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Johannsson scores another for AZ Alkmaar with spectacular winner in upset of PSV Eindhoven

Aron Johannsson AZ Alkmaar 1 (Getty Images)

By FRANCO PANIZO

The dream start to the season just keeps getting better and better for Aron Johannsson.

Three days after scoring a hat-trick in an 120-minute performance in KNVB Cup, Johannson continued his recent run of good form with a spectacular game-winning goal in AZ Alkmaar’s 2-1 upset victory over league leaders PSV Eindhoven on Saturday. The 22-year-old U.S. Men’s National Team forward scored with a shot off a bounce that dipped over substitute Eindhoven goalkeeper Przemyslaw Tyton and into the back of the net in the second half.

The goal gives Johannsson five in league play and 10 across all competitions. It also puts him 22 back of the scoring record Jozy Altidore set last season for an American playing abroad with about eight months left to play in the season.

Here is the goal:

What do you think of Johannsson’s latest goal? Think he will come anywhere close to Altidore’s scoring record? Do you see him playing on a bigger club by this time next year?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. I hope we get to see Aron start against Jamaica. Aron has natural understand with other players, he knows positioning him for the “kill”, he very light on his feet, and continues scoring.

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    • Same thing we said about Jozy. Wait till this kid gets to a better league and see how many he scores. I’d be happy if he’d get 5 goals in La Liga or BPL.

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    • Depends on how you can find a way to play him. He doesn’t really have the psychical ability to play with his back to goal like Jozy or even EJ. So perhaps you could put him in underneath the striker, the spot Dempsey has been playing. Some people have said AJ can play on the wing as well so I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

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  2. I’d like to point out that Johannsson has played for about 20 minutes for the US national team and not any minutes in any qualifiers. Playing in qualifiers and in the WC is a whole order of magnitude more difficult than playing in the Dutch League. Need I remind anyone about Timothy Chandler who was supposed to be our savior at RB, but flamed out at Honduras?

    While AJ seems to have the goods, it is ridiculously early to be putting him in Brazil and even on the starting squad as some seem to want to do. It’s funny, I go to Goal.com and all the trolls are constantly putting down the US players and then I come here where people get way too excited about the flavor of the month. Maybe AJ will become a super star, nobody can say for sure now, but he has to prove himself at top international levels before we anoint him. For now, Eddie Johnson has earned his place on the US national team more than has AJ. And please, he doesn’t yet belong in the same sentence as Dempsey or Donovan, the two greatest goal scorers in US national team history, lest you forget..

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    • It’s not to early to put him in the discussion. There’s a big difference between almost any domestic league and the international game, but players have to make the jump sometime. AJ knows how to play the game and he has the skill to pull off what his brain calculates. That skill is transferable to any level.

      Explain to me how Terrence Boyd, Joe Corona, or Chris Wondolowski are any better suited than AJ for a spot on the squad in Brazil? In my mind this kid is our #2 forward by virtue of form and level of competition. Now it is up to the coach to get him integrated into the first team.

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    • We certainly don’t know how well he’ll integrate with the rest of the national team yet. But we certainly do know that he has some real talent.

      I don’t understand why you’re thumbing your nose at the Eredivisie, a league that has produced plenty of world class attacking talent.

      I don’t know why you bring up Chandler. His problem isn’t the quality of his play.

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      • Rossi is scoring goals like they’re going out of style in the Serie A. We should pray that AJ can do that some day.

      • Haven’t kept up with him this season, but I guess I was referring to him last yr with Fiorentina

  3. Certainly no reason to develop young players here when we can find more and more passport Americans
    And don’t give me that shite about him being born in Alabama. Klinsman and US Soccer had zero influence on this kid and a multitude of other players in the pool.
    That is why we pay him 2.5 million, to recruit.
    He was supposed to come up with a plan for player development from top to bottom and he hasn’t done shit in that area.

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    • Whether he’s be responsible for it or not, it’s well documented youth development in America has only gotten better and better by the yr since he’s taken over for Bob.

      Player development, player recruitment, whatever it is US soccer hasn’t ever had it better, but I guess there always room to complain about something.

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      • Where is it well documented that youth development had gotten easy better under Klinsmann? Are our U-15s killing it now or something?

      • USsf developmental standards for academies, mls academies. It’s producing a lot of young talent if you haven’t noticed all the recent articles on mls soccer’s website or goal.com

      • I don’t have to read article, I coach in the US Academy.
        If you think that the level of deveopment is on par with real soccer nations you are clueless

      • on par? no. but that’s not what were talking about here is it. were talking about strides in progress. don’t try to veer away from what’s actually being said to make it seem like your definitivelly right.

      • Well then it sounds like you’ve got an axe to grind, and we can safely ignore the rest of your comments on this matter.

      • if you think you understand the ussf’s strategy for developing players just because you coach is the US Academy, then you are a total prick. get over yourself, and try to get a bigger perspective.

        …and do something about it. Don’t bitch about it on this blog — go coach some little studs and teach them what they need to know about the game.

      • In case you weren’t paying attention, the major changes in the Academy system came when Bradley was USMNT coach, the MLS stuff is still pretty uneven, except most (maybe all) have at least begun to pay attention to youth teams. Three or four years ago the move to use more training sessions and fewer, but more important games was already in progress in the Academy teams. Youth soccer in the US has improved a steadily in the roughly 20 years I have been involved with it and all but two years of that predate JK’s time as USMNT coach.

    • Klinsi has done as much as he can for youth soccer here. He’s set a strict system that has been applied at every age level of US soccer, he has hired young coaches, he has set a strict standard for players, and he has promoted US soccer across the world. Those needed movements will not come to fruit for years.

      Klinsi is recruiting the same way we’ve done isince at least 1950 when our goal against England came from a man born in Haiti. Bruce Arena who now plays the “holy than thou” card recruited and played foreign players, and so did Bradley.

      England played Hargreaves, a Canadian. Italy plays Rossi, an America, and Portugal played Deco, a Brazilian. Mexico are trying to recruit Gil, an American. Every country has at one time played a player not born in their country.

      So don’t give a sermon against our foreign players. Outside of Chandler, each one has been fully committed to our cause, and some like FJ and JJ have both bled and gotten injured from playing for us. Boyd has a tattoo of the US flag.

      Our army actively recruits foreigners and has even offered citizenship for their service. If foreigners can defend the US on a battle field, they can sure as h*ll defend our pride on a soccer pitch.

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    • @Ricardo development takes about a decade to see affects.USMNT needs success now but I agree much better development system is needed in US and that’s MLS job.This league lost a 10-12 years doing almost nothing in terms of youth development and now we can see bad teams and low level of soccer in MLS.

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    • He also spent his summers in Alabama IIRC.
      If he was born here, has connections here, and feels that his home culturally, who am I to say he doesn’t deserve to suit up for us?

      I feel the same way about many of the German-Americans on the roster, minus Chandler. It might be painfully obvious growing up as a bi-racial kid in an overwhelmingly white country that you are different. Many kids and teenagers are horrible sociopaths who look for any difference they can to put others down, so they may have felt closer ties with those at the US miltary base that looked like them than the white German kids who picked on them.
      Am I overthinking that? Yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong either.

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    • altidore
      mcinerny
      agudelo
      donovan
      dempsey
      zusi
      gil
      yedlin
      farrell
      pontius
      mcgee
      johnson
      holden
      wondo

      yeah, we will never produce any of our own attacking players…

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    • The only way to develop more players is to have a strong professional league. Theres really only so much US soccer can do with out that. However historically the biggest tool in developing US players has been IMG in Bradenton. A few names like Donovan, Bradley, Altidore spent time there and even one Aron Johannsson spent a year there. All the IMG players are tracked from a pretty young age.

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      • If you thnk that the wealthiest nation on the face of the earth cannot do better than what we are doing and that the Bradenton Country Club is a real soccer envirnoment, and that players develop to their maximum potential then you are really cluless.
        Please let me hear from someone who is in on a decent level of coaching and player development instead of a bunch of soccer dads
        JK is paid at least 3 times what BB got paid. And while I am not the biggest BB supporter, JK better make it to the quarterfinals to justify all that money when he did not do much for setting a plan for the future.

      • you mean pased the group stages? that should already be a given requirement for any US team.

        The fact that he’s gone out and capped and successfully recruited so many young talented dual nationals is already worth the millions more that was paid to him in comparison to Bob because these players will be with us long after Jurgens gone.

        Youth development, isn’t his problem ultimately. He can preach what level we need to be at at how things are and we can emulate european models as much as possible, but ultimately its up to the USSF to implent such things and try to figure out more way to give opportunities to disprivledged kids. He’s the face of management for the Nats, and shouldn’t be held up to anything much else, beyond what he can do whats within his immediate power, which isn’t the revision and overhaul of the youth soccer in america. Again thats the USSF’s job.

      • JK has been in charge of the team for two years. You want him to handle his responsibilities with the team during this transition AND solve the youth development issue in his first two years? You are delusional and have ridiculous expectations.

        Soccer in this county is accelerating quickly, but the wealth of our country has very little to do with the progress of soccer, however. You seem to contradict yourself because you are surprised that JK makes so much money (he has a much better resume than his predecessor and higher expectations), but then you seem to think that our wealth means that we should have better players. Does money develop youth players?

        If you have been involved with soccer in this country for more than a couple of years, you would understand the progress that has been made.

        Here is another thing about youth development — you can’t change your strategy every two years!! It takes a LONG time to put the infrastructure in place and it takes even longer to produce results. The infrastructure is getting there and so are the results.

    • Go to the recent article by Ives on young players in the MLS and then consider the # of good young players abroad, too. The success of youth teams is greatly overrated. Many players develop early and then don’t progress while others don’t really bloom until their mid 20’s.

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      • I agree, he’s Buchanan better technically and has a lot of flair. But to say Jozy doesn’t have whats required to do well in a bigger league is BS.

        He’s a classic Target Forward, who just needs to settle in a bit. But before that can happen Sunderland needs to get a proper manager.

      • Are you saying Jozy is never going to get married? And is going to handle the Civil war poorly?

        Does that mean New Jersey is going to succeed from the Union? This could be good….

      • Jozy did everything Aron did at AZ last yr. By your logic I could say, show me Aj scoring goals in the EPL and then we’ll talk about him.

      • How about we judge the whole performance of the player? Have you even seen Jozy this season? His hold-up play has been pretty good. How many chances do you think he’s had to score? He’s not getting the same service the big name clubs get you know.

      • You do know that Jozy scored 30 goals on the same team Johannsson is currently on? Jozy already proved himself at the level Johannsson is at now.

    • Honestly, I’d love to have our most talented players in Brazil. But you need a good mixture of players, young and old. My five strikers who get a ticket to Brazil if their was a situation where they were all healthy and in form? Jozy, Johan, Herc, Dempsey and Eddie, whom I sweared would stop scoring goals but can’t seem too, so until then.

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  4. Am I the only one to think Aron has more skills and it is a better finisher thatn Clint?

    Clint better get on the ball cause his lack of playing form is obvious and not sure he can shake it off before the MLS season is over. Very probable he will be need to be loaned out to an EPL club from December to March if he wants to be a MUST player for the USMNT.

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    • I think Aron has more natural technique than Clint, but we haven’t seen it get results for the US. Hopefully that’ll change next month.

      The plan was always for Clint to go back on loan. It’s in his contract. But the amount of teams lining up for his services is shrinking at the same rate as his form..

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      • Right, we’ll we haven’t seen him in the Jersey much either have we? Likewise, I think that should change nxt month.

    • ;After Johannsson has scored more than 50 goals in a top league, then you can make your case. There is no denying that Aron has loads of talent, but it remains to be seen how much drive and what work ethic he has and if that will take him to the top levels. There have been lots of players in every sport who had great natural ability, but lacked those necessary qualities to be the real stars they could have been.

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      • How do you know is natural or he just worked at it more than others.

        In one of his interviews he mentioned that he asked his parents to send him to the USA for one year because the kids in Iceland were starting to mess with parties and alcohol. Aron has a very strong work ethic, what you see is what you get.
        Every week I read someone thinking that he is just going through a hot streak that he will cool off, he is been playing the same for almost two years and been successful at it. Who knows what’s his limit, just enjoy the ride.

    • “Am I the only one to think Aron has more skills and it is a better finisher that Clint?” Nope, seems a lot of other people are just as clueless.

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      • Who between you and Cakes was scoring and quarter-finaling in the world cup at their age? (hint: not you) Yet no one points out your resemblance to girl parts

      • “Cakes”. “Pan”, do you what that’s short for in Spanish. Donovan would.

        In 2002 he was great when he was a kid and could be shielded away from any responsibility. But Cakes was given the monkiteer for a reason; because he had a reputation as a choke artist for half this past decade, lil’ izekial

      • Anyway I meant thay’re not functionally interchangable with Donovan, so can’t exactly replace whatever-size hole he leaves behind

  5. Barring any injuries, who’s on the plane to Brazil? I see Dempsey, Altidore, and E Johnson as locks. The 4th spot is up for between Gomez, Johannsson, and Boyd. It’s going to be a tight race and may the best man win.

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    • FJ at LB, Aron at the left wing spot. He’s played there for club and in his one cap for us.

      October:

      Guzan
      Chandler-Brooks-Besler-FJ
      Jones-Mix
      Donovan-Dempsey-Aron
      Jozy

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      • This doesn’t work. Ppl always try to pack the attack are most talented offensive players, but who the hell would be tracking back? The only guy up top, who’s ever done that is Donovan, and on top of that you have mIxx paired with Jones and two wingbacks in Johnson and Chandler? This would be like a 2-4-4

      • Your lineup would actually work in CONCACAF but not in the World Cup as the WC is a different monster….FJ is good bombing forward but Im not convinced hes a good defender… Mixx, Dempsey, Jozy are very soft, lazy-like on defense as well.

  6. I’d really like to see him, Jozy, LD, and Deuce on the field together. Maybe something like this.

    ———Jozy———
    —-AJ–Deuce–LD
    —-Jones-Bradley—-
    Fab-Besler-Cameron-Chandler
    ———Howard——–

    I think based on form this gets all our best guys on the field together in positions that aren’t too shoehorned.

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      • Yeah, I’d say.

        This formation doesn’t work because you have two attacking midfielders, with a scorers first mentality, and two forwards, non of whom are natural playmakers. The closest of them you have on the flank away from all the action. And Bradley and Jones are supposed to cover all that ground to make up for the mess? This is a bad 4-2-4

      • If Johansson plays up top alongside Altidore with Deuce and LD behind them, finally backed up by Bradley and Jones… And voila! We have… Bob Bradley’s empty bucket!

      • except with much more talent at forward and central midfield. I know MB and Jozy were there for Bob as well as JJ, but MB and Jozy are entirely better players now, and AJ is way better than any other forward we ever paired with Jozy including CD9.

      • Which is probably right, but you can’t have jozy, aj, demps and donovan out there all at once. jozy and demps you know arent the fasest of players and will have a hell a hard time trying to cover ground whenever the bal is turned over. Aj might of played on the wing in a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 but not in a 4-4-2 and we ppl out there who can provide damn good service from the flanks. In order for these players to be on the field Dempsey would have to play way more centrally, a lot closer to Bradley and Jones in order for Landon and AJ to be able to operate up front, without having to worry about tracking back as much, sort of like a variation of a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1

      • Ill give you that. But I think in the long run he’ll round out and start playing the way we’re used to seeing him play. It’s not as if he suddenly forgot how to play the game or old age caught up to him. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that sooner rather than later he’ll get his legs back under him. Once that happens the prospect of those 4 guys in the offense is pretty awesome.

      • But it’s common knowledge, the more difficult the league, the sharper the player. Dempsey isn’t the type of player that just relies on skill, but who’s someone who’s body and mind need to be strained their peaks, as his game relies equally on both

      • Not sure anywhere else in the world you will find a coach that gives a starter 4 months to regain form like JK has been doing.
        How much more should be continue to wait?

      • He’s the captain and has been producing for us, when no one else would. It’s a litter harder to remove him. But under the AJ goal post, I make the argument that he should probably be dropped, so I agree

    • As a manger you have to show players respect when it’s due. You can’t say, “this guys obviously talented and better then any forward we have let’s start him because we absolutely need him”. Not when the forwards in front of him are still producing. We’re not the US, circa 2006.

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  7. If this continues, ppl won’t have to worry about Celtic. He’ll be moving to a champions league team in a top 5 league sooner, rather then later

    I can’t wait to see him play a full 90 for the nats

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      • Yeah either would be amazing. Though often politics are always involved, and being american, and the EPL the league with the biggest ratings here, he’ll probably move to England.

        I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in a Liverpool shirt actually. Hell, I think I’m going to make a bet on that one

      • Yeah that would be pretty perfect, a lot of competition there though. Maybe their neighbors in Spurs though who could definitely use another striker. Or again, Liverpool.

    • I’m optimistic about Johannsson too and agree with the consensus that he shouldn’t go to Celtic, but Altidore was scoring at a similar clip last season and all that got him was a move to Sunderland. Bony was the leading scorer in Holland and that got him a bench role at Swansea.

      I’d love to see Johannsson break out in a big way and move to a top club (provided he can still get games there), but I don’t think one good (or even really season) in the Dutch League is going to be enough to get him there.

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      • But I think is value would be higher then that, because stats are one thing, but the way and which you score is another. Everything is just so sound with him and he scores goals that require real talent and a great soccer mind. That and the way he’s risen so fast and only gotten better and better in such a small time frame.

      • are you talking how many points counts?
        of course all goals are the same.

        I think the questions is along the line of type of scoring, is he a poacher that only taps in, does he use his head a lot when scoring, is he good at taking shots from out of the box.

        Top teams look for those attributes, not just how many goals the player scored.

        I think AJ is good but I don’t think anyone really know s how good he is GOING to be.

      • Right. Neither is Altidore a finished product, but we do know what he is. He can though become better in all of his strengths and expand on his weaknesses. AJ seems like he can be something very special though.

      • Bony has been sucking it up for Swansea too and they are much better than Sunderland. By sucking I mean not starting btw. They can be kinda similar.

  8. The best is the best is yet to come. So much upside to his game. He is, in my opinion, a core player that a team is built around for the future.

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    • If his career continues in a positive trajectory, it seems like he has all the right tools to become our first legitimate American soccer superstar.

      Reply
  9. We got a sniff of him against Bosnia. He’s clearly a special player. I’d like to see him start in a qualifier. He could break out at the World Cup next year.

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    • The guy is a difference maker. It was evident in the Bosnia Herzegovina match where anyone who plays and knows soccer only needed a few mins watching him to arrive at the same conclusion.

      He’s going to be as good as Marco van Basten hopefully.

      Reply

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