It just sucks that no one can doing anything about the mismanagement of the federation. There are no shareholders so no one has standing to sue for the conflicts of interest with the Berhalter self dealing.
Pulisic has never demonstrated that he is much of a leader but handing the ball to Sargent is pretty bad, especially when you consider how hard he fought to take one in a meaningless friendly against Liverpool last year. He's a back-of-the-jersey player so far in his career.
Seriously, how can the decision to call up, let alone start Trapp and Zardes despite repeated horrendous performances be defended, or even explained? Does Berhalter come with these guys? Is it in his contract? Does he think that he needs at least 2 Crew players in the lineup to hold his system together? What does he think he is doing?
Yea of course it’s stupid transparent “player motivation.” Lampard said the same thing about the 4-0 loss to Man United as encouraging versus the 2-2 Leicester draw.
The shocking thing to me was the spacing in the back line, and the repeated passes into the middle of the defensive third, often to players who were already under pressure. This was the worst performance from a USMNT back line and goalkeeper I've seen in ages, possibly ever. A USL team would be more organized at the back. Farther forward, it was not much better. There were great individual plays by most of the players on the field, but none had any impact because their teammates weren't on the same page. There were multiple instances of two players making the exact same run and getting in each other's way. I've been watching the USMNT since the 1990s. We've played Mexico better than this with worse talent, even accounting for Trapp and Zardes. But lately the USMNT has been less than the sum of its parts. Far too often we look like a pickup team whose members first met five minutes before kickoff and don't quite know each other's names yet.
You will never see the soccer media call any of this out. You have jackasses like Grant Wahl (I know you are reading this) who just want to be friends with the federation and the reps and the players to show up at events and get to feel cool and part of the in crowd. Grant Wahl will virtue signal about politics on his Twitter account all day but will NEVER confront Berhalter about the conflict of interest that got him hired in the first place.
Didn't know you were an Egg fan earlier - if that is what you meant. Hector Moreno(I think he's their cb) on Univision post game says Berhalter is trying to change the way US plays and trying to play out of the back and pressing forward and they're not there yet but will need it when they get to WC. Looks like Egg has some fans in Mexico.
That's twice now... Gregg Berhalter when trailing late in a game against Mexico. #USMNT pic.twitter.com/xYdFH7CCuO— Sad FCD Fan (@sadfcdfans) September 7, 2019
So you watched that game and thought they were worse than Steffen and Boyd and Zimmerman? Alrighty then.
Also, has anyone noticed certain fundamental similarities between Berhalter and JK? There's the refusal to admit that anything is going wrong, for one... The main one? They both outsmart themselves -- in different ways, but the result is the same. Klinsmann was an erratic coach who would make last-minute changes in tactics and not tell the players, supposedly to prevent leaks. Berhalter acts like a club coach and comes up with elaborate tactical plans that are beyond the ability of any team to put together in three days of training. The result in both cases is that the team doesn't play like a team.
You taken this the wrong way dude. It is well known that Pulisic, Weston, and Sargent are pretty close. These guys talk on house party every day/week and hanging out in Germany together. He was trying to gift his pal a goal. Pulisic is not the kind of player that's afraid to step on the plate and take the challenge. Dude left his home at 15 to take on the unknown, while grown men rather chill at homes with their dogs and the beaches.
I bet he does. I was not excited for Berhalter, but first and foremost I'm a supporter through and through. I root for his success and try to give a lot of rope. This performance was bad, but I wouldn't look to replace Gregg for it on its own. But this BS on top of 3-0 is a bit ripe.
This program is royally screwed for 2022. I even think 2026 is going to become an even bigger embarrassment for the program when the entire country sees how bad the MNT is.
I’ve traveled Europe to watch Pulisic play in the Bundesliga and in the Champions League. Let me tell you I find him giving that PK up to be disappointing.
I don't want our best player thinking about gifting anything other than a butt kicking to Mexico. This is not their personal playground and that group of buddies has done nothing at all in the international game to feel as though they can place each other's individual stats above what is best for the team.
It's fun reading the reviews for this one. Here's NBC sports https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/so...ght-against-mexico/ar-AAGW8lT?ocid=spartanntp It's almost as if the total confusion on the pitch gets the better of the reviewers who themselves end up totally befuddled in their analysis.
It takes time to master the passing patterns. The problem is international level is not the place to learn that stuff.
Repped. If you Rep this post you will also be repped. If you don't Gzasi Zardes and Wil Trapp start against Uruguay Or something.