OT: The Pittsburgher Thread: Bayer Pittsburghusen

[djt153]

lower xi playing like losers. wondo, beckerman, zusi are all out of their depth and too old to improve. klinsmann should be fired for fielding a side with nobody that can keep possession against Argentina or at least offer two outside mids that could pressure their fullbacks. johnson and zardes out of position are completely neutralized against a side this good. maddening stuff being designed to lose without throwing a punch

 

[Brandinho]

lower xi playing like losers. wondo, beckerman, zusi are all out of their depth and too old to improve. klinsmann should be fired for fielding a side with nobody that can keep possession against Argentina or at least offer two outside mids that could pressure their fullbacks. johnson and zardes out of position are completely neutralized against a side this good. maddening stuff being designed to lose without throwing a punch

Having players available for selection who can keep possession against Argentina is a prerequisite for being able to field a side who can keep possession against Argentina.

 

[CaptainMalkin]

Yeah there wasn't much that could have been done with player selection or tactics etc...
USA just doesn't have the talent to compete with a World All-Star team like Argentina.
Frankly I don't know if it's really going to get any better now with the emphasis is on growing MLS domestically over developing world class talent overseas.

"..but won't growing MLS help develop talent?..."
No, because it is a C-class league relative to world wide football

 

[plaidchuck]

The US is too big to ever put a dent in world.wide football imo. Too many sports to be into and the cultural foundation just isn't there. Even when the womens team won or the mens team over achieved it was forgotten quickly.

Which is funny because we americans thump our chests about being able to be good at anything (especially with the Olympics coming up)

I guess that's the problem, there never was a concentrated national effort to be good at it.

 

[djt153]

Having players available for selection who can keep possession against Argentina is a prerequisite for being able to field a side who can keep possession against Argentina.

they had those players and either played them out of position or left them on the bench. besler at left back, johnson in the position where hes a champions league caliber player, zardes up top where hes an effective player, pulisic on the wing where he can work on linking with dempsey and zardes. nagbe in for beckerman, who as a good defensive midfielder was about 10 levels below what was required to influence the center of the pitch against argentina.

the coach did a miserable job picking the xi last night and the 23 going into the tournament. playing your best players in their best positions where they are most confident under the pressure of argentina is absolutely necessary. thats not to say they wouldve won or even scored, but perhaps they wouldve been in the position to attempt a single, solitary shot after barely hanging on against ecuador to get there.

 

[Winger for Hire]

Basically what djt said.

Last night they fielded a team that would have squeaked out a win, maybe, vs a team like Costa Rico. It didn't look like the team selection and game plan meshed at all. You have a plan of absorbing and countering, but your forward has no want, or the speed, to chase down long balls... or anything not directly played to his feet or head. When your forward players actually get some semblance of possession, Beckerman was nowhere to be found to help keep the ball, rarely venturing past midfield, afraid to get burnt and when he did get on the ball, he almost always picked out a pass to a player on the wrong team, or out to touch.

The guys like Nagbe and Pulisic most likely wouldn't have won the game, but I think their inclusion in the starting 11 would have been able to give the US a counter-puncher's chance and been able to at least run with Argentina. It wasn't about having the players to match Argentina in possession, it was about choosing a team and having the players to be able to execute a plan to counter a team that was 99% going to carry the play and dominate possession.

Also, Bradley didn't do anything to help the team. The captain looked like a deer in headlights all game. Throwing passes to nowhere and taking way, way, way too long to pick out any pass and ended up getting dispossessed way to easily and often.

 

[djt153]

bradley is terrible in a more forward role and has been for a while. its more klinsmann square peg round holeism and makes the ineffectual beckerman selection even more maddening since nagbe is clearly better than bradley in that position.

i watched the venezuela/argentina match and venezuela suffered some messi magic and still managed to attack like hell. VENEZUELA. the bar has been painfully lowered by klinsmann

 

[Al Smith]

Basically what djt said.

Last night they fielded a team that would have squeaked out a win, maybe, vs a team like Costa Rico. It didn't look like the team selection and game plan meshed at all. You have a plan of absorbing and countering, but your forward has no want, or the speed, to chase down long balls... or anything not directly played to his feet or head. When your forward players actually get some semblance of possession, Beckerman was nowhere to be found to help keep the ball, rarely venturing past midfield, afraid to get burnt and when he did get on the ball, he almost always picked out a pass to a player on the wrong team, or out to touch.

The guys like Nagbe and Pulisic most likely wouldn't have won the game, but I think their inclusion in the starting 11 would have been able to give the US a counter-puncher's chance and been able to at least run with Argentina. It wasn't about having the players to match Argentina in possession, it was about choosing a team and having the players to be able to execute a plan to counter a team that was 99% going to carry the play and dominate possession.

Also, Bradley didn't do anything to help the team. The captain looked like a deer in headlights all game. Throwing passes to nowhere and taking way, way, way too long to pick out any pass and ended up getting dispossessed way to easily and often.

I thought Pulisic looked like a 17-year old playing against grown men; i.e., he looked way out of his league. So I don't know if starting him would have made any difference.

 

[djt153]

I thought Pulisic looked like a 17-year old playing against grown men; i.e., he looked way out of his league. So I don't know if starting him would have made any difference.

this is a fair criticism and i complained to friends at the time he was being put in a position to fail. they werent going to turn things around at that point and were unable to control the ball at all with the players on the field, so the pulisic sub had almost zero chance of working. you needed someone who could help control the ball in midfield to allow forwards and wingers to try and stretch the defense. pulisic wouldve been a great sub had klinsmann settled the midfield first.

 

[Winger for Hire]

I thought Pulisic looked like a 17-year old playing against grown men; i.e., he looked way out of his league. So I don't know if starting him would have made any difference.

Starting him with the score at 0-0 instead of 2-0 would have made some difference as Argentina's backline wouldn't have already been sitting back and not worrying about attacking. Like I said, it most likely wouldn't have been the difference between winning and losing. Probably more likely the difference between a 2-0 final and 4-0 final or at the very least could have made the tactics and squad selection make sense and made the team not look like a disjointed mess.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Pulisic shouldn't be starting against competition anywhere near Argentina's caliber, not yet.

Nagbe, on the other hand...he needs to be starting. He has a dynamism that this squad sorely lacks.

Last night went basically exactly as I expected...we looked unprepared and horrible, while an infinitely superior team looked like the infinitely superior team. This just goes to show just how far we still have to go...and it'd be nice to have a coach that has any clue what the **** we're doing, but hey we beat an Ecuador team that we should beat, therefor we're not allowed to be critical of him anymore for some reason.

Wondolowski starting is just embarrassing. The only time I ever want to see a player of his caliber on the pitch in a USMNT kit is in the January camp. He's completely useless unless playing against inferior competition...having a guy whose one and only skill is to score dirty goals brings nothing to a team that can't get the ball anywhere near the box to begin with.

Beckerman also showed that he's toast. He can still have some minimal value as a sub, but he looked his age again last night. I won't fault Klinsmann for starting him there, though...I would have done the same given the options we didn't have and the style we needed to play to have a prayer, but we all knew that we'd be in trouble if he was still in the USMNT picture past the 2014 World Cup.

 

[Penguins23]

What a day in the France....Iceland wins in the final minute and Portugal comes back 3 times for a 3-3 draw.

 

[Ziggyjoe21]

Soccer needs to make its way onto ESPN as a main sport so it can become a "cool" sport to watch and play. I can see many parents in the next few decades pulling their kids away from football into something else. Hopefully soccer will receive some of that trickle down effect.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

The fact that MLS puts premier Friday night games on ****ing Univision is all that needs to be said. That's worse than the NHL going to OLN...at least OLN was in English.

 

[Shockmaster]

Steelers release Suisham.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

The only surprise is that it didn't happen sooner. Sucks to lose your job to an injury, but it's a capped league and expensive kickers are a luxury. His (eventual) replacement did just as good at a fraction of the salary.

 

[Double-Shift Lasse]

The only surprise is that it didn't happen sooner. Sucks to lose your job to an injury, but it's a capped league and expensive kickers are a luxury. His replacement did just as good at a fraction of the salary.

Technically his replacement sucked at a much higher salary. His replacement's replacement, however...

 

[Shockmaster]

Technically his replacement sucked at a much higher salary. His replacement's replacement, however...

You missed a replacement kicker in there. Remember, Boswell was their 4th kicker of the season.

 

[Double-Shift Lasse]

You missed a replacement kicker in there. Remember, Boswell was their 4th kicker of the season.

Effing Garrett Hartley. I forgot he was ever with the team! It was like Spinal Tap drummers.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Oh God, I'd also erased all memories of Hartley

Scobee was so bad that it'd require some Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind procedure to forget.

 

[Al Smith]

Too bad for Suisham, but if he's recovered completely, he should at least get a good chance to hook on with someone else.

Edit: no it sounds like he's hanging them up because he hasn't/won't recover from his injury.

 

[Captain Hook]

Sounds like Suisham's injured knee is just shot. I was kind of hoping he could return from the injury and be his usual self. It would have allowed us to flip one of our kickers for a late pick toward the end of camp a la Scobee to us last year or us trading Brad Wing to the Giants. I do wish Suisham the best of luck going forward and congrats on a good career if he does have to hang up the cleats.