Bob Morocco

xGOT
3.24 🇺🇸
1.25 🇯🇵

7 - Balogun
6.5 - Pulisic
7 - Zendejas
6.5 - Arfsten
6 - Adams
6.5 - Roldan
6.5 - Freeman
6.5 - Ream
5.5 - Richards
5.5 - Blackmon
7 - Freese

6.5 - Dest
6.5 - Luna
6.5 - McGlynn
5.5 - Luca
NR - Downs
NR - Harriel

Classic uninflated rating scale, 5 is neutral.

Final xG:
2.01 🇺🇸
1.08 🇯🇵

Japan may have shifted into a 442 on D

xG at half
.78 USA
.88 Japan

If nobody in the press directly asks Poch if he is letting guys stay in Europe to prioritize their club seasons then what are we even doing here. They should also ask if he’s sending a message to players based on past performances too but I’ll take what I can get.

They fixed it so now when I open the app it goes to the last post I saw instead of the newest one?!?

Da numbers

I don’t have time to closely read this and I couldn’t find it but could you point me to the increases in HSR and Sprinting in terms of distance covered and % of total distance covered. In other work I saw sprinting going from 1.11% of total distance to 1.8% since about 2010 to now.

Donovan was a plus defensive player for his position. Same with Dempsey. Pulisic has not been.

Pulisic’s g+a/90 rate for the US is ≈ to Donovan’s except that he scores and assists against meaningfully worse opposition, on average, than Donovan or Dempsey.

FBref has incredibly limited national team coverage. It also omits MLS playoffs, the Open Cup, and CONCACAF Champions Cup. TransferMarkt has more complete numbers on minutes.

Club and Country minutes per year:

Donovan (14.5 years) 37,888 Club + 12,872 USMNT = 3,500.7 minutes per year.

Dempsey (15 years) 38,944 Club + 11,074 USMNT = 3334.5 minutes per year.

Pulisic (10 years) 24,249 Club + 5,572 USMNT = 2,982.1 minutes per year.

Poch’s initial shape worked and then Turkey adjusted and the USMNT didn’t. Is it because our players are too dumb to figure out their own counters? I haven’t ruled it out.

Attacking Starting Points:

Progression R+L

Buildup:

GC first XI Lineup graphic:

Clint has 30 G+A while in the EPL/Europa/FA Cup so no

Pep called David Silva and KDB’s roles in their 433/3223 “free 8’s”. So I think that term can apply to a player who defends as an 8 but moves up a line and attacks as an AM.

Wasn’t there some variability? www.theguardian.com/football/200...

a player from being an 8. If they have very little freedom to release forward from there, to run with/support an attack in transition, to move wide and forward to be close to the ball when the team is pushed up, then they are a 6. 6’s can step but it’s about the frequency and freedom.

Yeah, I think the key distinction between a 6 and 8 is what that player does in the attacking phases because on D the roles will usually be the same. It also means it’s hard to tell which is which when a team is stuck defending.

Staying deep in the pivot in buildup is a 6 task but doesn’t dq…

Automatically labeling all central midfielders in a 4231 as 6s does not make sense. Like the difference between a 6 and 8 is not whether they are playing behind 2 STs or 1 ST+ 1 AM. The data providers don’t do a great job of tracking the distinctions in CM roles that should lead to different labels.

In how they are used today they came from the English conventions for assigning numbers to the positions in a 442. 7 = RM, 11 = LM, 6 = DM, 8 = CM. The point I’m making is that a 6 and an 8 come from the same kind of 2 man CM you can see in a 4231.

In what formation did the 6/8 nomenclature arise out of? How would we describe that CM?