The Soccer Thread (Version 13) — Winter World Cup Edition

Hup Holland.

 

Well, crap

 

Alexi's going to be morose.

 

That was just a bunch of lazy garbage. Especially with the time.

And the US is just terrible on offense around the box. Can make runs but terrible touches and crosses is why they can't score.

 

U.S. looks like the talented but inexperienced team it is. Having a ton of trouble breaking down Van Gaal's formation. The flashes of brilliance are there, but too often they're coming while surrounded by Orange. The Americans wear themselves out, and then the Dutch put together a few good passes and it's like fish in a barrel.

 

Hope you're wrong, but fear you're right.

 

We’re never going to truly be anything in men’s soccer drawing from the Chads and Noahs whose parents can afford the travel ball fees and get the creativity drilled out of them before puberty.

 

That's a very accurate take, I think. I'm not going to dismiss the fact that they took it to the Dutch at the start. They are just missing the nuance, the final, beautiful element.

And yet, I'm resigned to the fact that we're going to spend the next four years hearing about what's wrong with U.S. soccer.

 

A team, any team, with the lack of finish of the US is going to have a very very close to impossible task coming from behind against a World Cup knockout round foe. All too often you see US players with thought balloons above their heads when they have the ball in the final third. As for "what's wrong with the US?" that's a false issue. The real question is "what can be done to make this quite decent team better?" The answer, alas, is putting a top striker out there. Those are born, not made though organizational changes.

 

If Pulisic buried that early chance -- I don't think he could have done much more with it, though -- then the U.S. could have settled in to the way it played to success in the group (not allowing a goal from open play). This team is completely unprepared for and, from what we saw even in CONCACAF, unable to take it to a UEFA team in the knockout round of a World Cup. Reyna is at least a slight wild card since we've seen so little of him. Turn him loose and hope for the best.

 

NOW we see Gio Reyna. Heh.

 

Teams play much differently in the group stage, when a draw is by no means fatal, but a loss can be. Having won against Iran with a four-goal difference, England was quite content to play half-asleep against the US.