Do we know if Sargent is out or not? I’ve seen that be the type of injury that knocks you out for weeks. And others were you are pretty much okay by tomorrow.
Ferriera back as the single 9 clogging the midfield and we are down 2-0. needs to be a Supporting Striker/CAM.
I was hopeful he would poach a goal today. But he looked overmatched out there. Reyna looked like he belonged, especially after getting into the match. That is not an indictment of MLS. Yedlin stepped into the flow very well. But JF just looked overawed or something.
Also does not speak well for the defenses of Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, and Panama. In blowout losses with a combined score of 17-1. But perhaps we ("we" = Gregg, most American soccer pundits and "journalists", a significant percentage of the folks who post here) should have known that??? My current Twitter timeline... Of course that's post-game, before the game there was this gem: Jesus Ferreira hasn't played a competitive match since Oct. 23. He hasn't scored a goal since Sept. 11, a stretch of 7 games for club and country.Today, he's up against Virgil Van Dijk, Nathan Ake and Jurrien Timber in a knockout match at the World Cup.Massive opportunity.— Sam Stejskal (@samstejskal) December 3, 2022 "massive opportunity!" My geriatric grandma will race against a roided up Ben Johnson at the Olympics today, massive opportunity!!
"ARSENAL TARGET WHO COMPARES HIMSELF TO GABRIEL JESUS AXED AT HALF TIME IN WORLD CUP DEFEAT" Comparable in that they both have Jesus in their name... What is the source of these rumors linking Arsenal to Ferreira?
Gregg screwed the kid. How is he worthy of a must win start but also not allowed to touch the field in a group stage where you were never losing and had a freebie against England? .
Seems like the answer is that Ferreira was his number 3 striker and only got the opportunity against Netherlands because Gregg's first choice was injured, and his second choice hadn't shown much across the three prior games in which he'd appeared. Sargent started 2 of the 3 group stage games and appeared as a sub in the other; Wright started 1 of the 3 group stage games and appeared as a sub
Yeah, I hope he doesn’t get down on himself too much. Plus, I think he received more than his fair share of the blame because we were down by 2 at the half, and we needed to change something which meant axing someone, and he didn’t enshrine himself with glory inside of 45 minutes.
Well, starting an ice-cold player you weren't intending to use in a do-or-die game isn't very good management.
That's my thinking. Even with that he was unmarked in the box inside 5 minutes waiting for a pass that didn't come. He gets a goal there and it's a different story. If a 21 year old is anything but a plague only player, you have to give him some of the Haji or Morris minutes in the group in my opinion.
Shrug. Ferreira was just another one of our #9s that struggled to score. He was just the most recent one, so he's at the front of our minds. It's not like Sargent or Wright did much offensively in their starts. People can criticize Berhalter for not finding a #9. The fact is he tried a bunch of guys, and none of them succeeded. Pepi had gone thru a scoring drought for the USMNT before being left off the roster. Pefok often looked like a square peg in a round hole with the group. We can keep going. Dike couldn't stay healthy. Young guys like Soto, Gioacchini, Llanez, etc. that he capped early in the cycle didn't pan out. Zardes always put in the effort, but faded in terms of effectiveness. Morris had a bunch of injury problems. The list goes on and on. The one guy that we can say he didn't look at was Vasquez. But count me as somebody who doesn't think Vasquez would have turned into Lewandowski overnight. Ferreira is a good player. But he'd never started any game against an opponent as good as Holland. They're the #8 team in the world. Totally new world. Its one of the problems with all of our windows being taken up with Nations League, etc. (not just ours, but potential European and South American competition). Playing Grenada doesn't prepare one for Holland.
Crazy how completely wrong I was on all of this except for having low expectations for him (long term I have reasonably high expectations, but I expected little to nothing from the cup and was totally shocked when he wasn't used barely at all).
And like, if this had been a normal summer World Cup, Ferreira would have been in midseason form and had warm-up games in which he and the rest of the roster would have surely gotten some minutes. But alas, that was not the situation facing Gregg. So Aaronson and Reyna sat on the bench as a dramatically lesser player who wasn't ready to go created a black hole at the top of the pitch. Is that on its own a fireable offense? No. Is it evocative of the inflexibility and tactical limitations that make Gregg just an okay USMNT coach? Absolutely. Just okay steadied the ship in 2018. It isn't good enough for 2026.
I remember the times that Gregg used a false 9 in matches this cycle and these boards absolutely roasted him. Of course he used guys like Lletget in that capacity. [Lletget, by the way was the leading assist man amongst USMNTers in MLS this season.]
I don't think this is him. As much as I have not been a fan and viewed him as WF/CM depth rather than striker depth (and calling him in over Pepi being beyond moronic and I know it wasn't like for like exactly), I do think he can and probably will turn into a legit player, just had a legit season and all, but lets be straight here. Didn't play any relevant games in what, 6 weeks other than Halloween Cupcake, stepped onto the field against Group Winners Netherlands, and their giants, which is a core reason why I argued he had not business there (we had 3 tall teams if we made the knockouts, and no short teams), and sure enough, he disappeared amongst the giant tree trunk legs of the Netherlands and was swallowed up without a trace. The single worst performance of any striker by far (which makes the Haji hate fest amusing). I believe he'll be fine given time, and become a depth WF/CM (probably the latter) but he never should have had the job last spring, summer and fall, and it was utter foolishness for him to wrestle so many minutes away from Pepi, Pefok, Sargent, Wright and even Vasquez (later on w/the later). Feel bad for the guy, but feel far worse for guys like Pepi, Pefok, and Vasquez who shouldve gotten the call instead.
Which, at its core, is a tactical problem, so the blame does fall to Berhalter. If all of these players of varying profiles failed at the #9 job in very similar ways, then you have to look at the constant, which was the attacking setup. However you allocate blame for the impotent US attack though, it's never good player management to throw out a guy who hasn't played in two months in a knockout match at the World Cup. If that was a possibility (and since one injury made it reality, it was an obvious one), you've gotta give Ferreira at least some kind of runout in the groups.