Yeah, he sprinted 140 yards in like 5 minutes second half against Panama. That’s pretty insane. I’m obviously not a professional athlete but that’s still crazy when you’ve already ran for 3-4 miles in 60 minutes. Soccer is the 2nd most intense sport from a fitness perspective - most people take it for granted. Hockey is #1 though.
Based on his B1 season, I'd been skeptical of being in the team. But Gregg used Scally in a way that minimized his weaknesses.
Balo couldn't handle Uruguay. Once you reach a higher level, he can't hack a lot of stuff required of a real 9 in the way Berhalter plays. He's more Dempsey than Jozy, say.
Gregg would say we lost because I don’t have Memphis Depay. Just listened to Max Bretos and he said that we lost because we don’t have Chrisitian Rodan. LOL. But if I am the new USMNT coach, would I do with the players pool we have? When I have no Depay and I don’t want have Rodan? 1. 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1? I will go 4-2-3-1. For Center Backs, I would bring Brooks back and have Ream/Brooks pair. Yes they are slow as turtle, but we would abandon a high line with both full backs running as forwards. 2. Who will be my dual pivot as the 2 to control the middle? Not Adams, Not McKennie, Not Musah. I will have Johnny and Tessman as my dual pivot. Don’t ask why, but this combo will be the best we have coming 2025/2026. 3. Who are my outside backs then? Before Dest returns from injury, I would use Weah as the right back and told him to improve his defense and modeling as Hernandez of AC Milan/France for the way to play. I also ask Scally improving his offensive skill and also try to be a left side backup too. 4. Who are my attacking 3? Gio has no guaranteed starting spot in my system. In current state, ONLY Christian Pulisic has my guaranteed starting spot, period. You have to earn from your club performance and training performance. Center 1 would be contest between Gio/Malik/Aaronson/Musah etc.The Right 1 I would use Wes now, but I can have all the combination. Such as Wright in left/Christian in right, or Balo in right (with Sargent as lone forward). 5. Balo is lone forward right now with his performance in Copa. But he can also play as the right forward. 6. Goalie? Danm. That is a recycle project. Maybe Staffen back his pre-EPL MLS level?
Where are the criticisms of Musah or Adams? Don’t understand why the focus is always on Wes. I didn’t even really notice Musah. If he’s so athletic, get on the ball, turn and dribble. Adams just fouled and has zero passing range to help out CBs. Wes was at least making runs and getting to the endline or top of the box.
We're one of the most physical teams out there, usually with good discipline and the stamina of a mule. The problem with us is a total, embarrassing lack of imagination by our players. You find what works to contain their movements forward, it's going to work for the rest of the game. Not one of them is going to come with a plan to break your lock. In the past our one bright spot was set pieces. Klinsmann was good at setting up those, at least.
I disagree. Our general player profile suggests it leans towards being more physical. But G does not in fact take that general profile employ a physical collective pressing style. The below suggests we were actually the softest team in Copa. And forget the attack. This is a shocking indictment on our defense. Uruguay had the highest Aggression% in the Copa América 2024 group stages: tackling, pressing, or fouling 27% of their opponent's ball receipts within two secondsThe USA had the lowest Aggression% with 15%#CopaAmérica2024 pic.twitter.com/lw96N9JSlV— StatsBomb (@StatsBomb) July 4, 2024
He looked surprised when the ball came to him, like he wasn’t expecting it. There was a delay while he took stock and then decided what to do.
Aggressive ≠ Physical. We run a lot and for the full 90. We tend to be fair, too. Always close to Fair Play award material, sometimes winning it. That is nice, but not aggressive. Canada was lucky with several cards, in particular that Bombito one against Chile, which was a clear red and even the Canadians know that. Berhalter is trying what people here were clamoring for: playing out of the back, not just hoofing it, not by-passing the midfield, not just bunker+counter. Didn't you all demand that? Well, we're in luck! We got very good CMs and wingers, we can now progress the ball, switch sides, open spaces. Well, we could, except that now our defenders suck and our best GK is mediocre. So maybe now we should bunker and counter, then. The irony of it. JK tried to make us play out of the back and pass a lot at first. And people were excited until we started losing. Then he switched us around and trained his guys to score on set pieces. We went back to normal, and most didn't notice until the Belgium game. You can't tell me it's a bit funny.
I criticized both here. To me, Musah was a non factor and Adams looked like a lesser version of himself. I don’t blame the manager for their performance, moreso living and dying with them through the group. Having said that, if you asked me who would I have preferred? Eh, give me a minute. Probably Johnny, but he was not good in his minutes either, imo. When they brought Johnny on against Panama, I wanted Musah. So let me call myself out on my hypocrisy and wonder how bored I am to even post this.
Ream - Fulham lifer, often yo-yoing between the Championship and PL in his career. Balogun + Musah - Did not make the grade at Arsenal. Landed on their feet and Flo had one great season on loan, but they are merely solid top flight players. Nobody fears them. Weah - Club journeyman. No real production at club level to speak of. This isn't a golden generation if we're being honest. If you put this team in a top flight, they'd probably duck relegation, but they're not finishing in the Europa or CL slots. They aren't THAT good. Plain and simple.[/QUOTE] Scally played as expected for me.
As well as our scoring chances. Scally set up like one decent chance all summer. That's not enough when we're playing a 4-3-3 most of the time. The manager should have adjusted.
Uh, if it's 2004-2014 or so I'd like my 20 something body back as well. We are in no way one of the more physical and well conditioned teams around. Not even close. And discipline? Come on. Two reds in critical games, numerous stupid challenges not even tactical in nature in most of our games, many of them by lock starters -- I could go on. We are relatively athletic, but we are certainly not relatively physical. For the most part we have a bunch of younger guys that center their game around finesse. Sorta is what it is at the moment. That's certainly something the next manager should look at, even if it means bringing Brooks back and similar.
If by finesse you mean a lot of side and backwards passing, we're full of it. We had 14 (out of 49) successful long balls to Uruguay's 24 (out of 64) and we had no successful crosses (out of nine attempts) to Uruguay's 5 (out of 17). Heck, Panama had 6 successful crosses (out of 21 attempts) while we only managed 4 (out of 9). As for successful dribble %, everybody was better than us. _Everybody_. That's why we're the least aggressive of the teams in Copa: our players couldn't dribble past a traffic cone! Even Bolivia managed 50% (7/14) successful dribbles against us, who only got 44% (7/16).
“Shot-ending sequences” seems like a highly arbitrary, hand-picked metric. For instance, two of our better “opportunities” against Uruguay had high Reyna involvement. One was the interplay between him and Pulisic, which ended in a Reyna pass to Haji Wright who proceeded to donkey touch it and not get a shot off. A little later, Reyna found Sergent in a very dangerous position on the right side of the box. Instead of a one-time shot on frame, Sergent took a touch inside and tried to put a ball in that came to nothing. Two dangerous opportunities, no shots. That’s just off the top of my head from the last 15-20 minutes of the Uruguay game. Just an odd metric. In my opinion. Not to mention that for half the tournament Reyna was either stuck far from goal asked to pull the strings or on the bench. And Adams was either on the bench or with clear instructions to stay back.
It’s definitely a relevant stat. It’s made of up shots, chances created, and build up to a shot. Anything once can say about Reyna is applicable to the rest of the team as well. This is who the top players for such were during the Copa. No surprise Pulisic is first.
The flaw is it only counts a “chance created” or “build up to shot” for a sequence that ends in a shot. At least two of our most dangerous opportunities against Uruguay didn’t end with a shot. (Again, I’m just thinking off the top of my head trying to make sense of the metric.)
Sure but in theory if he was dangerous over the course of the tourney he’d have shown up more. It’s not as if the team is worse at shots from passes from Reyna. And you also have the centerbacks contributing more to buildup leading to shots than Reyna did. All I’m saying is he didn’t have a particularly great tournament.
With the low amount of chances created by Berhalter’s teams and the fact the Reyna and Adams spent half the tournament not in a position to create chances, the sample size is too small to draw many conclusions. I personally thought Reyna was our best player in the Uruguay game and the player that created more chances than anyone (regardless if we ended up getting shots off).
And had you gotten your wish and Weah would have been playing RB, odds are he never gets that red card.
According to ESPN, USA Soccer turned off replies as it was so negative about getting rid of Egg. We just need to get them in the supermarkets. Egg overworked the midfield. How do you play 70 minutes down a man with your midfielders playing at least 60 minutes of that and then you roll them back out there again. I would change at least one of them and have subs ready for them at the start of second half If you look at most national teams the head coach is not really an accomplished club coach. France, England, Dutch, you name it. Stop asking for Klopp, we don't even know if he will do good in a setup that doesn't let him see the players everyday. Find an experienced national team coach like Van Marwjink with success in using different systems for different talent levels and let him so his thing.