Sheesh..... It's been awhile but I'm back.
There's not much time but there's loads to cover. So I'll start of first with a BIG shout out to the miners in Chile who have been trapped 700km underground with temperatures reaching 87 degrees Fahrenheit for the past 2 months. Great top see them healthy and ALIVE most of all. Thank God for taking care of them.
Back to Soccer...
The US Men's National Team played Poland on Saturday the 9Th of October. I was watching this game and I was glad to see the debut of Jermaine Jones and displeased on seeing Maurice Edu next to Onyewu.
My question is WHY? Why Bob, should a great Defensive box-to-box midfielder like Maurice Edu be used as a Centre Back? I don't understand this decision especially when you have 2 center backs in the bench who NEED to gel with the current back four?
Fine, we're past that now. On to the (sort of) good.
Jermaine Jones made his debut provided an assist not just for us but for Poland too, by failing to clear a ball at the top of the 18.
But he played well defensively while tracking back and helping little Bradley when he got in a mess.
To me, the midfield lacked the spark that Landon Donovan provides. And it's ever more clear how crucial he is to the team. Stuart Holden was given the roll of the "play maker" but has not quite gotten used to that roll yet. Still his confidence, hard work and determination had him running all over and curving the ball with his set-pieces to dangerous areas (to the point of assisting Onyewu on the team's second goal).
Holden definitely has all the tools of being the next play maker equal to (maybe) Donovan. For the next 4 years we need to (slowly) start letting go of our veterans, to make way for the new blood that will eventually take our team to (hopefully) new heights during the 2018 and 2022 cycle.
The thought is sad for me, but it is inevitable that one day we won't see Donovan or Dempsey anymore after 2014 World Cup.
Yet, not all change is bad. Or is it?
That was the question on everybody's mind. Was the changes done to the starting lineup good or bad on Tuesday night. When USA faced Colombia, the formation was a modified 4-3-2-1 made to function like a 4-3-3.
Now, let me break this up for ya:
you have 4 defenders in front of the goal (that's the obvious). Then you have 3 midfielders....what do these 3 do... well, there's plenty that can be done here. Granted, you lose an extra midfielder but, you gain a forward. This allows for the 2 higher midfielders to supply the upper 3 in front of them, leaving 1 more withdrawn closer to the back 4 for defensive support.
just look at this picture below:
RB-----CB----CB----LB
----------CDM--------
---RCM----------LCM
RW--------ST--------LW
The back four = RB (Right Back), CB (Center Back), LB (Left Back)
The middle 3 = CDM (Center Defensive Midfielder), RCM (Right Center Midfielder), LCM (Left Center Midfielder).
The front 3 = RW (Right Winger), ST (Striker), LW (Left Winger)
now that you have a clear picture on the formation used. Let's analyze the lineup:
Jonathan Spector-----Clarence Goodson----Oguchi Onyewu----Heath Pearce
---------------------------Maurice Edu-------------------------
--------Michael Bradley-------------------Jemaine Jones--------
Stuart Holden---------------Jozy Altidore------------------Benny Feilhaber
Here you have 3 Defense-minded players in Edu, Bradley and Jones. All three specialize in Box-to-Box, tackling, tracking back and breaking up offensive plays from the opposing team.
Holden and Feilhaber are given the winger spots to primarily feed Jozy. In this formation the scoring responsibility here relies heavily on him. Yet, he has support from the right and from the left.
What went wrong on Tuesday? well, It's actually quite simple.
First of all, in the middle 3 there are supposed to be 1 mid that drops back and reinforces the back 4 and the other 2 feed the upper 3 forwards. As said before, Edu, Bradley and Jones are 3 defensive midfielder there tendency is, should and will always be.... to track back and help the back 4!
So this already disrupts and defeats the purpose of using the 4-3-3 formation. Now there is a gap in the midfield leaving the 2 wingers (Holden and Feilhaber) to track back and try to bridge the gap in the middle. So the wingers weren't being fed appropriately and were dropping back more and more.
The first half of the USA vs Colombia showed, just because it works for other teams....doesn't mean it'll work for ours.
Then again, it was JUST a "friendly" and Donovan (our most important play maker) wasn't present for us to truly view the formation with all our starters.
Honorable mentions:
Eric Lichaj was a beast on a mission. On his post-match interview he stated that he did not feel intimidated at all by the 8k crowd that night, since he is used to more hostile and energetic (not to mention numerous) fans of Aston Villa (a home match is easily over 20k) back over the pond. He definitely did not take long to make an impact and showed that the right back position has new depth.
With this I will go, and please comment and Follow MUA! if you like what you read. God Bles Y'all!
No comments:
Post a Comment