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Message: [QUOTE="Forza Azzurri, post: 3040165, member: 1452"] DVRed the game watched it last night. Ouch. Zardes clearly not a traditional #9, as you point out. I cannot imagine the original game plan was to play through Zardes checking in between the lines. I did not count one time where he was successfully able to hold up play. I have to think the original game plan was to not have Zardes involved in the build-up but rather relying upon him to be receiving balls from Boyd/Arriola/Pulisic/Lima from out wide which, as you point out, is more in line with his strengths. Why he wasn't subbed out at halftime for Altidore (do we even have anyone else on the roster who can receive a ball between the lines an hold up play?) is beyond me unless Altidore was hurt (announcers did keep alluding to a knock - without any details). Although he altered the tactics somewhat by having Lima play high on the right-hand side, rather than tucked in with the 6, I just don't think the US is going to be able to do that consistently. If you are going to transition to 3 in the back, with one central center-back in the middle and the other two providing spacing out wide and the 6 essentially as a second center-back/playmaker, you SIMPLY CANNOT GIVE THE BALL AWAY IN THE MIDFIELD. So, what do we do consistently last night????? Give the ball away cheaply in the midfield. <Sigh>. Guyana wasn't able to punish us but if Mexico is consistently coming at us in 3 v 3 or 4 v 3 after careless turnovers, it is going to be a long night. Bradly did not have a good night but, when Guyana pressed up on Bradley and forced either Zimmerman or Long to become a distributor, it got worse. I know he wanted to use Adams in the role of a hybrid outside back/6, which both provides more cover and an extra distributor, but is there anyone on our roster who can actually play that role? If not, I don't think that Bradley has enough bite and pace anymore to be a single cover. Trapp certainly can't. We also, collectively, showed precious little ability to break their high press other than by going over the top. That really defeats the purpose of the entire tactical setup, doesn't it? Further up the field, I thought that Lima, Arriola, Boyd and Pulisic were all able to do damage on the flanks but, for the most part, the crosses or that final ball were lacking. I thought, Boyd did the best job of picking people out on crosses. I know he set Arriola up with a wide open header on a silver platter. Did he also deliver the ball that Pulisic botched? Arriola was terrible in this regard, consistently overhitting the ball. I thought Boyd was our best player last night. Pulisic started brightly but faded. Arriola was Arriola. High energy. Sometimes dangerous but inconsistent. McKinnie had that beautiful ball to Arriola but was not as impactful as I thought he could have been. Probably should have been booked as, at one point, he had 6 of our 8 fouls. Nothing overtly card-worthy but simply accumulation. I am most interested to see what adjustments GB makes going into game two. [/QUOTE]

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