Why The USMNT Could Shock The 2024 Copa America
Ok, so a defeat against Panama isn't a great result, but in their opening game with against Bolivia the USMNT showed everyone why they've become a tip for tournament 'Dark Horses'. With talent all throughout the side, and a system designed to get the best out of all of them, Adam Clery thinks The United States are quietly becoming a force in "Soccer" again.
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00:00Right, hello everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here.
00:06Just a quick public service announcement today, can you please stop asking us to do a tactical
00:11preview on the USA, a Copper America.
00:13The Euros are on right now, we can't be getting distracted, our focus is there, we might revisit
00:18it in time for the World Cup.
00:21Sorry, that's my phone.
00:22Hello?
00:23I did my part for it, I don't know if I'm going to be captive too.
00:24Oh what's that?
00:25The North American YouTube audience is easily the most profitable thing on the entire platform?
00:29Okay.
00:30Howdy y'all!
00:31Alright, so we're still in the very early thrusts of the Copper America, USA are lining
00:41up like this currently, and it's a very exciting time for the United States men's national
00:46team.
00:47They've got that whole World Cup thing coming up in a couple of years, and they were allowed
00:50to participate in the Copper America for a change, but actually had to qualify for it,
00:54which is obviously slightly precarious because you don't want to host a tournament and then
00:57not be able to play in it, but they've got there, they're playing like this, and they
01:01are one of the more fancied of the outsiders, let's say.
01:05They reached the semi-finals the last time they competed in 2016, and were they to do
01:09the same again, that would set them up very, very nicely for what could potentially be
01:13the biggest summer in US soccer since David Beckham discovered that they sell Brylcreem
01:19in Los Angeles.
01:20Now, there is a whole backstory about manager Greg Berhalter, and he was going to stay and
01:24he was going to go, and then he did go, and then they couldn't find anybody else, so in
01:27the end, he stayed.
01:28So there are some question marks over this team and their suitability, the way he's using
01:32them, but right now, things do appear to be working, and they looked really good.
01:37So what is this team?
01:39How does it play?
01:40I will break it down for you.
01:42But just really quickly, before I do that, if you are based in the US of A, this is your
01:46first time watching the channel, then first off, hello, welcome, this is our vibe, this
01:51is our thing.
01:52If you could kindly see your way to the subscribe button, the more of you we get on board with
01:56this video, the more we can do these videos in the future.
01:58We can cover Messi at Miami, we'll be doing more on the national side.
02:02So big things are coming, hopefully, for soccer in the US, so let's start them here.
02:07Right, so first off, the formation.
02:08There was some debate going into the tournament whether we would see them in a 4-2-3-1 or
02:13a 4-3-3, but from what we've seen thusly, it is the 4-3-3 that is being favoured, and
02:18that does feel like it suits at least these 11 players really well.
02:23So Matt Turner was always going to be the goalkeeper here, no real question there.
02:27Anthony Robertson has made the left-back spot his own.
02:29Richards and Ream, they are the preferred centre-back pairing.
02:32But at right-back, there were some question marks, given that Dest is currently missing.
02:36In his place is Joseph Scully from Borussia Mönchengladbach, and just a quick joke for
02:42all our US fans who haven't heard all the jokes we've done to death in this country,
02:46who's the least popular person at a Borussia Mönchengladbach game?
02:50It's the person who goes, give me a B!
02:53It's not all just tactics on this channel, you know, we've got jokes as well.
02:57In front of them, there's Tyler Adams, who will occasionally drop in between the two
03:00centre-backs to give them a back three.
03:02There is Gio Reyna, who was very underwhelming in the Premier League, yes, but has never,
03:06ever, ever let his country down.
03:08And Western McKinney on the opposite side as an 8.
03:11The main attacking threat comes from Timothy Weah on the right and Christian Pulisic on
03:14the left, except no it doesn't, but we'll talk about that later.
03:17And up front so far has been Florian Balogun, that was kind of the other major question
03:21mark in this side, whether they would go with him, or Coventry City's Haji Wright.
03:26Florian Balogun.
03:27What did I say?
03:29Florian.
03:30Florian.
03:31It's Florian.
03:32Florian.
03:33Florian Balogun.
03:34Even though it looks like Florian.
03:35Florian Balogun.
03:36Florian Balogun.
03:37Can't believe I didn't know that.
03:38Well those are the names, apparently, but how does this system work?
03:42Well fundamentally, there is a lot of wit, there is a lot of direct attacking action,
03:46and there's a lot of stability in the centre of the pitch.
03:49Primarily though, the most interesting parts are the full backs and the two wide attackers.
03:53Pulisic and Weah both start left and right, but their brief is far more horizontal than
03:59it is vertical.
04:00They will both get right in next to the centre forward, they'll play quite centrally, they'll
04:04swap sides if they want to, and that gives them the tactical flexibility to really go
04:09and hurt teams.
04:10Like I'll just show you here, Christian Pulisic's heat map from that first game, you'll see
04:14he obviously gets the ball a lot on the left hand side where he's needed, but there's lots
04:18of time spent in the centre, there's lots of time going to find the ball, there's even
04:21a lot of time on the right hand side.
04:23And it's exactly the same story with Timothy Weah, a lot of the time he's on the ball on
04:27the right hand side, but he's free to float, he's free to go collect it, and he's free
04:30to swap as well.
04:32Really good example of this in the second goal against Bolivia, the USA have got nice
04:35settled possession in their own half, Bolivia probably think they're in a fairly good defensive
04:39shape.
04:40Pulisic breaks away from the left hand side, comes both deep and central, receives the
04:45ball between their lines, and then he gets turned, and the three of them, in the space
04:49of about ten yards, are away as a collective three.
04:53Because Pulisic has come really central, that allows then Balogun to come out to the left
04:57hand side to move away from his defence, now imagine you're trying to mark these two, you'll
05:00know that your guy's over there and you're now picking up somebody else, it's the kind
05:04of sort of rotations they're called that are great for attacking moves.
05:08And then obviously it also helps if you're capable of finishing like this.
05:12Now you're quite smart, you're no doubt looking at this shape and going, well yeah, that'll
05:15give you loads of central attacking threat Adam, but where on earth are you going to
05:18get any width from, and that is the job of both the full backs.
05:21Both Scully and Anthony Robertson, they are given total freedom to push as far up the
05:25flanks as they are reasonably able to, their job is to not just push the full backs of
05:29the opposition back, but to try and take the wide attackers back with them.
05:33Then from there, with the rest of the team all sort of pushing up, it's quite common
05:36to see the USA in the opposition half in this sort of 3-2-5 formation.
05:42While you're unlikely to see it against the quote-unquote big teams, when the USA are
05:46playing a side that they feel technically or physically superior to, it's not uncommon
05:51to see them commit even more players than this forward.
05:54The freedom in this system given to both Weyer and Pulisic means they can go near the centre
05:58forward if they want to, one of them can drop out to the flank and double up on an opposition
06:02defender, and then the 2-8s, in this case McKennie and Gio Reyna, they can then push
06:07forward into the spaces that are left there.
06:10They will throw so many players forward and just overwhelm the opposition.
06:15And not to make this video heat maps a go-go or anything, but just to add McKennie's on
06:20to the ones you've already seen.
06:21You'll see he's doing loads of his work in this right-hand number 8, he's dropping deep,
06:25he's receiving the ball, but just the little wisps here into the box, even into the 6-yard
06:30box, he is a runner from midfield, he is allowed to do that, it is built into the system.
06:36Just to show you that in action, this is them counter-attacking against Bolivia here.
06:39You can sort of see they're getting that front 5, as we discussed, they're all pushing forward,
06:44the width is coming from the full-backs, the two wide forwards are in a more narrow position,
06:48and from this starting sort of freeze frame, you see everybody's where they're supposed
06:52to be.
06:53But then the player in the inside forward position, he stops his run, he cuts back, he shows short,
06:57which allows the full-back to continue the run on the outside, and when he receives it,
07:02McKennie then makes the run himself, takes the ball back, and drives into the box with it.
07:07He gives it back, there's a cut, a cross goal, Ballaghan finishes it, and it wasn't just
07:11for being a tiny little bit fractionally offside, you'd have one of the best goals you've seen
07:15this team score in a fair old while.
07:18Alright, now if I was doing this properly, I would have started with how they defend,
07:21then how they build up, then how they attack, but obviously how you score goals is a lot
07:25more fun, so we'll talk about all the grown-up stuff now.
07:28I've probably made the USMNT look like quite a sort of exciting counter-attacking side
07:34there, which they are capable of being, but were you to ask them to sing the one true
07:37song of their hearts, it would go along the lines of, we want to have settled possession
07:42and dominating numbers, which admittedly doesn't rhyme.
07:45And the way they build up is actually pretty similar to how they attack, as you'll see
07:48the wide forwards take sort of a more central position to allow the full-backs to push up,
07:53but then you get one of the central midfielders, if they're playing that 4-2-3-1, or just the
07:57six pivot if they're playing the 4-3-3, will drop between the centre-backs, allow them
08:02to spread, and you get this sort of, I've sort of lined it up slightly wrong, but you
08:06get this kind of diamond between the three of them and the goalkeeper.
08:09Now obviously a lot of teams will do stuff like this, what matters is your mentality
08:13and sort of your attitude when you're doing it, and instead of sort of going around waiting
08:18for gaps to open, the USA really do prioritise getting the ball into one of these three
08:23players here, and then getting it forward through a line into any of these four as quickly
08:28as possible.
08:29They very rarely will drop back to help with the build-up, instead holding a position to
08:34break a defensive line, get turned and go.
08:37But there is actually one fairly clever thing this USA team will do, which does kind of
08:42contradict what I've just said, although that's probably why it works, against a team that
08:46starts sitting low and deep but do still want to press them, what they'll occasionally
08:51do instead, is instead of splitting the centre-backs, the number six will stay in sort of the midfield
08:56position, but the eights will drop alongside them in a nice line, so what you get then
09:01is this sort of five players at the back, all central.
09:05From there again, as per, you'll have the wide attackers sort of just drop but stay
09:08quite narrow, the full-backs they'll push up to offer some width, and then give the
09:12opposition a bit of a problem, because this gap here is not really where you want to be
09:17if you're defending.
09:18Because they've got five players here, six of you include the goalkeeper, all capable
09:22of keeping the ball and circulating possession, it draws on way more members of the opposition
09:28to the press, they've got to commit loads of players forward if they want to try and
09:33harass them for the ball.
09:34And occasionally when they're doing that, they can accidentally leave themselves with
09:37a 5v4 at the back, so it's very easy for a Pulisic or one of the full-backs or somebody
09:43to drop into a bit of space and then receive a really direct ball through that line.
09:47This is something they do look to utilise.
09:50You can see it here in the Jamaica game, under normal circumstances you'd look at this
09:54sort of shape and this build-up and think, it's really sort of an unadventurous, uncommitted
09:59build-up from a side, they're not really looking to do anything, they're keeping far too many
10:03players behind the ball, but then, really quickly, the pass comes and you realise that
10:08what they've done is they've pulled the opposition way further up the pitch than they were
10:12intending to be.
10:13Now you take all of that and you combine it with sort of an attacking front five that
10:16are good at rotations, that have got direct running in them, that are more technical than
10:20they may be given credit for, and you've got what is, theoretically, actually a really
10:24sort of dangerously incisive and also flexible attacking unit.
10:29Well alright, that's all well and good Adam, but this is the USA, goddammit, there's a
10:34little thing here called defence, ever heard of it?
10:37And yes, I have, and they can do that too.
10:40If you imagine here, you're a football team, you're playing the USA, you have your defensive
10:44line here, your line of midfielders here, the only real pressure that comes from the
10:48USA side is just by dropping off.
10:52The attackers do not go and look to press the defenders, but they do look to constantly
10:57block those first passes out of defence into the midfield.
11:01And because the three of them will sit really sort of narrow, the idea behind that is it
11:05forces teams to kind of go out wide, where they can apply pressure from the full-backs,
11:08potentially win it back and break into the space behind them, or, because they've got
11:12a lot of numbers in these central areas here, force them to kick slightly longer, where
11:17they'll make themselves favourite, to win it back that way.
11:20Is it effective?
11:21Well, it certainly can be, yes, but it requires a lot of out-of-possession, off-the-ball work
11:26from these front three, and if they are able to be played around, then they tend to find
11:30themselves sitting very deep, they can then get boxed into their own half and it's slightly
11:35difficult to get out.
11:36Against a team that's got the skill, the guile and everything else to sort of play through
11:40that, you can see where the problems start to happen, because they played Germany at
11:44the end of last year, and in pretty much every single major German chance, you'll see them
11:48going en masse, tracking back into their own box, and there are seven, eight players here,
11:53all sort of locked down on the edge of their own third, meaning that Germany were then
11:57free to sort of get the ball to players on the outside of the box, and they have the
12:01quality then to play through that and create chances.
12:04So against the really big teams, this isn't ideal, but it's serving them well enough so far.
12:14But before we go, there is time to tell you about one last weapon the USA has in its arsenal,
12:20a secret weapon that could potentially see them go further in this Copa America than
12:27anybody predicts.
12:28Meet this man, Gianni Veo, who yes, you are noticing immediately is 71 years old and will
12:33not be in the starting line-up in any way, shape or form.
12:36He is the US Men's National Team's recently appointed King of Set Pieces.
12:42Now if you saw their opening goal against Bolivia and thought, wow, that was a really
12:45incredibly well-worked corner routine, not only does Christian Pulisic create a two-on-one
12:50on the outside here, but when he takes this shot, the USA have a player directly in the
12:55eyeline of the keeper, meaning he doesn't see it late.
12:57If you thought that was really clever, I'd hate to burst the bubble, they didn't just
13:01come up with that on the fly.
13:02Gianni Veo is a set piece master, in fact, he was one of the main reasons that Italian
13:08side got all the way to the final of Euro 2020 and went and won the thing.
13:13In one of their knockout games against Wales when they were finding no way through that
13:17back line at all, they came up with this really inventive set piece, everybody pulls around
13:22the back, that's where the Welsh attention is, and it's actually just clipped into the
13:26near post, a lovely little deft finish, and it's in the back of the net.
13:29And then, and I can't believe I'm making myself relive this, the equaliser in the final
13:34itself, that is another really clever, unexpected near post corner that's flicked into this
13:40danger area, and yes, it is a massive scramble, but they've created the sort of environment
13:45where that is likely to score, and that gets them back in the game and they go on to win
13:50it.
13:51So yes, there you go, that is the United States tactics at the Copa America, they've got a
13:55reasonably well set and sort of steady defensive line, they build up through the thirds very
14:00nicely, they like to have possession in the opposition half, but they're also capable
14:04of breaking at pace, of getting things on the transitions, of having flexible attacking
14:08play, and if I'm making that sound like it's the best thing in the world, well, I don't
14:13know, maybe it is.
14:14Just a heads up though, if you are American and it is your first time on the channel,
14:17I've got a real good record for jinxing teams the last couple of times I've done these videos,
14:21so prepare to see them get tonked 6-0 by El Salvador, or whoever they're playing.
14:31But no, I'm only joking, if you are an American fan, you have enjoyed all of this, again please
14:34do consider subscribing to us here on 442, we would love to do more coverage of the USMNT,
14:40the USWNT, the MLS, and all those other letters that you guys like so much, but we can only
14:46do that with your support, so please do consider hitting the little button here, and that might
14:50happen.
14:51In the meantime though, if you'd like to continue the conversation, or just tell me why the
14:53word colour shouldn't be spelt with a U, you can get me on Twitter and everywhere else
14:57at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y, the 442 socials, they're in the corner of the video.
15:02I will actually, we've got a magazine anyway, I can show them.
15:06This is the magazine we produce, it's what we're famed for here in the UK, and I'm told
15:09off camera you can get it in Barnes and Noble, so check either of those places out and they
15:14might have a copy in.
15:15Yeah, in the meantime though, I've been Adam Cleary, that's the US National Team, we will
15:21see you soon.
15:22What's like an American sort of sign off, what do they say?
15:25See you later!
15:28Dude!