I can't believe anyone is seriously defending Berhalter's instructions. Insisting that the team never play long passes is not even a realistic exercise in playing out of the back. Even full-on tiki-taka teams don't play that way. The occasional long pass creates space to play out of the back by forcing the opposition to defend those long passes. The whole reason Mexico pressed so high up the field was that they knew within the first 20 minutes what Berhalter was doing.
The only way he gets fired is if we look horrible against Canada and mediocre against Cuba. I don't see that happening. We will probably beat both of them in close fashions and he will be here at least another year.
Yeah..............I mean, we're playing friendlies here against Mexico and Uruguay. Coaches get fired because of results that matter. The federation, and frankly we as fans, have to give national team coaches the chance to fail in friendlies. To try out tactics, players, etc. That's what they're there for. Now we have the League of Nations. Let's see how he performs there. The hot seat gets toasty if he loses to Canada. But I as a US fan refuse to root for my team to lose just to get a coach fired. That's lame.
I am the same way. No matter what the sport. (And we all know in football and basketball there's even more incentive to tank a season... ...I still don't root for my team to lose.)
I agree with the last sentence but c'mon on "the chance to fail in friendlies". He's stuck to the same idiotic core decision through every single game, friendly or not. You know what would have been a grand experiment? Not having Trapp or Bradley as a regista, letting our midfield play dynamically as they do in their elite leagues and actually taking what our opponent gives us. That would be a f***ing radical departure from what we've seen so far vs. good teams.
This is another typically misleading post. Just because someone doesn’t play the same way as Berhalter’s moronic system doesn’t make it a bunker.
Well, Klinsmann also started trying to make us play tiki-taka and accumulated losses early on his tenure. Then he came to his senses and went back to the usual modus operandi: defend with numbers and hoof it for a run. At some point we added the subs aimed to getting a FK and scoring from set pieces became the hallmark of his first cycle tenure. But JK also had to learn the hard way that we cannot do the passing game from the back well. At this point the question is: are we ok forever stuck in the bunker & hoof mode, or should we strive to change the style to actually play a more possession-oriented game, even if it means growing pains (not making another WC)? Berhalter doesn't have the CV to trust him with that mission though. Under his guidance, it's not unlikely it'd be all for nothing.
Well, there's a lot in between bunker and hoof it and playing around in the back to a fault. Bob Bradley certainly did not have us playing defend and counter (his moniker Bunker Bob around here never made any sense). He fielded more attackers at any given game than most of our coaches and played more of a run and gun style of play. He always had at least 2 attacking players in midfield with Donovan and Dempsey, then had no real #6 in midfield with slightly defensive leaning 8s. And he often laid that out behind dual strikers. But, he's Bunker Bob, defend and counter, while Berhalter plays a forward, a couple wings, the rest defensive mids and a back line and that's somehow progressive and attack minded. Also, our playing style will progress as our players progress. If it ever happens, it will happen organically, from the roots up. You can't mandate this sort of thing from the top down, even though that's what entrenched people used to being in charge and never being told no like to think.
I don't see how he would get fired. He is establishment, hand picked by his brother and buds w/o anybody else being vetted. Things would have to get absurdly bad...to the point where it looks like we might not qualify. Before that point, you would think that self preservation would prevail, or that somebody from the inside would step in and facilitate any changes that would need to be made. He can't really lose the locker room as a whole. Only Pulisic, Adams, and Wes might be able to get the wheels turning. He is not going to lose any of his loyalists, they wouldn't even be on the team if not for him, and any other young international guys likely won't have the equity built anytime in the near future to turn on him. Maybe the big three would be enough. What will probably happen is that he will start to make some changes at a glacial pace and we will qualify and get our rears handed to us in the World Cup. Then the narrative will be that our pool sucks. Best case is enough young guys continuing blowing up, or maybe GGG has some epiphany, and we manage to get out of group stage. In that case he will be lauded.
Dan Flynn is stepping down as CEO which is leading into the same extensive replacement search we just did for our coaching position with likely the same result... 2 interviews and a Beerholder
I think I agree with you. As I believe you are saying there was no search, just a delay to make it appear there was a search and actually a decision to be made. In truth I believe the choice was made the day that Arena resigned. (Was fired? ) Now to really float a somewhat absurd, I hope, conspiracy theory: The fed has run the numbers and they want to maximize attendance in the US from supporters of even the poorest CONCACAF teams. They believe that matches lie US vs Cuba sell out large stadiums unless much of the croud is Cuba supporters and that if Cuba might win it will increase sales for Cuba supporters more than it will decrease sale for US supporters, and they might be right about that. In order to maximize dollars coming in they hire a coach that cannot possibly produce a winning side and they instruct him to intentionally weaken the team and produce the desired effect of the US losing more than it should. I actually do not think that this "comedy of errors" was intentional it just is almost too complete a screw up to not be.
It sucks, because I really liked him as a player and wanted to like him as a coach. But he's clearly in way over his head, and an OK showing in the Gold Cup doesn't change that.
I don't think Cuba is a great example of your theory (they're atrocious, plus Cuban-Americans tend to be pretty patriotic Americans), but it wouldn't surprise me at all with respect to Mexico and teams like Jamaica, Honduras, etc.
You are probably correct but I picked Cuba because they have lesser support that the other sides, like Mexico, that already have strong fan support in the US. What a team like Cuba has could be really bolstered if they actually had a chance to win and it looks like almost anybody will have a chance once Greg B. gets things not working the way he seems to envision. Yes, I know that Cuba is truly bad but we are showing real signs that we might descend to their level.
Make up your mind: either we have plenty of time to institute a system that works against good teams or we don't. You can't say that we should give a crappy system another look because we don't have many more matches against good opponents all while saying that we have plenty of time to institute a competent one. How many games will we have left before the Hex? How many times will our A team go against a Mexico/Costa Rica level opponent before the first game?
Or this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augeas#Mythology I don't even think fire hoses would be effective right now...
Let Berhalter diddle you at a USSF mixer, then take him down #MeToo style. Who wants to be first to fall on that sword for your brethren?
You don't even need to go that far. Make up a story of him diddling you. Stick to it. He's fired because of the negative press and/or the presumption that something must've happened. Boom, no more coach.
Going back to the OP, I hope that we will get to see how Berhalter coaches once he abandons his allegiance to the regista and to favoring MLS. He has qualities that could be quite useful to the USMNT but these two issues are so antithetical to USMNT success that it makes it impossible to want it to continue. If he's absolutely stuck on both, then that's a huge problem IMO. We don't have many more camps before the beginning of the Hex - how many games vs. Mexico/CR level opponents will we play before qualification starts?