A lot of poster refer to their distain for bunkering vs. better teams like Argentina. What does that mean? Is it determined solely by the eleven players that start? Is it determined by our reliance on defensive structure? Is it determined by how hard our players run? IMO, a bunker is really determined by how and when we take possession of the ball. Holding a low line and booting it over the heads of our of midfield to a spot where the opposing team controls the field is textbook bunkering. Less so is lofting balls to a target forward; however, to be effective, you need very good long balls from defenders and a very good target forward. Furthermore, I don't think that the USMNT played bunkerish (except near the end of games which I think is more psychological than tactical). In this tournament, we have maintained excellent defensive structure which doesn't allow a lot of empty space for the opposing team to exploit. Our forwards pressed fairly high but our midfielders balanced the space behind them quite well. Much of this is due to the unbelievable hard work rate of Bedoya and Zardes and that MB/JJ were (unusually) disciplined. Even if we give up possession, it doesn't amount to much other than a shot from long-range and as LD commented, we'll give those up all day. Once we took possession of the ball, our strategy of a building via the midfield (MB primarily and then to JJ) who then look for incisive passes / having our front players create space via runs behind defenders has been the opposite of bunkering. Where we look bad is inopportune turnovers or bad defensive spacing which create lots of space for our opponents to exploit and odd-man rushes. We are then forced to simply kick the ball away and lose our defensive poise and momentum. If we don't have disciplined, hard-working defenders we look particularly bad. Thoughts?
Btw, I'm not sure that Rasta has the athleticism necessary to be structurally correct vs. Argentina and in any event, in case he get broken down 1v1, he doesn't have the speed to keep up/maintain pressure.
It means you actually run when the other team has the ball? Seriously, though, most often I don't think bunkers are intentional. You work with what you have, and against quality opposition the U.S. mostly doesn't have the talent to "control the game." Pretty ridiculous to believe that any national team would go into a game consciously planning on how not to try to score.
Bunkering is usually a reaction to intense pressure and possession the other team is employing. The big question for me lies with how you attack out of it. Defending and countering with, say, three players, when the opposition only leaves three or four back? That's tactical intelligence. If you attack with one at most, no matter how many players the other team has forward, that's just bunkering. That's packing guys in the goal trying to keep from getting scored on any way possible. Sometimes you have to. The USA bunkered against Ecuador late on both because they could and because missing Jones in the midfield left them with absolutely no spine out there. The could not maintain any sort of possession so they just ceded the middle third and decided to survive. It worked, but I think with a better sub pattern it wouldn't have been totally necessary.
It means not playing like Spain basically. We are all supposed to try to play like Spain and lose like Mexico just did to Chile. It really means counter attacking style. Which, btw, just won the English Premier League and Champion's League this year.
I'll have to re-watch the game but why did we cede the middle third? Were we not effectively in creating turnovers or did we immediately turn the ball over ourselves? If we received possession where we don't have a lot of players near their backline, did we try to pass it around our end to find space and inadvertently turn it over? Or did we just boot it? Only the latter is bunkering in my mind: the former is lack of poise. I'll take a look tonight
It was the latter. But the substitutions really took away all the forward options and left the US with pretty much only defense. Couple that with the sparse midfield post-Jones, and it was nothing but Ecuador against a wall.
I generally agree with your post. It should mean a counter attacking style. Although, I've witnessed games where there was no attempt at offense played. I remember Brazil and North Korea from 2010 World Cup. North Korea rarely had a single man cross mid field. There were moments where North Korea literally had two lines of 5 playing defense. I now refer to that as bunkering. What Leicester City and Madrid do is different than that.
so when people complain about the US bunkering, you think they hate the style that Leicester plays? I'm not so sure that's what they mean but would like to understand.
There is a difference between bunker/counter and press/counter. Chile destroyed Mexico with the latter. I don't want to see a reliance of the former from our boys ever again. I have no problem with high press/counter.
Bunkering is term that had a specific meaning that has been lost as it as been overused as a perjorative. It's 10 men behind the ball, defending deep and narrow, clearing/playing direct, trying to score on the 1-2 good rushes that happen a game. We did switch into that late against Ecuador but we don't use it a ton.
We also bunkered a bit more because with 10 v 10 the field opened up and favored Ecudor's speedy attack. To make the game compact, the US has to concede more space defensively. They also had a hard time countering and were careful not to committ numbers into the attack.
We still added a second in that Ecuador game. We ended up ceding a lot of possession because Ecuador's speedy wingers exploited the now open space on the sides of the field. It's tough to play possession soccer with 10 tired players and subs that weren't too helpful.
Pragmatic and strategic changes to the way a team operates in a match based on having a lead and preserving it does not make the team a bunkering team. The US has played more "positive" soccer this cup than it has probably ever. This is what people have wanted. The name of competition is to win. Style points are very useless when losing. Style points are form to winning's substance. I will always take substance over form.
If it's Defense we are talking about I would rather we take a page or two out of Italy's book, because they practically wrote the book on Defense. To me Italy's defense almost impossible to penetrate, they can hold possession if they want to but prefer not to, you make a mistake against them you will most certainly pay for it. And they have won 4 World Cups with there Defensive play. I don't know why but it's like Klinsmann is trying to mimic Italy's defensive shape, wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing I'm just not sure if we have to players to pull off what Italy can do when they play defense.
Bunkering, otherwise known as 'parking the bus', means setting a very low line and defending with 10 men behind the ball. US style is more counter-attacking than bunkering. Chelsea vs Bayern in the UCL finals is a classic example of bunkering. England vs Italy in Euro 2012 is another.