Bobby Wood’s goal lifted the United States over Paraguay Tuesday night.
Neil W. Blackmon
The United States Men’s National Team defeated Paraguay 1-0 Tuesday night at Sahlen’s Stadium in Cary, North Carolina. Bobby Wood’s first-half penalty, drawn after a blistering run by Tyler Adams, provided all the scoring the US would need, as a strong defensive performance held a late Paraguayan charge at bay to give Dave Sarachan his first win as the US interim head coach.
The Americans hadn’t won since their dominant performance against Panama in Orlando last October, and there were plenty of positives in the 1-0 win, not the least of which was that a roster full of young, talented American prospects avoided serious injuries in a game that was far too physical and chippy for even a competitive game, let alone a friendly between two countries who aren’t going to the World Cup.
But in a friendly touted by the interim coaching staff as a “chance to evaluate some new faces”, there are measured criticisms that should be offered as well.
We’ll start there with our four thoughts on the US win.
The United States won, but it didn’t accomplish all it could have.
The decision by an interim staff (full of Bruce Arena staff holdovers) to leave two substitutes on the bench in a friendly over a year before the US plays a competitive match is pure madness. This is especially true given the framing of the match from the staff as a “chance to evaluate new faces.”
There’s a great amount of depth or layers to this criticism, but let’s begin with a simple analysis and thesis.
The United States should have utilized all its substitutions last night.
Instead, they used four, and only two were meaningful, as PSG starlet Timothy Weah came on for a five-minute cameo that left fans wanting more and Cristian Roldan who had little to prove for a staff that had a full Gold Cup to evaluate him, came on as a bizarre time-wasting substitution in stoppage time.
Sarachan’s substitutions privileged a result over player evaluation, which not only flies in the face of Sarachan’s own stated goals last week relating to this roster and friendly, but also makes zero sense from any macrolevel analysis.
The reality is that the United States won’t play meaningful soccer again until 2019, and with a roster that averaged under 24 years of age, there was little value in emphasizing a result. The FIFA ranking benefit from a Paraguay victory prior to the official beginning of a new World Cup cycle is negligible and outweighed easily by the true reason these games and this roster was put together in the first place, which was, of course, to evaluate new players and begin to integrate them into the player pool ahead of the 2022 World Cup cycle. It makes zero sense, then, to leave two substitutions on the bench, and reduce two others to insignificant cameos.
In many ways, Sarachan’s decision is a microcosm of a larger US Soccer problem that could be the subject of a polemic.
There’s a well-warranted criticism that US Soccer, to its detriment, consistently emphasizes winning over development. Multiple US Soccer Presidential candidates agreed this was a problem when we spoke to them this winter, and it starts as early as age five. If the US is as serious about changing that misplaced emphasis as candidates said they were- including new President Carlos Cordeiro- then the US Men’s National Team staff privileging a result 16 months before they play another competitive soccer game again isn’t the best way to lead by example.
But in many ways, this type of mind-boggling decision is just where US Soccer is right now.
I’m reluctant to reference Shakespeare when referencing a US Soccer friendly with Paraguay that looked more like cult-classic Warriors, but this is a federation that recalls Hamlet and remains, in the aftermath of one of the greatest failures in US sporting history, distinctly out-of-joint, both in its conception of itself and its understanding of time and urgency.
The US failed to qualify for the World Cup and essentially nothing changed.
https://twitter.com/ThatDamnYank/status/978777629804216321
Carlos Cordeiro, Sunil Gulati’s number two, runs the show for the federation, and Dave Sarachan, Bruce Arena’s chief assistant, was promoted to run the national team.
Sarachan, a kind, warm man with a perfectly acceptable soccer resume, would likely have passed muster as an interim outsider. But his association with the Arena staff rightly means his decisions warrant scrutiny, both due to his role in the US failure to qualify for Russia this summer and for what’s happened since- notably, the loss of American-born Mexican-American starlet Jonathan Gonzalez to Mexico’s National Team.
The decision to leave an Arena holdover in charge of the natioanal team for what will amount to nearly a year has received a pass from national media, by and large. It shouldn’t have.
Last night, Sarachan got most the tactics correct- though the choice to start an out-of-form Bobby Wood by himself up top when he is low on confidence and almost never feels comfortable as a solitary forward was bizarre.
But this game wasn’t about tactical decisions. It was about development.
When Sarachan opts to leave substitutions on the bench in a friendly that has zero point outside of player evaluation- what motivates that? And what justifies it? If what motivates it is a dream of retaining the job long-term, why hasn’t anyone with the federation, preferably Cordeiro himself, told Sarachan that won’t happen. Ever. His associations with the Arena failure eliminate him. Or do they?
As to what justifies it- the answer is even more simple. Nothing does.
The US had players on the bench that flew across the ocean and didn’t play.
One, Antonee Robinson, is an Everton prospect that is a dual national at a position where England has rolled out the likes of Leighton Baines at World Cups. It’s entirely reasonable to think he could play for England one day. Why would the US not play him and make it known he’s wanted?
Another, Erik Palmer-Brown, is still battling for a post-Brexit work permit. Participation in international fixtures, including friendlies, pursuant to new rules, helps players earn work permits. Having worked on this issue on the legal side, I can attest at how difficult the process can become. It’s astonishing, then, that the US would potentially inhibit Palmer-Brown’s ease of process when a simple late substitution would solve the problem.
A third, Shaq Moore, flew from Levante, the La Liga side where he battles for consistent playing time, to sit the bench. He didn’t play, which begs the question: Why not just let him stay in Spain, where he’s making great strides?
Cordeiro and Gulati also merit scrutiny here. When asked why the US stuck with Arena staffers to handle interim coaching duties, Gulati bloviated a company line about payroll and expense. This taxes credu
lity, of course, and the Ivy League economics professor knows it. There were plenty of coaches on the US Soccer payroll- John Hackworth, Tab Ramos, Jill Ellis– who would have been capable stewards at cost. And the optics would have been so much better.
But here we are, plodding forward, and maybe something more American than Shakespeare is apropos, as the US trudge forward from the Couva mud, “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
That these process questions linger and are at the forefront is a shame, because there was quality on display for the United States last night. Notably, even without much creativity, the US midfield was excellent.
Wil Trapp, wearing the captain’s armband for the second time this year, showed the form he’s displayed with the Crew, effectively shielding a young CB pairing (soon) and rescuing Matt Miazga late when the young defender lost the ball in the final third. Trapp’s ability to play incisive passes to Nagbe and Delgado ahead of him helped the US keep the ball for the majority of the evening, and his positioning is superb, compensating for his foot-speed limitations which will occasionally trouble him internationally.
Marky Delgado started thanks to an injury to Weston McKennie, who was held out as a precaution given Schalke’s position in the Bundesliga. He was excellent, the only US midfielder who consistently had attacking ideas and the one who played a near-perfect through ball to a blazing Tyler Adams to set up the US goal. Delgado also offers toughness. Forgotten in a dispersal draft and consistently omitted from conversations about talented young American players, he has a chip on his shoulder. The US needs that type of player. It’s what made Ale Bedoya indispensable, and Kyle Beckerman before him.
We finished with 16 crosses and 0 completed forward passes in Zone 14. #USMNT pic.twitter.com/gJmldqresf
— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) March 28, 2018
While the US weren’t creative, resigned, as the chart above shows, to pumping in crosses as opposed to unlocking the center, they still received collectively strong individual midfield performances.
And Tyler Adams, who drew the penalty, is a burgeoning star.
Adams is fast. He’s a tidy passer- one who was limited last night due to some stagnant play off the ball- especially from Darlington Nagbe- who, as is his custom internationally, was more content to sit and link then make incisive or aggressive runs in the final third. Most critically, Adams influences the game with his movement- both in the ground he covers and in his understanding of space and ability to see the game a move or two ahead. He isn’t long for MLS, and his ceiling, at 19, is nearly limitless.
Paired with his youth team partner Matt Miazga, Cameron Carter-Vickers was outstanding in the US win over Paraguay.
The US Center Backs were marvelous.
Save Miazga’s late bobble, where Trapp came to the rescue, the young US CB duo of Cameron Carter-Vickers and Matt Miazga were excellent. Not only did they look like a duo very much in form in Europe, they looked, as Dave Sarachan remarked, “like a pair that had been there and played together before” internationally.
Carter-Vickers won multiple one v ones on the ground, containing Oscar Romero with aplomb, and he was his usual Ipswich Town level of beast mode in the air.
Miazga, meanwhile, continues to show positional sense and range beyond his years. He corralled Miguel Almiron on two occasions when the Atlanta United playmaker had burst through the Wil Trapp wall, and held his own on set pieces. Miazga nearly lost his cool as the game became chippy, and he continues to wear emotions on his sleeve and play with a combustible energy that may make him the heir apparent to Jermaine Jones in terms of being a red card waiting to happen. But his talent is prodigious and begs painful questions about where he was late in the Hex, when Arena had abandoned Geoff Cameron.
All told, this is a valuable partnership, and one, like Sacha Kljestan and Michael Bradley were, that dates to youth soccer. That has value in international soccer and could become an immense strength for the United States.
Neil W. Blackmon is Co-Founder of The Yanks Are Coming. Follow him on Twitter @nwblackmon.