Post-match: USA vs. Brazil - June 12, 2024

Did you find those goals per 90' numbers for McKennie and Aaronson in the USA kit? You seem to be freally good with the numbers. Should be easy.

 

Just to comment on some upstream discussion, in this past season's UCL, Malik Tillman had 3 goal contributions. He had 1 assist and 2 drawn pk's. Uefa lists these separately. Transfermarkt counts drawn pk's as assists. 3 goal contributions in 500 minutes of UCL play is good stuff, especially when his team had been outmanned.

Showing a big improvement in UCL play would boost his sale's values.

 

Yeah, they're not good.

Here, I'll use the googly-masheen for you.


Of the forwards in the pool, club stats, courtesy FBREF:

Brenden Aaronson: 2 measly Goals, 2 measly assists
Josh Sargent: 16 Goals, 2 measly assists

Folarin Balogun: 7G/5A
Ricardo Pepi: 7G/2A
Christian Pulisic: 12G/8A
Timothy Weah: 0G/1A* [Played 21 of 30 matches as a WB or FB for Juventus]
Haji Wright: 16G/6A

As you can see, Brenden Aaronson only outproduced 1 of the other nominal forwards in the roster, but that guy played as a WB/FB mostly.

As mentioned over and over again to you, Brenden Aaronson has not accomplished much as a player at his position.

But you can easily read the summation that was posted upthread, amirite?

Here's a better question for you:

Were the points summarized upthread accurate?
[HINT: Yes, they were.]

Which explains your underdeveloped googly skillz.

 

Why would we compare a nominal AMF/FWD, to a box-to-box #8?

Why not compare players that [nominally, anyway] play the same role?

 

Checking Transfermarkt, for the game entries in which position is listed, Aaronson as 5 goals 4 assists in 15 games worth of international minutes in the attack. Those are good numbers

 

You just got on Excellency for comparing Aaronson and McKennie because they play different positions, but so does Aaronson and the strikers you listed. Dude...

And, every single one of the players you mentioned are on high-table teams in their leagues, not relegation battlers.

 

BA with 8 G and 6 A in 1,974 minutes. The toughest competition ones being the goal against Canada and the goal against Morocco. Last cycle his avg goal came against a 1,625.5 Elo point team and the average assist came against a 1,528 Elo point team. That’s somewhere between the 56th to 57th ranked team for his avg goal and the 75th to 76th ranked team for his avg assist. For reference Pulisic was the same for goals and 51st to 52nd for assists. Reyna was 41st for goals and 47th to 48th for assists. Weah was 42nd for goals and 13th for assists.

 

Sure.

And, its a much more cogent comparison, like for like, positionally.

And maybe Berlin wouldn't be a relegation struggle, if Aaronson was better at his job.

 

3 assists in CL in 2023-2024 , and a goal and an assist in CL qualifying in the summer of '22.

I'm guessing he isn't getting the assists on fbref because they don't credit the fact that he earned the PK's Luuk scored against Sevilla and Dortmund, transfermarkt gives him those assists.

In '22-'23 he did the business that qualified Rangers for the CL for the first time in eons, scoring in the first leg and providing the clinching assist that sent them through to the Group stage (I think it was close to a decade or maybe more, I forget which) in the 2nd leg.

 

There's a lot of room for agreement and disagreement in "went well". I think Colombia were clearly the better side during the first hour plus, but it was a competitive match that we were losing, the last 25 or so, we just fell apart, it appeared to be at least mostly due to subs. I'm also not married to this take either, at some point we just started getting smashed in the head repeatedly like a villain in an old Stalone/Arnold movie, before that, we were in it, but not the better side.

 

Youre going to get credit when you actually look good in a home and away against Bayern Munich with Red Bull Salzburg. He's the only player that impacted the scoreline across both legs (which is weird for him because he isn't really a box filler). Additionally, he had 3 more goal contributions in qualifying RBS for the Group Stage. As for Pefok, he did well for Young Boys too, sure, one of the goals, the Man U one, was a poachers steal off a bad pass, but he did score against Manchester United and Atalanta and added another 4 goal contributions in qualifying Young Boys for the Group Stage, something they don't often do. They were both good. In Pefok's case, he's probably a mid to low end big 5 league striker whose clearly system limited due to pace issues, while Brendan is limited due to littler brothering issues, and the fact that he's very system specific too.

 

Fair points.

 

He'll get CL, so at least there's that. Too bad Dest got hurt, for innumerable reasons, but also for the sale to PSV, so frustrating he got hurt with like 2 weeks left in the season when there was no reason to really even be playing...PSV is stronger going into next season w/o the injury, and they're a better CL team too. Hopefully he gets a move after this coming season.

 

Hopefully, Barca have improved their physio dept. Those guys basically wrecked Ansu Fati's rehab and career.

 

The discussion on Aaronso is interesting if only because no matter what you think of him, there hasn't really been a viable replacement named in the whole discussion.

Pulisic and Weah are the starters -- and no one has said Aaronson is better than Pulisic. Maybe one person has started him over Weah, I think, but the counterargument is the lack of goal productivity at club? Well don't look at Weah's club record, then

But regardless, the other wingers in the pool right now are Haji Wright, somewhat, and who? Kevin Paredes? Taylor Booth? You can move Reyna there but we've seen the team struggle with Pulisic and Reyna both as playmaking wingers who come inside. Dest is another option but hurt.

Haji's at least got the numbers, but at a lower level. But after Pulisic, Weah and Haji ... isn't Aaronson clearly the best answer? You don't have to believe in his goal scoring to even go there. If one backup is Haji, having another backup who defends is a great complement, and the fact that he can deputize in the midfield is another plus on a roster.

Workrate isn't his own skill -- he has a great half-turn and he's got some of the better vision on the team on the break. But even if it was, it's a really valuable one. We are going to have to defend. And as much as he needs to improve in front of goal, most of our other winger options don't even get a shot off on that play versus Brazil but I don't think any of them aside from maybe Christian are making that run.

 

For the wide players:
Left wing: Balogun, Wright
Right wing: Pulisic, Aaronson, Weah

Pulisic: had a career year mostly playing on the right at Milan.

Balogun: the 4th fastest(35.97 km/h) player in last season's Ligue 1. He prefers drifting to the left to start his attacks. He has played on the left at club level. Playing on the left for the US might unlock his scoring potential.

Aaronson: 5g 4a in 15 games worth of minutes in the attack for the US. He's been quality in the attack for the team.

Wright: not many minutes in wide positions for the US. He obviously had a monster year mainly playing on the left at club level.

Weah: 6g 4a in 29 games worth of minutes for the US. Gregg loves him. Whatever. At least he defends well from wide positions. But if pressing/defending/midfield possession is emphasized at striker, then it makes little sense to start Weah in the attack.

 

Exactly.

Aaronson didn't play forward for Union Berlin. He played right or left midfielder in a 352. Why are you comparing him then to forwards? T

To be perfectly correct, Union's 2 best strikers left in Jan window and towards the end of the season Aaronson was played 2 times as forward and provided the assist which kept them in the BL on the last day of the season. Check out Fotmob's site to see how players lined up each match.

 

Aaronson has more skills than just hustle. He's elite at off the ball movement and pressing. Maybe in distance covered. Those are all somewhat esoteric stats but he's the type of player who makes others look better even though his stats aren't that impressive. He's also still improving and also has a lot of younger players chasing him. Winger is a bright spot at U23 and U20. So Aaronson needs to keep ahead of the pack or we're discussing those guys and their failings in a couple of years.

 

Yes, they (Opta who provides data to FBref along with a host of clubs) don’t credit him for things that aren’t assists or didn’t happen during the CL proper. Against the non-top 4 league clubs that populate the qualifying rounds I would expect him to do better.

 

I don't think Aaronson makes his teammates better. That's an interesting and subtle topic. It is different from being a good complementary player (which is how I would describe Aaronson).

I would take Paredes right now over Aaronson, having watched both quite a bit last season. He is quicker and in spite of also being a slight player is more likely to draw the foul than to be pushed off the ball.

 

The subjective opinion consensus is that we were poor to start, then did well from around the middle of the first half until the 60th, when it started going in the wrong direction before falling apart.

Giovanni “Gio” Reyna US National Team Discussion

 

I would suggest watching the games to see how players played and then if one were to have to rely on a secondary source look to German based site TransferMarkt for lineups, especially in the BL. They aren’t perfect but they do a better job than FotMob. Most of Aaronson’s minutes came in the 2nd half of the season and so there were more minutes in some more attacking roles, so some more AM or defend as CM attack as AM.

 

1801710569520775365 is not a valid tweet id

This is who is responsible for giving Scally a 3 match rating at ESPN.

 

In starts in non-defensive positions*, career in top 5 leagues:

Weah .25 xG/90 + .15 xA/90
Brendo .13 xG/90 + .11 xA/90

*many sites list RWBs as RMs, Lille played a 442 where Tim actually played RM so it’s hard to break it out and this sample might include some time at WB.

 

Paredes vs Aaronson: One is left-footer who plays LB, LWB, and LF. The other is a right footer who plays RF, FW, and CM. These players have almost no overlap in position or skillset.

Aaronson rose to prominence as 'system player' who has simply needed to expand his game and improve his physicality. He has good record as an attacker for the National Team. Paredes could compete with Lund, however.