Huge game tonight at Azteca in Mexico City. I expect the filthy el tri to try to manhandle Pulicic tonight and play dirty as usual. Flopping, flipping, floundering all over the field. The fans will undoubtedly be acting like dumpster trash and shouting their puto chant like the mouthbreathers they are. I'm also expecting a loss unfortunately. A tie/result would be unreal. Mexico has been playing really really well.
If Wood makes any sort of contact on the sitter in the box, US either goes up 2 nil or at least avoids the counter. Instead he whiffs and Mexico goes off to the races.
My only complaint is if you are going to short corner 6 out of 7 times, there is no reason to bring forward all 3 center forwards. Allows for the counter (lucky Ochoa mishit a kick) when possession is lost.
Go Terps : 11:21 am : link : reply
yesterday was an excellent performance. They achieved exactly what they set out to.
That play was a combination of Beasley allowing space, the interior defense not collapsing quickly and Guzan taking too long to anticipate the shot and react. And it was a fantastic shot by Vela.
So why is that I'm getting the vibe people consider us to be a likely qualifier, even though from what it seems to me on paper is no more than a 60% chance (at best)?
Is it because whomever we'd play from Asia if we finish 4th would be very bad?
I thought the move to a 3-/5-man backline was very interesting, and the players really reacted well to it. That was the best game I've ever seen Cameron play for USMNT, and both Gonzalez and Ream (who has had some struggles with USMNT) played well. I also thought it was a better use of Yedlin, who is still frankly a brutally poor defender.
It's worth remembering that in 2014 the teams that played with a 3-/5-man back line performed well as some of the bigger countries had difficulty breaking it down. Costa Rica, Mexico, and Netherlands all did well with it. I don't know if it's the way to go exclusively but depending on our WC group (assuming we qualify) it would be a good thing to have in our pocket. If we end up grouped with a highly technical team like Spain, France, or Argentina it could be a great tool.
My question at this point is can the US do even better against Mexico despite its latest plan to drop back, defend and try to quickly counter?
So why is that I'm getting the vibe people consider us to be a likely qualifier, even though from what it seems to me on paper is no more than a 60% chance (at best)?
Is it because whomever we'd play from Asia if we finish 4th would be very bad?
No, not because of the Asia team, although if we have to go that route, that should be a winnable game.
The short answer is that Panama still has to play us here in the USA and that should be a win for us. The longer answer - and I won't go game-by-game - is that I see Panama probably getting 7 points out of its remaining 5 games and I see the USA probably getting at least 8 points out of its remaining 4 games - with the swing factor again being that Panama game here in the USA.
So we should be able to maintain our lead over Panama. The other teams (Honduras and T&T) have no chance.
Mike in Long Beach : 11:38 am : link : reply
But as you guys noted, Panama is only 1 point behind us and has a good chance of passing us in their next match.
So why is that I'm getting the vibe people consider us to be a likely qualifier, even though from what it seems to me on paper is no more than a 60% chance (at best)?
Is it because whomever we'd play from Asia if we finish 4th would be very bad?
First off, we are done playing Mexico. We have 4 matches left(the rest of the group), including ones against T&T and Honduras. While we could lose one, we will be favored to win all of them.
Secondly, we are as close to 2nd place as 4th. We only trail Costa rica by 1 in goal differential.
Thirdly, if somehow we end up in 4th place, we will b e favored to win the match against the team from Oceania - which is exactly how Mexico qualified last world cup.
I'd put our chances of qualifying at higher than 60% - more like 80% or higher.
Thirdly, if somehow we end up in 4th place, we will b e favored to win the match against the team from Oceania - which is exactly how Mexico qualified last world cup.
One small correction to the above: this cycle the 4th place CONCACAF finisher plays the 5th place Asian finisher, not the first place Oceania. I'm not sure exactly how the inter-continental playoff works, but it rotates.
As of now, the 4th place CONCACAF team would play the winner of an Australia - Uzbekistan playoff (they have some games to play still).
I didn't know that was the case.
It IS night and day. Klinsmann may have tried to do the same, but his ability to execute any plan was so miserable that we have no way of actually knowing.
Holy shit.
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and settling for counters, while saying Klinsman never did that. I get it, he played guys out of position. Let's not act like this is night and day all of the sudden. I think that it's more of getting the best players on the field. There was no tactical brilliance to the gameplan.
Holy shit.
Holy shit indeed.
Again, they had one shot on goal.
We played Mexico in the US the previous time and lost because we had no tactical plan. You might disagree with the tactics last night (not sure why you would), but it is damn difficult to say the tactics didn't work or weren't effective.
It boggles the mind.
Jones may suck, but lets not diminish Acosta. He's a stud.
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Oh, and after watching Kellyn Acosta and Bradley working together yesterday is there anyone that can say Jermaine Jones doesn't completely suck?
Jones may suck, but lets not diminish Acosta. He's a stud.
Not meant to diminish Acosta at all. He's surpassed "great prospect" status and is now simply an excellent player. And his impact on Bradley (vs. how Bradley played with Jones) is apparent.
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The conceded goal notwithstanding,
Go Terps : 11:21 am : link : reply
yesterday was an excellent performance. They achieved exactly what they set out to.
That play was a combination of Beasley allowing space, the interior defense not collapsing quickly and Guzan taking too long to anticipate the shot and react. And it was a fantastic shot by Vela.
That goal wasn't on Beasley, he's defending the outside there to keep him from getting past him and getting to goal.
The backtracking defenders -- especially Cameron -- needed to provide help on that play and didn't. Cameron had a terrific second half but he was closest to help on the goal and he ran into no man's land.
Other thoughts:
As to the quality of the U.S. play, the US had 7 corners and Mexico had 9. Even in a defensive posture they were still able to pressure Mexico from time to time.
I also thought Pulisic did a good job in the first half of giving the ball to his teammates with his first touch, but they usually didn't hold onto it.
That goal was not on Beasley--how far do you want him to cross along the 18 into the middle of the pitch before someone closes on Vela? It didn't happen.
It did look like Guzan was a bit slow to push off. The TV crew indicated (maybe noted here during the match?) that Arena tapped Guzan because he was leary of playing TH twice within three days lest he aggravate his groin. He missed many months with that injury, and like hammies they are a bitch to re-hab with success. So that made sense to me.
Speaking of the US announcing crew--and it will be all US for the WC as announced by Fox (? Is that the network), too bad. Much prefer Ian Darke and the knowledgeable crowd. It may be appealing to some, but I dislike the homer content and supposed nuance of the commentary.
And that brings me to the commentary on Salcedo, and reaction on the thread: I have no idea whether any given crew of referees is corrupt or corruptible. And Salcedo did throw an elbow into Wood's face, possible SFP, maybe even more probable than not. But I think few here have a good grasp how difficult it is for a three man team, the center and two ARs, to see the entire field, especially when you have an experienced player who knows how to shield his action using his and his victim's bodies from the view(s) of the closest official.
Only on TV, with serial replays and in slo-mo yet, does the announcing crew become all knowing: "Well, that was certainly a Red Card for SFP and no reason for it not called." Unless the crew members didn't see it! This is not being pro-ref or anti-US, it's a fact of the game that a whole shit-load of crap goes on outside the view of the refs.
Compare last night's Game 6 of Penguins-Predators. The referee at the Pens' end of the ice was in absolutely awful position, on the GL up against the far boards, and from his view he lost sight of the puck as it was trickling from under Murray's body, to be poked in by Sissons, but Pollock blew his whistle because he lost sight of it. Never mind that he should have been moving toward the back of the net really fast. It was a game and SCP Finals-changing decision.
But back to USMNT, yes, Bradley's best game for the team in many months, the goal was just the cherry on top. I thought Arena was most apt to be second guessed for being slow to bring Nagbe in, same sub. Much better movement in MF, and the MF play didn't bother me that much at all. Pulisic is elusive and such a threat; he was effective because he had to be taken account of. The big surprise to me was that Mexico did not target him physically much at all, off ball or on.
Everytime opponents enter that arena they have to overcome physical play that often isn't punished. I just think last night was more of a function of poor refereeing than bias. If they were corrupt, they'd have given Bradley another yellow, forcing him to miss the next match, or called one of the several dives in the box as penalties.
Letting some of the wing play go and then producing the yellow on Yeldin was horseshit.
As a defender you should push him to where you have extra help, and that's what Beasley did. Three defenders ran past him, only one of them was actually marking someone.
Anyone who doubts whether Arena's tactics worked needs to watch that play, if the US doesn't play a defensive minded match then those transition plays would have happened much more often.
Everytime opponents enter that arena they have to overcome physical play that often isn't punished. I just think last night was more of a function of poor refereeing than bias. If they were corrupt, they'd have given Bradley another yellow, forcing him to miss the next match, or called one of the several dives in the box as penalties.
Letting some of the wing play go and then producing the yellow on Yeldin was horseshit.
This is a reasonable post, I feel, and that's without having a concrete, extensive historical sense of the shenanigans that might prevail at Azteca. And there's a reason that Aguilar the center ref was selected, in part, because he has a pretty extensive resume at this level. You may say that should connote that the fix is in. But just as certain teams and players enter a match and certain venues apprehensive that the match and venue might be bigger than their capability, that's part of the refs' mindsets as well.
So, that could well play in to your narrative--and again, I don't use that term pejoratively here, there may well be an intimidation factor, especially at the outset. (Recall Howard Webb's "freeze" when DeJong went studs up on Alonso).
I agree that the officiating was uneven, agree that Bradley was (pretty crazily) walking too close to the edge, and agree that the inconsistency came into relief with the yellow on Yedlin--and that was a clumsy, all-too-visible attempt at a tackle on his part. Games ebb and flow, skill levels take over or recede, physicality is quiescent and then erupts, crowd noise, coaches' tactics, and it always comes down to judgment and game management: admittedly, these weren't too good in the opening 20 minutes. Salcedo's hits--as I said, I don't think, and I don't want to believe, that--they were seen and not called. Whenever players go up to head the ball, it's less often the case that elbows don't go flying as part of "leverage" (real or imagined) to get higher, so from a poor angle, Aguilar and/or the AR on that half (very poor view from across the field and two bodies in), the intent and contact could well have been missed.
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In comment 13496990 Gmen1982 said:
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and settling for counters, while saying Klinsman never did that. I get it, he played guys out of position. Let's not act like this is night and day all of the sudden. I think that it's more of getting the best players on the field. There was no tactical brilliance to the gameplan.
Holy shit.
Holy shit indeed.
ditto
In contrast, JK was always tinkering with positions and mixing and matching players as if somehow the players would suddenly develop into multi-dimensional threats. His approach was unconventional to say the least.
Listening to you bitch about the Reffing is like the knocks fans when they played the cavs. I didn't say it was fair I said it wasn't as bad as some of you were making it. And I stand by arena not being a tactical genius last night. packing it in against a team we should be better than does not excite me. It was a good result but we shouldn't ever have to pack it in.
We WERE God-awful with Klinsmann. He was a complete fucking joke...the worst manager/coach I've ever seen of any team I root for in any sport.
And winning a friendly in Azteca means shit. How many examples of the meaninglessness of friendlies do we need before that concept sinks in?
Unlike others on this Board, I do not believe we were God awful under JK, just horribly inconsistent and underwhelming. He continuously searched for answers and tinkered with how and when he used players.
I do not think that Arena is a savior, but rather an intermediate step to where I hope that this program can go. I want him to handle the transition between past and future by giving the younger players an opportunity to experience the challenge of WCQ, instead of playing it safe and returning to older veterans who have reached their limits.
Arena had the team in the quarterfinals in Japan/Korea. They then suffered a heartbreaking loss to Germany, in a game they were clearly the better team. And they managed a draw with Korea in the group stages.
Bradley won the group in South Africa. He also had the US in its first ever final of an international tournament when they lost to Brazil in the Confederations Cup.
Also, while Klinsmann navigated the team through a difficult group stage, he laid a coaching egg against Belgium. If there ever was an embarrassingly defensive game plan, that game was it (Wondolowski's mind-numbing miss notwithstanding). It felt as if Klinsmann played for the 1-0 loss.
It isn't a stretch to say with better coaching from the beginning is of qualification, this team would be well on its way to Russia.
I'll also add that Klinsmann's performance in the Belgium match was pathetic. Deploying Cameron as a midfielder (over Beckerman, along with Fabian Johnson our best player in the tournament) because he happened to play in the same league as Hazard was a joke. He got it completely wrong and Belgium, a flawed team that was less than the sum of its parts, should have won 9-0.
If you want a refresher of that nightmare of a match, here's the Zonal Marking article on it. A key passage from it is the following:
What that tells you is that the tactics leading up to the match are a mess, and the team performed better when the tactics had to be abandoned in search of a goal.
Klinsmann's hiring, and the incredibly long leash he was given, was everything that's been wrong with US Soccer for years. Too many people (not just fans, but within US Soccer) believe that someone is going to know more about soccer just because they're from Europe, or that a player is going to be better because he plays in Europe.
It's a gigantic load of horseshit and it drives me insane. Bruce Arena and Bob Bradley take shits that know more about soccer than Jurgen Klinsmann, whose greatest contribution to the game was to ruin the 1990 World Cup final with a blatant dive to earn the decisive penalty. And then he comes in and destroys our 2014 World Cup.
Fuck that guy.
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Of course not. My piint was aside from Wondolowski's miss, the team didn't come close to an attempt on goal.
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We were god awful with klinsman. The fucking guy won at azteca and took us out of the toughest group we have ever been in in the World Cup. I like arena but when you make him out as this savior for everything he does it's just ridiculous. Playing a defensive game like last night is not tactical brilliance. It's playing it safe and smart. Fine, it got a point. To say that klinsman couldn't do that is fucking stupid.
We WERE God-awful with Klinsmann. He was a complete fucking joke...the worst manager/coach I've ever seen of any team I root for in any sport.
And winning a friendly in Azteca means shit. How many examples of the meaninglessness of friendlies do we need before that concept sinks in?
I'm not technically sound with commenting on the nuances of Soccer, but Klinsmann was just awful. The best team was the 2006 WC team that was a missed handball in the goal away from beating Germany and getting into the semis. This tea is vastly improved.
Last night was smart playing with a reduced team. Getting one point was more important than attacking all night and losing 3-2. That one point was huge.
As far as Salcedo's elbows (TWO in the 1st 5 minutes), how did they not see those since the ball was there? It is not like it was behind the play and out of sight.
In retrospect Klinsmann talked like he was some theoretician of how soccer should be played, all elliptical and goal-oriented in his perorations, and his resume COULD be said to fairly glow, and Gulati fell for it. But it turned out he was an airhead, a true California beach bum, with no feel for tactics, no concept, no ability to communicate them, and no feel for his players' respective positional aptitudes. Contrast his approach to his formation quake (debuted for, what was it, Mexico in Columbus in November?), when Bradley and Johnson had to derail him at the half--and he proceeded to throw them under the bus--with Arena's formation quake which was planned and thought through. (And in looking back at the thread before hitting the Submit button, I see that Turk said much the same)
My feeling is that USMNT is still mortally deficient in the back. I took Cameron to task in the pre-game thread, saying he and Brooks were too slow, physically reactive and in reading fast combinations. Cameron had a good 2H, and he, Gonzalez, and Brooks have good size inside the 18. I just have a hard time believing there is no one better lurking offstage. And I do not believe that Cameron is the answer on the outside, nor is it DB.
The one thing I think you can say is a JK positive is that he shook, not stirred, the martini of channels of access to USMNT. We had become a bit stale in player development under Bradley, hung on to the stalwarts too long, like the Giants' OL in 2011/2012. I am not saying JK was good at player development (too much position changing/did not let chemistry take hold), but he did shake up the mix and that made it easier to let talent flow.
Holy Cow, taking Jozy to task for coming on late and being slow and lazy? Often you have to let the game come to you, and the last 15 - 25 minutes was all about not letting El Tri cop a winning goal.
I'll admit I didn't quite get that switch (Wood out?), because those two have worked together well, and thought that the Nagbe for Accosta (was that it?) came about 10 minutes late.
The players' work last Thursday and the altitude in Mexico City last night obviously weighed heavily on Arena's 11 (including TH's groin) and substitutions.
And, man, was I spitting fire after that 4th-place finish in the Gold Cup. Just disgraceful beyond words.
I gave him a lot more leash than others. I thought he was experimenting to find the right mix, but then I realized that playing people out of position and suboptimally wasn't an experiment, it was his cluelessness shining through. By the end, he lost the team, alienated some of the best players, and had us out of a qualifying position and an embarrassing showing at the Gold Cup
It did not take very long at all to see how in over his head he was as a communicator, gameday/roster/personnel, and just general incompetence.
The cost far exceeded the benefits after the abomination against belgium, one of the worst game plans I've ever seen for a team so poised to move on.
The post-WC mess was just the nail in the coffin.
Bruce was about as unexciting a move as we could have made but it just goes to show the job he did with the lesser talent back in his early tenure. I'm starting to get very high hopes again.
Unfortunately, as many already note, we just can't seem to find the talent in the back.
if a player played in europe - they were automatically better than any player that plays in MLS
“It’s bad timing for [the Gold Cup], because the guys in Europe have gone through this long club season and now the World Cup qualifiers. They need a break. They have three weeks off, and asking them to come in for Gold Cup makes no sense. It would take three weeks to get them ready.”
When asked how many players on the Gold Cup roster will come from his best possible U.S. roster, Arena said: “Almost none. Very few. Maybe [Omar] González and [Matt] Besler. Maybe [Clint] Dempsey and [Jozy] Altidore at some point. [Darlington] Nagbe is a possibility.
“I have to see in the next couple weeks how everyone is doing. We’re pretty sure [Brad] Guzan is coming in. [Tim] Howard can come in after the group stage. So we’ll have to name at least two other goalkeepers.”
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But as you guys noted, Panama is only 1 point behind us and has a good chance of passing us in their next match.
So why is that I'm getting the vibe people consider us to be a likely qualifier, even though from what it seems to me on paper is no more than a 60% chance (at best)?
Is it because whomever we'd play from Asia if we finish 4th would be very bad?
No, not because of the Asia team, although if we have to go that route, that should be a winnable game.
The short answer is that Panama still has to play us here in the USA and that should be a win for us. The longer answer - and I won't go game-by-game - is that I see Panama probably getting 7 points out of its remaining 5 games and I see the USA probably getting at least 8 points out of its remaining 4 games - with the swing factor again being that Panama game here in the USA.
So we should be able to maintain our lead over Panama. The other teams (Honduras and T&T) have no chance.
Panama was two points behind us after our tie with Mexico, not one, and Tuesday night they couldn't beat Honduras at home - it was a tie. So Panama just left two points on the table that they pretty much had to have, and they still trail us by a point.
Not guaranteed for the U.S., at all, but that was a good result Tuesday for us.