Not much to say, not a lot of positives. Poor gameplay, poorly executed. Out played, out coached and just overall soundly beaten by a meh Mexico team. Thoughts or find any positives?
Berhalter deserves most of the blame for yet another clown show of a performance. Very little offense and once again inept in our unwavering insistence to build out of the back. For years, we used to be better than the sum of our parts but Gregg’s “rigid system” clearly isn’t putting our players in a position to succeed. To improve, he needs to be more practical in his tactics, drop low performing auto-starters like Trapp and Zardes, integrate higher potential younger players as warranted, and greatly improve his in-game adjustments. Oh, and taking a little bit of accountability once in a while would be nice as well. P.S. Gregg’s assertion that Pomykal isn’t yet up to this standard is laughable! P.P.S. I hope they boo Gregg off the field like we did in DC!
It took Tata a lot less time to counter our strategy in this one. Once again Gregg has zero answers once he did. Extremely poor all around.
Keep in mind, that was Mexico’s B team starting, saving their big guns for Argentina. My U14 girls team can play better out of the back with only two weeks of practice.
The inability to beat Mexico's high press set the tone for the game. We were slower and not as quick to every ball. Total domination by Mexico.
A team significantly worse than the sum of its parts. Poor coaching - yes. Poor tactics - yes. Poor positioning - yes. Poor players (Zardes, Stefan) - yes. Craptacular.
Well, uh, that was a real bucket of turds. I was going to try to do a player by player stock up/down analysis, but I figure it's not worth it since so few guys actually improved their standing. I do think there are a few whose stock went up, though: --Sargent. He missed the PK, but overall was much more effective at winning the ball and combining with others than Zardes. No reason why he shouldn't be above Zardes in the pecking order now. --Lletget. Had some nice touches, passes, and tackles after coming on. Classed up central midfield a bit for the US after the other guys were flailing around in there. I think he needs to at least keep getting call-ups and maybe should get a shot at starting. I started writing up more positive takes on a couple others, but couldn't really do it.
The good news: They are playing it out of the back! The bad news: They are playing it out of the back!
I’m just shocked at the results, never saw it coming. I thought they had hired the right candidate after an extensive search...........yep, sarcasm.
Why do we have to beat it? If a defense in tackle football is stacking the line to stop the run, you throw the ball. We played the way Mexico wanted us to play. I think the players knew they were ********ed; that’s why they played nervous, why one mistake begat another. We play to our weaknesses, not our strengths.
Yeah, Balboa's first comment on Univision post game was that we were expecting to take a step forward after the Gold Cup loss and instead we took 3 steps back.
Hire a loser coach, get loser results. I hate the USSF. Incompetency, greed, and incestuousness has ruin our national team.
Yeah at some point you gotta be less stubborn with player selection. Insisting on playing Will Trapp was not a good decision. He and Morales together was a bad decision. Zardes just doesnt add much unless the wings are going up and down the field. Tyler Boyd another bad game. Just doesnt have the work rate right now. Once again once we got more athletic players into the game we stated to do a bit better going forward but the coaches have to be better
What is Zardes job? To me it appears he is a defender placed in the opponent’s back line to chase them but not really accomplishing crap. I don’t see anything else coming from him.
Berhalter cannot make adjustments that successfully counter a good manager. However, our biggest problem is that we have too many talent black holes at various positions that are wasting the talents of some other very good young players. We’re also not thinking fast enough out there. My hopes are pretty low for our national team for the next few years...it’s depressing.
Berhalter has to sit Zardes and Trapp against Uruguay. Has to. He has pulled other guys out of the starting lineup before, after having poor games, but so far those two have been exempt from that treatment. They were both poor tonight, and Berhalter needs to show that those two won't continue to get preferential treatment because they're his guys.