Yanks Abroad 2024/25 thread

As an Aidan Morris novice, I'm impressed -- the bolded part of your post is what I noticed most in the limited viewing, especially in his passing. Also, tough as nails on tackling. Would love to see more of him with our best XI.

 

Morris has "always" (and by that, I mean since he came up with Columbus) been very good at anticipating opposing passing and getting in those lanes. When he had his breakout game in MLS Cup a few years ago, that's largely what he brought.

In the last couple of years, he's really developed more offensively -- Nancy has pushed him to become a much better passer in addition to some good aggression in the box.

 

Morris did get better after his poor showing at the Gold Cup. Credit to Nancy who inspires and expects his young players to continuously challenge themselves and improve.

One key area of improvement over the last year was he became a more reliable defensive presence in the middle of the pitch. He was always aggressive as a ball winner getting 3 tackles per match but he also used to get dribbled 2 times per match. H cut down the times he gets beat off the dribble to < 1!

 

I wonder if he's earned himself a start against NZ.

 

I would like to see it.

It is not clear to me what the US were trying to do in the match. I know that Varas said he introduced some new tactical ideas, not sure why. Keep it simple and let the boys play.

I thought that Tillman was the only reliable offense producer in the first half, at least the only player who seemed to know what he was trying to do. A midfield of Tillman, Musah, and Morris would be very good IMO.

 

In any case, I liked what I saw. His touch seems just a bit heavy at times, but he knows what he wants to do with the ball well before he gets it. I taking those meaningless extra touches that help the Canada press shift and recover. His toughness reminds me of the best attributes of the Arena/Bradley era.

 

Fixed my post

 

And he's also gotten MUCH better at discerning when to press and when to drop. He would leave us exposed a lot early on. He still does not have a ton of experience.

In 2020, he played in the final because Nagbe had COVID. He was not a starter.

In 2021, he blew out his knee very early in CCL play before MLS started.

In 2022, he still was not a full time starter (Nagbe & Artur) and was working his way back from the knee injury, but did play frequently with Artur often injured.

In 2023, Artur gets traded, Nancy takes over, and Morris is a full time starter. Columbus win the Cup.

2024, starter. CCC final. Transfer to Brough.

This is year 2 of him being a first XI guy.

 

BS is way too badge oriented. Spain has said they are looking at Joseph who is Aaronson's teammate at Leeds, for the 9 spot they are missing, taking into consideration he has 2 years to learn his 9 position before 26 WC.
Leeds attacker’s value to skyrocket as senior international call beckons; Dan James shares Man Utd memories of Ramazani (msn.com)

 

Also worth noting, Aidan has gotten what, 2 cupcake starts, 1 Gold Cup start in the ---- show '23 squad, 358 total minutes including those 3 starts. Tanner's got 67 minutes all time. Johnny's got 16 appearances, and has played in every single game he wasn't a healthy scratch for save the Uruguay match in the Copa America, since last October (only full international window misses was the T&T window). It's important to note how little these guys have played other than Johnny, people have made decisive judgments, snap ones on all of them, particularly Tanner and to a lesser extent Aidan a year ago. A better idea is to try and suss out why and how Malik, these guys and others are so much more effectively used with their clubs than with us.

Really hoping Poch can look at these 3 guys, sort them out, give them minutes and get their best. They've all looked better for club than country until Aidan on Saturday and I know all 3 have differing skill sets that can help with Adams seemingly on the shelf every single USMNT year since 2018 other than 2021 and 2022. We need to figure out how to use these guys and use them well. Johnny's been far better in Brazil and Spain than w/us. Lets put all 3 of them in positions to succeed.

 

I think the issue with this is that none of them are good enough to build your team around. And so while you ideally want to put everyone in positions to succeed, they aren't the people you start with. Right now, they are guys who need to fill in the spots.

Johnny is ball secure but does not have incisive passing or strong long range distribution skills. He is a very smart defender who lacks real range. I'll ignore this last game a bit and assume he can bring a bit more intelligence to getting open but if you go back to the Copa he does like to stand and wait.

So putting him in a spot to succeed is playing with a double pivot (which Poch does). I don't know how he is in a press, because we've given that up. But the big question will be can he handle the counter press? Offensively, he's overrated, IMO, but I think he will do best paired with a whole bunch of Spaniards or Brazilians who will play short, smart passes quickly but where he doesn't need to be the man. He's a complementary piece in the double pivot, IMO. It'll be interesting to see if he can handle the EPL, which is stylistically so far off from Brazil and Spain.

If he develops better passing, then he becomes a much better player. (Same with Musah.)

Tillman right now has really only been successful on teams with massive talent advantages over their opponents -- Rangers and PSV. And PSV is in a league notorious for a lack of physicality and defense.

I think he offensively fits Poch very well. Put him in the middle with Puli, Reyna and [unidentified striker with build up skills] and I think you'd see him excel in Poch's central focus. But that defense would be a freaking sieve. Poch needs people to counterpress or the tactics don't work. You can't have a front four where 2-3 guys take defense off. You certainly can't have a CAM that doesn't present for the ball.

I suspect his best spot for Poch will be RW. Maybe even striker. But he will need to counterpress.

Morris is a lot more flexible of a player. His game fits the international game better -- more physical, more up and down. He'll take advantage of CCAF and international refs' laxity. He needs less protection defensively. I think he fits Poch very well -- in some defensive systems, his roaming could be an issue. But if we can get away from this passive crap, he'll be better.

And I think his ball progression is better than Johnny's if potentially more mistake prone ... except Johnny's making a ton of errors except his are always deep and often backwards, so at least when Morris turns it over, he's still in a place between ball and goal.

 

Musah is another CM I could see on a wing under Poch.

 

He doesn't want to play there,

 

Also we have about 10 players that can fill the wide positions and fullbacks that can overlap. I don't think width is an issue.

 

It's so nice to be discussing real midfields instead of MMA

'"Johnny is ball secure but does not have incisive passing or strong long range distribution skills. He is a very smart defender who lacks real range. I'll ignore this last game a bit and assume he can bring a bit more intelligence to getting open but if you go back to the Copa he does like to stand and wait."

Bolded is nonsense but I'm not accounting for Johnny at Copa when he didn't play. I watch Johnny at Betis and "stand and wait" is opposite of what I see. I think the Berhalter tactics make it hard for the 6 to do anything other than stand and wait. Adams does it. As for passing in all its forms, I'd say half of the people on BS think Adams is a bad passer when the fact is he has improved a lot over the years to where his passing is actually good. I think Johnny is headed in the same direction.

Another season at Betis is going to give us a good idea of what we have in Johnny and we won't have to rely on extrapolations of youth play.

On Tilman:
"I think he offensively fits Poch very well. Put him in the middle with Puli, Reyna and [unidentified striker with build up skills] and I think you'd see him excel in Poch's central focus. But that defense would be a freaking sieve. Poch needs people to counterpress or the tactics don't work. You can't have a front four where 2-3 guys take defense off. You certainly can't have a CAM that doesn't present for the ball."

There's no need for us to even discuss this. You are simply encouraging the bad apples. The one thing I hope happens is that Tilman doesn't get called up until he learns to play at his club.

 

Seems to me if you don't want to play where the coach puts you, you don't have to play at all. Players should not be picking their positions. I'm not even saying I necessarily want him on the wing, just that where he wants top play should be less relevant than where the coach wants him to play. If we have guys who won't do their assigned job, they should sit. If it's an absolute superstar, sure that's another matter and you figure it out, but we have like 1 of those. Mostly, we have role players who can do a job on a good day against top competition. We don't have guys who should be picking where they want to play or pouting about it. And I don't think Musah would do this at all to be clear. I think he seems like a level headed player who would try his best at what was asked of him.

I do think we should consider that we pick midfielders too often on their ability to dribble the ball in spots where passing is much more important and that's something that affects where Musah plays. For me, if you can't pass the ball, get out of midfield until you can or you better be Tyler Adams level at breaking up plays.

Johnny can pass and has shown it with his club so I'd like to see him succeed, but he was atrocious and gave it away against Canada too often. I'm not bothered too much that he doesn't cover massive amounts of ground, but he does need to clean it up on the ball or he's pretty useless. If your best trait is your passing and you give it away, why are you out there? Maybe if someone else who could pass and move was nearby, things would look better, double pivot with Johnny and Luca could be tidy, although I'd be afraid it would also be too soft defensively against a good opponent. It would probably be effective against a New Zealand for example, but that's not telling you much.

What we really lack is a defensive midfield player who has some aggressions and passing ability. An injured Adams is basically the end of the list there, although Morris looked like he may be able to do it a bit as well, just need to see him play more against better competition.

 

Yeah, a big (maybe the big) problem right now is that the CBs aren't good, and we don't seem to have a good 6 other than a fully fit Adams, and a fully fit Adams might not exist anymore. There's just a huge softness in the middle of the field defensively that, like you say, isn't balanced out by the 6 and CBs being amazing passers. It would be really great if Morris can show that he can add bite to the position first and foremost, and then if he can be a decent passer too, that's the cherry on top.

 

Berhalter only started all off MMA once this cycle, even when all three happened to be available.

His preferred central midfield when the games mattered was RAM.

And if Adams wasn't available, it was often RMM.

We're building options of developing central midfielders. Tessmann, Johnny, Busio, Morris and others. More offensive guys on top of Reyna and Tillman. Finding the right mix will be an important task for Pochettino.

It's not like we don't have options...............................

There are important games from last cycle we can re-watch in which Musah was an absolute beast. A critical player for us. That's hasn't seemed to have been the case for a while now. Maybe its lack of confidence or his club role messing with his head. I don't know.

I have no idea what formation Pochettino is going to use with this group.
That's the thing about a good coach. He'll select a formation that suits the players!!
We'll see how a guy like Musah fits.

What was really important for him at both Spurs and Chelsea was that his fullbacks were an integral part of the attack. At Chelsea on paper it was in theory a 4-2-3-1. That's just in theory.
Mauricio Pochettino – Chelsea – Tactical Analysis – TheMastermindSite

 

this clip got twitter in an uproar and... I'm convinced people only read the caption not watch the video

"We need to lower our expectations across the board." 🇺🇸@Nicocantor1 discusses the need to reassess the realism surrounding European-based USMNT players and what to expect of them 🤔 pic.twitter.com/bayJGpOF7v

— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) September 10, 2024

 

Ain't no lies in that video.

 

Ledezma made Eredivisie Team of the Month. He could offer competition for depth at the right back/right wingback spot.

 

Ledezma's going to get slaughtered on d in UCL, would in a top 5 league, & on all but a few Dutch squads. We already see issues in limited opportunities. He's an unserious RB option for the US.

Right now they are: Dest (when healthy), Scally, Jones, Fossey, & Reynolds is borderline.

 

Tough to say as Ledezma is learning the position. We'll see. The top rb options are Dest, Weah, Scally, Fossey, Reynolds, and Dorsey.