US Men's National Team (8 Viewers)

[NewlyRetired]

Right now it's hard to imagine Pulisic, Musah, McKennie, Adams, Jedi, and Dest not being starters in 4 years, but crazier things have happened. I also believe Gio, Weah and Aaronson are going to find their way into this team in a major way no matter what.!!!

The one player I would be interested to see if we can improve on is Jedi.

I am huge fan of his effort, defensive work and general athleticism but my big concern is the thing he lacks (technical skill) is very unlikely to improve in any significant way.

That being said, even if a miracle lb appears, Jedi is almost certain to be a big part of next cycle.

 

[AAABatteries]

Right now it's hard to imagine Pulisic, Musah, McKennie, Adams, Jedi, and Dest not being starters in 4 years, but crazier things have happened. I also believe Gio, Weah and Aaronson are going to find their way into this team in a major way no matter what.!!!

The one player I would be interested to see if we can improve on is Jedi.

I am huge fan of his effort, defensive work and general athleticism but my big concern is the thing he lacks (technical skill) is very unlikely to improve in any significant way.

That being said, even if a miracle lb appears, Jedi is almost certain to be a big part of next cycle.

We obviously are targeting 2026, and for good reason, but one thing I’m excited about is the idea in 2030 that we could bring on seasoned vets like CP, Jedi, Adams, Weston to help see out games like Wales or to provide solid veteran leadership. Some of those guys may still be fighting for starting roles then but we’ve never started building the depth like we have now, IMO.

 

[NewlyRetired]

Normally I am a big proponent of having to play in real games to improve but Turner is an excellent example that training can still have a big impact. He has been vocal that Arena simply did not believe in keepers training with their feet and when he got to Arsenal he has gotten a TON of time to train with his feet.

 

[encaitar]

Normally I am a big proponent of having to play in real games to improve but Turner is an excellent example that training can still have a big impact. He has been vocal that Arena simply did not believe in keepers training with their feet and when he got to Arsenal he has gotten a TON of time to train with his feet.

The improvement in the short amount of time he's been there is crazy. He's still not, nor will he ever be, an Ederson type or anything close, but he seems so much calmer on the ball and his deep distribution is much better too.

 

[NewlyRetired]

Pulisic, Jedi, Turner, Ream and Adams all have a chance to play every minute of the group stage. That is a bigger group than I predicted before the tournament started if they complete the task against Iran.

 

[NewlyRetired]

Normally I am a big proponent of having to play in real games to improve but Turner is an excellent example that training can still have a big impact. He has been vocal that Arena simply did not believe in keepers training with their feet and when he got to Arsenal he has gotten a TON of time to train with his feet.

The improvement in the short amount of time he's been there is crazy. He's still not, nor will he ever be, an Ederson type or anything close, but he seems so much calmer on the ball and his deep distribution is much better too.

One of my favorite plays he made yesterday was a rare punt but it was one of those long low directional punts that was an inch from springing Pulisic in alone.

I am also pleased he looks always to start a break with a quick throw.

 

[NewlyRetired]

Alejandro Bedoya
@AleBedoya17


First time I played against @tyler_adams14 we got in each others face & talked a lot of smack to one another. My man Tyler has always had that dawg in him. Great seeing him ball out and playing so well in the World Cup! Captain for a reason.

 

[NewlyRetired]

I spent some time reading through the English perspective, both fans and media, this morning.

The fan base was much quicker to recognize the American play in the game. I think it helps that they are already familiar with Ream, Jedi, Pulisic, Adams etc so they can feel a little safer in being complimentary of an EPL player.

The media was another story and I hope poor @El Floppo does not read their takes. They came up with every excuse in the book besides the obvious of the US players were better on the day than the English. "hard to break down bunker" read one article. I am unsure this media member understands the difference between a bunker and the US simply ignoring the English when they were doing the pass back and forth between defenders crap. The US game plan was nothing even close to a bunker and pray we have seen before.

Southgate correctly said the US game plan of laying off the English CB's worked so well because they cut off all the normal ways England use to build out of the back. We have to give the US coaching staff some rare kudos for this I think.

But even worse than some of the media pretending the US did nothing all game but defend were people like Ian Darke (who you would think would be a little more informed about the US) were trying to get people to believe that the entire game plan for England was to play for a draw. Not only did that make almost no sense from a game theory point of view, it was incredibly insulting to the US team.

 

[TLEF316]

Yeah, that's pretty embarrassing if that's what Darke and others are saying. It can't be lack of knowledge, so its just pure ego.

Letting a team pass it back and forth between their CB's for 45 seconds at a time isn't bunkering. Its not even close.

I've been very anti-Greg from the start. (I'm SHOCKED that he pivoted from Long to Reem so late in the game. Didn't think he had it in him) But he got it spot on right yesterday in terms of the initial tactics. Not bringing on Gio until the end is another matter (just based on the relatively tiny consequences of a loss had England burned us late), but the setup was perfect for the opponent and the guys executed it incredibly well.

 

[NewlyRetired]

Yeah, that's pretty embarrassing if that's what Darke and others are saying. It can't be lack of knowledge, so its just pure ego.

Letting a team pass it back and forth between their CB's for 45 seconds at a time isn't bunkering. Its not even close.

I've been very anti-Greg from the start. (I'm SHOCKED that he pivoted from Long to Reem so late in the game. Didn't think he had it in him) But he got it spot on right yesterday in terms of the initial tactics. Not bringing on Gio until the end is another matter (just based on the relatively tiny consequences of a loss had England burned us late), but the setup was perfect for the opponent and the guys executed it incredibly well.

to be fair to GGG he never really settled on on Long. Every one got hurt at the exact same time and was basically left with Long as the only choice late in the cycle during the last set of friendlies. I think we all assumed he was going to stay with Long but he clearly made the better choice.

 

[Ted Lange as your Bartender]

Striker.... Oof. No idea what the plan is here. Hope Pepi finds that form he had for 5 games with the US? Maybe one of the young kids comes up and grabs this in 3 years? No clue. Frustrating to think about. Really, really frustrating to watch Canada and see.... Jonathan David, born in the US. Easily our biggest miss in dual nats in this cycle.

The one I’ll be keeping my eye on for 2026 is Marcos Zambrano-Delgado of the Union academy. He’s 17 currently so timing works for 2026, and the kid is a flat out goalscorer. Hearing there’s a decent chance he signs a homegrown contract with the Union this winter.

 

[DJackson10]

I spent some time reading through the English perspective, both fans and media, this morning.

The fan base was much quicker to recognize the American play in the game. I think it helps that they are already familiar with Ream, Jedi, Pulisic, Adams etc so they can feel a little safer in being complimentary of an EPL player.

The media was another story and I hope poor @El Floppo does not read their takes. They came up with every excuse in the book besides the obvious of the US players were better on the day than the English. "hard to break down bunker" read one article. I am unsure this media member understands the difference between a bunker and the US simply ignoring the English when they were doing the pass back and forth between defenders crap. The US game plan was nothing even close to a bunker and pray we have seen before.

Southgate correctly said the US game plan of laying off the English CB's worked so well because they cut off all the normal ways England use to build out of the back. We have to give the US coaching staff some rare kudos for this I think.

But even worse than some of the media pretending the US did nothing all game but defend were people like Ian Darke (who you would think would be a little more informed about the US) were trying to get people to believe that the entire game plan for England was to play for a draw. Not only did that make almost no sense from a game theory point of view, it was incredibly insulting to the US team.

I just call it Karma for dumbgate calling up McGuire over Tomori. I love seeing England in shambles. Either way the USMNT continues to win in spite of ineptness from GGG. I don't put too much in US win at the gold cup. Mexico was underachieving for awhile.

 

[bagger]

I don’t want to oversimplify things too much but a lot of our final third issues go away with a quality #9. It won’t improve our crosses but right now nobody has to respect Sargent or Haji.

The big worry for me is Jesus is very likely to not be any better and GGG seems ultra reticent to either go with dual strikers like Pulisic/Weah or move Weah to the number 9.

The lack of having any plan for a number 9 may be GGG's biggest failure. It has been a problem since qualifying started with one brief respite when Pepi played well

I agree with this, but also don't know what he could've done? We tried nearly everyone at the 9 and no one did the job we needed them to other than Pepi for like a 3 game stretch before he went dormant again. Maybe he should've gotten the call over Sarge or Haji?

It's frustrating as a US fan, because the number 9 has never been an issue for us in any other cycle. Imagine we had 90% of a healthy Jozy Altidore or Clint Dempsey circa 2014 up there.... we'd have won both of our games with this team around someone like that.

We have exhausted true number 9's (except for probably Vazquez who came on late in cycle) but we definitely have not given enough chances to try Weah at the 9 or even Pulisic as a false 9.

Pepi was a tough one to leave off only because he was on form finally at club level and we did not get to see if that would translate as we have only seen him play internationally while struggling at club level.

This is exactly right. We cannot say we have tried everything when it had been clear for months that we don’t have a true 9 and we need to try something different. Instead GGG keeps rolling out strikers who will never make an impact on a game. This is where he really deserves some criticism.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Pulisic, Jedi, Turner, Ream and Adams all have a chance to play every minute of the group stage. That is a bigger group than I predicted before the tournament started if they complete the task against Iran.

With four days in-between kickoffs I figured we might see our best players play a lot of 90s. Really no reason not to barring injuries (Dest, McKennie) and yellows (Dest, McKennie).

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Will be interesting to see if Berhalter puts Reyna and/or Aaronson on for the 3rd game, knowing Iran is likely to sit back and counter.

Would be funny (to me, I'm weird) if Berhalter gave everyone what they want, putting all four of Pulisic, Weah, Reyna and Aaronson in the starting lineup, and they lost 4-3.

 

[NewlyRetired]

Pulisic, Jedi, Turner, Ream and Adams all have a chance to play every minute of the group stage. That is a bigger group than I predicted before the tournament started if they complete the task against Iran.

With four days in-between kickoffs I figured we might see our best players play a lot of 90s. Really no reason not to barring injuries (Dest, McKennie) and yellows (Dest, McKennie).

the lack of any real travel helps too.

GGG mentioned this the other day when he talked about how they try to use the 3 game WC qualifying windows to mimic the WC but that the WC has turned out to be much easier to have player recovery because they don't have to travel.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

player recovery

Hadn't even thought of that. But yeah -- gaining another six hours or so to eat, sleep, do rubdowns and all that makes the 4 days between games even better.

Liverpool having such a wicket schedule over the last few years, I've heard Klopp talking about what it means to the team to have those extra hours. Seems like 60 is almost impossible, 72 is a preferred minimum, and then 84+ doesn't seem to really impact planning -- the expectation is that players can play indefinitely with 3.5+ days in-between games. You can predict pretty well which players are going to get a rest, and when, if you look at the hours in-between games across a window.

 

[NewlyRetired]

This is an excellent visual explanation of the US tactics when England was trying to build out of the back.

https://twitter.com/CarlonCarpenter/status/1596429825597661185?s=20&t=_h_tkYN6vZApgL1lTSMTZw

 

[prefontaine]

Zimm - I thought Zimm made some strong challenges in the game, both in the air and on the ground and had the key block on Kane for what was England's best scoring chance which came early. His passing, specifically his ground passing, was simply not good enough today. I don't know the exact stats but it felt like he under hit a bunch that ended up causing turn overs

I disagree on this. Think Zimm did a great job of not trying to pass. He's bad at it and so just played it off to Ream over and over. All I can ask of our players is to play to their strengths and I thought he did. He only made one bonehead pass (to Adams) but all things considered, very happy how he played within himself.

My watch party was very loud so I don't know if there was something I missed but I did not agree with the Dest substitution at all. He looked very fresh and was working hard.

It was perplexing to say the least to bring on Moore. Putting Moore, a guy that has barely any international experience and no top flight experience, into a nil-nil game late was frightful. Obviously I don't know Moore's mentality, but that just seems a really questionable move even if it worked out (or didn't hurt us).

oh and while my watch party was not loaded with knowledeable fans, there were enough of us very thankful Southgate left Fodan on the bench.

he's England's Gio. Foden would have shredded the US, IMO.

So Heath Pearce said their is some behind the scenes drama here and Gio and Berhalter got into it. We may not see him again. Sigh.

By the 4th ******** corner kick that went right to McGuire's ugly dome, I would have thought GGG would have demanded Pulisic try something different. Maybe a short corner, change the angle of delivery, anything but the exact same thing over and over again.

We finally did something different with no time left and played it short to Gio as the clock ran out. That was more dumb than the constant wasted corners. That said, Pulisic's corners were much better vs England (they were hot garbage vs Wales) but we just didn't ever win any

 

[Sammy3469]

Zimm - I thought Zimm made some strong challenges in the game, both in the air and on the ground and had the key block on Kane for what was England's best scoring chance which came early. His passing, specifically his ground passing, was simply not good enough today. I don't know the exact stats but it felt like he under hit a bunch that ended up causing turn overs

I disagree on this. Think Zimm did a great job of not trying to pass. He's bad at it and so just played it off to Ream over and over. All I can ask of our players is to play to their strengths and I thought he did. He only made one bonehead pass (to Adams) but all things considered, very happy how he played within himself.

My watch party was very loud so I don't know if there was something I missed but I did not agree with the Dest substitution at all. He looked very fresh and was working hard.

It was perplexing to say the least to bring on Moore. Putting Moore, a guy that has barely any international experience and no top flight experience, into a nil-nil game late was frightful. Obviously I don't know Moore's mentality, but that just seems a really questionable move even if it worked out (or didn't hurt us).

oh and while my watch party was not loaded with knowledeable fans, there were enough of us very thankful Southgate left Fodan on the bench.

he's England's Gio. Foden would have shredded the US, IMO.

So Heath Pearce said their is some behind the scenes drama here and Gio and Berhalter got into it. We may not see him again. Sigh.

By the 4th ******** corner kick that went right to McGuire's ugly dome, I would have thought GGG would have demanded Pulisic try something different. Maybe a short corner, change the angle of delivery, anything but the exact same thing over and over again.

We finally did something different with no time left and played it short to Gio as the clock ran out. That was more dumb than the constant wasted corners. That said, Pulisic's corners were much better vs England (they were hot garbage vs Wales) but we just didn't ever win any

Wynalda is saying GGG asked Gio to lie and say he didn’t play in the first game was because of injury, he didn’t which just further the rift. Apperantly Claudio and for that matter members of the team are pissed. I can’t say that I’m surprised.

 

[prefontaine]

Zimm - I thought Zimm made some strong challenges in the game, both in the air and on the ground and had the key block on Kane for what was England's best scoring chance which came early. His passing, specifically his ground passing, was simply not good enough today. I don't know the exact stats but it felt like he under hit a bunch that ended up causing turn overs

I disagree on this. Think Zimm did a great job of not trying to pass. He's bad at it and so just played it off to Ream over and over. All I can ask of our players is to play to their strengths and I thought he did. He only made one bonehead pass (to Adams) but all things considered, very happy how he played within himself.

My watch party was very loud so I don't know if there was something I missed but I did not agree with the Dest substitution at all. He looked very fresh and was working hard.

It was perplexing to say the least to bring on Moore. Putting Moore, a guy that has barely any international experience and no top flight experience, into a nil-nil game late was frightful. Obviously I don't know Moore's mentality, but that just seems a really questionable move even if it worked out (or didn't hurt us).

oh and while my watch party was not loaded with knowledeable fans, there were enough of us very thankful Southgate left Fodan on the bench.

he's England's Gio. Foden would have shredded the US, IMO.

So Heath Pearce said their is some behind the scenes drama here and Gio and Berhalter got into it. We may not see him again. Sigh.

By the 4th ******** corner kick that went right to McGuire's ugly dome, I would have thought GGG would have demanded Pulisic try something different. Maybe a short corner, change the angle of delivery, anything but the exact same thing over and over again.

We finally did something different with no time left and played it short to Gio as the clock ran out. That was more dumb than the constant wasted corners. That said, Pulisic's corners were much better vs England (they were hot garbage vs Wales) but we just didn't ever win any

Wynalda is saying GGG asked Gio to lie and say he didn’t play in the first game was because of injury, he didn’t which just further the rift. Apperantly Claudio and for that matter members of the team are pissed. I can’t say that I’m surprised.

It's hard to know what is what. I know Gio has a reputation for being a little abrasive or outspoken. So I can definitely see him not handle it well, but Berhalter should know that.

But the way Pearce put it was that there were words after the England game because Gio was frustrated over gametime for a side that isn't scoring.

 

[TLEF316]

From the outside, it seems pretty clear that Gio is PROBABLY a salty immature kid. So this shouldn't shock anyone.

But man....bad spot for Greg if he wants to keep his job after the tournament ends. Can't afford to alienate the most talented player in the pool.

 

[The Gator]

This is an excellent visual explanation of the US tactics when England was trying to build out of the back.

https://twitter.com/CarlonCarpenter/status/1596429825597661185?s=20&t=_h_tkYN6vZApgL1lTSMTZw

This is great, thanks. I didn't notice us doing so well until Kane started coming deep to get the ball. Definitely tactically sound from the squad and manager

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Straight up, I don't believe the Reyna story and 100% put it down to an immature kid who seems like he could start a fight in an empty room.

 

[NewlyRetired]

I am not worried about the Gio and GGG drama.

GGG has at most two games left as the coach and if he was going to have issues with Gio he would not have played him against England.

GGG and Claudio are really good friends from what I understand so hopefully what ever drama there was did not effect that.

One thing is clear to me is if Gio becomes the player we all hope for, he is going to make CR7 seem like child's play for a coach to deal with compared to what it is going to be to handle him.

 

[NewlyRetired]

holy hell. Klinsmann really stepped in it.... I am still reading up on this but this could get bad for him in today's world.
...

Carlos Queiroz's long response to him.....oh dear...

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Klinsmann talking about someone else diving is... hooboy.

 

[chet]

holy hell. Klinsmann really stepped in it.... I am still reading up on this but this could get bad for him in today's world.
...

Carlos Queiroz's long response to him.....oh dear...

I haven't watched either Iran game but it seems to me that every team tries to get in the ear of the ref. It's really something I find distracting as you never know which team has a valid beef.

 

[NewlyRetired]

JK was never the best public speaker and I think his German frankness can be off putting but I never got a sense the guy was in any way racist. But in todays cancel culture I don't think is going to end well.

Queiroz has already, very politely, asked him to resign from the FIFA committee he is on.

 

[prefontaine]

GGG and Claudio are really good friends from what I understand so hopefully what ever drama there was did not effect that.

Wynalda stated his info is coming from talking to Claudio. I imagine same is true for Conrad (I mistakenly said Pearce). But I know Conrad and Berhalter are also very tight so he may be hearing both sides.

Honestly most nations deal with this at every tournament. Guy not playing is unhappy. News at 11. I'm sure the polarization of Berhalterball does not help but win and advance and this is all forgotten. Draw/lose and, especially if we don't score, this is the takeaway narrative for the US.

 

[massraider]

McKennie linked to Tottenham and Aston Villa for January move

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

You're gonna root for Tim Ream.

 

[El Floppo]

I spent some time reading through the English perspective, both fans and media, this morning.

The fan base was much quicker to recognize the American play in the game. I think it helps that they are already familiar with Ream, Jedi, Pulisic, Adams etc so they can feel a little safer in being complimentary of an EPL player.

The media was another story and I hope poor @El Floppo does not read their takes. They came up with every excuse in the book besides the obvious of the US players were better on the day than the English. "hard to break down bunker" read one article. I am unsure this media member understands the difference between a bunker and the US simply ignoring the English when they were doing the pass back and forth between defenders crap. The US game plan was nothing even close to a bunker and pray we have seen before.

Southgate correctly said the US game plan of laying off the English CB's worked so well because they cut off all the normal ways England use to build out of the back. We have to give the US coaching staff some rare kudos for this I think.

But even worse than some of the media pretending the US did nothing all game but defend were people like Ian Darke (who you would think would be a little more informed about the US) were trying to get people to believe that the entire game plan for England was to play for a draw. Not only did that make almost no sense from a game theory point of view, it was incredibly insulting to the US team.

Funny...I read BBCs coverage afterwards - yeah, not the central sporting content for the the UK, but still a primary news source. All the articles- commentary or news- said the US deserved more from the game than England, although the draw was fair. They lavished praise on CP as motm and repeatedly mentioned the game turning on Swags main miss.

 

[encaitar]

LOL

 

[NewlyRetired]

LOL

Even the low knowledge fans at my watch party were saying outloud "what is he doing?"

that could have been an all time "ooof"

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

the US deserved more from the game than England, although the draw was fair.

This seems exactly right. Draw is fair, but if you had to pick a winner it would have been the US.

 

[El Floppo]

I disagree on this. Think Zimm did a great job of not trying to pass. He's bad at it and so just played it off to Ream over and over. All I can ask of our players is to play to their strengths and I thought he did. He only made one bonehead pass (to Adams) but all things considered, very happy how he played within himself

Did you watch the string of really scary bad passes they highlighted after the game? It wasnt one bad pass...it was 8-10 of them.

 

[The Z Machine]

Eh, i think GGG knows he's likely done barring a quarterfinal run here.

 

[prefontaine]

I disagree on this. Think Zimm did a great job of not trying to pass. He's bad at it and so just played it off to Ream over and over. All I can ask of our players is to play to their strengths and I thought he did. He only made one bonehead pass (to Adams) but all things considered, very happy how he played within himself

Did you watch the string of really scary bad passes they highlighted after the game? It wasnt one bad pass...it was 8-10 of them.

I did not. I have watched games but haven't seen any commentary before/after. I'm sure I'm wrong but I really don't remember anything egregious other than him setting Adams up.

 

[prefontaine]

They lavished praise on CP as motm and repeatedly mentioned the game turning on Swags main miss.

Pulisic had his best game in a while but I wouldn't rate him in the top 3 US players (Adams, McKennie, Ream) for that game

 

[NewlyRetired]

I disagree on this. Think Zimm did a great job of not trying to pass. He's bad at it and so just played it off to Ream over and over. All I can ask of our players is to play to their strengths and I thought he did. He only made one bonehead pass (to Adams) but all things considered, very happy how he played within himself

Did you watch the string of really scary bad passes they highlighted after the game? It wasnt one bad pass...it was 8-10 of them.

I did not. I have watched games but haven't seen any commentary before/after. I'm sure I'm wrong but I really don't remember anything egregious other than him setting Adams up.

There were a lot of them. mostly him trying to break a line on the ground.

 

[gianmarco]

Great article on GGG so far

Interesting talk about what Haji did out there as well.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Daniel Sturridge@DanielSturridge
The American midfield is really good. Them 3 brothers are good technically and cover some ground. I think Musah has some big potential. Really impressed with him. #Worlds2022 #ENGUSA

 

[prefontaine]

I disagree on this. Think Zimm did a great job of not trying to pass. He's bad at it and so just played it off to Ream over and over. All I can ask of our players is to play to their strengths and I thought he did. He only made one bonehead pass (to Adams) but all things considered, very happy how he played within himself

Did you watch the string of really scary bad passes they highlighted after the game? It wasnt one bad pass...it was 8-10 of them.

I did not. I have watched games but haven't seen any commentary before/after. I'm sure I'm wrong but I really don't remember anything egregious other than him setting Adams up.

There were a lot of them. mostly him trying to break a line on the ground.

Maybe so. But I'm not sure a highlight clip is really fair. He was 63/72 passing on the game and he was 3 for 9 on long balls. That suggests 3 other errant passes all game. Seems a bit of a stretch to say he was horrid passing the ball.

 

[prefontaine]

I disagree on this. Think Zimm did a great job of not trying to pass. He's bad at it and so just played it off to Ream over and over. All I can ask of our players is to play to their strengths and I thought he did. He only made one bonehead pass (to Adams) but all things considered, very happy how he played within himself

Did you watch the string of really scary bad passes they highlighted after the game? It wasnt one bad pass...it was 8-10 of them.

I did not. I have watched games but haven't seen any commentary before/after. I'm sure I'm wrong but I really don't remember anything egregious other than him setting Adams up.

There were a lot of them. mostly him trying to break a line on the ground.

Actually looked it up on opta as it's an interesting question and you are bang on. He has a ton of sideways and backwards passes to Dest/Ream and he was 100% on them. Every uncusccessful pass (there are 9 all game) was a progressive pass.

All but one went from our half into their half (one is from our half and stayed in our half and I'm fairly certain it was the aforementioned medicine ball to Adams). This doesn't seem so bad but conversely he only completed 5 passes from our half into theirs all game meaning he was 5 for 13 on them for the game. He's not a good passer and he needs to learn to always play short simple balls. But the vast majority of his attempts were in fact exactly that.

 

[NewlyRetired]

I disagree on this. Think Zimm did a great job of not trying to pass. He's bad at it and so just played it off to Ream over and over. All I can ask of our players is to play to their strengths and I thought he did. He only made one bonehead pass (to Adams) but all things considered, very happy how he played within himself

Did you watch the string of really scary bad passes they highlighted after the game? It wasnt one bad pass...it was 8-10 of them.

I did not. I have watched games but haven't seen any commentary before/after. I'm sure I'm wrong but I really don't remember anything egregious other than him setting Adams up.

There were a lot of them. mostly him trying to break a line on the ground.

Actually looked it up on opta as it's an interesting question and you are bang on. He has a ton of sideways and backwards passes to Dest/Ream and he was 100% on them. Every uncusccessful pass (there are 9 all game) was a progressive pass.

All but one went from our half into their half (one is from our half and stayed in our half and I'm fairly certain it was the aforementioned medicine ball to Adams). This doesn't seem so bad but conversely he only completed 5 passes from our half into theirs all game meaning he was 5 for 13 on them for the game. He's not a good passer and he needs to learn to always play short simple balls. But the vast majority of his attempts were in fact exactly that.

I will go one step further. He is actually half way decent when he plays a ball over the top. It is his ground progressive passing that is his weakest skill (which is why Ream turned out to be the perfect partner for him since that is conversely Ream's biggest strength).

 

[NewlyRetired]

I have this nagging feeling that everyone, including the team's coaching staff, is preparing Iran to bunker all game and that we are going to get caught with our pants down early in the game when they play it straight.

 

[RCon]

LOL

Even the low knowledge fans at my watch party were saying outloud "what is he doing?"

that could have been an all time "ooof"

I am not a knowledgeable fan. I screamed "What are you doing?" at a TV in an empty room. My girlfriend, who played varsity soccer in high school, yelled back from the kitchen, "Who are you talking to?"

 

[El Floppo]

I disagree on this. Think Zimm did a great job of not trying to pass. He's bad at it and so just played it off to Ream over and over. All I can ask of our players is to play to their strengths and I thought he did. He only made one bonehead pass (to Adams) but all things considered, very happy how he played within himself

Did you watch the string of really scary bad passes they highlighted after the game? It wasnt one bad pass...it was 8-10 of them.

I did not. I have watched games but haven't seen any commentary before/after. I'm sure I'm wrong but I really don't remember anything egregious other than him setting Adams up.

There were a lot of them. mostly him trying to break a line on the ground.

Actually looked it up on opta as it's an interesting question and you are bang on. He has a ton of sideways and backwards passes to Dest/Ream and he was 100% on them. Every uncusccessful pass (there are 9 all game) was a progressive pass.

All but one went from our half into their half (one is from our half and stayed in our half and I'm fairly certain it was the aforementioned medicine ball to Adams). This doesn't seem so bad but conversely he only completed 5 passes from our half into theirs all game meaning he was 5 for 13 on them for the game. He's not a good passer and he needs to learn to always play short simple balls. But the vast majority of his attempts were in fact exactly that.

I will go one step further. He is actually half way decent when he plays a ball over the top. It is his ground progressive passing that is his weakest skill (which is why Ream turned out to be the perfect partner for him since that is conversely Ream's biggest strength).

Yeah...I went into this WC knowing with certainty that outside of Ream, Zimm was the USs best ball playing CB.

Pre- i felt the same as you while watching and normally, like you, never watch pre/post game. But I kept the tv on...and saw that string- and 9 sounds right- of really bad giveaways. I was surprised by it as I hadn't noticed in real time that it was always him making them. But make them he did, despite what we think of his abilities.

And despite that litany of scary giveaways Friday, I still feel that he's second behind Ream at distribution. But England noticed he was second best and not on his game...started pressing him- not Ream- very early in the game.

 

[El Floppo]

I have this nagging feeling that everyone, including the team's coaching staff, is preparing Iran to bunker all game and that we are going to get caught with our pants down early in the game when they play it straight.

Not sure...although if I was coach, I'd trust my MF and D not to get stretched playing at least a little higher.

But I'd also know that I just need a tie, and the US has shown they have problems scoring, especially against a low block.

I wonder if GGG cedes possession and field to try to draw them out and hit on a counter...I could see him doing something like that.