Post-match: International Friendly: USA vs Jamaica; June 5th 2019

The scariest part of that quote is that the manager states that the players are starting to understand and execute the system of play he wants. Why? Because that system not only just lost at home to a team full of MLS and USL players, but hardly ever created any threatening or meaningful chances. Maybe, just maybe, we’re seeing how a system does not fit with the players if they are starting to buy into it.

“There’ll be more poor performances when I’m coach, I’ll guarantee you that.”

Too bad we couldn’t make that the tag line for the USMNT forum.

 

I think he was paraphrasing the line in the original "Vacation" movie in the scene where Eugene Levy, playing the car salesman is trying to sell Chevy Chase on the Family Truckster and says: "if you hate if now, wait 'til you drive it."

I'd like to thank Will Trapp for his efforts to the USMNT cause and wish him well in his future endeavors (which won't be on the team).

As others have pointed out, GB is about to lose the fan base. It is time for him to show us the best team he can put together and let us see what it can do.

The time for experimenting is over.

 

remember how we also had to wait for the WC to finish so that we had a better selection of international coaches?

 

yea so Gonzalez, the one who moves with the ball like a current 90-year old is who berhalter is giving tons of minutes too.


The old-guard network in full force I expect another Bob Bradley at Practice.

Berhalter has the job to 2026.

 

So, we're now at a point where our coaching is so bad that we field teams of players from MLS and Europe but can't even compete against USL guys? There are no words for how poor that display was. I guess the only silver lining is that this is a meaningless friendly, not as bad as T&T and missing the World Cup or even as bad as losing to Jamaica in the last Gold Cup. But hard to see a friendly go much worse. Adams, Pulisic and McKennie need to step up and carry this sorry group or we're screwed. Of course, lord knows where Berhalter will play them.

Berhalter is sitting home right now thinking how much better things would have gone if Zardes was healthy.

 

To be fair to him, Gonzo was not the problem in this game. At least he tried to make some passes, even risky ones.

 

Berhalter complimented Sargent's later on-the-turn and on-target shot (the USA’s only one of the night), and of Holmes, the manager said, “Duane performed well. What you see from him is exactly what you saw at Derby County. He has this mobility. He has an aggressiveness. But he also has good technical ability in tight spaces. I thought he performed well tonight.”

https://www.si.com/soccer/2019/06/05/usmnt-jamaica-loss-gold-cup-friendly-berhalter-holmes-sargent

With Lletget out and Mihailovic not being high enough in quality this early in his career, it would make sense to give Holmes a call as Pulisic's backup.

 

Jamaica provided the blueprint on how to play against this particular GreggB team at the moment. Play physical and close space in the midfield—pressing will work to disrupt the US possession. That’s CONCACAF 101 stuff right there. The Total Soccer Show guys pointed out how the US looked ok in the first 10 mins of the match in which Jamaica gave the US some space; but, once they changed that and started pressing more is when it started to become ugly for us. Will things be better with more our our A guys? It absolutely should, but I’m not yet convinced of how much better yet since we still will have some guys who will be on the pitch who have not proven yet that they have the technical ability to maintain meaningful possession in the face of a physical press.

I hope GreggB learns from this and truly finds ways to adjust.

 

What I find interesting is that even Matt Doyle is starting to question both Berhalter's system and Trapp's role within it.

The latter can probably be explained because he is a big fan of Bradley's but I often look to Doyle to see what MLS' unofficial take is.

 

Can you please expand on this? Thanks.

 

I think our players on the field were at least as talented as Jamaica's B team - yet they didn't play that way.

 

At some point even state media has difficulty excusing the failures of the regime.

 

Doyle was killing Bradley last year when he was bad. He also praised him in 17 when TFC was killing everyone. I sense a pattern.

 

made me literally laugh out loud. Philly, baby!

 

Fair enough. I'm only thinking of what he has written lately which has Bradley as a core starter for the USMNT, while I was thinking that it was really Trapp that Berhalter was building around.

 

This game confirms every fear I ever had over the GB selection as coach. He's clueless on player selection and on coaching. How he can rationalize the continued playing of friggin Will Trapp is beyond me? BTW.... who was marking the goal scorer? WILL FRIGGIN TRAPP. He is NOT NAT quality GB, get over your Columbus bias.
I think all the midfielders need to NOT be on the GC roster... they created nothing all night. Poor Sargent was crying for the ball and they could not control it enough to create anything! I hope he is not a victim of GBs horrible midfield selection? We had no creative midfielder in this game.

 

Doyle, Carlisle etc. will have to hide the pom-poms until our 5-0 triumph over Guyana, at which point it will be obvious The System is genius.

 

While this game sure sucked big time, it is not a predictor of either Berhalter's future coaching or the team's success. As has been said above, this was a meaningless friendly (except for those players who demonstrated their incompetence). We really must remain optimistic. There really are good to excellent players in the pipeline who can complement CP, WM and TA. Maybe, just maybe, the US will be able to field 11 competent players in a year or two. That's the only way we'll be able to wipe the memory of last night and the TnT game from our memories. The "system" is irrelevant; it is all about quality players at this stage.

 

Try telling Berhalter.

 

Bought in? Working hard? Executing? No, No, and No. More results like this from 3G? No.

This isn't an MLS team where few a games here or there don't matter.

 

So, beyond the anger, let's try to look forward.

What all of these games help show is that which minor league (MLS/B2/Championship/etc) players cannot make the leap to a faster/more intense game. The ugliness of this game (which wasn't even played at a particularly fast/hard level) would be useful assuming Berhalter learns from it and changes his pool.

I'd point out that the following seem to show that they are not able to make the leap:

1. Trapp
2. Roldan
3. Mihailovic (still young so may just need more time)
   
4. Robinson (still young so may just need more time)
5. Lovitz (not based on this game)
6. Baird (not based on this game)

It will speak volumes if most of these subpar players are still in the pool after the Gold Cup.

 

Yeah, if these guys can't handle the pressure of a roster selection for a meaningless GC, then WTF are they going to do in a World Cup elimination match? I guess we'll need brown shorts and diapers for that one.

 

They were talking about the up coming US game against Venezuela. Apparently Ven. has a striker who is the leading scorer in MLS. They (I think it was Stone) followed it up with "so tune in on Sunday to see the leading scorer in this league". That may sound like a little thing, but this is international soccer and is certainly not the same level as MLS.

 

I’m not going to excuse a US team losing to Jamaica at home, but I don’t think your point about players from those leagues not being able to handle international soccer really applies to all players. It certainly may apply to THIS particular group of scrubs but we’ve had guys in MLS come in and play excellent in important games many, many times over the years.