Except we sucked at! That’s really the point. To qualify - we actually need to be really good at possession. Instead we have delusions of grandeur about playing and competing with top 5 teams. We play maybe one or two meaningful games against those teams every four years. Yet fans want us to build a team around those scenarios rather than 97% of our meaningful games.
To be honest - with his talk of Yedlin — against those top years it wouldn’t surprise me at all if GB goes five in the back then. Take off a Bradley/ Trapp. Move Adams centrally and bring on Yedlin.
Just a general thought about Berhalter versus a lot of our fanbase. This guy wants possession ability from his fullbacks. He recognizes, I think correctly, that becoming a better possession team isn't just about C-Mids and CB's, which are where we usually focus when we talk about USMNT possession, but also requires having fullbacks who are able to be calm in possession, to be outlets against a press, and to complete some middle distance passes. I don't know if Berhalter will prove to be right in selecting some different fullbacks from what most fans would select--either his guys will help possession or they will get turned into roadkill by speedy wingers and wide forwards--but I am guessing fullback selection is going to be a major bone of contention as long as Berhalter is the coach.
They cant take it when more and more fans are coming to their senses and realize what is going on. Others have completely stopped watching this team and coming to games. If its a choice between having 5 million fans or 4,000 fans with Bradley special treatment. They will choose 4,000 fans with Bradley special treatment. We have become secondary. Cordiero is there just to keep the status Quo and that's it.
If the focus is winning a world cup, perhaps we should be prepared to play top 10 teams. Soon, world cup qualifying will be even easier once the world cup slots increase. I feel that GB tactics are adequate to get us to the hex. I like his emphasis on attacking football. That said, its not difficult to get to the hex. So my interest is fixated on what he can do vs competition ranked in the 30 and up ranges. These next 2 friendlies will be a good test. In theory, if you have a tactic that can beat a top 10 team, it should be able to beat the likes Guatamala, Jamaica, Canada, CR etc. The aim should be to have a tactic that can do both. This way you are rehearsing the movements even vs lesser competition. The jury is still out for me. I like the idea of a 343 or 4222 transitioning.I just think its easier said then done. Also, dont know why we need to tell the world about it. I think GB adds more pressure to himself by putting too much in to the atmosphere. Hes telegraphing all his punches. Meanwhile, Tata is in the cut plotting. For example, the whole TA at rb situation. Once the commentators and various sources are talking about it and then GB confirms it begins to feel fabricated. Like a collusion job. It just feels rehearsed. We know that the us soccer community is small but its getting outrageous. I listen to Total Soccer Show and its the same on there. Soccer media trying to convince the fans that this is a great idea. There NEVER seems to be an adversarial relationship with any soccer media and the machine. Ever! In other sports in America you will see adversarial relationships and journalist willing to break a risky story. In the soccer world usa, we have to deal with this sort of weird hipster crap. If Croatia can make it to the world cup final its achievable for us. In order to get past the round of 16 we will likely have to face a top 10 team at some stage. I dont think its delusional to want to be prepped. Having to switch tactics for 1 game because Mbappe isolating Lovitz is not good.... thats a lack of foresight. Shouldnt we have a tactic prepared and tested for such an event?
Just getting up to speed on this new tinkerer. This thought of moving players to new positions is tinkering. Adams is 19, just made a move up in quality in terms of league and now, in a short camp and couple of games, let's try something different. Non productive, at least. The other half of this move is putting DY in an equally different position than he is used to. I watch NUFC games. I like DY. But I realize his limitations. He is not a 1v1 dribbler. He can take a ball on the fly and beat you in a foot race. Facing up and taking you on is not his forte. I have watched almost all of TA's appearances for RBL and idk how many for NYRB. Where he has and is playing for his team is where he excels. He is defensive and transitional. But to ask him to cover the right defensive spot and then get inside and do his normal thing is asking a lot of anyone. So, right off the bat you have taken 2 elements of your team and diminished their quality and ability. If their is more tinkering on the way, the overall balance of the team is out. A previous poster mentioned an attitude situation that may occur? Very possible. Anybody, athlete or factory worker, when you find your place, you like it there. A good coach can recognize a player for who they are and let them excel. A coach putting square pegs in round holes is missing the point.
Nope. I think the problem with a forum is that unless it is strictly moderated, a few idiots can drown out the analysis. That is what has happened in US Men overall. You have a few people here who post dozens of times per day, making it difficult to separate the signal from the noise. Even the ignore button does not work, because it makes a thread super confusing to follow. I cannot believe it, but Twitter has become a much better place to participate in a more nuanced, more fun discussion, where turning off idiots is as simple not following them.
Don Garber being extremely close to Michael Bradley and then ordering him on this team regardless of Bradley's play or any other variables....... Is in fact analysis. It has an effect on this team and how the team is shaped and who now plays where. Why make the moderators job harder by complaining all the time, because you want to come in here and see...….. tyler Adams to play RB because he such an awesome right back.
I truly want to keep an open mind as I prepare to watch the upcoming friendlies. I support my team and want them to win and stay injury free (ie. CONCACAF officiating). I do not like M. Bradley, I have NEVER liked M. Bradley. I am opening it up to input so I can enjoy the match that much more. Please explain to me why M. Bradley is on the roster much less starting. For the record, I will not accept any argument that I am blaming M. Bradley for the loss v. T&T. I also do not blame Omar. For me, it all falls to B. Arena. Here is a recent quote from Coach. Thanks for helping me to understand why he is on the March roster. "When you're looking at a profile of Michael Bradley or Will Trapp, a very controlling player, and you have the dynamic guy next to him in Tyler who can come inside and still be influential from that position, we think it's exciting and we want to take a look at it. It may not work exactly how we have planned and we'll have to adapt. But I think in theory it's something worth trying." Wow. Some personal observations open to your comments/feedback: M. Bradley does not seem to be personable or have any connection to his teammates. I do not attend practice and I am not privy to the locker room. I believe that MB might be an excellent, "practice player"? But he presents himself on the pitch as a stoic robot who is stuck in cruise control jogging around for 90 minutes connecting easy passes in the back when he can create space with no pressure. The only time I ever see anything resembling American competitiveness and passion for the game and team is when he scores a goal. He runs to the corner flag ignoring his teammates so he can scream at the crowd as if he is saying, "add that to my career highlight reel as the greatest US player ever!" In Brazil for WC I thought he looked like a player who already knew that he was going to play every minute of every game and that he was "pacing himself." I saw that in the Jan. game vs Panama too. “I am pacing myself for WC 2022.” During the last CONCACAF cycle how many times with less than 2 mins before halftime he makes a weak, lazy back pass in our defensive third putting a CF and our GK under unnecessary pressure? Usually we would commit a foul at the top of the box allowing the opponent an opportunity for a set piece right before entering the locker room at halftime? Please speak up. Tell me, I have watched all of the USMNT team games during MBs career and I have never seen anything close to what is described above. When I read the quote from coach I am really pissed because for all of the talk of adjusting and adapting I never see anyone, other than Trapp now, given a fair opportunity to unseat MB. Now we are devising a new system and tactics built especially for Adams allowing MB to control and influence the game? Are MBs positive skills sets all related to when we have possession of the ball and are controlling the field? I believe that he has always been a below average to bad one-on-one defender. Isn't that a consideration for manning the #6 and having another team built around you? I know, this time it’s different. He now has a coach with a detailed system and more importantly, all these shiny new toys around him. To make matters worse I see that the Mexican National team is now contracted with Jerry Jones to call his stadium in Texas their new home. Their friendlies this weekend are in San Diego? Throw more salt into my wounds with USSF and VW plastering MBs face all over their USMNT ads with "FUTURE IS US"? Wow. As they say here in Costa Rica, "Gracias a Dios" para los U20s and U23s
Just want to point out that that's a bad way to look at this. Bruce Arena was 9 - 5 - 0 before losing to Costa Rica at home, and subsequently crashing out of WC qualifying. I'm not very happy with this roster. I have problems with it in every position group, and I'm not happy that the system is building around MB/WT as the "QB" midfielder, which is forcing other players into covering for our "QB"'s lack of athleticism/defending prowess. But the U20's have a camp, and the U23's have a camp, so there are presumably going to be eyeballs on a large pool of players, including a lot of the omissions that we wanted on the Senior NT. Also, from what I'm hearing, GB isn't trying to permanently use Adams as an RB, so I'm willing to wait for additional camps to see if he continues to build the team around MB/WT. And it's his 2nd camp, I am much more concerned with the Gold Cup...
Not trying to pick on anyone but does this hold any real value anymore? I'd rather play all U23's at the Gold Cup and lose instead of veterans and win like Arena did at the last one right before we had no depth when those veterans got injured and we didn't make the WC. For me this whole cycle is to integrate U23's, U20's and a few U17's into the full team while setting the stage for the next cycle when a lot of those players will start hitting their prime. I'm in a long term mode because I realize there's a talent hold in the prime age right now and it will take time and patience to fix it. I'm willing to give Berhalter a chance because it seems he gets that but I reserve the right to change my mind based on what I observe.
I totally agree with your first paragraph. I've been thinking about this a lot recently in this forum. It is all so god damn nasty. The second paragraph....you must have a different twitter then I do lol.
The USSF hasn't helped in terms of creating a moderately enthused fan base. Would I be correct in saying ticket sales corroborate that? Suppose Bradley had not been called in. The discussion could be about Trapp and Adams and it could be reconciled by having each take a turn v. Ecuador and Chile respectively like we saw in Jan camp with Bradley and Trapp. that's 90% of the unpleasantness around here, like a malignant virus running amok. It just goes on and on and on.....
There are very few tournaments available for the MNT to play motivated opponents in competitive settings. The Gold Cup, Nations League, and WCQ are all that we have. Nations League is going to replace some of that WCQ, but still. And, it's tough to win tournaments if you've never won anything. That's why it matters.
You keep saying top 5-10 teams. We need to beat teams with better players who are ranked between 10-30. Think Mexico. We played a possession oriented build out of the back system in the 2018 cycle and only got one point off or Mexico and Costa Rica combined while we usually get 6-7. My guess is that both sides are praying that we continue this experiment against them this cycle. IIRC, you’d be happy if we lost all our game to our strong opponents but still made the WC through the fourth slot playoff by soundly beating the bottom of the Hex. Even if we lost all three games at the WC, you could still say that we did better than last cycle with GBs system.
Totally agree that we are still experimenting. That in itself is sad and ridiculous. When will we begin to get a system and make it ours. We are now trying to move a RB to midfield and a midfielder to RB/CM. I hate to be negative, but it is not setting up the team to succeed.
What I fin so confounding is that we don’t have a deep pool of talent where it conceivably makes sense to try different systems as we’ve got a surfeit of elite talent that we can mix and match. What we do have is a few elite or close enough to elite players (or players who are clearly better than the rest of the pool) that we should be trying to maximize their impact. Furthermore, almost all of these players play a direct, dare-I-day counter-attacking style that their attributes are well suited for (ie, speed, quickness, athleticism and a good nose for runs into space). Yet, we decide to ignore all of that to the side and insitirute a system where presumably our most important player will either be one of two meh minor leaguers who don’t even play that position for their teams....
Agreed. I still check in here occasionally, but if you follow the right people on Twitter you can get some pretty good takes and a decent back and forth.
@finalthrd @chuckme92soccer @b_kleiban @kjchanusmnt @zlebmada @mattshartman @adinosmanbasic @joeincleats @hospitalball @away_goals There’s probably a few more, but those guys are all solid follows.
I was responding to a poster saying that the scheme is no good against bigger countries. That is correct. But last cycle's problem was losing against countries that ceded possession to us and countered. Specifically, Costa Rica at home and T&T on the road. We had possession and still lost. Berhalter's current scheme is for that situation. It's an attempt to make our possession dangerous and yet still guard against counters.
It is entirely unclear to me how this makes our possession more dangerous while simultaneously guarding against counters. We still likely have a very poor ball-winner at the 6 and have one of our best defenders in no man’s land in transition.
We play superior opponents within Concacaf. We have not won the 'A-team' Gold Cup since '07. In the Hex, we got swept by Costa Rica. At home in the Hex, we lost to Mexico. Our commulative scoreline in the last 5 competitive matches at Costa Rica: Costa Rica 15-2 USA. Superior opponents in competitive matches are essentially the elo top-20ish teams.