[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

like i said, defense isn't just "retreating". keping possession of the ball, so that the opponent cannot score, is also defense-- even if its carried out by attacking midfielders.

if anything our defenders have been our most competent players. john brooks a hero.

what failed yesterday wasn't so much the defense as it was the transitions forward.

"zero shots" is a huge red flag about what went wrong-- thats the key to this disaster

our defenders are indeed our best players but as a whole our defense has collapsed in so many of the games we lost where we should have or could have won.

last night doesn't count, we were never going to play well against Argentina, no doubt.
im zooming out and looking at past 3 years of obvious decline

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

our defenders are indeed our best players but as a whole our defense has collapsed in so many of the games we lost where we should have or could have won.

last night doesn't count, we were never going to play well against Argentina, no doubt.
im zooming out and looking at past 3 years of obvious decline

i know you're stubborn but im trying to explain that without an escape valve all defenses fail

the effectiveness of parking the bus is predicated on the ability to launch a fast counterattack

and possession is a good strategy only when you can transition forward. otherwise who cares about possession.

you cant play a game exclusively on your half of the pitch and blame the defense for sucking.

when the defense recovers a ball and gives it to bradley and bradley gives it right back to the opponent it's not the defense's fault that they get overwhelmed

KILL BRADLEY

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

listen the one being stubborn here is you. I'm not saying your analysis is wrong at all, but you're not looking at the big picture. US defense had no reason to decline, indeed according to what you suggesting about valves and what not we should have expected Klinsmann to improve the overall defense. he didn't. simple as that.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

again i am not in anyway talking about the Argentina game, i am talking about in general. indeed deja vu we had this exact same conversation after WC. demonrail agreed with me about the problems on defense. now here we are two years later and not only no improvement but an overall decline??

my personal scouting is i feel Klinsmann switches up the roster too much, no consistency, guys don't get to develop and gel together

[!@#$%!]

i was googling "bradley sucks" and "bradley needs to go" and "bradley vs argentina" and this turned up:

http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2016/...ica-centenario

pretty lucid analysis i'd say

----

the thing youre talking about has been a shift from kick-and-run towards possession

the "defending" is less obvious, but it's there

the new system works better except when a) theres nobody on the attack, and b) bradley sucks.

bradley fucking sucks! but who do we have for his spot? move up brooks maybe? but then besler goes in and fucks it up

having no bench sucks

[!@#$%!]

http://www.starsandstripesfc.com/201...-an-ugly-trend

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

personally i don't think Bradley sucks so much as in general Klinsmann likes to play him out of position but no doubt US could use an upgrade but like you said...

Originally Posted by !@#$!

bradley fucking sucks! but who do we have for his spot? move up brooks maybe? but then besler goes in and fucks it up

having no bench sucks

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

http://www.starsandstripesfc.com/201...-an-ugly-trend

from this article

Excuses have always been made for Bradley. His position on the field has constantly been tweaked by Klinsmann..

i think that all this "tweaking" is what has continually put bradley in a position to fail.
indeed that is another one of my biggest criticisms of Klinsmann. instead of catering his game plan and development around the talent he has, he tries to many experiments. do that shit with the u-teams, focus on your strengths in the big tournaments.

he wastes Dempsey too! Dempsey is not a guy who can create his own shots yet i have seen a dozen games were Klinsmann has Dempsey pushing the ball. in WC jozy going down was an ok excuse (accept that made snubbing Donovan look even more reckless in hindsight) but its been two years now and Dempsey doesn't look like himself either

look if any other coach in any other sport continually designed game plans that weren't putting the current rosters in best position to win that coach would be fired, period.

He's still one of the team's most talented players. It's up to Klinsmann to try put the right players around him and up to Bradley to overcome the pressure and step his game up.

[!@#$%!]

Dempsey and Bradley have been in their right positions in this tournament though.

But Where Dempsey has been key to success Bradley has been the epicenter of failure.

Then again pairing him with Beckermann is not "surrounding him with the best"

But Jermaine Jones got himself carded like a fucking stupid! Fucking Jermaine...

See, having no bench sucks.

A talent gap is a talent gap

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

Dempsey and Bradley have been in their right positions in this tournament though.

But Where Dempsey has been key to success Bradley has been the epicenter of failure.

Then again pairing him with Beckermann is not "surrounding him with the best"

But Jermaine Jones got himself carded like a fucking stupid! Fucking Jermaine...

See, having no bench sucks.

A talent gap is a talent gap

for this tournament yes, indeed i agree with you that more or less US played well in the copa. again my criticism is big picture, past two and three years.

and hey, obviously Klinsmann can turn it around BUT my gut says 3 years is a large enough sample size to suggest he won't

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

and yeah i think missing wood and JJJ are a huge reason our attack against Argentina was so thoroughly defanged so i give the team a pass on that game, but im still critical about the longer trends.

great talking futbol with you btw

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

an interesting factor i had never really considered. Messi turns 29 Friday. it seems like Messi has been in the spotlight for ten years now.
in American sports system pro athletes really don't enter the market until their early 20s. in very recent years we have seen an increase in "one and done" college players who enter pro leagues at 19 or 20 but generally across American history has been a few years older. this means many athletes don't focus on their "pro" sport until late teens
Lebron James played football in high school! russell wilson is a very successful NFL quarterback who actually played more baseball in high school than football. Kobe Bryant actually grew up playing "soccer" as did two time MVP Steve Nash! so perhaps that puts American athletes at a particular disadvantage considering in world futbol in particular athletes are already essentially professional at 17!

[!@#$%!]

right-- you gotta get them when they're 6 or 7 and develop the shit out of them

this around the world is done in the youth division of professional clubs-- clubs develop their future players since childhood. later on they either become the stars or they get bought/sold.

with our current system however there is no incentive for teams to develop youth. instead there's the goofy draft with ANCIENT college-age players. does not work.

and unlike the rest of the world you can't play if you're a poor kid-- you need a soccer mom/dad with a minivan who pays fees, uniforms, hotels, travel etc. in other countries, the club pays you. so the poor who play shoeless can become stars and the sport is a ticket out of poverty-- hence the motivation to be a pro.

e.g. read the bios of juan cuadrado, or carlos salcido-- guaranteed tearjerkers

so on this regard klinsmann has done very good things as a technical director-- trying to identify promising 9-year-olds and get them coached, instilling professionalism and work ethic at all levels, finding and recruiting american players abroad, etc.

other than that i don't know what else could klinsmann do-- maybe send all the promising kids to germany? i read that pulisic's croatian father took him to germany and got him a croatian passport so he could play there, while the rest of the family stayed back in the US.

jermaine jones btw grew up in frankfurt and was a middling pro in europe-- only been playing MLS in his old age. had he been better he probably would have played for germany. sad but true, their leftovers are our stars. talent gap.

so as TD i think klinsmann has done very well. as coach he has shown his limits i think, making bad tactical decisions.

i think the new possession based way is better than before, and now he just needs to consolidate. going back to a 4-4-2 because of argentina was a pussy move that i believe backfired. same as with belgium in the world cup.

better to have gone out in glorious flames-- at least some shots to goal or a... "gol de honor"-- don't know how to translate that-- a goal in a defeat that allows you to save face, and say "we scored".

then again demonrails argument has been that a 4-4-2 is better for "simple" teams with fewer technical resources. if anything, leicester's rise in the prem proves him right-- a modest team becoming champion by basically defending like crazy and launching deadly counters with one quick & skilled forward (does it remind you of landycakes?).

i have to say that i haven't actually watched leicester or vardy play, it's all from reading about it, so, can't guarantee with my own eyes.

the 4-4-2 may have fallen out of fashion but it can be deadly effective though, is the point.

and yes that's what the US team used to do, more or less.

i like the possession system better, it's nicer to watch, i think it gives you more options and control-- it's the going back and forth between whole systems, not just formations, that causes confusion and collapse.

so, yeah, it's time to settle on a style and stick to it. commit to possession and live with the consequences, or go back to dinosaur ball-- but we can't be waffling like this and testing forever because the players won't know where to stand on the pitch and they will fuck up. ESPECIALLY waffling during a tournament. we were doing well with possession and attacking football, should have stuck to it and live/die by it.

since we don't have huge technical resources, and practice time for national teams is limited, one can't aspire to be super flexible & adaptable like a professional team can sometimes (e.g. bayern under heynckes could play possession or play counter).

i think klinsmann needs to lock a system and just practice practice practice that at this point. either one will do, just commit to it and do the best you can with it. or to quote some shit i heard in a computer game-- "if you chase 2 rabbits, you will lose them both"

lightning continues in chicago, apparently. im getting tired of waiting.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

right-- you gotta get them when they're 6 or 7 and develop the shit out of them


with our current system however there is no incentive for teams to develop youth. instead there's the goofy draft with ANCIENT college-age players. does not work.

indeed and this follows the American model for professional sports. and indeed part of why "rookies" traditionally have been in their early 20s because like i said, most American professional athletes didn't commit to one sport until late teens. i mean when the best basket ball player on the planet, who btw did start his professional career at 18, was playing another sport when he was 15??

when one of the best American football quarterbacks actually had a pro contract for pro baseball BEFORE he had one for football??


and btw i think that kind of system works fine for American pro sports.

but yeah for better or worse that isn't how world class futbol operates.

but we can't be waffling like this and testing forever because the players won't know where to stand on
i think klinsmann needs to lock a system and just practice practice practice that at this point. either one will do, just commit to it and do the best you can with it. or to quote some shit i heard in a computer game-- "if you chase 2 rabbits, you will lose them both"

lightning continues in chicago, apparently. im getting tired of waiting.

100% AGREED. indeed that is precisely and exactly what i have said is the problem. too much tinkering. too much experiments. not enough focus and continuity. all i want Klinsy Poo do so is pick a system or style of play and run it consistently which is what i expected him to do years ago and in his first two years is what i saw him starting that i liked.. then maybe he got too many ideas for the WC or maybe got too cute knowing generally the Gold Cup is cupcake but NOW its time to stop wanking here

[!@#$%!]

i have no problem with changes and experiments, but to break a scheme that works for something that doesn't in the middle of a tournament is just demoralizing

i can see his intentions behind the catastrophic results and i can see that he's trying to do what he can with whatever he's got but ultimately i'm reading him as a chickenshit who's afraid to go balls-deep and fail big.

sorta like he's failing through overcaution rather than by experiment. just commit to a possession system already.

[The Soup Nazi]

Well this is all very dandy and nifty BUT the important thing is the Lone Star has reached the final after beating Colombia 2-0. Fuck you, "Xamez"!

My podium from last night: Bravo (three consecutive insane blocks within, what, four seconds?), Medel (supreme) and Fuenzalida. The team really took a hit after Hernández left injured, not because he was shining so much but his presence helped Aránguiz, Silva et al own the midfield, which was subsequently lost. The return of Vidal and (hopefully) Díaz will be critical to face Argentina.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

the Lone Star .

eres shileno, ueón?

o de tejas?

[The Soup Nazi]

Undisclosed location.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

Undisclosed location.

 

[!@#$%!]

well klinsmanna again chose a defensive scheme

we gonna get fucked HARD

right? no? yes? no? yes?

dammit...

well at least bobby wood is there who is FAST

4-4-1-1 should work