140 replies to this topic

[JeremyStrain]

That was as BAD a half as I have ever seen a team play at this level and still come out with the result.

 

1. Ellis please stop with the praising for Rapinoe. Yes she has finished very well but her play has been just fair. Two goals today you say?

a. The first was a free kick which was poorly taken. But France decided to whiff on the ball and it goes directly in.

b. The second goal was a sitter. I finish that.

 

2. Dunn got it done. The bad - she was beat all day. The good - she has such quick reaction and is so fit that she can recover time after time.

 

3. If we pass like that against England they will punish us. Way to slow to see the pass. Not enough pace on our passes. Not good.

 

4. We better see some changes in players and/or tactics this next match. We only have 3 days rest once again. You are insane if you sit Horan again. If you are so convinced that you have to have Ertz, Lavelle, and Mewis starting then fine. Switch to a 5-4-1 like you did halfway into the second half. Move Ertz to CB. Dunn wide where she belongs anyway. Take out Heath or Rapinoe and start Horan.

 

Dunn got put down like a fat kid on a see saw over and over again. I was salty about it from last game so I noticed it way more this game, but they could practically live in that corner in the first half cause she just continuously turns the ball over.

 

Ertz saved her ass at least three or four times that I saw.

 

Those last 10 min were the best they played all day, once they made some subs. Hopefully they learn from that.

[McNulty]

I agree about Dunn too. Their strategy was clearly to pick on her, and it worked.  Luckily France lacked the quality to finish.

[JeremyStrain]

I agree about Dunn too. Their strategy was clearly to pick on her, and it worked.  Luckily France lacked the quality to finish.

 

Yeah even my 8 year old called her out (she's a defense/mid) and she was like, "They keep going after Dunn, they must know how bad she is, good thing my girl Ertz is there to help"

 

You just know England is drawing up a plan right now.

[BSLSteveBirrer]

McNulty

 

No, our midfield is usually our strongest unit which is why Horan hasn't started the last two games. Mewis, Ertz, and Lavelle are all really good. Today was an aberration but also give some credit to France. They came at us and our game plan was to counter quickly. That worked fairly well the first half but then the second half....don't know if it was just tired legs, or they felt the pressure, or what but we struggled the entire second half to put together a string of passes and keep some possession. Well at least until Ellis brought in Horan and Press.

 

I will give Ellis a bit of credit. Switching to the 5-4-1 was a good move.

[BSLSteveBirrer]

As to Dunn.

 

1. I love  her intensity and fitness. She can go all day and she is very quick.

 

2. She is not even a decent 1v1 defender and if it wasn't for #1 above she'd be toast.

 

3. She is really good supporting Rapinoe moving into the attack and is very good at knowing when to overlap and move up.

 

Now all of that is because she is a winger and not a defender. Not her fault and I have no idea why Ellis has made here a LB. We have plenty of solid options for the back 4 so not sure why this is happening. And yes no doubt England will go after her.

[McNulty]

France had 61% possession.  I honestly thought it'd be 70.  

 

They need some serious tactical adjustments or England is going to be much more clinical and the result will be a loss.

[BSLSteveBirrer]

France had 61% possession.  I honestly thought it'd be 70.  

 

They need some serious tactical adjustments or England is going to be much more clinical and the result will be a loss.

Agree but the problem is that Jill Ellis seems stuck in her players and approach. I will be pretty shocked if we don't see the same lineup and tactics on Tuesday.  This is the same complaint serious soccer evaluators have raised about her for years. She wins because she has so much better talent and not because of her coaching. And its hard to argue with her success rate. But the problem is the rest of the world is catching up to our talent and we are to the point where we now need that talent AND good tactics.

 

It is very similar to a discussion I have every year about the current football coach at Boise State. He has the best talent in the MWC and its not even very close. So he has his game plan and sticks to it for the full game even when the other team has gone out of their way to shutdown a certain aspect. No secret that BSU loves to cram the ball down opponents throat. And against most teams it works. But when we play a team with a defensive pulse it struggles. They put 7 or 8 players in the box but we insist on running the ball up the gut time after time. Its like he saying "we are the biggest baddest ass team and you can't stop us."  Stupid.

 

Certainly at this juncture I wouldn't make major changes in personnel or tactics. But I definitely have some tweaks in mind that I would be working on in training first being moving Ertz back to CB.

 

Here's what I would look at against England.

 

I would go with the 5-3-2 we switched to in the second half against France.

 

 

Here's how this works IMO:

 

We are going to play on the left. Its what we do. So I am putting fresh legs up top in Press. With Rapinoe and Dunn both having support, overlapping, and attacking roles. But Dunn stays back more since you have Rapinoe and Press to work together. Morgan is going to play more of a holdup role and look for diagonals in the area to Press, Rapinoe, Horan and Mewis sneaking through from the midfiled.

 

In midfield we have our strongest defenders. We miss out on Lavelle in the attack but we have the two best big girls in Horan and Mewis.

 

In the back we have the best central defense in the world with Ertz back there. And she can pick her times to come forward. She is going to play box to box for me since I see her as the most important player on the team. When Ertiz moves up then Sauerbrunn and Dahlkamper move inside more and Dunn stays back. Heath is going to play more defensive but also have the ability to move down the wing in attack.

 

I just think this formation is more sound defensively and offers more attacking options than the 4-3-3 we have been playing. Although in fairness to Coach Ellis and Rapinoe, Rapinoe did show back to support the defense much more yesterday than she typically does.

[JeremyStrain]

Agree but the problem is that Jill Ellis seems stuck in her players and approach. I will be pretty shocked if we don't see the same lineup and tactics on Tuesday.  This is the same complaint serious soccer evaluators have raised about her for years. She wins because she has so much better talent and not because of her coaching. And its hard to argue with her success rate. But the problem is the rest of the world is catching up to our talent and we are to the point where we now need that talent AND good tactics.

 

It is very similar to a discussion I have every year about the current football coach at Boise State. He has the best talent in the MWC and its not even very close. So he has his game plan and sticks to it for the full game even when the other team has gone out of their way to shutdown a certain aspect. No secret that BSU loves to cram the ball down opponents throat. And against most teams it works. But when we play a team with a defensive pulse it struggles. They put 7 or 8 players in the box but we insist on running the ball up the gut time after time. Its like he saying "we are the biggest baddest ass team and you can't stop us."  Stupid.

 

Certainly at this juncture I wouldn't make major changes in personnel or tactics. But I definitely have some tweaks in mind that I would be working on in training first being moving Ertz back to CB.

 

Here's what I would look at against England.

 

I would go with the 5-3-2 we switched to in the second half against France.

 

 

Here's how this works IMO:

 

We are going to play on the left. Its what we do. So I am putting fresh legs up top in Press. With Rapinoe and Dunn both having support, overlapping, and attacking roles. But Dunn stays back more since you have Rapinoe and Press to work together. Morgan is going to play more of a holdup role and look for diagonals in the area to Press, Rapinoe, Horan and Mewis sneaking through from the midfiled.

 

In midfield we have our strongest defenders. We miss out on Lavelle in the attack but we have the two best big girls in Horan and Mewis.

 

In the back we have the best central defense in the world with Ertz back there. And she can pick her times to come forward. She is going to play box to box for me since I see her as the most important player on the team. When Ertiz moves up then Sauerbrunn and Dahlkamper move inside more and Dunn stays back. Heath is going to play more defensive but also have the ability to move down the wing in attack.

 

I just think this formation is more sound defensively and offers more attacking options than the 4-3-3 we have been playing. Although in fairness to Coach Ellis and Rapinoe, Rapinoe did show back to support the defense much more yesterday than she typically does.

 

I mean pretty spot on, but I will say, when they made the move and put Lloyd in there too, to your point it was because she's better at dropping back to mid to help out too, similarly to the way you'd use some of these other players. Maybe the issue is some of the ones in her set lineup are a little too one dimensional (Lavalle, Dunn who looked much better like you said when she started jumping up in the play, she's more an offensive mid, and using her on D is a mismatch that works against us). Ertz pretty much had to move to CB at the beginning of the game covering for lapses anyway, so might as well just play her back there, and give her the freedom to jump up if she sees the right chance.

[BSLSteveBirrer]

Well a bit of a surprise but Sweden ousted Germany. The Dutch also advanced beating the Italians.

 

Biased alert:

 

Final A was US vs France

Final B will be US vs England

Final C will be the actual Final

 

So stupid that they didn't seed the brackets when they did the draw instead of just the initial pots. No way the #1, 3, and 4 teams should have been in the same bracket. FIFA gets too hung up on having teams from the same confederation in the same group and this is the result. Its really such and easy fix.

 

Here's my drawing approach

Pot 1 Teams 1-6

Pot 2 Teams 7-12

Pot 3 Teams 13-18

Pot 4 Teams 19-24

 

Teams placed in those order based upon the most current FIFA rankings.  Brackets are set so 1, 3, 5 are on the left side 2, 4, 6 on the right.. Then flip the order for Pot 2 so that 7, 9, 11 are on the left and 8, 10, 12 are on the right. Carry this logic through Pots 3 and 4.

 

This equalizes the two brackets as much as possible and sure as hell avoids what we got this time. No excuse for 3 of the top 4 teams to be in the same bracket.

[BSLChrisStoner]

SI: England's Leap in the Women's Game and How the Lionesses Stack Up vs. the USA

[glenn__davis]

7/2, what a day for soccer!

 

USWNT in the WC semifinals.

Brazil vs. Argentina in the Copa America semifinals.

Haiti vs. Mexico in the Gold Cup semifinals.

 

Haven't been able to find any channels showing the Copa America in English, been a good time to brush up on my Spanish at least.

[BSLSteveBirrer]

Glenn I dont think any english speaking channels have carried any of the Copa America.  But since both WWC and Gold Cup are running concurrently I think most US carriers figured that Copa America was going to be the least watched set of games. Probably correct but still would have been nice to see them. My Spanish is way too rusty and I don't like watching it with it muted.

 

But at least there is the universal GOOOOOOOOOAALLLLLLL.......lol

[Nigel Tufnel]

This seems like it might not be good news.

 

Steven Goff‏Verified account @SoccerInsider 24m24 minutes ago

More

Rapinoe is not starting. Team spokesman did not want to comment, referred questions to Jill Ellis after the match.

[BSLSteveBirrer]

Rapino not starting is not that big a deal.

 

What we lose:

 

She is clearly a finisher and that is not to be overlooked.

She clearly is one of the faces of the team.

 

What we gain:

 

Press is faster and has fresh legs.

Press tracks back better on defense which is important with the English RB who loves to get forward. Press can keep that in check and if Bronze gets up field at the wrong time, Press' can punish that opening with a fast counter.

 

Overall this isn't a bad move at all. If nothing else let Press and here speed and fresh legs push the English defense then bring in Rapione in the second half if we need some heroics.

 

Of course all this depends on whether or not this is a tactical decision or Rapinoe is hurt. Personally I like it tactically but I don't think Ellis is gutsy enough to go this way unless Rapinoe is hurt.

[JeremyStrain]

Rapino not starting is not that big a deal.

 

What we lose:

 

She is clearly a finisher and that is not to be overlooked.

She clearly is one of the faces of the team.

 

What we gain:

 

Press is faster and has fresh legs.

Press tracks back better on defense which is important with the English RB who loves to get forward. Press can keep that in check and if Bronze gets up field at the wrong time, Press' can punish that opening with a fast counter.

 

Overall this isn't a bad move at all. If nothing else let Press and here speed and fresh legs push the English defense then bring in Rapione in the second half if we need some heroics.

 

Of course all this depends on whether or not this is a tactical decision or Rapinoe is hurt. Personally I like it tactically but I don't think Ellis is gutsy enough to go this way unless Rapinoe is hurt.

 

The fresh legs thing can't be understated. Need that speed from Press against England in deep. Having Horan in there is going to be huge too I think.

[McNulty]

Much better so far.

[BSLChrisStoner]

USA!  Header in the 9th.

[McNulty]

Fuck off skeptics

[BSLChrisStoner]

Equalizer from England at 18:40. 

[McNulty]

How many times is Dunn going to let them dribble inside? Do they really not have another wing back?