On Tuesday night my children were in bed and my wife was teaching an evening class at our local community college. That being the case, I did what any normal man would do…I decided to watch and grade a Bundesliga game.😂

I’d watched a couple games for pleasure over the weekend and I certainly wasn’t going to voluntarily watch Werder again. Yikes. Blowouts didn’t appeal either, so Gladbach v. Mainz it was. Hey. Fabian Johnson started – let’s see if he’s got anything left in the tank.

If you haven’t read one of these before click here for an explanation of the grading system.

I have seen a little bit of Gladbach here and there, but this was the first time I’d sat down to watch one of their games closely this season. They are a lot of fun. They look how I imagine Gregg Berhalter wants the USMNT to play. The forward (Plea – more on him later 👀) drops into the midfield while the wingers and other midfielders make darting runs into space. The defenders carry the ball forward and play line splitting passes. It was flowing, beautiful soccer on many occasions. Marco Rose is a good coach – it remains to be seen how good Mr. Berhalter is. To the grades:

Completed Grades

No notes anymore – switched to a spreadsheet. Here’s a link if you’d like to check my work. 🤓

MOTM – Alassane Pléa (+24)

I’ve been doing this for 8 months now, which isn’t an eternity, but this is the highest grade I’ve given out so far. Pléa was awesome. He held up the ball and allowed teammates to run off of him, he scored two goals, and was generally un-guardable.

Anyone want to guess where he’s from? That’s right, France, where all good soccer players come from apparently. He also only has ONE cap for their senior team. Leave some good players for the rest of us, France.

Pléa created overloads all over the place. He dropped into the midfield with regularity, but also turned up on both wings throughout the game. Gladbach bought him from Nice for about $26 mil over the summer…if this game is any indication then they are going to have a hard time hanging onto him. Watch this goal. So good.

The fake-out 🔥

The finish 😱



Alassane Plea had us all fooled with this volley 😳 pic.twitter.com/5INDhWStDw — Bundesliga English (@Bundesliga_EN) January 29, 2020

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Other Notable Positives

Matthias Ginter (+14)

Ginter was excellent all game, but he especially shined in possession. He played line splitting passes all game and got Gladbach into great attacking situations with his passing. Ginter was +13 in possession events alone. He was very good in defense as well, but with Gladbach having 67% possession there wasn’t as much to do on that side of the ball. It got to the point where I don’t know why Mainz let him have any time on the ball. Elvedi wasn’t bad either, but at some point you gotta make someone else handle the ball.

This is in the 80th minute of a 2-1 game. Maybe put some pressure on the guy that’s been killing you?

Yann Sommer (+12)

This is a pretty high grade for a goalkeeper. Often a team with a lot of possession doesn’t give their keeper many opportunities for “events.” That was not the case for Sommer. His distribution was excellent and I credited him +5 for various involvements in Gladbach’s possession. However, Sommer also came up with a couple gigantic saves while the result was still in the balance. Mainz didn’t play real well, but they did enough that this match could have been a smash a grab job without Sommer’s intervention. This was the best of them imo.

Room to Improve

Denis Zakaria (-2)

I know I’ve watched games before and thought Zakaria looked good, but this wasn’t one of them. He only had 13 events, which isn’t great for a midfielder, but his passing was off. He gave the ball away seven different times by my count and one of them could easily have led to a goal. Mainz was pretty hopeless on offense so it didn’t come to anything, but against a better team that’s a really good opportunity for a counter.

Oscar Wendt (0)

This one feels a little harsh, but he was having some issues passing it to the wrong team as well. Wendt wasn’t super involved other than taking set pieces (he did have an assist on the set piece for Plea’s first goal). His defense was fine, not noticeably bad or good, but the passing mistakes in possession cost him over the course of the game. There was one particular pass when Gladbach was breaking up a Mainz counter where Wendt pretty much started the break for Mainz. Not a great game for the left back.

How’s Fabian doing?

Johnson was fairly anonymous in this game. He came out +2 with 12 graded events. He’s pretty much what we remember. Good going forward and not as good in defense. He wasn’t bad, but his man got behind him for Mainz’ goal. He still looks like he could contribute to the US, but unless he’s going to play left back and Berhalter suddenly wants attack out of that position it seems unlikely.

Could the USMNT play this way?

I think so? Obviously, Rose is a very good coach and gets to spend all season with his players. That’s one strike against. Also, Gladbach has two center backs that are good (Elvedi) to very good (Ginter) at carrying the ball forward and playing incisive passes. The US has Brooks (who has been benched by Wolfsburg?) and Tim Ream who can’t play together and Aaron Long – who is a good defender, but not a great passer. Maybe Gregg can make that work. Ginter did most of the passing for Gladbach. Strike two.

The other issue is striker. Altidore might be able to do a passable Plea impersonation if he was ever healthy, but counting on that seems pretty foolish. Which brings me to my next foolish hope…what would Jesus Ferreira look like in this role? He’s kind of a tweener. He played a 10ish role for FC Dallas last year so he would be comfortable dropping into midfield….strike three?

I don’t see what could go wrong with heaping pressure on a 19 year old that hasn’t even played for the national team yet. Can you?

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