Hope

So who needs to be in the starting 11 next window to give you hope.

 

There are no conspiracy theories that make sense. We just didn't perform in Panama.

The USMNT has lost one of its last 21 games against CONCACAF opposition.

Our squad is VERY young, and actually quite inexperienced. I mean, we started two 18 year olds against Costa Rica. A chief rival in the region. Not even Arena did that with Beasley and Donovan. They were slightly older.

I mean, we started Chris Richards for the first time in a WCQer for heaven's sake. He's 21.

Berhalter literally started young players in a WCQer agaisnt Costa Rica that had never started together before.

I see huge reason for optimism based on the age of these players, their ceilings and trajectories, and how they're going to improve together as a group. Not only that, but the wave of talent isn't stopping. More and more and more and more are on the way. We see that in MLS every week.

Let's note that if Reyna and Pulisic were available, two guys are left out. I'd think Arriola definitely. We know Zimmerman replaced a Euro guy too.

Every coach has "his guys." We've gone thru this same player selection argument ever since I started following the team 35 years ago. [The first USMNT game I went to we lost to Bermuda.] The fan groups of every single national team have the same player selection argument. Our pool is building and building and building and building in size, and USMNT coaches will have to make increasingly difficult decisions. Look at the quality of players that the France coach has to leave out.

This board will never be happy with all of the player selections.

Ultimately a USMNT coach is judged on results. The ends justify the means. So Berhalter will be judged on whether his squad delivers advancement to the World Cup. He's on track..................after delivering both the Nations League and the Gold Cup trophies. Did people not enjoy those trophy ceremonies? Not only that, but he's almost completely turned over the squad since he took over in 2019. Just a couple of stragglers. He's done what people wanted by going very young with the next generation. And yet still people find reason to bitch.

Do I like all of Berhalter's decisions? Of course not. But I never like all of the decisions of any national team coach. Its part of the deal.

 

There will always be differences of opinion about how quickly a coach brings in talented young players. I've been in the camp it should go more quickly. But it has been happening. The young talent has basically forced it. They've kicked the door open.

 

Not for me. Berhalter took the idea of rotation to the extreme in Panama and it backfired there. Hopefully a lesson was learned. While last night we looked fresh the whole game and Costa Rica looked like they played the night before. Of course the age of both teams played a part in that but I’d say the rested legs topped off our degree of fitness dominance.

I have hope this team has at least one really big away win in them the rest of the cycle.

 

1. I've been a fan since 93. My hope is rooted in the growth of the sport here, not in the results of a game or a handful of decisions by one individual.

2. I think Berhalter went a bit nuts with the squad rotation in Panama, but we also saw fresh legs overwhelm tired ones last night in Columbus.

3. I'm a bit skeptical that certain players are somehow obviously, objectively better than their alternatives. I also don't think that you should necessarily make your starting XI out of your best XI.

 

Costa Rica is an old team. They also did minimal rotation during this window. I won't say that was a mistake. They got 4 points out of the window. I think maybe the game against the United States is the one they didn't prioritize. Anything from that game would have been gravy from their perspective. I'm still a little surprised they went with such an old group that had been given a lot of minutes in the prior two games. It showed.

 

I think if people zoom out and look at this Ocho as a whole, there should be enormous optimism about qualification. In these three game windows, depth is going a long way. Berhalter spent 2020-2021 building depth. And young depth. If folks don't put a microscope on each individual game, but zoom out to the overarching story of the first 6 game....................the USMNT looks in extremely good shape compared to the competition. Costa Rica and Honduras didn't look in good form before this ocho, and that's proving to be the case in the real world. El Salvador has a lot of fight, but they don't have the talent level. Jamaica underachieves like Jamaica underachieves. So if you're telling me our qualification question mark is whether we can play better than Panama over the next 8 games................I'd bet my mortgage on that. Cuz we saw Panama's problem last night. No depth. They can pick off individual games like they did against the US. But these three games windows don't favor them.

We just beat one of our biggest regional rivals without Pulisic and Reyna. Arguably our two most dynamic offensive weapons. We counted on an 18 year old forward from FC Dallas. We're counting on an 18 year old central midfielder. We started a 21 year old CB in that game last night who'd never started a game for us before. We can keep going.

There is so much to be excited about with this group of players, and there's so much more talent on the way.

The level of this team is fine as it is, and we can only see an upward trajectory as they gel together.

 

When everyone is healthy the lineup selects itself. Where Gregg gets interesting is when some of the starters are out or need some rest. I'm hoping he realizes that of the non-starters, the guys he should be turning to are Aaronson, Weah, Busio and de la Torre. Not Roldan, Acosta and Lletget.

I'm on the fence about Arriola. I see him as a cut above Roldan and Lletget. But inferior to Weah and the other younger guys.

I also think there are some questions to be answered at forward. I'd prefer to rely on Sargent and Hoppe for depth rather than Zardes and Pefok.

Adams remains the most difficult to replace player. If he can't play I'd go with Busio at the six. If paired with McKennie and Musah, I think Busio's defensive deficiencies can be mitigated to some extent. I would rather try that than plug in Acosta.

I'd also like to take a look at Reyna in midfield. An experiment I would try in the last two windows, which will require some rotation.

The center back pairing is a work in progress. It could go in any number of directions. Here I favor some mixing and matching to see what works best.

Goalie I'm not gonna touch. I have a view but it is not strongly held.

 

Anyone saying Egg is judged on WC qualification is taking a piss...WC qualification should be guaranteed with this talent. Again - if anyone brings up last cycle, I'll ignore it because it has nothing to do with this cycle.

There is clearly an effort to qualify with average MLS guys being a big part of it. Whether official or tacit, it doesn't matter.

Argue against it all you want, but it's happening. There was simply no reason for that GC-level squad to play in an away qualifier. This wasn't a surprise to most here.

And frankly, I don't even understand it. Busio is an MLS guy, effectively. As are Adams, and Aaronson, etc...

We should not see Lletget again. For as much as everyone is infatuated with Arriola's amazing work rate, if he's not supplying end product (which he isn't), he needs to be dumped, too. Zardes should not be on a qualifying squad barring injury.

We have MLS guys. We have Tuner, Miles Robinson (who should be in a CB rotation), and Pepi. That's all we need.

You play better players, you get better results. An away qualifier to Panama with Busio, Acosta, and LDLT in the midfield gets a result.

We will qualify. Egg once again saved his job last night. But if he continues to force feed a couple of his favorite MLS guys, who are not up to this level, we will continue to teeter on the precipice of qualification, a place we shouldn't be close to.

I don't think anyone, even the Berhalter Brigade, thinks this team is performing at or above the overall talent we have. That's on Egg. But we're stuck with him. All we can hope for is that he finally identifies the correct talent (15 total minutes for Busio/Hoppe says he hasn't), and gets out of his own way.

 

I'm honestly a little baffled here. It's rotation. You can agree, or disagree, but the tone and tenor of your post seems to imply that Berhalter has some insane depth chart at the top, and it's affecting every game.

Here's the players that played the most minutes this window, and I'll even give you Arriola since it seems it was intended:

---------------- Pepi -----------------
Aaronson* --------------- Arriola*
---McKennie ----------Musah----
Jedi----------Adams---------Dest
-------Zim*-------------Miles-------
---------------Turner----------------

* Starred players have an injured player clearly ahead of them on the depth chart (Pulisic, Reyna, Brooks).

Aside from Arriola ... I mean, that's like everyone's dream, right? That's the combo of skill and athleticism that everyone wants. That's clearly the top team right now for Berhalter. And the Panama game was clearly rotation to try and protect the home points. It's decidedly pragmatic.

Are we talking about B team choices? Once you get to that level, there's plenty of debate. But I don't get the angst over Berhalter and the A team. I keep reading things that just don't seem to understand what rotation is, that the Panama lineup was clearly an attempt to protect home points, which we got.

We'll move on, and the lower edges of the depth chart will continue to evolve as the young players get better and players pop in and out of form.

People are putting way too much of the Panama game on the lineup anyway; Musah looked bad, Adams looked only okay, Pepi looked bad, Weah looked bad, and so on. It was a road game, we played like crap, and while that lineup is simply not as good, that lineup played much worse than it can. It was not destined to lose and the A team was not destined to romp Panama in Panama. It could have, but it's not that simple.

People forget how very disjointed a younger, more talented team looked in El Salvador.

This team has a LOT to learn to reach its potential, but this post makes it seems like Berhalter's A team is miles off everyone else's. It's not. He rotated, and honestly, it may not have been the wrong decision.

 

I have been talking about the poor player selection since the first camp Berhalter had in March of 2019. People like you claimed it was fine. After wasting most 2019 on players who had no business on the team, he went out and found more mediocre players, many of whom he had previously discarded.

The defense of Lletget has been downgraded multiple times. The GC exposed him for needing better players around him (which makes one wonder why Berhalter didn't learn that and played him at Panama).

Arriola is the same player Aaronson according to Berhalter and we lucked out that he got injured last night. Weah and Hoppe are significantly better players than him.

Roldan, Zardes, Acosta, etc have shown their level is somewhere beneath what we have already faced.

I am not sure you can minimize the scrutiny needed for back ups when Berhalter is going to start them in WCQ games.

I have no idea why you keep bringing up Musah not playing well against Panama and somehow that proves the line up wasn't the problem. Musah provided the of any of the midfielders in the game. It is a pretty big problem if we are expecting an 18 yo to carry our midfield. I dont judge any of the front guys against Panama because the midfield was so poor.

 

Average age of USMNT starting XI last night. 22 years 229 days.

10 starters were considered USYNTers this year as they were all eligible for the Olympic qualifying team. This was essentially our U23 lineup. And not even our best U23 lineup because Pulisic and Reyna were also Olympic eligible.

SO if you want to think about hope, and you want to think about the future...................just consider that. Our oldest player in the starting XI (Steffen) was YOUNGER than Costa Rica's youngest player.

This group is JUST starting their journey together.

 

I guess the question that needs to be asked is whether having an older player such as Brooks or Zimmerman improve the overall product. How much does experience and veteran leadership count for in international soccer? How far can a very talented U-23 team go against sides that not only have talent but experience?

 

It probably depends on the opponent and the situation.
Do we really think Berhalter will go this young against Mexico? Will he start three 18 year olds against Mexico (Musah, Pepi, Reyna)? I doubt it.

And I do think we have to expect inconsistency with a group this young. We shouldn't be surprised that a group like this has ups and downs. Lays some eggs.

I do think that some of the veterans that people complain about in this group are there for veteran leadership. And perhaps off the field leadership even more than on the field. And Berhalter probably thought the Panama game on the road was time for some veterans. It backfired.

 

I think this is the issue that many of us have with the management of this team. Why has it taken so long for them to finally get the band together? And are they going to get to stay together and gel or will they get constantly broken up again to shoehorn in older, less-talented roll players? The potential answers for the first question leave a lot of uncertainty about the answer to the second.

 

I mean, the answer to this is injuries, players literally turning professional and getting good enough, etc.

For example, someone was complaining we've been waiting for the MMA midfield for so long.

Except ... the MMA midfield has started every single game McKennie, Musah and Adams have all been healthy for. The only delay in any way was Nations League (where Adams only play sparingly at the end of the final) where Musah didn't play in the formal Nations League games (but did play in the two friendlies).

Across McKennie, Adams, Pulisic, Reyna, Brooks and Dest, we've had player availability for 19 player-games of 36 in WCQ. These dudes are NEVER healthy.

Pepi just started starting at FC Dallas like a week before the Gold Cup started.

And so on.

 

Your are as nuts as your namesake. If healthy, Musah, Reyna, & Pepi are locks to start. Musah was the only player to start all 3 matches this window (though Arriola was slated to). Pepi started 2. And Reyna is a lock if healthy.

It is at home. First game of the window. A 2 game window. Biggest game of qualifying. No rotation here.

 

Why start those guys when we have Lletget, Ariola, and Zardes. The fort people will go to come up with reasons to make the team worse is mind blowing.

 

This is a bit disingenuous, as if this was the only thing, then we'd have a stable core of the team, and with just a few players missing from time to time when they were injured. Instead, we have seen wholesale roster changes between tournaments and even between games in qualifying. Who is our stable core from which injuries are subtracted? I have no idea what Gregg thinks that is. I know this group has most of the guys we want to be in that core, but most of them haven't played that much at all, and very little of it with others.

 

Really? I think it is pretty clear. Just like the Panama game was clearly a B team.

You can argue we should have brought the A team to the Gold Cup to gel. There's counters to that and the reality is that we'll never know.

But if you don't realize that Berhalter has Pulisic, Reyna, McKennie, Adams, Dest ensconced as full A team members, plus this last window, clearly Musah, Robinson and Pepi joined with the most minutes at positions where people we'ren't hurt... I mean, this isn't that hard.

This fanbase constantly tried to spin shit that is injury related as Gregg's an idiot. The number of "Tyler Adams is clearly never going to play CDM" when the dude played literally ONE game for Berhalter in the first year is mind-blowing.

Here, they are doing it with Musah. Look, we'll never know exactly what went on in Nations League. Was it Musah not ready to commit? Was he out of form? Was he not tactically ready? Was Berhalter trusting experience too much?

But Musah is clearly a favorite now, and he was clearly a favorite then. Every time we got him in camp, he started and Berhalter has continually praised and loved the idea of a MMA midfield.

But hey, you can build a weird argument around him having to wait because he was hurt in September and because we did a B team at a GC. Has nothing to do with evaluation and EVERYONE knows that, but if someone can put out a snarky post, let's ignore that.

 

First of all, you seem to be talking at other people instead of me, which is fine, but if you want to take both sides of the argument I may just take myself out of it.

Second, you listed 5 players who are "A" team, but who else? Who is going to play against Mexico, which should be our toughest game and our strongest squad? I'm really not sure who Gregg is going to put, or where he is going to put them. Outside of the 5 you mentioned, who are about the no-brainiest locks anyone could ever pick, what do we have that would give us any confidence in what the lineup would be?

I do not think Gregg is dumb, but he sure takes a long time to come around to decisions that many saw very quickly, even Adams as DM, which is now may as well be engraved in stone. I think he may finally be coming around to our actual best 11 (which was predicted long ago) but if you're telling me I should have confidence he will actually play them... I just don't have it based on 3 years of lineups.

Edit: I also have made no comments about Musah, so you're literally just strawmanning there.

 

If we take an A team to the Gold Cup then players like Miles Robinson, Gian Busio and Matt Turner don't get the games in to break into the starting lineup. Then when they eventually find their way onto the team months later, we groan that they weren't integrated sooner.

Full disclosure- I don't think Gregg has ever played his top lineup, be it injuries, rotation, whatever. But with a game against Mexico, three days rest, and only two games in the window, he better start the best possible lineup he can (in his mind).