez ? That's kind of the real question. Hopefully we find out.

 

Just watched it again a couple of times, he needs to one time it to Downs, but he makes a weird run onto the ball and from the angle he comes in, he can't actually execute the cross from what I can tell. Basically the way he ran onto the ball he couldn't execute the play. I'm not sure why he played it that way, could be he was of two ways (go to the flag or cross it?, it's the 94th minute w/7 minutes of added time), and after his first touch which kind of eliminates the ability to send it to Downs, he has to circulate it instead, at worst, if not playing the ball to Downs with your first touch, a left footed touch to his right for the cross kind of made more sense to me, but he approached it with his right foot, and flicked it forward and to the right for a dribble instead, it was kind of weird execution that looked like a mist ouch, but when I rewatch, it looks more like a bad approach, or a player that can't decide between crossing, or dribbling out to hold possession and kill off the game? I definitely noticed it though, I thought we had a real chance to score there.

 

I don't know. Gut-level, I haven't trusted is run of play game yet, especially in defense, where I'm reminded of a latter-day Michael Bradley, just too easily-turned. Apart from the two counterattacks in the second half (one due to an obvious Freeman misjudgment), the only time in the game I started to get nervous was when SA were attacking his side in the 2nd half. SA didn't pose much attacking threat, which is why Poch was willing to risk putting him in the position of being in the back three on the build-up, but one silly giveway and we were going to have a traffic cone as one of a back three trying to stop a quick counter.

Then Poch made subs and that responsibility was thankfully taken away from him.

 

Well, I was somewhat impressed by this group in this match. But the play was not even close to good enough.
This match is probably about a good as this group can play and that does not bode well for the knockouts.
But Poch is showing to be a pretty good tournament coach. I wonder if even he can get this group of misfits and has-beens to play good knockout soccer? It would be surprising and I am still not sure if Mexico or Canada will be our next match as those are the two winners of their group and, unless things go really badly, we will play whoever ends up 2nd in their group and that will be the loser of their last group match and that may make their next match be a fun watch. Both will be trying hard to win to avoid the USA. That is unless one or the other really does not care and just tries to avoid injury. Or both could go into that mode and the match could be VERY boring. I tend to think that they do not care because the USA, so far, is really not playing up to their standards.
But the last matches in the USA's group could be interesting as three of the four teams will be fighting for two spots in the knockouts.

 

I've been sitting here for the past what, two weeks, wondering wtf were doing in terms of the strikers, feeling like there's no way in hell Downs isn't better than Agyemang, and White. I just flat out couldn't imagine that the donkey touch of Agyemang, and whatever the ---- White is, was deserving of the first four games of this window and Downs wasn't worth a single start, and after that 30 minutes or so, I still think that. I will concede that Downs missed Sunday's game due to illness, so it's really only 3 games where instead Agyemang and White got the start, and both Agyemang and White have multiple camps with the various groups and know Poch better, and this is generally though not always what happens in those circumstances, but isn't it obvious at this point that Agyemang flat out does not have the ball skills for this? I just view White as MLS fodder, it's not fair, there's no nuance to my take, but I've never heard anyone suggest he had an international future, so I'm disinterested in buying in now when I have seen Downs score in HUGE moments in the Bundesliga with everything on the line, and now I just watched him make numerous runs into space that a precise ball would have resulted in sog's at worst, and goals at best....he just looks the part, I'm absolutely in over my skis, a thousand percent, but.....I can see it. I absolutely cannot see it with White and with Agyemang (well, I get why Agyemang is tempting, the power, and that physicality, it's tempting, but I just don't think I see a serious international relevance to his game beyond Cupcake and non-fife date matches).

 

The kid Agyemang is horrible, sorry. C- overall performance from the team. I'm having a hard time seeing the big picture with Poch right now. I guess we just muddle along.

 

I think you'd actually look at what I wrote, I was pretty clear that they didn't execute, but they created a bunch of opportunities that they totally botched, repeatedly. It needs to be noted, I'm not celebrating that kind of scrap like its genius, but to me, there's a tangible difference between a game where we are creating ---- all (say, the Uruguay Copa America game, or the Belgium '14 WC game, Brazil '94, other than Balboa's near bicycle kick goal (man if that had gone in!?!), and a game where we are having guys free in the box, and we're just botching the final pass with too much weight, doing whatever Aaronson was doing in the 94th minute, Tillman's two too heavy passes that just missed their targets. There were quite a few second half chances that didn't turn into xG or sog's because the final pass was botched, or the player receiving it botched it. We can build off that. What you can't build off is no ideas at all, which was the first half, now that, I will concede, was largely totally hopeless and god awful.

 

You're watching a replay of this match?!? (sorry)

Is Damion Downs even better than Johan Gomez? The experts at US Soccer may not think so...

 

It's pretty telling to me that scanning 3 ratings I got Tillman with a 7.2, a 6.5, and a 5.

It all depends upon whose actually watching and what they are seeing.

For a guy who was being taken out of a game, according to one site he lead all players with six tackles and went 8-for-12 on duels which reflects what I thought I saw in the 2nd half, a guy hyper engaged and everywhere. Will totally concede he had a crappy first half, but he was much, much better in the 2nd half, didn't quite get the assists to nearly come off, had a last near hockey assist come off with Aaronson until Aaronson didn't send it in for Downs....

 

If only we stoped talking whom we like and just talk who played well or poorly against SA. Luna, McGlynn, and Tillman were poor. LDLT not much better. Berhalter was better than LDLT even without the assist. Agyemang was pretty decent, Downs, though in limited minutes, was worse. Freeman was horrible, Arfsten not good enough. Ream was outstanding, Richards MVP, Freeze excellent.
And I don't care that Freeman might be a huge talent and Luna played well in prior games, etc. That's how they looked today.

 

I don’t know how fear of attacking through the middle became so pervasive among non-Pep football managers

 

Turkey was just giving DLT that up the middle run. Most anyone could have been making those attacking dribbles in that match. It was kind of an illusion. I don't think we'll ever see DLT look like that again. I'm not dissing him. Just saying that match was a total anomaly, given to him by the opponent.

 

Imo, most of y'all are completely missing the boat with Arfsten. He's super skilled, super composed, and super hardworking. I was also frustrated that he'd get the ball wide, with space to attack, and recirculate. But, that has got to be what Poch wanted him to do. It was glaringly obvious that the space was there, he had the most touches by far of anyone in the first half, it was right in front of Poch. If Poch didn't like it, he'd have told him to attack that space, or he'd have pulled him. Arfy was doing what he was told to do by the manager.

 

Not sure whether he has FB mentality. He takes too many risks so far. Either a winger in 3-5-2 or requires a strong DM on the field.

 

My view from the field.

Either Poch’s plan sucked or our execution sucked in the first half. We kept forcing driven balls wide left where the Saudi’s were shifted and refused to play the ball wide right where McGlynn was in 30 yards of space. Often every player was inside the box or shifted left and only McGlynn was further wide. The worst of these was when we tried forcing it left, played back to Ream and he looked straight at Jack McGlynn and instead passed back to Richard’s who then tried to make a chest high 40 yard pass down the left into traffic…

But Poch adjusted for the second half with Freeman pushed up and wide and we were playing both sides. This gave Tillman space to be so much better and opened up space on the US left as Saudi Arabia wasn’t playing completely shifted.

 

He wasn’t often getting balls to his feet or into the space to run onto. So often he was having to try to keep the ball in or getting head or chest level driven balls with a defender on him and another defender close to cover.

 

Houston and Dallas will be played in AC though

 

Ouch. I hope that speculation turns out untrue.

Also, from what I can tell CONCACAF rules say a team’s Gold Cup roster can only change prior to the team’s first group game. Would love to be proven wrong, but mid-tournament roster changes were done away with a few years back, if I remember correctly.

Source: https://www.concacaf.com/media/cw4hzmh5/2025-concacaf-gold-cup-regulations-english.pdf#page19

 

the first half was really poor tactically. obviously we dont have any real (or real quality) width in this roster, but poch insists on compounding that problem.

theres no reason for using 3atb in this gc- though you could argue there will be in the world cup, so poch wants that installed asap- but its making things more difficult than they have to be here.

mcglynn offers no width at all, and we anchored freeman as the de facto 3rd cb (in the "scally" role) in the first half, ceding that side of the pitch. its wild how much we play through arfsten (full stop), but it was a tactical decision that neutered us in the first half, not arfsten deciding out of the blue not to put balls in the box when he got into deep, attacking positions.

we pinched luna and tillman in, and when we got the ball into the attacking third (and most frustratingly wide of their box) we were forcing it to the cms (luca and seb) above the box. all three attacking mids/only attacking fb dont coincidentally have exactly the same off night and decide not to play balls into the box. it was by design. sa was able to stay so compact because we werent attacking from even our "narrow" wide areas (nor were those guys on the other side moving into the box as options).

that was why we "improved" so much at the half, we dropped seb in as that 3rd cb allowing freeman to play higher. luna and malik played a bit deeper and gave us more of their marginal width and we actually played into (or at least at) their box. though i want to be clear- we were lucky to get the goal off a set piece, we shouldnt fool ourselves into thinking we can just flip a switch/make basic tactical sense and get away with it. if not for the crossbar its a completely different outcome. thats where this delusional ream confidence makes me crazy- he made no attempt/physically isnt able to keep an attacker from going right by him, getting in behind richards to get that shot- which this entire board would have tried to pin on cr.

i still dont know what we are doing here, trying to win? developing depth? we dont have a roster that allows both (speaking strictly in terms of width), and tinkering around with different 3 atb looks (without just, you know, using 3 cbs) is prohibitively hindering our ability to field a functional attack. arfsten and freeman arent making much of a case for wingbacks, and the different looks weve used (freeman as scally, seb dropping in) make it pretty clear there is zero need for 3atb in the first place...

but whatever. we beat a poor sa team as gutted by the cwc as we are by the same and injuries combined 1-0. clearly poch is pushing all the right buttons, no need for further discussion.

 

Agmeyang is lacking in skill compared to all our other striker candidates ( if healthy) but he has the uncoachable qualities of being very tall and fairly fast. If there’s room on the roster because of injuries, I could see him being called into the WC as a role player. I haven’t really seen him play as a target player yet, but it would be worth a try.

 

Agyemang is not going to ever be of any use against a decent team in a WC IMO. Downs looks like he has at least a chance to someday develop into something. White...really?

Sarge would have probably been very helpful in this tournament. I 100% get the rational why he isn't here. But he would have been useful on the field for Poch at this point. He might even have banged in a few against T&T and found some USMNT mojo to build on. Dude is not a great player, he's probably not at Pepi and Balo's level, but he is also not as bad as his USMNT record would suggest.

 

Though there’s already three other 9s on the roster.

My guess is it will be Gutierrez has opposed to a European guy in their offseason probably on a beach somewhere.

 

It was actually the commentator who said that during the game but you’re right nowhere I see in the rules (though that hasn’t stopped CONCACAF before).

 

Not that's funny!

 

a few thoughts from last night:

1. tough playing conditions - CWC teams are also dealing with the US and hot humid summers.
2. The conditions and quick disciplined opponent are providing a great test for the players Poch really needs to evaluate. These conditions also force a team to come together and deal with adversity. You either deal with it (and the fight) or you lose. Back is to the wall - what are you going to do.
3. Richards is simply rising to the challenge and putting his foot down. Remember he played very well in the FA cup final. He is becoming indispensable because he is mentally getting stronger. That save of his was without Tyler on the field - either he was going to sprint back and try to block the shot or the US was going down 1-0. That was a gritty play we used to see from the US. Good for Chris!
4. Tillman gets stronger as the game goes on - I thought he might have been yanked at the half - and he is used to cooler Dutch conditions - but he got better as the second half wore on and it seems he started to figure out how to mess with SA defense. The hotter and more humid it got - he got better and not weaker. A couple of times I noticed the smirk on his face with the crappy ref. He gets it.
5. For all the criticism of Agman and Downs (talent versus Balogun/Pepi/Sargent/Wright etc. ) they are willing to be physical and pressing the D with pure effort - you can’t ignore the legs and pressure a 6’4” guy can make coming at you - if our strikers can’t score at least cause havoc with their D and it appears these guys attitudes are making a difference. And Agman is actually playing a target back to the goal role - Freese pumped it to him a few times and he played a target well - we don’t have any reliable target at present. Those two can apply pressure and unbalance the D - even if they can’t score.

I still think there are a host of problems and challenges but I do think there are glimmers of hope and opportunity that these two games are providing.

One step at a time.