When People Complain about Gregg, It Could Always Be Much, Much Worse...

Eh not many coaches who would actually have a chance to get the job could be worse.

 

Well, he did just have a successful first window of World Cup qualifying after picking up two trophies over Mexico (with two completely different squads) this summer. The window was dicey but it came together real nice, and there is potential to build some momentum now.

I can think of at least a couple of coaches who had more than "a chance" at the job last cycle, and they didn't do so hot. I don't think there is much to complain about, relatively speaking.

 

I'm just talking about how good/poor of a coach he is.

 

I'm not some huge Berhalter fan, but the criticism goes WAY OVERBOARD on this forum.

He's literally won more trophies than games lost since the restart from COVID.
He's lost one friggin' game in nearly two years now. That was on the road in Switzerland.

In the grand scheme of things the ends justify the means.

And I think we can agree that he's done some great recruiting of dual-nationals, and has taken those efforts to new levels. The most recent being the Pepi win. Gregg Saban.

So it could obviously be a hell of a lot worse. Do I think he gets the X's and O's right? No. Do I agree with all of his player selections? No. But hell, I did enjoy the Gold Cup and Nations League wins. We're "on track" for WCQing. So what do I have to bitch about?

 

Yeah but other than that he totally sucks.

 

I’ll give him credit, but I also would contest that he, and any other coach for the national team, is just a short stretch of bad games from being fired. (Especially when it comes to WCQ and the WC).

 

Berhalter has lost only two competitive matches as a coach: the GC final to Mexico in 2019 and a Nations League game against Canada in October that same year. He is incredibly successful so far. Obviously qualifying is the bigger test, but he is right on target: five points after one home match and two away; no losses. People on this forum are maniacs.

 

If you ignore performance, and the fact that are region is wretched, all of that would matter a lot. It doesnt. There's a reason nobody cares who the titans are of Oceania or the AFC, because the regions are horrible. In fairness to Concacaf, historically Mexico has been solid for nearly 50 years, especially when hosting, and the US has been solid for 30 years, and Costa Rica hits peaks about once a decade ('90, '02, '14), but otherwise the region is utterly irrelevant, so what ends up mattering is performance.

Yes scoreboard is scoreboard, but how are you playing? What you found out is the concerns with the anemic offense in this heroic undefeated run, which was largely god awful, proved prophetic. For two full games, and half of the Honduras match, the attack was utterly embarrasing and totally ineffectual, just as predicted by the guys who've been supposedly "overboard". In fact it was so bad, that until the last 45 minutes of the window, on the road in Honduras (when the team done something that's pretty much never been done ever, and did it by completely overturning all of what Berhalter builds the team around in terms of game plans) the expectation was that the team would have 2 points after the 2nd easiest window of qualifying, the coach was either about to be fired or on the hot seat at the very least (and definitely fired by most feds), and at severe risk of missing a 2nd consecutive World Cup despite playing in the second easiest region in qualifying with U23 talent that's generally regarded as the best in the world outside of the biggest of the big in Europe+Brazil and Argentina.

So maybe we're not going overboard. Maybe a gazillion 1-0 results or 0-0 results, and little to no chance creation let alone goals in terms of performance, I don't know, is a problem.

I get that scoreboard is scoreboard, and you have to toss away loads and loads of results to worry, but you know, sometimes you should. Again, there's a reason why Lombardi would grade every play, every block, and was vicious about it. If you're winning despite playing poorly, eventually the tax bill comes due unless you improve the performance, and I haven't seen it, which is why this is such an immense connumdrum and is probably traceable to the fact that Berhalter does a good job of team building, and chemistry building, but not much else.

 

I'm curios what fans think are realistic scores for qaulifying? I quickly looked on EPSN European WCQ scoreboard and there are very few routes. Most of the scores are low single digits. Belgium beat Belarus 1-0, Poland and England tied 1-1, Spain beat Kosovo 2-0 and Germany and Italy had big wins but those are outliers. Italy Switzerland was 0-0. Maybe G is doing a good job and some fans have delusional ideas about qualifying.
And 'performance" and the region is "wretched" are subjective and cannot be measured. Those are in the eye of the beholder. "We sucked" is an opionion, not a testable fact.

 

You said it yourself. Berhalter is working with a mostly U23 roster. I haven't been impressed with much of the performance side of things either, but if you are going to point to and complain about the lack of offense, you have to also acknowledge the very good defensive record.

When it comes to playing for trophies and qualifying for the World Cup, results are all that matters. That is doubly true when we are talking about a team that has basically never played together before and has very little experience up and down the roster. The results are there.

I think it's silly to expect this team to be humming at this point. They should be able to build chemistry and mature a lot more as international players, which should lead to better performances as the cycle moves forward. Expecting that out of the gates is going a tad bit maniacally overboard.

 

Totally on point. The defense has mostly been superb, and generally the defensive errors have been not really systemic but individual in nature.

As for the silly w/the offense humming, yes and no. Yes because he's pretty much almost never had his first choice options fully available (most of them yes, all of them, never), and so that lack of cohesion, familiarity, and intuition shows up a lot in people not always making the right decision due to lack of playing reps together. Otoh, he's been running variations on his system, and adding the press etc for nearly 36 months and it's always been a rather neutered attack. Personally I think he needs to simplify things, and I think the tag that he tries to coach it too much like a club, and not like an international side was 100% on point early on, and still an issue to this day. Simplifying, and getting the basics down should trump everything at this point and it still doesn't. Weird formations, peculiar tactical approaches, players in wrong positions, issues that plagued us with him in '19, still do.

 

I agree that he might over complicate things and that the team might look better if things were simplified. But the flip side to that is he still has more than 12 months to prepare for the World Cup. Maybe this messy process will lead to something special that could not have been achieved by just making things simple this whole time.

 

And to be fair, the US is just starting to establish itself again in futsal. This is the first time for the US at the Futsal World Cup since 2008. The game is really at an embryonic stage here, as it's played more as a development activity during the winter as opposed to anything ultra-competitive. I would imagine most of these players probably play in the MASL or one of the semi-pro futsal leagues. Contrast that to Argentina, which may be more of a world power in futsal than it is in soccer.

Now I absolutely want to see futsal become more popular here. It's a little difficult because very few courts have enough size for a semi-regulation, say, 110 ft x 70 ft futsal court. But having played and refereed it, it's a fun game and really good for developing quick skills and quick thinking.

 

Once upon a time, Mark Cuban supposedly was going to bankroll a league. Keith Tozer has talked about it on his World of Futsal podcast. At the present time, it seems like it's in the same discussion as the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot in terms of reality vs some myth . . .

 

Yes, but footsal is a game for athletically challenged, and I don't remember anybody except for Prekki who successfully switched.

 

whats his record agaisnt top 20 teams?

non-existant - he's struggled despte winnng - against minnows.....

I couldnt care less how he does vs el salvador - i care how he does vs top 10...and by the signs of it ----its going to be brutal...

people who are happy with berhalter just have low expectations-

unfortuantely the way fifa has things set up now....we wont be able to see how the good team is until the actual world cup....if that goes well...then fine...hes great.....

but eeking out games vs canada is who he is.....

people who are critical realize that he hasnt proven anything.

 

Oooh great, another "he's won many games 1-0 against the dregs of concacaf while ignoring performances". Love these ones.

He was 30 minutes from getting fired (never would have been, but most would have agreed). The team looked bad to piss poor in 240 of 270 minutes. Outpossessed by Honduras and El Salvador. Completely toothless in attack.

He's gotten the results, which has masked the terrible play of the most talented team we've ever had. He won't get canned because of that. But to pretend this is some confidence inspiring 2-3 years is ludicrous. Every player outside of miles Robinson (ignoring the gks) looks worse under egg than for their clubs.

The best thing egg has done is his dual nat recruitment. I've long said he should have a job for life in that position. As I coach and/or tactician, I'd prefer most everybody else.

(and enough with comparing this team to past iterations. We've never had a player sniff the club level of our current top 7 or 8 guys. Comparing this team to others is just setting artificially low expectations.)

 

This is a perfect example of an unrealistic or naive expectation. What do you expect his record should be against Top 20 teams? Considering most people would expect us to lose way more then we'd win against top 20 teams if you expect a wining record you're delusional. Your damn right he'd struggle, because those are excellent teams. What justifcation do you have to have any other expectation?
Current Top 20 - Belgium, Brazil, France, England, Italy, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, USA, Denmark, Netherlands, Uruguay, Switzerland, Colombia, Germany, Sweden, Croatia, Wales, Chile.
Which of these teams would the US not struggle against irregardless of who the coach is? I'd say ZERO!

 

100% agree there. I’ve been generally happy with his performance, but a loss against Honduras would’ve had me wanting him fired ASAP.

 

I've said this for a while - Berhalter's ideal role is being the general manager or director of player personnel. He's very good at this role. He just needs to partner with someone who can coordinate an attack.

Berhalter's best coaching analogy purely from a skills and specialties standpoint is someone like Nick Saban (obviously, without the results Saban has had at Alabama). Defensive-minded coach and excellent recruiter. But he needs a top-flight "offensive coordinator" to whom he can delegate a lot of the attacking setup.

 

So 30 minutes of one game is the difference between being happy with his performance and wanting him fired asap?

I'd posit that you're not very happy with his performance overall, if the only thing that can save him from immediate firing is a 30 minute stretch.

 

I guess there's one reason why I enjoy the game!!

In all seriousness, skill and decision making definitely are more important relative to raw athletic ability in futsal. I really like the pace of the game. It just seems a lot quicker than the outdoor game is a lot of the time.

I'm a proponent of futsal both to improve skills and decision making for players and for referees to make quicker decisions. All else equal, a futsal or indoor game has more decisions because of the proximity of players and requires more management because of the confined space.

 

No, I was happy with his performance going into qualifying, but as @Eleven Bravo mentioned, there is no room for error in qualifying. The results in the first two games and the performance in the first half of the third would’ve had us well off the pace for qualifying. I’d have felt the same about that even if we had been winning 10-0 in the gold cup and nations league.

as things stand, we are on track for minimal expectations for qualifying. For example, Canada got their 5 points from 2 home games. We SHOULD be set up to gain more points in October.

firing a coach during qualifying is an extremely risky proposition. If your coach has lost the locker room, then you certainly have to do it, but there’s always a risk of a tough transition period, which there is no time for. And firing berhalter was absolutely not possible after winning tournaments, as it would’ve scared away a lot of possible replacements.