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[QUOTE="IthacaMatt, post: 3880870, member: 405"]
Good point about Weah.  He dribbles into a lot of dead ends.

Brooks is good in the middle of a back 3 because he's protected by both the side CBs out more on the wings, where Brooks was exposed.  Brooks is strong in the air, strong in the challenge, pretty composed on the ball, and is the best passer of our center backs, in my opinion.

Brooks is our David Luiz - not to be trusted defensively in a back 4 against top sides, but very useful in a back 3 with wingbacks and Tyler Adams for protection.

Speaking of Tyler Adams, he can be our guy who dictates the pace of play from back there in the midfield.  He looked very composed on the ball to me, and as recently as a couple years ago, we didn't have very many of those.  Now - abundance of on-ball skill among our wingers and midfielders!

As for Dest, I think this young group is pretty excited to be finally playing together.  There's room for a lot of them to become stars, and to help their professional careers.  This is a hell of a group, at a young age, like Belgium was about 5-7 years ago.

Maybe peer pressure and enjoyment of our success keeps him engaged.  Under Klinsman, he was trying to recruit those German dual-citizens very hard, but wasn't always getting buy-in and commitment from guys like Fabian Johnson, Timmy Chandler and a few other guys from that era.  Because, let's face it, we weren't as good back then as the talent appears on the current roster.

Kids want to join this team.  Chelsea has a similar recruiting advantage right now, loading up on young elite European players.  Leicester, too, and even Man City - lots of great young talent is being stockpiled in the Premier League for next season.
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