re: Official USMNT/USWNT Thread
Like I said previously, the perception of how a striker is performing is largely dependent on whether or not they are scoring goals. I still maintain that nothing really has changed for Jozy in terms of how he is playing now compared to when he wasn't scoring. He's still not great in the air, he doesn't always show for the ball, and sometimes his runs are lazy. But because he's scoring, we can easily overlook that. Other than the goal, I don't think he played particularly well tonight. But that is partially because we weren't getting him the ball. Which leads me to my next point...
He is the type of player that needs service to be effective. And I think we can all agree that service into Jozy and Dempsey has been largely improved over these last few qualifiers. Zusi has largely been responsible for most of it, with Fabian Johnson also deserving some credit.
But we need to remember that in the first stage of qualifying, Jozy wasn't playing much. Gomez was getting picked ahead of him based on how well he was doing for his club and when Jozy finally got into the team, there was no Bradley or Donovan. With any combination of Beckerman, Edu, Williams, and a newly introduced Zusi serving as your creative force, he was bound to be feeding on scraps.
The team is finally buying into what Klinnsman has been drilling into their heads, Bradley is dictating play in midfield, Zusi has gotten his feet wet at this level, and Johnson/Johnson are able to provide balance on the other side. I think that the progress that Jozy has made at club level + everything I just mentioned is why we're seeing what we're seeing.
Like I said previously, the perception of how a striker is performing is largely dependent on whether or not they are scoring goals. I still maintain that nothing really has changed for Jozy in terms of how he is playing now compared to when he wasn't scoring. He's still not great in the air, he doesn't always show for the ball, and sometimes his runs are lazy. But because he's scoring, we can easily overlook that. Other than the goal, I don't think he played particularly well tonight. But that is partially because we weren't getting him the ball. Which leads me to my next point...
He is the type of player that needs service to be effective. And I think we can all agree that service into Jozy and Dempsey has been largely improved over these last few qualifiers. Zusi has largely been responsible for most of it, with Fabian Johnson also deserving some credit.
But we need to remember that in the first stage of qualifying, Jozy wasn't playing much. Gomez was getting picked ahead of him based on how well he was doing for his club and when Jozy finally got into the team, there was no Bradley or Donovan. With any combination of Beckerman, Edu, Williams, and a newly introduced Zusi serving as your creative force, he was bound to be feeding on scraps.
The team is finally buying into what Klinnsman has been drilling into their heads, Bradley is dictating play in midfield, Zusi has gotten his feet wet at this level, and Johnson/Johnson are able to provide balance on the other side. I think that the progress that Jozy has made at club level + everything I just mentioned is why we're seeing what we're seeing.
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