The thing is I understand exactly why Berhalter made all the subs he did and they make sense except that Zardes and Lovitz don't seem to be good enough. With Roldan, he wanted some possession so that Pulisic can get on the ball more. With Zardes, Altidore was gassed. With Lovitz, he wanted to avoid giving Mexico an easy outlet because Ream wasn't pushing up the field like Cannon. I get why he did it, it's just bruh.
The problem is that all of those issues were things that any asshole on here could have identified as a problem before the tournament started, and built a squad to mitigate them. Like, no shit Tim Ream isn't going to push up the left wing. He's a centerback, and not a particularly quick one. We have a left back coming off a decent Championship season who can fly up the wing. Why was he not here?
Surprise team for this Gold Cup: Haiti Biggest Upset: Curacao over Honduras Most EnjoyableTeam Eliminated at Group Stage: Bermuda Biggest Disappointment: Cuba
I didn't expect them to be that bad though. 0-3 and outscored 17-0 is pretty pathetic for a team that's accustomed to playing in Gold Cups. Bermuda and Guyana were much more competitive in their debuts.
I don't know if I completely understand the Berhalter system, but from what I gather ... this is kind of amazing if: 1) The US has players good enough 2) The US understands how to play the system He is basically trotting out a 5 man back line which is highly unbalanced. One of the wingbacks starting position is midfield. The other wingback has the ability to push into the midfield or up the flank. One of the back three has the ability to push up into the attack, which forces the six to defend space rather than fill in the position. The 8 has the freedom to make runs into the box from deep.The attacking mid / winger can run through channels. It's incredibly dynamic. This is a basketball offense in soccer. I don't know if the US's current roster could play with this, but the 2014 WC roster would have had the pieces to run it (question mark being right back).
It seemed to work well defensively but there was just too often nowhere to go in the Midfield as a result. Morris being awful last night hurt. Suyntuy in the USA forums had a good breakdown of the fact that Mexico had one more man in midfield constantly last night and it allowed them to smother McKennie and Pulisic, which seems to be what I saw too. Normally to compensate, you'd spray the ball wide, but They just couldn't seem to do that from minute 35 onward until Roldan came in. For all the "System" talk about the RB role, Cannon seemed to be mostly a traditional RB, seldom straying from the right touchline, though with a decent amount of freedom to go forward. He got caught upfield a few too many times and Long had a to bail him out, but for the most part the team seemed prepared for that to happen. Berhalter is emphasizing defense first and that seems to be working out, but he hasn't quite figured out how to get forward. Fun but frustrating game. All things considered Mexico weren't given many good chances and we didn't finish ours. Sad that we don't get another game until September so we get to listen to two and a half months of complaining about Zardes and Bradley.
I think Cannon did well as a late sub to the team for this tournament. What is interesting is that on the original 23 roster, I assume there wasn't a player that could comfortably slot in for Tyler Adams in the 'System' role. Otherwise, how does an emergency replacement get a starting role?
I am pretty worried about the state of the program, quite honestly. We are good enough to make the world cup, but is it even a 100% lock at this point? And once we get there, won't we get destroyed, given that a Mexico B-team clearly outclassed us?
You may be making the mistake of projecting 2019s roster into 2022s World Cup. In terms of actual personnel and their skill levels, the two will bear only passing resemblance to each other.
Three years was enough time to add players like Donovan, Beasley and Mastroeni to a World Cup roster. Heck, the amount of players who missed the Gold Cup practically guarantee a different roster.
I feel like you are trolling, but .... 2011 Gold Cup Roster........................2014 World Cup Roster Howard...............................................Howard Spector................................................Yedlin Bocanegra..........................................Gonzalez Bradley...............................................Bradley Onyewu..............................................Besler Cherundolo.........................................Brooks Edu.....................................................Beasley Dempsey.............................................Dempsey Agudelo..............................................Johansson Donovan............................................Diskerud Wondolowski......................................Wondowlowski Bornstein............................................Guzan Jones..................................................Jones Lichaj..................................................Davis Ream..................................................Beckerman Kljestan...............................................Green Altidore...............................................Altidore Rimando.............................................Rimando Rogers.................................................Zusi Adu.....................................................Cameron Goodson............................................Chandler Bedoya..............................................Bedoya Hahnemann.......................................Johnson So .... 8/21 or 38% of the roster. There will be turnover.
There was no 1999 Gold Cup but the 2000 Gold Cup roster had the likes of Vanney, Fraser, CJ Brown, Kirovski, Wynalda, Armas, Olsen, Williams, and Razov, none of whom would make the roster two years later for what turned out to be our most successful World cup team ever (to be fair, Armas would have made the team if it weren't for injury). And that's when the pool was generally smaller than it is now, which means players were more likely to stick longer because of a lack of replacements. And that 2000 Gold Cup team was eliminated by Colombia in the quarterfinals.
I saw what you did with Wondo. Not sure if it was deliberate, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Well played.
Even from the 2007 Gold Cup to the 2010 World Cup, which I think was the lowest 3-year turnover we've had in the modern era, we had 10 players turn over (43%). The relatively low turnover was likely because 2007 was the youngest Gold Cup roster we've ever fielded.
Would have been better if he had kept Wondo's entries next to each other, but left them unmarked as matching.