Coaching Philosophies and the Gregg Berhalter System

Discussion in 'USA Men: News & Analysis' started by Susaeta, Mar 14, 2019.

  1. Editor In Chimp

    Editor In Chimp Member+

    Sep 7, 2008
    Interesting; I appreciate the post.

    I think I agree with the concept of dictating tempo a LOT more than I agree with a focus on possession. Possession, counterattacking, bunkering...these are just means to an end for a national team, and ideally a NT manager takes the players at his disposal and finds a system that works, as opposed to taking players and forcing them into a system that doesn't.

    I think that this last few months really underscores how easy it is to talk about a solution, and how difficult it is to actually implement one. I was pretty meh on the hiring of Berhalter, in that I'd have vastly preferred Martino (and the rationale of him not speaking English well enough might be one of the biggest self-owns in USSF history which is saying something), but I at least expected some competence.

    I didn't think Berhalter would be so bad at this that it would make me look back at 2017 and Klinsmann with nostalgia, but here we are. He's been terrible at every aspect of this so far. And it's not really the player pool, either. There's enough talent to work with.
     
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  2. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    Why do people think Pulisic has any issue with Berhalter?

    He said the team played scared. He said nothing of the coaching. You have to stretch pretty far to make that about coaching, not that many of you haven't tried. Much more likely is that he thought the team lacked aggression and were intimidated, which, it looked like to me, was true.

    This is the same "wishful thinking" many of you have had since day 1. Remember when his Player's Tribune piece spoke to a giant rift in the locker room, Berhalter's xenophobia of German-Americans and how we'd lose Pulisic if we didn't call in Morales, Chandler and Johnson ASAP? I remember that feat of "logic."

    Pulisic has said nothing negative about Berhalter or the coaching so far. Writing it on a message board and pretending there's some kind of revolt doesn't make it close to true.

    The groupthink and telephone nature of rumormongering on here is really sometimes worthy of a Russian facebook bot campaign. If someone posted that Berhalter was running a child slavery ring out of a DC pizza place, you'd run with it.
     
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  3. Lloyd Heilbrunn

    Lloyd Heilbrunn Member+

    Feb 11, 2002
    Jupiter, Fl.
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Is there a philosophical intent in playing so slowly?

    It's always been a problem, but it seems to be getting worse and worse as evidenced by the Uruguay game.
     
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  4. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    It was a crap field. Not sure what the temperature was but seemed humid/hot
     
  5. FeedhimtothepigsArold

    Apr 7, 2014
    Club:
    Oxford United FC
    From the mouth of babes we often get uncensored truths.

    I really want to understand this 'club snob' term. I dont get it.

    I think its fairly obvious that Sargent is playing at a higher level than Zardes. How is Pomykal using 'club snob' terms here. He is just stating the obvious...... without inferiority complex.
     
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  6. RefIADad

    RefIADad Member+

    United States
    Aug 18, 2017
    Des Moines, IA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think it’s a combination of the Dutch system being naturally slower, all else equal, coupled with the USMNT players not playing on instinct. They are thinking too much.

    I’m not saying the Dutch system is inherently bad. It’s not. With players who are technical and have good ball control, it can work very well. As I’ll continue to say, this group of players isn’t suited best to playing this style .
     
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  7. deejay

    deejay Member+

    Feb 14, 2000
    Tarpon Springs, FL
    Club:
    Jorge Wilstermann
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    Presumably because when you work your way to being brave enough to try to possess against Mexico's high press or Uruguay's counter then you will be that much more assured against lesser countries. Again, presumably, I haven't been very sold by some of what Berhalter is doing this time around. But the overall idea that we need to work on possession is still something I think we need.
     
  8. Honore de Ballsac

    Oct 28, 2005
    France.
    C'mon, yeesh. Even if people weren't blowing the quote out of proportion, should anyone be surprised that Paxton Pomykal thinks we should #playthekids?
     
  9. Honore de Ballsac

    Oct 28, 2005
    France.
    GB and Sarachan have rolled out the red carpet and kissed these kids' asses as it is. And if anything I'm maybe starting to sniff a little impatience and entitlement, the little punx. Probably as it should be, because we want them to have a lot of belief in their generation, and eagerness to prove it. I'm sure GB wants that.
     
  10. TheHoustonHoyaFan

    Oct 14, 2011
    Houston
    Club:
    FC Schalke 04
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #2310 TheHoustonHoyaFan, Sep 11, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2019
    You have made a key distinction that is often missed on this board. The point should be to dictate the match. Uruguay dictated yesterday's match even though they only had 40% possession!

    Berhalter has gone in for possession for the sake of possession. He is trying to instill the Cruyff / Pep vision of the game. Unfortunately we don't have a group of players who can be incisive or dangerous (individually or collectively) with the ball. We just pass it around going nowhere. All we have to do is compare the Mexico and Uruguay players to ours when in possession.

    Uruguay (counter attack) and Mexico (transition attack) have pools way more capable of breaking down opponents with the ball but don't play the way GB wants us to play.
     
  11. TimB4Last

    TimB4Last Member+

    May 5, 2006
    Dystopia
    Going to drop a post in here, unceremoniously ...

     
  12. Honore de Ballsac

    Oct 28, 2005
    France.
    IMO Sampson kinda tried to do the former that and got fired, Bruce tried to do the that too and got fired, Bradley tried to do that and got fired...

    I guess you also have to define "works."
     
  13. Honore de Ballsac

    Oct 28, 2005
    France.
    Well that went over my head, so at least give me some ceremony.
     
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  14. TimB4Last

    TimB4Last Member+

    May 5, 2006
    Dystopia
    Every moment of happiness requires a great amount of ignorance.
     
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  15. zhe fulano

    zhe fulano Member

    Real Madrid
    United States
    Jan 31, 2010
    Florida Keys, USA
    Club:
    Everton FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    He took a post I made on another thread and edited out the first paragraph. Here's the post in its entirety.

    "Argentina just handed Mexico a sound 4-0 trouncing. It was over by half-time. This is the same Mexico that handed us our ass 3-0. Ironically, Berhalter then puts together a team that puts up a very respectable 1-1 draw against Uruguay, the #5 ranked team in the world. Admittedly, Uruguay did not play their complete "A" team. Neither did we, and they played plenty of their starting players.

    Berhalter is still experimenting. That said, I feel pretty confident that he's tipping his hat a bit. From what we've seen so far, I predict we'll see Ream as our starting left center back; Bradley as a central defensive midfielder playing between the back line and the midfield (or at the bottom of the diamond in a 4-4-2); and a probable starting midfield of Arriola, Pulisic, McKinnie and Adams. Everything else is still up for grabs. Much will depend on what players he sees showing good chemistry together in pushing the ball forward and also falling back to support the defensive effort. He's still trying to figure out those relationships.

    My suspicion is that Berhalter knows he has cart blanche to experiment up to a certain point. 2nd place in the Gold Cup did not hurt his standing at all. He'll continue to experiment from now until the eve of the World Cup qualifiers."
     
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  16. sXeWesley

    sXeWesley Member+

    Jun 18, 2007
    Club:
    Portland Timbers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Please stop calling this Clownshow the "Dutch" system.

    Very little about our ponderous system is even remotely dutch. It is a 4-3-3 and that is about where any similarities end. The Dutch press, the Dutch play with an actual number 6, not a useless regista, everything is predicated on quick tempo and passing, they do not force themselves to play out of the back, they just manipulate whatever space is there.

    Basically, I never met Johan Cruyff or Rinus Michels, but I am pretty sure they would be offended at the idea that what we are doing bears any real resemblance to the actual "Dutch" system.
     
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  17. Honore de Ballsac

    Oct 28, 2005
    France.
    :)
     
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  18. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    Let's break this down.

    1. Christian has always been explicit that wanting to play at the game's highest level was the reason he bypassed MLS.

    2. After the Arena disaster (which in large part was his focus on MLS players and "we have players in MLS who play that position"), Pulisic wrote an article that I read as a full-throated defense of dual-Americans trained and playing outside of the US. This was obvious to me a direct response to what Arena had both said before he was named coach and followed up with his actions as coach.

    3. Berhalter is named coach and instead of repudiating what Arena had done wrt dual-Americans trained and playing outside of the US (as Arena has vocalled done in turning the page from Klinsmann), he pretty much did the exact same thing (his rosters are just as MLS-heavy as Arena's) and by-all-appearances created a different standard for German-Americans as he did for MLS players (for example, is there any doubt that Morales deserved to be part of our 40-man roster? It's not like he's changed that much from last year - he's the same guy on the same team FFS).

    4. Berhalter also institutes a system built around two average MLS players as the centerpiece thereby moving Pulisic, Adams and his very-good-friend Weston out of their natural positions in a series of cascading consequences.

    5. Now, he states that the team is "playing scared" after a terrible loss to Mexico. Well, that seems to be a criticism of his teammates, coaches or both. As his article quoted: "I just want every USA soccer fan reading this to understand, that no matter what decisions are made over these next couple of years … no matter what changes are implemented … no matter who the coach is, or what the roster looks like: I’m going to be obsessed with winning. And I’m going to be obsessed with doing my part to help U.S. Soccer get over the hump." His most-recent post-game statement about scared playing doesn't sound at all like Berhalter's "we're making progress" and lauding the bravery of the squad. They're almost complete opposites.

    Is it 100% that he's losing confidence in Berhalter? Nah - but it's not out of the question either and once can piece together the quilt-work in a reasonable way to say that he's getting fed up. I think it's interesting that Pomykal actually said a very similarly themed statement wrt Sargent and Zardes.

    We'll see. Uruguay was the only game where he didn't have either Bradley or Trapp as his centerpiece - let's see what happen in the Nations League matches: I think we all know who's going to play.....
     
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  19. um_chili

    um_chili Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    Losanjealous
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    In terms of Uruguay and the Egg system, two possibilities. The good possibility is that it shows that the Egg system is making progress--hey we passed out of the back and did it Egg's way and we got a basically deserved 1-1 draw against the 5th ranked team in the world, even without many of our best players. So the game proves that Egg's system has potential and we shoul be patient as it develops.

    Another, pessimistic view: The Egg system is doomed to fail for the reasons repeatedly rehearsed in this thread and elsewhere: It's a poor fit for the players, who bless them just don't have the level of passing skill and soccer nous to implement that kind of sophisticated game plan. Uruguay did not exploit this because they were downshifted the whole game and did not aggressively press the way Mexico did; had they wanted to they could easily have disrupted the Egg system and beaten us as handily as Mex did. So what this means is that the Uruguay result is a false indicator of improvement, and one that takes heat off Egg to just F-ing adapt a system to our players instead of vice versa. Another crushing defeat would have sucked in the moment but would have done more to expose the folly of Egg's ambition to have a bunch of pretty good players perform like the love child of Barca and Liverpool.

    I dunno which of these is true. Because I am, at the end of the day, a fan of this team and want them to succeed, I want it to be #1. That's the heart speaking. The head strongly thinks that #2 is more likely. Time, I suppose, will tell.
     
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  20. deejay

    deejay Member+

    Feb 14, 2000
    Tarpon Springs, FL
    Club:
    Jorge Wilstermann
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    To me, Bradley wants two things. He wants us to be able to generate chances from possession and he wants us to be able to cut of the other teams offense in transition. I think one of the topics was that the second was reached earlier and at a higher level in the first games with Berhalter. Yet, the issue of being predictable in using the patterns was very apparent. Since then Berhalter has been focusing on getting those patterns learned and made quicker with greater confidence. As a result, the transition defense has suffered. It's as if the players have a certain amount of mental bandwidth. In any case, I still believe that this team will live or die by the quality of the young players brought in and in how quickly they adapt. I'm seeing a lot of time spent with the U20s and U23s and hopefully they are getting in to a similar system. Uruguay is actually a good model in how this is done (see https://theathletic.com/1204361/201...tyle-saw-what-an-established-identity-can-do/)
    The issue here is that we are working behind the clock. This vertical integration is stuff that should have been done three years ago. However, better late than never and we should see some good fruit in 2026.
     
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  21. RefIADad

    RefIADad Member+

    United States
    Aug 18, 2017
    Des Moines, IA
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    As I told people after the Mexico game as we were trying to process that steaming pile, if you think you need Will Trapp to make your "system" good, you better look at a different system.

    This is the primary reason why Berhalter trying to foster his "poor-man's Sarri-ball" (I'll cede to the overly sensitive on this thread and come up with some new shorthand for what Berhalter thinks he's trying to do) on this team is so upsetting. I get that Stewart and Berhalter have this vision of the US playing a certain way. Fine. Start it with the U17 and younger national teams. Those kids will then bring it to the U20 level, etc. This system doesn't maximize the talent of your best players - Adams, McKennie, and Pulisic. Get them in their natural positions and built the team and system from there.
     
  22. Honore de Ballsac

    Oct 28, 2005
    France.
    I think everything I'm hating about the Mexico game can be dismissed by the process argument, and that GB is using the friendlies to achieve incremental progress NOT results - even against Mexico. He should better consider the optics, hopefully he learned that lesson.

    But then there's this...

    ReflaDad's post above is the only lasting objective I have ...if somehow all GB's systems and principles somehow depend on that fulcrum, when we don't even have a foreseeable Bradley replacement - let alone a Schweinsteiger.

    But I can't imagine GB would be inflexible when push really comes to shove. He's shown that he was very wily and adaptable for MLS playoffs. He even had to find ways to compete without Higuain. Do we have to worry that, in a USA polo, hubris will carry him past the point of tolerable results before he springs a change to more pragmatic game play? I wouldn't say so, based on the Gold Cup. Other people say he's already done that by exposing our guys to embarrassment against our rival, friendly or not.

    I myself can get over that. Especially because I'm not wilfully stupid, nor do I already have something against him. Nobody should be thinking (Sam Stejskal - paid expert) that because GB dogmatically ran his team through the gauntlet Friday, (saying basically you can only pass out of the back against a superior, high pressing team ) in a 2019 friendly, that means GB aims for us to play like Barca or Spain at the World Cup. We must want to raise our game, and by 2019 part of that process IMO has to be making us braver with the ball, more able to control a game via possession, starting with improving our passing and movement out of the back. If we're better at that, we'll be a better team, that's all. Fall 2019 is a good time to be doing this.
     
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  23. TimB4Last

    TimB4Last Member+

    May 5, 2006
    Dystopia
    Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.
     
  24. Honore de Ballsac

    Oct 28, 2005
    France.
    No relation btw. Do you have some sort of bot for this stuff?
     
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