The USMNT 26-man roster for World Cup 2022 announced p80 #1991

Seems less than ideal.

 

what is the ideal ref crew? as long as its not concacaf im cool.

 

The hometowns of the Americans 🇺🇸 at the 2022 FIFA World Cup #USMNT pic.twitter.com/1RlIk4ZJbF

— US Soccer's Bot (@USSoccersBot) November 20, 2022

Interesting though Dest, Jedi, CCV, and Musah don’t really have a US hometown.

 

I need a good song to get me in the mood for a big USA game and this time I'm calling on the little drummer girl to do a cover of a California skate punk theme "All the Small Things" in honor of our youthful team. Always liked this one and had forgotten all about it. It'll get you up for just about anything.

 

Eh. He reffed a group stage game of ours in the 2019 Gold Cup and was fine. However, he was the ref that awarded a (iirc) somewhat dubious 90' penalty to Mexico in the semis vs. Haiti so... who knows?

 

Bought and paid for in the case of that penalty. I thought it was Jamaica or Panama in that Semi final.

 

Nah, that's what made it so frustrating... Haiti was on the doorstep of their first Gold Cup final since 1977. Also, I was wrong, they took them to extra-time, and the pen was awarded in 93'. It was super soft, but justifiable:

 

I think our squad is missing more dynamism off the bench in the #8 role. The Wales game spotlighted this need. Wales scores a tying goal in a game we really want to (and felt we deserved to) win, and we bring in Kellyn Acosta at the #8, who has been more effective as a #6 for us. The only other options for Gregg to choose would have been Luca De La Torre (who is a decent player and solid ball progressor, but has been injured and out of form all season) + Cristian Roldan, who isn't a game-changer and is mostly there to be a "vibes" guy for team culture.

In 2010 (and in the 2009 Confederations Cup), we really benefitted from having a dynamic midfielder like Benny Feilhaber who we could turn to off the bench.

I would have preferred to see Djordje Mihailovic or Paxton Pomykal picked as backup #8s. Pomykal would be a great fit for our press, and a great understudy to Yunus Musah with his ball-progressing ability. Mihailovic is a dynamic attacking talent who has the work rate to play in a 3-man central midfield, and he's more likely to create attacking chances than De La Torre or Roldan.

Obviously, Gregg Berhalter deployed Brenden Aaronson in a central midfield role off the bench against Wales, so I think Gregg sees Aaronson and even Gio Reyna as versatile options who can be deployed on the wing or centrally. Aaronson is awesome, but his utilization rate when playing centrally and final product has been his achilles heel. And De La Torre and Roldan feel kinda like throwaway roster selections to me who aren't going to change a game off the bench -- a bit like Brad Davis was in 2014.

 

Agree 100%. Given LDLT was injured recently (and we were already taking McKennie coming off a recent injury and Roldan has a spot for the culture), his decision was a big head scratcher for me. Williamson also doesn't have a great usage rate but is good enough at progression and physical enough to have made it IMO Mihailovic or Pomykal are good selections too(probably better in a vacuum), realistically I would have gone Williamson since he at least played at the Gold Cup and should have chemistry with some of the players.

 

The squad... err system is missing a #10 roll. GGG is in over his head and lack a position for a creative #10. Gio could fill this roll or Aaronson could better than Pomykal. Wes and Musah are really good players but lack the end product creativity.

 

People will laugh, but no Tillman hurts a ton now too for what he could do theoretically but quite inconsistently bring. He can hold the ball, score, dribble guys, and make runs. When the best attacking subs off the bench that aren't injured or tweaked on matchday 1 are guys like Acosta, Roldan (not brought on), and Morris to the coach, a guy like Tillman definitely should've made the cup as should Arriola. More cutting edge than Roldan, more defensive chops w/Arriola, more creativity with Tillman, and ball security.

If LDLT is hurt, and our best options to Egg are guys like Acosta, and Morris, instead of Tillman, and Arriola, to my mind, we've got a major problem. It's too late to fix, we'll need a new coach next cycle to handle this in anticipation of hopefully the Copa America 18 months from now (interesting that the Copa America ends around 2 weeks before the Olympics start).

 

IMO we have better creative players and there are other creative players that aren’t Tillman that maybe would have added more value

 

Just a minor quibble: it was 1-0 when Acosta subbed in. It would have been better to have another mid as dynamic as Weston/Musah but they really aren't attacking players for us. There are a few guys who could have been rostered for this role....but Lletget just for an example was cast into the sun. If DLT can't play or Gregg doesn't trust him, Lletget is still a better 8 than Kellyn offensively.

 

I like Acosta, but if we're bringing him in to play 8, we're in biiiiiiiiiig trouble. We would probably be better off putting him at 6 and sliding Adams up to 8. But, there should never have been a scenario on the whiteboard where the answer was "ok, if that happens, we bring in Acosta at the 8." That's ridiculous. If we're ahead, trying to protect a league, and Acosta is next man up, then switch to a double pivot.

Imo, there's as much of a mystery re why you'd bring in Acosta to play 8 over Reyna, as why you'd bring in Jordan to play wing over Reyna.

 

Yeah...when Acosta is there it is effectively a double pivot, and Aaronson's positioning made us look almost like a 4231 that everyone agrees we should try. If Gio was 100% (as in no increased likelihood of reinjury) then he should be playing. If he "felt a tweak" or whatever, I dont think bringing him on in the track meet the game was at the point would have been smart. He would have been more effective in first half when we shrunk the field with pressing and just not breaking Wales down enough.

 

Heading into this World Cup, prior to the roster announcement, the three biggest areas of uncertainty/potential weakness in our lineup was our starting GK, our CB partner for Zimmerman, and our starting #9.*

If you had asked me a month ago, my best guess (and probably the best guess of a lot of people around here) was that Berhalter would go with Steffen, Long, and Ferreira for those three spots. I would not have expected that one of those three wouldn't even make the roster, while the other two wouldn't see a single minute in our first two games, for reasons unrelated to injury.

*(Obviously there's also the question about how we could squeeze our 7 highly rated midfielders/WFs into a lineup that only seems to allow for 5 of them on the field at once, and who we'd have to sacrifice if that wasn't possible, but that's a different sort-of dilemma where we're spoiled for choices.)

 

Indeed I didn’t think Zimmerman and Ream would make for a good partnership because of lack of foot-speed, but all the people who were asking for Ream to be called in and for him to play were very much right.

 

Here's a comparison of how we've utilized, or have been forced to utilize, our roster in the World Cup group stage over the past 5 tournaments.

In the 2022 WC Group Stage, we started 13 different players, and gave minutes to 19 different players. 9 players started all 3 games. We did not have to replace any starters due to injury or suspension.

In the 2014 WC Group Stage, we started 14 different players, and gave minutes to 18 different players. 8 players started all 3 games. We had to replace one starter (Altidore for last 2 games) due to injury.

In the 2010 WC Group Stage, we started 15 different players, and gave minutes to 19 different players. 8 players started all 3 games. We had to replace one starter (Findley for last game) due to suspension.

In the 2006 WC Group Stage, we started 14 different players, and gave minutes to 18 different players. 6 players started all 3 games. We had to replace two starters (Pope, Mastroeni for last game) due to suspensions.

In the 2002 WC Group Stage, we started 13 different players, and gave minutes to 18 different players. 8 players started all 3 games. We had to replace two starters (Reyna for first game, Stewart for second game) due to injuries.

In general, we've started 13-15 different players and given minutes to 18-19 different players in past group stages. So our 13 starters and 19 utilized players are within that range.

Excluding 2006 as as an outlier (due to the multiple red cards and first game shellacking forcing a higher number of changes) there are typically 8 players that start all 3 group stage games, and 1-2 starters unavailable/games missed due to injury or suspension. We did not lose any starter to injury or suspension in the group stage, and as a result we had 9 players start all 3 games, instead of the usual 8, also well within the average.

Essentially, our roster utilization has been pretty consistent with what it had been in past World Cups, which may be a surprise if you expected the additional roster spots and additional sub allowances to make a real difference this year.

 

Worth noting Acosta came in before the Bale goal.

The question on Mihailovic is does he bring anything other than what Aaronson and Reyna bring if played at the CM?

I think if the generic idea is "offense" then I'd say no. I do think there's a sliver of play style where he brings something unique. He's completely different than Aaronson, and while he and Reyna are in the same universe, I will say Mihailovic's through balls and runs to goal would actually be pretty welcome on this team. Pulisic makes the runs but tends to try and dribble; Reyna makes some passes but mostly dribbles and rarely makes a hard off ball run.

The issue for DM is that there's like a 60% chance that the World Cup level is too fast/athletic/strong for him across the board, and there's a 100% chance he's not going to bring strong CM defensive play for what we do right now. And we've seen that Berhalter is playing guys who defend. Haji Wright might be the only luxury player on the roster frankly.

I think that's probably a big part of why he's not here.

Pomykal is a bit of a mystery to me. Called in once and played as a winger before the MMA days. Hurt a lot. But he's a super willing defender, strong in possession, makes good long diagonals, isn't great in the final third but has some skills. He's not the same player as before the injury -- or rather, he can be, but he's not it often for 90 minutes or week in, week out.

That said, he seems to fit better than Williamson to me, who, admittedly, is bigger, strong, fast on the dribble and better int he final third. But Pomykal is a dude who will defend like Berhalter wants.

All three were hampered by injuries in different ways, but Berhalter basically stopped trying to find the 4th 8.

 

Ream has been pretty great. But MMA+Jedi have also put him in a position where he hasn't been tested on his open field weakness. I've seen Jedi bail him out at least twice with great recovery.

What I didn't anticipate is how much we need Zimmerman in the air. Ream is tall and smart, but he is not a great aerial player.

 

Long is very good in the air too, but deficient elsewhere. Wish we made Mikes Robinson. He would tick a lot of boxes. So would Richards.

 

great post, im honestly the surprised the numbers used are so similar. and i think youre exactly right, its the extra spots that i think skewed my perspective. i know ive counted 5 field players who havent gotten a minute and that seemed so high to me, its usually 1 or 2 at most.

 

We saw this same rejoinder during qualifying, and it is not on point. It does not answer criticisms of he timing of subs or the identity of subs to say that there are a lot of subs.