US Men take on Guinea in with place in Olympic Quarterfinals on the line
Setting the stage
We play Guinea in third and final group stage match. After our big win against New Zealand over the weekend, we have a great chance to advance. Here’s the latest group table, and scenarios for the USA to advance.
Group a Table
Scenarios for usa to advance
* If USA win by 1 and NZ win by 3, that would leave USA, France, and NZ all on 6 points with +1 goal difference. The next tie breaker is goals scored, which the USA would advance on, unless NZ v. France is a very high scoring game (again, with NZ winning by 3), which is unlikely.
Team usa updates
The Vibes are getting better
The energy around this team, and the energy for USA soccer fans in general, has dramatically improved since the France loss. We said initially that the France game wasn’t as bad as the scoreline indicated, and we think the data are beginning to bear that out. In fact, through two matches, the US Men have higher Expected Goals (xG) and lower Expected Goals Against (xGA) than any other team in the tournament. For those not familiar with those stats, it effectively means we’ve created lots of good scoring chances and prevented our opponents from doing so.
This is only a 2 match sample, and we certainly aren’t trying to say we’re better than France, Argentina, or Spain, but this is a genuinely encouraging stat. Let’s hope the team can keep it up.
busio injury update
Central midfielder Gianluca Busio left the New Zealand game late in the first half with what looked like a hamstring pull. He’s been bothered by that muscle since late in the season for Venezia. He didn’t sound too concerned after the match, and as we noted, we don’t think starting Jack McGlynn would be all that big a drop off anyway.
We’ll see. It’s just the same one I’ve been dealing with for a while. But I don’t think it’s anything too serious
Other than potentially needing to replace Busio, we aren’t expecting any other lineup changes from head coach Marko Mitrovic.
Guinea scouting report
Guinea has been dangerous in attack in their first two matches, but looked disorganized defensively. Just look back at their position on the xGA metric above, they are among the worst teams in the tournament. Guinea has to win big in order to advance, so they will have to open up and go for goals at some point which will leave their defense exposed.
In prior matches we have observed their defense pulled out of position easily so we would like to see the attacking set up we mentioned in our review of the New Zealand match, which features forwards that would interchange and be difficult to track. At a minimum, that would involve benching Mihailovic for Yow, and moving Aaronson to the center attacking midfield (CAM) role. We would also be comfortable with Aaronson at center forward, playing a false 9, and putting any of Yow, Booth, or Paredes in the CAM spot.
Our top players to watch on Guinea are:
naby keita (Mid)
Keita is ex-Liverpool, having played for Jurgen Klopp there for 5 seasons. He was mostly a role player, never starting more than 16 matches, but a Liverpool role player in those years means something. He now plays for Werder Bremen, but only made 5 appearances last season due to a combination of injury, illness, and being away on African Cup of Nations duty. He has performed well in the first two matches but not at the standard we’d have expected from Guinea’s flag bearer.
amadou diawara (MID)
Diawara scored Guinea’s only goal thus far this tournament. He’s a role player for Anderlecht, one of the perennial Champions League / Europa League teams from the Belgian Pro Ligue.
That’s about it honestly. The rest of the starters this tournament are on the books of European teams but aren’t playing consistently. While they have been among the better performers for Guinea, they haven’t been among the better performers in the tournament. This is a match the USA should win.
prediction: usa 3 - 1 guinea
We’re rolling back out the same predicted scoreline as from our New Zealand preview, 3-1 USA. Guinea’s defense has been disorganized thus far in the tournament, and it shows in their xGA stats. We back the US Men to continue to create opportunities, and to put a few away. We’d love to see some US names – particularly Aaronson – climbing up the golden boot table by the end of this one.
As noted above, we think Guinea will have to press high up the pitch, as they must come out and try to win this game by two in order to have any chance of advancing. They have the ability to hurt us, so we think they’ll sneak at least 1 past goalkeeper Patrick Schulte, but their defense will not be able to cope when they are exposed. We expect a fairly high scoring match, and in the USA’s favor. Gambling markets seem to agree, with the over/under at 3 goals and the USA favored by a goal. Go USA!
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