Post-match: International Friendly: USA vs Jamaica; June 5th 2019

Discussion in 'USA Men: News & Analysis' started by tomásbernal, Jun 5, 2019.

  1. swedust

    swedust Member+

    Aug 30, 2004
    Ha. That's pretty good.

    FWIW, I recall Holden being pretty frank and direct in criticizing the team and coach. He said the fans should be booing.

    Whatever. Nothing to make me change my avatar yet....
     
  2. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    Truth is, as a fan base, we have virtually no clout. They can sink the team and still sell plenty of tickets, to the fans of whatever team we play. It's the sad reality when your home games are actually away games.

    Actually, if we start losing to Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, etc. in friendlies, we may see a spike in attendance.
     
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  3. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    Explains nothing. This has been their setup for decades. It didn't work for them before. That any given team suddenly finds traction does not reflect European magic. And by definition as one team rises another falls. Both. Teams. Are. Still. In. Europe.

    We played a whamo great schedule last year.

    How. Do. We. Look. Now.

    Exactly.

    I think some of this is I once played on a two-time state winning club team here. I remember all the teams coming through after the game talking about the privilege of playing us, how it taught them a lot. And then us and one other team would rotate winning league and state. None of the aspirants joined us. Playing us didn't fix their problems. They needed talent, a system, a coach. Get that, come back, try again. And you'd realize the least helpful aspect was the schedule, which simply coldly reflected how we stacked. You wanna try and step up, fine, the results didn't change.

    It's a logical fallacy that the nature of the other team on the field makes you better. Last year Brazil played us, but also El Salvador, Saudi Arabia. This year, Qatar. If it rubbed off on everyone.......sorry, don't buy it. Feeling ambitious vs smart thinking and working to get to the top are two different things. [Like I was saying about the people who sign big club deals to get loaned out to the same sort of teams our other players are already on. It's a long game not answered by calling someone else's NT for a game.]

    I think there are specific circumstances in which scheduling helps. It can shake a team out of complacency. It can show a team what the next level looks like. It can remind a regionally dominant team what they are preparing for.

    To me it's arrogant for a team that can't beat TnT and finishes 5th in the region to be like what I need is Brazil and Argentina. Or do we forget the line score last year?

    You don't change who you play to get better. You change yourself.
     
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  4. onefineesq

    onefineesq Member+

    Sep 16, 2003
    Laurel, MD
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    On the United States os Soccer today, one of the people on the show said that from her conversations and contacts she believed that Sargent was never in the plans to make the final cut (barring injuries). So the question then posed was then why didnt he just go with the U20s to begin with. Well maybe someone should ask Gregg.
     
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  5. bystanderus

    bystanderus New Member

    Dec 7, 2004
    @juvechelsea, valid points, hard to argue.

    Maybe I am just selfish and tired to watch the Caribbean teams...
     
  6. TOAzer

    TOAzer Member+

    The Man With No Club
    May 29, 2016
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #256 TOAzer, Jun 6, 2019
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2019
    I agree with 1, completely. Our program's leadership has been infected with a stupid arrogance for too many years. It guarantees we will not learn from our mistakes.
    I agree with half of 2. Yes, what we have to change is ourselves. Much of why we've retrogressed as much as well have, from the team of 2002-2005, has everything to do with what we've done wrong and done stupidly. But there is some merit to the suggestion that who we play can help us change to something better. I believe it can happen from two sources:
    First, although occasional and one off matches have no sticking power as lessons as to what it is possible to aim for I do think that consistent, repeated, playing against top teams offers an objective lesson/measuring stick as to where you fail and why you fail. If playing instead against a collection of sides who are on average about as mediocre as you, then it is much harder to grasp how and why what you do is failing you.
    Second, if part of the problem is a dishonest leadership that is always seeking cover for mediocrity, so for instance a leadership claiming some success, here and there, against the fellow mediocrities who make your daily bread is indicative of "Progress" and "Higher Quality", then being in a league with those who will regularly thump you to Kingdom come if you are not in truth progressing to higher quality rob those lyin' bastards of their protective cover. If stronger competition embarrasses us in a consistent way, then the con is fully exposed....... and I am coming around to the belief that our leadership, so easily self-satisfied and so comfortable with not being held accountable by the best, needs badly to be exposed...

    The cautionary note, I admit, to what I say in the two last paragraphs above, is that I am assuming there is a significant cohort of potential leaders, within the scope of the USSF, who are ambitious for us being among the best, and care that we develop the potential of our players, our national sides, to the fullest. If Chicago House, on down, is dense with those who are perfectly at ease with the status quo, then for sure it's possible that if [for example] we played in Conmebol +Mexico --only to be regularly stuck as bottom dwellers--we'd could well be getting the Party Line as to how remarkable it was that we were a member of something like Conmebol.....
     
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  7. Red Card

    Red Card Member+

    Mar 3, 1999
    Club:
    New York Red Bulls
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    On an optimistic note, there are players out there who will be stars but right now are unknown:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omir_Fernandez

    He should be with Sargent at the U-20, but he is just beginning to bloom in MLS and was overlooked by Tab.
     
  8. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    What made Iceland better is they obsessed about coaching instruction and then created a national program to get their kids involved and coached up, down to a local level. In other words, they worked on their development side.
     
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  9. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    You want my two cents on last year, we spent a little too much time obsessed with cash cow friendlies with top teams, including on roll out grass over turf, and for no apparent reason backburnered getting an actual coach and talent eval. That is how obsessed with name brands we are. We think you can show up with an interim and no system and "Brazil will fix it."

    Like I said, it should be the final and not that week's pop quiz. You prepare prepare prepare and then step up to the big dog. You don't sign up your shambles in progress for the big dog.

    I do not get why the schedule was harder the year we didn't really have a full time coach.
     
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  10. Konut

    Konut Member+

    May 31, 2010
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I've been reading through this and feel the need to chime in. First and foremost, this was probably the worst performance I've seen out of the USMNT during my lifetime. Mihailovic put in the worst performance out of any player I've ever seen put on the shirt, with Robinson not too far behind him. The team looked collectively worse than any team in MLS this season. They post game analysis's I've read are being too kind giving too many players 4/10.

    With that said, this wasn't even the B team. This was the C team folks! At least 8 of the starting 11 have at least one player in front of them in the pecking order, if not two or three. I'm confident that once we have our A team back in for the Gold Cup things will look completely different. Consider this being our starting roster for the Gold Cup vs the shiet show that we all just witnessed:

    -----------------Altidore-----------------
    Boyd------------------------------Pulisic
    ----------Mckennie-Holmes-----------
    -----------------Bradley------------------
    Ream----Long---Miazga------Adams
    ------------------Steffen------------------

    Playing how a 4-3-3 is supposed to be played. No RB joining in as a CM BS. I know that Berhalter won't play Pulisic on the wing like he probably should be played, but even if we swap him and Holmes and play Berhalter's system the team would be completely different.

    The biggest clear negative that I can take away from this game is the fact that Berhalter's "alternative" system is some absurd 3-6-1 fiesta. Why not practice a traditional 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 as an alternative system. It's still too early for me to make a real opinion on Berhalter, but his biggest shortcoming could very well be his insistence on playing some strange creative system, rather than proven systems in world soccer that the players would quickly become comfortable with.

    With that said, I urge everyone to calm down until we can actually see what the A team can do. There's still a decent possibility that we absolutely dominate the Gold Cup and win the final with ease. We all just need to wait and see what happens.
     
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  11. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    That was my reading of the SBI interview. When you start referring to standing injury situations before Jamaica happened (lletget) or club form -- weeks after that concluded -- the fix was already in. That's why I said on one of these threads unless he scored a hat trick and forced their hand, it was a done deal. And what were the odds a B team would support him to that.

    And I don't like that in part because I want performance based assessment. We struggled to get a shot on cage. He was one of the few. His reward......?

    I would feel like he was given a fair shot if it was related to how the game went. But how he looked out there had a lot to do with who was around him and their inability to play to his feet. The sad thing is I think he is the perfect running buddy for someone like Pulisic, who could use a player technical enough to combine with.
     
  12. CyphaPSU

    CyphaPSU Member+

    Mar 16, 2003
    Not Far
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Unfortunately for us, it's easier doing that top-down approach in an island nation like Iceland than it is in a country which spans a continent with 327,200,000 people.
     
  13. 21st Century Pele

    Apr 16, 2014
    We wouldn't win a match right now.
     
  14. 21st Century Pele

    Apr 16, 2014
    They are both whiny and annoying.
     
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  15. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #265 juvechelsea, Jun 6, 2019
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2019
    I thought it was a lucky run, albeit the result of hard work to be the sort of team that could make such a run. I also don't think our problem is participation numbers or the existence of leagues to tap into.

    Like I said recently, this is probably the top U20 team in the region. As we are showing yet again in Poland. The problem is in the transition from there to senior play. We are erratic at producing top notch players. We are coming off a fairly dry period other than Pulisic.

    I think some of it is also that with a professionalized youth player cadre in a fair amount of international demand, we now run into the tension between ambition/money and playing time. So many key or interesting players where it's "he's on loan" or "he's good but he's riding the bench." That strikes me as both growth from "just sign MLS" and yet a drop off from the focus that used to be on them. And now even MLS is no sure thing. So I feel like in practice we've swung back towards the 90s in the sense of how stable the pool players are in their professional lives. The security of playing time that MLS once gave US talent is disappearing. You may think that ambition is where they should be and MLS shouldn't coddle but that is not without consequence when I go pick a NT roster these days. Just like England has to decide whether to play small club guys or big club bench riders or second division players. It's a mature team problem but a real one.
     
  16. 21st Century Pele

    Apr 16, 2014
    I wasn't overly impressed by Sargent either, but he might have been the best out there.

    If the USMNT got dropped ina World Cup right now, we'd look like Fiji.
     
  17. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    I feel those thinking we could drop the U20 guys into this team and improve it are akin to the ones who think playing the Women's World Champ team would get us better results in this setting.

    Can't compare a bunch of teens with a team of grown men. Ever played soccer as an adult man against your teenage son/nephew? If you have, you know how easy is to send him flying.

    The teen able to hold his own against men is rare.
     
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  18. superdave

    superdave Member+

    Jul 14, 1999
    VB, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    What? Europe hasn’t changed their process.
     
  19. Editor In Chimp

    Editor In Chimp Member+

    Sep 7, 2008
    I'll just add that somebody who thinks the problem is CONCACAF and that moving to CONMEBOL would be a solution is out of their mind.

    This group is worse than the group that lost to a T&T B-team with a World Cup on the line. We don't need better competition. We need better players, better player development and better talent evaluation. Playing in CONMEBOL isn't going to make Wil Trapp not suck. It's not going to make Michael Bradley magically have 150 fewer games worth of miles on his legs or make Jozy Altidore consistent at the international level. It's not going to fix the problems.

    We shouldn't need to get dragged by Brazil in the Maracana or get stomped by Chile home and away to know that Wil Trapp isn't good enough. Losing to Jamaica at home should probably be the red flag there.
     
  20. QuakeAttack

    QuakeAttack Member+

    Apr 10, 2002
    California - Bay Area
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    We could combine the two and just call them "Hellman". Kind like how I fell listening too them most of the time...
     
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  21. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    I am highly sympathetic to this perspective. However, many of the starters on the youth team are actually out playing senior team members in the exact same w i’m highly sympathetic to this perspective. However, many of the starters on the youth team are actually out playing senior team members in the exact same league. Furthermore, the spine of the French team already start for major league teams.
     
  22. QuakeAttack

    QuakeAttack Member+

    Apr 10, 2002
    California - Bay Area
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This game was a huge step back for me. After the first couple of games, I was willing to give TripleG time to get his system in place. Yesterday, I think the system impacted the players and the game. There was way too much "thinking" and not enough fluidity to the game and bite. Stefan screw up in the penalty area appeared to be one of trying to do something the coaches wanted (I.e. build up from the back) rather than just clearing the ball in a high risk area. Some of the poor passing was due to few options and trying to fit into tight spaces. However, the players are professionals and some of the poor play was on them.

    Additionally, I have no idea why several players where on the field. Gonzales, Ream, Trapp, and Robinson. Mihailovic - I'm not sure that I have seen a worse game from a US player in the past 30 years. I was disappointed in Steffan and Sargent who have talent, but were not good.

    I would have to go back to the 1990 - 1994 era to find games that were this bad. At that time, we mostly had ex-college mixed with professionals who sat behind the ball and defended for the whole game. I was happy when they completed a pass.

    Time for the Gold Cup! Hip, hip, hooray!
     
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  23. TOAzer

    TOAzer Member+

    The Man With No Club
    May 29, 2016
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Hmmmmm..... where you alive when TnT carried out a Couva d'Etat against our "A" Team?.....;)
     
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  24. Excellency

    Excellency Member+

    LA Galaxy
    United States
    Nov 4, 2011
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Pomykal doesn't fit Berhalter's system.
     
  25. jond

    jond Member+

    Sep 28, 2010
    Club:
    Levski Sofia
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Except for the reality that our top 3 players are 20 and under. Pulisic, Adams and McKennie.

    I'm quite confident in saying Pomykal should be in the full team and would help. He's legit.
     
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