Telling a lie over and over does not make it true. Given your posting history when confronted with facts that run opposed to your opinion, I fully expect some stupid non-sequiter response like "Is that you, Berhalter?" But I'll give it a shot anyway: here's my post-game analysis, posted in THIS THREAD last night.
You seem to be singing the praises of Steffen, Adams, Weah (2nd half), Musah, Aaronson and Miles Robinson. You and your MLS bias!!!
I agree with you. I think this was an important window for Dest BTW. He wasn't perfect but he was pretty darn good. More importantly though is that he was engaged and ran hard. The fact that he can't seem to play a full 90 for the US without getting nicked up is a bit perplexing but he is heading in the right direction for sure. If he stays focused like he was in this window, and improves on his crosses a bit, he will be close to unstoppable at the CONCACAF level.
This is definitely not true when Steffan is not playing regularly. We see him making errors regularly.
This window really needs to end the Paul Arriola experiment unless he's on in the final 10 minutes to force defenders to hoof long balls as we protect a lead. Pulisic, Aaronson, Reyna (but I still want him in midfield against most CONCACAF opponents), Weah, and Hoppe are all better. Arriola is OK in that limited situation. But when we have the listed options healthy, he's at the bottom of the 23-man roster.
Outside of minute 1 and holding my breath on Ruiz's slow march to goal, that was a fun match to watch. I appreciate clever combination play, and they danced around CRC all night. Final ball is still a concern for me. Crossing in this window was largely abysmal. That has to change vs better competition.
Im sorry but it wasnt unlucky. He didnt even move until the ball was in the net and Dest kept the player onsides. Turner would have blocked it, easily. As for distribution.... I saw nothing special or even hard. Panama was covering out defenders, CR wasnt. Even with an easy job to distribute, Steffen still managed to "distribute" one over someone's head on the sideline. Imagine if Turner had done that? Bottom line, we saw Steffen give up a soft goal and Turner should be clearly number one going forward. We can't always count on overcoming that deficit in harder games
word .... the US absolutely dominated quality and possession and intensity from start to finish and with the exception of the one play at the start ... the issue is not whether Steffan or Turner would have stopped it - these things happen from time to time on the pitch. What mattered was the US applied the vise for 90% of the game after that and scored two goals to come back and win. Younger players often don't have the mental strength to deal with going a goal down and coming back in convincing fashion. This team did last night. It was not whether the US was going to win - it was by how much. I am a little concerned that we did not win 4 or 5 to 1. But Costa Rico knew they had to bunker in and that cramped some of the space Pepi needed to score. Happiness to me was seeing Egg line up the best 11 available (with exception of Scally not present) and with McBride and Stewart watching intently from the stands. HOPEFULLY Greg will keep Roldan, Lletget, Acosta, Zardes, Arriola and other MLS journeyman average players off the pitch unless he has no other choice. Yes I know Weah was not originally suppose to start. Fate? It is just a simple fact that most of the European based players are far better. Don't screw it up Greg by overthinking it or worrying about what the MLS wants. One final point - I think Wes will be just fine. He is heads down focused on his game and his intensity may be contributing to his loss of some finer touch. Some of his cockiness kept him relaxed ... he is going to have to find that balance between intensity and focus and relaxation and cockiness/happiness while having the self discipline to control some of his off field issues. And if that means - not talking to the press - good for him. I do give Greg credit for backing him up. I do think the MMA lineup with Busio in the mix is one hell of a challenge for an opponent to have to plan against. Particularly when you look at how long that group of 4 are going to be playing for the US. And Adams (to me) seems like a great choice for the captain role.
Yeah, and a lot of the times we'd still win; basketball talent has never been lacking at any level in the US; if anything the rest of the world has made big strides in that sport. I'm not a fan but the last Olympic final was a good game to watch because it was competitive. I'd kill to have pro soccer players in this country as talented as our young basketball players. Even so, basketball does not have the same reserve of talent among so many nations as does soccer, so I'm not sure just how much talent the US would have to produce to challenge the big guns. We have more players than ever and it still isn't enough to keep us from stinking things up in Panama or losing at T&T last cycle.
we have better basketball coaches throughout this entire nation. Can you say the same from top to bottom for soccer? We do have the talent ... but we need to constantly improve our coaching. I blame GGG for Panama and the USSF for T&T. The Federation should NEVER let us get to a point where we need to win away from home on the last day. I want us to bury Mexico the next match and then get to 15 points as soon as possible so we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
Bit of a mixed bag for me, but far more good than bad and certainly happy to have three points. Starting in the back, Steffan had a poor start, His header didn't get out of bounds, then he just stood there on an admittedly difficult shot with a Costa Rican player right in front of him. But, he also passed a ball out of bounds early on as well. I think we just have to face facts: we are going to be weak in goal until a new crop emerges post Qatar. I'd be fine if Berhalter just picked his poison here as I do think a team benefits from stability in the back. You swap 'em every time a guy makes a mistake for a goal and we're gonna be going back and forth for the duration because both these guys are mistake prone. I actually thought Turner's failure to get that ball in his box was worse than Steffan's mistake but I feel pretty alone in that opinion. Two games, two goalkeepers, two bad goals, not good. I thought Robinson had his weakest game in quite some time. Looked nervous on the ball, more like the Robinson who played his first couple games for the US than the guy who has emerged. But hey, he wasn't awful and he gets a break. Richards was solid, although I do wish he brought a bit more physicality. He struggled with balls in the air to stronger Costa Rican players. I give him credit for that too close to call tackle in the box for preventing a goal. He fouls or fails to get that one right and we're sunk. The outside backs were both very good, although Robinson needs to be more consistent with his final ball. He's still miles better than any other left back options we have and Dest is simply spectacular and untouchable. These two guys are vital if we keep playing a style that puts a ton of offensive responsibility on the outside backs (I'd say too much, frankly). We have a few decent right sided backups, but they are all a tremendous drop off from Dest especially in the attack and the left side looks barren to me after Robinson. The MMA midfield showed they can dominate. It will be very difficult for any CONCACAF teams to play through the middle against that trio and they should hold up well even at higher levels. But they do lack an incisive passer. Adams is good at digging the ball out of the back and making simple passes. Musah carries the ball well but doesn't really make a lot of dangerous passes, although he was able to combine with others well wide in this one. McKennie creates something with his passing occasionally but he's more of a battler than an orchestrator and you can't really count on it regularly unless and until he gets more consistent in that part of his game. I could see Gio winning a spot here or even Busio who looked excellent in his minutes and showed some of the best passing we've seen of any of our midfielders, especially against a team sitting back where we need someone to pick out passes. Weah looked strong on the wing and seemed to combine well with Dest. He knew when to get out of the way and they shared the space well. Musah also combined well with those two. We were lucky Arriola wasn't able to play, frankly. Aaronson had a solid game although I'm not as hyped on him as many. He is a bit between a midfielder and a wing for me. But, considering he's a likely backup to Pulisic with a full squad, he is a really nice weapon off the bench. His relentlessness against tired legs can be dangerous. Pepi I thought was quiet. He had a couple half chances and at least one header I think he'd want back. He had to go a game without a goal at some point. I already mentioned Busio who I thought was the highlight of the subs. I was impressed with him at Gold Cup, not so much for his performances overall but for how you could see him grow each game. In those games, you saw him step up his fight every time out and while he'll never be a battler just because he lacks the physical tools for it, he seems to have grown in his desire to mix it up and doesn't shy away from much. Playing in Italy will help with this as I think we often underestimate the aggressiveness and physicality of Italian soccer. He also looked like a better passer and was better at finding space than he looked previously, although he was playing against very old and tired legs. It will be interesting to watch where he fits into this team. Yedlin did fine but he's no more than a backup and maybe not even that if Cannon ever gets his club situation together and if Reynolds can get more minutes. I really wish Hoppe had gotten more minutes in this window. No idea why Berhalter won't play him at striker. I don't know that Berhalter likes what he brings for some reason I can't quite see. Zimmerman was fine shoring up the defense for the final minutes and Zardes was Zardes, had to admire the body block he put on that Costa Rican defender. He had to know that was gonna hurt, but he went for that ball full bore anyway. That's basically why he gets call ups, but he needs to start fading down the depth chart. With Pepi, Hoppe, and even Sargent I don't see how you have room for him. Overall solid lineup by Berhalter, forced by the Arriola injury to play the guy who got the winner. Subs were solid, especially Busio. I was skeptical of playing him in this situation but he really helped us maintain possession and close the game out. Was surprised to see Dest get taken out, but I read that was safety for some soreness so OK ad we needed defense more at that point than his marauding runs. Strategically, we still need to find way to create in more varied ways. The get the ball wide and hit crosses without a target man in the box strategy simply isn't going to get us many goals. As much as we dominated the ball, passed and moved well, it took an amazing shot from Dest and a bomb with a lucky bounce from Weah against the Costa Rican backup goalie to score. We had very, very few clear chances. You can't rely on only getting goals from wonder strikes no matter how talented your squad. But, we had the right guys on the field, and after the first 2 minutes played solid soccer.
I mean Gregg still looks at Paul as a top 3 or 4 winger in the entire pool. When Gio and Pulisic come back then he is going to have some decisions to make and I'm not sure he will be capable of getting them right. I'm to the point now that I wan't Arriola, Roldan, Zardes, Acosta, and Lletget all off the team. Not because they don't bring any value but because Gregg can't help himself when it comes to those guys and doesn't seem to understand their capabilities and limitations.
He didn't score but yes agreed his little touches sent teammates in and then he was always in the right spot to try and score. Maybe he needs to make some runs to drag centerbacks out of position when they drape on him like this game but other teams are now game planning him and that should let others have more freedom. I wonder what Pulisic could do if Pepi is the one drawing double teams (and vice versa) Turner might have made that save but I think Steffen was thinking he was obviously off. Such a weird play that the broadcasters have to call in a ref expert and I learned something I'd never seen in 35+ years of watching. Berhalter also apparently didn't know that rule. My son looked it up and it seems it's a recent change. So between Turner and Steffen I agree that Turner is better at stopping shots but Steffen's distribution means he won't be seeing as many shots. Steffen looked like Richards or Brooks with his calm passes and has really improved on that. I think Turner needs to really work on that part and if Steffen moves and gets starts next fall he maybe the starter. He was a big part of winning possession and starting attacks unlike Turner's booting in Panama. Wish Turner was playing with a coach who emphasized that passing and worked hard on him to get better at it. GB needs to call Bruce and discuss it with him.
All true. Will 15 points be enough to give us a cushion this time out? Haven't done the math....I seem to think you need about 18-20 in past years or something...
He actually had a few moments where he looked like he was gonna do something, then nothing came of it. I pretty much think he should be done with this team.
Arriola started and played well against Jamaica, and he was poor like basically everyone else against Panama. I would agree that he should be near the bottom of the depth chart at winger, but it’s not as if he was a weak link this window, or a bad selection given that Reyna and CP were out.
Yeah, I'm also against the grain on this, but I think Arriola had a positive window and still has a clear place in the squad. Just like Weah, he didn't get on the scoresheet, but he earned what should have been a clear match-winning contribution (red card for Jamaica in the first 20 seconds). More generally, US talent in the winger position drops off hard after 4-5 players, and Arriola can also provide emergency cover for a wingback role IMO. So he'll hang around. I think some of the other unpopular MLS players are more likely to be leapfrogged.
He's actually improved his distribution a ton since playing for the Revs. Which sort of tells you where he was starting from. Also I'm glad that someone else is willing to cop to not knowing that rule. I was worried I was the only one.
USA boys just dominated the first half and looked even better after that bombaso from Dest! What a hit!!! As an old inner city coach here in Houston, I can assure anyone reading that the word hate does not even do justice for the mutual feelings between mexicanos and guanacos! I mean years back I had one team that was, on paper, a powerful roster top to bottom. Only pitfall was that my boys were a diverse roster of said mexicanos and guanacos. With a two Caribbean footballers and just three other brothas from the gridrion teams. Damn it all if my Mexican and Sallie boys would take the field and not run for each other, fight for each other and or communicate for each other. They literally could not get over their dad's and older brothers passed on disgruntled feelings for each other. It will drive a soccer coach mad!