Look, I'm very happy we won! And, also that for 4/6 halves we played, we looked as good as we ever have. Some of that must reflect well on Berhalter's system/coaching. A couple points though in defense of my #BerhalterOut take: (1) Football fans & ratings tend to depend heavily on goals & results. If a team dominates, hits the crossbar six times, and loses 1-0 on a ghost penalty kick, they'll get bad player ratings & be criticized. And if, instead, one of those crossbar shots had gone in, and the penalty not been awarded, they'll be given much higher player ratings and treated as heros. In this case, Iran had a number of golden chances to equalize in the 2nd half. Had they taken one of them, we would not have qualified, and then the feel around Berhalter would undoubtedly be much more negative. (2) While this is as good as we've done in a World Cup since 2002, just looking at where our players play, we can say this is easily the most talented team we have ever sent to a World Cup. In 2010, our best players played at Fulham, Everton, and 'Gladbach. Now we have guys who started games for Chelsea, Barcelona, Juventus, Chelsea, Dortmund, RB Leipzig, and Arsenal. We could have 7/11 starters from top 10-15 clubs, vs. the usual 0-1/11. And the rest could be guys like Aaronson & Tim Ream who are regular EPL starters. (3) Sticking with strikers who are unproven at the international level, or playing Jordan Morris, while sitting Gio Reyna, who played forward well in a Champion's League match vs. PSG and dished a nice assist to Haaland, doesn't make sense no matter how well the team does. On the other hand, bringing in CCV for Zimmerman was smart. (4) Pulisic is bad at set pieces. Taking him off of them is simple! Set pieces seem minor, but, in my view, set pieces are actually a critical part of a coaches influence on the game. In the last world cup, 9/12 of England's goals were from set pieces. So far, we haven't really been dangerous on them. Improving that area is low-hanging fruit.
Results have been pretty good. Process/Decision-making has been questionable. We've met expectations, but have shown that we could have easily exceeded expectations. We could have come away with 9 points in the group if we had something more in the attack. Given the pool of players, it's hard to know exactly what more can be done. Gregg has been fine. 1 cycle might be enough though.
That was agreat first half. Best this team has played in years by a large margin. The problem with Berhalter is that getting something right is actually finally correcting a mistake he has been making over and over. His answers of why he selects players also means that he hasnt learned what may appear and just got lucky and will make the same mistakes again. Did I finally realize that Sargent is the best forward he has? No clue. Does he finally realize that our team are much better when we have two CBs who are comfortable on the ball? No clue. He told someone that the CCV choice was because Celtic play a lot of games against teams that drop off and want to counter. Both Sargent and CCV had shown that they could play at this level in 2018, but neither was originally included in the team by Berhalter. Pretty wild that after four years the CB he chooses is a guy he basically ignored for 3.5 of them and had only played 233 minutes, while the two CBs on the bench were favorites from the beginning, logging over 4,000 minutes between them. For all the high of that first half, he quickly brought back Berhalter ball in the second half. Going defensive so early ended up working but was a very high risk approach. His inflexibility to consider better attacking players for the forward position, left us with Wright. His over utilization of Acosta was the beginning of dismantling any cohesive attacking. Going with 5 in the back and personal chosen, meant we weren't going to be able to do anything with the ball for rest of game and if they scored we weren't going to be able get a second. Pretty sure this was only the second time that he started a team without an MLS player. That is crazy given our current pool. The insertion of the MLS players caused a big drop off and play started to look what we have become a custom to over the years. Three of the five subs and two of the three MLS players were bad. I though Zimmerman was fine as a designated header. I sure hope they judge him based on what he claimed his goals were and not just results that are flattering based on performance and opponent. Berhalter is a defensive only coach that plays scared. These young, talented players deserve more.
Everyone likes to focus on our offensive struggles and blame Berhalter for them, while simultaneously ignoring the terrific job he has done improving our defense. We're one of only three teams not to concede a goal from open play in the group stage of the World Cup (Morocco and Brazil are the others and still have one more game to play). And we've done that with a combination of Ream (a 35-year-old), Zimmerman (MLS lifer), CCV (a nobody who has bounced around the lower tier European leagues) as our center backs. That's a huge feather in Berhalter's cap, especially considering how bad our defending has historically been. Our previous BEST defensive performance at a World Cup was allowing a goal per game at WC94.
If a coach is going to sacrifice offense for defense, that defense better be good. I guess a shutout against England is good but a goal against Wales and Iran isn't anything to get excited about. He hasnt been concerned with GK or CBs being able to play out of the back. He has made the tradeoff of athleticism for vpcreativity in the midfield. His player selection has had athleticism, aggressiveness, and defensive work rate at all position except outside back and wings. He has succeeded at putting together a team that is going to play one goal games, but that isn't what he said he was going to do and definitely not advancing the program. These are 1990s tactics. Please get him away from these talented, young players. The guy has shown nothing to believe he can get this team to the next level.
This isn't enough contribution for some. If only Gio would put more effort into defense. The coach apparently has no idea what to do with this guy, but can find roles for Moore, Yedlin, Acosta, Morris, etc.
Yup, our #1 CONCACAF team needed only 2 games to be kicked out of WC, #3 crashed out of easy group, #2 advanced from easy group, #4 was creamed in 1st game 0:7, and most likely will be squashed again tomorrow.
WE WERE NOT IN AN EASY GROUP. For Chrissakes. England is top ten. The other three are #16, #19 and #20. If you say the #19 and #20 nations in the world are "easy" opponents, then you have to think that we, at #16, are pretty close to them. So if those teams are "easy," and we're not much better, then you can't expect the #16 team to have an "easy" ride. Jesus.
Exactly. For the life of me I can't figure out why Josh Sargent is on the roster, much less starting, but that's part of the decision making that got us to the round of 16 so I'll enjoy it and try to understand it more when I get the chance.
He's had more success than anyone not named Arena and you're still pretending he didn't take over a team that failed to make the WC and immediately win the two top CONCACAF cups, qualify for the WC, and get to the round of 16. As was said above, he's 1 win away from matching the bets USA WC run. That's not "fine," that's by definition one of the two best coaching jobs ever done by a USMNT coach.
They didn't give up a goal against Iran. They didn't give up a single goal in the run of play in 3 games.
Rankings and WCQ performance mean nothing at World Cup, absolutely NOTHING. You have to judge the teams based on how they play now, right now, not how they played 6 months ago. WAL and IRN played like bottom feeders, especially WAL. ENG scored at will in games 1 and 3 (when it mattered), but like i mentioned before took a day-off to play us.
theres nothing easy in the world cup, but wales is garbage. saying theyre the 16th ranked team in the world is not making the point you think it is.
All of this is why games should be played on the field, not on paper. I really thought Wales would be a much better team than they showed England under performed the day we got them. I think the pressure got to Iran in the end. We on the other hand, were told we were too young and no WC experience We have played our style in all 3 games and gave all our opponents fits. Except for the lack of scoring and a defensive miscue, we actually had a legit chance at 9 full points. 5 and undefeated is still a job well done for such a young team. Yes, a would love to find a striker and a better CB before Saturday, but since thats not happened, we just need to keep on playing our style. We have 4 years to find a striker and a CB, and a better set of 2 string/subs. Considering what we have accomplished in the last 4, the next 4 could be something special.
Just getting the result you "should" at a World Cup is very difficult. Even the top teams have dropped points to teams they were expected to beat, which is common really. This is the best defensive performance for the US at a WC probably ever. And remarkably consistent in the games we've played. I don't think people are really appreciating the magnitude of that accomplishment -- achieving any kind of consistency in the WC is very difficult, again even for top teams.
Our expected goals allowed metrics in the last 30 minutes of the three games suggests we're more lucky than good though. Iran in particular had a couple golden opportunities. xG, first 60 min: USA 2.19, opponents 0.91 (actual score: US 2-0) xG, last 30 min: opponents 2.23, USA 0.35 (actual score: opponent 1-0)
Argentina was in a crisis just under 2 weeks ago after losing to Saudi Arabia. Now they've won their group and are probably huge favorites over Australia this Saturday to get to the quarterfinals. They probably should have come away with 9 points from their group, but they crapped the bed in the first game and needed a little help along the way to make sure they won their group. The US wasn't favored in their group, but outside of one late penalty they've been impenetrable on defense and the offense has looked better than expected for several long stretches of play. That's a lot better than not even making the tournament, and it's being done with the second youngest roster at the WC.