Trying to balance risk of second yellow or further injury with breaking continuity and rust. One of the ESPN nattering nabobs suggested subbing the whole team, but I think that’s stupid – too discontinuous.
I think Poch should sit Adams, Jedi, and Richards - all on yellows. I’ve seen reports that Balogun wants to play to stay in the golden boot race, and I’m torn on that one. On the one hand, it’s an awesome individual accomplishment and a player’s dream and striker seems like a less likely position to pick up a second yellow; on the other, it’s an individual accomplishment and honestly, there is no way Balogun is catching Haaland or Kane, much less Messi or Mbappe.
So, I’m suggesting a 5-3-2 in defense, with the “extra back” roaming forward to make it look more like a 4-3-3 on attack (let’s see if I can format this correctly)
Re: the explosion of goals, is it also possible that the expansion of the event means softer competition and that the best players on the best teams can’t help but get inflated stats?
I’d sit McKennie too, he’s played a lot of minutes for Juventus this past season. Tillman less so for Leverkusen, so perhaps he can go again, especially with a planned sub. I could see keeping Dest on 45 mins too for importance and injury history reasons.
Would guess the dead rubber nature of the game makes the pace and intensity to be more “friendly” than “World Cup” but you never know what will get into guys when they get amped up.
Yeah, I thought about subbing Aaronson or Roldan for McKennie, but even with “nothing to play for,” you know Poch wants to win them all and so do the guys, and I worried that we’d need stability in midfield with so many starting defenders on the bench and the more limited Berhalter as the other middie.
I don’t think they will play a 5-back. The only time you see a 5-back is when you are going into a game where the opposition is vastly superior to you and you bunker to hope for a fast break goal to steal the game. There is no reason to be conservative or overly aggressive in this game as a loss for either team does nothing and a win for either team does nothing. I expect their standard 4-5-2 w/ two 6s but possibly an 8 without an established 10 like normal and the majority of the bench mob playing. The 7 & 11 would play wide and most of the play would feed through them.
Side note… when my older son was playing many years ago and the coach told him to go out and play the 10, he was confused where he was supposed to be. After the game, he told me his coach told him to play the 10 and asked me how he should know where to be… I told him the 10 should literally be up the 9s @ss. He just stared at me, didn’t respond and walked away. Later in the year… he remembered what I said and told me it made sense but it was a weird way to put it.
Hmm, I guess it depends on where you slot “wingbacks” in formations. I think of our most common formation lately as a 5-3-2, classing Dest and Jedi as “backs,” and CP as a “forward,” though usually a withdrawn forward, with Jedi and Dest joining the mids or the forwards for a 3-5-2 on attack (which is another shorthand I’ve seen for the formation in the press).
I wasn’t suggesting we bunker and play a back 5. I think it looks essentially like a 4-3-3 most of the time, with Dest joining the attack (when Jedi is in, attack looks more like a 3-5-2, because he and Dest join the attack, but I don’t think we should ask Scally to do that as much, so only Dest ranging forward from the “back” line).
Edited to add a kind of cool story I found in the athletic recently on “extra backs”:
I don’t think Pulisic plays. Agree with you about sitting Robinson, Richards and Adams. I’d sit Balogun too. He said that he wants to play, but how else is he supposed to answer that question in an interview? I’d think about sitting McKennie and old man Ream too. Maybe even Dest.
So maybe a 4-2-3-1.
Pepi
Reyna-Tillman-Weah
Berhalter-Roldan
Arfsten-Trusty-McKenzie-Freeman
Turner
Sub in Wright, Aaronson, Zendejas, M Robinson and Scally. Or hell, start Brady.
I think we’ll see an almost fully rotated squad. Keep guys healthy plus give every field player a chance to see the field in the home World Cup. From the documentary and everything I’ve heard/read about Poch he seems like the kind of guy that is. Think @4547Lambeth is pretty close. But Freeman and Tillman have takes some tough tackles so I bet Scally starts for Freeman and one of the other attacking players starts for Tillman. Then the Trusty/Mckenzie/M. Robinson hard to predict which 2 of the 3 start. But I bet we see the one that doesn’t start in the second half
Think it’s important to get some game flow and confidence for the subs we will actually play in the knockout. Namely Weah, Gio, Pepi, and Berhalter
I think it’s all about the intel the team has on Turkey … they have already been eliminated so what kind of attitude will they play with?
Let’s have fun and be super offensive and play up and down?
Let’s be super physical and all out all the time because yellows and reds mean absolutely nothing because we are eliminated already?
Balogun is thinking easy goals because Turkey won’t care as much since they can’t advance.
My maximum hater take is that might be like when an inefficient basketball scorer hits a tough shot in the first couple minutes of the game, and they get emboldened to take a bunch of bad shots.
Yeah, of the 495 combinations, whenever Group B gets a team in, the Group D winner plays them in all of them except 1 (where we play I - and I might not get a team in).
When there is no Group B team, but there is a Group I team, the we’d play Group I most of the time and J or E some of the time. When there’s no B or I, it’s usually J, sometimes E and a few times F.
The thinking is that 3 points with a GD of -1 should get a 3rd place team in. 4 points definitely gets in.
In Group B, Bosnia and Qatar each have a point and are playing each other. If it’s not a draw, we’ll almost certainly play the winner.
If they draw and neither qualifies, Group I has Senegal and Iraq both with 0 points and playing each other. If they draw, they’re out, but even if one wins, Senegal is sitting at -3 GD and Iraq at -6, so it’s possible that the winner won’t be among the top 8.
After that, Group J has Austria and Algeria sitting on 3 points and playing each other. Algeria is 3rd with a draw, but if either loses then they’d be at 3 points with a negative GD.
Group E has Germany already clinching 1st playing Equador with 1 point. Ivory Coast with 3 points and 0 GD playing Curaçao with 1 point. Any of those teams could finish 3rd, but none are particularly strong sides.
Group F 3rd place will be loser of Sweden and Japan or Sweden if they draw. We only play a Group F team in 11/495 permutations, so I’m not worried about that.
2-0 Bosnia late in the 1st half. Considering Qatar scored 1 goal so far this World Cup and 1 goal total last World Cup, I think it’s pretty safe to think we’ll be playing Bosnia.
Later in the year… he remembered what I said and told me it made sense but it was a weird way to put it.