00:00Right then, my dudes and dude bros, I think that's how you say it, welcome to the Adam Cleary Football
00:05Channel
00:06and the US men's national team have arrived at what is partially their own World Cup
00:13and they look, oh, they look really good.
00:19So just to lay this out for you, right, every single thing that got Maurizio Pochettino,
00:25his enormous reputation in Europe, you saw in this team, in this game.
00:31And they've never looked great while he's been the manager so far, but against Paraguay,
00:36this team looked like they were going to do what is expected of them at this tournament.
00:43Like, they should be in the last eight and they could even, maybe, be in the final four.
00:51I'm going to show you why.
00:56Now, look, if you've never previously thought about this team or even this sport from a tactical perspective,
01:03then you are going to have to start doing that because that is just how soccer works.
01:10Far too many inverted commas here.
01:12And this, in particular, was very impressive.
01:14And just presuming there are a chunk of people watching this video who are not deep, deep into the technical
01:21minutiae of this sport.
01:23Maybe it's your first time watching it.
01:25I don't know.
01:26We're going to lay out some very basic principles for you here.
01:30And yes, if that's way, way below your level of understanding, then just bear with me for a couple of
01:37minutes.
01:38Okay, we do not assume knowledge on this channel.
01:41There are no stupid questions.
01:44Just stupid people.
01:45Me.
01:45So Pochettino's style as a manager, like pretty much every other manager,
01:50is most easy to spot in what we like to call the build-up phase.
01:55Basically, when teams have the ball at the back, what shapes and sort of systems do they assume
02:00in order to work the ball from here, deep in their own half, to here, the opposition half.
02:06Like most of what becomes characterised as a manager or a team's like entire footballing philosophy
02:13tends to happen in that very early stage of the possession.
02:18Some teams are very patient and try to move it carefully and slowly.
02:22And some teams just smash it all the way down in one kick and then run after it.
02:27And there are like dozens of individually recognised styles for stuff like this.
02:31But Pochettino's teams, when he was at PSG, when he was at Chelsea, when he was at Tottenham,
02:36they became notable for pushing the full-backs all the way up the other end of the pitch,
02:42staying very wide, to allow the other wide players to play more in the central areas of the pitch.
02:49Basically, Pochettino thinks the best area of the pitch to both create and score goals
02:54is this central area here. And he is right, by the way.
02:58So what he wants his best attacking players to do is be able to get into those areas
03:03and not have to worry about spending time out wide.
03:07And this way of playing is designed to give individuals in a team a big degree of freedom,
03:13which you absolutely love in this country, because by putting certain players
03:18all in a very small part of the pitch, you're encouraging them to float around looking for
03:24the ball, to rotate with each other, and ideally move the defenders who are marking them out of
03:29certain spaces so their teammates can get into those gaps.
03:34And you will have seen, I have no doubt, loads of clips of Christian Pulisic
03:39doing all the fun and exciting stuff with the ball.
03:43How he runs with it, how he passes, how he shoots, all that really good stuff, right?
03:47But what makes him genuinely a top, top player in Europe,
03:51I don't know why I'm pointing, I've got no idea, if it's in that direction,
03:54but what makes him a top player back in Europe is what he does without the ball.
04:00How he understands the space available in a situation,
04:03and how he moves around so that him and his teammates can take advantage of that.
04:07And the thing is, before we start getting carried away here,
04:10while this looks really great, and obviously it worked beautifully against Paraguay,
04:15this way of playing is inherently very risky.
04:19Because whatever formation they play, whether they start with this back five,
04:23or just sort of end up in one from a back four,
04:26they tend to leave themselves with only these three players at the back.
04:30And what they want is the opposition to actually push right the way up onto them
04:35to be aggressive and to try and take the ball off these three players here.
04:40Now, and look, you're going to learn something here, right?
04:43The reason some teams don't do any of this and just kick the ball long
04:46is because if you are going to lose the ball when you've got it,
04:50you're as well doing it up here, really far away from your goal,
04:54as you are doing it back here.
04:56Because as you literally saw in the Mexico versus South Africa game,
05:01if you mess around with it, and if you make mistakes,
05:04that can be absolutely fatal.
05:06Just try and think of it as like a full court press in basketball,
05:10but just like the other way around.
05:13You are deliberately inviting the pressure.
05:15You want them to swarm the ball handler precisely so you can beat the initial trap
05:20and get a 4v3 further up the pitch.
05:23But if you mess it up, though, which, I mean, they literally did last night once or twice,
05:28it's not great.
05:29So the question then was, if this is the sort of team that Pochettino wants the USMNT to be,
05:36can they be that team when it actually matters?
05:39Not in qualifying, not in friendlies, not in warm-up games, at the World Cup itself.
05:44Because I'm here, I'm in New York City, I've been watching this coverage for three days,
05:50and this is getting billed as a once-in-a-generation team.
05:54And that only counts for anything if you then go and deliver.
06:00Just stood on one of the lights there.
06:02But health and safety issues aside, they did.
06:05They really, really did deliver on that.
06:08This is the first time they get the ball in the whole game.
06:11You can see both the full-backs pushed right up to occupy the wide spaces.
06:15Like we said, Pulisic and McKinney nice and central in those areas where they're supposed to create and score goals.
06:22And Balogun just being so scary that both of these defenders feel the need to mark him.
06:28And that, as it aside, is really, really good.
06:31Because if you've got one player that the opposition think they need to put two players on to mark,
06:36someone somewhere will always be free.
06:40So Balogun's reputation for being really quick, really strong, a total handful,
06:44that in of itself is a positive for the US.
06:47And yes, for anybody who is as...
06:51It's the okay way to say this.
06:53As aggressively nerdy as me,
06:56you will have observed that me saying full-backs for both Robinson and Dest is not technically correct
07:01because they're set up in this 4-2-3-1 and Dest is actually just playing up there.
07:06Neither of them are starting as wing-backs.
07:08I'm getting off topic here.
07:09But it doesn't matter whether it's a 4-2-3-1 or a 3-4-2-1 or whatever it
07:13is they normally do
07:14because it plays exactly the same.
07:16And you're also right.
07:17That's not a particularly interesting point for me to make,
07:19but it might save like two people a tedious trip to the comments.
07:24But anyway, yes, back to this opening moment.
07:27The distance between Dest and Robinson is as big as it possibly can be.
07:32So this back four here have to worry about covering this entire space.
07:37Thus, when the full-back starts to venture out here,
07:40because Dest is probably the sensible nearside pass,
07:43McKennie sees the gap open up between these two and breaks into it.
07:48They find him over the top, get a chance.
07:51Pretty easy.
07:52And just like we said before, it's these moments where the movement of one player
07:56opens up space for another that is the US's best attacking weapon.
08:01Like the second goal, for example, Robinson has stopped pushing up
08:04and dropped back with the defence to get the ball.
08:06And the result is that Paraguay get attracted to him.
08:10And it turns what should be a straight line of the defence here
08:13to this weird curved shape, which they're able to find Pulisic running into.
08:18You can almost say it with me now, movement off the ball runs into the space.
08:23Like, look at this one.
08:24I can't see who this is because it's not actually there.
08:27And also I've had like five beers, but he leaves this space here.
08:31The defender goes with him.
08:32His teammate fills it and they get a chance out of it.
08:36It is simplicity itself when it works.
08:40And Paraguay just did not know what to do with how the US were playing here.
08:44If we just compare the final third passes between both teams,
08:49this is the US, this is Paraguay,
08:50you can see you've got one team absolutely camped in the other's half,
08:55able to play through them into their penalty area as easy as it possibly gets.
09:00And the other barely up that other end of the pitch.
09:03No idea how to break this down.
09:05But here's the twist.
09:08The thing that made the US so good in this game,
09:11and I think the thing that other teams will have been watching and fearing the most
09:15is not this, right?
09:21It's actually this.
09:22And those, these rather, they are high turnovers.
09:27Like we mentioned before how the US has to work really hard
09:30not to give the ball away when they've got it in their defensive third,
09:34but this is that flipped around because it can be part of your game plan
09:39to go and get it off the opposition when they've got it in their defensive third.
09:44And they were about as good as that, at that, as they were at anything.
09:48And with thanks to the eternally wonderful Mark Stats here,
09:51I'm very pleased as a covering this tournament.
09:54The US forced 10 high turnovers in this game.
09:58And that is a quite extraordinary stat.
10:01But this all comes in about 90 seconds of itself, right?
10:04At the end of the first half, when you would forgive any team for just thinking,
10:09oh boy, we've got a 2-0 lead in our opening game
10:12and there's only about two minutes left.
10:14Wow, guess we better sort of rest up a bit
10:16until we can get in the changing room and get a nice cold ice pop, eh?
10:20But no, that's not what the US did.
10:23They all turned into very small, aggressive dogs
10:27in a public space chasing a loud noise.
10:30First off, they hound this ball back
10:34by cutting off all the options Paraguay have for getting out
10:38and they force them to make a panicked pass down the line to absolutely nobody.
10:43And then, a few seconds later, they pin whoever this is
10:46so far back in the corner, he's just got to smash it along
10:50and again, they mop that up.
10:52And then right after that, they close all of these forward options off,
10:57intercept it, and that is the start of the sequence
11:01that leads to the third goal that ultimately kills this game.
11:05Like, I think any other team in this tournament at 2-0
11:09would have just sat off for those last couple of minutes
11:12but instead, instead, Pochettino's US went and killed the game.
11:18And I think that says a lot.
11:20And again, when they do it, look at the shape they're in here.
11:23Like, that is a 4-2-3-1 in a game where they were playing with a back 3
11:27and 5 at the top end of the pitch.
11:30They were just capable of just pulling Paraguay apart
11:34like a room-temperature cheese string.
11:38This particular room where it's like 38 degrees.
11:42Now look, don't get me wrong, I'm not getting carried away here, right?
11:45The US will need to face much sterner tests.
11:48They're going to go any sort of distance in this tournament.
11:51Doing it in the first game is absolutely great
11:53but now teams are going to be a little bit wiser to them.
11:55Can they do it through the rest of the group?
11:57But if they keep these principles
11:59and they keep this level of effort
12:01and they keep this level of application
12:03they should be a real, real force in this tournament.
12:07The knockouts, far into the knockouts, I would say,
12:10look a very realistic possibility.
12:13For now.
12:14But yes, if you have enjoyed this video
12:16and you haven't found it either way too far beneath
12:18your level of football understanding
12:20or still somehow far too far above the Goldilocks zone,
12:24you can subscribe to us here at the Adam Cleary Football Channel.
12:26I'm in the US, hence why I've sweat cleaned through this shirt.
12:30We're covering every England game, every Scotland game
12:32and every US of A game for you
12:35because we're here, we're guests.
12:38It would be rude not to.
12:39You can get me personally across all the social medias
12:41at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y
12:44and I will see you again for, what day is this now?
12:48Are we on Saturday?
12:49For Scotland!
12:50But I'm going to be sat right there watching Brazil
12:52because that's what gets my blood pumping.
12:57Yeah, I am always like this if this is your first time.
13:00Sorry about that.
13:00Goodbye!
13:01Goodbye!
13:01Goodbye!
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