In the lead up to the Copa America semifinal, Alejandro Bedoya wrote an article for the Players’ Tribune. In it he talks about what makes this edition of the U.S. national team special. He writes of how great Clint Dempsey is, how the team has learned to not listen to the negative press and how they could approach the game against Argentina.
We don’t know if Argentina is beatable because the USMNT didn’t even have a plan
Does an in-form Argentina beat the United States 99 times out of 100? Probably. But the USMNT could have bothered to pick a game plan and stick to it.
He states, while detailing a situation where him and Geoff Cameron watched Argentina beat Venezuela 4-1, that Argentina was beatable. He presents a valid tactic on how to accomplish this:
“But in the match Geoff and I saw, Leo was given a lot of space and a lot of time on the ball,” Bedoya wrote. “The U.S. is just not going to play him like that.”
Some things are much easier said than done, but the optimism was admirable. Not just because Argentina hasn’t lost any game in Copa America so far, which makes the notion that they are beatable hopeful, but because his idea about a plan to beat Argentina is correct. His statement also implies that the team knew this and had a plan in place.
Argentina can beat the United States and most countries without Lionel Messi. But when Messi plays, their attacks are naturally directed through him. He is their catalyst. Stopping him is the first step in an arduous list of things that must be done to have success against them. And not affording him space is the biggest caveat in that initial step.
Chile knew this in 2015, and so did Germany in 2014. Both teams made it paramount to suffocate the world’s best player at every turn. Bedoya and Cameron seemed to suggest that the United States would follow a similar ideal.
Argentina’s first goal came from a short corner that Ever Banega played to Ezequiel Lavezzi. As Lavezzi tried to take the ball towards goal from the left, it was poked out to the top of the box. The ball fell to Messi, who was in so much space that he may as well have been Felix Baumgartner.
It wasn’t as if he moved to that area while everyone was distracted. He was already standing there from the onset. Yet, there seemed no plan to restrict his access to the ball, nor was there anyone even remotely close to him to begin with. He was free by design from Argentina, but may as well have been from the United States.
Messi got the ball, clipped it over the defense who had began to push out, to Lavezzi, who made a run towards goal. Lavezzi headed it to the near-post, flat-footing Brad Guzan and sending a warning of what was to come.
Messi was constantly given too much space. He often dropped deep, which may have given the idea that he was becoming less of a threat, but that’s a clear deceit. It is only true of less talented forwards. His creative ability, both passing and dribbling, makes him dangerous from anywhere, and thus he should be under duress everywhere.
But he wasn’t. Several times he even stood still with the ball at his feet and the nearest defender 10 yards off. You give any good player that much time on the ball, and they will hurt you. You afford that privilege to Lionel Messi, and it’s sporting suicide.
The second goal was unstoppable. That was Messi being petty with his genius. But the free kick being awarded in the first place was another piece of evidence that showed how naive the United States was going into the match.
If Bedoya actually watched Argentina play, he and the rest of the team should have known that they press very hard after losing the ball. It doesn’t make them special when compared to the other semifinalists, but it is a big part of their game. Yet, in his postgame interview, DeAndre Yedlin admitted that while the pressing didn’t completely surprise them, the US wasn’t as prepared for it as they should have been.
And it showed. The second goal came after Chris Wondolowski was hounded into a turnover in his defensive third. He then had to foul Messi in order to redeem himself and stop the chance at goal. Messi then made the effort futile with a sublime free-kick.
The third one came from another turnover. Cameron stepped into the midfield to win a loose ball, but was forced to give it back up just as quick. Messi collected it, and under no pressure at all, even though Beckerman was right next to him, sent the ball out wide. It was then crossed in and Gonzalo Higuain managed to score after his second try. John Brooks had lost sight of the forward while ball-watching.
Messi's creative ability makes him dangerous from anywhere, and thus he should be under duress everywhere.
The last one came from a Michael Bradley mistake. Bradley was forced all the way back into a right-back position by Argentina’s pressure. To save himself, he made a pass into the center for Cameron. It was a hospital ball into space.
As the pass is being made, Javier Mascherano is already sprinting to close it down, so by the time it got to Steve Birnbaum, it had become a 50-50 ball. Birnbaum shies away, thinking Mascherano is going to go for it. The ball rolls past both of them and Messi is there to pick it up. Messi takes it forward and then reverses the ball into the center for a wide-open Higuain. 4-0.
The outcome of the game was decided when the two teams were drawn against each other. If they repeated this match 100 times, Argentina is likely to win 99 of them. But that’s no excuse to not have a plan coming into it. It’s not negativity to suggest that the United States was the underdog, that’s just reality. Most teams are underdogs against Argentina. The trick is to try to succeed within that limitation.
If the intention is to take the game to them, which many fans, members of the national team and the first few minutes before and after the first goal seemed to suggest, then it has to be done wholeheartedly. You press them as a team, like Chile did. You cut off passing lines, foul to stop attacks and make the game as uncomfortable for them as possible. You may still lose, the game is cruel that way, but it’s a much better route to success.
On the other hand, there is also no shame in playing within your means. With the facts being that Argentina is the better team, and is in possession of the best player in the world, a more conservative approach is not just intelligent but blindly obvious. Concede possession, because they will have it anyways, and try to get a goal on the counter. Trap and surprise. This takes discipline and patience, but most of all, an acceptance of your ability in relation to your opponent’s. Playing to Argentina’s strengths is not courageous, it’s stupid.
But the folly of pride meant that the United States was caught in that no-man’s land. They wanted to press Argentina and to go “toe-to-toe” with the world’s best team, but crumbled after the first few failures. They wanted to deny Messi time on the ball, but instead gave him eternity after he wriggled out of the initial traps.
But they also refused to sit back. They invited the Argentines into dangerous spaces in the attacking third. They constantly lost sight of Messi and the other forwards, while hoping to be saved by the linesman, a mishit ball or a last-ditch tackle.
Anxiety defeated idealism. Argentina was able to see the game out without being bothered too much. The results were: no shots on goal, countless turnovers — Kyle Beckerman and Bradley especially — in the middle of the field, errors from every member of the team and a lasting stench of fear and shame from a disjointed performance.
There was little chance of winning the game, but that’s no excuse to go into it blind. Bedoya seemed to have an inclination of what to do. And while it is much harder in execution, having that foundational purpose, based on your ability and means, and following it even after the first few disappointments is how you succeed at anything. Not by being “American,” whatever that vague term suggests, or by substituting tactics with purposeless effort.
That’s how you’re left running around aimlessly as the goals continue to come. It’s how you lose a game without Argentina even getting out of first gear. And it’s much more embarrassing to lose this way than because Argentina were simply better.
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