Iconic, legendary superstar Diego Maradona has died at the age of 60
So I have to admit I have never been a huge Maradona guy, he was just before I really started watching soccer. I know about the el Mano El Dio and the wonder goal where he dribbled 7 guys before dribbling the English goalkeeper then scoring in the World Cup Semis in 1986. Maradona’s Top 5 Goals But as I hear the players who played with him wonder at the marvel of this wonderful player Maradona the legend becomes more apparent. I hear there is a great HBO documentary about him as well. Hope to watch this weekend. One of the strangest stories I have read involved his warmups -Fans would arrive an hour before gametime just to watch Maradona’s legendary warm ups – especially when he played at Napoli in Italy. Nice short video on Diego by The Guardian. While the man was often missunderstood and a bit nuts – the legendary player their is not doubt about. RIP Maradona.
MLS Playoffs Are Spectacular
So I will admit – with nearly all the games on ESPN+ over the last few months of the MLS season – I have not watched a lot of MLS Soccer after the MLS tourney in Orlando to start the season. But now that the SINGLE ELIMINATION MLS playoffs are underway – I have been sucked back in. I know a lot of European soccer fan buddies who laugh at MLS still – but man if tune in for Playoff Soccer MLS style I promise you will return. It started with high scoring games and shootouts – some of them crazy early. But each and every game I have watched has been dripping with Drama – most of them decided late and extremely competitive. The Top 2 seeds in the East were sent home #2 Toronto – 4 time finalist was knocked out deservedly by MLS Expansion team Nashville. More huge games this Sunday as Orlando City hosts NE Revs and coach Bruce Arena at 3 pm on ABC, while ESPN will have Columbus and US Forward Zardes hosting Nashville and Walker Zimmerman at 8 pm. Tues and Wed have the other 2 games see schedule below.
USA Women Face Netherlands Fri 12:30 on ESPN
The World Champs will travel to face the team they beat to win the last world cup in their first competitive match since the She Believe’s Cup back in March. Returning to the fold is Forward Alex Morgan back from having a baby and now playing in Tottenham. The full roster is here – of course missing are Rapino, Pugh, and Carli Lloyd still recovering from injuries and Horan who has been diagnosed with Covid. Will be interesting to see how coach works in the newcomers with the old guard next week. A Good Friday after Thanksgiving Sitdown at 12:30 on ESPN – along with football,
US Ladies Roster
GOALKEEPERS (3): Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars), Aubrey Bledsoe (Washington Spirit), Jane Campbell (Houston Dash)
DEFENDERS (8): Alanna Cook (PSG), Abby Dahlkemper (North Carolina Courage), Tierna Davidson (Chicago Red Stars), Crystal Dunn (Portland Thorns), Kelley O’Hara (Utah Royals), Midge Purce (Sky Blue FC), Becky Sauerbrunn (Portland Thorns), Emily Sonnett (Orlando Pride)
MIDFIELDERS (6): Julie Ertz (Chicago Red Stars), Rose Lavelle (Manchester City), Sam Mewis (Manchester City), Kristie Mewis (Houston Dash), Jaelin Howell (Florida State), Catarina Macario (Stanford)
FORWARDS (6): Ashley Hatch (Washington Spirit), Alex Morgan (Tottenham), Christen Press (Manchester United), Tobin Heath (Manchester United), Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns), Lynn Williams (North Carolina Courage)
On Friday, the U.S. Women’s National Team will take the field for the first time in 261 days when it faces the Netherlands at 12:30 p.m. ET at Rat Verlegh Stadium in Breda, the Netherlands. The match, which will be the final game of 2020 for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup Champions, will be televised live on ESPN2 and TUDN. Here are Five Things to Know about the reigning European Champions and Women’s World Cup runners-up.
NETHERLANDS NOVEMBER CAMP ROSTER
Nine of the 14 players who saw action for the Netherlands during the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final are on this roster, led by midfielder Sherida Spitse, the Netherlands’ all-time leader in caps. Spitse has 180 caps and 41 goals for the Netherlands. She received a yellow card early in the World Cup Final in Lyon. Of the 23 players on the roster, 12 play outside of the Netherlands, with a strong contingent of five in England, two in Spain, three in Germany, one Norway and one in France. Of the 11 domestic-based players, three play for Ajax, three play for PSV, and five play for FC Twente, which are the top three teams currently in the Women’s Eredivisie, respectively.
GOALKEEPERS (3): Lize Kop (Ajax), Sari van Veenendaal (PSV), Daphne van Domselaar (FC Twente)DEFENDERS (8): Stefanie van der Gragt (Ajax), Dominique Janssen (Wolfsburg, GER), Kika van Es (Twente), Merel van Dongen (Atlético Madrid, ESP), Danique Kerkdijk (Brighton & Hove Albion, ENG), Aniek Nouwen (PSV), Lynn Wilms (Twente)MIDFIELDERS (5): Sherida Spitse (Vålerenga, NOR), Daniëlle van de Donk (Arsenal, ENG), Jackie Groenen (Manchester United, ENG), Inessa Kaagman (Brighton & Hove Albion, ENG), Victoria Pelova (Ajax)FORWARDS (8): Lieke Martens (Barcelona, ESP), Shanice van de Sanden (Wolfsburg, GER), Lineth Beerensteyn (Bayern Munich, GER), Renate Jansen (Twente), Sisca Folkertsma (Twente), Katja Snoeijs (Bordeaux, FRA), Jill Roord (Arsenal, ENG), Joëlle Smits (PSV)
WE MEET AGAIN
Friday’s game will be the eighth meeting all-time between the USA and Netherlands and the fourth in the last eight years. The USWNT leads the overall series with a record of 7-1-0, with its lone loss to the Dutch coming in a 4-3 defeat during the first matchup between the teams in 1991. Since then, the USA has won the last seven games and outscored the Netherlands over that span, 24-2. Friday’s match will be just the third time the U.S. Women have played in the Netherlands. The most recent match took place on April 9, 2013, in The Hague, a 3-1 U.S. victory. Tobin Heath had one goal and Christen Press had two in that match while Sydney Leroux dished out a pair of assists. The goals were the fifth and sixth international goals for Press, who is now in the top-10 in U.S. Women’s National Team history with 58 career goals.
ORANJE IN ACTION The 2017 European Champions, Netherlands qualified for the next UEFA Women’s Euros by routing Estonia 7-0 at home on Oct. 23. After a 6-0 win over Kosovo on Oct. 27, head coach Sarina Wiegman’s side sits atop their group with a maximum of 27 points from nine matches, earning their spot at the Euros in England, which were originally scheduled to be played in the summer of 2021. Due to COVID and the postponement of the Olympics to 2021, the UEFA Women’s Euros will be played July 6-31, 2022. Only three of the Netherlands’ UEFA qualifiers were played this year, a 1-0 victory over Russia in September in Moscow followed by the drubbings of Estonia and Kosovo during the most recent FIFA window. Forward Katja Snoeijs tallied a hat trick for Netherlands in their 6-0 win over Kosovo while midfielders Daniëlle van de Donk and Jackie Groenen both tallied braces in the 7-0 victory over Estonia.Following the match against the USA, the Netherlands will play Kosovo on December 1 to finish the UEFA group play, but with a nine-point cushion over Russia in Group A, qualification for the Euros is already secured.
FAMILIAR FACES The defending European champions feature some of the world’s best players at their positions in goalkeeper Sari van Veenendaal (PSV), who was named the Best Goalkeeper of the tournament at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, midfielders Daniëlle van de Donk (Arsenal), Jackie Groenen (Manchester United) and Sherida Spitse (Vålerenga), and forwards Lieke Martens (Barcelona) and Miedema (Arsenal). The 25-year-old Groenen, who has 64 caps and five goals, is currently teammates with Tobin Heath and Christen Press at Manchester United and has appeared in all seven Women’s Super League matches for top of the table United this season.The Netherlands will be without one of its star forwards in Arsenal star Vivianne Miedema, who has a hip injury. At the age of 24, she has scored a remarkable 71 goals in 90 games for the Dutch. With Miedema’s absence, the top scorer on the roster is now Martens, who at age 27 has 46 goals in 116 caps. Martens won the Bronze Boot as the third leading scorer and the Golden Ball as the best player at the 2017 UEFA Women’s Euros and was named the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year in 2017.
WIEGMAN ERA WINDS DOWN, BUT NOT BEFORE TOKYO 2021
Head coach Sarina Wiegman, who was recently named to the seven-person shortlist for The Best FIFA Women’s Coach 2020, will coach the will coach the Netherlands through the Olympics next summer before taking over as the head coach of England. Wiegman played college soccer in the USA at the University of North Carolina and earned 104 caps representing the Netherlands as a player. Six months after becoming head coach of Netherlands, Wiegman led her home country to the 2017 UEFA Women’s Euro title, a feat that earned her the 2017 Best FIFA Women’s Coach award.
Diego Maradona Was a Timeless Icon
The Argentina legend died Wednesday at 60 of a heart attack. His career was marked by extremes—especially the heights of the 1986 World Cup—but he was beloved every step of the way.GRANT WAHL Sports illustrated
It is an accepted truism of modern soccer that, unlike in the five-on-five world of basketball, the 11-on-11 nature of fútbol makes it nearly impossible for a single superstar to take over a game and lead his team to a championship. In fact, data shows that soccer tends to be a “weakest-link” sport, which is to say that you’re only as good as your worst player on the field. If there is a singular exception, however, it is Diego Armando Maradona’s performance at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. In the history of the men’s World Cup, which has now been contested 21 times, no player has ever lorded over a single tournament the way Maradona did that year by leading Argentina to its second title.
Maradona, the flamboyant and controversial legend who died of a heart attack Wednesday at age 60, will forever be frozen in time at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca as the 25-year-old genius who confounded the best efforts of West Germany, Belgium and England and lifted an otherwise ordinary Argentine team to glory. During the same game, a 2–1 quarterfinal victory against England, Maradona scored two goals four minutes apart that could be described as the greatest and most notorious World Cup goals of all time. On the first, Maradona leaped in the air and beat English goalkeeper Peter Shilton to the ball, surreptitiously (and illegally) using his left fist to punch the ball into the goal. Maradona would later say the goal had been scored by “la mano de Dios,” and it was forever known as the Hand of God goal.
But Maradona’s second goal that day was a distillation of all the qualities—superhuman ball control, next-level speed of thought and the sheer audacity of his imagination—that made him perhaps the sport’s greatest genius. Receiving the ball in his own half near midfield, Maradona spun and flicked it with his left foot to elude two defenders, then embarked on a glorious 60-yard run at speed, never touching the ball with his right foot, beating four more hapless English interlopers before sliding the ball past Shilton into the net. The television call from Argentine commentator Víctor Hugo Morales remains indelible: “What planet did you come from?”
Maradona added two more goals to beat Belgium 2–0 in the semifinals and the assist on Argentina’s game-winner in a 3–2 classic against West Germany in the final, sealing his place in the lore of the sport.Maradona would end up playing in four World Cups from 1982 to ’94, losing in the final to West Germany in ‘90 and being thrown out of USA ’94 when he failed a doping test. Meanwhile, his greatest exploits at club level came in Italy at Napoli, which Maradona captained to the club’s first league titles in 1987 and ’90. But Maradona’s tumultuous time in Italy came to an end after he failed a drug test for cocaine and faced a 15-month suspension from 1991 to ’92. Maradona’s drug use and weight gain led to a pattern of health scares over the years, including multiple occasions when he was near death but survived.Yet Maradona’s dark side and human frailties only seemed to endear him more to an Argentine public that anointed him a cultural deity among the likes of Eva Perón and the tango singer Carlos Gardel. Raised in the Buenos Aires shantytown of Villa Fiorito, Maradona rose to the closest position in sports to the King of the World—and then tumbled dramatically off its pedestal. It is a peculiar aspect of Argentine public life that Argentines have always adored Maradona far more than Brazilians have loved Pelé. The two are inextricably linked as the greatest men’s soccer players of the 20th century. Pelé won three World Cups to Maradona’s one, but Maradona hit loftier heights in 1986 than Pelé did in any of his World Cups. Ultimately, a fan’s choice of one player over the other reveals not just a sports preference but a general worldview. For what it’s worth, Maradona and Pelé clearly had differing perspectives on the United States. While Pelé played for the New York Cosmos in the NASL from 1975 to ’77 and visited the U.S. frequently, Maradona reveled in his disdain of Uncle Sam and his support of leftist leaders from Cuba’s Fidel Castro to Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. (For many years, Maradona’s drug record prevented him from gaining admission to the U.S.)Unlike Pelé, who never became a coach, Maradona had a checkered career as a manager that never came close to matching his playing achievements. His most memorable coaching tenure lasted from 2008 to ’10 with the Argentine national team and its superstar, Lionel Messi, who was always as reticent as Maradona was voluble. It was a poor match. Messi never appeared comfortable with Maradona, who was unable to put together a tactical game . plan that unleashed Messi’s talents for the national team. While Maradona regularly won the press conference during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, his rudderless Argentina was throttled by Germany 4–0 in the quarterfinals, wasting Messi at the height of his powers.Yet for as combative and rude as he could be, Maradona will always be known for his unparalleled love affair with the ball. It is no coincidence that one of his most popular highlight videos—with millions of views on YouTube—has no game highlights at all. Instead, it’s a three-minute video of Maradona warming up by himself before a 1989 game, shoes untied, oblivious of the camera, performing casually jaw-dropping tricks with the ball to the soundtrack of the Opus song Live Is Life. Maradona is 28 years old in the video, but he still exudes the simple joy of a boy with his ball. That feeling, which he may have possessed more deeply than any human to live on this planet, is universal. Timeless.
Unbelievable first round of the MLS Playoffs as 3 games went to Penalty Shoutouts, 1 after a goal in the 94th minute. The leading scorer in MLS history Chris Wondolowski scored in the 94th minute for San Jose to send their game with top seed Sporting KC into a 3-3 tie ,only to have Sporting KC win in the shootout. New England scored in the 95th minute to beat Henry’s Montreal 2-1. Nashville won the battle of Expansion teams 3-0 over Miami to set up their matchup Tues with Philly at 8 pm on ESPN. But the craziest of them all was Orlando’s OT Shootout win over NYCFC after the goalkeeper was ejected for jumping off the line to early on the 4th PK save. Orlando Centerback Rodrigo Schlegel had to sub in and saved his 2nd shot faced to win it for a pretty loud and boisterous Orlando City in front of the home crowd. They will now face the Philly/NE Winner on Sunday. You have to see the links below for the shootout and GK Jersey sale. Wow what a weekend of MLS !!!
Champions League viewership up nearly 40 percent – Returns Tues/Wed
Through three matchdays, coverage of the UEFA Champions League has averaged 432,000 viewers across UniMas and Galavision — up 39% from last year. In particular, UniMas is up 35% (to 372K) and Galavision is up 100% (to 60,000).This year’s competition has already included two of the three most-watched UCL group stage matches on record, with Juventus-Barcelona on October 28 ranking first (757K) and Tuesday’s Real Madrid-Inter Milan match third (561K). No idea on CBS SportsNetwork on CBS all access as they don’t do neilsen ratings. But it appears folks in the US are at least watching in Spanish for sure. Champions League match-day 4 is next week with the big games Tuesday being US players Gio Reyna for Dortmund hosting Club Brugge and GK Horvath on TUDN at 3 pm, while PSG hosts American Tyler Adams and RB Leipzig with the top spot in the group on the line right behind Man United. Wed’s top game features Inter Milan hosting Real Madrid on TUDN at 3 pm in a loser might be out in group C game. Salzburg and their American coach will be looking for a lifeline vs defending champs Bayern Munich and US defender Chris Richards at 3 pm on TUDN and of course all the games on CBS All Access and the CBS Sportsnetwork (check your listings you might have it) Goalazo show –goals from each game jumparound show. Full Standings thru 3 matches here.
MLS Cup Playoffs preview: State of play after a wild weekend
Nicholas Mendola
Mon, November 23, 2020, 6:39 PM ESTIf Major League Soccer needed to pull eyes to its postseason, the first few days delivered the required jolt. Here is what lies ahead in the MLS playoffs.
Consider how the postseason began following the pandemic- and MLS is Back-interrupted regular season.
One expansion team outlasted the other after reported positive COVID-19 cases stopped an international superstar from hitting the pitch.
San Jose scored the sixth goal of the game in the seventh-minute of stoppage time — courtesy the league’s all-time leading scorer Chris Wondolowski — before Sporting KC goalkeeper Tim Melia made amends for allowing three goals by stopping all three of San Jose’s penalties.
Three more matches are set for Tuesday, with big names angling for weekend places in the conference semifinals
Toronto v Nashville SC – 6 pm ET Tuesday
Greg Vanney’s TFC might’ve failed to claim the Supporters’ Shield, but the MLS Cup Playoffs have been their friend to the tune of three final appearances and one win in the previous four seasons.
Alejandro Pozuelo is arguably the league’s best player and the Reds have gotten 18 goals between Pozuelo and breakout Canadian-American forward Ayo Akinola. With Michael Bradley, Jonathan Osorio, Chris Mavinga, Jozy Altidore, and others, there’s a lot of experience here.
But Nashville is stingy and led by Gary Smith, who has experience in managing an underdog to an MLS Cup win. With Walker Zimmerman and Dax McCarty, the expansion side will hope to keep TFC in check but the absence of newly-injured Anibal Godoy makes that a tall task.
Philadelphia v New England — 8 p ET Tuesday
Philly scored more goals than anyone in the East and allowed the conference’s fewest markers, too. In five matches against the Revolution between MLS is Back and the regular season, Jim Curtin’s Union won four times and drew once with a combined score line of 7-2.
Bruce Arena’s men had trouble scoring this season but have bagged five goals in their last two outings after beating Thierry Henry’s Montreal Impact in a play-in game. Can the legendary MLS manager conjure an upset of the Supporters’ Shield winners?
Seattle v LAFC — 10:30 pm ET Tuesday
The Sounders won eight of 12 matches to start the season, but have won just twice in their last seven. They’ll hope a 4-1 win over San Jose to finish the regular season was the fuel to kickstart a run to a fourth final appearance in five seasons. USMNT winger Jordan Morris has been wonderful for the Sounders, who won it all in 2016 and 2019.
LAFC is seventh in the West, a far cry from its incredible 2019 campaign, but Bob Bradley’s a heck of a coach and he’s got a lot of firepower between 16-goal man Diego Rossi, savvy veteran Bradley Wright-Phillips, and reigning MVP and record breaker Carlos Vela.
Reason to stay up late.
Western Conference
Sporting KC v Minnesota United — Dec. 1 or 2
Seattle Sounders v FC Dallas or FC Dallas v LAFC — Dec. 1 or 2
Eastern Conference
Philadelphia v Orlando City orOrlando City v New England — Nov. 29
Toronto v Columbus orColumbus v Nashville — Nov. 29
Christian Pulisic isn’t all the way back from his hamstring injury yet, but Kai Havertz has returned from coronavirus and is set to play. Chelsea can clinch a round of 16 berth with a win. Rennes’ Eduardo Camavinga is also back in action, and this game will be another big stage for one of the world’s top young prospects.
Kylian Mbappe is back to fitness after missing two games this month with a hamstring injury, including PSG’s 2-1 loss at Leipzig on Nov. 4. He returned last Friday at Monaco, his old club, and PSG blew a 2-0 lead in a 3-2 defeat. Leipzig should have Tyler Adams, who went all 90 minutes in a 1-1 tie at Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday after two good performances for the U.S. national team.
Borussia Monchengladbach vs. Shakhtar Donetsk
Wednesday, 12:55 p.m. (Galavision, CBS All Access)
Group B has been the wildest group in the Champions League so far. Monchengladbach (5 points) is in first thanks to an astonishing 6-0 win at second-place Shakhtar (4) on Nov. 3. Superpowers Real Madrid (4) and Inter Milan (2) are in third and fourth. The standings are tight enough that a Monchengladbach win wouldn’t clinch a knockout stage berth, but it would go a long way.
Inter Milan vs. Real Madrid
Wednesday, 3 p.m. (UniMas, TUDN, CBS All Access)
There will obviously be a lot of pressure on Inter to win, but there will be plenty of pressure on Real too. Manager Zinedine Zidane’s squad got thumped 4-1 at Valencia going into the FIFA break, then came out of it with a 1-1 tie at Villarreal. That’s more than enough to have the Madrid media crying panic — and Zidane snapping back at them, as he did Saturday.
Earlier this month, Internacional’s American midfielder Johnny Cardoso became the first player from a South American league to make the senior U.S. men’s national team in 25 years. Born in northern New Jersey and raised in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the central midfielder debuted for the Sao Paulo-based club last year at age 17.U.S. scouts learned of him soon thereafter and brought him to an under-23 camp. They liked him and he liked them, and he has kept rising up the ranks ever since. When he made his senior debut this month, his jersey carried just his first name, following Brazil’s soccer tradition. His club does the same.This will be another high-profile game for Johnny. Boca Juniors is one of South America’s titans, the legendary home of stars from Diego Maradona to Carlos Tevez — who’s now leading the club once again.
Lille vs. AC Milan- Europa
Thursday, 12:55 p.m. (TUDN, CBS All Access)
Thanks partly to a 3-0 win at Milan earlier this month, Lille can take a big step toward clinching first place in its Europa League group with a win at home here. Canadian striker Jonathan David is coming off finally scoring his first goal for the club, while American winger Tim Weah continues to fight for more playing time.
Milan hasn’t lost since Lille’s visit, and has yet to lose at all this season in Serie A. Zlatan Ibrahimovic starred again in a 3-1 win at Napoli on Sunday, scoring two goals. But he had to leave the game late with a leg injury that could sideline him for up to a month.
After nearly a decade in exile, Rangers are finally back at the top of Scottish soccer. James Tavernier and Canadian midfielder have the Glasgow-based club flying high atop the Premier League standings and tied for first in its Europa League group with Benfica.
These teams played to a wild 3-3 tie in Lisbon on Nov. 5 that featured a red card, an own goal by each team and a 91st-minute equalizer by Benfica’s Darwin Nunez. Benfica’s squad has many familiar names, including former Tottenham Hotspur players Jan Vertonghen and Adel Taraabt.
So maybe the young #9s are not so bad after all? Lets see – Gregg FINALLY Plays the 2 kid # 9s and they actually score 4 goals? Imagine that Gregg – forwards scoring goals playing the #9 spot. Sometimes the coaching ineptitude astounds me. That being said it was nice to see our young 20 year old #9s actually score goals up front. Both of them stuck their noses in – played high and were in the correct spot. Now if only Greg had played one of them at least a half vs Wales? Oh well – better late than never. Again the US looked ok on Monday vs a very overmanned Panama team with a bad GK. The first 45 minutes we looked really good – with 70+ percent possession and a solid 3-1 lead with 2 goals from 20 year old forward Gioacchini scoring 2 on GK drop and a beautifully hard fought header. Soto checked in around 70 minutes in and added another header two headers off good crosses to give our #9 forwards slot 4 goals on the night. Overall it was 6-2 as Reyna scored a beauty off a free kick right outside the box and Letgett headed another from his traditional mid spot. Overall another solid performance with Dest moved the the left back this time. He was still our best outside back but I thought Cannon was better on the right than Robinson was on the left in the first game. Again the energy in the middle with Adams at the 6 and McKinney at the 8 is electric. I like the 18 year-old Englishman Yunus Musa in the middle – man he and Adams and Reyna and Dest had some really nice combinations. Musah – unlike most of our mids in the past actually takes the ball and ATTACKS. Much like Pulisic – he runs at defenders and holds the ball really well in transition as he moves it forward. If we can convince Musah to play for the US instead of England – he could really make a difference in 2022. I thought overall the offense was a little stronger today – with a real #9 playing at the forward spot things were much, much better. Soto and Gioacchini looked good up front – I missed not having Sargent up front but the 2 20 year-olds looked great on Monday. I thought the defense was a little weaker tonight – Ream is not Brooks and Miazga was good but not great. The first goal was a miscommunication between the 2 middle backs. Again this was Panama not Wales – but still 6 goals with young 20 year old forwards up front scoring 4 of them is mighty exciting. Controlling 60+% of the game possession again – again is not a normal US approach. The working the ball out of the back was almost flawless Monday as well. Overall a solid win for Gregg’s US Team and reason to be really excited with our young US team moving forward. Looking forward to seeing the MLS’ers in a December friendly at some point.
MLS Playoffs Starts Tonight
The MLS Playoffs get underway Friday with the Play in games on FS1 at 6:30 pm as New England takes on Montreal and Henry followed by the battle of Expansion Teams Nashville vs Inter Miami on ESPN at 9 pm. Sunday we get Sporting KC vs San Jose at 4 pm on FS1, while Colorado travels to Minn United at 7:30 pm on ESPN, followed by the Portland Timbers hosting Dallas and former Carmel High Star defender Matt Hedges at 10 pm on ESPN. Sat if you have Unimas or TUDN you can watch Orlando City hosting NYCFC at 12 noon and the Columbus Crew vs the NY Red Bulls at 3 pm. I don’t think they are ESPN+ but I sure hope so. Here’s the complete bracket. While Sporting KC has the top spot in the west I like one of my favorite squads in the West either #2 and defending Champs Seattle or #3 seed and MLS bubble champ Portland to come out of the West. While in the East – it’s a toss-up man. Philly has gone from whipping boy to the tops in the league and Shield Holders with young home grown players, while Toronto is of course still Toronto at #2. I would love to see 3 seed Columbus (closest to us) or the amazing Orlando the 4 seed with Nani who has worked wonders in just one year under the guy who should have been coach of the year Oscar Pareja. Looking for a team to root for – here’s a newcomers bandwagon guide.
What to Watch in League Play This Weekend
The EPL has some big games this weekend actually on normal TV – Saturday NBC actually has a good game with #2 Tottenham playing Man City at 12:30 (of course same time as my Gators ☹), right after former top slot now 6th place Aston Villa host Brighton at 10 am on NBCSN. Sunday we get Liverpool hosting Leicester City at 2:15 pm on NBCSN, right after Arsenal traveling to Leeds United at 11:30 am. My Fulham now out of the relegation zone wakes us up at 7 am vs Everton on the Peacock, while Chelsea does the same vs New Castle on Sat. sans Pulisic who is still injured. La Liga has Altetico Madrid hosting Barcelona at 3 pm Sat on beIN Sports – unfortunately Suerez the biter will not be there for Leti (covid). In Germany US 17 yo Gio Reyna and Dortmund travel to Berlin to face Hertha Berlin and American teammate John Brooks Sunday at 2:30 pm on ESPN+.
Champions League viewership up nearly 40 percent – Returns Tues/Wed
Through three matchdays, coverage of the UEFA Champions League has averaged 432,000 viewers across UniMas and Galavision — up 39% from last year. In particular, UniMas is up 35% (to 372K) and Galavision is up 100% (to 60,000).This year’s competition has already included two of the three most-watched UCL group stage matches on record, with Juventus-Barcelona on October 28 ranking first (757K) and Tuesday’s Real Madrid-Inter Milan match third (561K). No idea on CBS SportsNetwork or CBS all access as they don’t do Neilsen ratings. But it appears folks in the US are at least watching in Spanish for sure. Champions League match-day 4 is next week with the big games Tuesday being US players Gio Reyna for Dortmund hosting Club Brugge and GK Horvath on TUDN at 3 pm, while PSG hosts American Tyler Adams and RB Leipzig with the top spot in the group on the line right behind Man United. Wed’s top game features Inter Milan hosting Real Madrid on TUDN at 3 pm in a loser might be out in group C game. Salzburg and their American coach will be looking for a lifeline vs defending champs Bayern Munich and US defender Chris Richards at 3 pm on TUDN and of course all the games on CBS All Access and the CBS Sportsnetwork (check your listings you might have it) Goalazo show –goals from each game jumparound show. Full Standings thru 3 matches here.
USA Women Face Netherlands Fri Nov 27 12:30 on ESPN
The World Champs will travel to face the team they beat to win the last world cup in their first competitive match since the She Believe’s Cup back in March. Returning to the fold is Forward Alex Morgan back from having a baby and now playing in Tottenham. The full roster is here – of course missing are Rapino, Pugh, and Carli Lloyd still recovering from injuries and Horan who has been diagnosed with Covid. Will be interesting to see how coach works in the newcomers with the old guard next week. A Good Friday after Thanksgiving Sitdown at 12:30 on ESPN – along with football! I want to wish everyone a safe and Happy Thanksgiving ! The OBC.
US Ladies Roster
GOALKEEPERS (3): Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars), Aubrey Bledsoe (Washington Spirit), Jane Campbell (Houston Dash)
DEFENDERS (8): Alanna Cook (PSG), Abby Dahlkemper (North Carolina Courage), Tierna Davidson (Chicago Red Stars), Crystal Dunn (Portland Thorns), Kelley O’Hara (Utah Royals), Midge Purce (Sky Blue FC), Becky Sauerbrunn (Portland Thorns), Emily Sonnett (Orlando Pride)
MIDFIELDERS (6): Julie Ertz (Chicago Red Stars), Rose Lavelle (Manchester City), Sam Mewis (Manchester City), Kristie Mewis (Houston Dash), Jaelin Howell (Florida State), Catarina Macario (Stanford)
FORWARDS (6): Ashley Hatch (Washington Spirit), Alex Morgan (Tottenham), Christen Press (Manchester United), Tobin Heath (Manchester United), Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns), Lynn Williams (North Carolina Courage)
GAMES ON TV
(American’s in parenthesis)
Sat, Nov 21
7:30 am Peacock New castle vs Chelsea
9:30 am ESPN+ Bayern (Richards) vs Werder Bremen (Sergent)
10 am beIN Sport Villareal vs Real Madrid
10 am NBCSN Aston Villa vs Brighton
12 noon TUDN Orlando City vs NYCFC MLS Playoffs
12:30 pm NBC Spurs vs Man City
12:30 pm ESppn+ Frankfort vs RB Leipzig (Adams)
2:30 pm EPSN+ Hertha Berlin (Brooks) vs Dortmund (Reyna)
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Your flying car is back from the mechanic and parked in the air garage that floats above your house. You’ve had your dinner capsule and the kids are in bed, after taking their UV baths. It’s time to relax, activate your brain streaming and enjoy some United States men’s national team action.The future is here.Was Monday’s 6-2 win over Panama — in, of course, Austria, because where else? — only a friendly played on ocean away from both nations at the tail-end of an international break wedged into an already-jammed club season? Yes. Sure.Was this Panama team every bit as dangerous as the Panamanian army? Well, since Panama doesn’t have a standing army, also yes, pretty much.
But 2020 has been a woeful year in every way. And if you’re a committed U.S. national team follower — or, worse, a devoted fan — this has been a very long cycle or two for you. You’ve been in the wilderness as the national team fell apart, missed a World Cup and lumbered along for years, mostly looking feckless and directionless. So you deserve this. We deserve this.Because there’s something to get excited about. There’s a lot to get excited about.A national team that is young, talented, competent and compelling and maybe even a tad cocky — but the good kind of cocky. The doing-tricks-on-the-ball-in-a-real-game kind of cocky.“I don’t even know — was it six or seven?” Reyna asked casually on a video conference after the game, wondering about the score. “I don’t even remember to be honest. Six, right? It was six.”There is an awfully long way to go until the Americans get back to a World Cup, let alone make a breakthrough there. Lots of obstacles remain; there is much growing and improving to be done. But there are glimmers. Glimmers and sparks. So many of them that they’re almost blinding.And in dark times, you have to celebrate the flickers of light. Besides, it was the USA’s the last game of the year anyway — a calendar year of just three games, thus undefeated! — the ideal time to draw sweeping and overly emotional conclusions about the team’s direction and future. Plenty of times, the Yanks have looked fetid in these November friendlies. Not this time. So let’s enjoy this.
Let’s enjoy that the starting lineup was, on average, only 22 years old — and aged significantly by the presence of 33-year-old captain-for-the-day Tim Ream. Let’s enjoy the already world-class status of RB Leipzig’s Tyler Adams, Borussia Dortmund’s Gio Reyna, FC Barcelona’s Sergino Dest and Juventus’ Weston McKennie, which they all confirmed once again against Panama. Let’s enjoy how good the team looked over this game and Thursday’s very credible 0-0 tie with Wales even without injured star Christian Pulisic.Let’s enjoy how the Americans came back with a seven-minute three-goal flurry in the first half on a Reyna free kick and two goals from Nicholas Gioacchini — a tap-in and an acrobatic header.Let’s not worry so much about the fact that Panama went ahead in the eighth minute when Jose Fajardo found too much room between Ream and Matt Miazga on a cross not closed down properly. Let’s not worry about McKennie deserving a red card on a rash challenge, which the presence of VAR would probably have meted out, unlike referee Harald Lechner.Let’s also not fret about the fact that the second half was much sloppier for the Americans, or that they gave away a cheap second goal to Fajardo when he sauntered through the U.S. back line to latch onto a loose ball and shank it past Zack Steffen.Instead, let’s remember how debutant Sebastian Soto scored the fourth on a strong header from the cross dispatched by fellow newcomer Richie Ledezma. Or how Sebastian Lletget bagged the fifth with a header that dinked in off the bottom of the near post. And how Soto got his second on yet another header — a sixth — in injury time. Or that it could have been seven, had Gioacchini not botched his penalty kick.“All we wanted to do from the beginning is get the fans on our side — it was an important step for us,” head coach Gregg Berhalter said after the game of his team’s rapidly improving watchability. “That’s how it should be.”We needed something to feel good about. And what we saw from this U.S. men’s national team in the past week is something to feel good about.Leander Schaerlaeckens is a Yahoo Sports soccer columnist
Nicholas Gioacchini, Sebastian Soto offer encouragement in USMNT’s striking stocks
The worth of a forward is often in the eye of the beholder. A 30-yard-blast counts as much as a 2-yard tap-in, even though the former is often what gets the hearts of fans beating faster.There is value in both kinds of goals — not to mention link play and pressing — but the U.S. men’s national team was grateful for the two short-range tallies from Nicholas Gioacchini and another pair from substitute Sebastian Soto in a 6-2 friendly win over Panama on Monday.Forward play — and really the lack of playing with one by virtue of using a false nine — was one of the main talking points following the 0-0 draw with Wales last Friday. The U.S. dominated possession but had little in the way of attacking thrust, especially in the box. Against a rebuilding Panama side, manager Gregg Berhalter decided to go with a more standard alignment, handing Gioacchini his first start. “You could tell he was a little bit apprehensive,” said Berhalter about Gioacchini. “My job was just to give him confidence and tell him that he’s good enough, and he showed it tonight.”The Caen forward didn’t get on the ball much, just 18 touches in his 77 minutes of work. But he was in the right spots when it mattered, pouncing on a rebound in 22nd minute to put the U.S. ahead for good 2-1, and then adding another four minutes later on a diving header following a slick buildup.”I had a week that I’ll never, ever, ever forget,” Gioacchini said afterward. But he was also already critiquing his own performance, which included a penalty that was saved by Panama goalkeeper Orlando Mosquera.
“My first impression I don’t think was a bad one,” he continued. “But I could have done way better for myself, been more available to the midfield even to the center-backs. In the box, I still had areas where I felt like I should have been five steps ahead of where you were, even two steps ahead. So, you know, it’s always something to review and to remember. But still, two goals is not easy for anyone.”The day was just as memorable for Soto, who came off the bench to score two headed goals. In the process, he showed off his mobility and knack for being in good spots.The play of both players hints that the depth at the forward position might be a bit deeper than originally thought, though context is needed. Mosquera looked very shaky on his international debut. It also seems unlikely that either forward will jump ahead of the likes of Josh Sargent, Gyasi Zardes or Jozy Altidore. That said, the impression made by both players was a positive one.
“For me, it was a good performance by [Soto and Gioacchini],” Berhalter said. “But it’s important. When we talked last week about potentially the depth chart of the striker and forward position being limited, any chance you get, you need to take it, and these guys did a good job.”While the forwards delivered, the play of the team as a whole was a bit all over the place, filled with some sparkling play and also some teachable moments. That was just fine with Berhalter, who was pleased to see his young side be exposed to how a game against a CONCACAF opponent can play out.”It was a very difficult game, a very physical game — more physical than the Wales game,” said Berhalter. “We needed that. The guys needed it. We had some guys calling for fouls. These aren’t going to be fouls. You’ve got to play on.”The U.S. started the match almost asleep, lacking in defensive focus, only to be woken up by Jose Fajardo‘s eighth-minute header that gave Los Canaleros a shock 1-0 lead. The U.S. soon asserted control through its midfield, scoring three times in an eight minute span, with recent birthday boy Gio Reyna netting his first international goal courtesy of a free kick that was won by Yunus Musah.
In the second half, the U.S. then returned to sleep mode, as Panama ratcheted up its intensity and physical play. Weston McKennie, while excellent on the night, was lucky to stay on the field with a two-footed tackle on Panama’s Gaby Torres that drew only a yellow card. When Fajardo bagged his second of the night in the 79th minute with well-taken drive, there was a question of whether a team with plenty of debutantes on the field could see the game out. That they did, with Richie Ledezma assisting on both of Soto’s goal and Sebastian Lletget adding another.”That was the period I was most interested in,” said Berhalter. “I was really interested in seeing where we gonna buckle or could we hang in there. And not only did we hang in there, we pulled away at the end, scoring a number of goals, so I was pleased with the performance.”Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this international window was the play of the U.S. central midfield. Once again, Tyler Adams, McKennie, and Musah shined. The task now is to convince Musah to stick with the U.S. for the long term. The two recent performances don’t cap-tie him to the U.S., and England have made it clear they don’t intend to let Musah go without a fight. The U.S. have been able to strike first, however, and that at least gets Musah pondering his options.”I was really happy with, with Yunus’ performance, I’m really happy with him in camp. The guys really took to him well,” said Berhalter.”All I’ve ever said about players in his category is that all we want to do is create an environment for them that they want to be in, that they trust is a good environment for their development. And it seemed like that was the case for Yunus. It seems like he sees us as a pathway to continue to develop and play with a good, young group. But in the end, it’s going to be him and his family that decide.”Things are already looking up for the U.S. given how young players are beginning to establish themselves with their clubs. If Musah commits to the U.S., that feeling will only increase.
The USMNT’s Future Is Bright; Just How Bright Can it Be?
There’s clear reason for optimism surrounding a talented core that’s playing for elite clubs at a young age. To think about breaking the U.S. men’s national team’s glass ceiling, though, you must first understand how high it stands. BRIAN STRAUSUPDATED:NOV 17, 2020 SI
There have been, by U.S. soccer’s historically modest standards, a couple close calls. In 2002, a men’s national team that probably was the best the country ever fielded outplayed Germany in a World Cup quarterfinal and was denied extra time by an unsympathetic referee. Eight years later in South Africa, the USA won its group and faced the most forgiving path to the semis it was ever going to get: Ghana and Uruguay. But the Americans fell to the Black Stars in the round of 16.That’s as close as the USA has come to contending at a modern World Cup. Now, consider how much further it has to go.Here’s a statistic to ponder. Let it provide some context for all the conversation, hype and footballing fantasies now taking root. Since the World Cup expanded to 32 teams in 1998, the eventual tournament champion has won an average of six matches. That’s six victories in one month. The U.S. men’s national team has won six World Cup games combined in the past 70 years. That’s six victories across 18 tournaments.Granted, five have come in the past eight World Cups. So that’s a relative hot streak. But still, the broad trends that somehow seem to govern World Cups suggest the USA isn’t close to contending. Its single knockout-stage win was 18 years ago against familiar foe Mexico, and since each subsequent round is logarithmically more difficult—barring a historic fluke—it’s pretty clear that at this point, the USA is a lot more likely to miss a World Cup altogether than challenge for the crown. And that fact was hammered home three years ago. In 1989, the U.S. program made its first big leap, qualifying for a World Cup for the first time in 40 years. It became a participant. To become a contender, it must make another big leap. For a couple decades now, the USA has been running in place. Group stage exits. Round-of-16 exits. Couva. A leap to the World Cup quarterfinals and beyond requires a historic disruption of that inertia. But there’s evidence that disruption is finally happening. Within the past year or so, young U.S. players are suddenly being signed by the sport’s biggest clubs. Christian Pulisic is at Chelsea. Weston McKennie is at Juventus. Tyler Adams is at RB Leipzig, a Champions League semifinalist. There are now two Americans at Barcelona, and more coming up at Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, PSV Eindhoven and more. This feels different. It is different.And so this new U.S. national team, the one that may redefine what’s possible for American soccer, took its first step into that new era over the past week. After a 10-month pandemic pause (or longer for many), during which the player pool evolved significantly, coach Gregg Berhalter gathered his squad of emerging stars for friendlies against Wales (a 0-0 draw) and Panama (a 6-2 win).For the coaches and players, it was a chance to spend time with each other, establish a bit of chemistry and start drilling down on Berhalter’s principles of play. The 24-man team initially included 10 uncapped players and 19 eligible for next summer’s U-23 Olympic qualifiers and finals. There was a lot of work to do, and not a ton of time. But during Zoom calls with the media, there were just as many questions about hype, potential and promise as there were about Wales and Panama. That’s what people want to read about. It’s what fans, still sore after the Couva catastrophe, want to revel in. The weight of hope and expectation now hangs over a U.S. team like never before, and Berhalter and his players found they’d have to manage that as much as they’d have to deal not only with the training sessions and games in front of them, but in simply getting to know each other.This game-changing team is still just finding its feet.“The hype in general comes from the outside—from the media, from the fans—and I think we’re not really playing for the expectations of other people. We’re playing for the expectations within our group, within our team, within our brotherhood that we have here,” McKennie said.“We have expectations. We have desires. And I think the most important thing is just to keep [all the young players] working, including myself,” the Juve midfielder continued. “It starts with us, and we have to kind of show that and let them know, ‘Hey, you haven’t made it yet. Day in and day out you have to bust your balls to play. You gotta bust your balls and you’re representing a whole country.’”Said defender Reggie Cannon, an FC Dallas product who lauded the level of competition he’s now getting at Portugal’s Boavista, “One thing I can say to the national team fans is be patient. … We have a lot of talented individuals obviously, and what’s going to make this team great is if we play for each other. And that’s something we’re figuring out.”Berhalter also endeavored to establish a reasonable benchmark. Unlike recent USMNT predecessors, he’s committed to the painstaking work of establishing both a coherent and consistent style of play, and an inclusive, uplifting team culture. Neither is easy, especially with so much new blood. The past week was a reminder of how much goes into laying those foundations.“One thing I’ve noticed especially when you’re working with new players or a group that’s just forming is, you go through different stages of team development,” Berhalter said. “With this group in particular, it is more of individuals looking for their position within the team, and we clearly want to move to more of a team-orientated standpoint as we get into [World Cup] qualifying.“It’s completely natural what’s happening now,” he added. “A guy wants to come into camp. He wants to make a good impression on the coaching staff. He wants to play really well, and he’s focused more on himself. As he gets more comfortable now, he’s focused more on his teammates. And we certainly want to get into that stage by qualifying because that’s going to be really important.”Qualifying is the first measuring stick. Before the USA can contend globally, it has to get back to dominating regionally. Next year will provide an ideal opportunity. Following the March friendly window, the USA will enter the four-team Concacaf Nations League finals in June. It’s a minor title, but success would whet the appetite. The Gold Cup starts in July, and then Concacaf’s World Cup qualifying octagonal finally gets underway in September.Berhalter said Monday that he’s unlikely to call in his contingent of European A-listers for both the Nations League and Gold Cup, meaning it’s one or the other, plus the March window, for those players between now and next September. Again, that’s not a lot of time.But the USA doesn’t have to win a World Cup next fall. It just has to beat the likes of Costa Rica and Honduras. And while Monday’s defensively-deficient Panamanian side may not have been the best litmus test, there clearly was progress made over the past week-plus, both from a coaching perspective and among the players. Berhalter saw some things and probably learned some things, while his charges appeared to be positive about being in camp and about playing with each other. Those are foundational building blocks. We saw Adams play as the lone defensive midfielder in Berhalter’s three-man midfield for the first and second time, quickly establishing himself as the guy who probably should man that role for the next decade. And we saw McKennie and dual-national Yunus Musah connect, cover ground and drive the ball forward in occasionally dominant fashion. If that dynamic was enough to convince Musah to commit his international future to the USA, then the camp will have been a smashing success.
But there was more. The USA defended and pressed well out of that 4-3-3 against Wales. In that match, despite the offensive stagnation, the young Americans never lost their defensive focus. And against Panama, despite going down early and then losing its grip on the game early in the second half, the U.S. recovered and put Panama in its place. Berhalter got a look at his team attacking with a false nine and with a more traditional striker, and saw how debutant Gio Reyna found (or didn’t find) space to contribute behind each. Depth at striker was a concern, with the absent Josh Sargent still unproven and Jozy Altidore aging. But Nicholas Gioacchini and Sebastian Soto—each 20 years old and with the senior squad for the first time—demonstrated some comfort in the penalty area and contributed two goals apiece. Further back, Berhalter had the opportunity to field Sergiño Dest at both right and left back, while testing a couple different center back pairings and getting Zack Steffen valuable minutes in net.There was plenty to digest. And that constitutes a good start on a long journey.“You can still see a lot of times we’ve only been together for a week. I think you also saw some really good things,” said Reyna, who turned 18 last Friday and scored his first U.S. goal on Monday. “Everybody’s been getting along very well off the field too. So I think on and off the field it’s just slowly bringing this group together where by the time qualifying comes, we’ll be ready to compete and [have] very good chemistry on and off the field.”That chemistry isn’t a given, considering they all come from different clubs in different leagues. Fans can swoon over the teams these men play for, but that doesn’t guarantee cohesion when they come together. Plenty of countries head to a World Cup with impressive rosters and then leave early because chemistry and humility are absent. The young Americans, however, carry a burden in common. Many are pioneers, in a sense—one of the first, if not the first, from their country to be counted on at their respective club. Rather than fuel a sense of ego or entitlement, it seems to have left them appreciating, supporting and challenging each other.“The best thing for us to do is to go to Europe and challenge yourself and get a taste of what real football is like, because I think that’s ultimately going to create so much challenge and so much unity within the team that everyone can experience this lifestyle and challenge each other for spots,” Cannon said. “I think that’s what makes teams great.”The chemistry is evident in interviews and on Instagram, and on the field as well. At times, this U.S. team was genuinely fun to watch. There was panache and confidence on the ball—the sort of flicks, quick touches and dexterity that Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey used to show on their own, but that now several of these players can perform in combination—as well as the fluid, 360-degree awareness not too frequently seen among American men. “We all know that we like to play. We like to combine. We like to make those small touches and small passes, and I think whenever you get into that type of confidence that you can play with your guys and everything, then I think it just brings out the confidence in yourself,” McKennie said. “I think a lot of the guys felt the comfortability with the other players on the field and we enjoyed it, We had fun. … It’s a good stepping stone and I think it was a good start after not being together for a whole year.”The possibilities are intriguing. But one barrier must fall at a time. A team with good young players who enjoy working together is a start, but there’s so much further to go. While this U.S. squad has a few individuals scattered across some big clubs, the national teams it’s chasing–the elite–have dozens. They have depth that would tie Berhalter in knots. Here’s another stat to consider, courtesy of Transfermarkt: While the USA currently has three players valued at more than $20 million (Pulisic, McKennie and Dest), world champion France has 25 players valued that highly who have never even been called in to the senior national team. It’s night and day. There is such a long way to go.But you can’t get there without coming this far first. This improvisational camp, featuring two closed-door games and so many new faces, went as well as can be expected. And so a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single stepover.
Armchair Analyst: What we learned from the November US men’s national team camp
The first US men’s national team outings in nine-and-a-half months are officially in the books. The first of those outings, a scoreless draw at Wales, was good in that it highlighted a bunch of the things that Gregg Berhalter has been trying to instill:
The US were mostly good with the ball
The US controlled possession and, thus, the tempo of the game
A bunch of new, young players made their debuts
Catastrophic errors were avoided
It was also bad in that, you know, it was a scoreless draw vs. the Welsh B team, and it’s not like it was scoreless because the US were fluffing chances. They just didn’t turn that possession into much penetration. That’s been an ongoing issue against pretty good-to-excellent teams during Berhalter’s two years in charge now.The second game, Monday’s 6-2 rout of an overmatched Panama side, was both better and worse. Here’s the worse part:
They gave up two goals to an overmatched Panama side
This was probably the weakest Panama team in 20 years. Their golden generation — players like Blas Perez, Luis Tejada and Jaime Penedo — have aged out, and the new guys aren’t anywhere near as good, nor they play with the same type of urgency. They do not score a lot of goals, and it was kind of shocking to see them score two against the US. Neither Matt Miazga nor Tim Ream covered themselves in glory on the defensive side of the ball. I do not think we will see that combo again.
But it was also good in a lot of ways:
Drubbing a non-minnow Concacaf side 6-2 is objectively good
The patterns of play Berhalter has been trying to instill were present, effective, and often executed at pace
Many of the younger players looked more comfortable in their second cap than their first
Once Panama fought back a bit, the US woke up and killed them down the stretch
It is nice to see a young team score goals, but I’d argue it is even nicer to see them refuse to get Concacaf’d.
Here’s a bit more of what we learned from this camp:
It’s a 2-3-2-3
I wrote in my preview that the US seemed destined to go for a 3-2-2-3 in possession this cycle, with Tyler Adams (or Jackson Yueill, or Johnny Cardoso — who was good vs. Wales but struggled vs. Panama) dropping back to split the center backs and pushing the fullbacks up, then spraying. There was some of that, but it certainly was not the default look.Instead, Adams largely stayed central and a bit ahead of the center backs, whether it was Miazga and Ream on Monday or Miazga and John Brooks last week. The fullbacks both got forward, which did create the “2-3” shape up top once the wingers pinched in, but more of that came from combination play via central midfield and less of it via dimed diagonals. It is a real difference, though I’m not willing to say whether or not it’s a “significant” difference. I need to see more of it against better competition and in games with real stakes.My gut is that I like it. The second line of “3” with Adams, Weston McKennie and Yunus Musah just smothered almost every counter opportunity before they could even start. Their mobility and ability to work as a trio was perhaps the biggest revelation of the camp, and it’s hard to imagine there won’t be a full-court press from Berhalter & Co. to get Musah to commit to the US team.An attacking aspect of this set-up that didn’t really work is the fact that it, in theory, allows more freeom for either McKennie or Musah more freedom to make late-arriving runs into the box for pull-backs – which one one of the very best parts of McKennie’s game in particular. You can do that in a 3-2-2-3 (McKennie literally has done it from that set-up), but there’s one more moving piece if/when you take that risk, and little complications like that can become big issues if the shot is blocked or the cross cut out and a counter starts in the other direction.
Those pull-backs are going to be the lifeblood of this attack. Watch this clip and you’ll all see the goal:
https://www.mlssoccer.com/iframe-video?brightcove_id=6210200317001&brightcove_player_id=default&brightcove_account_id=5530036772001 Watch it again, but focus on Gio Reyna. After releasing the pass he actually slows his run and opens up for the pullback. He is using the defender’s anticipation of a hard, direct run against him, and understands where the space in the box is about to materialize because of the pattern of play.This is good soccer from him and the US. There were a lot of little moments like that against Panama, and while I will reiterate that this is a weak Panama team compared to the past two decades, this is the exact type of team you have to beat in order to make it to the World Cup and face the Belgiums and Brazils of the world.
There Will Be a Press
The US alternated between pressing out of a 4-4-2 diamond, which was more prevalent vs. Wales with Sebastian Lletget as a false 9, and a 4-3-3 with some of the same principles, as we saw against Panama.In either set-up the goal is the same: force the opposing goalkeeper to make tough choices and tougher passes in order to find pockets, or coax them into blasting it long and giving the 12-and-a-half combined feet of US center backs a bunch of aerials to dominate.The only other option is to clip a ball to the weak-side fullback along the touchline, which is something Panama’s Orlando Mosquera did time and again. That is a recipe for turnovers, as happened time and again.On the flip side, I think it’s pretty clear that the US need to get ready to be pressed more often. Wales basically let the US have possession in the first half, then caused real problems — and nearly a goal — with some fairly committed high pressing in the second half. Panama’s goals didn’t come from pressing, but they definitely rattled the young US side for good chunks of the second half with some energetic, front-foot defending. Brooks and Ream were generally outstanding playing out of it, as were Sergino Dest and Reggie Cannon. Adams and Johnny struggled a bit.So it goes with young players — even ones on Champions League/Copa Libertadores sides.
Be Excited About the Kids
Musah, who might’ve been the second-best US player vs. Wales behind only McKennie, largely overdelivered. McKennie, Adams and Dest looked like what they are — veterans of the Champions League, and $20 million (at least) players. Reggie Cannon is not going to be a $20 million player, but my guess is he’ll be close to a $10 million, mistake-free RB who occasionally makes match-winning plays thanks to his understanding of when to get forward and pin-point crossing.Tim Weah looked healthy-ish, if not necessarily sharp. Antonee Robinson struggled, and I’ll go ahead and admit I still don’t quite see it with him (the door is very open for Sam Vines, though I’ll go ahead and persist in my belief that Dest on the left with Cannon on the right will end up being our best bet even if Dest didn’t look great there vs. Panama). Konrad de la Fuente and Uly Llanez looked like what they are, which is to say teenagers who aren’t yet really ready for first-team minutes. Richie Ledezma mostly looked like that as well, though he obviously had a major say in the late onslaught vs. Panama.I think Johnny will be very good as long as he keeps getting minutes and, quite frankly, I liked his willingness to kick people. I am still high on Chris Richards, though I am not enamored of his club situation (I don’t think he’s going to regularly play CB for Bayern Munich any time soon).So much of the above can change so quickly over the course of a few short months. For Musah, McKennie, Adams, Cannon and Dest, it changed for the better and they are all on clear, upward trajectories. The hope is that most of the rest of the players from this camp can do the same, but nothing’s guaranteed.Still, just from a depth-building perspective, this camp should be considered a major win.Reyna is probably the highest-rated truly young player in the pool. He was dominant vs. Panama, if a bit sloppier than I expected him to be on the ball in midfield. He’s not easily or often taken off of it for Borussia Dortmund, but got it caught up in his feet a few times vs. Los Canaleros. The same vs. Wales. I am not particularly concerned about this long-term — international soccer is just different. He’ll figure that part out.
The real issue with Reyna is this one:
https://www.mlssoccer.com/iframe-video?brightcove_id=6210211257001&brightcove_player_id=default&brightcove_account_id=5530036772001 The Reyna we’ve seen at Dortmund over the past year makes that pass. The Reyna we saw for US youth teams at various age-groups often doesn’t. It is why so many teams functioned better once they got him out of the engine room.This was his first-ever cap, and he followed it up with a much better second outing. He’s getting real minutes for one of the 15 (or so) best teams in the world at age 17 (now 18). The failure to make this pass is not a five-alarm fire.But it is something to be aware of.Another potential issue that I came away from this camp thinking about: Reyna was much better on the left than on the right. Christian Pulisic is much better on the left than the right, and Jordan Morris is much better on the left than the right.I don’t think this is a five-alarm fire, either. But it’s something to be aware of.I am curious to see how Berhalter will fit his consensus most-talented players on the field and meld them into a high-functioning unit. I don’t think that’s entirely clear yet, even if the system itself, and how it’s supposed to function, is.
The Situation at Striker
Here’s what I tweeted after the Wales game, during which Lletget was miscast as a false 9.Berhalter did indeed stop with the false 9 stuff vs. Panama, and both Nicholas Gioacchini and Sebastian Soto made good cases for themselves. Gioacchini’s natural inclination to link play is such a nice foundational building block, but he seems to pair it with high-level mobility and a willingness to scrap in the box. Soto, obviously, just has a nose for goal.None of these guys — either those two, or Gyasi Zardes, Jozy Altidore, Josh Sargent, Daryl Dike, Jeremy Ebobisse or Ayo Akinola — need to become Robert Lewandowski to play a significant role in what has the potential to become an excellent attack (though I would not complain if one did, in fact, become Robert Lewandowski). They just need to be capable of executing those patterns of play at pace, to stay on their toes, and to put the ball in the net when the opportunity presents itself.Regardless, I do believe that one of these guys needs to start even if it means leaving a nominally more talented winger or attacking midfielder on the bench. Balance, and getting the talent on the field to function together, is more important than just putting as much talent as is possible out there.
I don’t know if there’s much else to take from these games beyond that. They were B Team, shake-the-rust-off friendlies, and they were largely fun and good even if there were bits of disappointment scattered in. There is a clear plan of attack — and of how to attack — and more young talent than the program’s ever had scattered throughout the roster.But the truth is that with 10 months between now and the start of World Cup qualifying, these games will be largely forgotten as the games that matter finally come around. It’s not a scoreless draw vs .Wales that’ll determine who’s on the field and in what role next September; it’s club situations and injuries and opportunity, as well as a jam-packed next summer of US games at every age-group (Johnny, Uly and Konrad with the U-20s? I’d like to see it!).We’ll know more by then. In the meantime, the past 180 minutes were pretty fun and pretty purposeful. That’s good enough for me, for now.
Takeaways from USMNT’s 6-2 thumping of Panama, featuring Gio Reyna’s first senior national team goal (video)
The second-youngest lineup in U.S. men’s national team history didn’t look the part for most of Monday’s 6-2 exhibition rout of CONCACAF rival Panama in Austria. Following last week’s impressive if anticlimactic scoreless friendly with Wales, the Americans started slow, conceding the opening goal to Los Canaleros just over seven minutes into the contest. The early blow brought the USMNT to life. “It was a wakeup call.” U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter said.Giovanni Reyna started the comeback off of a seeing-eye free kick, Nicholas Gioacchini scored twice in a four minute span in the first half and Sebastian Soto and Sebastian Lletget added goals in the second as Gregg Berhalter’s side secured a convincing victory against a team the U.S. will face during qualifying for the 2022 World Cup.
Here are three quick takeaways from Monday’s match:
Reyna makes his mark in his second U.S. appearance
Reyna’s much anticipated senior team debut was solid if unspectacular. But on Monday, he produced some of the end-product that has helped him emerge as one of the world’s top young talents with German titan Borussia Dortmund.Not only did his 18th-minute strike get the Americans back on level terms, it also showed off the newly-minted 18-year-old’s soccer brain, as Reyna sent his shot under Panama’s wall:
The goal made Reyna — the son of former USMNT captain Claudio Reyna and U.S. women’s team winger Danielle Egan — the third youngest scorer in program history. That it came in a dub mattered, tool.“We were all motivated today to get the win against a CONCACAF opponent,” Reyna said afterward, noting Los Canaleros physicality. “We got a little bit of a taste of what CONCACAF teams will be like against us.”It wasn’t a perfect showing; as much as Reyna was at the heart of many of the USA’s best moves at Wiener Neustadt Stadium, the normally tidy midfielder quite uncharacteristically got caught in possession on multiple occasions in the second half, before being replaced by the more defense-minded Johnny Cardoso at the hour mark.Still, in these last two games — which U.S. headliner Christian Pulisic missed because of a hamstring injury — Reyna showed, in flashes at least, why everyone is so excited about his future.
Gioacchini, Soto take advantage of opportunities up top
Even before 20-year-old Werder Bremen striker Josh Sargent was forced off the squad because of local COVID-19 restrictions in Germany, Berhalter’s 24-deep roster was painfully thin up top.With MLS options Jozy Altidore (injury) and Gyasi Zardes (playoff commitments) — probably No. 1 and 2 on the coach’s depth chart — also unavailable, LA Galaxy midfielder Sebastian Lletget was deployed as a “false 9” in last week’s stalemate in Swansea, in which the visitors registered just one on-target shot.Berhalter promised Sunday that he would start an actual front runner against the Panamanians. Gioacchini made the most of his chance. “I feel like I have a lot to improve on [but] my first impression I don’t think was a bad one,” he said before being named Man of the Match. “Two goals is not easy for anyone.”The Kansas City native, 20, headed home his first off the rebound of a Uly Llanez shot following a sequence that started with Weston McKennie winning the ball in midfield and springing Reyna, who found Llanez on the right:McKennie also helped set up Gioacchini’s second by keeping the ball in play and crossing to defender Matt Miazga, who headed back across the face of goal. Gioacchini didn’t hesitate to stick his noggin into a dangerous spot to nod past keeper Orlando Mosquera:
Gioacchini, who plays for French second tier side Caen, could even have added a third and completed his hat trick, but Mosquera smothered his second-half penalty kick — a miss that made the things interesting when Jose Fajardo’s second pulled one back for Panama late on.But Soto restored the two-goal advantage six minutes into his debut. With the result beyond doubt, Lletget made it 5-2. Soto added the cherry with his second in stoppage time.For a team that needs all the finishing help it can get, Gioacchini’s and Soto’s performances had to have made an impression on Berhalter — one he’s not likely to forget in 2021.“It was really important for both of them. We’re really happy for both of them,” Berhalter said. “When we talked last week about the depth chart of the striker or the forward position being limited, any chance you get you have to take it, and these guys did a good job tonight.”
European-based Americans end difficult 2020 on a high
Monday’s win marked the final match of the year for most of the national team’s big guns, who will be busy with their European clubs if and when U.S. Soccer is able to schedule one final friendly next month outside of the international window — a game that would likely feature MLS players not involved in the domestic league’s Dec. 12 championship.Getting the two November games in at all during the coronavirus pandemic was a triumph in itself. Producing two solid displays, even if there were some defensive lapses on Monday, is an added bonus following all the challenges that this year has brought.“We were way too static against Wales,” Berhalter said. “And I think today the intention was to get behind the [back] line more. And that really helped the team, it really helped stretch Panama and gave us some space that we needed.“As we had to grind, and as the game got more difficult, that was what I was really interested in,” the coach added. “I’m really proud of that response as well. The subs who came in made a difference. Overall, it was a really good week.”
Breakdown of USMNT players in Wales, Panama friendlies
Nicholas Mendola Mon, November 16, 2020, 7:16 PM EST·6 min read
The United States men’s national team played its first two matches in 10 months this week, showcasing youthful vigor and plenty of growth since Gregg Berhalter’s program development was stalled by the coronavirus pandemic.
There were a lot of winners and few outright ‘losers’ — relatively speaking — from the scoreless draw against Wales and the blowout defeat of Panama. Weston McKennie, Sergino Dest, and Zack Steffen were the lone players to go 90 minutes in both matches, while Giovanni Reyna, Yunus Musah, Tyler Adams, and Matt Miazga were the other four players to get two starts.
Below is the full minute breakdown for the men of the USMNT camp. Who seized the chances provided by the absence of Christian Pulisic, Jordan Morris, Walker Zimmerman, Aaron Long, and the rest of MLS?
Horvath not seeing the field against Panama means Berhalter sees Steffen as his no-doubt No. 1, while Odunze was just here for reps. We knew that anyway, but the 180 minutes underscores it.
Defenders
Sergino Dest — 180 minutes (two starts) Matt Miazga — 167 minutes (two starts), assist Reggie Cannon — 93 minutes (one start, one sub), assist Antonee Robinson — 90 minutes (one start) John Brooks — 90 minutes (one start) Tim Ream — 90 minutes (one start) Chris Richards — 10 minutes (one sub)
Dest was electric in going 90 minutes each at right and left back, one of only two players to go the distance against both Wales and Panama. Cannon had a better camp than Robinson, but was it enough to keep Dest on his non-preferred side (and can Cannon man the left)?
Brooks was the Man of the Match against Wales and is the no doubt No. 1 in the pool, talent-wise. Miazga was fine against Wales but made mistakes on both Panama goals, with Ream sharing some blame on the opener. Richards only getting 10 minutes might say more about an extended chance for Miazga than it does for the Bayern Munich man.
McKennie was the team’s heart and soul in both matches, going the distance and barely putting a foot awry with the exception of what could’ve been a red card tackle in the second half against Panama. Berhalter had huge praise for the Juventus man, who looks very much like a player who’s been earning minutes in the Serie A powers’ midfield. He played a big role in the first three goals versus Panama.
Musah is the real deal, and the only question is whether the ball transporter will choose playing and probably starting for the USMNT now over a chance with England down the line (He’s repped England at many youth levels). The Valencia teen’s signature would be a massive victory for the USMNT.
Adams was good in both games. The question for Berhalter is whether he’s should be the lone holding/defensive midfielder in a 4-1-4-1 or if a double pivot may be needed more often.
Lletget’s 100 minutes are both misleading and not; Berhalter shoehorning the midfielder into a start at forward against Wales shows how much he loves the player who has been good in most of his USMNT caps, but he’s not getting that look with Josh Sargent, Gyasi Zardes, and maybe now both Gioacchini and Soto available.
Cardoso is green, which Berhalter noted, but he definitely had the technical skills and tenacity often seen from players who hail from Brazilian clubs.
Ledezma proved he’s ready for prime time, at least against CONCACAF defenses, by getting into space and providing two assists to Soto. He’ll continue to get looks.
Otasowie’s cameo will lead to some questions for a player who can still choose other clubs and could soon see minutes for Wolves in the Premier League.
Forwards
Giovanni Reyna — 147 minutes (two starts), goal Nicholas Gioacchini — 87 minutes (one start, one sub), 2 goals Ulysses Llanez — 81 minutes (one start, one sub) Konrad de la Fuente — 71 minutes (one start) Timothy Weah — 24 minutes (two subs) Sebastian Soto — 13 minutes, (one sub) 2 goals
We finally got to see Reyna with the senior team. Neither performance would qualify anywhere near his best days with Borussia Dortmund but he honestly had looked a little fatigued in recent BVB outings and frankly he probably could use a rest after a thrilling but fatiguing breakthrough in the Bundesliga and UEFA Champions League. His free kick goal was wonderful.
Gioacchini’s and Soto’s performances against Panama will have a lot of us wondering if this would’ve been a 2-0 international break had Berhalter opted for either (or Timothy Weah) over lone-MLS representative Lletget in an out-of-position start last week. Their stock has risen the highest of any non-Reyna first-timer.
Llanez played in both matches and should only get better with more and more European minutes. He’s on loan from Wolfsburg to Dutch side Heerenveen, where he’s made three sub appearances and thrice been an unused sub. A scary-looking knee injury versus Panama was fortunately not a concern.
Weah is a big question mark. A super sub for Lille who’s scored six goals in 33 senior appearances between the Ligue 1 side, Celtic, and Paris Saint-Germain, his not starting at center forward over Lletget only to not get the call against Panama either begs questions that have yet to be asked of Berhalter. It’s reasonable enough to think he could be on a minutes restriction after a massive knee injury last season, as he’s gone 10, 8, 11, 7, 12, 1, and 14 minutes in his seven matches for second-place Lille.
Nicholas Gioacchini, Sebastian Soto offer encouragement in USMNT’s striking stocks
7:28 PM ET Jeff CarlisleU.S. soccer correspondent
The worth of a forward is often in the eye of the beholder. A 30-yard-blast counts as much as a 2-yard tap-in, even though the former is often what gets the hearts of fans beating faster.There is value in both kinds of goals — not to mention link play and pressing — but the U.S. men’s national team was grateful for the two short-range tallies from Nicholas Gioacchini and another pair from substitute Sebastian Soto in a 6-2 friendly win over Panama on Monday.Forward play — and really the lack of playing with one by virtue of using a false nine — was one of the main talking points following the 0-0 draw with Wales last Friday. The U.S. dominated possession but had little in the way of attacking thrust, especially in the box. Against a rebuilding Panama side, manager Gregg Berhalter decided to go with a more standard alignment, handing Gioacchini his first start. “You could tell he was a little bit apprehensive,” said Berhalter about Gioacchini. “My job was just to give him confidence and tell him that he’s good enough, and he showed it tonight.”he Caen forward didn’t get on the ball much, just 18 touches in his 77 minutes of work. But he was in the right spots when it mattered, pouncing on a rebound in 22nd minute to put the U.S. ahead for good 2-1, and then adding another four minutes later on a diving header following a slick buildup.”I had a week that I’ll never, ever, ever forget,” Gioacchini said afterward. But he was also already critiquing his own performance, which included a penalty that was saved by Panama goalkeeper Orlando Mosquera.
“My first impression I don’t think was a bad one,” he continued. “But I could have done way better for myself, been more available to the midfield even to the center-backs. In the box, I still had areas where I felt like I should have been five steps ahead of where you were, even two steps ahead. So, you know, it’s always something to review and to remember. But still, two goals is not easy for anyone.”The day was just as memorable for Soto, who came off the bench to score two headed goals. In the process, he showed off his mobility and knack for being in good spots.The play of both players hints that the depth at the forward position might be a bit deeper than originally thought, though context is needed. Mosquera looked very shaky on his international debut. It also seems unlikely that either forward will jump ahead of the likes of Josh Sargent, Gyasi Zardes or Jozy Altidore. That said, the impression made by both players was a positive one.”For me, it was a good performance by [Soto and Gioacchini],” Berhalter said. “But it’s important. When we talked last week about potentially the depth chart of the striker and forward position being limited, any chance you get, you need to take it, and these guys did a good job.”While the forwards delivered, the play of the team as a whole was a bit all over the place, filled with some sparkling play and also some teachable moments. That was just fine with Berhalter, who was pleased to see his young side be exposed to how a game against a CONCACAF opponent can play out.”It was a very difficult game, a very physical game — more physical than the Wales game,” said Berhalter. “We needed that. The guys needed it. We had some guys calling for fouls. These aren’t going to be fouls. You’ve got to play on.”The U.S. started the match almost asleep, lacking in defensive focus, only to be woken up by Jose Fajardo‘s eighth-minute header that gave Los Canaleros a shock 1-0 lead. The U.S. soon asserted control through its midfield, scoring three times in an eight minute span, with recent birthday boy Gio Reyna netting his first international goal courtesy of a free kick that was won by Yunus Musah.
In the second half, the U.S. then returned to sleep mode, as Panama ratcheted up its intensity and physical play. Weston McKennie, while excellent on the night, was lucky to stay on the field with a two-footed tackle on Panama’s Gaby Torres that drew only a yellow card. When Fajardo bagged his second of the night in the 79th minute with well-taken drive, there was a question of whether a team with plenty of debutantes on the field could see the game out. That they did, with Richie Ledezma assisting on both of Soto’s goal and Sebastian Lletget adding another.
“That was the period I was most interested in,” said Berhalter. “I was really interested in seeing where we gonna buckle or could we hang in there. And not only did we hang in there, we pulled away at the end, scoring a number of goals, so I was pleased with the performance.”Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this international window was the play of the U.S. central midfield. Once again, Tyler Adams, McKennie, and Musah shined. The task now is to convince Musah to stick with the U.S. for the long term. The two recent performances don’t cap-tie him to the U.S., and England have made it clear they don’t intend to let Musah go without a fight. The U.S. have been able to strike first, however, and that at least gets Musah pondering his options.”I was really happy with, with Yunus’ performance, I’m really happy with him in camp. The guys really took to him well,” said Berhalter.”All I’ve ever said about players in his category is that all we want to do is create an environment for them that they want to be in, that they trust is a good environment for their development. And it seemed like that was the case for Yunus. It seems like he sees us as a pathway to continue to develop and play with a good, young group. But in the end, it’s going to be him and his family that decide.”Things are already looking up for the U.S. given how young players are beginning to establish themselves with their clubs. If Musah commits to the U.S., that feeling will only increase.
Armchair Analyst: Tactical preview of the Audi 2020 MLS Cup Playoffs Play-In matches
The Audi 2020 MLS Cup Playoffs are finally here! And that means a Play-In round, because for some reason 10 teams made the playoffs in the Eastern Conference! It’s a little weird and I still don’t get it, but what the hell — more soccer is more better.
So let’s take a look:
New England Revolution vs. Montreal Impact
Friday, November 20 (6:30 pm ET | FS1, FOX Deportes, TSN 1/4, TVA Sports)
What New England will do: It’s a Bruce Arena team in the postseason, and Bruce Arena teams are first and foremost about defense in the postseason. Remember his 2011 LA Galaxy side that won the Supporters’ Shield/MLS Cup double? That team had Landon Donovan, Robbie Keane, David Beckham and Mike Magee, and they won their four playoff games that year 1-0, 2-1, 3-1 and 1-0.
Look at that list of players and then look at those scorelines. That’s the Platonic Ideal of a Bruce Arena playoff run.
Now look at that list of players once more, then look at the list of the Revs’ best players and… oh dear. It’s not quite the same, is it?
New England have by-and-large played good soccer this year out of a 4-4-2ish 4-2-3-1. They generate useful possession out of midfield and get both fullbacks forward into good spots, and defensively they’ve been one of the best teams in the league on top of the fact that, in Matt Turner, they have the very best goalkeeper in the league.
The problem, though, is all that useful possession has too infrequently turned into high-quality chances, and it’s because they have not gotten the sort of elite play from their DPs that Arena’s Galaxy teams could always count on:
Gustavo Bou, who was on a heater when he arrived in MLS last year, regressed in the exact manner his xG totals suggested he would. He is a conscience-less gunner who eschews the extra pass for low-percentage shots from waaaaay downtown.
Adam Buksa barely moves the needle. While his individual advanced numbers are promising, he has virtually no teamwide effect as per Second Spectrum tracking data:
When Buksa sits, New England overall produce 13.37 shots and 1.17xG per 90 minutes (4th and 10th in the league).
When Buksa plays, those numbers marginally increase to 13.78 shots and 1.25 xG per 90 (4th and 9th in the league).
Lots of shots, but a middling ROI. That’s Bou’s ethos seeping in teamwide.
All of this can be forgiven, to a degree, by the absence of playmaker Carles Gil, who managed to start just four games during an injury-riddled season. No. 10s by their very nature tend to create higher-quality chances, and Gil spent a lot of 2019 doing exactly that. His presence will help, even if he is likely better off picking the ball up in midfield and releasing the likes of Teal Bunbury and Tajon Buchanan into space than he is dictating from the final third.
What Montreal will do: They’ll most likely force New England to try and dictate from the final third. Bunbury just had probably his best year as a pro, but he is light-years more dangerous in transition than in front-foot possession. Buksa and Bou are inconsistent. Bucanan is a talent, but is not yet productive.This is the exact type of team who invites forward and just beg them to bang their collective heads against the wall for 90 minutes, and then try to smash-and-grab on the counter or a set piece. Thierry Henry’s team has not been defensively resolute enough to make that work week after week during the regular season, but they’ve got some rest now, and plenty of tape of and familiarity with the Revs. There won’t be many illusions re: what they’re facing.Enter right back/right wingback Zachary Brault-Guillard, who tormented New England when these teams first met in 2020:
His ability to make those direct runs and be dangerous at pace — while reaching a top speed that almost no one else in the league can hit — isn’t just a wild card here: It’s a devastating avenue of attack that has unbalanced the exact team they happen to be facing in this game.A lot of things have changed since March, and there will certainly be new and different faces on the pitch for both teams. And I’m not even willing to wager on what formation Henry will play (though if you forced me to, I’d say 5-4-1). But one thing I don’t think has changed since then is the best path forward for Montreal against this New England side: Up the right flank, to Brault-Guillard, and hopefully (for them) into the next round of the playoffs.
X-Factor No. 1: Whether Victor Wanyama plays or not, the Impact have been soft as hell up the spine and are prone to giving up a ton of room in that gap between the central midfield and central defense. It doesn’t matter who Wanyama’s been flanked with (Henry has at times fielded three defensive midfielders), nor whether the Impact goes with four or five at the back.
If Gil sets up shop there, Montreal’s in trouble.
And also, you can probably tell from my tone above I don’t love Bou’s shoot-on-sight mentality. But the thing is, sometimes those low-percentage looks go in, and if you’re giving him time to wind up from 28 yards and nobody’s closing him down, I don’t precisely hate his chances. A Bou golazo in those circumstances would surprise no one.
X-Factor No. 2: The Revs are one of the best teams in the league defending from open play, but are among the very worst defending on set pieces — corners in particular. Montreal aren’t anything special on restarts, but you don’t have to be to find paydirt against New England.
Nashville SC vs. Inter Miami
Friday, November 20 (9 pm ET | ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, TSN 1/5, TVA Sports)
What Nashville will try to do:Nashville beat pretty much everybody’s expectations, including my own. I had them pegged for an Orlando City-esque opening season — close to the playoff race throughout the year, but eventually finishing just shy of the dance. The difference would be the 2015 Orlando City side did it with their attack, while this Nashville team was obviously built to defend.
And defend they did, right from the jump. In fact they defended so well they survived having the league’s worst attack right up until mid-September. And since then they’ve kept defending well, while the attack has evolved to “pretty ok-ish, and sometimes even good.”
And that is why they’re in the playoffs. Nashville really did earn this spot.
To reiterate, though: It’s defense first, and quite often it’s defense first, last and always. Nashville are prone toward parking themselves — almost always in a 4-2-3-1 — right in goalkeeper Joe Willis’s lap and just living off of their ability to clear their own area and then counter. Per Second Spectrum tracking data, Nashville are:
2nd in the league in sequences per 90 minutes that begin in their defensive third, and 2nd in the league on transition sequences that begin in their defensive third (effectively tied for first with Portland (19.554 vs 19.552).
3rd in the league on live ball turnovers per game that are won in the defensive third, behind only Portland and Dallas.
8th in the league (33.143 passes per game) in long-balls, which they attempt, on average, 4th furthest from the opponent’s goal.
If you let them sit and defend a million crosses, and then give them room to counter, they will hurt you.
That said, they have progressively added more to their attack over the course of the season, including a bit of pressing:
To be perfectly honest, I think they should press the hell out of a dodgy and lacking-in-any-sort-of-chemistry Miami side as soon as the whistle blows and not stop until they’ve got a two-goal cushion. But we didn’t really see a ton of that version of Nashville.
What Miami will try to do: I kind of have no idea. There were so many changes throughout the year from Miami — personnel, formation, tactics, line of confrontation — that it’s almost impossible to predict what, exactly, we could see from them in this one. Maybe it all comes together and clicks and their multi-million-dollar global stars look like multi-million-dollar global stars. Or maybe they bag a couple of set pieces like they did on Decision Day presented by AT&T (please note: It’s easier to do that vs. Cincy than against Nashville), or maybe they… just do what they’ve done all year.
“What they’ve done all year” is have a lot of the ball and struggle to turn that into high-percentage chances. Their best looks usually come when winger Lewis Morgan is released down the right side and can pick out whoever’s making the back-post run. Know who was most effective at that in 2020? Brek Shea. Brek Shea is key to this team’s playoff hopes, folks.I tend to think Morgan and Shea will start on the wings, with Rodolfo Pizarro (if he’s back in time) as the No. 10 and Gonzalo Higuain as the center forward. Higuain has been brutally bad in front of goal — he has just one goal, which was a direct free kick, in 802 minutes since his arrival — but has actually done real and effective link-up work with his back to goal. He has arguably been the best playmaker on the team.
When you have a No. 9 doing that and two wingers who like to get to the edges of the box and a No. 10 who’s more of a runner than a playmaker, it becomes obvious what the gameplan is: Have Higuain check back to the ball and try to draw one of the Nashville center backs out, then use coordinated patterns of play to exploit that space said center back just vacated. It is easier said than done.
I do think we’re likelier to see a 4-2-3-1 than a 3-4-2-1, though neither would surprise me from Diego Alonso.
X-Factor No. 1: Nashville’s line of confrontation. I said above that I’d press the hell out of Miami — just rattle that backline early and often. They will break if you do that.
X-Factor No. 2: DP quality matters. Neither of these teams can look at their top-end talent and be happy with what was delivered this year, but if you went into the playoffs with Higuain and Pizarro as your match-winners vs. Jhonder Cadiz, Randal Leal and Hany Mukhtar, who are you taking?
I am a big “You win with 1-through-30” guy during the regular season. But in the playoffs, sometimes it’s “you don’t lose with 3-through-15 and you hope Nos. 1 & 2 get you the dub.”
Unless Walker Zimmerman goes HAM on restarts — and he might! — Miami are better suited for that kind of competition.
Bandwagon guide to the Audi 2020 MLS Cup Playoffs: Who to root for and why
Someone has to win MLS Cup. There is a very strong chance it will not be your team. If your team is eliminated or — yikes — maybe didn’t even make the playoffs, you’ll need someone to root for the rest of the way. We’re here to help.
Eastern Conference
Philadelphia Union
For fans of: Good tweets, The Little Rascals successfully outsmarting adults, Saying things like “strength in numbers”, Captain America, Snake-men?
You should hop on the wagon because: The Union are the Team of the People. They would be this simply by the virtue of having Ilsinho on the team, but they’ve proven themselves to be so much more than that this year. They’ve created one of the highest-flying attacks in the league with a mixture of homegrowns and relative unknowns that embody the Soccer Man ideal of the team being stronger than the individual. You aren’t going to go wrong with adopting this team as your own. You may even win the whole thing. But with a team as fun and likable as this one, there’s always a chance they become too popular and you seem kind of lame for picking them. It’s probably worth the risk though.
You should hop on the wagon because: There are some of you who are looking for nothing more than a little comfort in 2020. It’s totally understandable. It’s nice to have constants. And a Toronto-Seattle MLS Cup will bring you back to the comforts of 2016 or 2017 or 2019.
For those of you looking for something beyond that, the only answer is Ayo Akinola. He’s one of the league’s best stories. He also happens to be a combination of all your favorite strikers at once. As soon as he’s done bullying you, he can turn around and prove he’s smarter than you just for fun. He’s the high school quarterback with a 4.8 GPA. It’s terrifying to go up against, but a joy to watch from afar. If you want to root for Toronto to make MLS Cup (again) but Ayo scores all the goals, everyone would understand.
Columbus Crew SC
For fans of: Getting an A on the first three tests so you can cruise with D-’s on the last three, The Darlington Nagbe heatmap, The Akron Zips, Taxis, Guy Fieri
You should hop on the wagon because: There’s something really commendable about starting off the year so well that you can take a few weeks off toward the end and still end up near the top of the conference. The Crew are here to appeal to those among us who have the ability to make something of themselves if they apply themselves, but aren’t really worried about applying themselves just yet. They’ll show up when it matters. And now it matters. Live vicariously through them unmotivated brilliant people.
You should hop on the wagon because: This wagon might be crowded but that’s ok. Everyone else is new here, too. Everything about Orlando’s turnaround is pretty well documented by this point, but that doesn’t mean this team isn’t absurdly fun. Chris Mueller’s whole “Money Badger” thing continues to be a blessing on all of us, Daryl Dike is The Truth, Mauricio Pereyra sees like five moves ahead of everyone else, Nani!, and Ruan is still very, very fast. If you like the part in Karate Kid where the Karate Kid kicks that other kid in the face and everyone cheers including the kid who got kicked in the face because the Karate Kid is so likable at that point, this team will work for you.
You should hop on the wagon because: Uhhh … you’re really into a fullback being the best player on the team? Anton Tinnerholm is fun! Otherwise, man, this team has been pretty quiet all season. They’ve been sneaky good though. They’re far closer to being in the top-four than I think anyone realizes. Maybe the hook is you’re someone who wants the unappreciated to be appreciated a little more. Or maybe it’s that you’ll have a wagon largely to yourself. Bring your Peloton. Do some yoga. Stretch yourself out. Enjoy the space. At least for now.
New York Red Bulls
For fans of: Classic rock, Using the appropriate ratio of shampoo to conditioner, Committing to the bit, The “new manager bounce,” Looking incredible in convertibles
You should hop on the wagon because: You love incredible hair. We could talk about this team rebounding from their coach being let go in September to become a legitimate playoff team with a chance to play a major spoiler role, but why would we when half the team has committed to not going anywhere near a barber for the last few months and They. Are. Owning it.
For fans of: Keeping your air hockey paddle up against the goal, Brutalist architecture, the 1985 Villanova Wildcats, Using your car to hit a puddle right as you pass a well-dressed businessman
You should hop on the wagon because: This team is going to ruin someone’s year. You can just feel it when you watch them. They’ve been hot throughout the back end of this season and it’s largely because they don’t really let anyone score on them. And when they do, they’ve been able to find their way back into games anyway. Don’t act like their 3-2 comeback over Orlando wasn’t a serious omen. This is coming. They’re going to run out of hot chicken and signed Jason Isbell live records soon, y’all better hop on this one while you can.
New England Revolution
For fans of: Goalkeeping, Coming back from injury at the right time, uhhhh … goalkeeping?
You should hop on the wagon because: You love goalkeeping. And you’re heavily invested in the comeback story of Carles Gil. And … you love goalkeeping?
Look, Matt Turner could spoil a team’s entire playoff run and there’s nothing more frustrating than losing after your team puts up like 30 shots and doesn’t score because the keeper goes off. If you’re that kind of abrasive, this team is for you.
Montreal Impact
For fans of: Being handsome, Thierry Henry, Thierry Henry being handsome, Not really caring if you lose by five as long as you score five, Google translate, Carelessly handling nitroglycerin
You should hop on the wagon because: This team just absolutely does not care about defense. And they’re still here. Why? Because they care a lot about scoring. They’re an incredible and underrated chaos team. They’re a combo of LAFC without the millionaire talent and San Jose without the man-marking. No one gave up more goals than them in the East. This wagon may crash at any time but it will probably explode when it does. Won’t that be cool?
You should hop on the wagon because: I know everyone is staring at the Gonzalo Higuain and Blaise Matuidi floor models, but can I take you to the end of the lot and show you this shiny Lewis Morgan everyone seems to be ignoring? He has five goals and eight assists this season and has scored a few stunners along the way. This team has people who can play outside of the two huge names and that should really entice you to suppo — hahahaha no, no, I’m just kidding, this bandwagon is clearly about a “10th-seed’ winning MLS Cup because we’re all deeply broken and it would be hilarious.
You should hop on the wagon because: Despite this team finishing first in the Western Conference, I have a pretty good idea of how many experts and analysts and the general population outside of Kansas City are going to pick SKC to make MLS Cup. It is a very small amount. If you’re tired of good work being underappreciated or you love a team with an “Everyone is still doubting us” chip on their shoulder, this is your team. Or maybe you just love a good military brush cut?
Seattle Sounders
For fans of: Spy vs. Spy, The Escher Staircase, Groundhog Day, Eating soup for five meals a day, Clemson-Alabama national championship games, Full House
You should hop on the wagon because: There are some of you who are looking for nothing more than a little comfort in 2020. It’s totally understandable. It’s nice to have constants. And a Toronto-Seattle MLS Cup will bring you back to the comforts of 2016 or 2017 or 2019.
For those of you looking for something beyond that, Raul Ruidiaz is liable at any time to pull off the most incredible goal you’ve ever seen in your life, Jordan Morris is a dang fighter jet on the wing despite everyone being worried about his posture, Nico Lodeiro has yet to stop running, Stefan Frei seems chill and weird in a good way, Brian Schmetzer is everyone’s dad and … I don’t know, maybe you’re really into fighting over whether certain teams are dynasties because you’re possibly anti-social? All of these are reasons this team could work for you.
Portland Timbers
For fans of: The name Diego, Brothers, The Logging Industry, Overcoming injuries, A second Hype-Cart, Little brothers becoming taller brothers, Green
You should hop on the wagon because: If you had to take your pick of who might keep us from another Seattle-Toronto MLS Cup, it’s probably Portland. They’ve given Seattle issues for most of the season and they match up well against them. It also helps that they’ve already proven they’re an excellent tournament team this season. The MLS is Back Tournament champions are for anyone who believes in wanting the ball with the game on the line.
Minnesota United
For fans of: Having a Google Doc listing those who have wronged you
Colorado Rapids
For fans of: Being technically correct
You should hop on the wagon because: You find it amazing that even if this team wins MLS Cup, they will have played less games than every single team in the Eastern Conference. Seriously, in 2020, that’s an incredible outcome. And for the more nihilistic of us, it would be funny. Other than that, I dunno, maybe you’re impressed by Cole Bassett in a big way?
FC Dallas
For fans of: Luchi Gang, Big Bad Bryan, Cheez-Its, Wearing your shirt two-sizes too large, Clemson football, Tanner the Tank, Memes
You should hop on the wagon because: Dallas’ social presence alone almost makes this worth it, but throw in the fact you have likable and youthful personalities all over the field and this is a team where the wagon won’t be crowded, but everyone on it will be interesting and enjoyable. Like a cozy hipster coffeeshop before it gets too popular. This team is also talented enough to make a run if you’re into that kind of thing too.
LAFC
For fans of: Four Loko, Chugging Four Loko, Not the new Four Loko, the old Four Loko when it was actually cool, Importing Buckfast Tonic Wine because you hear it’s like Four Loko, but maybe better, Attaching jumper cables to your ears and a live car battery while you drink Four Buckfast Tonic Wine Loko, a combination of both of your favorite drinks
You should hop on the wagon because: The wagon is actually a tank and it’s not on the ground, it’s actually falling through the sky and the tank is on fire and this could either be the greatest night of your life or the worst. Would you like some Four Loko?
San Jose Earthquakes
For fans of: The “Heart” character on Captain Planet, Jimmy Chitwood, The Fast and Furious franchise, Scoring with any part of your body, Opening Pandora’s Box because it’s a Saturday and you and your friends are bored, Heartfelt speeches
You should hop on the wagon because: You believe in love. You believe in the power of a team to become more than just a collection of players, but a family. An honest to God family. One that has each other’s back at every turn. You believe in one-on-one interactions, eye contact and a firm handshake. You believe in yourself. You believe in each other. You believe if hugs were currency, well then you’re the richest person alive. You believe the sun rises each day to give you one more chance to bring joy into the world.
You also believe it’s totally ok to give up two or six goals or so and look everyone’s just going to have to be OK with that, love can only get you so far.
After Germany’s 6-0 defeat to Spain, is it time for Joachim Low to go?
You have faith in your captain. He led your conquest of the Seven Seas. You see the cracks in the hull; he shows you how to repair them. You take on water; he tells you to pump it out. You capsize in Russian waters; he gets you to right the boat, jettisoning some of your most experienced crew. And then a big Spanish wave comes, nearly splitting your boat in two. Is it time to throw the captain overboard?
The 6-0 beatdown that Germany suffered against Spain is the country’s heaviest defeat since a 6-0 trouncing, in 1931, at the hands of the Austrian “Wunderteam” and “The Paper Man,” Matthias Sindelar. But the scoreline doesn’t tell the story. If it wasn’t for that “GER” emblazoned in the top left-hand corner of your screen as you watched the game, you’d be forgiven for thinking Spain were facing Liechtenstein or Andorra, such was the disparity on the pitch.
Germany were outshot 23-2. They had zero shots on target. They had 30% possession. Spain also hit the woodwork and, with no VAR, had another goal chalked off for what looked like a blown offside call.
Is that enough to convey the magnitude of the slaughter in Seville? Do you need more reasons for why headline writers everywhere are wittily talking about a “new Low”?
International football may be changing, but its currency is still that of cliché. Brazil are the creative types, Italy the defensive types and Germany, the solid, consistent, not-necessarily-pretty-but-always-present types. The stereotypes are long passé in terms of being anchored to reality, but they persist in the back of people’s minds because they aren’t conjured out of thin air, but rather reflect how a football culture sees itself.One of Jogi Low’s strengths in his heyday was to marry that sense of discipline, confidence and solidity with the tactical acumen and technical strides the country made after its reboot from the 2006 World Cup on.Under Low, first as Jurgen Klinsmann’s assistant in 2006 and then in sole charge immediately after, Germany reached at least the semifinals in every major tournament right up to 2018. Then came the debacle in Russia — when they were eliminated at the group stage for the first time since 1938 — and when belief began to waver, Low sold the notion that this was just a blip.
Low took the sort of bold, decisive steps that long-tenured coaches are often accused of not being willing to make. He owned the World Cup failure. He didn’t make excuses. He ditched his longtime stalwarts, guys who had delivered for him in the past. Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira were cast out immediately after the last World Cup; Thomas Muller, Mats Hummels and Jerome Boateng were told their services were no longer needed a few months later.Except then, you have to follow up, both with results and performances. And Germany did not.
Their competitive record since Russia — nine wins, five draws, four defeats — may not seem horrific (though it is subpar by German standards), but that includes Euro 2020 qualifying against the likes of Belarus, Northern Ireland and Estonia. Limit yourself to the last two Nations League cycles when they were facing quality opposition, and the only country they’ve beaten is Ukraine. (And one of those was last weekend, against a side weakened by positive COVID-19 tests.)
“Everything was bad, from every point of view,” is how Low summed things up after Tuesday’s match. “Nothing worked, both defensively and offensively. We gave up the first goal, and we gave up our entire plan. That killed us. We abandoned our concepts and just ran around aimlessly.”Short of resigning on the spot, you won’t find a more extreme mea culpa. But … so what?Low isn’t deluded. His Geany side was humiliated by a young, rebuilding Spain team that, for all its pedigree, isn’t exactly teeming with household names. This isn’t the Spain of a decade ago, built on the sacred pact between Pep Guardiola’s Barca and Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid that delivered two Euros and a World Cup in six years. This was a team with a single Barcelona player (Sergi Roberto, who isn’t even an automatic choice at club level) and a single Real Madrid player (Sergio Ramos, who came off injured before half-time) in the starting XI. Germany gave up a hat-trick to Ferran Torres, who is 20 and is really only getting playing time at Manchester City because of injuries to Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus. On the opposite flank was Dani Olmo, who this time last season was playing for — no disrespect — Dinamo Zagreb. At center-forward was Alvaro Morata, the King of Retreads, a guy who was once a “can’t-miss prospect” and, at 28, has experienced more highs and lows than Bitcoin. At the back, you had a guy who is 23, plays for Villarreal and is in only in his second top-fight season (Pau Torres). Next to him, once Ramos went off, was a 19-year-old kid who has made 10 top-flight starts in his entire career (Eric Garcia). The goalkeeper, Unai Simon, is 23 and has started fewer than 50 top-flight games.
This is who beat Germany. Not a savvy, experienced, uber-confident side filled with world superstars, but rather a hungry team of (mostly) youngsters looking to make a name for themselves. Spain’s starting lineup included four players who have won a Big Five league or Champions League at some point: Morata, Ramos, Sergi Roberto and Koke. Germany included four who won the Treble with Bayern Munich less than three months ago, plus Toni Kroos, Leroy Sane and Ilkay Gundogan, who are also former title-winners. And Matthias Ginter, who may not have won a league title, but did win a World Cup.That, most of all, has to be one of Low’s biggest concern. His team didn’t get humiliated because they were too old or too inexperienced or too lacking in quality. They were road-graded because they failed to react and showed no inkling of a plan on the pitch. That’s not what German teams do.Jurgen Klinsmann says only Manuel Neuer has been a leader for Germany since Thomas Muller was frozen out.Even in Russia, at their lowest ebb, they didn’t look like this. In fact, with considerable mental acrobatics, you can conjure up an alternative reality where one of the many chances they created against South Korea in Kazan goes in, the ball doesn’t deflect off Niklas Sule in injury time to play Kim Young-Gwon onside and they somehow advance and go on to achieve great things.And with the same, hyper-stretching of reality, you can blame the 2019 Nations League debacle on Muller, Hummels and Boateng, boils on Die Mannschaft lanced by their exclusion, but you can’t explain away Tuesday night in any way, shape or form. This is a scar that stays with you.It’s not over for Low, though; there’s a European championship to be played in six months — pandemic permitting — and if he turns it around, nobody will forget this night in Seville. He’ll presumably be able to count on Kai Havertz and Joshua Kimmich. The former is one of the greatest raw (emphasis on the word “raw”) in his age group (he’s 20); the latter is arguably the best all-around midfielder in the world.The front three of Sane, Gnabry and Werner is terrifyingly quick and hugely prolific. Before Seville, Neuer was once again hailed as one of the best in the world, plus he’s bounced back from setbacks before. (Even if he doesn’t, Marc-Andre ter Stegen is pretty darn good.) At the back, it looks a bit grim in terms of quality right now, but there are plenty of bodies to choose from and you only need a couple to hit form at the right time.Logic tells you all that. This boat is sturdier than it feels right now, but the question remains: is Low, at this stage, the right captain to lead it out there on the water? Does he really give you the best possible chance of being successful on the open seas? Or do his poor decisions, lack of support among the crew and inherent stubbornness (he said after the match that there was no reason to recall Muller, Hummels and/or Boateng) suggest that it’s time for the old sea dog to return to port, once and for all?
Great 2,000 SF place in La Porte, IN just 20 min from both Notre Dame and the lakeshore. 3 Br/2 Ba Place 4 beds on Stone Lake – check it out: https://abnb.me/EVmg/KjWULabehK
Nations league play – this weekend and only 3 games on normal TV – unfortunately. Sunday England plays Belgium on ESPN2 at 2:45 pm with England in a must win or they are out for the final. Saturday former European Champs Portugal hosts France in a must win game at 2:45 pm on ESPN+. Sunday the battle in group 1 between Poland, Italy, Netherlands all battle for the top spot with games on ESPN+ at 2:45 its Poland vs Italy. Finally Croatia hosts Portugal at 2:45 pm on ESPN Tuesday. Great games in Nations League to go along with the US vs Panama game on Monday at 2:45 pm on FS1.
US Ties @ Wales 0-0
So what an exciting start for the youngsters of the US in their 0-0 tie with Wales. Lets start with the positives. This team attacked, they pressed and they maintained possession for 65% of the time, especially in the 1st half. The game was played on Wales half of the field – with the occasional counter attack. But the US set the pace and controlled possession. Now with control of the ball – the final 3rd communication was suspect and we only broke thru a couple of times. We did not have a #9 tonight – not sure why Greg didn’t play one of the actual forward youngsters Soto or Gioacchini – but his use of Lleggett as a false 9 did not work. Imagine that. Greg does love his MLS guys. Listen I like Lleggett he plays like an old school American – no skills all heart. But as a #9 – he missed no fewer than 4 chances that were perfectly crossed because he was NO WHERE to be found. He is not a forward and Greg was crazy to try it. Hopefully he’ll send Leggett back to the US for game 2. We have kids to see – I don’t need to see a US MLS hacker playing out of position. Again with a healthy Josh Sargent you would have liked to see him up top to show he could do something. But unless Soto or Gioachini get a chance up top – Altidore is still your only #9 in the US pool.
I thought Dest was a god at right back and along with Adams and McKinney the best players on the field. Adams and McKinney are darn near world class players now at the 6 and 8 spots and Dest should flair, solid attack and good defense at right back. He is our best outside back – either side. Gio Reyna had his moments but did not look comfortable in the #10 role he was handed – a winger for Dortmund – I thought he looked ok – but not great in his first start in a US Shirt. Yunus Musa certainly showed he can move with the ball as he had some really flashy moments and good possession at times in the midfield. Again not sure he’s not more suited at the wing like he plays for Valencia – but at 17 years old – he did not look out of place with the big boys. Konrad started and had his chance to make a statement for the Barcelona man – but he launched the best US chance over net from 5 feet out in the first. Overall he was good – but won’t displace Pulisic if he ever actually stays healthy enough to play.
I thought the defense was solid – Dest has improved his defense to go along with his attacking flair on the right. Brooks was sto in the middle and held things together and distributed really really well from the back. I thought Miazga was ok at right center back – good distribution – but was just a 5 or so overall. Want to see Richards there on Monday with Brooks hopefully. On the left back– Robinson was ok – but the Fulham man definitely showed he was the weak link back there. I wouldn’t mind seeing Dest on the left and give Reggie Cannon a run on right next game. Overall I think the young core of the US team looked pretty good. I give them a 7 overall. They should have had more shots to match the overwhelming time of possession but overall I think they outplayed Wales on the road (would have been interesting to see Pulisic on the wing for the US in this game). Can’t wait to see some changes for game 2 on Monday vs a Panama team we should beat. But, Overall a good show and an exciting time to be a US fan again. I truly believe our U23 team with all of our guys playing the Adams, McKinney, Pulisic, Dest, Richards, Sargent, Reyna, Konrad could make a run to the semis at least – they are that good. We are going to be good – not sure in time for 2022 – but after that – look out – I truly believe our golden generation might finally be arriving. Next Up USA vs Panama – Monday 2:30 pm on Fox Sports 1.
FORWARDS (8): Konrad de la Fuente (Barcelona), Nicholas Gioacchini (Caen), Christian Pulisic (Chelsea), Uly Llanez (Heerenveen), Gio Reyna (Borussia Dortmund), Josh Sargent (Werder Bremen), Sebastian Soto (Telstar), Tim Weah (Lille),
Who Are the New Guys- from
There’s a bunch! Let’s meet them:
FW: Niko Gioacchini: A 20-year-old true center forward who plays for Caen in Ligue 2. He’s rugged and strong, does good work holding up the ball and runs a lot. He reminds me a lot of Vancouver’s Lucas Cavallini. And like Cavallini at the same age, he needs to refine his goalscoring instincts. But the raw materials are good and he’s getting real minutes and scoring fairly consistently in a pretty good league at a young age.
FW: Sebastian Soto: Another 20-year-old center forward, Soto started for the US U-20s at last year’s World Cup and made news recently by flirting with accepting a call-up from Chile. He basically lost a year of development by not playing because of his club situation, but is now scoring goals for fun in the Dutch second tier while on loan to Telstar from Norwich City. He looks stronger than he did 18 months ago, but is still kind of a lightweight. He’s also much more of a poacher than a target man.
W: Gio Reyna: You know who Gio Reyna is and what he does by now, right?
W: Konrad de la Fuente: Konrad was, like Soto, a part of that U-20 team last year. Unlike Soto he struggled badly, to the point where you could question what his immediate future was. It turns out his immediate future was significant improvement with Barcelona, to the point that he’s now made the gameday squad a couple of times (but has yet to debut) for the full first team. And he’s still just 19. He’s very right-footed and has looked much more comfortable playing inverted than as a traditional winger, as he did for Tab Ramos and the US U-20s last year.
AM: Richy Ledezma: That U-20 team was stocked, is what I’m saying. Ledezma didn’t get to show his whole range of skills since he was recovering from an injury and didn’t play much, but when he got on the field — especially against France — he was a dynamic, game-breaking No. 10. He just glides both on and off the ball, and has the ability to finish plays either by scoring or by finding the last pass.
He has not yet broken through for PSV into the regular first-team rotation (he just made his debut last week) because 1) he is too right-footed, which causes him major problems, and 2) his reactions in transition defense are poor. I still have a lot of Richy Ledezma stock, though.
CM: Yunus Musah: The youngest member of the roster, as he was born 16 days after Reyna in 2002, Musuah’s also a surprise inclusion. He’s a tri-national who had mostly represented England in the youth national team ranks, and the US had to push to get him. They pushed hard, and they got him — at least for this camp. Nothing that happens over the next week can cap-tie him, remember.
Musah, who was born in NYC and came through the Arsenal academy system, is starting for Valencia in La Liga mostly as a right midfielder though sometimes as a right winger. Consensus seems to be that his future is more likely to be as a box-to-box No. 8, and Berhalter explicitly compared him to McKennie, so I don’t think there’s too much tea-reading necessary to figure out where he’s going to play in this camp.
DM: Johnny Cardoso: Or just “Johnny,” actually, for the New Jersey-born but Brazil-raised 19-year-old, who is already a regular with Internacional of Porto Alegre. That’s one of Brazil’s biggest clubs, and that means he’s already played a bunch both in Brazil’s top flight and in the Copa Libertadores. Johnny lacks a bit of defensive bite but I think he should be right at home in the “drop between the defenders and orchestrate from deep” role.
DM: Owen Otasowie: A giant 19-year-old defensive midfielder (who might actually fancy himself as more of a No. 8) who was born in NYC and has spent the past couple of years with the Wolves academy and in their youth ranks. He’s made one first-team appearance, back in last year’s Europa League, but hasn’t been seen or heard from with the first team since then. Otasowie’s also played some center back, both for some of the Wolves youth teams and the US U-18s. I hope that’s his long-term position.
CB: Chris Richards: Ok, back to last year’s U-20s. Richards was the rock in the center of that defense, and arguably the best prospect on that team (though obviously there are cases to be made for others, with Dest being the most obvious). He is big, strong and fast — probably an A- overall athlete — and a very good-to-great distributor of the ball (though opinions from people I respect vary on that). When he made his debut for Bayern Munich’s first team earlier this year he played as a right back. I’ll go ahead and guess that fewer than 3 percent of his total minutes for the USMNT, no matter how many he eventually accrues, will come at that spot. He is a pure center back here.
GK: Chituru Odunze: I am not going to give you a scouting report on the third-string goalkeeper. Just know that he is huge, he is from Raleigh, he is a US-Canadian dual-national and he’s with Leicester City playing in the youth ranks these days.
Elsewhere, players are absent after testing positive for Covid-19, among them Eden Hazard, who is set to miss Belgium’s games with England and Denmark.Niklas Suele, Kai Havertz and Emre Can are missing for Germany, while Edin Dzeko is out for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Wissam Ben Yedder for France.nd it’s not just the players: Italy coach Roberto Mancini also had to go into quarantine after contracting the virus.
Then there are the injuries, with players struggling to keep up with the demands of a packed schedule.
England’s Liverpool defender Joe Gomez this week succumbed to a serious knee injury. Spain’s Ansu Fati and Germany’s Joshua Kimmich also suffered knee injuries just before this international break.
– Will holders Portugal reach finals? –
The winners of the four groups in League A will advance to the finals, which UEFA has pencilled in for October next year.
Portugal are the holders after winning the inaugural edition on home soil in 2019, and the reigning European champions face World Cup holders France in Lisbon on Saturday in a crunch game — whoever wins will be through to the finals, while a draw keeps things alive until the final Group 3 matches on Tuesday.
Poland, Italy and the Netherlands are all fighting it out in Group 1, while Belgium are in pole position in Group 2 and can knock out England with a win in Leuven on Sunday. Denmark are still in contention in that group too.
In Group 4, just one point separates Spain, Germany and Ukraine with two rounds left. It could all come down to Spain’s clash with Germany in Seville on Tuesday.
– Scotland, Wales to join elite? –
Hot on the heels of their penalty shoot-out win over Serbia which secured qualification for Euro 2020, a rejuvenated Scotland can clinch promotion to the elite League A.Steve Clarke’s side currently top League B, Group 2 by four points from the Czech Republic. A win in Slovakia on Sunday will therefore do the job, otherwise they have another chance to secure top spot in Israel on Wednesday.Wales are hoping to secure first place in League B, Group 4, with a one-point lead over Finland and home games against the Republic of Ireland and the Finns to come.
– World Cup incentive –
While the likes of Scotland and North Macedonia qualified for Euro 2020 after coming through play-offs based on performance in the last Nations League, there is an added incentive in this edition related to the 2022 World Cup.
Qualifying for Qatar 2022 will start in March, with 10 group winners advancing to the finals.
The 10 runners-up will go into the play-offs, where they will be joined by the best two Nations League group winners (based on overall rankings) who did not directly qualify or reach the play-offs.
A total of three World Cup spots will be available through the play-offs, so Qatar remains a long way off, but this is still an extra reason for the likes of Scotland, Wales and others to top their Nations League groups.
Three things we learned from USMNT’s draw with Wales
Andy Edwards Thu, November 12, 2020, 4:48 PM EST
Wales – USMNT: So what if the U.S. men’s national team played a very young Wales side to a mostly dull scoreless draw in Swansea on Thursday?The (not-so-) Baby Yanks were far and away the better side, but more importantly every returning player showed signs of individual progress made in 2020.Here are three things we learned about Gregg Berhalter’s side on a rainy night in south Wales…
The great thing about kids is, they eventually grow up
It had been so long — 285 days, to be exact — since we saw the USMNT and its promising generation of youngsters that some of them almost seemed unrecognizable with another year of life’s experiences under their belts. For all of the excitement around the “potential” of this group, everything still hinges upon continued development and reaching said potential. It can be difficult to see improvement with regular exposure, but the last nine months have afforded us an opportunity to look at these players in a very clear before-and-after light, so the question is this: Who has grown up the most since we last saw them in the red, white and blue?
Sergiño Dest — Aside from simply looking the part of a 20-year-old professional at arguably the world’s biggest club, Dest now appears to have a far greater understanding of where he’s supposed to be at all times, and when he can (or can’t) take a chance on either side of the ball.
John Brooks — This is a bit of a different one with Brooks ascending to another level as he enters his late-20s, but Brooks appears to have done a complete 180 from previous USMNT appearances. More on him in a moment.
Weston McKennie — For 45 minutes, McKennie was everywhere, in everything, bothering everyone. It was a far cry from the “never stop running while never actually arriving anywhere” maximum-effort approach of caps gone by. McKennie was more active than ever before, but with purpose and a tangible impact on the team — taking the ball of attackers, winning important second balls and attempting (and even sometimes completing) aggressive forward passes.
Given the positions they play and the clubs they play for, you can make an easy case that Dest, Brooks and McKennie are three of the five most important players for the USMNT as they tackle the next 24 months leading up to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The fact they look to be the most improved individuals of the last 9-12 months should be a very comforting sign of things to come.
Wales managed to take all of four — yes, four — shots in this game, so this isn’t so much an assessment of Brooks, ball-winning defender, as it is about Brooks, ball-playing defender.
As we’ll discuss in another brief moment, the USMNT struggled a fair bit to move the ball from defensive third to middle third, but much more so to move the ball from middle third to final third. In a word, such progression of the ball was nonexistent. It’s nice to have a Plan B, though, and Brooks was very happy to step into the void and play a bunch of ultra-aggressive, line-breaking passes from the backline. On the rare instance the Yanks made their way into the Welsh penalty area, it was typically a direct result of Brooks picking out Konrad de la Fuente or Yunus Musah making an inside run into either channel. While it amounted to very little on Thursday, imagine Brooks playing those same passes in behind with someone else on the receiving end…
Throw in Christian Pulisic, and…
Watching the USMNT run into the glass half-circle around Wales’ defensive third was a never-ending exercise in frustration, but don’t let that discourage you altogether, because yet another youngster — 22-year-old Christian Pulisic — figures to be the missing piece for a team completely devoid of one-on-one attackers. The issue on Thursday wasn’t so much that there wasn’t a natural or recognized striker on the field for 79 minutes — though, it didn’t help — but that the front-four of Gio Reyna, Musah, de la Fuente and Sebastian Lletget are all quite passive on the ball.
Unless they see 20 yards of open space in front of them, everyone is looking to make the pass to someone in a better position. When Pulisic gets on the ball, whether in traffic or open space, he’s almost always going to carry it forward and create that open space for someone else by drawing defenders toward him. Without that player against Wales, the USMNT was slow at its best, and completely static at its worst.
U.S.’s young stars European club pedigree was visible at international level vs. Wales
6:36 PM ETJeff CarlisleU.S. soccer correspondent
In the 285 days since the U.S. men’s national team previously played, it seemed there was a sea change for the Americans. The U.S. now has a player at Juventus in Weston McKennie, while Sergino Dest and Konrad de la Fuente are on the first-team roster at Barcelona. That’s to go along with Christian Pulisic at Chelsea and Tyler Adams at UEFA Champions League semifinalists RB Leipzig.
With that kind of pedigree in its ranks, and youngsters like Borussia Dortmund‘s Giovanni Reyna and Valencia‘s Yunus Musah breaking through, expectations have been raised considerably, even as manager Gregg Berhalter tries to downplay them.Which is why Thursday’s 0-0 draw against host Wales felt like a different kind of result on European soil. A look at the score and one would think that this was another one of those gritty, grind-it-out draws on the road, but it was nothing of the sort. The U.S. showed the kind of calmness and patience on the ball that has been rare in its trips to Europe. Playing out of tight spaces was the rule rather than the exception, with the three-man midfield of McKennie, Adams and Musah doing plenty to control the game’s tempo.
Musah — one of six U.S players to make their debut — looked nothing like a 17-year-old, and while there were moments when he could have released the ball quicker, he showed plenty of ability in terms of running at defenses as well as vision. Given that Musah is eligible to represent England and Ghana as well as the U.S., Berhalter can only hope that he ultimately chooses to represent the U.S. over other contenders.
Reyna found the going a bit tougher, and at times was even guiltier of hanging onto the ball too long. He had some dynamic moments running with the ball, but also let his frustrations get the better of him. Midway through the second half, he barged into Wales defender Tom Lockyer in retaliation for what he perceived as a foul that went uncalled. It’s precisely the kind of play that on the road in CONCACAF could be punished severely. Still, it was a day the 17-year-old Reyna will long remember.As for Adams, the match was not only his first for the U.S. in 20 months, but one in which he anchored the U.S. midfield after Berhalter had dabbled with playing him at right-back. The American side looked better for having Adams’ energy and passing in front of the defense, although John Brooks in particular looked composed in the back.”I felt good because I think that’s my natural position,” Adams said. “Being out there, being able to kind of command everything that was going on in front of me, tell players when to go and when not to go, to initiate the press, when to stay back, it allows me to lead the team in a better way, I think. I was confident in the guys in front of me understanding the tactics so it made my job a little bit easier, but I love being the cover in front of the back line being able to win balls and then just give it to the guys in front of me and let them do their thing.”The U.S. was also extremely effective in its press, and the Americans’ two best chances of the night came directly off turnovers in Wales’ defensive third, although it should be noted that this was a Welsh side missing several key players, including Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey, while Ben Davies and Ethan Ampadu remained on the bench.
Yet for all of the possession that the U.S. had, there was a distinct lack of punch in the attacking third. Some of this was down to Berhalter’s decision to play Sebastian Lletget as a false nine, but it’s important to drill deeper on how the approach fared. In terms of providing an outlet and allowing the U.S. to play out of its own half, Lletget did well, completing 28 of his 32 passes. On the one hand, this is precisely what Berhalter wanted Lletget to do. But farther up field, the tactic wasn’t as successful, although that wasn’t down to just the player.”We wanted him to look for the third man more than he did,” Berhalter said about Lletget. “I think he did it once or twice, but as he comes down and it needs to be laid off, and then we should be moving behind, I think the wingers weren’t in a high-enough position to take advantage of that at times. That was something that we missed.”McKennie added that the U.S. was a bit beholden to looking for combination play rather than the run in behind the defense, something that the injured Pulisic would have helped with.”A one-on-one type of player that can beat the defender, and get down the side and play a ball in or cross it, that’s something [Pulisic] has done many times, as you saw in Gold Cup as well,” McKennie said. “I think the dynamic movement in behind the line was something that we were missing. And that’s something that we’ll obviously look at in the video, just to see how many runs we made in behind the line to open up the space and just make that unselfish run.”It has to be said that this is a group that still needs time to develop chemistry. In addition to the lengthy hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. had just two days of training — and just one full session — prior to this match. But the question still remains: Who will get the goals and provide that presence in the box to draw more attention from opposition center-backs? For that reason — and with Josh Sargent unavailable due to COVID-19 quarantine restrictions — it might have made more sense to get Nicholas Gioacchini on earlier or give Sebastian Soto his debut, although there is still another game to play against Panama on Monday. The forward depth chart has long been thin, and there are scant opportunities to see what the current group of forwards can do.
That said, the foundation of possession and pressing is one that looks a bit more ingrained in the players. Given the state of the game amid a pandemic, that is largely down to the progress U.S. performers have made at club level. But Berhalter will nonetheless be pleased that he has more to work with, and the Wales match counts as a step forward.
USMNT Player Ratings: Sergino Dest, Tyler Adams stand out in scoreless draw at Wales
November 12, 20206:33PM ESTGreg SeltzerContributor
After more than nine months out of action, the US men’s national team got back on the field with a very green lineup that handled themselves admirably in a scoreless draw at Wales.The kids’ pressure game had them verging on dominant in the opening frame, with only a bit of immaturity in the final third holding them back. They looked a lot more pedestrian after halftime, which shaved hairs of the marks you see below.
United States Player Ratings
Zack Steffen (6.5) — On the plus side, his save just past the hour was the biggest of the game. On the other hand, we saw another ill-advised bit of distribution that could have gone horribly wrong.
Sergiño Dest (7) — The Barcelona right back’s near constant push up the flank repeatedly put Wales into scrambling situations, and a couple of his deliveries into the box deserved better pursuit.
Matt Miazga (7) — While the Anderlecht man ably handled all comers to the US defensive third, what most caught the eye about Miazga’s outing was arguably his best night of passing out of the back in a US shirt. He wasn’t breaking lines, he was flat out erasing them.
John Brooks (6) — Miazga’s partner also passed positively, as you’d expect him to do, and made a few nice interventions around the US box in the second half. However, he also got burnt on a couple of dicey steps into midfield.
Antonee Robinson (5.5) — The young left back had his moments defensively, but a bad tracking lapse granted Wales their best chance of the night. Robinson was functional going forward without ever finding room for one of his fine crosses.
Tyler Adams (7) — The RB Leipzig gatekeeper was routinely stepped in to halt any Welsh ideas of a rush up the gut, especially in the first half. Adams also showed the maturity in his transition passing game on a few occasions.
Weston McKennie (6.5) — It was an excellent first half from the Juventus midfielder. McKennie was routinely available for the ball, and though not all of his passes came off, he drove play and served the best low cross of the night. His rating dropped a shade after the break, when he kept fanning out wide, which is not where his strength lies.
Yunus Musah (6.5) — The teen debutant impressed enough that one could easily see the possibilities of his talent. Musah excelled as a fast conduit through the middle, both on the dribble and with prompt passing decisions, and was a dogged nuisance when it came time to win the ball back. He also found some good positions in attack, but flubbed a few lines there.
Highlights: Wales 0, United States 0
Giovanni Reyna (5) — Another teenager getting his first cap, Reyna was a bit underwhelming on this night. Whenever he got the ball, his “processing speed” was unusually slow. This caused him to get his pocket picked from behind more than you’d like, and kept him from finding a killer pass around the Wales area.
Sebastian Lletget (5) — Horribly miscast as a center forward, Lletget looked like a guy horribly miscast as a center forward. A proper striker probably would have demonstrated more killer instinct on a couple of crosses into the money zone. There’s not much else to say, but he did serve a few tempting restarts.
Konrad de la Fuente (4.5) — For me, the teenager simply doesn’t look like he’s ready for this level. The Barcelona prospect never challenged defenders and he fired wildly over when presented with a gift of a golden chance.
Coach Gregg Berhalter (5.5) — Let’s start with the good stuff. Despite having a highly inexperienced squad that needed a lot of introductions before the game, they came out executing both the press and the resulting fast build game like it was a familiar routine. That is not an easy thing to do, and Berhalter deserves kudos on that point.
On the other hand, few things grind my gears more than ruining the formation by going without a real center forward when three of them are available. And the fact that the boss kept Lletget leading the line until the 79th minute when it was obviously hampering a game plan that looked great until it was time to strike is downright annoying. Big red mark for that. Let’s not do that again.
Substitutes
Johnny Cardoso (6) — Though a few passes could have been shrewder, the defensive midfield debutant quickly showed that he’s got a handle on his primary function. A “stick in the spokes” reach foiled Wales at the door the US area, and then he committed a well-chosen professional foul to cut short a potential counter.
Ulysses Llanez (6) — The young winger wasted no time looking to goal, forcing a decent save with a long-range drive. Aside from that, not much to report from his 19 minutes.
Timothy Weah (-) — Working 11 minutes will typically get one a grade here, but Weah never got an offensive touch. His biggest impact came tracking back to harass a Welsh ball carrier.
Nicholas Gioacchini (-) — See Weah above.
Owen Otawosie (-) — A mere cameo for the teen midfielder on his debut.
Reggie Cannon (-) — In just three minutes, the Boavista right back was more involved than the three guys directly above him combined. As you’d expect, he looked solid.
Three takeaways from US men’s national team’s 0-0 draw with Wales | Charles Boehm
November 12, 20206:30PM ESTCharles BoehmNational Writer
Despite relative paucity of goal danger, the US men’s national team gave us some tasty morsels to chew on in their long-awaited return to play, banking a decent 0-0 draw with Wales at Swansea’s Liberty Stadium on Thursday.Teenagers Konrad de la Fuente, Yunus Musah (sign him up!) and Gio Reyna made their debuts, a bustling central-midfield trio imposed themselves on the home side and the US controlled the tempo, if not the scoreboard. Here are a few other observations.
Engine room humming
As promised, Gregg Berhalter trotted out a front-foot 4-3-3, and as promised, Musah took up a central position, working alongside Weston McKennie in an FC Dallas-esque “twin No. 8s” setup backed by Tyler Adams at the 6. And verily, it was good.Showing prodigious range and bite, the troika asserted their dominance in the center of the park, looking eager to embrace Berhalter’s more assertive pressing approach. Their energy pushed Wales onto the back foot and made sure that the USMNT had plenty of the ball, tilting the possession battle 61-39 in their favor (and in the early stages it was even more one-sided than that).This didn’t solve the issues in the attacking third, but it certainly gave the Yanks a stable platform upon which to build further, and hinted at a fittingly aggressive identity in the bigger picture.
Sugar and spice
It wasn’t all blood, guts and destruction. Both the aforementioned central trio and several others, Sergino Dest in particular, were downright Brazilian in their displays of flair and swagger, squeezing in feints, dragbacks, stepovers and even an elastico at every opportunity.Of course it all needed to be capped by a firm finish or two to earn a victory. Still, given the grim cloud of frustration and opprobrium that’s hung over the program since the nightmarish finale to 2018 World Cup qualifying in Couva, it was extremely heartening to see a youthful group infused with such joy and creativity, and the beginnings of a real understanding – to borrow a term coined by McKennie, “comfortability” with one another.“You know, a footballer can recognize someone that can play football,” added McKennie. “I can recognize what someone’s good at, what someone’s not good at. And I think we all know that we like to play. We like to combine, like to make those small touches and small passes.”“In the past we didn’t so much have the little flair, the tiki-taka type, I guess, of playing … So it was just fun. I think a lot of guys had fun being out there.”t’s been far too long since this program took pride in themselves as not merely a hard-working side defending the colors, but an entertainment product, and a spicy one at that. When Dest nutmegged Dan James with a very extra, and mostly unnecessary, snake along the touchlines, it hinted at a brave new world, one that most USMNT fans will want to see a whole lot more of.
Number 9, number 9, number 9…
On first blush, Berhalter probably bears as much responsibility as anyone for the goose egg, because his deployment of Sebastian Lletget as a false No. 9 didn’t really come off. Postgame the coach explained that the idea was to create numerical advantages in midfield while also forcing the Welsh defense to make tough decisions on the fly.But as smart, selfless and willing as he is, Lletget just doesn’t play this role often, for club or country, and it showed. He looked to be playing catchup in terms of the movements and runs needed to maximize his teammates’ good work once they reached the Wales penalty box, and at that level, something more like autopilot is needed to strike paydirt.COVID-19-related restrictions prevented Josh Sargent from joining the USMNT this month, and he surely would’ve gotten the start otherwise, but it would have been good to see more time given to a true frontrunner like Sebastian Soto or Nicholas Gioacchini, who logged 11-plus minutes off the bench but had little opportunity to show himself.Thursday lends weight to the idea of a call-up for Orlando City’s Daryl Dike, and may lead fans to light a few more candles for Jozy Altidore’s troublesome hamstrings.
USA Friendly’s Thurs 2:45 FS1 vs Wales/Mon 2:45 vs Panama FS1
So huge excitement for the upcoming friendly’s with an almost entirely European group of players – many of them under the age of 23. In fact the average age is just over 22 for this group that will take on Wales and Garreth Bale. OF course Christian Pulisic will not play – but first timers Gio Reyna of Dortmund, Konrad de la Fuente from Barcelona and Sebasatian Soto of Telstar – all U20 WC players for the US should excite folks. Also American born 18 YO winger Yunus Musah starting now at Valencia, a kid born in New York who grew up in England, has accepted the invite to check out how the US does things after representing England at the youth level. Also look out for Dual National Nicholas Gioacchini a 20 year-old forward from Caen in France. He might just get the start as he’s eligibile to play for the US where he was born and lived until he was 8, Italy where he lived with his Italian dad until going to Caen at 15, or Jamaica where is mom is from. He has played for both the US and Italy at the youth level. Interesting that both our young center forward prospects are dual nationals who will be deciding soon who they will play for. Lets hope both get a run to show us what they’ve got today. Honestly – with all the new guys – extremely excited to see how the youngsters looked today – even if we take a beating against a much more experienced squad in Wales. I see 2-1 Wales or maybe 2-2 if the kids up front can score.
FORWARDS (8): Konrad de la Fuente (Barcelona), Nicholas Gioacchini (Caen), Christian Pulisic (Chelsea), Uly Llanez (Heerenveen), Gio Reyna (Borussia Dortmund), Josh Sargent (Werder Bremen), Sebastian Soto (Telstar), Tim Weah (Lille),
Who Are the New Guys-
There’s a bunch! Let’s meet them:
FW: Niko Gioacchini: A 20-year-old true center forward who plays for Caen in Ligue 2. He’s rugged and strong, does good work holding up the ball and runs a lot. He reminds me a lot of Vancouver’s Lucas Cavallini. And like Cavallini at the same age, he needs to refine his goalscoring instincts. But the raw materials are good and he’s getting real minutes and scoring fairly consistently in a pretty good league at a young age.
FW: Sebastian Soto: Another 20-year-old center forward, Soto started for the US U-20s at last year’s World Cup and made news recently by flirting with accepting a call-up from Chile. He basically lost a year of development by not playing because of his club situation, but is now scoring goals for fun in the Dutch second tier while on loan to Telstar from Norwich City. He looks stronger than he did 18 months ago, but is still kind of a lightweight. He’s also much more of a poacher than a target man.
W: Gio Reyna: You know who Gio Reyna is and what he does by now, right?
W: Konrad de la Fuente: Konrad was, like Soto, a part of that U-20 team last year. Unlike Soto he struggled badly, to the point where you could question what his immediate future was. It turns out his immediate future was significant improvement with Barcelona, to the point that he’s now made the gameday squad a couple of times (but has yet to debut) for the full first team. And he’s still just 19. He’s very right-footed and has looked much more comfortable playing inverted than as a traditional winger, as he did for Tab Ramos and the US U-20s last year.
AM: Richy Ledezma: That U-20 team was stocked, is what I’m saying. Ledezma didn’t get to show his whole range of skills since he was recovering from an injury and didn’t play much, but when he got on the field — especially against France — he was a dynamic, game-breaking No. 10. He just glides both on and off the ball, and has the ability to finish plays either by scoring or by finding the last pass.
He has not yet broken through for PSV into the regular first-team rotation (he just made his debut last week) because 1) he is too right-footed, which causes him major problems, and 2) his reactions in transition defense are poor. I still have a lot of Richy Ledezma stock, though.
CM: Yunus Musah: The youngest member of the roster, as he was born 16 days after Reyna in 2002, Musuah’s also a surprise inclusion. He’s a tri-national who had mostly represented England in the youth national team ranks, and the US had to push to get him. They pushed hard, and they got him — at least for this camp. Nothing that happens over the next week can cap-tie him, remember.
Musah, who was born in NYC and came through the Arsenal academy system, is starting for Valencia in La Liga mostly as a right midfielder though sometimes as a right winger. Consensus seems to be that his future is more likely to be as a box-to-box No. 8, and Berhalter explicitly compared him to McKennie, so I don’t think there’s too much tea-reading necessary to figure out where he’s going to play in this camp.
DM: Johnny Cardoso: Or just “Johnny,” actually, for the New Jersey-born but Brazil-raised 19-year-old, who is already a regular with Internacional of Porto Alegre. That’s one of Brazil’s biggest clubs, and that means he’s already played a bunch both in Brazil’s top flight and in the Copa Libertadores. Johnny lacks a bit of defensive bite but I think he should be right at home in the “drop between the defenders and orchestrate from deep” role.
DM: Owen Otasowie: A giant 19-year-old defensive midfielder (who might actually fancy himself as more of a No. 8) who was born in NYC and has spent the past couple of years with the Wolves academy and in their youth ranks. He’s made one first-team appearance, back in last year’s Europa League, but hasn’t been seen or heard from with the first team since then. Otasowie’s also played some center back, both for some of the Wolves youth teams and the US U-18s. I hope that’s his long-term position.
CB: Chris Richards: Ok, back to last year’s U-20s. Richards was the rock in the center of that defense, and arguably the best prospect on that team (though obviously there are cases to be made for others, with Dest being the most obvious). He is big, strong and fast — probably an A- overall athlete — and a very good-to-great distributor of the ball (though opinions from people I respect vary on that). When he made his debut for Bayern Munich’s first team earlier this year he played as a right back. I’ll go ahead and guess that fewer than 3 percent of his total minutes for the USMNT, no matter how many he eventually accrues, will come at that spot. He is a pure center back here.
GK: Chituru Odunze: I am not going to give you a scouting report on the third-string goalkeeper. Just know that he is huge, he is from Raleigh, he is a US-Canadian dual-national and he’s with Leicester City playing in the youth ranks these days.
Thur, Nov 12
12 pm ESPN2 Georgia vs North Macedonia Euro Qualifying
We preview the first USMNT match in 10 months! By Donald Wine II@blazindw Nov 11, 2020, 7:01am PST
, after a 286-day layoff due to the coronavirus pandemic, will be back in action tomorrow when they take on Wales at Liberty Stadium in Swansea. The USMNT will be looking to close out a weird 2020 the way it started: with a win. The 22nd ranked team in the FIFA World Rankings will look to play well on the road behind closed doors at the home of a Welsh team that’s ranked 20th in the world and looking to sharpen up before they finish UEFA Nations League play.
Control the middle of the field: This is the battle to be most excited about when the two teams hit the field. Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie in the middle trying to control possession and advance the ball forward? Dream status. This is where the biggest battle will be. If the USMNT can control possession in the midfield, they will have a great chance to keep the Welsh at bay and have some opportunities to score.
Create attack through the middle: We’re all highly anticipating to see the attack go through Gio Reyna, but the young wings coach Gregg Berhalter has at his disposal will also be fun to watch. We have some speed, so look for the young’uns to exploit that on the flanks. Because of that speed, they hopefully will be able to get behind the Cymru defense and create some chances to score. That possession will help, and remaining in control in the final third is going to be essential.
Play like there’s no tomorrow: The coronavirus pandemic has proven to us all: you don’t know when your next match will come. The intensity and grit that has defined the USMNT over much of the 2010s has been absent lately. There’s no better time than now to reclaim that mantra. We can’t assume the Panama match will be played as scheduled because so much can happen between Thursday and Monday. So, the players should try to win the intensity battle. Play like there’s no match on Monday or for the foreseeable future, and just go for it.
Enjoy it: A bonus 4th item: let’s all have fun with this! It’s our first USMNT match in 10 months! It’s great to see the team get back together and for us to reunite and talk about the team and its direction. We’re excited to see the new players and some of the young stars combine to give us some thrills. So, let’s enjoy that tomorrow. We’re certainly going to overanalyze performances in what has been a messed up year, but one thing is for sure: the boys are back!
Lineup Prediction
The USMNT has a ridiculously young roster, with 10 players having never stepped onto the field in the red, white, and blue. Because of that, it can be an interesting lineup choice for Gregg Berhalter, but in the end, this is what we could see on the field: Projected USMNT Starting XI
Gioacchini
Konrad/Reyna/Weah
MCKennie/Adams
Robinson/Brooks/Miazga/Dest
Steffan
Zack Steffen’s the #1 goalkeeper, and he’s going to get the start in this first game. Because it’s a friendly, don’t be surprised to see Ethan Horvath enter in the second half, but chances are Steffen gets the full match. On the back line, Antonee Robinson and Sergiño Dest are the fullbacks, and John Brooks and Matt Miazga the centerback pairing. Richards could be an interesting plug in here in place of Miazga, but against Wales Berhalter opts for the player with a little more experience.In the midfield, Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie link up, with Adams serving as the defensive midfielder and McKennie going box to box. Ahead of them, Gio Reyna is in the middle to serve up the attack, with Konrad de la Fuente and Tim Weah on the wings to provide speed and creative options. Expect Yunus Musah to get some playing time as well.Up top, Sebastian Soto could get the nod here, but Berhalter looks to give an immediate debut to one of his new dual nationals, and Nicholas Gioacchini gets the start.
Prediction
This is an intriguing matchup, the first time the two teams have stepped on the field together in 17 years. However, because it’s a friendly, it’s going to be a struggle for both teams to get into it early on. It will pick up around the 30 minute mark as both teams begin to relax a bit and play ball. There will be some chances, but not a lot of scoring. Nicholas Gioacchini scores the lone goal for the United States, the first given up by Wales this year. However, a penalty is hammered home by Gareth Bale in the 2nd half, and it ends in a 1-1 draw.
Armchair Analyst: How the US men’s national team will play vs. Wales & Panama
November 11, 202010:32AM ESTMatthew DoyleSenior Writer
It has been nine-and-a-half long months since the US men’s national team last took the field, so now feels like a very good time for a reset of what Gregg Berhalter’s trying to accomplish, how he’s trying to accomplish it and who he’s trying to accomplish it with. This is especially true since this newest 24-man camp roster, announced last week and taking the field for the first time on Thursday against Wales, is stuffed with largely new and almost entirely very young faces.That doesn’t mean this isn’t a reboot after an up-and-down 2019 from Berhalter and the USMNT. But it a distinctly new phase.
What Happened Last Time
Way back in early February a largely experimental and primarily MLS-based US side — this was the January camp game, remember — pretty thoroughly bossed what I’d consider the Costa Rican A- team. It ended 1-0 on a Uly Llanez goal after Reggie Cannon had drawn a penalty thanks to a smart overlap, but the score really did flatter the Ticos, who never really threatened.The game was a departure from what the US had done throughout most of 2019 not because of the personnel or the scoreline, but because of how they’d done it. There was much more pressing out of a 4-3-3 and the mid-block 4-4-2 (or 4-2-2-2) that had proved itself tissue-soft against Mexico in September and Canada in October was mothballed.
How do the US Want to Play?
This is where formational shorthand kind of fails. If you ask me what formation Berhalter wants his team to play in, I’ll probably just say “4-2-3-1” or “4-3-3” because one of those two will be how it’s written on the team sheet. But the reality is that there will be multiple different looks depending upon the phase of the game.This is not new or unusual in the world of soccer! There are very few teams that defend in a 4-3-3, possess in a 4-3-3 and attack in a 4-3-3. Our game is beautiful and fluid and dynamic, and that means you’ll see a lot of different shapes.
Who Are the New Guys?
There’s a bunch! Let’s meet them:
FW: Niko Gioacchini: A 20-year-old true center forward who plays for Caen in Ligue 2. He’s rugged and strong, does good work holding up the ball and runs a lot. He reminds me a lot of Vancouver’s Lucas Cavallini. And like Cavallini at the same age, he needs to refine his goalscoring instincts. But the raw materials are good and he’s getting real minutes and scoring fairly consistently in a pretty good league at a young age.
FW: Sebastian Soto: Another 20-year-old center forward, Soto started for the US U-20s at last year’s World Cup and made news recently by flirting with accepting a call-up from Chile. He basically lost a year of development by not playing because of his club situation, but is now scoring goals for fun in the Dutch second tier while on loan to Telstar from Norwich City.
He looks stronger than he did 18 months ago, but is still kind of a lightweight. He’s also much more of a poacher than a target man.
W: Gio Reyna: You know who Gio Reyna is and what he does by now, right?
W: Konrad de la Fuente: Konrad was, like Soto, a part of that U-20 team last year. Unlike Soto he struggled badly, to the point where you could question what his immediate future was.
It turns out his immediate future was significant improvement with Barcelona, to the point that he’s now made the gameday squad a couple of times (but has yet to debut) for the full first team. And he’s still just 19.
He’s very right-footed and has looked much more comfortable playing inverted than as a traditional winger, as he did for Tab Ramos and the US U-20s last year.
AM: Richy Ledezma: That U-20 team was stocked, is what I’m saying. Ledezma didn’t get to show his whole range of skills since he was recovering from an injury and didn’t play much, but when he got on the field — especially against France — he was a dynamic, game-breaking No. 10. He just glides both on and off the ball, and has the ability to finish plays either by scoring or by finding the last pass.
He has not yet broken through for PSV into the regular first-team rotation (he just made his debut last week) because 1) he is too right-footed, which causes him major problems, and 2) his reactions in transition defense are poor.
I still have a lot of Richy Ledezma stock, though.
CM: Yunus Musah: The youngest member of the roster, as he was born 16 days after Reyna in 2002, Musuah’s also a surprise inclusion. He’s a tri-national who had mostly represented England in the youth national team ranks, and the US had to push to get him. They pushed hard, and they got him — at least for this camp. Nothing that happens over the next week can cap-tie him, remember.
Musah, who was born in NYC and came through the Arsenal academy system, is starting for Valencia in La Liga mostly as a right midfielder though sometimes as a right winger. Consensus seems to be that his future is more likely to be as a box-to-box No. 8, and Berhalter explicitly compared him to McKennie, so I don’t think there’s too much tea-reading necessary to figure out where he’s going to play in this camp.
DM: Johnny Cardoso: Or just “Johnny,” actually, for the New Jersey-born but Brazil-raised 19-year-old, who is already a regular with Internacional of Porto Alegre. That’s one of Brazil’s biggest clubs, and that means he’s already played a bunch both in Brazil’s top flight and in the Copa Libertadores.
Johnny lacks a bit of defensive bite but I think he should be right at home in the “drop between the defenders and orchestrate from deep” role.
DM: Owen Otasowie: A giant 19-year-old defensive midfielder (who might actually fancy himself as more of a No. 8) who was born in NYC and has spent the past couple of years with the Wolves academy and in their youth ranks. He’s made one first-team appearance, back in last year’s Europa League, but hasn’t been seen or heard from with the first team since then.
Otasowie’s also played some center back, both for some of the Wolves youth teams and the US U-18s. I hope that’s his long-term position.
CB: Chris Richards: Ok, back to last year’s U-20s. Richards was the rock in the center of that defense, and arguably the best prospect on that team (though obviously there are cases to be made for others, with Dest being the most obvious). He is big, strong and fast — probably an A- overall athlete — and a very good-to-great distributor of the ball (though opinions from people I respect vary on that).
When he made his debut for Bayern Munich’s first team earlier this year he played as a right back. I’ll go ahead and guess that fewer than 3 percent of his total minutes for the USMNT, no matter how many he eventually accrues, will come at that spot. He is a pure center back here.
GK: Chituru Odunze: I am not going to give you a scouting report on the third-string goalkeeper. Just know that he is huge, he is from Raleigh, he is a US-Canadian dual-national and he’s with Leicester City playing in the youth ranks these days.
My Starting XI:
Gioacchini
WeahReyna
Musah/MCKennie
Adams
Robinson/Brooks/Richards/Dest
Steffan
A few notes:
Remember, this represents just one of the US shapes/formations.
Weah hasn’t been playing much for Lille, and when he has been out there it’s often been as a forward. I still want to see him as an inverted winger here even if he can only go 60 minutes. I also refuse to worry about his playing time with Lille until February at the earliest. Give him time.
Antonee Robinson is very north-south, while Sergino Dest very much isn’t. Both guys are “attack first” fullbacks, and there is a danger that having them both out there will cause the US to become unbalanced. Figuring out if that is in fact true is what friendlies are for.
I think Musah starts even though Lletget was a late call-up, but I won’t lose my mind if Lletget starts and Musah comes off the bench for 20 or 30 minutes. At this point we’ve got to trust Berhalter’s ability to recruit, right?
There is no way John Brooks plays both games. I expect him for one and Tim Ream for the other.
I don’t actually care which of Richards or Matt Miazga get whichever minutes.
My guess is that Ethan Horvath will get one of these games, as Steffen no longer has work permit issues to worry about.
It’s been too long. Enjoy the show, everyone.
USA vs. Wales, 2020 Friendly live stream: Time, TV schedule and lineups
The USMNT is back in action for the first time since February.
After an extended break due to the coronavirus pandemic, international soccer is back in full effect. The United States men’s national team has convened in Europe for a pair of friendlies. The first is against hosts Wales at Swansea City’s Liberty Stadium.Manager Gregg Berhalter called in a strong 24-player squad mainly comprised of talents based in Europe. There are several exciting names that fans have been clamoring to see play together, with Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie, Sergiño Dest, and John Brooks leading the way. Compelling newcomers Johnny Cardoso, Yunus Musah, Sebastian Soto, Konrad de la Fuente, Nicholas Gioacchini, and Giovanni Reyna were included and should make their debut at some point during the next two matches.The U.S. will be without star player Christian Pulisic. The Chelsea attacker left camp due to a hamstring injury, a recurring issue this year. Striker Josh Sargent was also not included in the roster. Werder Bremen opted to not grant his release due to quarantine in Germany.
These friendlies represent a chance for the team to come together and craft an identity before the start of 2022 World Cup Qualifying. “I want to see us be very aggressive on the defensive side of the ball,” Berhalter told USSoccer.com. “We have enough speed in the back to play a higher line and I’d like our team to be more compact when we’re pressing. I think we should be very aggressive offensively, getting behind the opponent and putting them on their heels… It’s just about getting them on the field, playing together and comfortable with each other.”Wales is gearing up for the final two matches of the UEFA Nations League against Ireland (November 15th) and Finland (November 18th). Interim manager Rob Page leads a 27-player roster featuring notable talents such as Gareth Bale, Ben Davies, and Tom Lawrence. The Dragons are currently ranked 20th in the world and have qualified for the upcoming European Championship scheduled to be played next summer.
Christian Pulisic leaving United States camp, Gio Reyna in line for debut
2:31 PM ET Jeff CarlisleU.S. soccer correspondent
United States midfielder Christian Pulisic will not play in Thursday’s friendly against Wales, and will leave camp on Wednesday night as he recuperates from a hamstring injury, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced.
The Chelsea midfielder had always been unlikely to play in the match after sustaining the injury while warming up prior to his club’s match against Burnley on Oct. 31, and later suffered a setback in training.
But U.S. manager Gregg Berhalter was eager to see Pulisic in person, having not had his first choice group together in over a year. Pulisic arrived in camp, which is being held in Cardiff, Wales, last weekend.”[Pulisic] had a great three or four days with the team,” Berhalter said on a Zoom call with reporters. “He was able to get treated, and able to be with the guys, connect with the staff again. It was great to see him. Unfortunately, he won’t be taking part in the match.”Pulisic’s departure means he will miss out on the likely debut of Borussia Dortmund midfielder Gio Reyna — son of former U.S. captain Claudio — as well as the returns of Juventus midfielder Weston McKennie and RB Leipzig midfielder Tyler Adams. This quartet of players is expected to form the core of the side for years to come.”[Pulisic] is a player that we’re certainly going to miss, and with his quality we wish we could have him on the field, but that’s not going to happen,” said Berhalter.For his part, the 17-year-old Reyna said he doesn’t plan to alter his game in Pulisic’s absence.”I think I just have to play my game like always try to do, like I’ve done with Dortmund so far,” Reyna said, “I think if I can emulate what I did at Dortmund so far this season here, I think I can be successful here too.”Of course. I’m, we’re gonna miss Christian, obviously. He’s such a good player and he always offers so much for us. It’s unfortunate that he can’t play, but I think for me, it was always just trying to help the team get involved and obviously try to score goals in the system.”Chelsea manager Frank Lampard previously called Pulisic’s hamstring injury “very, very minor.” Pulisic last played on Oct. 28, when he scored a 90th-minute goal in a 4-0 Champions League group stage win against Krasnodar.He has no goals in three Premier League games this season after tallying nine goals and four assists in 25 matches in his debut campaign with Chelsea in 2019-20.Pulisic has not played for the U.S. since October, 2019. The next FIFA international window is next March.
USMNT has brighter future than Mexico, says Pumas’ Saucedo
6:00 PM ETTom MarshallMexico correspondent
Pumas and United States Under-23 international winger Sebastian Saucedo says the USMNT has a brighter future than Mexico due to the number of players at big European clubs, and added that he believes players based in Liga MX have been undervalued by U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter and his staff.The 23-year-old dual Mexico-United States national said he talks regularly with Pumas teammates and Mexico internationals such as Johan Vasquez about the promising generation of young players in the United States setup. He said that Mexico is held back by Liga MX clubs asking for inflated prices for young players, and thinks the United States has the advantage moving forward.
“There are a lot of really good players in Mexico, but the reality is what we talked about,” Saucedo said in an interview with ESPN’s Ahora o Nunca. “I think [Chivas striker Jose Juan] Macias talked about [Mexican clubs] sell[ing] very high. It’s a difficult issue in Mexico because they deserve to go to Europe. [Macias] is right because the thing is that in MLS they sell them cheaper to give them projection in Europe, that’s where the USMNT wins. I see a better future for the USMNT for the players that are playing in Juventus, Chelsea, Leipzig …”
gap in quality with Liga MX, Saucedo said he sees it “closing in the future,” but that Mexico’s first division continues to get stronger.
The former Real Salt Lake player recently returned to training after injury and is focused on making an impact for title-chasing Pumas. However, he is pessimistic about getting future opportunities to play for the United States’ senior team.
“The U.S. national team hasn’t called me up and I’m focused on the Under-23s,” said Saucedo. “Hopefully [the] Tokyo [Olympics] happen, but I’m more focused on my club than the national team because I don’t think the opportunities will come here in Mexico.””There are players in Europe that are playing and they are called just because they play in Europe,” he continued. “They under-appreciate the Mexican league. The Mexican league has spectacular players that are called up to their national teams. And it seems a little unjust.”Saucedo played for the U.S. U20s at the 2017 World Cup alongside the likes of RB Leipzig‘s Tyler Adams and Werder Bremen‘s Josh Sargent and was in the frame to be involved for the U23s at the CONCACAF Olympic qualifying event in Guadalajara last March, until it was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.But a full national team call is yet to come for Saucedo, who became a regular starter for Pumas in his first season in Mexico.”It’s a little bit frustrating,” he said. “There are players that deserve to be in the national team and there are others that don’t. That’s football.”The California-born Saucedo said the last contact he’s had with the full U.S. national team was after he signed for Pumas early in 2020.”The last time someone called was Gregg Berhalter in January when I arrived at Pumas, but I think that maybe he thought I was coming here for the Mexican national team and an opportunity [with El Tri],” said Saucedo. “Pumas is a huge team that has Mexican national team players and he maybe thought that my decision would be [to go with] Mexico. I never had the intention to come for the Mexican national team.”
How USMNT prospect Johnny Cardoso will complement Pulisic and Reyna in midfield
Nov 9, 2020Tim VickerySouth America correspondent
As their most recent squad announcement for this month’s matches against Wales and Panama showed, the United States men’s national team has some exciting individual talents coming through. With an average age of 21 years, 10 months, the likes of Christian Pulisic and Giovanni Reyna will take the headlines, but a team is not made of glamour alone and the good news is that a midfielder from Brazil is also emerging who can set the stage for the more attacking players to succeed.Joao Lucas de Souza Cardoso was born in Denville, New Jersey, where his Brazilian parents ran a porcelain business. When their son was only 3 months old, they went back home to Criciuma in the south of Brazil, though Joao Lucas was never allowed to forget his North American roots. When he showed promise at football, he was nicknamed “Johnny.”
Now 19-year-old Johnny Cardoso has become the first player in 24 years to earn a call-up to the U.S. while playing for a club outside North America or Europe. (Cobi Jones last did it, during the 1996 CONCACAF Gold Cup while playing for Vasco da Gama.) A year ago, Cardoso was named to the roster for the United States U23 team for the first time for a camp in Miami and now he’s in the big leagues.
Much of the credit for this recognition has to go to Eduardo Coudet, his club coach at Internacional, in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. An Argentine, Coudet is in his first year in charge of the club and when he took over he was eager to have a look at the products of Inter’s much-praised youth ranks. The youngster who caught his eye was Cardoso — not one of the players the local media had considered among the most likely future stars, but now the attraction is clear.
Coudet was a midfielder with a top-level career that was solid rather than stunning. He had a few games with Celta Vigo in Spain, but his best football was played in Argentina with Rosario Central and River Plate, before he ended his playing days in Mexico and then with Philadelphia Union and the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. He was not exceptionally quick or skillful, he had no outstanding talents, but he understood the game and could make a midfield tick by doing the simple things at the right time. Clearly, Coudet saw some of those qualities in Cardoso.
Cardoso has been with Inter since 2014. He began as an attacking midfielder and then played with some success as a striker, but on his way through the youth ranks he was transformed into a deep-lying midfielder precisely because of his ability to understand what to do and when to do it. Coudet, then, saw a player who was not blessed with excess pace but was quick on the turn, quick to make the pass, quick to move into position to receive. Cardoso is strong enough to take care of himself in a crowded midfield and he can keep the ball moving, which keeps his team ticking over.
September was his best month so far and he started a number of big games for Inter. Coudet uses his defensive midfielder almost as a third center back, and though Carsoso has had some experience in this role, most of his appearances have come higher up the field, where Coudet values the calm maturity of his play. Cardoso has taken just a few months to go from being just one more of the club’s youth products to a star of the future.
After an injury spell, he is being eased back into contention, and started Wednesday night’s 2-1 win against Atletico Goianiense in the Copa do Brasil. There is plenty of competition for places in the Inter midfield, and he is unlikely to start many games when the team is at full strength, but the club is fighting on three fronts: Inter is top of the league and still alive in both the Copa Libertadores and the domestic cup. The matches are coming thick and fast, and there will be chances for fringe players.The hope is, for club and country, that Cardoso can grow into something much more than a fringe player.
The USMNT Picks Up the Pieces After a Long Time Away
With 10 uncapped players and established stars who haven’t been in camp for a year or more, there’s a re-immersion process of sorts for the U.S. men’s national team in order to achieve the results and product its coach desires.
You play to win the game, sure. But sometimes, the game(s) you’re trying to win aren’t necessarily being played that day.The numbers on the scoreboard were rough—embarrassing, even. They read Mexico 3, USA 0 that day at MetLife Stadium in northern New Jersey. It was September 2019, and the U.S. national team had suffered its worst loss to El Tri in a decade. Mexico was stocked with first-choice stars that night and the USA’s lineup was a mixed bag. But excuses typically aren’t tolerated in rivalry games. So coming on the heels of a defeat in the Concacaf Gold Cup final, the result elicited frustration and criticism from fans.USA coach Gregg Berhalter knew that was coming.“I see where the narrative is going now,” he said at his postgame press conference.But for Berhalter, there was more to the narrative than the scoreboard. There were other numbers—more granular, nuanced numbers—that were less about the outcome of one game than about his long-term goal of building a team that was more comfortable with the ball. Berhalter knew El Tri would press. So he challenged his team to play through it, to keep and rotate the ball and to find teammates in the spaces the pressing Mexicans vacated. When it failed, the Americans tried again. And when Berhalter looked at the postgame analytics—figures associated with possession, how many pass attempts and touches the USA had in certain areas of the field, etc.—he saw the foundation of a structure he was trying to build.The scoreboard was important. Those other numbers were, too.“It’s a delicate thing, because I know people want us to win. I understand that. I’m not foolish,” he told Sports Illustrated. “But we also have a process we have to go through. We have to do this if we want to get to where we want to get to.”It’s a difficult thing to introduce a new generation of players to international soccer, to get them to play the game a bit differently than their U.S. predecessors—to “disorganize the opponent with the ball”—and to do it all during the very intermittent and fractured schedule that governs national teams even in normal times.Berhalter had been a club coach. He’d been accustomed to immersing his players in daily details, building chemistry and partnerships and patterns through repetition and routine. Now he was trying to build a core and a system of play with only a few days of face time per month, at best. He felt it was time for the USA to play differently. He felt it was worth the effort.“It’s the hardest thing in the world,” Christian Pulisic said moments after the Mexico game. “It’s hard to teach a real system and be very specific with it. It’s not easy.”Pulisic continued, “Of course there’s frustration when you lose 3–0. There’s always frustrations. But we have a style of play that we’re setting out and we’re still trying to execute and obviously today we didn’t pull it off at all times. But there were a few good moments, and that’s all we can take from it and just try to continue to learn.”Berhalter and the Americans ground out a 1–1 draw with Uruguay a few days later and then dispersed, as national teams do. And they’ve played only five games since—five games in 14 months. Thanks to the pandemic, there’s been almost no time to build on what was established last fall. Berhalter’s project was, at least superficially, put on extended pause. And during that time, even more young, talented Americans began knocking on the senior-team door. When the manager announced his 24-man team for this month’s long-awaited friendlies against Wales (Thursday) and Panama (Nov. 16), it included 10 uncapped players.
None of those players will have had the opportunity to work on those patterns and partnerships with their new U.S. teammates. Other, more seasoned (but still youthful) internationals are back together for the first time in a year. And not only do they have only a couple days to train fully before facing Wales in Swansea, they’re all quickly approaching a 2021 stretch in which the USA has a Gold Cup and the start of World Cup qualifying to negotiate.
Berhalter’s plan always was going to take time. And time has taken on new meaning in 2020.
Speaking to reporters from Wales on Monday, Berhalter said that despite the delays and time spent apart, he felt there was a core in place that has grasped the way he wants to play. Pulisic, midfielder Weston McKennie, defender Tim Ream and goalkeeper Zack Steffen all were capped at least 10 times last year, while John Brooks, Reggie Cannon, Sergiño Dest, Sebastian Lletget, Matt Miazga and Josh Sargent made multiple starts.
Just as crucially, time together doesn’t end when camps disperse. Berhalter and his staff stay in constant contact with their players, talking soccer and even going over footage of their club games. For those near the surface of the player pool, Berhalter’s system should be well understood by this point. He now feels it’s time to deepen that pool, owing to the emergence of new talent and the busy year ahead.
“When we have our core together, I think it’s a team that’s made progress. I think now’s a great time to look at some new players, to look at some of the younger guys who’ve been doing a great job with their club teams. And so that’s what we’re using this camp for,” Berhalter said Monday.
“Admittedly, [building comfort and chemistry] is something I think about also,” he continued. “In this [Wales] game, it’s going to be probably six or seven guys that are on the field for the first time playing together. So it will be a new experience. But I think when you look at the core, and the players we were able to influence over the last 18 months, that’s definitely a group that is up to speed.”
There’s even the possibility of additional wrinkles, he revealed, as he looks to use the squad’s youth and athleticism to his advantage.
“It’s about taking advantage of the quality that we heave in the team, and what I mean is, are there times where we can be more aggressive pressing? I think I was very comfortable with a mid-block 4-4-2 before. We’ve talked about the transition from that into more of a 4-3-3 defending. There’s no secret on that, and it’s based on the athletes that we have and the quality that we have,” he said.
“It won’t change much in terms of us wanting to control the ball. It won’t change much in terms of us wanting to use the ball to create goal-scoring opportunities, and we have guys that can do it. For me, it’s just adding another layer to our group.”
If there’s anyone who might feel like there’s considerable catch-up to do, it’s Tyler Adams. The 21-year-old New Yorker is certainly considered part of Berhalter’s core. He’s a rising star in defensive midfield at RB Leipzig and has big-game, UEFA Champions League experience. But Adams missed last year’s Gold Cup and Concacaf Nations League games with injuries and hasn’t played for the USA since March 2019. And he played then, in a friendly against Ecuador, as a right back.
But Adams explained that his work as a defensive midfielder in Leipzig and his frequent conversations with the U.S. coach leave him level with almost everyone else heading into this week.
“I would say everyone’s quite behind, because we’ve had eight months off to a pandemic. But other than that, it’s just about coming in and taking as much information in as possible,” Adams said.
Berhalter maintained steady contact with Adams during his injury layoff and the pandemic pause.
“He’s really helped me through a lot of different things, a lot of different variables. We’ve talked football and, you know, what my role in the team will be like,” Adams said. “He’s also been able to help me think about the game in a different way as well. He has a similar style to the way [Leipzig coach] Julian Nagelsmann plays, so my development under Julian has allowed me to make the understanding of my game evolve here as well. That’s been really good. [Berhalter] has a lot of bright ideas, and I’m just hoping we can now implement them in the game scenarios and just continue to progress.”
Training time isn’t the only time that Berhalter and staff can use to implement their system. They hold meetings with players, both individually and collectively, and had iPads filled with select video clips waiting for the players when they arrived. Time together may be brief, but it does seem to be immersive. The key will be building at the right rate toward next year, accepting scheduling quirks beyond their control and maintaining realistic expectations for a group featuring many new faces. World Cup qualifying kicks off next September. That’s when you really play to win.
“Moving forward, we obviously need to progress day by day,” Adams said. “It’s different when you have guys that played [Sunday]. They’ll only train twice before the first friendly and then we won’t be able to train that much time between this friendly and the next one [against Panama].
“For myself, with a lot of young guys, we’re going to have to really take as much information in as possible,” Adams continued. “With how the schedule looks moving forward and what competitive games [we have], we know we have to progress rather quickly, because a lot of the guys in this group that are here can play such a key factor going forward.”
The schedule is tight, but it also offers a slight reprieve. World Cup qualifying originally was supposed to begin two months ago. So while Berhalter and his staff lost nearly a year in on-field development time, they’ll get a chunk of that back in next year’s Nations League and Gold Cup matches.
“I have a lot of hope for this group of players. I believe in this group of players and I think as they continue to gain experience for both their clubs and country, they’re going to continue to grow and be fantastic players,” Berhalter said. “But we can’t get ahead of ourselves. We have to realize that there are 10 players in camp that are in the full national team for the first time and it’s going to take development. There’s no question about that.”
UEFA Nations League W2W4: Heavyweight group deciders as COVID and injuries take toll
4:50 AM ETTom HamiltonSenior Writer
The climax of the UEFA Nations League is here — stream LIVE on ESPN+ (U.S. only) — with some of the continent’s biggest teams fighting for a place in the finals in October 2021, as well as preferable seeding ahead of the World Cup 2022 qualifying draw.This year, preparations have been disrupted by COVID-19 — due to both the virus and players battling an intense fixture pile-up, a number of Europe’s best talents are unavailable. Finally, in this most turbulent of years, there is a growing unease around one of Europe’s most successful nations, while others feel that this is the right time to bring in some exciting young talent.Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the final two rounds of Nations League group play.
COVID chaos
The build-up to the Nations League has been a tangle of logistics, biosecure bubbles, COVID-19 testing and load management. But also muddying the waters are the differing quarantine rules from country to country, with the new restrictions on Denmark proving particularly taxing. The UK government has banned all travel from Denmark by non-UK citizens and has not offered an exemption for elite athletes. So, with Iceland playing Denmark on Sunday, Iceland’s team, as things stand, will not be permitted to travel to the UK to face England at Wembley on Wednesday, leaving the two countries scrambling to find a neutral base for their game.
This is also affecting the Denmark squad with neither Tottenham’s Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, nor Brentford’s Henrik Dalsgaard and Mathias Jensen, released for international duty.
WHO IS YOUR COUNTRY’S GOAT?
COVID-19 has also put a direct dent in the Denmark squad with Hoffenheim’s Robert Skov and a physio testing positive, while Belgium captain Eden Hazard has too and will miss out this week. Germany will be without Niklas Sule, Kai Havertz and Emre Can while striker Eden Dzeko will be absent for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Then there is Italy. Manager Roberto Mancini, who has tested positive, named a bloated 41-man squad for their three matches — one friendly against Estonia and Nations League games against Poland and Bosnia and Herzegovina — given the upheaval at home due to the pandemic, that saw six Serie A clubs recently report positive results.
Injury toll
With a number of Europe’s best players sidelined through injury, club managers will be keeping their fingers crossed that their stars return home unscathed after three bruising games in seven days. England are already sweating on Marcus Rashford‘s fitness after he injured his shoulder against Everton, Trent Alexander-Arnold will miss out following his calf injury against Manchester City on Sunday and Joe Gomez is facing an extended period on the sidelines after injuring his knee in training Wednesday.
Portugal have Cristiano Ronaldo available despite the forward picking up an ankle knock at the weekend — he scored once against Andorra in Wednesday’s 7-0 romp after coming on as a half-time sub — but the list of those on the sidelines is mounting up, much to the anger of their clubs.
Managers are absolutely fuming about the relentless fixture list. Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer called the Premier League schedule “an absolute shambles” and said the authorities had set his team up to “fail” ahead of their win at Everton on Saturday. Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp has previously been critical of the international break and the lack of rest time for the players, while Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho says when his players leave for national duty, “I’m never expecting good things, I’m only expecting negative things. Never good things.”
Meanwhile, national team bosses have named larger squads not just to cope with any COVID-19 complications, but also to juggle their options. “It is important that we have enough players we can count on,” was Bosnia and Herzegovina boss Dusan Bajevic’s message after picking 32 players, but France manager Didier Deschamps has played down any concerns about the players hitting a wall.
“I wouldn’t say there’s any risk of burnout, but fitness is something that needs to be taken into account,” Deschamps said. “These past weeks, the players played in nine matches: one every three days, including the European competitions. I can’t say I’m not relieved when I see one of my internationals start on the bench for his club!”
Crunch matches for European giants
We are at the business end of the Nations League group stage, so pool matches are effectively “play-off games” for spots in the semifinals, and for promotion/relegation. Portugal-France in Group 3 on Saturday in Lisbon (2:45 p.m. ET on ESPN+) is a perfect example. Portugal are seeking to defend their Nations League crown and have named a squad of 25 players, with 37-year-old Pepe absent through injury.
“We can take the opportunity to look at players from our extended squad,” Portugal boss Fernando Santos said, with one eye on the future. “[Potential debutants] Paulinho and Pedro Neto are part of that list of 40 or 50 players that I think are all very good. There are none of them that I do not trust or do not have quality.”
Portugal and France face off on Saturday in a likely group-deciding match in Nations League Group A. Photo by FRANCK FIFE / AFP) (Photo by FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images
On the other side of the ledger, France’s form is very hard to gauge, especially after a shock 2-0 friendly defeat to Finland on Wednesday. Deschamps has tried various different formations — 4-3-3, playing three at the back, a 4-4-2 diamond — so you sense he’s still testing the water for his best mix ahead of next summer’s Euros. There are questions over Kylian Mbappe‘s fitness due to a hamstring injury, while Benjamin Pavard and Presnel Kimpembe are also doubts.
This is also playing out against a backdrop of angst regarding the draw for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. The top 10 European sides in the FIFA World Ranking will be seeded for the draw next month. Belgium, France, England, Portugal, Spain, and Croatia are all guaranteed Pot 1 seeds, but a bad week for Italy, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, alongside a good week for Switzerland or Poland, could cause one of the more traditional European superpowers to face an awkward route to Qatar 2022 with only the group winners guaranteed to qualify.
Italy (Group 1) are on an unbeaten run of 20 games and Mancini was in bullish form ahead of round batch of matches, which started with a 4-0 friendly win over Estonia on Wednesday. “Poland are ahead of us in the standings? We’ll win against Poland and we’ll top our group,” he said.
Denmark’s preparations are up in the air due to COVID-19, and the Netherlands have made an average start to life under Frank de Boer. The Oranje are in real danger of missing out on a spot in the semifinals, drawing 1-1 with Italy last time out, while De Boer has also overseen a 0-0 draw with Bosnia and Herzegovina and a 1-0 defeat to Mexico. Their buildup has been disrupted by Bergwijn’s unavailability, and Mohamed Ihattaren pulled out with an illness.
If Netherlands lose to Bosnia, and Poland beat Italy, then the meeting of the Dutch and the Poles next week is effectively a shootout for a World Cup qualifying draw seeding spot.
And all is not well with Germany (Group 4). There are dark clouds shrouding the national team, with general manager Oliver Bierhoff lashing out at the media earlier in the week, asking them to support the national team instead of being overly critical. He admits there is a growing gulf in relations between the country and national team, but while Bierhoff says he believes this is mostly down to the 2018 World Cup disaster, there’s also a feeling the national side values financial spreadsheets and projections above everything else.
There is also a growing clamour for Germany to call up previously discarded veterans Thomas Muller, Jerome Boateng and Mats Hummels. They have been in outstanding form and Boateng and Hummels could solve Germany’s problems in defence. Despite that, a comeback has been ruled out by manager Joachim Low and Bierhoff. If they slip up against Ukraine on Saturday, their place among the World Cup seeds could be in real doubt.
Germany’s match against Spain on Tuesday (2:45 p.m. ET on ESPN+) is a shootout for a spot in the semifinals, and there are also plenty of questions around Luis Enrique’s side. Spain suffered a poor loss to Ukraine last time out and there has been plenty of chopping and changing in the squad.
Who is Spain’s No. 1 goalkeeper? Who is best placed to partner Sergio Ramos in defence? And who will score up front? It looks likely David De Gea will remain between the posts ahead of Kepa Arrizabalaga and Unai Simon, Pau Torres will play alongside Ramos, while they have called up a rejuvenated Alvaro Morata to answer their issues up front. “Since [Alvaro] Morata returned to Juventus, he is a different player both in attack and in defence,” Luis Enrique said. Let’s hope he manages to stay onside.
And in Group 2, favourites Belgium welcome England to Leuven on Sunday (2:45 p.m. ET on ESPN+) — after the game was moved from Brussels due to the city’s 10 p.m. curfew. England have to win the game to stay in contention for a place in the finals for the second successive edition. But in the back of the players’ minds is the physical toll of this run of fixtures.
“It’s all too much, not just for me,” winger Thorgan Hazard said. “Champions League, Bundesliga, Nations League … I don’t want to complain too much because we have to do our job, but it is a lot.
“Well, here at the Red Devils, everyone will get playing time. The national coach has selected many players. Playing them in all three matches for 90 minutes would be difficult. The players will not burn themselves out. Our coaches also ask us to be careful, not to risk too much.”
New faces
With all the absentees and upheaval, the international window gives managers the chance to introduce some youngsters. Borussia Monchengladbach‘s Marcus Thuram, 23, is looking to follow in his father Lilian’s footsteps for France. He has been superb for Gladbach this season, with three goals and five assists in 11 matches, and is one of two uncapped players in Deschamps’ squad — 27-year-old Monaco defender Ruben Aguilar being the other.
Elsewhere, England could hand a debut to 17-year-old midfielder Jude Bellingham, called up following the withdrawal of Southampton‘s James Ward-Prowse. Bellingham joined Borussia Dortmund in the summer and has made 11 appearances to date, including 30 minutes off the bench against Bayern Munich at the weekend. If he makes his debut, the incredibly talented teenager will become the third-youngest England player in history after Theo Walcott and Wayne Rooney.
Coatesville’s Zack Steffen has it all at Manchester City, except the one thing he needs most
Steffen has played just two games for City this season, and they were both in September. He’s likely to start for the U.S. men’s national team in its friendlies Friday and next Monday.
Zack Steffen has just about everything a soccer player could want.He’s part of one of the world’s biggest clubs, England’s Manchester City. The training facility is among the world’s most lavish, bankrolled by billionaire owners from the United Arab Emirates. His teammates include world superstars Kevin de Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Sergio Agüero. The coaching staff is led by Pep Guardiola, one of the game’s all-time philosophers and winners.There are even Americans to socialize with, since Sam Mewis and Rose Lavelle are playing for City’s women’s team this season. They’re planning to all have Thanksgiving dinner together.But there’s one big thing that Steffen currently lacks: regular playing time.He knew it might happen when he joined the English superpower last July. At first, Steffen was far enough down the depth chart that it made sense to loan him to Germany’s Fortuna Düsseldorf last season. But now he’s the No. 2 to starter Ederson. That means he’s on the bench a lot.The Coatesville native has played just two games for City since coming back from Germany. Both have been in the EFL Cup, a tournament that big English clubs treat as an afterthought. It’s understandable, and it might even be OK if not for the fact that Steffen was out injured for the second half of the last Bundesliga season. His City debut on Sept. 24 was his first game action since last Dec. 22. He suffered a patellar tendon injury after that, then suffered a knee ligament injury in late April.
On Thursday, Steffen is expected to play for the U.S. national team for the first time since October of last year. The Americans visit Wales for a friendly in the program’s first game since February, with a squad that is almost entirely European-based. The following Monday, they face Concacaf rival Panama on neutral turf in Austria. (Both games are 2:45 p.m. ET kickoffs, televised on FS1, UniMás and TUDN.)Some time next year, World Cup qualifying will start and the games will count for real. And if Steffen is still on City’s bench, the question he faced in a slew of forms during a transcontinental Zoom call Wednesday will keep getting asked.How can he be in top shape for the national team if he isn’t playing for his club?There’s an obvious answer: Manchester City practices at a higher level than many teams play games at. And it was the answer Steffen gave with his trademark calm and politeness.“The talent that we have at that club has already made me a better keeper,” he said. “Their goalie coach is really detailed and is very eager to make me a better goalkeeper. And then just working with those guys day in and day out, the training, the level of intensity, and skill, and talent, and all that, everything that goes into it, I feel myself growing.”
Guardiola’s system is especially demanding of players, laid out down to the smallest details of how to pass and how to defend. Although he has been a manager for 13 years, only a small fraction of the world’s players have learned his ways firsthand.“It’s awesome to be on the inside and really see how he works day to day,” Steffen said. “He has a good balance of being focused and intense, but with that he brings humor, and he brings just his genuineness, and just kindness.”But there’s still nothing quite like a live game, and Steffen hasn’t played in one since Sept. 30.“Obviously, I do want to get games, They’re most important, and I want to be out on the field,” he said. “I’ll keep working hard and keep pushing those guys in front of me, and they’ll keep pushing me.”Steffen said that he has fully recovered physically from the knee injury. But the mental side of the game has needed some work too.“City has given me a lot of confidence to go back out on the field,” he said, taking time to again specifically praise the goalkeeper coaches. “Each day, the keeper coach, the keepers, the players, they’re pushing me to get better, and I feel like I’m in that process. I’m feeling good and feeling better each and every day, each and every week. And just being around those high level players has made me better — and has made me a more confident player as well.”
U.S. roster for November friendlies
Goalkeepers (3): Ethan Horvath (Club Brugge, Belgium),Chituru Odunze (Leicester City, England), Zack Steffen (Manchester City, England)
Defenders (7): John Brooks (VfL Wolfsburg, Germany), Reggie Cannon (Boavista, Portugal), Sergiño Dest (Barcelona, Spain), Matt Miazga (Anderlecht, Belgium), Tim Ream (Fulham, England), Chris Richards (Bayern Munich, Germany), Antonee Robinson (Fulham, England)
Midfielders (7): Tyler Adams (RB Leipzig, Germany), Johnny Cardoso (Internacional, Brazil), Richard Ledezma (PSV Eindhoven, Netherlands), Sebastian Lletget (Los Angeles Galaxy), Weston McKennie (Juventus, Italy), Yunus Musah (Valencia, Spain), Owen Otasowie (Wolverhampton, England)
Forwards (8): Konrad de la Fuente (Barcelona, Spain), Nicholas Gioacchini (Caen, France), Ulysses Llanez (Heerenveen, Netherlands), Giovanni Reyna (Borussia Dortmund, Germany), Sebastian Soto (Telstar, Netherlands), Tim Weah (Lille, France)
Notes: Christian Pulisic was part of this week’s training camp, but left Wednesday to deal with a hamstring injury that’s been bothering him all season. Josh Sargent was also initially on the roster, but forced to withdraw because of local government coronavirus regulations affecting his club team, Germany’s Werder Bremen. Lletget was called in to replace him. No other MLS players were called in, to avoid subjecting those preparing for the playoffs to the league’s quarantine mandate for players returning to the U.S. from abroad.Jonathan Tannenwald
Early morning Sat on NBCSN as Everto and Man United start things at 7:30 am. Chelsea with Pulisic still injured will travel to Sheffield United for a 12:30 Sat 12:30 pm game. Of course also at 12:30 on ESPN + Is the premier game in the German Bundesliga Bayern Munich and American defender Chris Richards traveling to Dortmund and American Gio Reyna in a battle for the top spot in Germany. Of course the best EPL game of the weekend is pay to watch on the Peacock as the past two EPL champs Man City faces Liverpool faces at 9 am followed by Fulham vs Arsenal at 2:!5 pm. Sunday early AM gives us Lazio hosting Juventus and American Aaron McKinney at 6:30 am on ESPN2, followed by West Brom vs 2nd place Tottenham on NBCSN. Finally at 3 pm on beIN Sport Sunday – Valencia and potential US player Yunus Musah (see below) play Real Madrid. Sunday is MLS final day of play – Decision day on ESPN+ with 2 spots in the East, the top 2 seeds in the East and playoff positioning all in play still, 1 game on network as LAFC hosts Portland at 3:30 pm on Fox Sports 1. Zlatan amazing bike for AC Milan
USA Friendly’s Wed 2:45 FS1 vs Wales/Mon 2:45 vs Panama FS1
So huge excitement for the upcoming friendly’s with an almost entirely European group of players – many of them under the age of 23. In fact the average age is just over 22 for this group that will take on Wales and Garreth Bale. Doubtful that Christian Pulisic will play – but first timers Gio Reyna of Dortmund, Konrad de la Fuente from Barcelona and Sebasatian Soto of Telstar – all U20 WC players for the US should excite folks. Also American born 18 YO winger Yunus Musah starting now at Valencia, a kid born in New York who grew up in England, has accepted the invite to check out how the US does things after representing England at the youth level. My thoughts for the Wales game start
FORWARDS (8): Konrad de la Fuente (Barcelona), Nicholas Gioacchini (Caen), Christian Pulisic (Chelsea), Uly Llanez (Heerenveen), Gio Reyna (Borussia Dortmund), Josh Sargent (Werder Bremen), Sebastian Soto (Telstar), Tim Weah (Lille),
Champions League Group Stage Matchday 3 Results
Champions League only had 1 marquet matchup this week with RB Leipzig squeezing by an injured PSG 2-1 as Adams subbed on to help protect the lead in the 75th minute. Dest helped Barcelona claim a 2-1 vs Dynamo Keiv, while Gio Reyna started and helped Dortmund to a 3-0 win over Brugge a win that moved them to the top of the table. Champs League Standings
USL Championships Cancelled
Sure was interesting to see both USL Championship games be cancelled this past weekend. The Tampa Bay Rowdies were to host the Phoenix Rising Sunday night on ESPN before a COVID Outbreak hit the Rowdies. I would understand a postponement but just cancelling the final after you played the adjusted season. If player safety was the concern you shouldn’t have played this season at all. But you did – you should end the season with a Champion – even if you have to delay the game by two weeks to do it. Just one man’s opinion.
GAMES ON TV
(American’s in parenthesis)
Sat, Nov 6
7:30 am NBCSN Everton vs Man United
9:30 am ESPN+ RB Leipzig (Adams) vs Freiburg
10 am beIN Sport Barcelona (Dest) vs Real Bettis
10 am NBCSN Cyrstal Palace vs
12:30 pm NBC Sheffield United vs Chelseas (no Pulisic)
12:30 pm ESppn+ Dortmund (Reyna) vs Bayern Munich (Richards)
3 pm beiN Sport PSG vs Rennes
Sun, Nov 7
6:30 am ESPN2 Lazio vs Juventus
7 am NBCSN West Brom vs Tottenham
9 am NBCSN Leicester City vs Wolves
9 am ESPN+ Atalanta vs Inter
10:15 am beIN sport Real Sociadad vs Granada (Sp)
11:30 am Peacock Man City vs Liverpool
2:15 pm Peacock Arsenal vs Aston Villa
3pm beIN Sport Valencia vs Real Madrid
Wed, Nov 12
2:45 pm FS1 USA vs Wales
USA Friendly’s Wed 2:45 FS1 vs Wales/Mon 2:45 vs Panama FS1
It’s been a long, strange trip. But on Sunday, we will finally arrive at Decision Day presented by AT&T. And although 2020 has been arguably the most unusual MLS season in history, if there’s one constant, it’s that the final day always brings big moments and high drama.
Here is what they’ll be playing for beginning in the Eastern Conference at 3:30 pm ET, and the Western Conference at 6:30 pm ET (TV and streaming info).
Eastern Conference
Two postseason berths up for grabs: It’ll be five teams battling it out for two playoff spots in the East. The Chicago Fire, D.C. United, Inter Miami, Montreal Impact and Atlanta United are all doing battle in simultaneous matches to see which two teams will claim the final two postseason tickets and a spot in the play-in round. D.C. United and Montreal will be going head-to-head. Chicago and Montreal have the inside track as they currently hold the final two spots.
No. 1 seed: It’s more or less a two-team race at the top of the Eastern Conference between the Philadelphia Union (1st place) and Toronto FC (2nd place) for the top spot.The Union are currently ahead of Toronto on a secondary tiebreaker. Philly will be at home against the New England Revolution (they’re perfect at home at 8W-0L-0D), while Toronto visit the New York Red Bulls.
First-round home games: The top four in each conference will host in the conference quarterfinal stage. New York City FC (5th place) sit just outside the top four and they will have their focus on moving up by beating Chicago Fire FC and hoping Columbus (4th place) falter.
Play-in byes: The East will have two play-in matches to kickstart the playoffs (No. 7 vs. No. 10 and No. 8 vs. No. 9). Needless to say, teams like New York Red Bulls (No. 7) and the Nashville (No. 8) will be hoping to move out of the play-in zone at New England’s expense (No. 6) and gain a few extra days of rest before conference quarterfinals.
Western Conference
No. 1 seed: It’s Sporting Kansas City (1.80 ppg), Portland Timbers (1.73 ppg), and the Seattle Sounders (1.71 ppg) fighting for West supremacy and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Sporting hold the edge and head to Utah to face a Real Salt Lake team that has already been eliminated.
First-round home games: Along with the top three, currently FC Dallas (4th place) is slated to host a first round playoff match. But the teams right behind Dallas (Minnesota United FC, LAFC and Colorado Rapids) will still believe they can earn enough points in the final week to overtake FCD for the hosting privileges.
The Supporters’ Shield
It comes down to Philadelphia and Toronto competing at a distance on Decision Day for the best regular season record.
With 14 goals, Diego Rossi is in pole position in the race for the league’s top goalscorer, an impressive feat considering he has missed three of LAFC’s 20 games so far. But he will only have one remaining chance against Portland to do damage, while Crew SC’s Gyasi Zardes (11 goals), Chicago’s Robert Beric (11 goals) and Seattle’s Raul Ruidiaz (11 goals) each have a shot.
Berhalter looks to USMNT’s future with Reyna, Dest, Konrad, Musah in exciting young squad
Jeff Carlisle U.S. soccer correspondent ESPN
There are moments when the focus of an international manager veers decidedly toward near-term concerns. Who is in form? Who is fit? Who is the next opponent? But there also are those occasions when a manager can allow himself or herself to scan the horizon and look to the future.In the case of United States men’s national team manager Gregg Berhalter, this is decidedly one of those occasions. The 24-man roster he announced on Tuesday for matches against Wales on Nov. 12 and Panama four days later features 19 players who are age-eligible for the 2021 Olympics and 14 who are 20 years old or younger. This group’s youth and its corresponding potential makes this squad among the most tantalizing in recent memory.The roster has some names that, at least publicly, have only recently appeared on the national team radar. The most intriguing is that of Yunus Musah.The 17-year-old winger was born in New York, plays for Valencia, scored his first professional goal last weekend and is a product of Arsenal‘s academy. He has played for England‘s youth national teams — although not in official competition, meaning he doesn’t have to file a one-time switch to represent the U.S. — and is eligible to represent Ghana, as well. Credit, then, to U.S. Soccer Federation sporting director Earnie Stewart, U.S. men’s national team general manager Brian McBride and Berhalter for jumping on the opportunity to bring in a player that Berhalter said the USSF has been tracking for 18 months. And yes, much like the U.S. did with Sergino Dest when he was deciding his international future, this is as much a recruiting trip as anything.What we see from [Musah] is a player that’s hungry, he’s hungry to make his impact,” Berhalter said. “He has a connection with the United States. He loves the direction the team is going in. He loves the young talent that he can be alongside. And we see him as having a ton of potential. It’s not just a question of Musah choosing. Berhalter will be doing some choosing of his own.”One thing I’m always careful about is, I want to know the player’s connection to the United States in terms of: Do they feel it in their heart?” Berhalter said. “Do they feel like they want to be part of this team? Do they feel a connection to the United States? Because that’s really important. We also want to create a team that has a deep passion for representing our country.”Then there are the likes of Internacional holding midfielder Johnny Cardoso, Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder Owen Otasowie and Caen forward Nicholas Gioacchini.
Cardoso has been called in for a couple of U23 camps and is one of those out-of-nowhere players to whom fans latch on. He is the first player in 24 years to earn a national team call-up while playing for a club outside of CONCACAF or UEFA. Cobi Jones last did it, earning a call-up to the 1996 CONCACAF Gold Cup while playing for Vasco da Gama.To a large degree, this is all part of a roster’s natural progression. Thirteen players in this squad have represented the U.S. at a youth World Cup, including six at last year’s U20 tournament.There’s also the chance to get another dual national — or in this case, triple national — into the fold in Sebastian Soto. Names such as Dest, Chris Richards, Alex Mendez and Ulysses Llanez have been on the minds of fans for some time now. Now that the quartet is breaking into their respective first teams, the time is right to take the next steps at the international level.There’s even a man-who-came-in-from-the-cold aspect to the roster, as Lille attacker Timothy Weah makes a return after dealing with injuries for much of the past year.Granted, Berhalter isn’t looking exclusively to the future. It has been nearly a year since anything close to his first-choice group has been together, so the November get-together will be an all-too-rare opportunity to see some first-choice players up close. That’s even more so the case with the triumvirate of Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie, who have shared the field for just 62 minutes since the start of 2019.
Alas, that dynamic could continue, as Pulisic suffered a hamstring injury while warming up last weekend for Chelsea‘s match against Burnley. Blues boss Frank Lampard said that the injury is “very minor,” but given Pulisic’s injury history, it seems there is more than a decent chance the U.S. attacker will miss out.Pulisic’s possible absence is mitigated by the presence of 17-year-old Giovanni Reyna. In a world without COVID-19, Reyna would have long since made his debut given his performances for Borussia Dortmund. Now that wait is almost certain to give way to actual minutes on the field alongside Adams and McKennie.”I think we should be able to be very aggressive offensively, getting behind the opponent, really putting the opponent on their heels,” Berhalter said. “And those are things that we need to just work on because we haven’t been together with this group often. Tyler’s played one game for us since I’ve taken over. So it’s just about getting them on the field playing together, getting them comfortable with each other.”
With several competitions scheduled for 2021, including World Cup qualifying, the time is now to get that chemistry established.
How USMNT’s November Camp Pieces May All Fit Together
Recent injuries, a late curveball and a slew of uncapped players add a bit more intrigue to the puzzle manager Gregg Berhalter must piece together for the USA’s first matches since Feb. 1.
The U.S. men’s national team as currently constructed is an exciting and promise-filled list of names. The average age for the upcoming camp and friendlies against Wales and Panama is a shade under 22, players are competing at more elite European clubs than ever before, and the potential is tantalizing. As is always the case, though, a list of names on paper and how it will all come together in practice are two entirely different things, and when 10 uncapped players are thrown into the mix—not to mention injury and pandemic curveballs to take into account—there’s a growth process that needs to take place. Expecting that to be carried out to completion in the few days between camp starting and the Nov. 12 friendly vs. Wales is asking a bit much.
For starters, there’s already been a change to the list of names available to manager Gregg Berhalter. Forward Josh Sargent won’t be taking part in camp after all due to coronavirus restrictions in Werder Bremen’s region that would have required him to quarantine for five days upon return from international travel. Werder Bremen announced Thursday that only two of its players would be released for the upcoming international window, as those two are not leaving Germany for their respective camps. U.S. Soccer confirmed that Sargent would not be joining and that LA Galaxy midfielder Sebastian Lletget would take his place.That removes the top candidate to feature at center forward from the mix and opens up opportunity for the uncapped likes of Sebastian Soto and Nicholas Gioacchini to step in among a group that is flush with wide players but less so on central-based forward figures.Christian Pulisic, one of those leading wide players, may not be available. His injury before last weekend’s game vs. Burnley wound up not being serious, but he missed Chelsea’s Champions League win over Rennes on Wednesday, and his status is for this weekend’s game vs. Sheffield United is not yet known. As Berhalter said Tuesday, Pulisic’s on-field availability would depend on how his hamstring responded in the days that followed. “Christian is a 1-v-1 phenomenon, a guy that can put players on the back heels easily,” Berhalter said. Whether Wales and Panama will get to find that out remains to be seen.
Gio Reyna, who will be experiencing his first senior camp, presuming he emerges unscathed after Saturday’s Dortmund-Bayern Munich showdown, will likely feature in a wide position based on Berhalter’s comments. He’s “a different type of attacking player,” Berhalter said of Reyna, who turns 18 the day after the Wales game. He “can give a final pass, final cross.”“I don’t think we need to necessarily define where he’s going to be playing,” he added. “What we want him to do is impact the game offensively. We want him to score goals and make assists. I think that’s important. We’re going to put him on the field to do that. I don’t think it’s really important to get specific about where, I think it’s what he’s doing on the field. We want him making goals and assists.”The midfield construction is where there is plenty of intrigue. The days of “Tyler Adams, right back” are long gone, with an experiment borne out of necessity being tempered by the rise of Reggie Cannon and Sergiño Dest at the position. Berhalter described the complementary qualities that his top tier of midfielders have.”When you look at Tyler, you have a controlling midfielder with a lot of range, can easily play the No. 6position, can give you that cover in transition, but also can give you the mobility to make good plays defensively and put pressure on the opponent,” he said.“When you look at Weston [McKennie], he’s a box-to-box midfielder who likes to arrive in the penalty box. He’s strong in tackling, but has that extra offensive edge to him.”interesting to note how little Pulisic, Adams and McKennie have actually played together with the senior national team, largely due to injuries. They’ve only started together once, and in that game, a March 2019 match vs. Ecuador, Adams was at right back, McKennie in a defensive midfield role and Pulisic as a central No. 10 figure. Beyond that, Pulisic and McKennie have started the same match 11 times. McKennie’s role in the midfield has been rather consistent, while Pulisic has shifted between starting as a forward (three times), left wing (two times), right wing (one time) and central midfield (five times). Adams and McKennie have started together without Pulisic in the lineup on five occasions, but not since a Sept. 2018 friendly vs. Mexico, which was the last of three times they’ve both featured in central midfield roles.With Adams recovering from recent back and knee injuries, though, his availability in this camp might be limited. Enter, potentially, Yunus Musah, the 17-year-old Valencia winger eligible to play for the U.S., England, Italy and Ghana. Despite playing out wide for his club, Berhalter said he viewed him more as a central figure with the U.S., though the way he describes what he sees in him overlaps more with McKennie’s attributes than those of Adams.“When you watch his games [at Valencia] he’s playing wide right in a 4-4-2, and he’s taking on the outside back, and he’s running by the outside back and he’s done a good job defensively. But we still see him as a player that can potentially be better centrally—a box-to-box midfielder a little bit in the style of Weston in terms of covering ground,” Berhalter said. “What we have to remember, and I think all of us are getting ahead of ourselves just little bit, because he’s 17 years old. We’re going to bring him into camp and we’re going to play him probably centrally and there’s going to be some growing pains with that, I can tell you right now. But he has so much talent that to me, it’s worth it. It’s worth looking at that.”In the back, the big question mark surrounds Sergiño Dest and on which side he’ll be deployed. He’s played on both for the U.S., for Ajax and now for Barcelona and seems perfectly capable of handling either challenge. The right is his stronger side, though, and with Antonee Robinson beginning to emerge as more of a fixture on the left for Fulham, the need to shift Dest over to that side isn’t as great. Between Robinson, Cannon and Dest, there are three options for two starting nods.The whole point of this camp is to start discovering the answers to some of the outstanding questions. Getting these players together—the first U.S. camp with the top-level, European-based players available in a year—is the opening Berhalter has been yearning for, but there are steps to take before any final answers emerge.”There’s a lot of question marks, but you have to start sometime,” Berhalter said. “Our first objective is to qualify for the World Cup, and then the next objective is to play well at the World Cup and then we go from there. But we realize we do have some bit of time. Qualifying doesn’t start until next September. There is a window that we have, but we have to start somewhere and we’re excited to get this group together and start working with them.”
Frank Lampard has confirmed that Christian Pulisic will not play for Chelsea against Sheffield United at Stamford Bridge on Saturday (watch live, 12:30pm ET on NBC and online via NBCSports.com).
“He is not fit to play,” Lampard said. “He is still suffering with his hamstring and he is not training. In midweek he was training at a low level but was not comfortable so we have to keep looking for the right solution.”
It seems like the last few days of training have proven to be a little too much too soon for Pulisic and anyway, why would Lampard risk rushing him back from another hamstring injury?
The main focus will now be for USMNT fans, as Pulisic has been called up to play for the Star and Stripes in their friendlies against Wales in Panama next week.
Will Pulisic be allowed to link up with the USMNT if he hasn’t been fit enough to play for Chelsea this weekend?
It’s likely he will be allowed to link up with the USMNT as this latest injury doesn’t seem serious, but it’s the latest in a long-line of setbacks over the last 18 months for the American winger.
Listing Pulisic’s injury record
Here’s a closer look at the injuries Pulisic has suffered in just the last two years, as he’s suffered six injuries which have kept him out for at least two weeks on each occasion:
August 2018: Muscular problem, 17 days out
October 2018: Torn muscle fibre, 15 days out
February 2019: Torn muscle fibre, 16 days out
March 2019: Torn muscle fibre, 20 days out
January 2020: Tear in adductor, 75 days out
August 2020: Hamstring injury, 63 days out
October 2020: Hamstring injury, TBD
When you see his problems written down in a list like that, you realize that they haven’t been minor issues and they are very similar problems.
Due to those issues he’s been unavailable for 22 games for Chelsea since he arrived just over 12 months ago.
“I’ve been in that spot myself, where you have an injury and you’re trying to shake it and trying to come back and there is a period where you come back and you are a little bit vulnerable,” Berhalter explained. “I know Chelsea is doing every single thing they can. I know he is doing every single thing he can and he is really focused and dedicated on staying fit.
“I believe he will get to this level of resistance where he stays fit. But building that up sometimes is challenging. That could be a phase he is in right now. I know they could use him. I know he’s a fantastic player and it is great to see what he’s been doing, but he’s in good hands with the club and they are doing everything they can to get him on the field.”
Lewandowski, Haaland go head-to-head in Bayern, Dortmund showdown
The Bundesliga’s top striker Robert Lewandowski goes head-to-head with Erling Braut Haaland on Saturday when league leaders Bayern Munich travel to second-placed Borussia Dortmund.
Germany’s top clubs are both on 15 points with Bayern top due to their vastly superior goal difference.
The European champions have won all three of the club’s most recent meetings, but Dortmund have won two of their last three home games against Bayern.
“Bayern will have respect,” former Dortmund captain Sebastian Kehl said in the build-up.
Lewandowski, 32, has banged in 10 goals in his five league games for Bayern, while Dortmund’s Haaland, 20, has scored five times.
Ahead of the top-of-the-table clash, Bayern and Dortmund both rested their star strikers last weekend.
The pair warmed-up by each scoring two goals for their respective clubs in midweek Champions League away wins.
Lewandowski, 32, converted a penalty and added a superb header in a 6-2 thrashing of Salzburg.
Not to be outdone, Haaland, 20, also netted twice in Dortmund’s 3-0 win at Brugge to become the first player to score 14 goals in his first 11 Champions League games.
– Alaba distraction –
Bayern have had to deal with off-field distractions, however, caused by David Alaba’s contract wrangles.
The defender is “hurt and disappointed” after Bayern withdrew the offer of a contract extension, which reportedly would have earned Alaba up to 20 million euros ($23.6 million) per season.
His contract expires next June and head coach Hansi Flick has said he just wants “calm in the team before the game against Dortmund”.
The big question is whether Dortmund can contain a Bayern side which has scored 44 goals in just 12 games this season.
Having reverted to a back four after abandoning a three-man defence, Dortmund have not conceded a goal in their last four games.
However, Bayern will be a far bigger test of Dortmund’s defensive prowess than Schalke, Zenit St Petersburg, Bielefeld or Brugge.
“We feel very comfortable in the new system,” said Dortmund centre-back Manuel Akanji.
“We know that we can win against Bayern at home. We have proven that several times.”
Midfielder Axel Witsel impressed as a defender alongside Akanji in the win at Brugge.
Witsel could start against Bayern at centre-back if Mats Hummels fails to recover from a thigh strain.
Before the Bundesliga’s heavyweights slug it out in Dortmund, third-place RB Leipzig host Freiburg, who are winless in their last five games.
Leipzig want to build on their midweek Champions League win over Paris Saint Germain when the German club’s French winger Christopher Nkunku scored against his former club PSG in a 2-1 victory.
One to watch: Alassane Plea
Plea netted a hat-trick in mid-week as Borussia Moenchengladbach returned to their European glory days of the 70s with a 6-0 win at Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League.
The 27-year-old has also been creative in Europe with four assists – setting up both goals for Marcus Thuram, who just received his first France call-up, in Gladbach’s 2-2 home draw against Real Madrid.
Expect Plea and Thuram to spearhead the visitors’ attack at Bayer Leverkusen on Sunday with just a point separating the clubs.
Key stats
37 – average minutes Lewandowski needs to score a Bundesliga goal this season, while Haaland nets in the league every 77 minutes.
5 – goals Haaland has scored in as many Bundesliga matches in 2020/21. Lewandowski has netted a record ten in his first five games.
18 – goals Haaland has scored in his first 20 Bundesliga games. Lewandowski scored five times in his first 20 league games in 2010/11.
Fixtures (all times 1330 GMT unless stated)
Friday
Werder Bremen v Cologne (1930)
Saturday
RB Leipzig v Freiburg, Union Berlin v Arminia Bielefeld, Mainz 05 v Schalke 04, Augsburg v Hertha Berlin, VfB Stuttgart v Eintracht Frankfurt, Borussia Dortmund v Bayern Munich (1730)
Sunday
VfL Wolfsburg v Hoffenheim, Bayer Leverkusen v Borussia Moenchengladbach (1700)
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