By RYAN TOLMICH
On a team loaded with World Cup veterans, it was an 18-year-old forward that made perhaps the biggest impression in the U.S. Men’s National Team’s 2-1 loss to Colombia on Friday.
In his first international start, Rubio Rubin played with the poise of a veteran in a performance that caught the eye of USMNT head coach Jurgen Klinsmann.
“I think Rubio knows that he has that physicality already,” Klinsmann said. “For an 18-year-old, that’s quite impressive – and others maybe don’t have the physicality yet, but they have the intelligence on the field to read the game ahead, to know how to play it.
“It is down to their environment, where they grew up and came through. I texted his coach before the game there that he will start and he was thrilled.”
With that highly-touted physicality in tow, the FC Utrecht forward was paired with another physically impressive forward, Jozy Altidore, in a partnership that drew rave reviews from Klinsmann despite the duo’s lack of service.
“(Rubio) just confirmed on the field what he already showed us in the training sessions in the Czech Republic, the two that we had only,” Klinsmann said. “In these couple of days he seemed to have a very instinctive understanding with Jozy. Obviously, I asked Jozy to guide him, to help him wherever, when we trained a bit, as much as we could these last couple of days, and then you want to give him the opportunity.”
Rubio himself also believes that he has developed a bit of chemistry with his new strike partner, as the 18-year-old believes the duo can develop into a high-level pairing with a bit more time and experience.
“Jozy and I have been practicing this whole week with each other and we’ve just been seeing how we play,” Rubin said. “He knows how to play with me and I know how to play with him. Obviously everything is not perfect right now, but if we continue play together, we’re going to bond and that just happens over time.”
—
What did you think of Rubin’s performance Friday? How do you see the Rubin-Altidore partnership developing in the future?
Doesn’t “connection” imply a goal was scored?
No
haha +1
There is no player who is more polarizing in the USMNT pool than Altidore right now. Here is the thing, I would be willing to bet he will start in the 2015 GC, 2016 COPA, 2017 CC, and 2018 World Cup. He is the best forward we have in the pool, with the most experience, and he produces for country. He is also 25 years old.
Rubin and Altidore may form a very good partnership.
Jozy can score goals. We do know that. The key is for JK to find a style of play, a lineup, and a formation that can make that happen.
The formation and players that Poyet uses at Sunderland will NEVER work for Jozy.
Kilnsi has to figure out a way to get that more attacking, free flow play he promises…..
I agree with you. That is contingent upon two critical items. Playing the ball out of the back with purpose. Maintaining more possession into the final third.
Poyet has Sunderland playing out of the back, but the midfield is not good enough at creating chances.
The same can be said for the USMNT. Are we not creating enough chances for Jozy? Or is he not getting in positions to get the chances?
Wood may not be the finished product but it seems like he has had more chances than Jozy in the last few matches.
“The key is for JK to find a style of play, a lineup, and a formation that can make that happen.
The formation and players that Poyet uses at Sunderland will NEVER work for Jozy.
Kilnsi has to figure out a way to get that more attacking, free flow play he promises…..”
So true, Rich. You are the one person here that picked out the fundamental problem in the USMNT’s lukewarm results post-WC. It’s the attacking style, free flow play that’s needed. This team is a lot better than the results they’ve gotten.
Rubin was great. I hope we see more of him in the future. I’d also like to see Rubin partner with other forwards. For all the talk about how great Jozy is as ahold up forward he still needs to score and he doesn’t. The PK? Please. He’s lost his nerve to take defenders one-on-one. And why all this talk you have to have a hold-up forward? Plenty of teams succeede without one.
Your comment highlights the common misunderstanding of Jozy. He’s not really a holdup forward, and repeatedly asking him to be one is what removes the one on one element from his game.
i agree. the interesting thing is, when Jozy was a young RedBull, people said how good he was but he always took players one on one, they said for him to progress he needed to get better at hold-up play. so over the years he has worked on that etc. now that he is a bigger strong ST and has been working on the hold-up play, people assume that’s his natural game which it is not. Jozy prospers from having a quick partner to work off of. he wants a pass-and-move style with more “keep the ball moving to the open man constantly and the chances will come” rather than “we’ll launch it up to you, you hold it and wait for us, then pass to us and we’ll shoot, thanks jozy..” These are the reasons people speak of the style Sunderland plays. It’s not his best style AND Sunderland are terrible, haha. Jozy and Dempsey have good chemistry in terms of movement, LD and Jozy as well. the hope here with Rubin and Jozy is to get a good partnership going where both players pass and move and begin to anticipate each other’s movements. the USMNT doesnt really want to just knock it up to Jozy and have him just hold it, they recognize his ability to keep the ball moving unselfishly allowing for the best team shot, etc.
….babble over…
Since he rarely can create his own shot, he needs someone to set him up. We’ve seen Dempsey, Bradley and Mix fail to do so on any regular basis…. Time for a true creater…Lee N.
I thought it was because he’s not a good dribbler and mostly loses the ball when he tries
https://vine.co/v/O5bAZq6zT5t
To all the dumb people on here talking about Altidore being horrible and having no skill. Most of you know little to nothing about the game, I don’t even like reading the comments on this site anymore being there is rarely anything intelligible in the comments section, regardless of post.
+1
So much negativity from people not even smart enough to spell Altidore’s name correctly.
Anyway, Rubin has been looking great in the Eredivisie and I’m excited to see how he progresses.
What could Altadore ever teach the kid? How to not even get a shot game after game? How not to score unless its a PK (almost screwed that up too).
I would advise the kid to say nice things about Altadore then work hard to take his spot cause he has more upside than Altadore ever will have.
The real question is how much longer will JK continue to prop up a non producing Altadore? He is not the answer and never has been
Im waiting for the crack about how easy it is to score in the Eredivisie…
Are you just willfully misspelling the name of our all-time 5th highest goalscorer or what?
Exactly. Jozy commented on this before going to Sunderland when asked about his Hull experience.
We’re doomed if we’re depending on him to win games for us.
never seen him play before and i thought he looked good in his first game. interesting how both Rubin and Johannsson, both up and coming Eredivisie strikers, made comments on how they enjoyed working with Altidore in the past year.
next game i say keep it going:
——Altidore-Rubin———-
-Bedoya———F.Johnson-
——-Beckerman-Mix——–
Garza-Besler-Cameron-Chandler
————-Guzan————–
My picks for the lineup, too.
Interesting that Rubio is more positive about Jozy than the commenters here. Of course, he does not want to say anything bad, but he did not have to go out of his way to be as positive about Jozy as his comments indicate.
probably directly related to his knowing more about the game than anybody here.
LOL! Best statement
+ 1
+1
At this point, Altidore has been lacking consistency so anybody except Wondo will be interesting to see. It’s frustrating to see Jozy……. potential only goes so far….
Looked more active, and made better runs than jozy ever does. Hopefully he doesn’t learn how to give up on balls like jozy demonstrated three times last night. Jozy with his hands on his face is becoming a tiresome image.
I’m excited to see how some of the new attacking players can blend in with some of the vets. Seeing (Ricky) Rubio Rubin, Joe Gyau, Lee Nguyen, Aron Johannsson, Boyd, Wood, maybe Zardes, and Green fight for some playing time is gonna be real fun this cycle. Out with the limited Wondolowski’s of the nation and in with the fresh faces.
Rubin —– Jozy ——- Gyau
——–Zardes—–Nguyen
————–MB————
FJ——–JAB—-Besler?—Yedlin
AJ and Boyd as subs.
haha this is my all out attack formation (aka FIFA) jk
more realistically the same lineup would look like this:
———Jozy—-Rubin
Zardes—Ngyuen—-Gyau
—————MB———–
FJ—-JAB—-Besler—-Yedlin
Green for Zardes, AJ for Rubin, Boyd for Jozy, haha
This comment speaks to the Mix/Rubio comparison many commenters made just after the game:
“For an 18-year-old, that’s quite impressive – and others maybe don’t have the physicality yet, but they have the intelligence on the field to read the game ahead, to know how to play it.”
This competition can only be good for the team.
My first thought was Rubin and Green, but it could be Mix too or both
Rubin’s play was the most exciting thing about the friendly for me. I was very impressed.
Looking ahead, considering Rubin plays as a withdrawn forward, will Rubin alter JK’s plan of moving towards a 4-3-3? Will we stick to more of a 4-4-2 going forward?
Can’t wait to see more of RR in the future.
bench altidore and im serious
For who?
If only we had one of the top 5 goal scorers in the history of the USMNT to play striker. Oh wait… we do. His name is Jozy.
Seriously, he’s not Drogba, but he’s the best we have. And when he’s on, he’s very good.
Deuce, AJ, Boyd?
CroCajun, using Rubin in a 4-3-3 could still work with him playing outside and looking for Jozy to play him in from wide. maybe not the ideal but it’s not like Rubin can’t move around the field. Honestly I wouldn’t even mind Rubin in the middle with Jozy on the wing. again not Jozy’s ideal fit but he’s an underrated set-up passer. when his teammates make runs ( pay attention sunderland), Jozy can play good passes to open it up and then slash in behind etc…
overall if Rubin and Jozy pan out to be this “strong duo” people foresee, i’d imagine a 2 ST (/CF) formation would be the starting formation, then if needing a goal late in a match he could move a speed guy up and make it a 4-3-3