I wonder how much of the coordination issue was due to one CB being rusty as hell from no game time and one FB being played what I will continue to insist is out of position no matter how good he looks doing it against the dregs of Dutch football.
USMNT Fall 2023 - Spring 2024: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
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Having digested for a day, I'm finally coming around to what I originally felt was a knee-jerk reaction. With all that's at stake in 2026, GGG needs to be on a super short leash. While the first half was encouraging, the second wiped away any good feelings. I realize the opposition was class, but a team that should be familiar with its organizational structure thanks to consistency looked completely lost defensively. I was at the Hartford Athletic game the night before where they got absolutely rocked due to the wingbacks getting caught forward and the central defenders running in circles. The US looked like it had attended that match and decided to give it a shot. It was awful.
The attack degenerated into a predictable and stagnant mess. With Germany's central pairing (or maybe it was just Rudiger since they didn't miss a beat when Hummels subbed off) there was no shot in hell of playing straight up the middle or swinging crosses in from the flanks, and both looked to be the game plan. I just don't understand what the intent was, and I don't think I'm the only one.
The attack degenerated into a predictable and stagnant mess. With Germany's central pairing (or maybe it was just Rudiger since they didn't miss a beat when Hummels subbed off) there was no shot in hell of playing straight up the middle or swinging crosses in from the flanks, and both looked to be the game plan. I just don't understand what the intent was, and I don't think I'm the only one.
There was one significant improvement I haven't seen discussed anywhere... Pulisic's set pieces have improved immensely. I was initially disappointed to see him going out to take corners but I don't think he had a single stinker in the bunch.
I am fully on board with giving GGG a short leash, but I am pretty biased against him as manager. I will say that I’m ok with him trying new things at this point. Whatever they did in the first half was ok against top competition, and the second half not so much. Overall it was way too open, and it screamed “friendly” to me. I am pretty confident that Gregg will sort out the defense because his teams have traditionally been stronger defensively, but they were pretty poor on Saturday. I do question pushing both fullbacks up so high and the space left in the center of midfield against a team like Germany. I wonder what a 3 at the back lineup would look like and if that changes things.
I do hope that the federation is treating this like a mini cycle, with the 2024 Copa America as a measuring stick. If things aren’t coming together by then, I would think (hope??) they’d look to make a change at manager. Things I am looking for:
I do hope that the federation is treating this like a mini cycle, with the 2024 Copa America as a measuring stick. If things aren’t coming together by then, I would think (hope??) they’d look to make a change at manager. Things I am looking for:
- A return of the defensive coordination
- Better chance creation through the final third- still way too much pushing the ball wide and dumping ineffective crosses in
- Some sort of identity as a team built around the strengths of the top players
I didn't see the game because I had to work, but how did Gio look?
Also, I just assumed him being on the field would automatically make our offense amazing, but I digress.
Also, I just assumed him being on the field would automatically make our offense amazing, but I digress.
Big night - senior squad vs Ghana at 7:30pm est & the U23s vs Japan at 9:30pm est.
The 23s will be streamed here & YouTube.
The 23s will be streamed here & YouTube.
Longest of long shots…
Nobody here got an event scarf from Hartford they’d want to part with, I assume? The merch lines were batshit by the time we went in and I didn’t want to miss what was happening on the field. My wife and I have something of a tradition of grabbing one from every match we attend and by halftime they were gone.
As an aside…They're $40. What can they possibly cost to manufacture? My gut tells me that they aren’t served well financially to ever run out and are better off with extras to sell online or trash than they would be to miss the stadium sales.
Nobody here got an event scarf from Hartford they’d want to part with, I assume? The merch lines were batshit by the time we went in and I didn’t want to miss what was happening on the field. My wife and I have something of a tradition of grabbing one from every match we attend and by halftime they were gone.
As an aside…They're $40. What can they possibly cost to manufacture? My gut tells me that they aren’t served well financially to ever run out and are better off with extras to sell online or trash than they would be to miss the stadium sales.
My highly nuanced and heavily researched position is that this team just looks much better when Gio plays.
Gio made that happen by not just drawing the easy whistle a second before when he was taken down.
Gio/CP/Balo popping goals in the first 21 minutes feels good I don’t care who the opponent is.
Edit: The speed/skill mix will continue to cause huge problems for opponents when they press defenders like this. Just need to figure out what to do against composed back lines.
Edit: The speed/skill mix will continue to cause huge problems for opponents when they press defenders like this. Just need to figure out what to do against composed back lines.
We had exactly one HS practice a year where we would spend 30 minutes on variations of these around the 6-yard box because it happened to our coach one single time in 20+ years of coaching. I was transported directly to those drills. Fantastic.
Mine was the opposite experience. I feel like we had 4 or 5 indirect kicks in the box (always against) every year. Great times forming a wall on the goal line knowing we were one touch away from a rocket coming towards our heads. I guess if I were your coach, it would've been two practices a year.
Was teaching this evening so just catching up on the match.
Um, whatever Hughton is trying to do is not working. At all. Ghana have the talent to play much better than this.
Since he took over in Feb, Hughton has barely acceptable results in Cup of Nations qualifying, going 3-2-0 against much less talented countries.
But they got waxed 2-0 by El Tri and now this tonight. Ghanaian FA is pretty aggressive in dumping underperforming managers. Hughton needs to show out soon.
Bonus - Ghana’s keeper Nurudeen is Gaga Slonina’s teammate/competitor at Eupen. So this def won’t help Nurudeen’s chances to get starts.
Um, whatever Hughton is trying to do is not working. At all. Ghana have the talent to play much better than this.
Since he took over in Feb, Hughton has barely acceptable results in Cup of Nations qualifying, going 3-2-0 against much less talented countries.
But they got waxed 2-0 by El Tri and now this tonight. Ghanaian FA is pretty aggressive in dumping underperforming managers. Hughton needs to show out soon.
Bonus - Ghana’s keeper Nurudeen is Gaga Slonina’s teammate/competitor at Eupen. So this def won’t help Nurudeen’s chances to get starts.
yeah that game was a lot of fun. It's important to be reminded just how different we look with Gio Reyna out there. Most of what he does isn't that flashy, just very solid decisions and passes, but then he gets into an attacking drive and is just 4th Quarter Tom Brady out there in terms of precise distribution without hesitation. Our performance ceiling as a team is just way higher with him operating on all cylinders.
Also I hope Musah flew his parents in from England to see this.
Also I hope Musah flew his parents in from England to see this.
At least some of their problem is that they’re balanced like an early DP era MLS roster. Three quality attackers, one midfielder that’s good, and a defense made in Ligue 2.
Yeah, I think that our experiences in the 2006, 2010, and 2014 World Cups have conditioned us to always assume Ghana is a very strong team. However, that appears to just not be true at the moment. Ghana's Elo rating is worse than Uzbekistan and slightly ahead of Oman, our opponents in the September window who were afforded much less respect. While Chris Hughton may or may not be contributing to the problem, Ghana's Elo rating was similar at the start of his tenure. Their talent pool may just be at an ebb right now.
They’ve been down for couple cycles because the homegrown talent pool is thin right now. The emergence of Kudus has been a huge boon for them because for a number of years it was the Ayews & Partey doing all the lifting.
They bombed out of African Cup of Nations, but then recruited Otto Addo to come in as a bridge manager. Addo leads the academy at Dortmund. He got a leave of absence & immediately started reciting dual nationals to raise the talent level - Inaki Williams, Tariq Lamptey, & Mohammed Salisu.
Addo squeaked them through CAF qualification (it helped that Nigeria was slow motion imploding for the year prior). And in Qatar, they performed better than expected - they gave Portugal a huge scare, beat Korea, and then did enough to exact revenge on Uruguay (maybe keeping the Uruguay from advancing isn’t equivalent to the Suarez handball, but you take what you can get.)
TLDR Addo trained Ghana into a fiesty counter puncher. Hughton had them playing like late-career Peter McNeeley.
The Real Slim Reyna looked great last night and it was fantastic to see the squad come out with intensity after the Germany loss. The Berhalter culture is still strong.
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I feel like I've watched thousands of hours of footy in my life and I genuinely can't remember seeing that being done or called before.
That's funny, because the reason I missed the game last night was because I had an indoor game and it happened. Well, very close to that. Our player trapped ball between her thigh and the glass. Ref blew it dead, called it a "dangerous play" or something and awarded a free kick.
I've seen the indirect free kick in the box a few times. Mainly I've seen it for improper goal keeper handling, such as if a keeper uses his hands on an intentional back-pass. It can basically be given for any non-contact foul in the box, outside of player handballs.
I actually think the indirect free kick in the box is an interesting solution to handballs/fouls committed in the box that are in no real way preventing a goal scoring opportunity, where it seems very unfair for a team to get a high-percentage PK off of that kind of infraction.
I actually think the indirect free kick in the box is an interesting solution to handballs/fouls committed in the box that are in no real way preventing a goal scoring opportunity, where it seems very unfair for a team to get a high-percentage PK off of that kind of infraction.
The first 45 last night was great to see. The second half was kind of a yawner, but it was already 4-0 and the most effective attackers were taken off at the half. I understand what TB is saying about the ELO, I just don't think Ghana are that bad. Qualifying for the WC out of that region isn't easy, and they played well in the tournament. It's a lopsided roster for sure, but they have enough in attack that you need to respect them.
Gio, Balo, Dest, and Pulisic were just devastating going forward. GGG is going to need to figure out what to do with Dest. He's so good going forward but such a liability defensively. He's far and away the most talented fullback that the US has. Maybe the reverse of what he tried to do with Cannon as a RB and keeping the LB out of the attack while giving more support to Dest from the CBs or a pivot? I get why teams prefer to attack with the LB and keep a RB more defensively positioned, but you can only cook with the ingredients you have. I like what Johnny brought to the table. He reads the opponents so well, and I liked how he moved the ball forward quickly after turning Ghana over. The anti-Lletget, if you will. I'm getting a little concerned about winger depth. Aaronson gets pushed around a lot and just doesn't seem to bring much to the table. He does hustle, but he's not improving like I hoped he would. I can see a world where he gets passed on the depth chart by Booth, if he hasn't already, Koleosho makes the switch to the USMNT, and Brenden is on the outside looking in come WC26.
Watching Gio at the 10 has been fun, and I'd like to see Malik Tillman get some run there when he's fully fit to see how he looks.
Gio, Balo, Dest, and Pulisic were just devastating going forward. GGG is going to need to figure out what to do with Dest. He's so good going forward but such a liability defensively. He's far and away the most talented fullback that the US has. Maybe the reverse of what he tried to do with Cannon as a RB and keeping the LB out of the attack while giving more support to Dest from the CBs or a pivot? I get why teams prefer to attack with the LB and keep a RB more defensively positioned, but you can only cook with the ingredients you have. I like what Johnny brought to the table. He reads the opponents so well, and I liked how he moved the ball forward quickly after turning Ghana over. The anti-Lletget, if you will. I'm getting a little concerned about winger depth. Aaronson gets pushed around a lot and just doesn't seem to bring much to the table. He does hustle, but he's not improving like I hoped he would. I can see a world where he gets passed on the depth chart by Booth, if he hasn't already, Koleosho makes the switch to the USMNT, and Brenden is on the outside looking in come WC26.
Watching Gio at the 10 has been fun, and I'd like to see Malik Tillman get some run there when he's fully fit to see how he looks.
I’ve seen (and defended) many indirects in the box. I don’t think I’ve seen a player sit on the ball as a defensive tactic.
There was a famous one in a USA/Canada game (women) for goalkeeper handling over 6 seconds.
It blows my mind that rule is still on the books. It's a throwback to the era of goalkeepers picking up back passes and bringing the game to a crawl. They got rid of the four or six step limit, at least.
In my mind, a rule that is so blatantly and consistently not followed isn't a rule at all. A referee suddenly calling it ( especially mid-match at the stroke of six seconds) has an agenda.
Yeah -- in the aftermath of that Canada/U.S. game I think it came out that Canada had been warned a few times. But with the ability to caution and add time, it seems like a rule that doesn't need to be there. I don't have problem with a time limit, but to treat it as handling is a pretty big infraction for the well-known art of time wasting.
I was going to argue that a yellow card is about right, but you know what? Fuck it. I'd love to see it called correctly. Want to really stamp it out from a team that's blatantly wasting time and protecting the scoreline? Award the indirect in their box.
Fake edit: that comes with the caveat that it's called consistently. Give a warning or two, then have at it. Indirects for everyone!
That said, the obvious counter will be harassing the goalkeeper to prevent distribution and force the card, but there are already stipulations for that behavior in the laws.
It's messy and they've likely arrived where they are through experience, but goddamn I'd love to see Pickford arranging 11 man walls on his six yard box every ten or fifteen minutes.
That said, the obvious counter will be harassing the goalkeeper to prevent distribution and force the card, but there are already stipulations for that behavior in the laws.
It's messy and they've likely arrived where they are through experience, but goddamn I'd love to see Pickford arranging 11 man walls on his six yard box every ten or fifteen minutes.
Seems like either the time limit OR the prohibition against handling back passes is required but not both?
Gene is such a character. Especially love that this video cuts out the goal resulting from his run, literally just shows his own personal buildup. Funny guy.
(To clarify, this is pulled from his Instagram where he regularly posts his own highlight reel regardless of the match result.)
(To clarify, this is pulled from his Instagram where he regularly posts his own highlight reel regardless of the match result.)
I think you need to somehow codify that the keeper can’t hold the ball indefinitely. Six seconds isn’t reasonable in the modern game, but that’s the law as it’s written.
I believe it’s a military concept that you never issue an order you know won’t be followed as it undermines your authority. The six second rule seems like a bastardization of this. It’s a rule that isn’t followed, but the referee can use it as a punishment.
Any way I can think of modifying it has ramifications. If you make it a hard and fast rule at, say, 15 seconds, you’re still potentially deadening minutes of the match. If you make it dependent on one team or another’s actions, either can abuse it. Something is needed that’s simple to adjudicate and consistently applied, but it’s escaping me.
What is the rule on whether defenders can get right up in the face of the keeper when he is holding the ball. Is there any limit? That seems to be the chief problem with the six second rule. Nobody wants to watch goalkeeper harassment. I feel like the way the game is currently called, the keepers don’t overly abuse the six seconds but the counting seems to start when the attackers clear out.
There’s a rule for goalkeeper obstruction as well. I don’t think you could start a clock based on anything the opponent does as it would be abused just as easily.
I don’t think the counting starts until everybody realizes the goalkeeper has been standing there with the ball for fifteen or twenty seconds. The majority of the time I don’t even think it’s malicious.
Serge is a national treasure. The highlight video he made after being pretty well roasted by Arsenal is epic.
Once the goalkeeper is *on his feet*, is six seconds still not enough? At some point, it’s incumbent upon the entire team to get into shape to restart the attack (or punt the ball away) no?
If a keeper needs an extra few seconds to get up after a difficult diving save or whatever fine, those can get added to injury time right?