He favors guys who have played his system before or been in camp. Which is a very limited and narrow way to manage. In the post match when Aaronson played as an 8 and looked like crap, when questioned GB said he had played there before in this system. Then someone was like “but he plays every week on the wing for his club” and GB was like “we will have to take a look at that” or something similar.
Agree, I think Bello did his job on the wing defensively but JFC going forward he offers nothing. He's stiff, he's a bad passer, bad 1st touch, just bad. Can run in a straight line towards our own goal tho. He's a player that should never start given our other options. A fine bench option, nothing more. Moore was slighty better but eh, in a game where we really didn't have arguably our half dozen most talented attackers he wasn't able to stand out. Did OK.
Sure sure but those Panamanian MLSers were cream of the crop, I mean three guys from the... absolute powerhouse that was the 2016-18 San Jose Earthquakes (note I say this as a Quake fan)
My comment regarding Musah is only that we can't rely on him to win the ball. So when Acosta and Lletget are playing with him and Acosta plays poorly we aren't exactly like having him flanked by McKennie and Adams. More a criticism of Gregg not getting the balance right. If we wanted the best result we would have left him in when Adams subbed on, but he is rested for Wednesday instead....
MLS does not suck. I attended games in Season 1 of the MLS, back in the dark ages. It kind of sucked back then. But not now. The thing is, in 2021, with the top 40 of the player pool being based primarily in Europe, including several fairly recently arrived from MLS, there is no legitimate reason that the National Team should be starting 7 MLS players (mostly lifers) in a World Cup Qualifier. Especially when those 7 do not include the 2 best MLS players at the moment (Pepi and M. Robinson).
How can you state both of these things in the same paragraph? Pepi gets first cap, but Berhalter is playing favorites? Do you really not see the oxymoronic nature of this post?
people used to bitch about how he would never drop Bradley or trapp. They don’t admit they were wrong, they just start complaining about how he’s playing favorites with someone else.
I want to believe this, I really do. And it's clearly true that we were without many key players last night, and that rotating some players was important. My impression though is that Gagg over-rotated, leaving us way too exposed with an inexperienced lineup of guys who didn't connect well and frankly kinda wilted under the harsh spotlight. Some of that is on the players, of course, but I think there was a version of this team that could have at least got a credible draw in Panama, even with rotation. Not to mention: What is the deal with Gagg not taking the full 30 players to camps? That seems like a great insurance policy against the need to deplete your lineup in the three-game window.
This is two games now (Honduras and Panama) that GB thought the opponent would bunker and try to hit us on the counter @ home. This is alarming to me that GB believes the hype about our players and thinks opponents respect or are afraid of our paper tiger team. It’s one thing for our fan base to be overconfident in our players, but our coach has got to be grounded in reality. This group hasn’t done shit. There’s ZERO reason for a C American side to worry about us when playing down there. This is a collection of individuals that haven’t shown any evidence they are up to the task of playing CCAF qualifying away. I agree that the away games get easier when we go to Canada and Jamaica; not sold on CR being easier for our soft paper tiger team.
Lleget, Roldan and Acosta, played in all 3 of the first WCQ games. Lleget 1 start 2 sub Roldan 3 sub Acosta 2 starts 1 sub
I mean, for Wil Trapp to be dropped from the national team, he first had to be made into a national team regular. Same for so many guys from Lovitz to Yueill. Remember the "Nick Lima role" RB -> CM what's good ol Nick up to these days? Jonathan Lewis being called in as one of the few wingers on the Gold Cup roster, only to suck and then almost immediately be on the outs? Once again the top two in minutes under Berhalter are completely not goal dangerous defensive winger Paul Arriola and Tim Ream, a 34 year old who was a fringe national teamer for almost a decade before Gregg came along. I have a female friend who has terrible taste in men. Yes she eventually ends up NOT with every one of them. But she gets with them in the first place, and THAT is the basis for me declaring that she has terrible taste in men! Which is worse? I don't even know at this point... Okay THAT is definitely the worst option...
Would not disagree with any of this. However Berhalter did have a plan…basically put out a B minus team and come away with a tie or squeeze out a 1-0 win and live to get 3 points with a fresh A minus team in the third game at home agains a weak opponent. And not drop points in this round because a team that does not drop points WILL qualify. It was semi-logical because Panama is really bad. We were one stupid own goal from achieving that objective., The other thing to keep in mind is the NEXT round. Depending on what happens in the next game, we may ABSOLUTELY have to beat Mexico in Cincinnati. We could, but that it a tall order.
It’s a plan, unquestionably. Whether it’s a GOOD plan, or a plan that sucks, we can debate. Think the counterfactual. Had we tied it would been frustrating but not a qualifying killer. It still may not be a qualifying killer. Here’s the thing about soccer games, and especially with limited games in qualifying or in a tournament, and especially playing in Latin American cess pits. Shitty teams CAN win that ONE game, and other teams can LOSE that one game for a whole bunch of reasons too numerous to mention. If this reality bothers you too much, I suggest you find another sport to be a fan of.
i cant even fathom from where you get the confidence to expect 2 wins and a draw/3 wins for us. its not only expecting us to play/get results "as expected" on paper, but three times in a row. theres just no reason to believe that will be the case. i have a ton of faith in our players but their ability is almost irrelevant. i dont know if youre hoping for a return of the 1-0 magic or what but theres no reasonable expectation for those results. we are just as likely to lose to cr than we are to beat mexico. we are not a functional side and theres zero correlation between talent and performance with this manager.
I think I've discovered something very important. The silver lining to the Panama game. There is this narrative that started to take hold after the Honduras game. Something about "veteran warriors" that Gregg could turn to in difficult games when the chips were down. The guys on the field when the tide turned against Honduras in the second half. This narrative was taking hold among a significant portion of fandom, including some posters here. More importantly it was probably taking hold inside Gregg's mind. And it would have been very damaging to the development of this team if this narrative took hold. Because we really need to play our best and most talented players, not those "warriors." And the Panama game has hopefully dislodged this potentially very damaging narrative that was starting to take hold.
Berhalter was definitely trying to recreate that glorious last 20 minutes against Honduras. All 5 of the 2nd half subs were players who played in the pivotal moments in the 2nd half of the Honduras match, and 9 out of 11 players were the same once Berhalter made the triple substitution. ----------------Pepi--------------- Aaronson--Lletget--Roldan --------Adams--Acosta-------- ARob--McKenzie--MRob--Yedlin ---------------Turner--------------- Unfortunately, the match situations were a bit different, and Berhalter's plan clearly failed this time.
I think the biggest miss last night was Weah. You can say service and distribution and all but this was his night to show that he was a champion of France, and he came off sulking. If he dazzles just a bit like he did against Jamaica in the first 20 or so minutes the ball would continue to find him. I hope he makes a statement next time the chance is presented.
I know opinions are split on Weah, with most folks arguing he didn’t do that great a job. It certainly wasn’t that stellar an outing. But it seems to me the main issue is that he plays to get in position for the pass after the pass, as any good player would do in the top leagues. But the US midfield was playing the other direction on the timeline, trying to play the pass before the pass; doing teardown play instead of build up play. Weah kept ending up in poor positions, but with better service from the midfield things would’ve seemed different.