Are you talking about Mikey? Because Mikey is our "Star" player in about the same sense that "Dempsey will lead us to the Gold Cup in 2019".
This is great. People bringing up Green's goal from 5 years ago, saying it should stop being used to "prove" he's good. But Jozy's 5 goals against St Kitts 3 years ago, MB's Mexico chip 3 years ago, and Jozy's Spain goal are brought up continuously. Then Egg gets a pass for playing a terrible midfielder bc he's the only one on the bench...from a bench/roster that Egg selected. "I think I'm at 1st and 1st. How can the same street intersect with itself? I must be at the nexus of the universe!"
You don't need to swap a midfielder on for a midfielder every time. Put Arriola as a 10, and add Lewis, for example. Mihailovic played his way out of his spot. He shouldn't have been called back when Holmes was injured. Hence, the response to Holmes' injury and Mihailovic's re-entry into the lineup wasn't "At least we've got Mihailovic, he's a decent backup," but "Oh god, this clown again?".
It's hard to blame the coach for bringing back a guy who was absolutely no higher than 3rd in the pecking order for ONE spot on the field when the two who were in front of him got injured. But, many will do it anyway.
green creates more problems than he solves. hes an incredibly selfish player. i dont know that his passing is any better than mahailovic, but i know for damn sure he does it a lot less. hes (tries to) stay on the ball way longer than he should, and is only interested in his own shot. is he good for a wonder-goal out of nowhere? absolutely. hes shown that. at what rate? about once every 14 matches. hes a luxury player, and we simply cant afford luxury players. with our pool- even our full pool beyond selection/current fitness- the only way our attack is going to be especially potent is democratically and with strong movement. green plays counter to that. his quality doesnt come close to covering the distance. i dont even think he works as a super-sub because any late game boosts we get are from players who open up space and add to the pace of the game. i get the argument in vacuum over mahailovic, but literally no one else even on this roster. whatever talent/skill he has hes just a slow, ball-dominant selfish player. that doesnt help our team in any way. or look at it like this- we play a more fluid style (as we are trying to do- though im not making a huge argument how successfully yet) or slow way down, diminishing wing play, needing stronger forward play than we have available while essentially spending the majority of our attacks with his spinning from one side of the box to the other looking for a chance to shoot. thats a hard pass from me.
You kicked the tires on a young player. He's been found wanting. Get Nagbe instead. Jesus, it's actually not that hard, but 3G has his defenders in knots trying to justify his players. You really think Lima is the best, and Cannon is the 2nd best, healthy RBs we have in the pool? And can you point to actual talent, or is it just 3G said so? Cause him forgetting about Johnson/Chandler doesn't mean they don't exist.
I agree that Green should have been called for a look. You are making a strawman with the Jozy goals. Nobody made any St. Vincent arguments.
Like, I wanted Nagbe, but we're seriously whining about the third midfield sub...who played fine. If you want happier news, Pomykal just subbed into the game for FC Dallas. (and as I type this takes a studs up challenge...ooof)
I'm not trying to justify his players beyond noting that Mihailovic is ONLY on this 23-man roster because the 2 players ahead of him both got injured. Both. We aren't 3 deep with quality in ANY one of 11 spots on the field, regardless of who wasn't on the 40-man roster. Regarding right back, well, while most of us don't think Tyler Adams is a right back, he's the number one (and, even though he's not a right back, on talent is probably the best right back in the pool, including Chandler and Fabian Johnson). He's injured. Chandler, as has been noted ad nauseum, has been injured for the entire year. The ENTIRE YEAR. He's also been lukewarm on being called up in the past (which has been very well documented and discussed on BS), and has never been "oh, he's so amazing" in a US jersey, either. Fabian Johnson, who the hell knows. He has been injured on and off this year, and lost his starting spot at his club. If you think Berhalter didn't consider him strongly, then you're nuts. He brought in Holmes and Boyd. There is something to FJ's absence that we aren't aware of. Maybe one day, 7 years from now, some announcer will randomly mention the details of why he wasn't on the roster for the 2019 Gold Cup, because not a soul in our soccer media will ever ask the simplest f*cking questions--it's not like "Hey, Gregg, have you been tracking FJ? What was behind the decision to omit him from the 40-man roster?" is some hardball question, but the shitsacks can't even seem to take such an edgy action. At some point, our soccer media needs to get together and decide to say "F*ck USSF. If we all ask questions and they take away all of our access, then no one will cover the team and they'll lose money." Call their bluff you spineless bastards.
Well, from your post I didn't, as Matabala's words you had replied to didn't indicate it. So I said to myself: "Can't a man have a moment of rest, and let someone just tell me what gives?". But I guess not, eh? Anyway, followed up the thread to see that Matabala was referencing Pulisic. If I wasn't already so exhausted from all this hard work I would have laughed till I cried.... Instead, I just took another big swig of Vinho Verde and toasted the Gods of Summer.
How does Duels Won relate to possession? I know we lost duels 51 to 43 or something. But if a team is controlling the ball, does the back foot team only challenge for balls they have a good chance to win? Not trying to make an excuse, just wondering the context.
I disagree with quite a few of your assessments of player skill sets and comments, but I think you are missing a large point here. Which is that I think it is pretty clear that Berhalter and Stewart absolutely understand the high level style of play that Berhalter is putting out there is aspirational in nature. They will never admit this directly, but I think they are all clear that decent portion of the player pool isn't going to be super comfortable in this. They are setting a standard, an expectation. They are training up the players who can be trained up. They are expected the next generation to roll into this. Berhalter might -- and has -- adjust the finer points for the fact that Gyasi Zardes is in instead of Jozy Altidore. But he's not going to ditch his higher level principles of play against a weak opponent simply because he doesn't want to play Altidore in every game in a tournament. Why would we ever do this? Why would we stretch our skillset to the limit and try something that might fail? Because the USMNT has had success over the years largely by playing defensively, playing hard, relying on an unsustainable run of exceptional keepers and getting lucky when one or two talented players gets lucky. The team was winning above it's talent, but it wasn't sustainable, and playing that way didn't press for improvement. We can switch to a press and counter system that fits most of the team right now ... but the improvement or upside of this team for 2022 is less than if we build for something better. I guess I'm just tired of having to get lucky when we're outshot 19-2 against a real opponent. We need to have a plan to actually generate offense instead of hoping for a turnover and counterattack. And I just don't think many of these small decisions matter right now in contrast to the big decisions. ------------------------- As for the rest of you post, some detailed disagreement: I think you chastised Berhalter for playing through all three of his attackers. I missed the system that doesn't rely on a forward to score. I am not going to disagree with Sargent > Zardes, but that's selection. Once you are past that, what system works with a CF that can't finish or hold up? Anyway, Boyd was clearly one of the two best attacking players on the pitch -- getting him opportunities was a good thing. I disagree with the "Pulisic is best on the wing" argument. It's reductionist and lacks any nuance. Pulisic is at his best in space and on the run. He's at his very best on the run, in space, in the middle. He's very good on the wing one on one. But he's not a great crosser or finisher from there, so his abolity to beat a guy doesn't convert to a lot of goals. And if the opponent double teams him, the sideline acts as a third defender. He's not great at passing out of a double team -- this is why at Dortmund under Stoger he was unproductive -- with Reus and others hurt or ineffective, he was the focus of the defense and really struggled. He'd be the focus of the defense here. I'm not convinced he's absolutely better in the spot he is, but if you give him freedom, like he had for much of this game, he can find where space is. He's not a great passer in traffic, so he needs to range. He also completely botched 2-3 EASY scoring opportunities, and that's all on him. He knew it, too, from his demeanor. McKennie isn't playing a 10 -- he's clearly playing a box to box that plays a bit forward, so as Berhalter calls it -- 8/10. I expect against a better opponent he will play further back. I'm not sold on him in that spot, but he was really playing through a lot of good balls yesterday -- he has more of the skillset than you are giving him credit for. If you think Lima or Long is slow, you're simply wrong.
See, this is why I can never take these criticisms seriously. Can we align here on criticisms? Is it that we have too many MLS players, or should we be starting guys who can't get MLS minutes to "boss" international play.