Play it Again, Sam – USA vs Nigeria (U20 WC: 5/27/19)

An Explanation

I’m sort of stealing here. MGoBlog, a Michigan website, puts out a column called Upon Further Review (or UFR) every week during the football season. The column breaks down, in incredible detail, each play from the previous Saturday’s game (here’s an example). Players are graded with a +/- grading system. The author (Brian Cook) then analyzes and explains what went on during that game.

I attempted to do that here. I watched the game the first time as a fan. Then I watched it again and attempted to come up with a +/- grade for each player.

I’m a fan of people showing their work – so here was my process. I wrote each player’s name out and had a column for -1, -2, +1, and +2. A bad play got a -1, a really bad play -2, good play +1, and really good play +2. Lots of pausing and rewinding was involved. This is what I ended up with:

I’m happy that my first time doing this was for a good game. If I’d tried to grade a depressing loss I’m sure this exercise would have been much less enjoyable. In any event I’m sure it’s not perfect, but I’m going to try to draw some conclusions anyway.

The Grades (highest to lowest)

Name	Final Grade
Pomykal	+16
Richards	+11
Durkin	+11
Soto	+11
Gloster	+10
Mendez	+7
de la Fuente	+6
Scott	+5
Dest	+4
McKenzie *SUB*	+4
Servania *SUB*	+2
Keita	+1
Weah	-2
Rennicks *SUB*	NA

MOTM – Paxton Pomykal

Based on the grades, it’s gotta go to Paxton Pomykal. Mendez was dominant for a large portion of the first half, but dropped off and didn’t contribute nearly as much in the 2nd. Pomykal played well the whole match. He contributed offensively and defensively as well. If you decrypt my chicken scratch hieroglyphics above you’ll see that I gave Paxton 9 different +’s for passes, 7 for some sort of defense, and 2 for keeping possession in a noteworthy way.

A note on Chris Richards though. If Richards hadn’t gotten hurt and been subbed off after an hour he may well have been man of the match. Richards was awesome. He won headers, intercepted the ball, played great individual defense, etc. He needs to be fit for the US’ inevitable upcoming clash with France.

Other Good Performances

Gloster – Chris Gloster has been a revelation to me this tournament. I had sort of pigeon-holed him as a serviceable left back. After these two games I’m ready to kick Tim Ream to the curb and put him in the full national team. His defense in this game was near flawless to my eye. I didn’t give him any kind of negative mark until late in the 2nd half and it was for a loose pass, not bad defense.

Durkin – I think Berhalter is going to love Chris Durkin when he eventually gets called up. If Tyler Adams doesn’t take that 6 spot for eternity then Durkin is eventually going to take it from Trapp/Bradley. He just kept getting positives for keeping possession and playing good passes. He’ll never be the defender Adams is, but he wasn’t bad either.

Soto – Soto gets a bit of a bump since I gave him a +2 for each goal, but he was really good. He tracked back, combined well, pressed energetically, and was one tough SOB. The forward job is his for the rest of this tournament.

Mendez – I think Mendez might be the most talented player on the team. He gets knocked for his defense, but I thought his effort was good there. The defense will come. I think he was just gassed. He was piling up the +’s, especially in the first 20 minutes or so, but then he faded out of the game. I think a day off against Qatar will do him a world of good.

Room for Improvement

Timmy – Timothy Weah had a bit of a rough game by my estimation. He had several loose touches that lost the ball or ruined attacks, and he didn’t seem aware of other players/the ball on other occasions. I’ve been a bit of a Timmy Weah at forward stan, but after these two matches I’m ready to see Soto at forward and Llanez get a shot at left wing.

Keita – This might be a tad harsh. Keita was fine. IMO he should have given up a penalty in the 55th minute. There were a couple other questionable moments in defense, but he was decent. Much better than I had feared coming in to the tournament.

Flaws in the System?

I find myself wondering what I’m missing. One deficiency is that this eval probably focused too much on the ball. I try to keep my eyes all over the field, but I know I’m missing things. There are doubtless many off ball events that were worthy of some note that I didn’t catch.

Another problem is the camera limitations. As many (JoeInCleats especially) like to point out, the camera work during soccer games can be infuriating. One more closeup of a dude running while I’m trying to figure out what’s going on and I may…let’s be honest probably nothing…maybe cuss under my breath so my small children don’t learn bad words? As I was saying, since the viewers can’t see the whole field, evaluating all the players all the time is impossible.

And goalkeepers…they’re not on screen often and even when they are it’s tough for me to evaluate them. Unless a keeper is doing something obviously good or bad there’s not a lot to grade.

Overall Thoughts

Obviously the team played very well. It was fun to watch and lots of players stood out in a positive manner. Several players were clearly tired in the second half and the performance dropped off. Nothing surprising there.

Does this mean anything for going further in the tournament/playing France? I’m not sure how good Nigeria really is/was. They beat Qatar pretty easily and are traditionally a very good African youth side, but they are not France. On the whole though, the US has looked good in both games (even if they lost the 1st one) and looks to have found a starting forward to put the ball in the net at the end of these nice moves. Even if we do end up playing France and lose…as long as we go down swinging I’ll be happy with this group’s World Cup showing.

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