The most obvious adjustment for the Canada game is to have Pulisic and whoever is the striker spend more time in and around the penalty box. They need to work on those flicks and other short passes. And in or near the box I do want Pulisic aggressively taking defenders on. Draw those fouls.
Pressing takes a lot of work and energy. The two-game window was more conducive to that. It would make sense to have a gameplan against El Salvador that saved the players legs somewhat.
1) People are probably reacting to the quality of the overall performance in this and other matches and extrapolating what that likely means for success against tougher competition going forward. 2) Because it's becoming a pattern of not being able to dominate lesser opponents in qualifying games that matter, which is more concerning when the coach has a history of offensive ineptitude dating back to his first coaching gig. 3) Because one point wins aren't sustainable and you inevitably end up dropping points over time (e.g. Couva, Panama this cycle, etc.). I have a hypothesis (poorly researched at this point) that Berhalter tends to do his best coaching against stronger teams and relies on his sub-optimal system against weaker teams with predictable and uninspiring results. 4) I don't doubt that some of our fans are overly dramatic and demanding. Doesn't mean everyone is though or that some don't have valid reasons for their concerns. 5) For the record, I'm not overly upset about the last match and felt we deserved at least one more goal. I continue to see some of the same macro-level issues with our play however and I'd like to see less of them in the future.
I don't doubt it and we will probably see the same versus Canada. I think Plan A was to give up Zero goals. Plan B was to assume Weah and Pulisic would conjure up a couple of goals. They did conjure up 2-4, but only one went in.
Part of that too is that fact that by the time that team was running through qualifying it was a near ideal set up for a core, and compare that to the current guys: Altidore: 24/ Pepi: 19 Dempsey-30:/ Weah 21/Reyna 19/Aaronson 21 Donovan-30: /Pulisic: 23 Bradley-26/McKennie: 23 Jones-32/ Adams: 22 Then consider how many years and reps together they had had: Dempsey and Donovan had had what, eight years of playing together, Altidore and Bradley had played with Dempsey and Donovan for basically 5 years. Jones had what, 3 or 4 years with them? As people have already said, MMA and Pulisic have logged like a hundred minutes together, maybe 200? In terms of full years versus of friendlies, internationals and tournaments, it's basically about 1-2 for all of them. So the argument that part of this is skill set is valid, but far more valid to me is reps. That grouping of guys had a gazillion of reps together, an absolute ton of them, and it showed. Heck Altidore and Bradley had been playing together since the 2005 youth tournaments, so they'd played together for four years before they even made their senior team debuts. Our guys didn't play together for the most part in the youth set up (thank you Richie lol), either because of stupid decisions, injuries, or in some cases, being a part of separate age cohorts and/or leaving for Europe early. So the intuition, the understanding, is not there, period. It's not all Berhalter, most teams have years and years together of familiarity we don't due mostly to injuries, covid, and the extreme youth of our talent compared to other sides.
That's only a differential of +.8/90 against teams ranked 5th, 6th, and 7th in CCAF. 1 goal/moment in the other direction usually and it's losing us points against them. It already has on the road. That doesn't mean much, especially in today's day and age. In fairness, the xg against I don't think has ever hit one and often has been as low as .2-.3. But like I said, it only takes one brilliant effort. And we've gotten pretty lucky on the reffing. Bailed out at the end at Jamaica to even get a draw there. Against CR, Richards should have been called for a penalty and redded off w/ 30+ minutes left. They did not bunker at all, in spite of scoring early. Maybe you're thinking they should have. I agree, but they have too much pride against us. Otherwise it's highly likely they steal points from us. Living on the edge, indeed, banking on things out of our control. So let's control the things we can, shall we.
He didn't make the right calls. A perfect example was near the end of the game, Zardes was making a run on the right, and was beating his defender. The defender grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him down. The AR, who was right on top of the play, raised his flag and grabbed his shirt pocket, indicating a Yellow Card foul. The Center Ref never pulled the Yellow card, but did call the foul. There were other similar instances which could have gone both ways.
We've had plenty of flashes, and sometimes more than that. There are times where we've struggled to create chances, and there's been more times we've struggled to finish/final ball. Last night was more of the latter.
Finishing is a huge part of playing well, but how you improve it is different than can't create chances, can't progress the ball. Parts of our game were good; finishing was one thing that was terrible. Unfortunately, it's really important, and we don't have good finishers. How do you fix that? (Note: to avoid endless back and forth, I do not think it is the only thing that can be improved.)
Repped for the first half -- for any failures to reach full potential is on the team as a whole, players and coach. For many of us, though, we read a lot that is basically "If MLS players played, it's on them. If they didn't, it's on Gregg. It can never be on the Champions League players" and react to that. For the second half, I have a number of issues with Gregg's tactics and choices, but that list of complaints don't list any of them. I'd be hard pressed to find complaints I care less about. Comments from Hammarby from nearly a decade ago? Being a competitive dick as a player when it is clear we've built a pretty good culture? Who gives a shit?
This is some good nuance that many will ignore. It's as if we are expected to take McKennie (who plays in a two-person central midfield), Weah (who plays outside midfielder, not a winger), Aaronson (who plays as a central playmaker in Austria), Musah (who plays outside midfielder at Valencia), the list goes on and on.... but all those different playstyles and formation, combined with the youth of the team (I couldn't even buy Pepi a beer if he were to score a hat trick), can easily create the growing pains we are seeing here, especially on attack (kudos to Gregg and the defenders for getting the defense set up well). It's not an easy task for Gregg, and I would say that he's probably behind the ball a bit on what I would hope for when it comes to the attack, even with those caveats I mentioned. But, in the end, it's a results business, and as of right now, it looks like they're on course.
In principle, I really like the concept of xG-like models that seek to more accurately measure how much you should have scored and likely would over time as opposed to the actual scoreline which is overly influenced by luck. Does anyone happen to know how accurate these models are? For example, would two separate players shooting from the same spot on the field get the same xG credit if player one was one on one with the goalie and player two had three defenders surrounding him? I'm a little ignorant on how sophisticated these models are and how well they deal with context.
After awhile it stops being "luck", The US has only dropped points in 4 competitive matches since 2020 and only one of those is a loss. Feel like Ole Gregg & the boys would have regressed to the mean a little by now if that were the case. I could easily find lucky breaks that went against the "US" to even out where they got fortunate.
Two things can be true at the same time: #1 Berhalter bares a ton of blame for how ineffectual the attack so often is. #2 The lack of player reps together is a huge problem. Most teams feature cores that have had years together worth of reps, not games. Look at Canada, their sharpness, probably has at least a little to do with the fact that they had to play the 6 qualifiers together already, so that probably helped. I do think our players will improve through reps given enough time however..... As I said earlier, if we had named Herdman coach in December '17 instead of Canada naming him head coach in January of '18 we'd look, far, far, far better, reps or no reps.
That's exactly what I was saying. He called fouls ok, but should have been quite a few yellows given. The play you mention was indeed one of the more egregious/obvious yellows that should have been handed out.
He essentially never had the ball. Go watch the final 20 minutes or so of the game when he was in there. He had very few touches. He appears to win an aerial ball from Turner and flicks it on to Zardes who maintains possession, maybe ES player deflected, not sure. One time he had actual possession of the ball and he put a really nice floating cross to the back post for McKennie. He makes an attempt to get on a speculative through ball down the wing. He wins possession of the ball right at the end of the game and rather than taking the 2nd touch he lets Adams take possession instead. But it was Morris who stepped in and won the ball. I don't think he placed a foot wrong the whole game. To post shit like this is just disingenuous and divorced from the reality of the game.
They aren't that nuanced. It's just in general, on a shot from this spot on the field, how likley is a goal to be scored. XG doesn't know if you're wide open or double teamed. That's why single game (or especially single chance xG) while not to be dismissed, is not a great argument. It can and usually does pick the better team in a match though. Over a larger (I'd say like 20 or so) matches, it's going to start building a real case with the randomness and defended/not-defended starting to wash out.
There was never any other option. The Gold Cup was smack dab in the middle of Europa and Champions League Qualifying, training and the tune up friendly schedule, hell it might have even interferred with a few season openers. We NEVER had a chance to bring our A side to the Gold Cup. Even Mexico couldn't bring most of their European based players too it, they brought a couple, but most of them stayed in Europe. I don't disagree w/your general point, just w/the Gold Cup angle. The problem was wasted caps in '19 and to a degree in '20 and '21 in players that had no role in the long term plan if the coach had sense, and bad luck w/injuries and covid wiping out chunks of potential reps as well.
I think folks underestimate the job Berhalter has done in terms of almost completely turning over a roster with new players...........................while playing games that matter. And winning those games. I mean, he literally has been handing 18 year olds USMNT debuts in road WCQers. People understand, I hope, that only one or two starters remain from the starting lineups he fielded in the Nations League in 2019. McKennie and Pulisic. Adams missed those with injury if I remember corrently. But Berhalter has turned over this roster, while winning two trophies and putting us in position to qualify for the World Cup. Not easy. We can can criticize him for other aspects. In-game tactics, blah, blah, blah. But with this aspect he's been very good.
Nice point on the shots, too bad so few of them mattered and we weren't able to open up the game. The denominator being the players doesn't really work, that would only make sense if there was a wide discrepancy in how well our team's attacked worked depending upon which combinations of players were rolled out, but it hasn't, no matter who we roll out, we're anemic in terms of scoring goals, and usually in chances (this being a sort of exception in the chance department). If it happens to the '19 mess of teams, if it happens to the B/C team Gold Cup side, if it happens to the Nations League in '19 Fall side, if it happens to the Nations League in '21 side, if it happens to the WC Qualifying side, no matter which players are out with injury, it isn't the players, or rather, it isn't just the players, quite clearly, since there have been a quite wide variety of players used over the years as wing forwards, forwards, and central mids. No matter who is plugged in, an ugly mess is generally what we get.
That is a solid point. I say that CONCACAF is more competitive than it once was and I shouldn’t forget that.
Love Perez, they never quit, as I posted before the match, they've kept every single game tight since July other than getting beat up by Mexico once, and one other match, and that's out of like 13 games or so. One think you can't question is their committment, and how sound they are considering the talent. The have maxed out EVERYTHING.
That's some pretty impressive Captain Hindsight - this board would definitely have to be stabbed, decapitated and set on fire if we hired a women's coach with no experience with the Men's game. Which is to say - there aren't lots of great options out there to replace Gregg. I'm so tired of all the coach bashing that goes on here. Half the board should be moved to the kids table. GB is far from perfect but a) he's adapting and learning b) he's gotten some really good results and c) like him or not, he's not going anywhere this cycle. I get that hating the coach and players is part of fandom for some, but this forum is meant for analysis - balanced discussion of strengths and weaknesses of our personnel. Coach hating should be reserved for the USA Men forum which is more meant for unbridled fanatacism.
I'm completely with you on that. We have some CL level players that are underperforming and some MLS players that are among the most effective players on the squad. A few minor quibbles aside, I think Gregg has generally done a really good job of judging players on a case-by-case basis, irrespective of league. I believe we might have 3 additional points if Gregg employed a more suitable style OR INDEPENDENTLY if some of our better players were performing up to their standards. We'd likely be doing even better if both happened. He definitely gets credit in my book for building a good culture, although it's at risk long-term if he continues to blame the players for every poor performance instead of taking some personal responsibility as well. He's a good leader in plenty of ways, but that particular tendency is the antithesis of leadership. He's similar to Klinsmann in that respect and I won't even go into how a psychologist would likely categorize that aspect of their personalities. See, I don't think Gregg is a terrible coach per se but more compromised in his decision making by being too adherent to his ideal way of doing things, which I think is sub-optimal as I mentioned in the post. I also don't personally think he's a bad guy. On the contrary, I think not taking responsibly at Hammarby or in the press shows a pattern of behavior that he truly believes it's all a player execution issue and not a Gregg-system issue. Add that to the other items on the list and I think it makes it unlikely he's going to change much. And if you believe he's at least partially responsible for us not reaching our potential to date, then you shouldn't want that to happen. Which was the point of that post.