World Cup: Day Nine
There’s a general theory of international football that I’ve advocated on here, and it goes like this: you don’t have time to coach. You can’t introduce club level pressing triggers and automatisms. That takes many hours of repetition on the training ground that international football doesn’t offer.
But what if that’s wrong?
What if the managers just weren’t good enough to do it?
There are four managers at the World Cup who could reasonably have taken jobs with top European clubs: Mauricio Pochettino, Thomas Tuchel, Carlo Ancelotti and Julian Nagelsmann. Ancelotti isn’t particularly trying to play a complex modern tactical system because duh, he’s Ancelotti. Nagelsmann’s Germany haven’t been tested yet at the World Cup. But Tuchel’s England looked essentially like a Premier League side in the modern era.
And watching these last two USA games, they seem to be doing all the things Pochettino would want from his club sides.
Maybe the answer is to just hire better managers.
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United States 2-0 Australia
Yeah, they’re just a good team at this point.
Christian Pulisic missed the game through injury, which was supposed to be a concern. Pulisic was really the heartbeat of the US attack against Panama, with just about everyone else playing roles built around his skillset. Pochettino just brought Ricardo Pepi into the “Pulisic role” rather than rejigging the side too much.
They were really good at pressing Australia from the off and penning them in. When I think of Pochettino’s Tottenham, I think about how relentlessly they would wear opponents down every week. This felt like that. Australia couldn’t get anything going because they were being pressed effectively. The first goal came from really aggressively getting the ball into the box at pace. It relied on an Australian mistake, yes. But to borrow a phrase from a random Jürgen Klopp post-match interview nearly a decade ago, they forced it. They put Australia in a position where mistakes were going to happen.
They get the second goal through the dumbest wide free-kick/corner routine in the world: playing it to the edge of the box so someone can take a shot straight into traffic. Fortunately for the Americans, it gets a deflection that Alex Freeman was quick to pounce on. Again, it was fortunate, but they were making Australia feel uncomfortable enough to force the issue. 2-0 felt deserved.
From there, they entered cruise control without any concern. The USA had 62% possession and the ball rarely felt like it was getting close to their own goal. The win over Panama showed they can blow teams out of the water. This win showed that they can slow it down and control games when needs be. I don’t think either of these are especially impressive opponents. And we’re not going to see them tested imminently. Their most likely opponents in the Round of 32 are Bosnia and Herzegovina. Obviously, there will eventually be some good teams to play. But they’ve probably got the cakewalk path. It’s nice if you can get it. I’ll pretend not to be jealous over here in England.
Scotland 0-1 Morocco
It looked like it could get really bad for Scotland. Instead, it was only slightly bad.
Morocco score almost immediately, as Grant Hanley lets Ismael Saibari run off him in behind from a throw in. It’s a smart goal with the kind of quick thinking to catch Scotland off guard. But you shouldn’t be switching off two minutes into a game. Come on, now. That first half felt especially grim when Scotland couldn’t get anything going. Morocco were in full control and went until right at the end of the first half to concede a shot. Things did improve in the second half, but not in a particularly impressive way. Scotland made an effort late on, but it was poor.
I think people outside the country probably have a false notion of how Scotland would play. They’re probably expecting long balls, physicality, “none of that fancy passing nonsense” and a general stereotype of what UK football looks like. I’ve never particularly watched Scotland play that game effectively. They’ve never produced an abundance of physically dominant players you’d need to knock it long every time. Usually they look somewhat technically sound, but not good enough to play a short passing game and outmuscled pretty easily. It’s not well suited for underdog football.
Brazil 3-0 Haiti
That’s more like it.
