Post-match: International Friendly: USA vs Jamaica; June 5th 2019

I agree with your assessment that the players above do not have the quality for the international level, at least as of yet. I still keep an open mind about how players can still develop and provide something positive to the national team in the future; but as of now, they do not help enough to be in.

However, I should make an addendum:
- Robinson is better than he showed yesterday
- Trapp has the ability for some decent distribution, but at this level he will not have enough time and space to do so which makes his contribution limited given his skill set. In my mind he's not what we need on the national team; but, the manager is comfortable with him and seems to favor him, so I do not expect Trapp to be excluded from the national team going forward.

 

The first time I saw Ream in a NT jersey I never wanted to see him again. How is this guy still around?

 

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear - it's not that all minor league players can't make the jump, it's that only a select few can make it. Right now, the important discernment is to find out which players cannot make it.

If we use the first six month of Berhalter's regime to say that these guys can't make it so let's move on, that's progress.

 

The point is to not pick favorites. Do they need to be sent to Siberian gulag? Nope but they should be sent to the back of the bench at a minimum.

Let's see how much Gold Cup playing time Trapp and Robinson receive.

 

Yep. A good goalie inspires confidence. A weak one creates fear. We're spoiled with having a run of really top flight goalkeepers for the US--Friedel, Keller, Howard. There's just no one at that level right now and from the perspective of a fan (let alone how it affects the team dynamic) it really reduces my confidence in the team as a whole.

In mild defense of Steffen, he did a lot of things wrong but he did have a few moments when he bailed out defensive errors with pretty decent stops. But his overall play was still very shaky.

 

One other takeaway from this game. When will the USMNT learn to take shots!?

How many times do we need to see the US goalie taking the ball out of the net from a 20 yard shot before it sinks in that those actually work?

 

I could quote a bunch of posts for this, but I chose yours.

Here’s a lot of talk of him forcing players into his system. But his system in Columbus featured outstanding wide play (by MLS standards and considering his budget.) Afful is a very good attacking fullback in the league, guys like Findlay and Meram were good, etc.

The style he is employing with the US eschews using the flanks. So IMO it’s not accurate to say this is his style. It’s just a terrible assessment and deployment of the available talent.

And to follow up on a point someone made about Steffen’s distribution...he did much of the same stuff in MLS.

I’m a Wee Willie Keeler fan. He’s a baseball player from the 19th century whose motto was, hit it where they ain’t. We did he opposite of that; when Jamaica defended with at least 5 guys in our third and at least two other over 10 yards into out half (I couldn’t see the bottom of the screen), they WANT us to play the ball short, where the numbers are good for their chances to force a turnover. The right play is to go for a long 50-50 ball. Sure, it’s only a 50-50 ball but if you win it you’re 3v3 in the other team’s half. The reward is worth the risk.

There’s a bit of analogy with the U 20s. When we obsess with short passing we don’t do as well as when we mix in medium range passes.

This crew didn’t mix in those other linger passes.

 

1) Very very few positives from this one (if any). They deserved to be booed.

2) I eagerly await the announcement of the cut list.

 

The fact that Jamaica's MLS, USL and Jamaica based players were good enough should kill the MLS blame. The US loses to guys who would like a MLS contract.

 

My picks for the biggest losers of the match are Mihailovic and Robinson, both of whom could have played themselves into the 23 but (IMO) did not succeed.

Other players with disappointing performances (Steffen, Trapp, Roldan, Arriola) should be safe.

 

MLS blame?

Everyone here, rightfully, is pointing out Robinson's terrible game. At a minimum he (and other poor performers) should go to the end of the bench.

 

Probably when the other team starts running out Michael Bradley or Will Trapp at defensive midfielder.

 

I hate how accurate this is. The thing that newly sucks, I believe, is the sense that the team is declining both in absolute terms and relative to our local competition. The MNT never played like Brazil, sure, but they were a scrappy side that got the job done against regional opponents as necessary and sometimes raised their game against elite opponents. Bottom line, their whole was greater than the sum of their parts, and this was encouraging to see if not aesthetically ideal.

What it looked like throughout last cycle and again last night was a team that was regressing before our eyes. Whether the talent level is lower in some objective sense is debatable (in the sense of "people debate it frenetically and I don't want to get into that here) but what's not debatable is that the results are poorer. Even the second-rate sides we often sent would make it to the GC final (2009, 2011); hell, sometimes they even won (2005).

I also totally reject the argument that we used to get results against regional opponents because they were much weaker in the past and the difference is that they've improved a lot and we're about the same. We used to get results against Jamaica, at least a tie on the road (2001 WCQ, 2005 WCQ semis) or sometimes a win (2003 friendly, 2013 hex) which is no mean feat because the Office is a tough place to play. And we usually won (2001 WCQ) or at least tied (2005 WCQ semis) at home.

I've watched Concacaf for about 20 years and I'm not at all convinced that the Jamaica teams that have started to out play us--not just beat us but clearly outplay us--are leagues better than earlier teams. Jamaica qualified for the WC in 1998 but we still handled them in the early 2000s. Jamaica got to the hex in 2013 but we got six points against them there. By contrast, the team that beat us in the 2015 GC didn't make the hex two years later.

This is not to say that Jamaica is not good or not improving; they're clearly impressive and probably better than they were in recent years. It's to say that the reason I share @Suyuntuy's toaster + bathtub feeling after last night's game is that I think the clear trend is that the US is getting worse both absolutely and relative to the competition. Jamaica is only one example of this.

And with the GC a couple weeks away, I hope that in early July I can return to this post and be all like "Wow I was totally wrong and the US is fine, I overreacted." I think this is all true but I would love to be wrong. Time will tell.

 

The Gold Cup is a giant waste of time. THey mentioned last night that we beat Jamaica in the final in 2017. I've been a fan of the US for a long time. I didn't remember that one bit, to the point that I thought that was an error when they first mentioned it. I still don't believe it even though I looked it up. It says to me that this is a worthless tournament. I'd rather see our best players skip the whole thing, Euro players rest up, MLS players play with their club sides, and use the U-23 team to play the Gold Cup. If we're going to underperform or even if we somehow scrape enough mediocre performances to do well in the tournament, I'd rather see the U-23 team prepare for the Olympic qualifying than have to watch our senior team struggle mightily keeping hold of the ball. We still blow.

 

Holden makes me miss Twellman.

I swear the Holden/Strong duo are the first announcers to announce a game and not even talk about the actual game they're announcing for the first 75 mins.

 

that mls article really says it all by accident:

The absentees should help that, theoretically. Columbus Crew SC’s Gyasi Zardes was a precautionary scratch with a foot injury. Tyler Adams and Christian Pulisic have yet to join the team, and while Weston McKennie is in camp, he was not on the matchday roster.

zardes of course the player we were missing last night

 

Strong prodded Holden repeatedly to be honest about what he saw. Such is the participation medal mentality surrounding US soccer.

 

stu was pretty positive when he was about to almost have his leg amputated, so him even being a bit down by the end of that one says a lot

 

Props for the Wild Wild West reference. Just found myself whistling the opening tune.

 

I appreciate your joke. I really don't get our "walk it in" mentality.

 

It was a carefully worded political answer. What do you expect him to say? I suck, we suck, fire me, and make sure the next guy never calls in these Yahoos again?

He might not be a great coach, tactician or talent evaluator, but he's no moron. He's riding this gravy train for as long as he can.

 

What I get tired of is our senior NT looking like its never been coached.

The disconnect, gaps, poor movement, lack of awareness of others and inability to play off one another keeps repeating itself.

Other teams when a player receives, has 2-3 teammates moving into space providing options. When our players receive their options are a back pass or a lateral pass to a stationary target.

What even goes on in a NT training session?

 

to be fair to GGG, in prior games, we've looked pretty organized. these games were against minnows but it's only vs. chile and yesterday that we looked like an team that had barely practiced together.

 

Exactly. Bottom line is that SEVEN (7) MLS and THREE (3) USL players took the field for Jamaica tonight ... 8 of that group being starters! And at least 2 more off the bench were from the domestic Jamaican league. That is 12 of the 17 players they used. So the argument about MLS players being the reason this team loses needs to die a fast death. We are getting beaten BY MLS and below players (anyone remember the home game vs Costa Rica at Red Bull Arena in qualifying? I attended that game too, and we were killed by an MLS bencher). The problem here is coaching. Period. I warned early that Berhalter wasn't the man for the job, among the American possibilities. I am sorry to be correct. Too married to HIS system. Too intent on proving HIS genius.