Halftime-Change We Can Believe In
May 30, 2010
Wow, the difference between the first half and the second half in the U.S.-Turkey game was so pronounced that it actually affected me physically. 1st half, I sat on the couch, pretty relaxed except for the expitives I threw out right around the time the wide open Arda Turan streaked into the box (Spector trying desperately to get back) and slammed the ball past Howard. Anyway, my body language was pretty laid back, and my g/f actually fell asleep at one point.
Second half, I was actually pacing the floor, only returning to my seat occasionally, and my g/f, I will say proudly, not only stayed awake but actually contributed a few comments on the game. Her assessments consisted of “Oh, wow he looks like a hyena” (about Clint Dempsey after he scored), “his hair’s blonde on top and more of a brown on the bottom” (about Stuart Holden when he subbed in), and “you’re in my way, I can’t see them all celebrating, it’s my favorite part when they’re happy” (after the whistle blew to end the game).
Well, you can’t expect too much, but like I said, definitely awake for the whole second half.
The point of all this is just to further illustrate how much of a difference there was between the first 45 minutes, when the U.S. team’s touch, marking, communication, and even body language all looked pretty dismal, and the last 45 minutes when the entire flow of the game changed for the Yanks. So, obviously, the key to assessing this game is to try to figure out what the heck changed between the first and second halves. There’s plenty to talk about, but the difficulty is figuring out which of those changes really mattered. Let’s handle this Encyclopedia Brown style and examine our clues section by section. I’m going to look at the differences in the defense, midfield, and up top between the two halves, knowing, of course, that’s impossible to look at each in complete (or even relative isolation) due to changing formations and the nature of the game in general.
Defense
Ok, so the U.S. started the game with a slightly surprising backline of Spector-Demerit-Goodson-Bocanegra. The surprising part, of course, being Onyewu’s exclusion. I did think, as I pointed out in my last post, that if a center back were out b/c of injury (I was actually thinking about Demerit at the time) Bradley would probably start Goodson in the center and keep Bocanegra out on the left. The U.S. defense certainly lookd suspect in the first half, as Turkey seemed to move the ball throughout the Americans’ side of the field with relative ease, and at times the Turks just made the U.S. look slow and amateurish. I have to give a lot of props to Turkey for bringing their A-game today, and their attack was extremely fluid. The U.S. definitely had difficulty maintaining their marks, with all of the Turkish players switching positions constantly and quickly. As I’ll talk about in a minute, I actually think the midfield is more to blame for the defensive problems in the first half than the backline, but they had definite issues as well.
The Shin Guardian tweeted at one point in the first half that Goodson, not the veteran Demerit, was communicating along the backline, and I have to wonder if communication was a problem. With national teams that don’t have a settled, healthy backline for a long period of time (like a couple of years) the communication is always going to be a little bit difficult due to the infrequency with which they get to play together. Adding another part like Goodson into the mix (plus there’s been a lot of injuries anyway over the last couple of years) can cause some issues.
However, I don’t want to focus too much on the communication, because I thought that the main problem that plagued the U.S. backline was pretty much the same problem we’ve had for at least the last five years. Simply put, we struggle with speedy players, because we have a lot of guys that aren’t extremely good one-on-one defenders in space. Bocanegra, Demerit, and Spector all do a decent job of corraling their marks around the outside of the field, but Demerit and Bocanegra have both struggled at with one-on-one defense in the middle of the field. Obviously, they can only do so much with their own limited speed, but the U.S. backline (and often the midfield) is also infamous for giving guys with the ball way to much space to exploit. The U.S., to some extent, is always susceptible in the middle of the field, which is why our play from the center mids is so crucial. The U.S. defense is (or at least should be) centered on the idea of funneling everything along the outsides. Now, I know that every team to some extent tries to do this, but the players on the U.S. backline make it even more crucial. That’s why I’m not quite as worried about the English speed on the wings (like Walcott and Lennon) as some others seem to be. I know England also has arguably the best pure striker in the world at their disposal, but I’m hoping they’ll decide to try to exploit those wings and play a lot of crosses in. The U.S. central defense, with Onyewu’s height and Demerit’s ball hawking, is designed to win the aerial battle in the box, and they usually do. That’s why the header over Onyewu the other night was so worrisome. Simply put, the U.S. defense is not extremely athletic, and I have more faith in Bocanegra and Spector/Cherundolo defending on the wings and Onyewu and Demerit winning headers than I do in Onyewu and Demerit (or whoever else might be in the center) trying to deal with players running at them.
That brings us to the main lineup issue that the U.S. faces for next weekend’s match against Australia. Does Jonathan Spector still deserve to start for the U.S.? I don’t want to exaggerate Spector’s mistakes in the first half. The first goal wasn’t, of course, entirely his fault, since every team past junior high knows somebody has to drop off and fill in for an outside back making a run. Nobody on the U.S. did that. Of course, I think Spector also has to realize that if he’s going to make that run, he can’t turn the ball over at the the top of the 18 and basically jump-start a Turkish attack. He has to know to get rid of that ball or just fire a shot. Spector also misjudged a header at one point that almost resulted in a goal and just didn’t look good overall. Everything looked better in the second half, so it’s easy to sit here and say that Cherundolo played better, but I’m not sure there was that much of a discrepancy in their play. There was some discrepancy, though, and I don’t have any problems in saying that Cherundolo looked better positioned and more comforable than Spector ever did.
Could Dolo be back in the starting lineup next week?
Midfield
This one’s tough to assess, because of the myriad changes made throughout the game. Even before the substitutions, the U.S. midfield was moving around a lot, with Donovan shifting sides and Dempsey trying to find pockets and gaps. Donovan took a while to find the game, which isn’t that unusual for him. He always seems to move around a lot for the U.S. and often takes a while to find a place where he can make an impact. I think the verdict is still out on Feilhaber. I didn’t see a lot that I liked out of him in the first half, but I also didn’t see that much that was bad. He was caught out of position defensively a couple of times and definitely contributed to some of the Turkish breakaways, but he wasn’t awful. Unfortunately for him, I think there are a couple of guys at just about every position he would play that deserve more minutes than him.
To me, the most important change by far in the midfield was the Torres-Clark swap. Clark simply disappeared in the first half. Somehow, the Clark-Bradley midfield tandem managed to be ineffectie offensively while also struggling mightily defensively. Like I said earlier this week, I just think Clark and Bradley’s playing styles are too similar for my liking. If I were Bradley (and this is even better since Micahel is his actual son), I would think of Clark like that kid at school that you just don’t want your son hanging out with. You know, the one that changes him from a disciplined, nice, and well-behaved kid into a whiny, ADHD lunatic? Some people just bring out the worst in each other, and that’s how I feel about Clark and Bradley. I know they paired together with some success last summer, but I think they emphasize each other’s weaknesses, and there’s no doubt that Bradley plays far short of his potential when paired with Clark (or, most likely, with Edu). They didn’t appear to communicate well defensively, often marking the same guy, and I even saw Bradley drifting into space uncharacteristicly and leaving a man unmarked. I’m not sure whether Bradley lacks confidence in Clark or they just tend to overlap each other when playing, but I simply don’t like what I see when they’re together.
Torres, on the other hand, is a much better compliment. He does exactly what a midfield partner of Bradley needs to do. He’s very tidy on the ball, plays intelligently, and, even better, he pairs well with Bradley defensively. Michael doesn’t need another defensive mifielder that tends to play deep, in the mold of Clark. He just needs a guy that plays smart defense, has the speed to stay with his guy, and can be trusted to extricate the ball from a tight situation. Bradley does much better as a deeper midfielder marking the runners cutting into the middle and cleaning up in loose, bouncing balls in front of the box. Unfortunately, Clark does that as well sometimes, and therefore, nobody was stepping hard to the ball as soon as the Turks got near midfield. In the second half, if the U.S. turned the ball over, they closed down on the Turkish attack much higher up the pitch.
Let’s go ahead and touch on Clint Dempsey’s play, so I can concentrate on Findley and Altidore when I get to the forwards section. I’ve been a huge advocate of the Dempsey-Altidore pairing over the last couple months, and I’ll admit that Dempsey didn’t look great in the 1st half. Before everyone jumps back on the Dempsey-at-outside-mid bandwagon, I just want to point out that Dempsey looked pretty poor for a large part of the 2nd half as well. I’m not saying that Dempsey played terribly until his goal, but he definitely looked a bit off the pace. He had trouble winning headers and 50/50 balls throughout, and he just looked slightly out of position a lot of the time. The Dempsey Disappearing Act is one of the great mysteries of the recent national team, but I’m not sure if anyone, including his teammates and Bradley included, have any idea what exactly causes Dempsey to slip in and out of games like he does. I’m just saying it’s not entirely tied to his position. I’ll admit that putting Dempsey up top didn’t jump-start him like I thought it would, but just realize that if he had put away Altidore’s square pass at the end of the second half, his two halves would’ve been essentially identical: largely invisible with one quality moment.
The always-mercurial Clint Dempsey
Forwards
Jozy (which, incidently, is the tentative name for the bulldog my g/f and I plan to get after college) had a pretty typical Jozy game. He has a little bit of Dempsey syndrome in that he fades in and out a bit, but, unlike a lot of people, I don’t see the questionable work ethic that much. Honestly, there aren’t a lot of times where I’m looking at the attack, going “Where the hell is Jozy…make that run!” When the U.S. has the ball, he’s moving, and his defensive work rate isn’t bad at all. He has a nice instinct for when to close in, and when he smells blood, he can trap a defender with the ball or poke it away even when you don’t think he has a chance at it. I saw him do so at least twice today. Obviously, he’s still developing, and I think it’s important to remember that the most of the other guys on this team that we call “young” (Holden, Feilhaber, Torres, Bradley, even Bedoya and Davies if they’d made it) are all 2-5 years older than Altidore. He’s twenty years old, and he wears his heart on his sleeve. The facial expressions and body language that we see from Jozy is mainly what leads some fans to question his work ethic or attitude, but I think he’s just an emotional player. That emotion and joy, by the way, is something the U.S. team has lacked significantly, and I’m not entirely sure that Bradley understands how to harness Altidore in a good way. That’s part of the reason I think Bradley’s decision not to bring Davies was a double-blow, it deprived the team of its best forward and kept the team from having the most inspirational storyline of the tournament. My favorite sports-writer Bill Simmons talks all the time about how effective the “nobody believed in us” attitude can be in sports, but that belief can also be broken down further. There’s the “nobody believed in us because they thought we weren’t good enough,” attitude that comes up in just about every American playoff series and which the U.S. national team always play with outside of COMCACAF, and then there’s the “nobody believed in me, because they didn’t think I could come back from this injury.” This one has proven extremely potent as well, and the U.S. would’ve had both “nobody believed in us” inspirations in June if Charlie Davies was there. Oh well.
- Jozy the Player
As for Findley, he continues to befuddle me. I fully admit that I was shocked by his inclusion, mostly because he didn’t even make an appearance on Tuesday. Apparently, he’s the second-string true striker on this team after Jozy, and he did look better today than he has in some past matches. Everyone after the game, including Clint Dempsey in his post-game interview, was talking about how Findley helped stretch the field when he came into the game. There’s no doubt that the Turks did play a little deeper, and he played a nice ball to Donovan on the first goal. He certainly made some mistakes, perhaps getting a little too caught up in trying to utilize his speed. There were at least two occasions where he could’ve played an early ball but instead kept his head down and tried to beat his guy around the endline. I’m still not 100% convinced that Findley can be a difference maker in the World Cup, but I’ll admit that I give him a better chance today than I did yesterday. The verdict is still out on Findley, but if he gets the start next Saturday, I won’t be nearly as angry as I would have if he’d started today. I do think he has a better chance of having an impact if he comes in as a halftime or (more likely) a 60th or 70th minute sub.
Of course, overriding all of this, we have to talk about the U.S. team’s fitness. They’re always a very in-shape team, and anyone following the camp last week heard all kinds of reports about the running hell that the players were being put through. Yes, the substitutions and tactical changes by the U.S. made a big difference. Heck, maybe Bob Bradley gives great half-time speeches.
His style, by the way could be characterized as the exact opposite of Stan van Gundy’s motivational techniques, and the Magic stopped listening to him about 5 months ago. Maybe they just listened to music (hopefully KE$ha) and did sthe tanky leg (which John Harkes, by the way, referred to as the “crazy leg” during Dempsey’s goal celebration).
The simple truth, though, is that the U.S. team outlasted the Turkish team, who expended a ton of energy in the first half. After all, it wasn’t just the U.S. defense stopping all those cutting, streaking runs from the Turkish midfielders and forwards. That’s kind of one aspect of the American squad that we all tend to take advantage of, but it’s important to remember that one advantage the U.S. has is that they almost always finish games strong, and usually better than they started them. Trust me, as a Clemson fan I know you’d much rather have a slow-starting team than a slow-finishing team.
So, I’ll close this by giving you my top three factors that caused the U.S. to play better in the second half.
1. Jose Francisco Torres’ insertion (both for his play and the effect on Michael Bradley)
2. Robbie Findley’s insertion (which, most significantly, seemed to free up Donovan a lot)
3. The U.S. team’s overall fitness
I’ll be back next week for some questions for the game next Saturday and some more thoughts on some of the other guys (Beasley, Holden, Onyewu) that I didn’t get to talk about today.
