Josh Sargent celebrated his first Man of the Match performance for Norwich City on Saturday.
Sargent scored his first goal of the new EFL Championship campaign in the Canaries’ 2-2 home draw with Blackburn Rovers. The U.S. men’s national team forward also added one assist in a strong 89 minutes for Johannes Thorup’s squad.
Despite fighting back from 1-0 down, the Canaries conceded an 87th minute equalizer and had to share the spoils from Carrow Road.
Sargent tied the match at 1-1 in the 65th minute thanks to a powerful left-footed strike into the top-left corner. It marked his first goal since April 27.
The Missouri native set up Borja Sainz for a 2-1 Norwich City lead in the 73rd minute, but Blackburn would tie the match three minutes before stoppage time.
Sargent also hit the crossbar once in the match while also winning two individual duels.
Norwich City next hosts Sheffield United on August 24 in league play.
Ethan Horvath struggles in Cardiff City’s lopsided loss to Burnley
It was a forgettable trip to Turf Moor for USMNT goalkeeper Ethan Horvath.
Horvath conceded one own goal and failed to make a single save in Cardiff City’s 5-0 road loss to Burnley. The 29-year-old watched as the Bluebirds suffered their second-straight league defeat of the new campaign.
Horvath’s slip in the ninth minute led to the Clarets opening goal of the match. The veteran shot-stopper took his focus off of a back pass, watching as it rolled into an empty net.
Things didn’t get better for Horvath as Burnley continued to pile it on throughout the match. USMNT-eligible winger Luca Koleosho doubled the Clarets’ lead in the 31st minute before Josh Brownhill, Zeki Amdouni, and Johann Berg Gudmundsson all added insult to injury for Cardiff City.
It marked the most goals conceded by Cardiff City since suffering a 5-2 loss to Rotherham United on the final day of last season.
Up next for Cardiff City is a derby clash with Swansea City on August 25.
Gabriel Slonina, Donovan Pines lead Barnsley past Lincoln City
Make it back-to-back victories for American duo Gabriel Slonina and Donovan Pines.
EFL League One side Barnsley earned a 2-1 road result on Saturday at Lincoln City to claim their first three points of the new campaign. Both Slonina and Pines retained their spots in the starting lineup after featuring midweek in a 4-2 penalty shootout victory over Wigan Athletic.
Slonina made seven saves in Saturday’s win while Pines logged his first 90 minutes of the new season. Both players were influential in Darrell Clarke’s squad, who snapped a five-match winless run against Lincoln City across all competitions.
Up next is an EFL Trophy match on August 20 vs. Manchester United’s Academy squad before a league showdown with Northampton Town on Aug. 24.
Apparently Ledezma started again but left with an injury. It was on at 5:00 am so I didn’t watch. All I could find was a Dutch reporter that said Richie went off with the 3rd injury of the match. Hopefully not serious.
That. Sucks.
Larry tweeted just cramps, he’ll be fine. I’m sure they wanted to give Teze some farewell minutes so two birds one stone. Teze has been with PSV, 17 years since he was 8.
Both remaining Mexican teams – Mazatlan and Club America – went down last night in the Leagues Cup, both in PK’s. Mazatlan and Philly played to a 1-1 draw and went to PK’s, and the Union played most of the game with 10 men.
Club America and Colorado played in LA with America designated as the “home” side, and indeed, if there was a Colorado fan in the building I didn’t see them.
Big difference was the keepers. Andre Blake was better for Philly and made some stops in their shootout with Mazatlan. Zach Steffen and the Mexican keeper each made a save, but Steffen made his PK – yes, it went that far into the rotation – and the Mexican keeper missed his.
No Mexican teams made this year’s semis. Only one Liga MX team made the semis last year. I’ll repeat this – the three Mexican giants (America, Monterrey, Tigres) are very good squads as good as anything in MLS (there was a clear gap in quality between Club America and Colorado except at keeper) but by and large the rest of MLS is now ahead of Liga MX, and in some cases significantly ahead, and I think that gap is only going to
I’ll repeat this because it bears mentioning, especially in light of Horvath’s poor performance yesterday: Zach Steffen is absolutely back in USMNT form and for my money he’s the best keeper in our pool again; he looks like the keeper who went off to Europe and got picked up by Man City, not the stiff, slow-moving keeper who grimaced every time he moved we’ve seen the last 3-4 years. Obviously Man City broke him somehow – personally I think he had a lingering back injury – but he doesn’t look broken anymore, he looks like a huge, fluid, athletic keeper with the wingspan of a 747 who’s very comfortable on the ball and can boom it 80+ yards down the field and even spring a striker by bypassing the entire freaking other team if they cheat up too high.
I have no idea what happened to Steffen with Man City, but he very much looks like he’s back, and my eyes are telling me he’s ahead of Turner right now.
It’s hard to get really good holistic stats on keepers. I feel like things like PSXG are pretty limited. But I’ve generally liked ASA’s g+ for goalkeepers. It explictly takes into account all of what a keeper does and weights it together and it usually agrees pretty well with my eye test.
By that measure, Steffan has been the worst keeper in the league this year. And he’s having one of the worst season’s since they’ve been computing this stat.
I don’t watch Colorado much, but that tends to agree with both his prior history in MLS and what I’ve seen of him for both Columbus and the NT. He’s known for being big and athletic-looking, playing for a good Crew team, and being ok at pks. Other than that, his footwork is slow, his positioning is poor and he’s tended to be good for one really poor decision each game.
I think if we’re unhappy with Turner, we’re going to have to look to the younger players.
On the other hand, I absolutely agree that overall MLS > LigaMX.
Steffen’s sort of a weird case. I’d have agreed with every word you said the last 3-4 seasons. But the way he’d been moving (after he hurt his back at Man City, incidentally) has been off. To my eyes it looked like that back injury was lingering, but I’ve seen other folks claiming it’s psychological, that he’s second-guessing himself and getting that deer-in-the-headlights thing going and not trusting what his eyes are telling him. Or it might have been a bit of both. Regardless, his game collapsed at Man City and didn’t really recover at Middlesbrough last year. He also started this season in MLS wretched – there was one game I remember watching against Minnesota where he was flat terrible, let in three goals he probably should have had, and that deer-in-the-headlights thing was on full display. I actually remember feeling a little bad for him…it’s like: from Man City to crashing out in MLS, now that’s a cautionary tale.
So it’s been really surprising to me the way he’s been showing out lately. Maybe it’s a false dawn, but Steffen’s been really good the last few months and his body language and the way he’s moving is miles better. It’s definitely been like: okay, there he is.
I’d be genuinely curious to know what’s changed.
“I have no idea what happened to Steffen with Man City, but he very much looks like he’s back,”
That’s the problem with Steffen.
You don’t know if you are getting good Steffen or bad Steffen
Good is always in contention for the #1 USMNT job.
Bad is worthless.
The good news is that keepers last longer than outfield players so hopefully, he’s finally found a formula that works for him. It’s worth noting however, that Pochettino ( the former Chelsea manager after all) has said that Slonina can be one of the best in the world.
Q: I still wouldn’t count Liga Mx out yet. Most of the teams were rotating to some degree and even hosting in LA or Houston isn’t exactly home. When MLS is doing this in CL and Leagues Cup we can celebrate.
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I did think Zack looked more confident and composed than in recent years last night.
It appears Sheffield United has switched to a 2 CB formation this season and that Trusty is viewed as their 3 CB. At least the next League Cup match is in a couple weeks.
What a strike from Sargent.
Great strike, very lively performance, putting himself in dangerous positions. He honestly will be disappointed he didn’t have a few more goals as he had 4 or 5 really good chances a few headers that struck the post, 1 on 1 with the keeper etc.
Musah with an assist. Pulisic struggled a bit.
Reyna rode the Bench in the DFB Pokal.
“Why is this tactic preferred rather than booming it out the back and resetting the play?”
If you boom it out of the back, chances of losing possession are very much higher than recycling the ball back to the keeper. Completing a 5,10, 20 yd pass to a keeper is a lot easier and has a much higher rate of success than trying to complete a 50 yd pass to your target man center forward.
Ethan having a brain fart does not change that.
And no matter how far out you blast it, you’d be amazed how quickly that same ball, if recovered by the other side, is back in your half threatening your goal. As Pirlo used to say, the ball is much faster than the man.
Of course, like any strategy or tactic or anything else it life, the idea is to DO IT RIGHT. Ethan was not supposed to watch the ball roll into the net.
No doubt. I get that BUT it seems in my viewing (not imperial data) that there are FAR MORE mistakes AND goals conceded by “playing” out the back these days than I ever saw teams pick up the second ball and play through 10 players to score a goal.
Just seems very odd especially so when the risk is exponentially higher than the reward. Seems really dumb especially so when you don’t have a legitimate “sweeper” keeper and/or ball playing CB’s who are excellent with their feet to keep control and tempo in the game.
I have had the same impression. Somebody really should do a study on that.
TT3,
“BUT it seems in my viewing (not imperial data) that there are FAR MORE mistakes AND goals conceded by “playing” out the back these days than I ever saw teams pick up the second ball and play through 10 players to score a goal.”
Math.
When you play the ball directly, usually it involves fewer players.
That decreases the chances of errors. Especially if Ethan is not involved.
“Seems really dumb especially so when you don’t have a legitimate “sweeper” keeper and/or ball playing CB’s who are excellent with their feet to keep control and tempo in the game.”
As I said elsewhere, there are no dumb tactics, only dumb managers who ask their players to do something they can’t do. And regardless of how it feels to us, these kind of dumbass errors are NOT normal otherwise we would not pay so much attention when Ethan brain farts, though for him howlers like this seem routine.
“the risk is exponentially higher than the reward.”
Giving a gun to someone who is totally gun-ignorant is a fatally bad idea. Train them well, make them practice on a regular basis with said weapon and the risk drops greatly.
If, even after you train heavily, your guys continually can’t perform it properly, then a good manager wouldn’t keep asking his players to do it.
He would think of something else.
Gary, you don’t think these clubs have done the analytics on it. Playing out of the back hasn’t become the preferred method all over the world on a whim. I mean we saw the US give up a goal against Brazil this summer from a long ball, and in Canada in qualifying on a long ball. My Crew gave up a goal 16 seconds in tonight because the CB held it to long and his pass was deflected then collected and scored. But you live with it because of the many goals they get playing through defenses and leading to goals. If there was a perfect formation and strategy everyone would use that everytime.
Oooooooof! It is shocking how what used to be a stronghold for the USMNT is SOOOOOOOOOO BAD now! Question, how much of this is due to everyone playing more with their feet? Why is this tactic preferred rather than booming it out the back and resetting the play? Isn’t the goal to NOT concede?
I see more offensive attacks sprung from poorer touches and poor passes from the back than ever. Something doesn’t make sense about this to me.
Gotta stop living in the past. It‘s been a decade now. Nostalgia is what it is. Shock wore off for me a long time ago. Gotta deal with reality. That reality, welp, has Zach Steffen as someone we might have to look at again. All the last year has shown me is that solid, reliable, intense/fighting MLS regulars need to be looked at more for the Nats again. Especially the second tier/back up types. A guy like Aidan Morris, who could have gone with Canada, but wants to play for us is a fighter. We need more of those and if he can become a top player in the CShip should be used. Those play pretty second tier guys in Europe are over rated by many in the US because ya know…Europe. A fighter in a spot situation would be more effective IMO. With almost every US player being a dual Nat we are gonna lose plenty, and many never want to play for us anyway, but take up valuable youth spots along the way. That‘s why we need a few hardcore, committed fighters. I‘ll take a few of those guys any day of the week on a Nats squad.
TK,
What makes you think our euros, including those who are dual nats, did not have to fight like mad dogs to get to where they are? Why do you assume they are on easy street just waltzing into guaranteed jobs with their teams and living in luxury compared to their poor scrappy but hard fighting MLS brothers? Like Weston for example. You can tell how easy he has it.
A pro players first job is to secure a club position, because that is what pays the bills. Getting to play for a national team is just gravy on top of that and, if you become a regular, it can add to your revenue stream.
Your club job is more important because, no club job equals no USMNT job.
Your assumption that dual nats, if called up to play for their national team are going to phone it in is pretty strange.
Any player, as long as they are not stupid, may not work out but they will try to give you their best if called up for the USMNT.
Not because they “love baseball, hip hop, guns, hot dogs and apple pie, America,” although they might.
They will give it their very best because every time you play a game, everyone is recording you.
If you phone it in, if you fuck it up, someone who might be key to your future, a coach, a scout, a future teammate etc. might be watching. Professional soccer is a tough sport. A large part of players getting their jobs is based on their CV. Once the game starts if you aren’t completely committed, you run the risk of being exposed and embarrassed in a really bad way and shitting all over your CV.
Your opponent does not care if you play for the USMNT or for Azerbaijan. They will try to get over on you. It’s pretty hard to play at only 75% and avoid being run over.
Greg’s team was soft. There were three guys who I felt were legit hard, mean tough guys, Weston, DeAndre, and Kellyn. Being in MLS doesn’t mean you are any scrappier a fighter than a Weston in Europe.
Two of the best enforcers we ever had were dual nats, Jermaine & Pablo
TTX3,
“what used to be a stronghold for the USMNT is SOOOOOOOOOO BAD now!”
If your team is known primarily for its great keepers that often means the rest of the team is pretty mediocre. It’s a backhanded compliment.
The game has changed so even if we still had prime Friedel, Keller and Howard around, those guys would have been asked to alter their styles to fit the new one.
We don’t know how they would have done.
Keeper is still one of the lesser problems for Pochettino, assuming he takes over, Steffen is back and Pochettino thinks a lot of Slonina. Turner has time to find a club.