00:00Right then, my fellow Americans, not sure if I'm allowed to say that yet, welcome for possibly the
00:05last time to the ACFC NYCHQ, where the USMNT have, despite the best efforts of the officials,
00:14advanced to a historic round of 16. Now this was about as complete and controlling a performance
00:21as you're likely to see, so first off we're going to show you why they were so good in attack,
00:26but then how they completely changed their approach following the red card to not give
00:31Bosnia a sniff. It was a really interesting one, this. Right, so with Christian Pulisic back in
00:42the XI, the US reverted to this quite fluid 4-3-3, and the reason I say it is fluid
00:47is because Freeman
00:48is, of course, very comfortable playing more inside the pitch, and Des can play as a right-back,
00:53so when they need to, they can drop into this back five, but you don't need to worry about that,
00:58because the US did all of their defending at this end of the pitch. And if pressing is a new
01:04term for
01:05you, I'll just put it in big letters here, that is basically an attempt by your team to stop the
01:11opposition having any time on the ball or space to play, usually in their own defensive third,
01:18and there are a number of reasons why you do that. First of all, it keeps the ball away from
01:22your own
01:23goal, which is obvious, but second, if you do it right and you do it as a team, you can
01:28then win
01:29the ball back in what is the most dangerous part of the pitch to do that. And this all starts
01:35with
01:35Florian Balogun beginning to pressure the goalkeeper, right, but he does it from a certain angle that
01:41cuts off this pass back out to the right, so he has to go in the other direction, and when
01:47the defender
01:47gets it and looks at his options, you can see he is in rather enormous trouble. His only pass is
01:54back
01:55infield here, and as soon as he makes it, Tillman rushes the receiver, but again, coming from the
02:01direction that cuts off the pass further into the middle of the field. And so, when you do stuff like
02:07this as a team, rather than just individuals running all over the place, you can see it takes Bosnia
02:12from being very safe here to being the Ralph Wiggum meme very quickly. Like, he can't go here
02:19because Weston McKinney has cut that pass off. He can't go backwards because Balogun is still
02:24floating around there. Dest can jump onto his buddy here if he plays at wide, and because he's under
02:29pressure, his touch is loose. He's panicked, and they get the ball, and now look at the space the
02:35US have a player in when they do. Now, that is offside, so it doesn't count, which is obviously
02:40unfortunate, but that is basically still pressing 1-0-1. Go and win the ball back high up the pitch,
02:46and then play it into a really dangerous area before the opposition can get set themselves
02:52defensively. And if we look right here, this is every single time before the red card that the US
02:58win the ball back off Bosnia. Obviously, there's loads in their own half when they're doing some actual
03:03defending, but the amount of tackles, interceptions, and recoveries that are exactly where you would
03:09want to be getting them to cause problems for the opposition, there's absolutely loads. I think it's
03:15something like 43 over the course of the game. That's nearly one every two minutes. Now, of course,
03:20if you look at this and you're Bosnia, that is a massive, massive problem for you because the ball is
03:25not safe even when it's in your own area, and that leads to the second reason why teams do this.
03:32If the opposition are all over you like this when you're trying to play out, your best option then
03:37is to just stop doing that and hit the ball long and direct out of your area and up the
03:44other end
03:44of the pitch. But the problem there is that is exactly what the US wanted Bosnia to do when they
03:51had the ball. And so if we now look at this instead, right, this is every single unsuccessful pass
03:58made by Bosnia again prior to the red card. And yes, you're right, it is a complete mess. But if
04:03we just stare at it long enough, you will see there are so many really long straight direct balls from
04:10their own area here by the goalkeeper, by the defenders that are designed to stop them losing
04:16it in that area. They're getting forced to do it, but every single one of these represents a time they
04:22tried that and the US just got the ball straight back. And so just like when they were winning it
04:27high,
04:28still to take these long balls out from the back and again, play them forward quickly before Bosnia
04:34can get set defensively. The principle is the same, you're just winning the ball in a different part
04:39of the pitch. And the goal is situationally exactly the same as the one that's offside. They chase the
04:44ball back to the goalkeeper. The space to play is into this trap on the left like they set before.
04:50So Bosnia understandably think better of it this time. They've had their fingers burned
04:55and just go long. But then what happens as kept happening was Tim Reams steps in to win that back
05:01and like, look, Edin Dzeko here, the target of these kicks is outnumbered four to one. So they were
05:06just eating those passes up for fun, as the saying goes. So now not only have you got the ball
05:12back,
05:12but Bosnia are now strung out all over their own half. McKinney lets it run and from forcing them
05:19long, winning it back and playing it forward immediately, the US have now taken all but these three
05:25defenders entirely out of the game. And yes, no, you're right. Balogun does get a little slice of love
05:31with how the ball sort of bounces and ends up at his feet. But one, it's still a great bit
05:36of centre
05:36forward play anyway. And two, even if it is luck, it is luck that is directly derived from you having
05:42an
05:43effective game plan and executing it really, really well. I don't know if you say in this country,
05:49you make your own luck, but they made their own luck. And that is the thing about pressing.
05:54Sometimes it is about winning the ball back in these areas because obviously you're right next
05:57to the opposition goal. It's a great place to get the ball. But sometimes it's just about forcing
06:02them to abandon their game plan and kick the ball long because the longer a pass is, the less reliable
06:09it's going to be. And if you've heard the term low block in this tournament, which you can see like
06:14Bosnia were getting themselves into whenever the US patiently worked the ball into their half,
06:19the best way to open that up is to just not let your opponents get set in one in the
06:26first place.
06:26But then of course, this happens. And if you are looking for an entirely unbiased, impartial
06:33European take on this red card, I've gone back and forward on it. And I still think it's just like
06:42insanely harsh. I mean, don't get me wrong. It does look awful and it could have seriously injured
06:47the lad, but it's just, it's not even a tackle. Like it's just two players reaching for the ball.
06:53And when that happens, their legs do have to land somewhere. Like, I just don't think you can make
06:58the argument here that Balogun has been like reckless in his actions or deliberately or unknowingly
07:04endangered his opponent. It's just, it's just really unfortunate. It's not a red card for me
07:10personally, but who knows? I'm not a ref. Anyway, though, that could have been a total disaster for
07:16the US because you cannot do that kind of coordinated pressing when you've got like one player less,
07:22because no matter how hard you run, someone's always going to be free because you've got less
07:27players than they have to do this. But the key thing is they did not, this is an English expression,
07:34shit themselves. Instead, they do the other side of the game, which as you can see here,
07:38is two very narrow banks of four with Pulisic left on his own to put some pressure on the ball.
07:45And the reason you do that is if you keep the gaps here between the individual players quite small,
07:50and then the gaps here between the two lines quite small, you basically create a block.
07:56And when you do that, this is a very low block, for example, you make it extremely difficult for
08:01the opposition to get players or even the ball into this area of the pitch here, which is where
08:06most goals are scored from. And don't get me wrong, they can play it around you if they want,
08:11they can stick crosses into the box from deeper areas, sure, but neither of those are particularly
08:16effective ways to start generating chances. So what you do is you basically challenge the other
08:22team to do something special to open you up. And Bosnia just had no answers for how to do that.
08:29Just another little graph to illustrate this for you. These are all the crosses that Bosnia put into
08:34the box prior to the red card in this game. And these are all the crosses they put into the
08:41box
08:41after the red card. They went turbo on just lumping it into the 18-yard box. And if you remember,
08:49not a single one of those led to a decent chance. They generated nothing by doing this,
08:55and that's all they did. And then when the US did get the chance to get out and try and
08:59take the
08:59pressure off, this was actually really impressive. Instead of just kicking it long themselves and having
09:04it come straight back, Pudicic in particular did a really good job of keeping the ball at his feet,
09:10running it up the pitch, and forcing Bosnia to either foul him or just come all the way back with
09:15him, allowing the rest of the team to then push out. Or to put that in even simpler terms, when
09:20they
09:20went down to 10 men, they did not wilt, they did not panic. Instead, they were very structured,
09:26they were very cohesive, and they were brave when they did get the ball. And that is the hallmark
09:31of a really well-organised, well-coached, and quite confident football team. And that is how they
09:38got the free kick that leads to the second goal, and that's how they saw the remainder of the tie
09:41-out
09:42quite comfortably. And that is how you attack really well when you can, and then defend really
09:48well when you have to. I thought that was a really genuinely very impressive performance from a team I
09:56have said since the start, I do quite fancy to go far in this tournament. I personally, even though
10:02they haven't got Balogun, would not want to be Belgian right now, even though the chocolates are
10:08fantastic. So yes, there you go. That is the last United States World Cup video that I will be recording
10:14in the United States. I have to go back to London now. I've got a wedding and a funeral to
10:19look forward
10:20to, so real mixed bag of emotions there for me. But I have had genuinely the best and also the
10:26sweatiest time imaginable being here in the bright lights of Hoboken, New Jersey, with all the
10:32sirens going past, making all of this stuff. I am genuinely desperately, desperately sad to be going
10:37home. I would have loved to have stayed for the whole tournament, but life, isn't it? Other things go
10:42on. You can't just drop the whole thing because there's some fun football happening. So yeah, if you're a
10:47United States fan, don't worry. Just because we're not going to be in the US does not mean we're going
10:51to stop covering the US. You've got at least, at least one more big game to go at this tournament.
10:56And even though it's going to be on at like 3 a.m. for me now, we will be watching,
11:00we will be
11:01covering, we'll be explaining that to you. So please do subscribe to us here at the Adam Cleary
11:04Football Channel. And I don't know, I don't ask for much. Tell your friends, maybe some other people
11:08would enjoy this. And you can get me across all the social medias at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R
11:13-Y.
11:14Bye. And until next time, till next time back, who knows when that might be? Might be soon.
11:19Can't say too much, but yeah. What's American for bye? Howdy bye? Is it like chow? Howdy?
11:27No. See you later, dudes. I'm going to have a shower now because I'm absolutely disgusting.
11:33Bye. Bye. See you later.
