This is an unbalanced 4-3-3 (or 4-3-1-2). The defense as expected, presuming a healthy Besler (Brooks if any doubt). Beckerman plays the 6 but shades a little left. Bradley playing as a forward destroying midfielder. He should also be the focal point for ball retention and his distribution to the feet of the forward line will be key (please play like we all know that you can). The partnership between the three right sided players (Johnson, Jones and Bedoya) will be essential as they will need to work together to contain and physically beat up Ronaldo while taking it in turns to exploit the open space and the replacement left back that Ronaldo will leave unprotected. Johannson and Dempsey start high and left and break back looking for balls played into feet or make diagonal runs into the right channel looking for through balls from Bradley. Their combination play and ball retention can take the place of Altidores physicality if the team plays the ball on the ground and into space. You can not ask them to win speculative 50-50 balls from the back. We saw against Ghana that they will loose to many and a US team forced to constantly defend in the heat of Manaus is a recipe for trouble.
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Boy J
almost 10 years
This is an unbalanced 4-3-3 (or 4-3-1-2). The defense as expected, presuming a healthy Besler (Brooks if any doubt). Beckerman plays the 6 but shades a little left. Bradley playing as a forward destroying midfielder. He should also be the focal point for ball retention and his distribution to the feet of the forward line will be key (please play like we all know that you can). The partnership between the three right sided players (Johnson, Jones and Bedoya) will be essential as they will need to work together to contain and physically beat up Ronaldo while taking it in turns to exploit the open space and the replacement left back that Ronaldo will leave unprotected. Johannson and Dempsey start high and left and break back looking for balls played into feet or make diagonal runs into the right channel looking for through balls from Bradley. Their combination play and ball retention can take the place of Altidores physicality if the team plays the ball on the ground and into space. You can not ask them to win speculative 50-50 balls from the back. We saw against Ghana that they will loose to many and a US team forced to constantly defend in the heat of Manaus is a recipe for trouble.