It's absolutely what Berhalter wanted. We were playing on the road at the Azteca. I don't think the intent was ever to win the possession battle. The choice in midfield with both Adams and Acosta (and Adams was the worse at offense yesterday) was definitely hurting the offense ... ... but we held Mexico to .56 xG at the Azteca. They had a few chances, but nothing really deadly, and Acosta + Adams were part of that. We had two chances we should've made, and should've gotten 3 points. This was the gameplan -- it wasn't bunker and counter (thank God) -- but it was a gameplan for the situation. I wasn't a fan of going for it, but if we were going to ... this wasn't a bad plan.
I've mentioned this before, but only after he get's fouled. Roll on the ground, hold your ankle, knee, shin, face whatever. But please stop pounding the ground and looking like you are going to cry and/or whine.
To be completely fair, I think he meant the replacement for Yedlin as the backup right back. Dest is the first choice starter when healthy.
I think its the angle that makes it look worse. Somehow the shot went behind the guy who cushioned it to him. The wondo sitter probably is a bit higher up on probability he was closer to the goal and less defensive pressure if memory holds(I try to block that out). My worry is that it creates in Reyna what we see in Pulisic. An unwillingness to trust your teammate to do his job forcing you to do more than you should. It's not a great thing to slice a shot that bad. If Pefok isn't hitting those chances 95+ percent you can't okay him in Gregg's system. He doesn't do anything else outside of put it in the net. So maybe the best thing is just to let Sargent and Zardes give max effort since the scoring isn't coming in anyway. Nova is a super sub in serie b, Altidore can't be relied on to stay healthy, none of our wingers play well as forwards with the exception of Morris. So that may be my three man group right now, Morris, Sargent and Zardes. Pepi needs to find his footing again, which is fine dude is super young and just moved to a team where more is expected. Dike can round back in to form too. Gotta be better.
Some folks have an unrealistically rosy memory about his performance as a starter against better teams because either: a. his play against worse ones or b. their almost blind devotion to him because he was our 1st big club success. They need to hit the smelling salts to finally have a reaction like they are awake. In double-digit matches against the best opponents he's started against (and mind you he hasn't done it in the WC, Copa America, Confed Cup, etc); he has 1 goal + assist. And that's generous considering it was a pk he didn't deserve in the UNL final against Mexico after yet again running into a cul de sac and getting beaten to the ball. This is with mediocre defense, runs, and poor decisions in possession. If you did a blind resume for those games, you'd think he was Paul Arriola, or at least Jozy Altidore. And those players were better outside their production. His claim to fame in his nat'l team career is being a flat track bully & a super-sub. Which others get much more flack for. And in this qualifying cycle he hasn't even been a flat track bully. Next match would be a good time to at least re-earn that distinction.
Yes, I know. If we win at home, we are qualified. It's the best outcome, and it is in our hands. I just know life doesn't always go the way you plan. I don't want to be like the Italian fans crying in their beers last night.
some non-toxic thoughts for the most part i agree with your points, but the subs in particular just seemed all wrong to me. you mention ferreira rather than p-funk- i agree because the most precious commodity at that point was fresh legs, and theres no amount on freshness for p-punks legs that get close to jesus'. i actually had the thought late in the match 75-85th minute that i didnt get why p-funk wasnt sitting on top of our own box (well, not winning headers there either probably, but) with morris as the outlet. that was just such a strange decision to being him on in that match. the sub that really made me crazy was reyna for weah, though. if gio came on for either adams or acosta i think we take full points. my gut just feels that 100%. im sure theres a point at which even weah shows diminishing returns due to fatigue, but he was still terrorizing that side of the pitch. i just think if we added a little more balance, a little more forward ability in the middle we could have found a goal before shutting down shop. agree pulisic was pretty good, yedlin was very good for me and anyone being bored by us/mex is a huge weirdo. crap, almost made it a whole post...
It's not a nightmare scenario for us. It's the virtual when monkeys fly out of our butt one. We haven't lost at home all cycle. And I think we've played 22 competitive games now. In the modern era we have like one loss in qualifying against a team as beatable as Panama. It's a statistical 1%'er, regardless of what any metric may say. At T&T last cycle was more like a 5-10%'er. We had already lost by 2 at Guatemala in the prior qualifying round. Those random road losses will occasionally happen, especially under pressure. The realistic nightmare scenario would be to draw, which is about 5-10% too. That means we'd have to pick up a historic draw at Costa Rica with a ton of pressure on us to auto-qualify. But we've already virtually assured the playoff spot at minimum. We don't need to concoct unrealistic scenarios to ratchet up tension. We already have enough from things that could reasonably happen - draw v. Panama, lose to Costa Rica, Costa Rica wins at El Salvador, we lose to New Zealand in penalties after a drab 0-0 in the sweltering Qatari summer.
i think there is such a better conversation to be had that "pefok miss, pefok bad, bad like wondo". why is the argument that hey, every fluke goal that bounces in off of zardes' left earlobe counts the same as a worldie, but every miss is a snowflake...usually the reason for slamming the door closed on someones (intl, in this case) career? we are all so full of poo its crazy we dont even have a little swarm of flies emoji...
It is what it is. I don't think any of the knowledgable posters have been pimping for him. But others have based upon this idea that it doesn't matter what league he is doing it in. I will make on observation though. Pefok has been used against the two best teams we've played in the Ocho. His one start was against Canada. Plug him in against a weaker team and he will look better. But we aint gonna be playing weaker teams in the world cup. In selecting the roster, I hope Greggg gives a lot of consideration to which players (especially the forwards) have the ability to play up to the level of competition. Pefok is not one of those, his CL goals notwithstanding. I don't think Zardes is either. You can probably see where I'm headed with this. It is a process of elimination. There are no great options. But when you think about which guys can maybe have an impact against really good competition (or to put it another way not hurt the team), it helps to clarify the situation at forward a bit. Add to that a bit about how this team should be playing (hint the press is important), and the situation clarifies itself even more.
It’s one of the reasons I was always pissed Wondo got a couple dozen run outs but never 90’s. They were always of the 11 here 18 there, and 32 there variety. You don’t learn who a Forward is and what they can do with that. Like Pefok, Wondo finishes that far more often then he flubs it. But add the hulking, sprawling presence of Courtois and its a miss.
I am more concerned about the frustration underlying the body language. That's always a sign that he has gotten tilted. Mind you, he has some reason: The off-the-ball fouls against him were atrocious, including that nasty trip after his so-called miss (and people on here calling him trash instead of being concerned about Mexico literally trying to injure him ) That said, he always plays best when he is able to ignore that stuff; I have to think he would benefit immensely from a sports psychologist
Noooooooo one flops like Neymar Rolls around like Neymar Grabs his head and then shouts very loud like Neymar He's especially good at exaggerating Boy what a guy that Neymar
I didn't think we could control the midfield without McKennie. But we mostly did. Although, we had problems playing through with the defenders we had on the field. But this was at the Azteca and Adams, Musah, and Acosta were even if not better than Mexico. The point is great. Pretty much books auto qualification. We have to beat Panama, but we always had to beat Panama and we should. Panama had a terrible result and can't play for a draw. Plus, morale must be terrible as it looked like they were #4 trying to be #3 for 6 months and they are pretty much out now. Pefok and Pulisic should have scored. We could have easily won. But there were many Mexico counters and attacks of our giveaways that were super dangerous but were wasted. Two years ago, the Zimmerman giveaway and the counter off the corner late would have been goals. Now, they just fizzle or they settle for a long shot. We didn't create a bunch of half chances and fizzles. The last 10' seemed to take an hour. Jedi Robinson is a machine. When everyone hit a wall around 60-70', he was still going. I don't know why Mexico kept attacking him, he had that side locked down and Yedlin was kind of all over the place. Then we bring in an uncapped CB to play RWB, and Mexico still attacked Jedi. Credit to the staff that anticipated the altitude effects and seemed to know 70' was the wall. They were ready for a more passive approach and that was signalled with the Pefok sub. We stopped pressing high and just tried to ride it out. Reyna was dangerous though, but Pulisic was gassed and Musah too and Yedlin was done. Pefok was in there to maybe get a set piece goal and probably more to defend set pieces. EPB seemed super calm and up to it. Long seemed jittery and pre-occupied with everyone else's position. Miles was super shaky in the first 30. He continues to get caught flat footed and is piling up the cards as a result. It is amazing how you can have a Concacaf game where you don't see a card for anything then you get one where they are out for anything. The ref, who was good late, threatened a red for Yedlin in the first half for not throwing it in quick. I don't know if this ref, who does many of our games, is usually card happy. But it was unfortunate that we got an easy card game when Berhalter rolled the dice with all our yellow card players ahead of Panama. Adams gets a silver star for getting out without a yellow.
I immediately knew exactly the tune to sing this to. It's the song about Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, for those who don't get it.
Pefok missed. But so did Pulisic. Pefok's miss was no more a reflection of his abilities than was the Pulisic's miss. Still, Ferreira should get the start against Panama. Acosta was decent enough, but should really be Adams's backup at the 6.
Definitely. I noticed a number of plays where Adams was very clearly trying not to commit too aggressively to a challenge, but still did enough to disrupt the play or even win the ball back. I imagine that's not the easiest balance to strike.
I am pretty sure that wherever he is right now Neymar is rolling around in agony because of your post.
Pefok is not a two-footed player. He is strongly right-footed. That's the problem in a nutshell. I don't think this is a "mistake" in isolation. As a 25 year old player, it is probably too late to fix this.
It's understandable that many of us are disappointed that we didn't get a win, but people are forgetting that Mexico also had a number of great chances that they flub. Musah and Walker made extremely poor passes which led to great opportunities for Mexico. Fortunately, they were off too. In the end, a tie was a fair result. Overall, I thought the US came out well and played a good game, but faded towards the end (which is understandable). I had no problem with the subs other than I thought Musah should have been subbed earlier and possibly Pulsic. I'm actually more upset with Pulsic's miss than Pefok's. He was in the center of the goal and hit it right at the GK. I was upset at the yellow cards. All three were preventable, especially Miles and Yedlin's. I think Miles getting an early card effected his aggressiveness. I disagree that that Miles and Walker played well. They made some poor decision and their distribution was average at best. However, I thought Yedlin and Antonee were probably two of our best players on the field. I did like Acosta and Adams in the middle. They were both solid, although Adams wasn't as involved (which was probably a good thing). However, Acosta and Pulsic were not good on set pieces which was disappointing. Lastly, I don't normally watch the post game production, but I watched about 5-10 minutes before I starting to gag. Bad doesn't even cover it. It was a circus of wrongness with only Charlie looking half-way decent. Dempsey couldn't even talk into his mic. Terrible. Ugh.
I hated the "prevent defense" at the time - we had no midfield to speak of (other than Reyna) towards the end and Pefok couldn't hold up the ball (that first touch - wow) - but I guess Long made some good plays and it did work to hold on for a point when legs were really starting to go. I thought Musah looked really dead when he almost gifted them a goal with that pass so was a little surprised he didn't come off. I didn't mind the Weah sub because I also thought he looked like his effectiveness was waning. I might have done Reyna for Musah at that point. Ultimately though - when you have 2 excellent chances like we got in a rivalry game like this - it's hard for me to fault the sub choices for why we didn't win.
Yeah - I think Pefok is better used against a bunkering team that we are struggling to breakdown rather than in Azteca in a game where our legs are going. I didn't realize how bad he was at hold up play - in hindsight (for me) he was the wrong player to bring in to this game.
Agree with much of this, but I'm such a huge Zimmerman fan. He's not perfect by any stretch - but so good at being aggressive and decisive without being reckless.