The Importance of Alphonso Davies

[Bison44]

It was a weak penalty..should have done better. I understand it, and why herdman lets palyers decide, but i dont buy all that.  There should be a guy or two that have the green light, maybe Davies is one of them, but I was screaming at the tv for David to take it.  Sometimes it seems like Davies tries a little too hard to take over games, a little too much "hero" ball when he doesnt need to.  He shouldnt be taking free kicks and corners either.  As he matures he'll learn to pick his spots, god knows he has the skills to pull off miracles.  Hopefully this doesnt stick with him and we can pot a goal or two against croatia, put this in the rearview mirror.  

[imoffside]

Imo David should be taking pens, but David seemed a bit nervous throughout the game as well. Thought some of his passes and shots weren't as sharp as we're used to. No guarantee he scores if he takes it, and if he did miss maybe we'd be saying why isn't Davies on it.

Either way, hurts to look back in hindsight

[SthMelbRed]

3 minutes ago, imoffside said:

Imo David should be taking pens, but David seemed a bit nervous throughout the game as well. Thought some of his passes and shots weren't as sharp as we're used to. No guarantee he scores if he takes it, and if he did miss maybe we'd be saying why isn't Davies on it.

Either way, hurts to look back in hindsight

The more I think about it, Junior should have taken it.

[canuckgbp]

Part of being a great leader is knowing when to delegate. Davies will learn from this. 
 

Everyone misses penalties but going with takers will do it for their club just makes sense. 
 

David, Junior or Vitoria are all good shouts. Latin when he subbed on. 
 

We didn’t get the two other penalty shouts this game but I wonder who lines up. 

[ADP10]

It was not the right choice in terms of penalty taker, but it takes guts to step up at a World Cup and take a pen. I’m not mad at him for taking iniative and doing this

[YorkRegionFan]

Davies is showing us that he is learning as a footballer. In the previous friendlies, he was playing hero ball too much.  In this game , I noticed that there were times he passed off to a teammate instead of trying to take the opposition all by himself.  I have no doubt that he will analyze how he could have done better.  

With great players, you let them make the decisions on the field.  More often than not, that decision will not lead to anything, but for the great players, their moment of brilliance is absolutely breathtaking. 

[DeRo_Is_King]

51 minutes ago, SthMelbRed said:

The more I think about it, Junior should have taken it.

Or maybe even Eustaquio. 

[Kent]

I will never understand the "let the players figure it out on the field" approach. In my mind you have a ranking of players to take penalties. Start at the top and if that player is on the field and not feeling the nerves, he takes it. If he is feeling too nervous about it he says no and the next guy on the list takes it. When I was growing up I was mostly a central defender, I didn't score goals, but I could place a penalty well and my coaches believed I could handle pressure. So I was the penalty taker for my team and scored every penalty for years, whether in game or in shoot outs. If it was up to the players to choose there is no way I would have been able to convince the cool kids that were playing up front and scoring most of our goals that I should take the kick.

Similar situation here I am sure. I would have rather seen David, Vitoria, or Hoilett take the penalty. But Davies feels obligated to take it because he is the face of the team, even though he doesn't take penalties. Who is going to say no when Davies asks for the penalty? It would be easy for everyone on the team to do it if the coach says Vitoria is our PK taker.

[Kent]

Just now, Kent said:

I will never understand the "let the players figure it out on the field" approach. In my mind you have a ranking of players to take penalties. Start at the top and if that player is on the field and not feeling the nerves, he takes it. If he is feeling too nervous about it he says no and the next guy on the list takes it. When I was growing up I was mostly a central defender, I didn't score goals, but I could place a penalty well and my coaches believed I could handle pressure. So I was the penalty taker for my team and scored every penalty for years, whether in game or in shoot outs. If it was up to the players to choose there is no way I would have been able to convince the cool kids that were playing up front and scoring most of our goals that I should take the kick.

Similar situation here I am sure. I would have rather seen David, Vitoria, or Hoilett take the penalty. But Davies feels obligated to take it because he is the face of the team, even though he doesn't take penalties. Who is going to say no when Davies asks for the penalty? It would be easy for everyone on the team to do it if the coach says Vitoria is our PK taker.

And I have to add. I think if you go to sleep the night before (or many nights before) knowing you are the penalty taker, you will be more equipped to deal with the pressure when the moment comes.

[Floortom]

2 hours ago, DeRo_Is_King said:

Or maybe even Eustaquio. 

Does Steph ever take penalties?

I feel we’re overthinking this. Jonathan David is the most obvious choice to take it and he should be the default penalty taker. If he’s off, then Larin , vitoria and Hoilett are options. 

[Kadenge]

someone had recently posted the stats on penalties taken by our players at club and for the nats. Can't remember where it was. I dont think Hoilett's numbers were good. Vitoria's may have been the best iirc

[DeRo_Is_King]

7 hours ago, Floortom said:

Does Steph ever take penalties?

I feel we’re overthinking this. Jonathan David is the most obvious choice to take it and he should be the default penalty taker. If he’s off, then Larin , vitoria and Hoilett are options. 

I agree David is/was the most obvious choice and the guys you mentioned are options. To my knowledge, Eustaquio has not taken penalties traditionally, but he has been scoring / takes set pieces and could become an option imo. 

[Bertuzzi44]

20 hours ago, Dominic94 said:

I thought it was a good penalty against the best goalkeeper in the world. 

It was a poor penalty. 

If you want to see a much better taken penalty, see Bale's vs the United States. Much more power, making it very difficult for the keeper to stop.

[MtlMario]

"Beware of what you wish for". We were all super happy when we learned Davies would start in the first game (played one the worst games I've seen him play yesterday) but I wonder if he did not play if the result would of been different (better).

[Bertuzzi44]

You are implying Canada is better without Alphonso Davies?

[rydermike]

7 minutes ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

You are implying Canada is better without Alphonso Davies?

Overall, I would say no, but at times, it is better when he's not there. Same with Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo. Sometimes,when you have a player who is far beyond the level of the rest, you end up deferring too much to that player and at times we defer and give the ball too much to Phonzie, rather than just playing normal team ball. Yes, that player can take over games with their skill, but there's certain times where we look for them/give them the ball because of who they are rather than another player who is actually a better option

[Ansem]

Continuing the same train of thought - he's way more disciplined and a team player at Bayern than with the national team. We are much better with him but he's a better "individual" player at Bayern. If he played like that with us, we'd be way more dangerous.

[fookisan]

28 minutes ago, Ansem said:

Continuing the same train of thought - he's way more disciplined and a team player at Bayern than with the national team. We are much better with him but he's a better "individual" player at Bayern. If he played like that with us, we'd be way more dangerous.

I totally agree! 
at Bayern there is no way he wouldn’t trackback. Yesterday there was times he was lazy or tired and should have gotten back to help and he didn’t. I was disappointed by that. 

[farrelld]

1 hour ago, Ansem said:

Continuing the same train of thought - he's way more disciplined and a team player at Bayern than with the national team. We are much better with him but he's a better "individual" player at Bayern. If he played like that with us, we'd be way more dangerous.

Continuing on this, Jeremy Filosa from Montreal wrote a piece today saying the same thing and how his sources say it's starting to irritate some people on the team. 

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by farrelld

[VinceA]

8 minutes ago, farrelld said:

Continuing on this, Jeremy Filosa from Montreal wrote a piece today saying the same thing and how his sources say it's starting to irritate some people on the team. 

 

😬 Can't say I didn't see this coming. Sandor pointed at this when he talked about the image rights issue and how Davies' situation was basically it's own thing and that players were annoyed with how negotations were going in part due to Davies' camp.

Not to mention the more subtle sign that on Instagram players usually big up each other but Davies' doesn't seem to get that, nor give it. 

[GasPed]

15 minutes ago, farrelld said:

Continuing on this, Jeremy Filosa from Montreal wrote a piece today saying the same thing and how his sources say it's starting to irritate some people on the team. 

 

Hmm... ...is this author to be trusted (i.e. his "sources" are credible)?  I personally thought Phonzie was quite good this game - not over-dribbling, making good/smart plays and choices, and I'm not sure which players would've or could've been irritated by it.  Maybe the game last year in Edmonton against CR, but this one?  I don't see it.

Edited November 24, 2022 by GasPed

[Kadenge]

Let's not create a storm in a teacup people. 

[VinceA]

6 minutes ago, GasPed said:

Hmm... ...is this author to be trusted (i.e. his "sources" are credible)?  I personally thought Phonzie was quite good this game - not over-dribbling, making good/smart plays and choices, and I'm not sure which players would've or could've been irritated by it.  Maybe the game last year in Edmonton against CR, but this one?  I don't see it.

Filosa has 30k followers on Twitter. I don't know whether that helps or not. Perhaps someone from Quebec is more familiar with his work.

I think the Uruguay game is a more telling tale of where that frustration comes from. That game was filled with 2nd half hero ball. It seems to manifest when we are losing.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

8 minutes ago, GasPed said:

Not sure why you think that was one of the worst games you've seen him play (I thought he was fine, and I've certainly seen worse from him), but I really don't think we'd be better without him.  The way we were able to dominate Belgium on on the flanks with him and Tajon as the biggest threats

 

Hmm... ...is this author to be trusted (i.e. his "sources" are credible)?  I personally thought Phonzie was quite good this game - not over-dribbling, making good/smart plays and choices, and I'm not sure which players would've or could've been irritated by it.  Maybe the game last year in Edmonton against CR, but this one?  I don't see it.

Echo this. 

We are not Bayern Munich, he can do better with his decisions (this was better than some games) but he also cannot expect the same things from our players as he can from his club teammates. 

Objective and cynical football viewers in England were still raving about a lot of his play even after the miss.

He was one big part of the problem yesterday, he missed a penalty and it was a poor penalty.  However, we had ample chances, many of which he helped make, to score goals. We did not convert. That was our big problem, not his play, save that one moment. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[BearcatSA]

15 minutes ago, Kadenge said:

Let's not create a storm in a teacup people. 

I'm tuning out the needless noise here.