I'm glad someone noticed this. It went unnoticed because we don't play with a 10, and what Aaronson does at winger is not what our other wingers do, and probably isn't even Plan B in the GG system. But he came in and sent Sargent through on goal on a simple, almost boring, yet beautifully timed pass with Sargent kissing the offside line perfectly. Of course, if Sargent was even above average he at least makes the GK work hard for that save. The thing is ... have we seen a play like that from one of our players, in possession, this entire group stage (note I said in possession, Weah's goal came from a counter so it's not the same game state)? But I feel like those types of plays are not something we see from the NT at all but are routine in club football. Aaronson plays that style.
I would have liked to see us go for speed up top at the end instead of size. I was surprised to see Moore. I thought the line up worked and the subs were forced. In my head we could drop Aaronson deeper and bring on Reyna instead of the Acosta move, but that move made sense too. Our coach took us through the group undefeated, only allowing one goal while using 3rd and 4th choice center backs. He did something right and our marquee player came up big in two games to get us two results. Other country analysts are giving us much more credit than big soccer…
i dont think aaronson has been especially strong/sharp in his appearances, but i really wish he was being used centrally. as great as mma have been wes has been the earliest change made/needed and musah is being ground down to a nub. problem is we dont have cms who are really up to the task. i think aaronson and acosta (with kellyn dropping deeper in line with adams as we saw musah did in a few matches in the lead up do) for wes and yunus makes the most sense, but what do i know? cause while you cant argue with results, its incredibly scary watching yunus unable to move in the 95th minute- can you imagine how it would look in the 127th?
since you asked, this person was calling for ferreira over wright as scoring again/more didnt look to be in the cards and our midfield was starting to get run over. i also wanted reyna for musah, with aaronson dropped into the midfield with adams/acosta and gio giving us an option to actually hold possession a little so every remaining second of the match wasnt a full on onslaught. parking zim in the middle? perfect. no notes. as for rb, i know its just crazy talk to even mention scally as not only our second best rb but as a big body who could also help with the balls in the air. but really no crazier than suggesting reyna has any value, i suppose.
I feel the subs were made worse due to Sargent's injury. I'm not adverse to pulling McKennie and Dest -both coming back from injury and both carrying yellows, but I feel Ggg wanted Sargent for the 90, when Sargent went down, it made sense to sub like for like, so he went with Wright. As we all know it wasn't close to like for like. Wright could not hold up play, he couldn't apply minimal pressure, he made awful decisions on passes and shots, and looked like he was running in molasses when tracking back. It looked like he was playing scared. I think with the extra sub, we would have put in Reyna or Ferrera or shit even Morris to keep Iran honest to counter attacks. We didn't have that option, invited pressure, and inevitably had a nerve wracking final 20+ minutes.
Acosta as an 8 has basically never worked for the US and it didn't today either. As a central midfielder, he had 6 touches in 34 minutes. He might as well have been off the field. I'm honestly not even sure how it's possible to have so little influence from that position.
The move you suggested before is the right one. Aaronson as a pressing CM is better than Acosta as a ghost. De La Torre and Roldan, flawed as they are, are both better in the CM role as well. Acosta can work fine as a tactically-limited replacement for Adams but that is it. As an 8, there are at least a half-dozen Americans in MLS alone I'd rather have.
Berhalter’s central in-game tactical challenge is that he has four key starters — Musah, Wes, Dest, and Weah— who cannot play 90 minutes. Each was dragging by minute 70 and had become real liabilities on the field, for the third time in as many games. On its own, that means four of the five subs Berhalter can make are already spoken for. But adding the problem against Iran were injuries to Sargent and Pulisic, which meant that one of the players who isn’t fit enough to go 90 had was forced to do so anyway. Sorry, Yunus. For my money, that was a big part of the reason we wilted in the second half. Musah played an unbelievable 60 to 70 minutes. But by the end, he was almost non-functioning. The US was almost playing a man down. There’s a reason he immediately sat on the ground when the red blew the final whistle. Ut’s not the only problem, ofc. Half our starters can’t go 90 but their replacements, in a word, stink. Gregg held out with Dest as long as he could, but Serginio was ready to collapse by the end and Berhalter had to send in Moore. Same with Wes and Acosta. Could Gregg handle the situation better? Yes — for one, he *must* try Scally on Saturday when it’s time to swap Dest. Moore can’t be let back into the field. And he could have done a better job the last three years finding a better group of 8s to rely on so Acosta isn’t forced into the position. But, tbh, a lack of depth feels mostly like a structural problem for the team this year — one that will likely be its ultimate undoing. We’re still playing a World Cup missing a generation guys aged 26-32 who should be here, bolstering our depth if nothing else. Let’s hope we fix that by ‘26.
McKennie was done. People act like we lost the midfield when Acosta came in, but we had already lost our advantage there. McKennie was done and Musah was tiring badly. I think you can argue alternatives -- namely, should we have put Reyna in for Musah as well -- but Acosta probably needed to come in between McKennie and Musah's defensive coverage had slipped.
I would have subbed in Morris instead of Wright (Morris has a lot of big-match experience with the Sounders and would have known to take the ball to the corner instead of shooting) and Yedlin instead of Moore.
Early in the second half, Iran had a great break when Taremi just little brothered him. Brenden has a lot of fight, but he simply lacks the mass at times. He's also played the 8/10 for us several times and he plays it very far forward. It creates a lot of space in between the attackers and the defense because he's having to recover constantly. So he's a good presser and a willing defender, but the defensive drop-off from Musah to him is pretty big.
Reyna as false 9 works great in theory. None of us are in camp, though, and sticking a young player with no experience in the role might work ... and it might not.
The Long Diagonal. Gregg talked about it at length early in his tenure. Against Wales, we played a lot of them to Weah and he was brilliant bringing them down. But, they came to nought. Why? Because not matter how good you are bringing it down, that gives the D time to shift. Why did we score against Iran off a long diagonal? Simple*: Dest didn't bring it down. He headed a 40 yard aerial pass across the back line, perfectly weighted. I hope Gregg has learned that lesson. If we're going to live and die by the long diagonal, the recipient has to hit it across the box first time. If you trap it, the D will recover. Easily.
I think ideally your wingers should be able to take a settling touch and still be able to catch the defense off guard -- that's not asking too much of them IMO -- but you're not wrong that we haven't done that yet. Think it might have something to do with how few attackers we send into the box in these situations, and how it makes it easier for defenses to recover after being unbalanced. TBH one of the weaknesses for the US as a whole is they sometimes just don't play fast enough. So if Gregg wants to send instructions to the wingers to take one and only one touch after a cross, I'm all for it.
im not in the business of defending gregg (or recommending matt doyle), but he had a twitter thread this morning with i think 3 occurrences of almost exactly that goal.
If you mean 3 times the US scored that way, then I think we suffer for focusing on that so much. We hardly score. And, if 3 of our goals have come from that, then we are focusing on it, to the detriment of our offense. We sent tons of LD's to Weah that amounted to nothing vs. Wales. It's a very low percentage play, imo. Do you have a link? I'd love to see if the guys getting the assist on those plays one-timed it. If not, where the heck was the opposing D? If you try to settle that ball, it gives the D all day to shift over. One thing for sure, with all this talk about it, we're not going to catch NL off guard with a long diagonal. And, that's an essential element of it. The defense has to be sleeping on the recipient.
The positive here, is that clearly there is no issue between Gio Reyna and Gregg Berhalter. This is not staged. If there is any frustration from Reyna it’s due to lack of minutes, which is totally fine.Give him minutes against Netherlands 🇳🇱 and him cook 🔥 pic.twitter.com/8VDgNmvwW3— Tactical Manager (@ManagerTactical) November 30, 2022
i added a bonus clip i came across finding the first... shot... pic.twitter.com/X1GNSwBeQ0— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) November 30, 2022 Berhalter: "The goal was something that we've been talking about for a while."Ream: “We talked about it before the game. That exact, exact play was how we were gonna score.”Piece on the USMNT and Pulisic scheming and calling their shot:https://t.co/PKATYJCfxf— Henry Bushnell (@HenryBushnell) November 30, 2022
ThenUS team is as deep as it ever has been. With the exception of a few positions on the top teams, there is ALWAYS a drop off from starter to sun. But a good coach subs anyway because fresh legs matter and there is little recovery time between games. And our next best players at most spots certainly do NOT “stink.” Part of the problem is that the most capable sub for the situation is only called upon 40% of the time. Yes, Moore was bad, but a better option was available. That is too often the case with Gregg.
I mean... the Bradley pass is not even half as far, just to name one thing. Similar shape perhaps, but these are whole different levels of execution.
So who do you play at RB? Yedlin? Sorry, he also "stinks." So you're left with a teenager with about a year's worth of professional soccer who, to be clear, I think Berhalter should turn to on Saturday. But it's not an easy decision for any coach and for all we know, Scally could play equally as bad as Moore. Who's a better option at the 8? LDLT? He hasn't played a full 90 in a real game since the summer, and even at his best, is a defensive liability. He's here as a sub when we're down a goal, not up one. You want Jesus instead of Haji? Sure, that's fair -- I'd be happy if Haji didn't step on to the field for the USMNT for the rest of the decade. But if you bring on Jesus, you're adding another very short player to a team that already struggles with set pieces, in a game where a set piece felt like the team's biggest vulnerability in the last 20 to 30 minutes. I can't read Gregg's mind, but I assume that's why he went with Wright. Berhalter's in-game subs haven't been good but they're also not the main problem. The main problem really is the squad is shallow as hell and there's no group of players left at home (I really don't want to hear anyone bellyache about Tillman, for example) who'd fix it.
You restated your opinions. I disagree. Until these people like Scally or LDLT or Jesus get an opportunity we won’t know which of us is correct.
Kudos to Frank Lampard for encouraging CP to crash the box so hard. If we could get Haji to do that he’d be a beast.