So, year 1 of the WC2022 is now over, and we set off on the second year of the cycle. Year 1 Review: *We finally hired a full time coach (whether or not he’s the right man not discussed) after Sarachan carried the team on an interim basis. *We saw a lot of older veterans return to the fold; which was somewhat to be expected. Those guys include Bradley, Altidore, Ream, and Gonzalez. Of these guys, only Gonzalez seemed to fade from view in the Gold Cup. It’s still to be determined when/if Berhalter will favor CCV or another young CB in place of Gonzalez. *Trapp continued to be a mainstay, although seemed to fade from view in the Gold Cup. *Berhalter seemed to really favor Zardes. *Tyler Boyd committed to the USMNT. Personally, I was very impressed, but it seemed like he pissed off Berhalter somehow. *Berhalter has brought in or gave more time to Mihailovic, Lewis, Roldan, Lima, Baird, Ebobisse, Ramirez, Long, Miazga, Zimmerman, Lovitz, Yuiell, Gyau, Holmes, and recently Cannon. He reports he favors Lletget. *A. Robinson, Sargent, Amon, CCV, Novakovich, and Weah seem to be on the periphery. Also, add in S. Moore, Lichaj, Sweat, Parker, Villafana, Green, Saief, Gall, De la Torre, *Berhalter doesn’t seem to rate Nagbe, Acosta, Delgado, Canouse, Alvarado, Shea, Johnson, Morales, and Wooten *Berhalter’s top GK choices are Steffen, then Johnson, then Miller. I don’t know where Horvath fits in yet. *Arriola has been given the green light under Berhalter. *Brooks, Yedlin, Wood, and Chandler have missed out due to injuries. *Youth players who’ve earned a look but haven’t been called up yet: Pomykal, Soto, M. Robinson. ...maybe Richards, Gloster, Dest, Mendez, Araujo, Palmer-Brown, Sands, Bassett, Reyna, Aaronson, Llanez *Our best players; Berhalter is playing Pulisic at CAM/Free role, McKennie as a deep 8, and Adams out of position from CDM where he has become a UCL level defensive midfielder to where Berhalter thinks he should play at RB. *We’ve seem some wonky (the wonkiest, IMO) line-ups and formations; especially with the inverted RB/DM...Which I’m still trying to figure out what that is. *Berhalter does seem to favor and if he would quit tinkering with it, a 4-1-2-3. *Berhalter does seem capable of rotating the rosters which is positive, the team did improve as the Gold Cup, but he is still culpable of making too many wacky decisions. In Year 2: *I would like to see an immediate injection of youth. The bad news is that most of our old guys didn’t seem up to snuff, as it seemed like our depth in the tournament was not that impressive. But, the good news is that we do seem to have a lot of promising talent moving forward. *We need to settle on a captain. *We need to figure out our primary CB pairing. *We need Adams to play CDM. And, McKennie at the 8, and Pulisic at the 10. That needs to be our midfield. *I’d like to see Lima move to LB. with Cannon emerging, it’s more necessary to get cover at LB. *We need to prepare for the Olympics, but I’ll save that for another discussion *Ideally, I’d like to see us try to be at least three deep moving forward to prepare for the necessary rotation in the remaining years of the cycle. On this note, I’ll give up to 5 stars on my trust level for each player.... GK 1. Steffen **** 2. Horvath *** 3. Johnson ** Outsiders: Guzan**, Miller** RB 1. Yedlin **** 2. Cannon *** 3. Dest ** Outsiders: Chandler **, Araujo* CB 1. Brooks **** 2. Miazga *** 3. Long *** 4. Zimmerman *** 5. Carter-Vickers *** 6. M. Robinson ** Outsiders: Palmer-Brown**, Richards ** LB 1. Lima *** 2. A.Robinson ** 3. Ream** Outsiders: Gloster**, Alvarado*, Lovitz * M6: 1. Adams ***** 2. Bradley ** 3. Morales ** Outsiders: Trapp *, Canouse *, Yuiell *, Sands * M8: 1. McKennie ***** 2. Nagbe ** 3. Roldan ** Outsiders: Mendez **, Delgado *, Bassett *, Acosta *, Rodriguez * 10: 1. Pulisic ***** 2. Pomykal *** 3. Lletget *** Outsiders: Green**, Mihailovic *, Reyna *, Busio*, Hyndman *, Ledezma*, Aaronson* R/LW: 1. Weah *** 2. Boyd *** 3. Arriola *** 4. Holmes *** 5. Amon ** 6. Morris ** Outsiders: Baird*, Gyau*, Llanez *, Konrad*, Lewis*, Sabbi* FW: 1. Altidore *** 2. Sargent *** 3. Soto *** 4. Novakovich ** 5. Zardes ** 6. Wood ** Outsiders: Ramirez *, Dwyer*, Wooten**, Dwyer*, Vasquez*, Ebobisse**, Wright **
Some objections and clarifications to the statements of fact: Horvath was Berhalter's #2 until he was hurt. I'm not sure why we assume that has changed. Berhalter was the person who brought in Boyd -- he should get credit for that. While we don't know why he didn't play in the last two games, I think both his poor link up play in his last appearance and a general lack of defensive effort are likely culprits. Berhalter also brought in Holmes. It seems the Pulisic backup was Lleget, then Holmes, then Mihailovic. He's been pretty clear about Sargent, why he didn't make the Gold Cup and that "he's the future of the USMNT at striker" or a quote very close to that effect. I wouldn't say periphery. I think Weah is up in the air on that as well -- Weah chose the U20s. It's worth noting that Adams has played exactly 90 minutes with Berhalter, and so there's been no time to see if a) that RB/CM really works or b) if Berhalter will move Adams to the 6 and replace Bradley Re: Fabian -- Berhalter has mentioned that he could bring him in, but he's also been pretty clear that he doesn't think a 35/36 year old outside player can contribute Despite "lots of veterans" being called in, this is a very young team overall and basically has only 3 guys who are clearly too old to help in 2022.
Nice work! Few comments on your list: Tyler Boyd is TBD for me at the moment. Good and bad game makes it hard to hard to determine his fit. As already mentioned, Sargent and Weah aren't on the periphery. They will get their opportunities and need to focus on club this year, but will be part of the future. I'm less concerned about finding a CB pairing, but still not sure what the top two are going into qualification (Brooks and Long or Brooks and Zimmerman). Year 1 Review: Hit and Miss Unlike a few, I had no problem with Sarachan and was glad that we played some quality friendly's. However, I'm not sure the end result meant much and the current system is a lot different and we didn't "blood" a lot of the young players. GGG doesn't appear to be the answer. He is a system guy trying to develop a USMNT identity which doesn't fit the player pool (may be in 2-3 years?). Team has been inconsistent and while it had a decent showing in the Gold Cup, the competition makes it hard to really make any long term predictions. Year 2: Time to get Younger It's a pretty consistent theme, and I normally don't buy into just playing younger playes who haven't been playing consistently at their clubs. However, with the US missing the WC and our current group of players being "meh", we need to push the envelop more. So, I'm going to look for more younger players being called and giving them more games. I would like to see GGG be more flexible with his approach. Lastly, it would be great to finalize on a central defensive pair, find a couple of options at left back, have GK locked down (Stefan hasn't done so in my mind), and start having more options at forward. So, you know....hoping for World Peace!
I believe it’s critical to a successful World Cup cycle to build the team in phases... Year 1: Identify the Goal In this phase, the objectives are to expand the player pool, integrate young players, move past old players, and identify the core leaders of the group. The Gold Cup should reflect a system where the team has identified its captain and other players to rely on. Also, the Gold Cup should reflect a few styles of play that the team wants to utilize. So, it’s okay in this phase to try some stuff and experiment with the line-up. Year 2: Make the Climb Similar to Year 1, but the objectives is to start organizing the pool into a coherent squad. There should be plenty of time to bring in new faces but we do want the team to build towards a comprehensive game plan. Ideally, we want to see an idea of the primary system we want to play and we want to see depth in that system. Year 3: Ascend to the Peak Year 3 will be more like Year 4, where everything needs to start rocking and rolling. There is WC qualifying, and we should be fixing holes in the squad as we see them. The player pool should start narrowing although there are still opportunities for impressive players. Year 4: Zenith At this point, there’s no time for games. We need to have our primary system down. We need to have our pool down to our best 23-30 players and only room for guys who really stake a claim that they’re better than the guy in front of them. By the time we hit the World Cup, every player should know their purpose, familiar with the squad, and at an age where they are still hungry to win.
I think the next six months are going to be messier than I'd like. Things I'd like: The Olympics are more important to the US than most countries, but I'd really, really like us to find a way to qualify without completely stripping the senior team of young players like Pomykal, Weah and Sargent. WCQ is coming soon. We *need* to see more of Weah, Sargent, Pomykal, Holmes, Boyd. I think that's my list of players currently that absolutely need a chance to entrench themselves that I don't feel 100% about. In addition to that group, I would not mind seeing players like Bobby Wood, the Scandinavian 3 (Sabbi, Amon, Gall) or EPB or whatever, but I don't think, unless they improve, that any are material differences. But I think the above and the points below here are more important: There has to be an all out push to figure out LB. I don't think Ream was as bad as people say, but he's fundamentally limited to the point that it restricts our flexibility and creates holes elsewhere. I'm okay with a LB/CB style of format ... but not if it's the only thing we can do. Figure out the midfield. Numbers and players. Like everyone else, I don't see Bradley as the solution, and I actually am a bit more shaky about McKennie than I was before the Gold Cup. Weirdly, I like him offensively better now than before, but I thought he was more solid defensively and in the challenge. I don't think a two man midfield will be the solution, but let's figure out what it is.
A scant 8 days ago, this list was good. This past weekend an MLSer(Toye) is the most in form forward for us and he has never been called in. Jozy looked like a kid again. Shit happens so fast around here, it's hard to keep up. But it is good that it keeps evolving.
Since we line up in a “4-3-3” but the actually shape looks more like a 3-2-2-3 (if you see a screenshot of Josh Wolff’s clip board) when in attack, who do you see in those positions (given that is Berhalter’s preference).
I'd like to see both Arriola and Acosta tried out at LB. Could see platooning them based on matchup, at least until someone like Gloster is ready. That's assuming we get away from the hybrid LB/CB of course...if Gregg won't do that, could Long take over from Ream at LB/CB?
I think we are going to get a lot of answers to a lot of peoples questions in the next window. will it be the same roster with guys who had to drop out because of injury brooks/yedlin/adams/holmes/lletget as the 'new players'. Its kind of funny to think there could be that many new players and still not really be expanded the pool at all. I am not sure how you can bring those five in and still have room for pomykal/weah/sargent I just don't see him dropping a guy like zardes. Boyd may get dropped but that may be yedlins spot if you remember yedlin played up front in the first camp. Arriola isn't going to get dropped and I don't see him dropping roldan either. bradley/trapp are locks as are miazga/long/zimmerman. The way I see it locks for the next campnot doing keepers because its pretty obvious) altidore zardes arriola morris yedlin pulisic mckennie bradley trapp roldan adams brooks miazga long zimmerman so that leaves five spots holmes lleget sargent weah pomykal but those are not the five because there clearly aren't enough defenders on the list ream lima cannon atleast one of those guys has to be on the roster I do wonder if we will see long in the ream role on the left side basically playing as a back three. He actually probably fits the role better he is much quicker then ream. I've also dropped guys like boyd/lewis. My other issue is I've always thought there should be an open spot for a guy just playing really well. What if Dest is getting minutes at Ajax...what do they do? Do they call him up instead of lima or because he is a more traditional fullback does he even fit? Also for the record I think Soto is going to have a really good year I know it will be in the second division but I don't think he'll be at hannover the entire season.
I think Tyler Boyd didn't play anymore because of contract negotiations. Curious to see if he gets called if he rides the pine at first.
Its great to see that this generation of young players get it. Theyre all trying hard to see competitive first team ball. Sargent, Soto, Weah, Dest, Gloster, Steffen, Amon, Cannon, Pulisic, Pomykal...they're all angling for regular 90 minutes. Most of them are doing it abroad at decent clubs. That's the most fertile ground for great players that we have seen in a long time. Clubs represented there include Ajax, Hannover, Chelsea, Lille, Werder Bremen, and Dusseldorf. Hopefully we'll get a Dempsey-level contributor or three from that group.
We could be looking at a Golden Generation in their prime for a World Cup at home in 2026. Add in a little bit of luck and...
Yes, it looks like 2026 is in the crosshairs. There will be a core developed through WCQ, there will be a group tested in Qatar, and then more talent will be added/assessed/tested for 2026. That will be a window of prime football for Pulisic, McKennie, Adams, Weah, Steffen and Sargent. It certainly could be fun.