Are we spoiled now? It was a 1-0 win against a decent opponent. Canada created basically zero dangerous attacks during the match and ended up with an xG of .65 (ours was 0.92 btw). On top of all that, this is the USMNT B/C team playing with house money after beating Mexico in the Nations League.
And yet…it was a frustrating match to watch. Canada isn’t a world power, but we couldn’t hold the ball or create much of anything in attack. In the end though, it’s a W and the knock out rounds are on tap. Let’s see how this whole thing plays out before we form any lasting opinions.
Grading Beverage: Blade and Bow Bourbon – pretty good, not sure it’s worth $50, but it’s got the whole Stitzel-Weller (famous, old distillery) thing going for it and it comes with a cool key (made it to the liquor store here in Rochester🙂)
If you haven’t read one of these USMNT (+/-) Player Grades articles before click here for an explanation of the system.
Grades
MOTM – Miles Robinson (+10.5)
This is the type of game that I’d expect Robinson to shine in and shine he did. I think my favorite moment was in the 51st minute. A ball pops loose to Tajon Buchanan and he just flies by James Sands before setting his sights on Miles Robinson. Robinson was having none of it.
I’m sure that Robinson wasn’t perfect, but I didn’t mark him down for a single “notable” negative event in this match. If you look at the breakdown of his events by game phase you’ll see that 9.5 out of his 10.5 total points came “Out of Possession” or in “Transition Defense.” In a game where the USMNT was doing a lot of defending he was exactly what we needed. You would love to see a little more from him in possession, but sometimes you just have to appreciate a defender that is really good at defending, ya know?
Other Positive Performances
James Sands (+10)
I wrote a scouting report on James Sands a little less than a year ago and I was impressed with him back then. In fact, I wrote this:
Sands on the other hand is specifically flexible, which I think is different and better for him. In the three MLS is Back tournament games Sands started at center back once, at d-mid once, and switched from center back to d-mid in the middle of the other one. The way that Sands can seamlessly switch back and forth between the two is a nice feature for a coach. If you want to adjust to three at the back in the middle of the half you don’t need to make any substitutions to accommodate that.
~ ME
That still holds true and looks like something that could prove to be a useful tool in Berhalter’s toolbox going forward. Anyhow, in this match Sands did a little bit of everything. If you look at the phase breakdown you’ll see that he put up positive scores in all four phases. He is very aware and processes what’s going on on the field exceptionally quickly. I don’t think that’s a common trait among at least American players and maybe players in general.
None of what’s happening in the above clip is crazy. Sands takes a somewhat hectic situation and calms it down before starting the attack. The game feels more under control when he’s involved. There’s still several (hopefully) games worth of data to collect, but having Sands in a full strength 23 as a CB/#6 flex piece would be wise imo.
Room to Improve
Daryl Dike (-1)
After his strong game against Martinique the hope was that he’d be too much for Canada to handle as well. He wasn’t. Also, he didn’t get much of a chance to show that he was/wasn’t. The two striker system the USMNT played provided very little service for the two forwards (Zardes was +4, but it’s not like he was amazing either). Dike’s touch wasn’t great, he didn’t get into good positions, and on the rare occasion he got a half chance, he didn’t make anything of it. Honestly, he sort of looked like a hulked up version of Gyasi Zardes out there.
One of the things that has bothered be for a little while now is how poorly the US counterattacks. We were great at it back in the day under Bob Bradley, but the current team almost never looks threatening when the opportunity arises. For a team that possesses talents like Christian Pulisic and Gio Reyna you’d think that you’d stumble into a good counter at least here and there.
Donovan Pines (-0.5)
Pines wasn’t as bad on second viewing as I thought. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t good, but he wasn’t the total disaster I was expecting. He had one -3 turnover and the a second one that I gave him a -3 for the turnover but then a +2 for the recovery so it sort of balanced out.
Those two moments stick in the brain, but he was decent for most of the remainder of the match. I’m still gonna be real nervous if he gets on the field again though.
Kellyn Acosta (0.5)
I’m not sure this is a player issue. The USMNT midfield was nonexistent in this game and I think the 5-3-2/3-5-2 setup is to blame. I haven’t quite figured out why though. I’ve mentioned this before, but team wide tactics take a lot of work for me to pick up on and I watch these games focusing on player performance, not tactics. I’m hoping listening to Scuffed/TSS will help me out here.
Acosta had five events in 74 minutes. That is very low for a midfielder in games that I’ve graded. That’d be low for a striker. In fact, the entire starting midfield (Acosta/Busio/Lletget) had 23 events total. I’ve graded games where a single midfielder had that many. This isn’t to say that Acosta played especially well – three of the five events that I recorded were negative, but it feels like he wasn’t exactly set up for success.
To the Knockouts
At the end of a tournament I think you can fairly look back over the matches and form intelligent opinions. Single games are influenced by freak goals, injuries, etc. The USMNT has had three group games to figure out how they need to play and who the players are that should be playing. I think we’ve started to figure that out and I hope that we see some sort of coalescing happen in the next game or two. A 3-4-3 with Sands in the middle of the back three and Hoppe/Arriola on the outside of the front three looks like the way forward to me. There’s more to be learned, but I think those things have been. We shall see if Mr. Berhalter agrees soon enough.
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I’m not sure if this applies in the Gold Cup/Concacaf, but I just read an article about England/Euros arguing that the group stage games are basically meaningless for the upper tier teams, and that managers should spend their time setting up their team for success in the later stages at the expense of less pleasing games in the group stages.
I don’t think that’s what GGG is doing, but maybe he’s playing some 4d chess and we will indeed coalesce going forward.
Also, medium-time listener, first time caller – thanks for these match reports, they are awesome!
Lol. Thanks for reading and I think I agree with everything you said.
The play of Robinson, Sands and Vines (who always seemed to be in the right place inside the box to prevent dangerous chances) was all the more remarkable given the midfield’s inability to sustain any possession or to slow Buchanan down or even stay in contact with him.
Scuffed’s explanation of the midfield problems was really good. You change from normally using a Dual 10 and a striker that comes back to help out, into using a single 10 and 2 strikers that don’t really come back and help out. So its no surprise we didn’t have a foothold in the midfield.
Sands though. I really hope he can be answer to backing up Tyler Adams.