One thing I hoped to get across in my SI.com piece on the Brazil-Mexico game is the depth that Mexico has and this feeling that if it's not some sort of perceived A team out there, Mexico will struggle.
No Carlos Salcido. No Ricardo Osorio. No Pavel Pardo. No Andres Guardado. No Jared Borgetti. No Cuauhtemoc Blanco. No Oswaldo Sanchez. No Bofo Bautista.
And what happened?
Mexico played one of its finest games in years. Guardado is obviously still a big part of Mexico's future, as are Salcido and Osorio, but Hugo Sanchez could never call up the rest of those players and the team wouldn't feel their collective absences.
Fausto Pinto, Jaime Correa and Juan Carlos Cacho started and none of them had played any meaningful minutes for Mexico. Israel Castro started. The beleaguered Jonny Magallon started too. But all those players did well.
It's not about the "A team" or "B team" or whatever team. That's implying that there are 11 players worth a damn and anyone else who plays for the team is not good and the team will struggle.
That's why I think the US will do well against Argentina. No Landon Donovan. No Clint Dempsey. No... well, you get the point. The U.S. has some quality depth.
There are more than 11 good American soccer players, and there are more than 11 good Mexican soccer players. The latter thus far has played out as much.
That's pretty much what I was trying to argue to Brad about why I wasn't cynical about the young U.S. team at the Copa America.
ReplyDeleteL.B.,
ReplyDeleteNot trying to hate, but Mexico did not have a very good performance. They played better against the US actually. The difference was the rival, who, in this case, could not have beaten anyone today. Brazil has hit an all-time low, and they can really only blame themselves for hiring a coach to take over the most important national team in the world that has all of 0 years of coaching experience. Que vergonha...
I dont see the U.S squad being as deep as Mexico, call me bitter, but I havent seen any of their players in their CA squad that can be diffrence makes like Nery Castillo and Ochoa.
ReplyDeleteStill, this does not mean they cant beat the Argies or do good in the cup, I just dont expect them to do as good as el Tri.
I for one hope they advance to the next round only so Mexico can face them..
Nery Castillo can Not be Stopped, you can only hope to contain him!
As much as i love the US team I don't think we have the kind of depth Mexico has at the moment (not to mention the kids they have at Barcelona and Arsenal).
ReplyDeleteI think playing in the Gold Cup and taking a large core of players from one tourney to the other only helped Mexico, especially when playing teams that haven't played competitive matches in months. That's something the US won't have as we're taking what looks to be a completely new team.
anyhow, i hope they do get far as they're out there representing concacaf as well.
It doesn't surprise me that Mexico won. Like Andrea said, it's thier M.O. But I have to agree with Nick, Brazil stunk up the field like I have never seen them before. If Kaka was playing I think it could have been different but still...Brazil just sucked tonight.
ReplyDeleteI like to give credit where credit is completely due.
ReplyDeleteMy hats off to Hugo Sanchez, for righting the ship which was completely off-course and was headed to the depths of the ocean.
One can't underestimate how incredible a turnaround this performance represents. I do not care if Brasil played their lowest football in years or whatever, the entire CONCACAF can be proud and should be. A win against Brasil is a win, it's not the sisters of the poor, all their lads play in the top leagues in the world. Robinho. Enough said.
Champions respond to adversity. The US is Mexico's bogey team, I am glad they got over themselves and their pity party and booted the Divas out of the squad, errr the tired ones. There is no "I" in team and what we saw tonight was a team effort.
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If the U.S. starts Eddie Johnson, Taylor Twellman, Rico Clark, Benny Feilhaber, Jonathan Bornstein, Jay DeMerit and Kasey Keller (which I think is likely) then you'd have some carryover from the Gold Cup.
ReplyDeleteSure, there's no Nery Castillo there but it's not exactly a roster of second-division talent either.
USMNT is not as deep as el Tri and it will show tonight. The difference in the two teams at Copa America is that the US is a very experimental whereas Mexico still has at their disposal a significant core of their "A team".
ReplyDeleteSaying that we're not green because we have Twellman, Johnson, Clark, DeMerit, et al at our disposal is whitewashing. Since when has Johnson and/or Twellman ever made an impact internationally?
We'll lose 5-0 tonight and the best we can hope for is 2 shots on goal. I'm not bitter because I think it is the right approach by Bradley. This tourney is the least important of the 3 and he has the luxury of a low-stress environment to tinker.
Had the US played Brasil last night with the squad that we are putting out there versus Argentina, we would have lost 3-0. Can you imagine our LB/RB combo trying to contain Brasil's forwards? Brasil was very unlucky to not score at least twice last night. Great game by Mexico's keeper to keep a clean slate.
Also, I want to point out that Neri Castillo's goal (spectacular by the way) was completely against the run of play. To that point Brasil was playing at 3/4 speed and making it look easy. Only after giving up that goal did a sense of urgency emerge from the South Americans. There were times when the Mexican's outplayed Brasil, but I thought it was very even -- just Mexico capitalized on their few opportunities whereas Brasil sent it off the crossbar or was denied by a great save.
ReplyDeleteAll I'm saying is that there is carryover from the Gold Cup even without Donovan, Beasley, Bocanegra, etc.
ReplyDeleteMexico's depth is there but there were also doubts on a lot of those players who played against Brazil and how they'd perform with the national team, and they responded.
It's not a completely different U.S. team than the one that won the Gold Cup title.
The US has less depth than Mexico, but that is not the entire story. It is also the quality of the depth. What else needs to be looked at is how teams play and what their "bread and butter" is. Conditioning and a "never-say-die" attitude were the "Bread and Butter" of the US. As the level of soccer skill raised in the US the "never-say-die" attitude became less and less important, but having superior conditioning is still paramount to their success. When any collection of US players gets on the field the one thing you know for sure is that they will be in excellent shape regardless of opponent. That means that the best days for the US are when the quality of soccer produced is elevated and the fitness remains high. The US is capable of this, but it is not the norm, yet. When any collection of Mexico players take the field you know they will have a decent first touch, some skill on the ball, the ability to pass and receive, tactical awareness, and the ability to maintain possession as a team. Mexico played soccer last night against and won.
ReplyDeleteI like what Bradley is doing with this roster. The idea of preferring the biggest, fastest, or strongest player for a position over a player with superior skill at that position just to win games is the hallmark of youth soccer. This gives the youth team a fews wins at the expense of developing players and giving players with more skill game experience. IMHO, the USMNT still operates this way. This sort of nurturing of talent is why the US produces more goalies, destroyers, and strikers and outside midfielders who cannot cross and have bad touches than quality soccer players like Landon, JOB, Reyna, or McBride. I am looking at Gooch, Beasley, EJ, and Hejduk here when I consider the current USMNT pool. I would also throw Wynne into this category. They are all valueable members of the USMNT, but wouldn't it be great if they had the ball skills of the weakest player on the Mexican squad?
We're not that deep. However, we have players who don't lose their cool after falling behind. That's one major advantage we have over Mexico.
ReplyDeleteHeart and soul counts for a lot. I agree you still need skill, talent, and execution.
Tsingletonvt,
ReplyDeleteFunny you mention the tendency that American youth coaches have for faster, stronger, or/or bigger players over skilled players and perhaps that being one of the reasons why you have certain positions that are not able to perform certain duties.
I am going to quote Ramon Raya from one of his columns from Mediotiempo.com
http://www.mediotiempo.com/editorial.php?id_columna=2963&id_autor=4
Lo único que si me sorprendió y que acepto no me gustó para nada, es que en algún momento entrenando con un grupo de niños de 12 anos, mientras del otro lado de la cancha había un grupo de niños de 16 años trabajando físicamente nada mas y en el momento en que yo me disponía a hacer un trabajo de técnica que a mi entender no nada mas es bastante provechoso sino que hasta divertido, los niños de 12 me preguntaban si pronto podrían hacer el mismo trabajo de los del otro lado, un trabajo de vallas y conos en donde el balón no existía.
Al ver que los niños se distraían con aquél trabajo los junté y les pregunté si en verdad preferían ponerse a correr que jugar con los balones y la respuesta fue que sí. Yo no sé si en otra parte del mundo suceda eso, pero hasta los sitios en donde yo he viajado a ver trabajos de futbol, no me ha tocado.
Quiero decirles que en mi opinión mientras de este lado de la frontera se siga trabajando así en donde siguen creyendo que el futbol es patear una pelota hacia adelante y correr lo más rápido posible y chocar con el rival para ganarla y marcar un gol, el futbol mexicano no tendrá que preocuparse tanto por verse superado futbolísticamente hablando.
Pero a mi juicio, es cuestión de tiempo para que nuestros vecinos se den cuenta de que están equivocando el camino y que necesitan importar gente que les enseñe a jugar como se juega en el resto del mundo.
In a nutshell, Rayas is talking about a recent visit to Chicago to see one of his friends who has some sort of soccer academy.
What surprised him was how American kids were more inclined to work on fitness and conditioning than on tactical and skill development. He mentioned a group group of 12 year olds he was coaching and apparently these 12 year olds wanted to do what the 16 years olds were doing--that is working on conditioning.
He went on to say that the US will soon have to realize that they are taking the wrong path and import personnel to change their training methods.
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I agree with Joel. The US lacks depth.
The US can savor the flavor of beating Mexico and can gloat about having their number. All of that still doesnt take the fact that the US is stil not held with the same regards as Mexico at the international scene.
The US needs to become a more complex team and learn how to implement and vary more tactics and formations. The truth is that the US is a very one dimensional team.
I was in attendance at all of the US matches in Germany, and it was frustrating to see the USMNT not able to adjust its lines or have certain players perform other duties due to their limitations or shortcomings. In modern football, most positions have to perform more duties than one. Just to give an example, the fullback and the defensivebacks alternating on the attacks. Real Madrid's early 2000 team was a master of this. Rather than having Roberto Carlos run the distance of the field 90 minutes, Carlos and a D mid would alternate. Just think of how much more endurance and stamina they both had towards the end of the match when alternating?
losing to argentina doesn't mean US will exit the tourney. There are wild cards even if US couldnt get more points than columbia.
ReplyDeleteI think people are overestimating the importance of this game for the US. It's simply not that important and is probably one of the games they expected to lose.
on other hand, it should be a good match for the younger players to gain experience. while trying not to lose by too many scores of course. so 4-4-2 will probably happen, in order to perserve their position in the group.
people saying US are going to all out attack and put everything in luck's hand are nilists!
oh and, the mexican win was largely due to the inability to sync in brazilian midfield. everytime they initiated attacks from lower region, or when they got the ball on a counter attack, there were no one up to help (or not in good position), and brazilian wasted their chances over and over.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying mexico did bad, their flexible midfield can give anyone a headache, but the fact is their defense allowed chance after chance, and had to rely on ochoa's superb form to save their beaner asses.
and mexican's weakness in offense was exposed in that game as well. borgetti's injury and guardado's whatever definitely had their impacts. without the midfield screening properly, brazil's 4-2-4 modification was pretty much forcing the issue with just 4 men shouldering responsibilities (more like 3 when they pushed wingback up), yet even then mexico failed to push the GD further with they incrediable chances.
on top of all that, mexico's iron men plan is going to take its toll, sooner or later.
Wow. Great posts by everybody, good quality posts.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I wanted to disagree with LB with regards to his article in SI, where you said the Mexican substitutes peformed well against Brasil. I completely disagree. Hugo Sanchez should get credit for everything but that, because Omar Bravo is really dead weight out there. Watching the replay Bravo was not even running full speed and looked to be walking ala' Eddie Johnson. Lozano executed one of the worst free kicks I have ever seen. If they are to advance far this tourney the subs have to contribute a heck of alot more.
Second, the conversation about US Youth Soccer development is a worthy topic but I fail to see how it is connected to depth issues. Let's see how the boys do tonight but it's a damned shame Landicakes couldn't test himself against Messi, Tevez, Palacio, Crespo, Ayala, Mascherano, Cambiasso, Milito, Riquelme and co.
That being said, the experience for these lads to play against one of the most talented, if not the most talented and skilled team in the world is worthy of a college diploma. We'll see how they react to the guys they see on TV, it's invaluable.
To lic: although I agree the methods of some elite youth clubs are archaic, overly emphasize the wrong things, I do believe some clubs do things a lot better than one might think. You should have seen youth development 20yrs ago. Ouch. There is a ton more classy players but they still need to develop them further, the gap really grows from u-16 to u-23 compared to Argentina for instance, a player at 18-20 is world caliber.
On the other hand, in an ironic way, Mexico would do well to import some US methodology in regards to training i.e. developing better finishers--powerful forwards, better center backs, and scouting a little better size (always an achiles heal of Mexico). LOL. I don't see it happening but it's really needed. Could you see Bruce Arena down there.
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I think it was Sanchez losing the fuschia shirt that did it!
ReplyDeleteActually it happens a lot that teams with youngsters that have something to prove and do believe...do well.