Originally Posted By: pelepapa
The backline "problem" as unnu call it gave up the least goals (2) of all participants in the just concluded GC tournament.

Is the backline at the level of Barcelona? No! But they are competent enough to compete and succeed in CONCACAF. You got to take the successes you had and build on it, that's how you foster confidence. They were the least scored on team in GC, boast pon dat. I don't want to hear any qualifiers. They gave up 2 goals in the tournament. To those who are always talking about JA needs to learn from the USA this is how they do it. They don't qualify their success, they just boast bout them.

They played against the USA with a f'ed up formation and they gave up only 2 goals. The USA used the same formation and gave up 4 to Mexico.

Every CONCACAF team has weaknesses that are exposed when they play against higher competition. When you are playing in a tournament, against the top teams in the competition the #1 priority should be to cover up your weaknesses and try to get the result needed to move on, not leave your weaknesses exposed in a futile attempt to jump on your opponent like Tappa did against the USA. The game is 90+ minutes, the good teams don't care how good you look in the first 30.

Let's look at the forwards. The only time unnu complain about them is when they miss sitters...but is there more to their play that is hindering the team from a defensive standpoint? They have to be more clinical and forceful in attack against better teams to help out the defense. They are not tracking back and they are not clinical enough to keep defenders and defensive midfielders honest. Against the current JA forwards you only need to be concern about them for the first 20 to 30 minutes and then you can become more adventurous out of your backfield. After 30 minutes it seems there is a big dropoff in confidence, effort, discipline and technique.


Credible argument PP, particularly the defensive one. That's why I Don't spend much time talking about our defensive personel.

The loses we have experienced recently has more to the with team defensive debacles than an individual being inneffective at the back. And if I have a problem with a personel it would be Shavar, because he's not playing regularly; that could be a disadvantage to him and to the team of not being sharp.

My problem with Reid would be his composure on the ball in distributing from the back, he's not always compose. With a little pressure from the opponent at right side of defense he'll elect to outta-mi-life it than relax and try and make a pass, that's his weakness. A contract overseas should correct this lack of confidence here.

Taylor plays well on the left side when in a 3 defensive set. Doesn't get out of position, covers his area well, make passes out of the back, and not too many mistakes.

I watched the GC HON game once aagain, this was the best game we played in the GC. will have an analysis on a new post.....