Your delusions of grandeur and the arbitrary bar you have set for being "good" is your problem. Not the rest of ours. How many teams have beaten top ten teams? How many "elite" coaches are out there? Maybe 3-5. You're never going to be ok with who USSF hires as the next coach, and you'll always think the players are better than they really are. Again, that's your problem to deal with, not anyone else's.
Acosta did play the great ball to Gio on the Pefok chance at Mexico, which was more of a Wes-thing than a Tyler-thing. But yeah, he needs to come in and somehow keep the ball better.
Or all of those things happen….except with less defenders back because we’re still pushing numbers forward….
hey, thats (technically) exactly how i explained it to my mom! "well, his insides sort of got pushed out behind him". thats essentially a hernia. how did i not become a doctor?
usmnt has made it out of the group 5 of last 8 world cups.....with less talent....yet somehow "getting out of the group" MUST be the permanent bar for this team??? you people are the ones with the arbitrary bar.
While I dont disagree with your premise, the fact that an Italy fan would object to tactically sitting on a one goal lead is a little surprising.
Yeah I always felt this team was a round of 16 team this year that due to the matchup could potentially get to the quarters. Is that because of Berhalter? Not really. Just felt based on stuff like form, squad weaknesses, and player weaknesses stronger teams after the knockout stage could get us off our game. Now has my opinion changed much watching? Not really mainly cause of who we'd draw in the quarters but I think with how the team is playing we match up really well with Holland
Just to take one of your questions at face value [which you probably set out as rhetorical questions] many many teams have beaten top ten teams--and here I am referencing teams not in the top ten [because, I assume, you aren't shocked when top ten teams lose to top ten teams?] Heck, just in World Cups, just the USA, has managed that feat [say, England in 1950, Colombia in 1994, Portugal in 2002]. Heck, just in this World Cup we have already seen Saudi Arabia and Japan succeed in that. Just to take another of your questions. it may well be there are only 3-5 elite managers out there [just choose to restrict the label "elite" to that number!]. But there are many many more near elite managers, and even more excellent managers, and even more very good managers, etc...., until you hit that level of "mostly solid" where Berhalter has resided through his career.... The problem lies not in overestimating the quality of our players. the problem lies in badly underestimating the dampening effect unimaginative, average, dogmatic management has over players with potential for far more than that. . .
specifically to the IRan game: what was the deal with the players dribbling off their shins and losing the ball in the final third like they were allergic to scoring? jedi, musah, weah etc....all had horror shows in the final third..... if it wasnt such a common theme with berhalter ball, I would think it is the players. whatever he is doing and telling the players to do in the final third needs to change.....ASAP If Musah wants to be a starter for this team, he needs to be able to do something ANYTHING in the final 3rd of the field. Same with Jedi.... both of those positions need an upgrade for 2026. is it just tired legs.....? has berhalter ran these guys into the ground? maybe he shouldnt have played jedi every single minute of the cup to this point? perhaps?
when italy sits on a lead THEY KEEP THE BALL...Italy never bunkers the way greggg does by ceding all possession...that is INSANE
Better Holland than either Ecuador or Senegal, based on the group matches I watched. I don't profess to be an expert, though I am a legend in my own mind as are many others here.
If we are playing tikitaka keep away around the midfield stripe, you don't *need* those zillion defenders. That's the whole point.
There's a name for is: Steve Samson ball. It was a solid strategy for the personnel Steve Samson had. It is not a solid strategy for the personnel Berhalter has.
and greggg is flying it all under the flag of change the way the world views US soccer lol... by going back to 1997!!! I guess he just thinks people dont remember how the US played in the 90s or something?!? he's a clown
I think there is a bit of status quo bias, understandably so, after Couva. After not qualifying at all, qualifying and getting out of the group look like two steps forward, naturally. There is room for critique. But your broad brush and hyperbole is where I disagree with you. I don’t think he got “half the roster” wrong, e.g. I agree with you that roster and substitution choices are not maximizing our potential, but you have to acknowledge that Gregg’s game plans have been good, even if in game adjustments have been questionable. Even with roster choices, we are seeing lots of improvement over time compared to 2019. Yes, the failure to use players who can occupy the ball when we are leading is frustrating (Reyna, LDLT). There was no need to cede control of the game the way we did. And even accepting what Gregg wants to do, choosing lesser players (Moore) over better ones (Scally) is perplexing. We could have a fresher team going into Saturday, but we don’t. We could have a Gio that has acclimated to this tournament along with the rest of the key players, but we don’t. We could have had a Vasquez or a Pefok here but we don’t. But my theory is that Gregg’s weird rigidity about tactics and people (and grudges) will dissipate after this tournament. He has been in an understandable defensive bunker since the hiring process because of the appearance of nepotism, and now he will feel more secure. People in all walks of life make better decisions when not under constant intense pressure. I don’t think he will be as dedicated to vindicating his system after this. I expect him to be less weird about roster choices. And I expect him to work on creating more threats during the run of play because that is our massive weakness and he is not stupid. There is nothing wrong with critical commentary IMO, even though others disagree or are upset by it. There are lots of points you make that I can get behind maybe 60%. But man, you paint with an awfully broad brush.
why are you assuming gregg will be here for another cycle????!??!??!? it didnt work with arena, bradley or klinsmann...it wont work with berhalter!! he's shown who he is - IT WONT CHANGE!!!
i think modern life, technology social media has given everyone an extremely short attention span and people only remember what happened yesterday.....people are maing couva more important than it was.
Maybe sports betting should be like financial investment: prospectus always make it a point to state: "past performance is not indicative of future results".
In the interests of solidarity and support for our terrific national team, I too will volunteer to have you do that.
yes we beat Iran and England stomped on them ... but Iran did top their confederation and they have two excellent strikers ... their team is also under tremendous mental pressure. They were ranked 20th and us 16th. So to say Iran "sucks" is hyperbole. one thing I don't understand with Berhalter is why he does not play to bury an opponent once we go 1- 0 up. Take the stress out of the game with this young team by using your subs and team fitness and attacking mentality. When you have a bunch of young talented horses - let them run - all of them including the ones on the bench over the group stage - don't pull them back (I have yet to see Yunus truly express himself like he does at Valencia). So I don't like that. It is like he goes very conservative (subs, tactics, mentality etc.) when we went 1 - 0 up. Brazil and France and Germany don't play that way - once they start to win - their goal is to crush their opponent. So that is my beef with him in general. His entire sub pattern when we are winning (and sometimes when we are losing). But two other points: 1. the team is winning and they are fully a team. Egg deserves a great amount of credit for that as well as pulling more talent from around the world into the squad. Hats off to him in a big way. 2. As much as I love Gio we are not on the training ground and don't see how he is training and how fit is he is. We just don't yet know the full story there. We can hypothesize all we like but we just don't know.
I agree with some of this, but not quite 100%, e.g. us being Top 10. Still I do really appreciate your positivity. Onward!
Good post, especially the bolded part. I really wonder how much of this split is age related. I have been watching and rooting for this team since the 1990 world cup, so making it out of the group is "been here before" territory. It's *not* two steps forward for me. It's return to where we should have been in 2018. I imagine if you are in your 20s or 30s, maybe this feels a little new. For me also, the *idea* of having Americans at teams like Chelsea, Juventus, Barcelona, Milan, Dortmund, PSG, Arsenal is mind blowing. I remember when we looked at appearances at Fulham approvingly. This is part of why my expectations for Berhalter have ratcheted up. We have clearly better pedigreed players, so it should show (Maybe we've had those players all along but now the anti-American bias isn't holding them back?) And of course, the other thing that triggers my fan-PTSD is seeing a reversion to a U.S. team desperately defending and clinging to life with their fingernails against *Iran*. (No disrespect! I view Iran, Japan, South Korea and Australia as US's true brothers and peers in soccer terms as relatively new arrivals on the big stage who put up solid performances and have some real stars. I root for them all). We have arrived as a more mature soccer nation. We should play like it. An immature US fan base would have celebrated getting out of the group stage, but we're past that. Now, I expect the U.S. fanbase to look more like England's, Germany's, Portugal's, Italy's. Can you imagine any of *them* being anything other than disgusted at watching a team collapse like that and bunker against Iran? I can't.
just want to chime in on aaronson. i posted elsewhere that he hasnt been especially good, but i think the better way to say it is his effectiveness has been limited by usage and other circumstances. wright for sargent ended any semblance of possession in their half (much less any attack) so aaronson as a wide attacker is a really poor use, imo. its a waste of what he brings. i think he would be far better (wide) in a match before we essentially shut it down, but especially if we used him centrally- as that breakdown is whats giving us all heart conditions. not replacing any of mma, but as the sub ahead of acosta (which i could even defend if we adjusted to his playing as a second dm). with wes going off around 70 its...hard to understand why you wouldnt want brendans fresh legs, motor and general chaos in there. so i get the idea that his world cup isnt looking especially strong, but i think thats due to the role hes being asked to play more than anything hes actually doing or not, and how well.