Tyler Boyd is a name that has gained some traction in USMNT circles lately. He’s scored several goals for Ankaragucu (I can’t believe I know how to spell that now) and even did an interview with Brian Sciaretta a couple months back.
But let’s be honest here. Have you ever seen him play? I know I haven’t. He falls into that mythical creature category of US-eligible players with Jordan Siebatcheu, Brendan Hines-Ike, and a couple others. He exists. The Twitter-verse has strong opinions on him. But I would venture to say that very few people have seen him play.
To be completely honest (before this) I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a Turkish Super Lig game. I know a little bit about the league, I mean, I’ve played FIFA. Fenerbahce, Galatasaray and Besiktas are the good teams and everyone else has an unpronounceable name. There’s usually a couple guys on one of those teams where your like…Robinho plays there? I thought he was dead. And hey! He’s still pretty good.
Anyway, that’s probably way too long a preamble, but I was able to do some deep Google work and track down an entire game that Tyler Boyd played against Fenerbahce. I thought it would be a good game to watch because I know he scores and Fenerbahce is one of the big boys of Turkish soccer (although they are 14th out of 18 teams rn. What’s up with that?)
As usual, as much as possible, I focused only on Boyd. He was #30 playing left wing/midfield. The strengths and weaknesses noted below are based on this one game. I’m aware that’s not ideal, but I have this annoying job thing that prevents me from watching soccer full time.
UNRELATED NOTE: The Turkish Super Lig felt very CONCACAF-y. There were two red cards, the refs were blowing calls, and the crowd was awesome. Good times.
Team Context
Ankaragucu is 13th out of 18 teams in the Super Lig and was thoroughly outclassed in this game. They were set up in a 4-4-2 block on defense and Boyd was the left midfielder of that midfield 4 in defense.
On offense (there wasn’t a lot of it for Ankaragucu), Boyd would get up the field quickly and played as a pinched in winger. He definitely didn’t get much chalk on his cleats, so to speak. Whether that’s his natural inclination or coaches instruction I couldn’t say from this one game.
Positives
Speed
Boyd is fast and active. He doesn’t do a lot of standing around and he makes decisive runs. Once the ball turned over in this game…he took off.
This is Boyd’s goal. He recognizes very quickly that his teammate has won the ball in midfield and goes. One of my main complaints with Arriola/Baird as the US’ wingers is their lack of pace. Boyd flies down the field and the defenders have no shot at catching him. The US has been a slow team for a while now. Speed is important.
When was the last time the USMNT had a player that could threaten to take the top off a defense (to steal an American football phrase)? Donovan? Charlie Davies? It’s been a while and I think Boyd might provide that threat.
Two-footed
If you paid attention to the goal highlight you’ll note that Boyd scored with his left foot. He’s actually right footed and good enough with it that he took several of his team’s set pieces. See below.
The USMNT could use a good set piece taker. IIRC Pulisic did that job in March and it wasn’t great. Early in the game he played a couple passes with his left foot and was stationed on the left wing so I checked Transfermarkt to see which was his dominant foot. In my world, if I have to check to see which foot is your better one…that’s a good sign.
Feisty
My favorite thing about Arriola is his attitude. Dude just fights for it. There used to be a hockey player named Pat Verbeek who’s nickname was “the Little Ball of Hate” (great nickname) and Arriola is made of a similar material.
Boyd has some of that in his game. He didn’t win every ball, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of effort or half-hearted challenges.
Though feisty, it also appears Boyd’s not an idiot. There was some unpleasantness and two red cards toward the end of this game. Boyd pulled the old veteran maneuver of standing around the edges handling one of the calmer combatants. 😂
Defense
Tbh, I’m not completely sure if this is a positive, but I don’t think it’s a negative. That being the case I’ll just put my notes on his defense here in the “Positives” section of things.
Here’s a few notable clips of Boyd playing defense:
Room to Improve
Passing (maybe decision making?)
As I said earlier, Ankaragucu didn’t have much of the ball, but there were two times where Boyd had the ball in threatening positions and the pass he chose in both situations didn’t create anything.
This is a quick break after a corner. Boyd does well to take the ball down, but then shoots/crosses (?) when it looks like dropping it back to a teammate was the better option.
This is towards the end of the game and Ankaragucu has a chance to get out on the break. At the very least, Boyd could have played the ball backwards and kept possession, but he plays this aimless looking ball forward and Fenerbahce is back on the offensive again.
Conclusions
So is Tyler Boyd the answer to our prayers at winger? Probably not. Does he deserve a call up to see if he’s better than our current options (whispers – he’s better than everyone in the last camp other than maybe Arriola)? Absolutely. These are the type of players that seem to get the short end of the stick from US Soccer.
The middling Euro leagues are still better than MLS, but the federation/coaches seem to think otherwise. Players like Tyler Boyd should be getting called in to get a shot over people like Baird or Jonathan Lewis who isn’t even starting for his MLS team.
Berhalter has only had one full international camp, so let’s not get too upset yet, but if Boyd and players like him don’t start getting call ups…it may be time to be concerned.
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