Review: 2019 GC in retrospect

Discussion in 'USA Men: News & Analysis' started by manfromgallifrey91, Jul 8, 2019.

  1. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    He looks the real deal. Excellent range and reading of the game.
     
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  2. deejay

    deejay Member+

    Feb 14, 2000
    Tarpon Springs, FL
    Club:
    Jorge Wilstermann
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    This is a good point but it is partially offset because we scored 3 against a very good Jamaica team. They have a lot of very good, in-their-prime, MLS players plus Leon Bailey who would easily start for our team. As things stand, I think they are the primary candidate to be the fourth place team for CONCACAF in the 2022 qualifiers.
     
  3. truefan420

    truefan420 Member+

    May 30, 2010
    oakland
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Is it confirmed? I saw they were taking with Berlin. I’m def interested in seeing how that goes. The article said their CBs were bad but Whoscored painted another picture. Their 28 and 23 year old CBs were top 5 on whoscored for their team with 7 ratings. The RB was 1. There LB was 6. I know whoscored isn’t end all of be all’s but that’s not gonna be an easy but to crack.
     
  4. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    Jamaica's starting 11 against us were--

    MLS, MLS, C'ship, USL, MLS, USL, USL, USL, B1, MLS, MLS

    Among the MLS players, only Blake and Lawrence could be described as elite within the league.
     
  5. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    All but.
     
  6. yurch10

    yurch10 Member+

    Feb 13, 2004
    Yep. The lowering of expectations is complete. Jamaica is now a "very good team".

    At the same time, Egg basically built our Gold Cup team around two below average/average MLS midfielders, so the teams as they were constructed weren't much different...
     
  7. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    Jamaica's 2015 squad was a bit more stacked.
     
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  8. LouisianaViking07/09

    Aug 15, 2009
    Was it the 2015 or 16 squad that had Wes Morgan?
     
  9. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    2015 squad. When I saw the club affiliations, I knew we were in for it.
     
  10. NGV

    NGV Member+

    Sep 14, 1999
    Overall, I'd say the tournament was neither a clear success nor a clear failure. We did about as well as expected, and displayed the weaknesses that were expected.

    Negatives:

    - The team's lack of depth is clear and severe. The absence of adequate late-game subs was partly a reflection of this, as were difficulties with fatigue (Bradley and Ream, in particular, seemed to be slowing down by the end of the tournament).
    - Too much offensive reliance on hardworking athletic players with significant limitations in their game(Arriola, Morris, Zardes). Those kinds of players can play a useful role - but having two or more of them in the attack at the same time isn't ideal.
    - The midfield often struggled to hold possession against quality opposition.

    Positives:

    - Pulisic is amazing. After years of reading posts about "why can't the USA produce a player like (current world star)," I think we can finally put that question to bed.
    - It's nice to go a stretch of consecutive games without a goalkeeping blunder.
    - The players from the roster who we're most likely to be relying on a few years down the line (Pulisic, McKennie, Steffen, Cannon) looked like they'll be up to the task.

    I'd say the jury is out on the back line. They did fine - but when playing at home against weaker opponents, shutouts should be the norm. The Nations League might be a better test.
     
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  11. deejay

    deejay Member+

    Feb 14, 2000
    Tarpon Springs, FL
    Club:
    Jorge Wilstermann
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    LOL, I have been consistent from well before Berhalter's hiring that we should focus on improving our outcomes against the tier 2 C'CAF nations. Honduras, Panama, T&T, etc. The tactics used to punch above our weight are not the tactics that allow us to cruise against lower opposition. Why? Because Couva.
     
  12. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    Strongly disagree with the bolded.

    Our tactics should always be: defensively sound, excellent organization, athletic and take advantage of our direct attacking abilities. This is irrespective of our opposition.

    that is the exact opposite of what we tried to do in Couva. It is our insistence on (i) playing a build-out-of-the-back attractive possession system and (ii) using excessive MLS players to make a point that doomed us at TnT.
     
  13. MPNumber9

    MPNumber9 Member+

    Oct 10, 2010
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    ********ing get over Couva. That team lost because it was broken. Blame Jurgen, Arena, SUM, the Illuminati, Alex Jones, Milli Vanilli, I don't give a shit -- but let's not make everything we do ever about one game.

    For a team that was, as I said, basically broken, getting the Final of the GC is good first step to rebuilding.
     
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  14. IndividualEleven

    Mar 16, 2006
    Arena merely needed to not start the same damn team on 3 day's rest. A number of starters later stated that they had been quite fatigued during the match.
     
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  15. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    We’ll never forget couva and certainly won’t let the point go when the new coach is following several of the same fallacious errors that led to that disaster but with the silly take that it was primarily our tactical system that needed to be more aggressive in order to improve.

    “A good first step in rebuilding”? Losing to Mexico at home in the final isn’t disastrous but it’s certainly disappointing. If your point is that it could have been much worse and is only slightly below expectations, then I agree.
     
  16. MPNumber9

    MPNumber9 Member+

    Oct 10, 2010
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I would ask "How is Gregg Berhalter making the same errors?", but why not look at actual results?

    Since 2015, the US has lost competitive matches at home to Colombia (held scoreless), Argentina (blown out and held scoreless), Colombia (held scoreless), Jamaica, Panama, Mexico, Mexico and Costa Rica (held scoreless) and lost competitive matches historically away to Costa Rica (historic blow-out), Guatemala and Trinidad & Tobago. That's different coaches, players, formations, tactics -- all bad results. That's a team in trouble. It's simplistic to to the point of irrelevance to focus on the tactics of one individual match.

    In Berhalter's first competitive tournament, he won 5 in a row at home and kept 4 clean sheets. So that's a big reversal in the trend of the team he inherited. And that's a positive.

    What I mean is, reversing the trend of disastrous results under the previous two coaches is something positive to build on. Beating teams we should beat is a positive trend. Of course losing to Mexico at home, albeit narrowly, is a disappointing result -- but no one can argue it's a disastrous one. Mexico is not a team we should beat.
     
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  17. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    #92 DHC1, Jul 17, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2019
    This was well stated but I fundamentally disagree that we shouldn’t expect to beat Mexico at home. We absolutely should expect to beat them dos a cero. Fwiw, transfermarkt had the team values as pretty close to each other.

    BTW, the same mistake is having an over-reliance on MLS players generally and in particularly upon Bradley as a centerpiece of the team where everyone has to adjust to his deficiencies.
     
  18. Marius Tresor

    Marius Tresor Member+

    Aug 1, 2014
    OK, so now the USMNT should not be able to beat a crappy Mexico B team in Chicago? Wow, expectations keep getting lowered.
     
  19. MPNumber9

    MPNumber9 Member+

    Oct 10, 2010
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Unrealistic expectations doesn't make you a good fan; just a delusional one. Explain to me why you think after losing 3/4 of the previous competitive home matches vs. Mexico that we should expect to beat them at home with a pretty much brand new team? The only two players on Berhalter's squad with any experience of winning against Mexico, that have scored or assisted vs. Mexico, are the two most yahoos wanted replaced with someone else. A lot of you were happy to see the back of Donovan, but he was responsible for all those dos-a-ceroes you've come to take for granted. The last time the US beat Mexico, Donovan was playing; we haven't done it in a competitive match without him and no one else has yet stepped up, so it's weird to have an expectation to beat Mexico.

    Huh? Despite narratives, the actual ratio of MLS-based starters have not changed that much from the past three coaches and when it comes to Mexico, neither have results. The last two times this team lost to Mexico at home was under Jurgen Klinsmann, who had foreign-based players like Chandler, Cameron, Williams, Brooks, Yedlin and Wood in the squad for those game (the WCQ loss and subsequent blowout in Costa Rica was the only time there were significantly fewer MLS-based players than GGG's GC roster -- how'd that go?). That collection of players got poorer results than the team did playing in Mexico the following year with more MLS starters.
     
  20. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    I’m not touching Donovan - you’re obviously a huge fan of his and I’m not one who hates/hated him.

    I’ll again point out that every game that we’ve lost vs Mexico, the team was built around Bradley and we started trying to play more build-out-of-the-back and attacking soccer, just as Berhalter is pushing nowadays.
     
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  21. tomásbernal

    tomásbernal Member+

    Sep 4, 2007
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This is a good discussion y'all are having. DHC1, I've really liked reading your posts.
    I never expect the US to win against Mexico 2-0. I think that's unrealistic (even if recentish history indicated that was the norm). I do also think that the US could (and, perhaps, should have) just as easily have dropped two on Mexico in the first half, and the second might have been much different.

    As an aside, I do wonder, though, what percentage of the US team value according to transfermarkt was attributed to one player (you know who)?
     
  22. tomásbernal

    tomásbernal Member+

    Sep 4, 2007
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Crappy? The descriptions of Mexico's Gold Cup team as a B team are stretched enough. Calling them "crappy" is real rich. They were missing a few more players than we were. If they were "B" then we were barely "B+" (and we were "C-" based on what some folks here think about the callups, anyway).
     
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  23. tomásbernal

    tomásbernal Member+

    Sep 4, 2007
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The one and only US game I've ever watched in person was the 2-0 in Columbus when Bradley scored both goals. He may have been in every game we lost to Mexico, but he's been in all the others for the last 12 years or so, too.
     
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  24. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    I’m not a Bradley hater but he’s not a traditional midfielder and he requires other players around him to cover for his weaknesses. When he was younger and playing at a high level, the trade-off was worth it but after he returned to MLS/got injured, it tradeoff wasn’t a good one, in hindsight.
     
  25. tomásbernal

    tomásbernal Member+

    Sep 4, 2007
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Perhaps, but then using "Bradley was there for all of our losses to Mexico" isn't making any sort of case. He was there for most of the wins as well as losses.

    Bradley is toast, bar emergency, as far as I'm concerned. If he's around camps a bit longer I won't begrudge him or Berhalter for it--the fact that Berhalter has made it abundantly clear that Bradley isn't the captain is enough for me to see that he's phasing Bradley out. I know it's not quick enough for some but at least Berhalter is a realist about it.
     
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