The 3rd goal was almost as bad. His rotation was slow/reactive and then he stopped before trying to close out on the cross, letting him survey the box to see Dumfries, who ARob didn't mark because he was inexplicably doubling Ream's man. Those goals were individual breakdowns from players you don't expect to have them, outside Dest on the 2nd. If there's a silver lining, on a normal day, we could have avoided those, and only allowed 1 goal. In which case that would have been an even game like many thought it would be. So probably the solution is to develop more depth and then use it accordingly. Should get there in '26, though I do question if there's answers behind Tyler. We don't want to be in that situation again.
Because the Dutch were just better with their counters - and our players lost their mark. Only Dest was really "beaten" on a good play by Blind. The other two goals were wide open. The Dutch made a lot of unforced errors on D/transition out of the back, we just have no finishers. Weah is really the only guy with a nose for the goal. He cracked his shot, Noppert just did a great job/got lucky directing the block. Wright should have scored. CP could have scored. Wes had a decent look. Zimmerman had a good chance. I'm kind of a broken record, but the key difference was finishing and marking in the final 1/3. Dutch still are playing well, but they gave us chances we squandered. Can't do that and be a WC final 8 team.
This is a gross oversimplification. Zimmerman was fine, if unspectacular. Robinson is better than Zimmerman, and would’ve likely started if healthy. Both were much better in qualifying than John brooks, who was a Bundesliga player at the time. the issue with all of this is how few opportunities our guys get to prove themselves. Part of that is due to this group’s youth, but part is also due to how few opportunities we get to play against legit top 15-20 teams in a competitive environment. when Ferreira does pretty well against concacaf competition, it’s not smart to completely write him off after a couple of bad performances against better competition. it’s very easy to say that Reyna should’ve started as a false 9, but he was injured all of last year, and missed the September friendlies. And Aaronson is pretty much our #3 winger, with our top 2 wingers being highly prone to injuries. These types of calls are extremely easy for internet posters to make when they have zero accountability for their wrong decisions, but get to thump their chests forever when they get things right, while benefiting from 20/20 hindsight.
Hard disagree. You can see Dest simply turning off his mark and you can see Tyler jogging as he watches Memphis sprint ahead. Attacking the width was van Gaal's plan, but this is hardly revolutionary, and hardly the first time a team has done it. We usually defend it well, but these are real breakdowns. There's no tactical plan where your RB simply stops marking in the box.
We need to be able to rotate, but it’s tough. Winning the first two and resting guys in game 3 is really only an option for the 2-3 top teams that TCOB in the first two games. For us, we need to be able to rotate a couple starters, and bring on subs earlier, but we need a little more quality for that. I believe Adams and Musah went 90 in all three group games. We can’t have our midfielders log that many minutes in the next World Cup if we hope to make a deep run. But subbing more in this WC might well have meant a group stage exit.
For all the rotation masters out there. Please tell me for each match when you would have subbed and who you would put in and take off AND have been reasonably comfortable that those changes wouldn't have ended up costing us a point?
im not scapegoating the coach, im scapegoating the coach showing no faith in the guys who helped get us here. he made a determination to put the entire load on the top end talent- it is what it is, feel however you want about it. but how do you reconcile the last 3 years of (dm) acosta, arriola, etc being trashed by one side and lauded by another suddenly deemed not good enough to contribute? do you really not see any difference in the usage of our bench in this world cup than at anytime before? for a third time now- the result as a whole, as a summary somewhere in the future, is fine. gregg trimmed all the fat, he closed ranks tight. but you simply cant square that with formerly "important parts of the team" not being trusted when the chips are down. not to get us some win we totally would have gotten if whoever was brought in, but holding the exact same results we did get without running the starters into the ground. eta this is making me mself-conscious- the emphasis on totally is to denote sarcasm, i dont remotely think that part
I don't necessarily think much of your post is wrong, but people do realize that the quote going around by van Gaal, when taken in context, doesn't actually really mean what people think it means? He wasn't criticizing Berhalter's in game adjustments so much as he was commenting that the United States is getting better and reaching the point where it makes sense to play to our strengths than to adjust heavily to our opponent. It's been cut to make it look far more critical than it was. And he's also continuing to position his choices -- which aren't popular -- as something the Netherlands needs to do. LVG is a great tactician and I think he threw some defensive stuff at us that we couldn't figure out on the field or with Berhalter very well, but attacking our wings is neither genius nor as much of a problem if you do simple marking.
Been a US Fan since Kyle Rote Jr was being pimped as the American Pele so I've watched this team come a very very very long way. Goals were hard to come by most of the cycle and to expect that they would suddenly start banging them in against remarkedly better competition was a pipe dream. Disappointed for sure but proud of the boys. Overall they played well against some top quality sides but probably went out where they deserved to go out. That said it gives me hope for a strong showing in 2026 if we can integrate some of the next generation, find/develop/nationalize some forwards that can score, and further enable competition for playing time at every position. I'm not a Greg hater and think he did a better job than most give him credit for. That said we need to hire the best coach, American or not, and go all in on 2026. Who knows when we will have the chance to host the Tournament again.
In terms of getting through the midfield, the Dutch are just better technical players. In terms of goal scoring, we simply made very basic executional mistakes.
im almost speechless...good thing i only have to type. how many matches did weah go 90 in qualifying? musah? aaronson? how regularly did we use acosta, de la torre, lletget, arriola etc off the bench? did any of pulisic, mckennie or dest even play in half the qualifiers? what entirely imagined fever dream are you even talking about we didnt use subs for fitness then? and what else has gregg even used subs for?!?!
In 2026 we will likely be in Pot A in a 48 team World Cup. If they switch back to four team groups, there will be potential for us to advance in the first two. If they are three team groups ... I guess you can't advance on day 1, but you aren't as fatigued.
It might have. Japan took that risk and almost bombed out after beating Germany. I think going deep in the tournament will always involve risk. We set our own level at getting out of the group and then achieved it.
Exactly this… We had some looks at goal, but nothing came of them. To be a final 8 team, you gotta bury them. Those final 8 teams are generally pretty ruthless in their execution. We can look toothless in that regard.
the exception proves the rule. Landon had already proven himself on the world stage before deciding to play in MLS. Jesus never has. All of the MLSers in the USMNT in Qatar, likewise. Unproven MLSers are going to fall short 99% of the time at the top level of the game. Landon was a unicorn.
You know you've really lost the plot and are 1-note when other posters know who's being responded to in spite of them having you on ignore. Walker Zimmerman was 1 of the best players for us in this game. He was decent yesterday and in the tournament. In the metrics, over an actual significant sample of matches, he was the US' 4th highest rated player in the tourney. CCV was 3rd, technically. But that was 1 game. If he gets 1 of those many potential fouls called him, he drops significantly. 2 fouls, and it's even more, to be considered a sub-par performance by the metrics. That's how much variance a 1-game sample can provide. And he played against arguably the weakest of all opponents. Plus, when you breakdown the tape, he made 6 serious errors that could have contributed to a goal, against Iran. That would cost him with a lot less luck typically or a much better opponent. Imagine if that's Netherlands or England. I don't think our other 2 CB's, including Zimmerman, committed half those errors all tournament. They were both solid defensively. CCV was a liability in that department. Kind of important for a Central DEFENDER. You'd think someone who's been around this long would have more knowledge of USMNT history and at present would provide a more nuanced analysis, instead of one that can be found from the Football Manager Fans on Twitter.
what are you people arguing here? did you not just watch the MLSers fall flat in Qatar??? do you people seriously want MLS in the USMNT?? I dont get it. Why are so many people on here seemingly advocating for MLs in the USMNT when they are the weak links? yeah there have been a few exceptions over the years - eddie pope, landon, etc (those players were natural born talents and were never "MLSers" in the sense that the current ones are).....these MLS lifers are simply not good enough. No foreign clubs want these guys! Landon, beasley, pope all had a bunch of interest from abroad.....what am I missing here?
You can go on and on. It's always a sub-sect. But that particular outfit, that took us the furthest, featured MLS-based Landon Donovan, Brian McBride, DaMarcus Beasley, Eddie Pope, Clint Mathis, and Pablo Mastroeni. Now the whining is we had 1 starter typically, who was our 3rd-4th highest rated player in the most reputable metric, plying his trade in MLS. But he supposedly sucked, and even his usage shows the manager's prejudice, not that/some fan's prejudice. In the metrics, 5 of our top 11 players during qualifying were based in MLS. You wouldn't know from some of the rhetoric however. I guess they mean to tell us that Turner & Pepi weren't useful then. But they were immediately useful after they moved, even though in Pepi's case he was a better player for us when he was in MLS (and I think he regained that mojo in the Netherlands, so should have still been a fixture). If Berhalter would have evaluated talent better (and MRob hadn't gotten injured) there probably would have been a higher % of useful MLS players on this roster, who just hadn't made the move to Europe yet, but eventually when they do will be playing at a higher level than most of the alternative fringe players who are suggested over them. It's about scouting and integrating to maximize the pool. That involves a sub-sect of domestic players, in addition to European-based ones, probably who are decent or better players in top 5 leagues. I guess that's just not enough prejudice for some people though, who need to put everyone in categories and then judge them on that basis though.
The argument is pretty straightforward: evaluate players based on merit, not the league they play in. Just this cycle, Miles Robinson and Zimmerman were much better than Euro-based guys like McKenzie and Brooks.
no they werent. zimmeman never proved it against the top level of the game and was found wanting in qatar. brooks is better than zimmerman. so is mckenzie.
I might go back and look at the qualifiers to see how GGGs sub patterns match up to what he did in the WC, but my sense/recollection is that it will be very similar. In fact usually it was a complaint all along that he waited too long for subs. A lot of time he waited till 70-75 to make his first, rather than around 60 like most coaches do, and like how he did with Mckennie in this tournament. Obviouisly Pulisic (Covid, etc.), McKennie (Nashville nights, etc.), Dest (injury, etc.) didn't play every game! We rotated the squad because of injury. I actually think GGG took the opposite lesson of what you think he might have. The couple times he did rotate the 1st team heavily, Honduras Away, Jamaica away, I think, we absolutely sucked. I think what GGG took from those games was probably my 2nd team isn't very good, and when we make the world cup I'm gonna ride or die.
You're the one who wants to put everything in this context. Many of us simply evaluate the player. I know that you completely abdicate any sort of scouting of the individual to what league they play in, but many of us fans and most professionals can actually do more than just say the league in terms of figuring out the value of a player. That's all. Try evaluating the player instead of being obsessed with Europe v MLS. Or, if you are incapable of using your eyes and stats to evaluate a player, maybe try to figure that out.
It’s not like McKenzie didn’t have tons of chances to display that in person. I do think USSF has an unhealthy side piece named MLS, but that’s no reason to discount guys like Miles, Jordan Morris, Zimmerman and Matt Turner.