Would be wise to make a coaching change. An organization that is well ran would cut their losses and admit mistakes were made with selecting Gregg. US soccer doesn't fit that description. We won't make any progress under the current coach.
The next WC cycle will be very interesting. Mexico will still be Mexico, but Honduras, Costa Rica and the US have all gone downhill in a major way. As an outsider, I can't remember the US having such a faceless and mediocre team since the early to mid 90's. Guyana? T and T? Curacao? Could have it been set up any easier?
Curaçao had something to do with that. I’m not referring to their quality, but their style. There were long, long stretches where they played like Austria and West Germany in that infamous 1982 game. What were we supposed to do?
Mediocre I might give you, but faceless? Really? Methinks you might be seeing a narrative you want to see here...
1) We could press them and/or at least meet them above the 18. 2) WE could pass the ball around ourselves like professionals instead of panicking at the first sign of pressure. I totally agree with your tacitly stated overarching point though; we should hire their entire coaching staff ASAP.
We had the lead. We have another game in 3 days. Why expend the energy if they want to wank around in their own third?
The only silver lining of this tournament is knowing/hoping we'll be a whole lot better when the following players join the team, return from injury, or mature (hopefully quickly): Sargent, Pomykal, Soto, Saief, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Marlon Fossey, Andrew Gutman, Antonee Robinson, Shaq Moore, Holmes, Lletget, Amon, Weah, Novakovich, Dest, Mendez, de la Fuente, Ledezma, Sabbi. And Mukwelle Akale, George Acosta, and Giovanni Reyna. The future can't arrive quickly enough.
Press as a unit rather than a single front line. If they play like that there should be 21 players in their half of the field and zero space to move.
This is really a disaster. Even those of us who understand that haven't really accepted the depth of it yet. The problems are big and small and numerous, but here are the major categories: First, the US is at a modern era nadir of talent. It's not even close. Pulisic is the only player in current form who would have made any of the A teams since 1998. Second, Gagg is either stupid or stubborn. He is coaching as if his talent is excellent. It's exacerbating the talent problem. Since there is no way ussf will make a change, the only way for the US to get materially better will be for some remarkable and disproportionate number of the U-20s to have breakout seasons and absolutely force themselves onto the roster. Hope I'm overreaching, but this just looks and feels very bad.
There are some things to criticize for sure, but big picture... 4 games played, 4 wins, no goals conceded, we're in the semi-finals. Jamaica on Wednesday. Beat Jamaica and we've achieved the minimally acceptable goal. Let's just see how this plays out. I have to believe that the US players were instructed to conserve energy and play in a conservative manner in the second half.
The problem is instead of dropping back...we went after them eventually, our lines got stretched over 70 yards and they carved through our midfield with numbers.
Costa Rica has a population of 5 million. Curacao has a population of 161,000. In the extremely unlikely case that Curacao's diaspora was ten times the size of their local population, the total number of people eligible to play for Curacao would be slightly more than a 3rd of Costa Rica's local population. There's an inaccurate characterization of Curacao as "Netherlands B" floating around. Curacao is a dependency of the Netherlands and all residents are Dutch citizens by birth. This provides for free movement of the population - however, eligibility for Curacao is still dependent on FIFA requirements. Meaning, either you're born there, you've lived there for 5 years, or your parents or grandparents were born there. When the native population is 160,000 - then the number of people who meet this criteria is quite small. This is the breakdown of the 23-man roster: Dutch Eredivisie: 6 Dutch Eerste Divisie (2nd tier): 4 Dutch Tweede Divisie (3rd tier, semi-pro): 2 Belgian First Division B (2nd tier): 1 English Championship (2nd tier): 1 English League Two (4th tier): 2 Portuguese LigaPro (2nd tier): 1 Cypriot First Division: 1 USL Championship: 1 Saudi Professional League: 1 Curaçao Promé Divishon (semi-pro): 3 So, no - this is not "Netherlands B". And yes, Costa Rica is definitely better off than them. This is a case of a well-organized small team maximizing the most of their limited talents - especially in their keeper, Room, who is just on a real hot streak (and I'm not even sure if he's still contracted at PSV - if so, he hasn't played a game for them since 2017-18). And, maybe, it suggests that Gregg's system is not designed to maximize goalscoring. It certainly did feel like we pulled back and played defensive in the second half - which I'm not quite sure I support.
I mean I did say earlier I think after the 60th minute I think Greg basically said scew it let's get out of here with a win and regroup. Nothing is going right tonight. I don't like the approach, but I don't think it was the initial thought. Maybe. A lot of those guys need to start producing in the first team. I do think privately though Berhalter will admit he made some poor decisions with the roster. Does that do us any good? Not really.
I honestly think you are overreacting a bit, though you aren't wrong entirely. Simply because while I actually agree we are at a low ebb or talent AND I agree that Berhalter is trying to play a style of play that generally requires more talent ... a) It's still 3+ years to the WC b) We have potentially a lot of young talent on the way -- including some that is proven but not at the Gold Cup because it is hurt It's possible that talent is overrated and will not turn out. Or that it's a bit too young to make a difference. And at the same time, Berhalter or Earnie won't realize that. But I also think people are crazy if they think that the choice needs to be today or at the end of the Gold Cup. It's just not that hard to tell everyone -- 442! Press and Counter! Berhatler and Stewart have both made clear they are trying to build something more for the future. They may be wrong, but beating Curacao by a lot is not the end state. Neither is this Gold Cup. If the talent doesn't arrive, or the team doesn't improve, at some point you have to make a call. And given the 2018 cycle, I can understand that some people may be concerned that it comes too late. But whenever too late it, it's probably not today.
Then we shouldn’t have had four players faux-pressing until Curaçao broke the first line and walked into our final third over and over and over again. Our shape was atrocious. We weren’t playing conservatively. Either these players still have absolutely no idea where they’re supposed to be in this system or Berhalter has no idea what he’s doing. Either way he’s failing.
A bit of an overreaction. Was tonight bad? Absolutely. But I don't think it is all doom and gloom yet.
That felt like the Venezuela game, except Curacao was not as good as Venezuela, so we got a 1-0 win instead of a 3-0 loss. We allowed ourselves to be pulled out of shape by them passing back and forth (and back and forth, and back and forth) in the back, and we coughed up the ball pretty easily when they did press. Maybe it was just rust from not playing the Panama game, but I'd say there were a half dozen players on Curacao who had better touch tonight than anyone on the US (Pulisic included).
Drove me crazy to watch Steffen and the CB’s passing about inside their own 18 with Curacao players around them. Looked like we were more likely to pass it into our own goal then break out of our own end in a meaningful way.
Sorta on topic. Group D in the Nations League is Curacao, Costa Rica, Haiti. I may need to pay for FloSports just to see that one. Most of the other groups look unimpressive, but that one could be fun.