USMNT in Slow Motion

I didn’t grow up playing or watching soccer. Frankly, I didn’t even care for the game until my early 20s. In the past 15 years or so it has become something of an obsession though. I’ve tried to educate myself over the years and with the whole shelter in place thing going on I thought I’d try something.

What could I pick up on if I watched an entire game in slow motion? In my infinite wisdom, I chose to watch the US’ friendly loss to Mexico in September of 2019. Why?

It wasn’t the most enjoyable game to watch in detail given the result, a 3-0 win for El Tri. However, Berhalter more or less used this match as a playing out of the back training session. That being the case, I thought it might be an educational match to watch carefully.

This game is available on YouTube, and as such, can be watched at .25X, .5X, or .75X. I watched this whole match at .25 speed. It took a little while.

Starting Lineups

Lessons Learned?

The Build Out Formation

When the US was starting from the keeper in possession they set up like this:

The two central midfielders moved around quite a bit to get open, but this was basically it. I don’t know if that’s a standard “play it out of the back” setup or anything, but that’s the shape the US consistently got into when the ball started with Steffen.

Patterns Out of this Setup

This isn’t really a pattern, but one consistent pass to get out of pressure was the chipped (more of a pitch shot really for the golfers out there) ball from the keeper to the fullbacks. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Here’s an example of it not working.

The problem with this pass is the skill it requires from both the keeper and the fullback receiving the ball. If Alisson is playing this ball to Trent Alexander-Arnold then it’s a pretty quick, smooth process. Even with the US’ first choice eleven it’s not going to be that silky…and how often do we have our best starters all available?

A second pattern was Cannon dropping and McKennie running into the space if Mexico’s left sided defender followed Cannon forward. It looked something like this:

General Patterns of Attack

The US liked trying to attack the halfspaces. “Halfspaces” has been a bit of a buzzword for a while now (Shots fired at myself? Maybe I should start a blog called “Rest Attack?”😂), but it basically means the lanes between the center backs and the fullbacks. The USMNT generally has someone (usually the forward) occupying the two center backs and then two players trying to stretch the opposing fullbacks wide. That creates room for attackers to run into the halfspaces. Something like this:

Which brings us to the whole “disorganize the opponent with the ball” thing. The players filling those spaces change. Sometimes Boyd (right wing) is occupying the opposing left back while McKennie makes a run into that space. Sometimes Cannon or McKennie is occupying the left back, etc.

The players for the US should know/be able to anticipate that there are players in certain spaces or on the way to those spaces based on their own movement, but the opponent should theoretically be confused since the players ending up in those spots are frequently changing.

Mexico’s Defensive Plan was Better

Brilliant analysis, I know. But the way Mexico pressed and took away space from the US created turnovers and chances for their attack. The US’ defensive setup actually wasn’t that bad at preventing Mexican chances. They only created a couple in possession (several more were directly off turnovers), but it didn’t create any offense for the US. The USMNT created almost nothing in the way of turnovers that generated offense. Constantly playing against a set defense is a tough ask, especially when the other team is better than you to begin with.

Here’s the US and Mexico with the ball in similar spots:

We didn’t have enough “press resistant” players

I’m not very good at soccer, but the last team I was on there was this dude named Joe that was really good. If anyone got in trouble with the ball you could give it to him and he’d figure something out. The US doesn’t have very many “Joes.”

We need players that can receive a pass with a man on them and then do something with it. There were a couple examples in this game that stood out because of their rarity.

The Center Back Issue

The greatest area of concern for me is the center backs. Specifically, how the center backs effect trying to play out of the back. The USMNT has a whole bunch of perfectly decent options in central defense, but they have exactly two players that are good with the ball. John Brooks and Tim Ream. Problem is they are both left footed and the least mobile of the center back options…so they can’t play together. Brooks is rarely healthy and there aren’t a lot of (any?) ball playing center backs close to breaking through. Maybe Otasowie?

Signs for Optimism?

There are promising signs…I think. There are players open, lanes to play through, and chances almost created…but something inevitably screws it up. Sometimes it’s a bad touch:

There are other occasions where everything is going according to plan and then a player misses an obvious pass:

The real question is can these players be taught to recognize the passes and do they have the ability to hit the passes if/when they see them? I don’t have the answer to that question. Berhalter’s opinion is the one that matters.

In this game “The System” should have created two or three clean looks on goal. None of those looks actually developed.

I believe that with the full player pool to pick from the US has the players to effectively play this system assuming Berhalter is a good enough teacher to teach it in the short periods he gets with the players.

However, when was the last time we had our first choice eleven on the field? The 2014 World Cup opener for 20 minutes against Ghana? I don’t think the current depth options have the ability to play this style effectively. That makes me nervous. The success of the USMNT going forward depends on the young prospects we have coming through being good. If a high percentage of Reyna, Llanez, Pomykal, Aaronson, Ledezma, Sargent, McKenzie, Otasowie, Richards, Cappis, etc. come good then we are in good shape. If only two or three of those prospects progress into their first teams then the USMNT is in trouble.

The drop off from the starters to the backups is too great at the moment. For this experiment to work we need to be two or three deep at most positions. Otherwise, Berhalter is going to need a Plan B for when his top options aren’t available. Maybe a scaled down version of Plan A? Or a defend and counter strategy for facing teams like Mexico without your A+ team?

Who knows? Remember, I’m just some idiot with YouTube and a laptop. 😂 Hope you learned something. I think I did.

This took forever, but I did enjoy it. There’s a chance I’ll give this a try with the second Nations League game against Canada. IIRC, there were some pretty big defensive changes in that one and maybe some attacking changes too. Not sure.

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