RB Leipzig’s dream run in the UEFA Champions League continued on Thursday with the help of U.S. Men’s National Team midfielder Tyler Adams.
Adams, a second-half substitute, scored the winning goal for Julian Nagelsmann’s side in a 2-1 quarterfinal win over Atletico Madrid. It was Adams’ first goal in the competition, which couldn’t have come at a better time.
Daniel Olmo and Joao Felix traded goals in a 21-minute span, making it 1-1 with over 20 minutes to play. Adams was brought on in the 72nd minute and got a bit of luck on his right-footed shot in the 88th minute.
Angelino’s cross eventually rolled to Adams who took a few steps before hitting a shot that deflected off an Atletico defender and past Jan Oblak. It was the 21-year-old’s first goal for the club since joining from the New York Red Bulls in Jan. 2019.
Tyler Adams does it!!
The American man puts Leipzig up 2-1 with minutes remaining! pic.twitter.com/HShBjxNXGz
— Champions League on CBS Sports (@UCLonCBSSports) August 13, 2020
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Adams finished the game with an 88% passing completion rate, as well as making two clearances and making one recovery.
The Bundesliga side would hang on to book a semifinal date with Paris Saint-Germain, scheduled to take place in Lisbon on Aug. 18th. It will be Leipzig’s first semifinals appearance in club history after reaching the final eight also for the first time.
Lets put UEFA Champions League into perspective as it pertains to the USMNT….
Players who are seeing minutes:
Pulisic (Chelsea), Reyna (BvB), Adams (RB), Dest (Ajax),
Players who are on the bench:
Richards (Bayern), Konrad (Barca)
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I don’t think we’ve ever had this many players in a potion to potentially see minutes in Europe’s top club competition.
Though I thoroughly agree that this is more exciting, I decided to look at some history so see how this compares just based on CL participation. Seems our “best” year (in terms of participants who played minutes in the CL) was 2012-2013, with 4 players – Jermaine Jones, Sacha Kliejstan, Oguchi Onyewu, Michael Parkhurst- all playing meaningful minutes in multiple games for teams that made the Group stage or beyond. In addition, Joshua Gatt and Alejandro Bedoya saw minutes in the qualifying rounds. There may be others who sat on the bench but did not play– don’t have a good reference here.
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But yes, it’s never felt as positive as it does now. Our guys are now playing for more competitive teams, and they are playing bigger roles. And they are young players with big futures.
Or to put it another way, the 2012-13 USMNT players logged 1,549 total CL minutes in the group/knockout stage (excluding qualifiers). The 2019-2020 USMNT contingent has logged about half that (762 mins), with some additional minutes likely to come from Adams.
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Some trivia I found interesting along the way…. the only American ever to play for his team in all 6 CL Group Stage games…. Michael Parkhurst. Played 90 mins in all of them, as well. Save that for a bar bet with your soccer buddies.
let’s be real, the deal is you used to have to be a USNT star for even little everton to sign you. they were biased against us so you had to be awesome to even get a sniff. times have clearly changed, particularly in Germany where you don’t have to have the right passport or cap %. HOWEVER, if our relative talent to the world on this NT was so superior, we wouldn’t be struggling with canada, or the old teams wouldn’t have been knockout round world cup sides. maybe this will correct with time, but perhaps the deal is more that the signing bias is gone but the talent is not necessarily better than say 02 or 10. any event, we’ll see the next two cycles what happens with this new bubble.
The idea of an anti-American “signing bias” or the notion that you “used to need to be a USNT star for even little Everton to sign you” is commonly overstated, if not entirely imaginary. Joe Max Moore hardly a star when Everton signed him from New England as in 1999. Nor was Jovan Kirovski, when signed by Manchester United as an unknown teenager and eventually won the CL with Dortmund. Similarly, Tim Howard, Jonathan Spector, Giuseppe Rossi, and John Thorrington were all signed by Man United with scarcely a cap between them. Ditto John O’Brien when he signed for Ajax. Claudio Reyna had a solitary cap when he signed for Leverkusen out of UVA in 1994. Steve Cherundolo was uncapped college player for the Portland Pilots when he signed for Hannover in 1999. Even Landon Donovan was an uncapped youth player when Bayer Leverkusen signed him in 1999. The list goes on… I could rattle off a 1-2 dozen more players who were virtual unknowns — let alone “USNT stars” — when signed for first-tier European teams prior to 2010.
Pretending Landon was some unknown when he was a Bradenton kid is a fib. He was not just pipeline but the focus of the pipeline like Pulisic or Reyna now.
i also think the snobs tend to confuse “talent” with “where it signs.” you have the cause and effect backwards. the talent is not good because it signed CL. the players are signed CL because they were scouted as talented to begin with. otherwise schalke wouldn’t have knocked on mckennie’s door.
for comparison purposes, the USYNT/MNT group from the 2010s. the nagbes we generally produced last decade stunk, couldn’t qualify……..and no surprise, were not in the CL. i think your argument is they should have signed abroad and that would have fixed it. or, maybe they couldn’t qualify for 2 olympics or the 2018 world cup because they stunk, and that stench was detected by the very tastemakers who you act like make the players smell good.
“i think your argument is they should have signed abroad and that would have fixed it”… I’m not sure who you are talking to here, but this is baffling. Nobody said anything like this. Are you ok?
Gomer-
it’s not too hard to understand. i am simply saying that maybe the reason we have more CL players now vs 2010s is the 2010s were e relative dry hole that produced players CL teams didn’t think worth their time. usually we produce more than pulisic per decade. they saw what they produced and had better people to sign. Our development fixes itself and they have time for the new talent.
Anyone watch the game? How did Adams play (besides scoring of course)?
I actually thought he looked rusty and not very involved and then when Angelina cut it back I was like Tyler’s going to put it in. Luckily it took a deflection.
JOHNNYRAZOR, Really? Were we watching a different game today? I totally disagreed though. Adams came in at the 72nd minute and immediately showed his turbo engine moving up & down the field breaking up Atletico Madrid’s attack. I was repeatedly rewatching the goal’s replays and wondered if the ball was not deflected, was it on the path to go in or go just wide of the left post? Thank God for the deflection!
Simon I like yours better I was trying to do ten other things and just had it on my laptop. I think the shot was probably going wide or was covered but that’s why you just shoot into traffic.
Shot was going wide but Adams was definitely involved in the action, he seemed to drift between a DCM and RWB. I thought he looked good and didnt see any rust
What like a hybrid that plays as RB in defense and jumps into CM when the team has the ball who would do such a thing?
Exciting match, both teams had chances. Kampl is a solid player. Adams defense has always been stellar. What’s improved is his timing of his runs. 4-5 players are ‘on the break‘, he is the 4th or 5th person filling the gap(s).Today, He not only filled the correct gap, but he shot after his 1st touch. The ball was going low and away from the goalie, when it took a deflection. Observation- 1)- His decision making has improved. He made the correct run, filled a gap, while making a passing lane to receive the ball. 2)- anticipated the pass, 3)- He wanted to score, 1st touch, set up the shot, 4)- W/ power, aimed his shot low & away,( GK was diving to his right). I said, all of this just to say, He’s a no.6!!! If USMNT have DMs that are a threat to score, then that would be extremely encouraging!! Captain’s Armband pls!!!
The 6 in Berhalter’s style of play would never be in that position to receive the ball, that’s why 3G doesn’t want to play him as a traditional 6. That’s probably why Nagglesman doesn’t typically play him as a traditional 6 either. Watch some of last years matches do you want Adams playing where Bradley/Yeuill are or do you want him where McKennie/Roldan are?
Lot of great individual efforts from the RB players today. Fun match to watch…. when Angelino cut back to find Adams alone I was off my couch screaming to hit it. Good stuff!
The goal was lucky but this is Berhalter Dumb Idea repellent. He should be starting for us if healthy but even if Berhalter had other thoughts this hopefully resolves any selection questions. “But he hasn’t been capped by us for a while and indoctrinated in CrapSystem TM.” Yeah. he won a CL quarterfinal round, put a sock in it.
LOL. Been two mths since i checked in and u r still doing the same tedious repetitive thing.
It’s hilarious and truly ssd all at the same time. I hope u get some sort of life one day.
i feel like i am dealing with a certain degree of naivete here, and you should already know better. this is the guy who could have a list of decent forwards available and sub in roldan as a RF down a goal to Mexico. i cannot assume rationality and can point to players left out when healthy after being out hurt. yes, adams was unavailable injured, but i heard the same thing when weah and holmes got well and they disappeared. y’all can laugh but i think GB is just stupid enough to either demote or exclude him because of lack of recent team experience. in any case, i’m going to keep the burner on where he hopefully doesn’t get the dumb idea.
Weah has not been skipped over since he returned from injury, he was injured for every call-up from Sept. – Mar. I’m not sure why Holmes hasn’t returned but trying to compare a guy who is an average player in the Championship to a regular in the Bundesliga is pretty ridiculous.
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And if you want to get technical Roldan subbed with the match 0-0 and signaled a tactical change as he sat much deeper than Morris trying to shore up the midfield and provide a link between the CMs and Pulisic and Zardes. It was also wide speculated that Boyd had a slight injury since he’d played 234 mins in the first four matches and then none in the last two.
bull. sargent and weah were sent to U23 when weah was healthy. many were up in arms about at least the sargent part but a few of us were like why weah as well. you can’t rewrite history because you don’t like me or want to smear me. and anyone who looks at the Gold Cup sub patterns knows he sidelined Boyd as the tournament progressed and made Roldan his RF sub, INCLUDING IN THE FINAL WHEN WE WERE DOWN 0-1. again, you can’t change the facts because you don’t like me personally.
Berhalter lives rent-free in IV’s head.
you’d be surprised how many peoples heads Greg Berhalter lives rent free in, it’s really astonishing and pitiful all at the same time. Greg recently did a interview where he said he always thought of Tyler as a midfielder and that he will be in midfield going forward. Funny thing is the people who gave Greg so much shit about playing Tyler in the hybrid rb/cdm spot that ONE time in a friendly, but don’t seem to do the same bitching when it comes to Nagelsmann, who plays Tyler in that role quite often smh….
in case you forgot it was 11/19 when we barely made it out of a grroup with cuba and canada on a goals tiebreaker.
IV a Canada team with a Davies (a world class talent), David (who just transferred to Lille for 3x Weah’s fee), and Arfeld (3 seasons as an EPL starter plus EL experience at Rangers). Off the bench they brought Cavalini (regular starter in Liga Mx) and Hoillet (regular starter in Championship played a number of EPL matches in his younger days). You talk a lot about “snobs” but clearly are judging Canada by its past not present.
With the benefit of hindsight we now know that Canada lost to Iceland this year, finished 7th in the ranking, and finished outside of the 5 teams automatically in the Ocho. I also feel like the disparity between 4-1 home and the road result suggests coaching error as opposed to an inherent quality comparison. In a prior qualifying 3-0 home paired with 3-0 road as well, and we’ve done no worse than a tie for decades. You are stuck back in the mentality after they beat us. The assessment has swung back a little. In reality they had one good player who was moved centrally in position due to an injury and the coach couldn’t figure out how to respond.
He’s been healthy for one camp, played all 90 minutes and returned to Germany at Leipzig’s request. He was injured after his next match and missed a month and a half with RBL he played a combined 129 mins in RBLs final two matches after the German Cup final he was evaluated and it was determined that his injury was not healed. He was pulled out of the GC final roster due to thus injury. He was out for RBL for all of Leipzig’s matches from Aug. – Dec 17, thus making him unavailable for NT call ups in Sep, Oct, Nov. So to be clear he’s been available for one match under Berhalter and played all 90 minutes of that match.
How else is Berhalter going to get Michael Bradley as the 9O- minute auto starter? The scheme starts with putting the better DM/CM players in different positions.
You mean like Nagglesman playing him at RB today?
Once again the Bradley-backed site, dosent allow me to respond to certain comments. So i have to reply to myself (or Johhnyrazor might be a worker for this site) to answer his comment of ” nagelsman played him at RB” incorrect as Adams came into the game on assignment to man-mark Felix out of the game. Adams was seen playing RW, RB, and CM/DM. On top of this as others have pointed out, his competition at RB Lipzig for CM are Champions League- level high-level players just like he is, so coming into another position due to the quality of your competiton is nothing to sneeze at, at the other hand, Tyler Adams is the best “6” for the USMNT by a long-mile and the USMNT sky-rockets with Adams as the 6, so we can get another attacker on the pitch. Instead we had to watch Berhalter shoe-in a slow massive liability Bradley which has a major negative domino effect on our team that even leads to ESPN commentators begging Bradley to retire already.
Nagglesman uses him as a hybrid RB/DM just like 3G was criticized for. He had different roles when the team had possession, in transition, and when Atletico had the ball. In Berhalter’s system playing Adams as the 6 would be dumb. He’d sit back between the CBs and be to deep to break up counters or arrive late into the box. He’s likely to play as an 8 alongside McKennie counter pressing opponents when we lose possession. I think Berhalter has moved beyond Bradley as a starter anyway, but that means Yeuill.
So so happy for you Tyler Adams! Congrats and job well done! Go Adams and go Leipzig!
Love that Leipzig took this one! Even off a deflection. Can’t help but wonder how different things woulda been if Timo was still with them. Why didn’t Adams start? Purely tactical?
He’s hasn’t been an automatic starter for Leipzig this season, and for me that was one of the things I was most worried about when Leipzig brought in Dani Olmo in January. Now granted Dani Olmo is a fantastic young player as well, but it could also have something to do with how frequently Tyler has been injured since he’s been at the club, maybe simply a means of keeping him fresh or injury free
With the benefit of hindsight we now know that Canada lost to Iceland this year, finished 7th in the ranking, and finished outside of the 5 teams automatically in the Ocho. I also feel like the disparity between 4-1 home and the road result suggests coaching error as opposed to an inherent quality comparison. In a prior qualifying 3-0 home paired with 3-0 road as well, and we’ve done no worse than a tie for decades. You are stuck back in the mentality after they beat us. The assessment has swung back a little. In reality they had one good player who was moved centrally in position due to an injury and the coach couldn’t figure out how to respond.