Speaking as a Red Bull fan, passing consistently out of pressure can be done, but it does take a team effort, and lot more time in training than the USMNT have in any given window. Any coach would have difficulty navigating the rotation of players, getting that pool to play as they should is difficult enough in a vacuum. The trouble is the instruction is most likely in direct competition with the club coaches who have the largest amount of training time with said player pool. The tactics Berhalter wants to employ run in contradiction to much of what those coaches want out the same players. That just doesn't seem like a recipe for success.
I agree with all this. I just don't know if hitting the wall with our head, metaphorically, Friday even helps to learn. If the idea is to develop solely, then why are any players involved who are older or whose ceiling is limited? I also agree that our passive mid-block neither helps nor suits most American players.
I understand the emphasis on passing out of the back because we must be able to do it. Berhalter has a point there. Having said that, we cant make that into a ready made excuse for a loss in every game. The LON is coming up and it seems to me that if Berhalter can't beat Canada over-all and take first place, he should be on the carpet for a possible firing. Surely we will not accept that he was practicing passing out of the back. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
I watched Schalke playing mid block with McKennie up there in the front and he just couldn't do it. He doesn't have a natural affinity for the practice. Berhalter has the vid available to him and I'm sure he looked at it. Wagner has 5 years to teach McKennie. Berhalter has til October Canada fixture. There's always Skype.
Interesting fact... Canada has only 1 loss at BMO field and it was against Peru in 2010. The USMNT tied Canada at BMO field last time they met.
Another disingenuous post. He won't ever displace cannon on the right, playing on the left. We did the exact same s*it with Chandler and he not only wasn't very good, he hated it. Chandler had a fierce early cross and could be a shut down RB. But we neutered him. We are going to do the same thing with Dest then all of you guys will say, SEE, I TOLD YOU. He plays and sometimes starts for Ajax, a semifinalist in the UCL last year and better than any team x 50 in MLS. He has never played for the senior team. And in his first match, his first start you strand him on the left. If you are looking for failure (which it was on many levels) then you found it.
Why does Michael Bradley, Omar Gonzalez and Jozy Altidore get to stay with their clubs? But everyone else has to come in? That's the question you should be asking. Friends club.
I am going to start judging Berhalter's tactics with high expectations and a critical eye from now on. Everything before the Nations League has been wiped clean from my memory. A clean slate as they say. These next 4 games are going to tell me all about his tactics and this team. We better come out prepared and ready to rock.
I would go as far as saying if we don’t win every one of our 4 nations cup games, we have big issues to overcome.
No clubs were required to release their players for these friendlies. What question should we be asking? What does TFC care about the USMNT's friendly against Uruguay? You know...........Toronto. Not Toronto, Ohio. Toronto, Ontario Canada.
I agree, no excuses. We better not be experimenting at that point. Wins matter in that tournament and we need to adjust to take advantage of Canada’s weaknesses not try to play a style.
September 2-10 are official FIFA dates for friendlies and clubs are REQUIRED to release players to national teams if requested. It is the national team, in negotiations with the clubs, that determine if a player will be released back to the club BUT it is the national team that has the option. https://resources.fifa.com/image/up...2024-2709662.pdf?cloudid=p3ywicffz0zxeaomaajh
my issue with GGG showed up again in his post match pc. 'tenacity' is the word he used to describe the performance....I have to tell you that word never game to mind when I watched that match. Truth is there was some friday but not this match. This was a friendly in every sense of the word if it was a wc match people would've argued the teams agreed to play to a tie before the match.
How do you come up with these things. It is a FIFA date, of course clubs are required to release players.
upon further consideration i have determined USMNT is a: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Basic%20Bitch the ideas we have returned to were somewhat creative when Klinsi brought them over; they are now basic. we think we are trendy for basically following the herd but right now innovative would be anything else. as we are neither true fashionistas nor internally thoughtful, we don't even maximize the virtues of the trend or quite grasp how it works. we don't even notice if the trend isn't suited to us and makes our butt look big. the eurosnobs love it in spite of themselves because they love following trends they don't fully understand, because that's how others do it that they watch on tv. furthermore, as missionaries of pretty dutch/spanish soccer they have timeless principles even if the tactical bandwagon has grown heavy and lost competitive value. if everyone else plays 442 hiring a 442 coach just stalemates, and makes the personnel choice ever more decisive. it doesn't matter if 5 years ago when you meant to hire the coach 442 was innovative. if by now it is ubiquitous and passe you have actually bought into the end of the tulip boom when the market corrects at your expense. the irony is that the eurosnobs should be leading the pitchfork brigade, even ahead of me, because we don't look like what they want. not even close. but they are so sold on the trend the trend overwhelms their practical cognitive dissonance. [i know we play a 433. my point is playing a 433 when others weren't was creative. just like playing a 442 in that era didn't make you stand out. playing it when everyone else does is following and negates most of the tactical value.]
one thing i do not like about all the progress talk is that historically this has been a team for decades capable of upset results every night. i don't like the implicit acceptance of inferior status and results "along the way." and i don't buy we're meaningfully progressing to tolerate it. i mean, if you think about it, the old surprise results are not there. where is the win away in italy? beating germany or holland? for a team in progress we don't seem to have many games where we upset the opponent by having things click. and be real, they generally don't click. normally indulgence of work in progress is based on either history/trust or showing promise in the work. i am glad alexi is like hold them to the fire every postgame. when you pull this crap accountability can go out the window.
I agree 100%. We are not world champions and we cannot play every team the same way. This reminds me of when France won the European cup in 1984. That was during the Platini era and even back then the French team adjusted based on the opponent. They ended up Winning every game they played taking their first trophy. That team didn’t have the arrogance of this US team that thinks they can play the same way against every team.
Bring back Team America and let him coach USA as a full-time MLS team. Bigger players can play in Europe, but we need a club feel to have any chance even in CONCACAF right now. Berhalter can do it, but he needs the players daily u def his guidance.
Does anyone else find it a bit comical (in a depressing way, mind you) that for a system that Berhalter designed to “disorganize the opponent”, that more times than not, the only thing that looks disorganized is our team? Look, I see some good and bad with Gregg as a coach but he needs to be realistic and introspective enough to make some changes. I will be paying close attention going forward to whether he can become less stubborn and rigid, and generally whether he is willing to adapt his tactics from how he wants to ideally play to how he should practically play to maximize our chances for success in each individual matchup. Here's hoping that he can and will grow in time.
What’s your confidence level that Bradley/Trapp won’t start our next competitive game? What about our first qualifier?
We're a bit too used to seeing Canada as sort of our little brother. Like us, they play the typical former-English-colony soccer style (i.e. England in the 80s), but this time they have some interesting players. I'm still counting on Canada folding out of respect for big bro, but I'm not so sure.