US men's national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann may not have delved too deeply into the Olympic team's issues during CONCACAF qualifying, but one former US World Cup player did not shy away from the topic.
Former Chivas USA and USMNT midfielder John O'Brien, who played in a 4-3-3 formation during his time in the Netherlands, noticed problems with the tactics that Caleb Porter's Olympic team employed against El Salvador in the match in which they suffered humiliating elimination.
“You know in a 4-3-3 you’ll have a lot of players in front of the ball, and I noticed that they lost the ball easy and didn’t have guys in the right spaces,” O’Brien told Soccer America. “When they scored the equalizer, for a team that needs a result at that moment, we were very exposed. There weren’t many people behind the ball.”
O'Brien makes interesting points in the article, which continue to fuel the debate as to whether the 4-3-3 was to blame for the ouster.
