Julian Green transferred from German powerhouse Bayern Munich to join Stuttgart this winter, and his new head coach took the chance to praise his new forward following his first friendly with the club.
Hannes Wolf said Green needs more match practice in the buildup to the second half of the Bundesliga season, but praised the U.S. Men’s National Team forward’s debut for Stuttgart in a scoreless friendly against MSV Dusiburg. The friendly took place in Stuttgart’s winter training camp in Lagos, Portugal.
“Julian Green had a couple of good situations in his first game for us,” Wolf told Stuttgart’s website. “It was clear to see that he has distinct qualities and that he can help us further. He certainly still needs some match practice, but he’ll get that over the next few days and weeks.”
The 2. Bundesliga club returns to action Jan. 29 against St. Pauli.
If history is any guide, once the games actually count, Green will be on the bench or not in the 18.
Stuttgart is a little different than Bayern, remember Landon couldn’t start for them either and they weren’t nearly as loaded then as they are now. Kid has been out with an injury for 6 weeks so almost any player would start on the bench and work his way back to fitness as well.
Based on the other players who started the match with him, it appears he was played on the wing in a 451, not as a center forward as Ancelloti favored him as. Also looked like he was with most of the regulars that play as forwards or in the midfield.
I’m of the opinion that the 4-2-3-1 is actually the formation that the USMNT should be using.
We’ve got a number of emerging/returning players (Pulisic, Green, Gooch, Zardes, Agudelo, Perez, etc…) who can provide that creativity in the attack to feed our striker (Jozy, Wood, Morris). While the 2 deeper lying CMs provide the additional defensive coverage we need against the better teams.
It’ll also help remove some of the under performing veterans (Wondo, Zusi, Bedoya).
I think where that becomes difficult is when you have Altidore and Wood who were in the best form of any US players at the time of the first two qualifiers and the 4-2-3-1 means one is probably on the bench, Wood and Altidore have played some wing, but its not where they are their best. Hence the 3-5-2 of Columbus, which actually might not be a bad formation if you have someone who can describe to the players what to do with a little more clarity. Whatever, formation we use won’t really matter if those 2 CMs no matter where they are positioned can’t connect with each other, the wing players you mentioned or Wood and Altidore.
Good for green I hope he gets more playing time.