Optimistic take on the year for USMNT

i could go into some lengthy refutation or i could just note that holland missed the same world cup we just did. qed. thanks for playing.

 

My optimistic take is that even with a pretty crappy coach and a silly system, we finished second in the Gold Cup despite having multiple injuries to key players. Couple this with a down cycle in CONCACAF and we should qualify without too much chaos. Most importantly, this team will look a whole lot different than it has over the past year once you throw in Adams, Weah, a healthy Brooks, Dest more regularly. Beyond slicing and dicing every tactical nuance, the game comes down to what the players on the field actually do and how well they execute.

Add multiple players at the top end of our talent scale to this team, not to mention we played several games without Pulisic, and the team instantly looks better than they did in 2019. Go forward another 2 years and we've got several prospects and I'd have to bet that at least 1-2 of them pan out. That all totals up to mean that by the time the World Cup rolls around, there is every possibility that we'll have upgrades at 4-5 positions at least, possibly more. That's significant and will make a difference.

 

the player infusion arguments are strained because whether that pool exists or not, the actual coach's instinct, when given a choice, is often enough Guzan over Horvath, Bradley over Yueill, Yedlin over Dest and Cannon. this slows the process that Sarachan had tried to start. if you simply brought in a third coach who knew what the heck he was doing, with the tactics sarachan lacked, but his sense of where the talent lies, you would go back to mexico's level and i don't have to be patient about waiting on the youth. i only have to be "patient" on tactics and personnel because i am intermediated to the team by an idiot.

i think it is a laudable goal to pursue improving our technique. other than at some marginal, average level, i don't see it actually happening. i think we have fewer landon/reyna/mathis virtuosos than before we started this project, not more. the average player trips over the ball less, but doesn't blow my mind as much as the elite player used to 10 years ago. how the eff does that happen.

i also think that without the actual players for the system you are merely setting up a midtable apparatus that works against certain schemes and/or below a certain level of opponent. whoop de do. i thought this was going to make us actually better. not being able to execute against mexico is sooooooo not an improvement.

what is the idea here, turn a top 16 team into rubble and then try to get me happy about maybe the group stage next time, and tell me i have the new system to thank? sorry i've been watching them too long to see progress in being less effective against canada than since the 80s when we wouldn't make the world cup at all.

 

the olympic obsession is indicative of a team that is confused about priorities and looking for small wins to vex institutional enemies. part of the reason we don't make the olympics now is having transitioned from a college olympic team to a professionalized team, we cannot camp for months, we cannot demand all our best players, and we in fact simply graduate many out of the program. for all this talk about maximizing the Olympics, watch, Pulisic and his ilk won't be brought in for the qualifying. wouldn't be available. are treated as graduated past it. but he is nonetheless under 23. if you gathered everyone of that type -- and we used to when this was a college thing -- it would be different. but having everyone professionalized is worth it.

furthermore, the usual point to the YNT apparatus is to feed the big dog. this is why pulisic is graduated out and never coming back. i want everyone who can help in the senior team camp. i want the best senior team possible. i don't want to get to quali and then face an argument of, well, yes, we have issues at x y z positions, but this guy you are proposing, he never played with us before, because he was with U23, it would be a risk. this is how the game works. i'd rather have sargent et al with us now. yes, it will make the U23s weaker. is making the U23s the best, our top priority? nope. the senior team is.

if you really wanted to help U23 you would focus solely on the players they will have access to, whose calls will not be refused, that we don't need, and drill that set to a T. some would be college kids, some would be MLS players, some would be european age group team players. it would not be the big names, but it could train together for weeks, and then it wouldn't get the rug pulled by "oh, Lille says no Weah." and such. and then if we actually qualified for the olympics we could talk about who we could send.

the reality is a chunk of the U23 currently being called may prove unavailable, and may also be serving as a sort of tailor made excuse for insurgent players like weah or sargent that the fans like but the coach isn't sure about, to be pawned off someplace else without being outright left out of everything. "we have sent him to the U23s." and then sargent goes on a streak and the coach wakes up and suddenly he's not needed down there with the kids anymore. we inconsistently use this notion that right now the olympics are the priority. miles robinson comes up. sargent. hmmm.

personally i think whether we make the olympics is smaller potatoes than qualifying the senior team this time. getting it backwards is some USSF obsession where they don't like this particular YNT being a punch line, and are willing to risk senior success -- when we just missed a world cup -- to chase. i'd rather have a world cup quarters team and see the olympians miss it a third time. whoop de do. if we really wanted U23 to win we'd sit down and figure out a practical way to do it. that might not involve the best U23s, but instead the most available.

so, put up or shut up, what are the priorities, and do you want U23s as senior overflow, as development, or as a sincere winning effort? to be blunt, a qualifying olympic effort might spend a lot of time to drill a bunch of no names who we can rely on, for months until they are gelled, but who might be useless in terms of the senior team later on. if the whole enchilada is going to tokyo.

or is this a development team where i want to field the best players -- the ones i see senior promise in -- even if they can't show up for qualifying? in which case, so what i didn't qualify. i got to work on the next senior promotions.

so, what is the goal.

 

This would make me feel a whole lot better if we had a coach who was able to get near ceiling performances from our best players.

 

Oh, I don't disagree. Guess I'm just tired of trashing Berhalter, even though I still feel he's doing poorly, and I'm focusing more on the players, at least as important in the success or failure of this team. This makes me happier and this is the optimism thread after all. And, I really do get tired of feeling like I read threads around here and it gives the impression that the coach is everything and all that matters when I am still firmly a guy who thinks the players are in the end far more important than the coach.

Focusing only on the coach also lets the players off the hook too much for my tastes. They get absolved of all blame even when they perform poorly because it gets blamed on the coach. Games like the first Canada game can certainly point out problems with the coaching, but it should also be noted that the players failed to show up and work hard and play with any determination of desire and that's on them. We should expect better. And, hopefully with a return to health and another 1-3 guys breaking through in the bigger leagues over the next couple years, this team should start to look quite different as far as personnel goes than what we saw in 2019 and that's something to look forward to.

 

I agree with Nobody that the players matter, and it is not solely about the quality [good or bad] of the manager. The overall talent bubbling up does have promise, and that is grounds for optimism.
But it is a very guarded optimism, for a manager of poor quality has the power to abuse the choice of personnel and to disabuse the players of their belief. The optimism that survives my guard is based on one thing alone [for I have no optimism that Berhalter would be replaced in this WC cycle. Once Nepotism has a grip on an institution, it takes genuine disaster to loosen its iron hold], and that thing is a hope that General Egg is sufficiently wise to learn from his experience. In short, a hope that his performance as manager for this next year will, with intelligene, take to heart the consequences of his mistakes in his first full year.
However, should we start the Hex with Mikey "commanding" the field, for one of many possible sad scenarios, then perhaps not even Nobody will agree with Nobody

 

I very much appreciate the optimistic take on the past year. There are obviously still big issues with the team, but it gets tiresome when almost every post is a hyperbolic excoriation of Berhalter.

Like others, I'm optimistic about the quality of the players coming into the team. At the CONCACAF level at least, we have some guys (with more on the way hopefully) who can really break open a game, even if the things aren't working systemically. We know that even if we can't get the passing game going on a particular day, sometimes Pulisic will beat 3 guys and create a goal out of nothing. Dest, too, might have that ability, albeit further back the field, to beat a couple guys, completely unbalance the opponent and create a good chance.

I'm also OK in principle with trying to move to more of a possession based style. I've always been of the opinion that you don't actually need to have supremely high technical ability to play this way. If guys are constantly moving to get open, and the player on the ball has 2-3 relatively easy passing options, this actually makes the game quite easy. Players aren't required to beat opponents on the dribble or hit really difficult passes. Of course, this also requires players to be able think quickly and make the right decision, and it's harder at the highest levels when teams will press or defend deeper and force you to come up with something special to break them down, but there's no reason the US can't play this way against non-Mexico CONCACAF teams or other opponents outside, say, the top 20.

Now the "but"...I feel like the way Berhalter is setting up the US to play is too stiff and regimented. There often doesn't seem to be enough off-the-ball movement, with guys appearing to not know where to go or having to pause and think where they should be going. It also seems like there is too much focus on repeated passing patterns. It's clear the CBs are supposed to get the ball to the DM, who then distributes. It's clear that the CMs are supposed to looking for that ball out wide to the overlapping RB. This predictability makes it easy for other teams to shut down what they're doing, and then they look lost. The best examples of possession-based teams look much more fluid and organic.

 

It's always a little risky to count chickens, but the a lot of the personnel angst is likely to start to disappear as more clearly better talent rises to the top and/or gets healthy: Adams, Weah, Pomykal. Ledezma, Llanez, Richards, Robinson.

We have an increasing volume of prospects, and that's how you win the game: with numbers. You never really know who is going to make it, so just having as many players with high end potential as possible is the game.

Listening to @zlebmada 's most recent pod with Doyle brought a lot of that to light. Even in the MLS crew, the actual breakouts were not in their top tier going into the season. It may be the guys we expect next year ... or it may be someone who has been a bit written off or not even on the radar.

When teams are trying to develop passing chemistry like this -- dependent on reads and placement on the field -- there's often a period of mechanical action before it clicks.

This doesn't mean that the US will ever get it, or that Berhalter is teaching it right, etc. But even if he were doing everything perfect, there's almost always a period where players don't have the reads and movements down by rote. They need to learn it with each other.

 

Repped for putting the time in to draft such a thoroughly constructed argument, despite elements of it I disagree with.

Nice for something not to sound like a broken record. Yes, I'm that old.

This is what love about BigSoccer & welcome more of it regardless of optimistic or not.

(EDITED from original sentence where I wrote "...used to love")

 

I think right now all age groups are going through this. "IF" it is a good system that takes time to learn it will be a huge plus that each age group is doing it as a player will only struggle to learn it at the first age group they encounter it and every team they move up to will be using the same system making it a lot easier after that. Of course the obvious counterargument is it may be a horrible system. Sure it could and I wonder how long Earnie is willing to give Berhalter or if it's actually Earnie's system how long will Gregg's brother give him?

 

It can be called differing names but I think they want a much more aligned way of playing where each player knows what to in certain situations and so do their teammates. Not "plays" like in football but reads. FC Dallas did that this year and it took half a year to kick in. Without that amount of time it is a big gamble at the full team but if each younger team does it for years all players will know it if they get called up to the full team. Will Earnie or the fed have enough patience to do it or will a fan revolt force a change?

 

american football/soccer people are so annoying to me you always here we do not follow we will be our own and yayda yada yada and then reading all these stories and post i bet if germany italy or somebody disade to get a defender and covert him to striker i bet all these experts in usa would go around to find their own defender to convert him to striker LOL

 

I'm not sure I'm clear on your point here; are you saying that American soccer professionals (coaches and the like) mimic any ideas that Germans or Italians have? If so, please provide examples of this. All I see is that there is a significant portion of posters on BS that have a clear inclination to believe that anything done in Europe is better than how it's done in MLS.

 

i just read it bvb is trying to get some american kid to play inside and already somebody here wants him to play inside too is USMNT set up the same way as BVB in any form do they have same technical players or are the play in any was similar to each other

 

Who is the kid at Dortmund, and who "here" wants him to play inside for the USMNT, too? This is all very vague. Are you talking about a single BS poster? You can't characterize "us soccer people" (as you did in your prior post) based on one person's opinion on BS.

 

Well, the bolded is the BS MO re:USMNT.

 

I don't agree with much of what you post, but this was spot on. Cheers.

 

It seemed like Berhalter felt a little heat after the Canada loss. Of course, he’s in no danger of losing his job anytime soon. But, a little heat is good for him to look in the mirror.

 

Well, you mean the top 16 team that finished 5th in the Hex and has failed to qualify for the last two Olympics? Gosh, let us keep that system going at all costs!!!

The idea that the US is/was a top 16 team is strained. Laughable, really.

I think the idea is to reform a system that produces hard working athletes and good goalkeepers into one that produces technically sound and tactically savvy soccer players at a much higher rate.

Berhalter is hardly the first to see the need (JK). The thing we want to avoid is a situation where we lack the offensive nous and skill to break down increasingly organized bunker & counter teams in CONCACAF whom MLS has helped to improve (Panama, Jamaica, etc).

When that happens, the floor of the team should be #2 in CONCACAF. Now it is lower. And the ceiling should be raised.

Further, reverting back to counterattacking is easy tactically (it is not complicated), but having players who are more technically sound and tactically astute should enhance that aspect as well. In theory.

Now, do I agree with all of 3Gs roster decisions? Of course not. How can so many MLS players be picked and NOT Opara and Bedoya?

Anyway, we were in shambles. We have an almost entirely lost generation of players from 25-30. It was the perfect time for a tear down & rebuild.

Now, discussions about how USSF implemented the change (delay in search/hire), if we have the right man in charge, and the wisdom of his many decisions are all fair game.

But the idea that doing a tear down now was a bad idea seems a bit....strained to me.

 

moved to another thread where it belongs. sorry

 

A big part of the reason that we were "in shambles" is because Arena actively tried to market and build around MLS. We paid the price for that arrogance, even if an all-MLS squad should still have qualified.