If you’ve been reading this site at all over the past couple months you’ll have seen the plus/minus grading system I’ve been working on. One of my frustrations with the system is that it seems to underrate “intelligent” players that aren’t necessarily on or around the ball all the time.

Which brings us to Aaron Long. He didn’t come out badly by any means on the +/- scale, but I still felt he should have been higher. That being the case, I decided to go back and rewatch the semifinal against Jamaica and the final against Mexico while focusing as much as possible only on Long.

First of all, it’s difficult to watch him because he’s almost always the furthest defender back and as such spends much of his time off camera (my kingdom for some all 22 footage). That being said, I did rewatch both games carefully and feel like I have a little better understanding of his game (at least how he functions for the USMNT).

He’s Dikembe Mutombo

What? Hang with me here for a minute. Mutombo was never the best basketball player in the world. He was probably never even the best center in the league, but could that man play some defense.

Aaron Long will never be confused with Mats Hummels, he’s not going to break lines too often, BUT he’s going to make scoring difficult for the other guys. His defense reminds me of a defensive center in basketball hovering in the paint. If you were looking for Long in these two games…find the penalty spot and he’ll be in that area.

He’s off screen a lot, but in this shot you can see him marking the Jamaican forward while the US is in possession.

Shuts down Raul Jimenez here. Too much to ask for a finger wag?

Strengths:

Fast/Anticipates well

I didn’t see Long get outrun in either one of these games. He doesn’t look super fast like guys like Yedlin do, but you don’t see anyone get away from him. To me, it looks like this is because he’s not only fast. He also recognizes danger coming very well. Between the anticipation and the athleticism he is able to prevent a lot of problems from ever happening.

Alert to the danger and in position to cut it out. Long wasn’t exactly manned up on Jimenez, but he covered him a lot and Jimenez barely got a sniff this game.

Bradley doesn’t have the speed to keep up. Long covers the passing option down the field, then breaks up the play. Also I’d have clipped more of this play but most of it was A CLOSE UP OF GUYS RUNNING. STOP IT.

Recognizes the danger and quickly gets over to cover.

Safety First

I just kept thinking of the word “safe” as I was watching these games. For a defender that’s a comforting adjective. He’s in position to prevent attacks, he’s always available for an easy pass from the goalkeeper, he doesn’t try too many tough passes that end in turnovers, etc. Look at this pass from Miazga.

There’s no way Long plays this ball. He taps it across to the other cb or back to the keeper.

Now look at Long’s version of a line breaking pass.

Good, but safe line breaking pass. Not his fault Jozy plays it to the wrong team.

Physicality

Even though I find him to be a conservative, safe defender, that doesn’t mean he isn’t ever aggressive. His judgment is good when he steps out. There were many occasions where Long stepped to win an aerial duel or to shut down a counter.

You’ll see a lot of this. He’s aggressive in stepping forward and winning these aerial duels. He lost one that I noticed.

More aggression. Steps to kill the counter, but Ream gets beat. Long catches up and fouls just enough to break up the play and not get a yellow.

The physical gifts also show up on corners. He got his head on a couple corners during these two games. Didn’t manage to get them on frame, but he’s a threat on set pieces.

Good redirection, not quite on target though.

Room to Improve

Passing

This was the biggest issue I noticed when I was grading these games. Long simply isn’t a great passer. That’s why Brooks was such a big miss for the Gold Cup. Miazga and Zimmerman are both better passers than Long, but neither of them are nearly as good as Brooks.

He’s not a ball-playing, dribble out of trouble CB. It looks like he’s upset with lack of movement from the team here, but he’s no David Luiz.

He’s not a great passer. He generally keeps it safe and plays the simple pass. His long balls are okay, but you’ll see a fair amount of these.

Walking back Mutombo

Dikembe Mutombo is one of the best defensive centers of all time. I’m not saying I think Long is the soccer version of that. He does make sporadic mistakes/get beat. Here’s a couple examples:

This is probably Long’s biggest “mistake” of the Mexico match. Bradley gets toasted by Pizarro and (if you want to be critical) he’s a split second late, but Jimenez whiffs. If you want to be generous you could say Long did enough to bother Jimenez into missing. I’d lean towards the former, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Set piece from foul. I think Long gets beat here. He hesitates for a moment and #10 gets behind him.

You could ding him here for not controlling the ball, but Ream’s pass got blocked and ended up with some really weird english on it. Long deals with it and shuts down Antuna. Nothing comes of the situation.

Summing it Up

In a perfect world your center back can do all the defensive things Long does and play the ball. However, the US is not France/Spain so having a defender like Long that can play like excellent defense in that “sweeper” role is a nice player to have.

For now, I think Long’s spot on the back line is written in ink. Hopefully his partner is Brooks for the passing ability or one of the young guys (Richards is the most likely imo) develops to the point that they can take that position for the 65% of the time when Brooks is out injured.

I’m also hopeful that there’s some substance to these Long to the Premier League rumors. It might sharpen up his passing and at the very least playing against super talented attackers will make him a better defender. Less than a month until the start of the euro leagues. 😊

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