Yep. I follow a lot of soccer nerds online, but from what I understand, Liverpool midfield doesn’t do ball progression in the final third any more and the shot production duties have been almost entirely ceded to TAA and Robbo.

Oh right because he played in a meaningless La Liga game. Duh.

Yeah, for sure, he’d be a great supersub and he nearly made Liverpool pay for pushing for the away goal. Kinda criminal that Semedo, and not Dembele, came on for Coutinho. I’m dumb.

Barça has a 3-man midfield with the mobility of Andre the Giant circa 2019, a Sergi Roberto/Nelson Semedo platoon at right back, the Catalan Kieran Trippier at left back, the ghost of Gerard Pique and something called a Lenglet in central defense, and a ball-dominant left-sided forward who can’t figure out how to play…

I don’t disagree with this. I think we can both be right: Messi is the only world-class player on the Barcelona team (everyone else is old and slow or young and unreliable) AND Messi doesn’t do enough to inspire more out of his mediocre teammates.

I mean, they should do whatever they want. If they decided they’d rather not win, that’s their business.

That Origi is even a part of the squad is amazing. He had a disastrous loan at Wolfsburg last season and he was considered good as gone at the start of the season.

The old adage that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And I guess balls.

Robbo has 11 Premier League assists, and that doesn’t even begin to tell you how much he means to the team. And modern teams simply don’t win without fullbacks who contribute on both ends of the field. 

YOU MEAN ALISSON MAKING REALLY GOOD SAVES

BTW, Trent’s grandmother is American. He was eligible to play for the US until last year’s World Cup.

Eh, it’s the midfield. You’re not going to win too many games against Liverpool with the Derek Jeter of midfields: Busquets, Rakitic and Vidal. Plenty of skill but zero range.

Love scouting reports like this.

For better or worse, the leadership of the 2010 team isn’t that different from the one that flamed out in 2017. The key players in both campaigns were Bradley, Dempsey and Howard, so the mental makeup hadn’t changed much. 

Just found this

One more thing: Origi is looking away when TAA makes his move back to the corner. This is the split second before he turns around.

I don’t know, I feel like the US has historically been mentally tough, especially the 2002 and 2010 teams. The 2018 qualifying campaign was the first time I associated the team with fragility.

Yeah, I get that it’s not in his DNA, but somebody had to step up and be the asshole who yells at his teammates, because he wasn’t doing it. And it’s not just that he’s quiet—he just doesn’t exude confidence and urgency. Again, not to put too much on body language, but I do think it matters and it doesn’t help when in…

Sure. That’s crap coaching (both Jürgen and Bruce) and the challenge of identifying/developing talent in a country that’s the size of a continent.

I watched it again and there’s actually a delay after the ball goes out of bounds. More importantly though, I noticed that before he walked away, TAA checked that the ball was on the arc and put the inside of his foot to the ball, like he was going to send a ground pass into the box, which you would almost never do,…