re: United States of Holy Sh!t We Back v. Where's Ryan Giggs? | Friendly | 1:45 p.m. CT (FS1)

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he was overly critical today. Does he forget we have a bunch of U-20s on the field?

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That was what I meant about his halftime comment. If you are judging it strictly on how would this appearance be judged in a World Cup sure 6/10, but for a roster that could compete in the Olympics, and most haven't ever met, much less played together, today was outstanding.

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Wes looking like he has confidence he never has before

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It’s amazing what not playing for Schalke will do for one’s confidence

just caught up on the recording. all in all, what a refreshing watch. seeing a team try to avoid playing through our midfield makes my yank pants go nuts. comfortable on the ball at times, and if Llanez had pulled his shot a little more, that’s a 1-0 dub. pretty happy with what I saw

That was the most impressive display of offensive pressing I’ve seen from the US, and it’s not even close.

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I have not kept up much with Aaron Johansson since he last played for the US. For those more familiar, how would he do as the #9 currently? That’s the main missing piece IMO. Obviously Altidore is there but he’s aging.

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I'd be lying if I said I've watched any of Hammarby's matches this season, so the only thing I've seen from Aron this season is the highlights of his goals... and he's had a few of them. Not sure how they are playing him tactically. He's playing the 9, that's all I know.

With that said, a lot of those goals this season have been him making key runs in front of goal to either put in a pass from a winger/midfielder or clean up a spill from the GK.

Seems like he would fit in well with the quality we have in the midfield and the wings.

However, if the reason to replace Jozy is solely due to aging, Aron isn't the answer because he's just a year younger.

He's been on fire so far this season, but Gregggg told him they were focusing on the olympic kids this window so thats why he wasn't called up. And of course Gregggg didn't even start those young strikers

And for Gio, I definitely think it was nerves. He was trying to hard and had a couple instances where he should've laid the ball off but turned it over instead.

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I only watched 25 minutes. Looked like a lot of useless possession

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Useless possession is only useless if he final product isn't there, which it wasn't. So yeah, but you have to watch it through the lens of the amount of moving pieces we had in this squad.

If we play like this the rest of the way this cycle, then yeah, that sucks, but considering how we've played Euro matches in the past i.e. 4-4-2 mid-block bunker/counter, it'd be naive to watch that and not be optimistic. High press, working it through the midfield and controlling the pace of play.

Very interested to see how many changes we make against Panama. As much as I'd like to see some new faces and give them a shot, I wouldn't hate if we rolled out largely the similar XI and see how we build off of what we saw today against a weaker/CONCACAF squad.

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Obviously Altidore

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no thanks

Exactly. It has to be Altidore. And honestly, though we need a goal scorer, if he does what he does best and holds the ball up ... our midfield and wingers are now dynamic enough to run past the back line and become the goal scorers instead.

So Yunus just followed a bunch of people on INstagram