beat out a young, english keeper? you wild, man... thank, we could all use a good laugh to get past the match last night and on to being qualified.
how exactly was horvath going to lead to 3 goals? i understand the butterfly effect and everything but what the hell....
I pointed out your flaws in your argument. If you don’t want to consider them that’s fine. None of it matters anyway.
first, Im glad we qualified but getting in on a 2-0 loss is not exactly and exciting way to do it. General comments: 1) We did not play that well until GB started subbing. Worst thing for this team is to have an advantage. That means time to sleepwalk for most of them 2) Weah mailed it in. He's hot and cold and shouldnt start 3) Forget Pepi He's not the answer 4) I want more Reyna - he should be starting somewhere 5) Forget Yedlin. His career is in decline and thats why he is now in Miami 6) Steffen can return to the bench when Turner is back 7) The Ref - allowed CR to hack the crap out of Pulisic all night. Does he also ref NHL games? he was terrible 8) Berhalter - Yes he got us to the WC.. barely... and yes, he cannot get us out of the first round. Too many problems to even list here but basically - we cannot create good chances against organized teams. His playber selection and game management is bad. He was out coached again last night. CR took Robinson out of the game for the most part and there went a large part of out attack. There was no plan B. Next to no attack on the ground. Pepi was mostly useless, Weah starts over Reyna? ugggh GB doesnt inspire them to play hard all the time. Some know they will start so the dont try hard. 2-0 to loss CR, 0-0 tie to Mexico..... 4 points in 3 games ....how does that translate to a WC team? So will GB be gone? No, they wont fire him. He has 7 months more to figure it out. He needs a full roster to compete in the WC. That means replacements for the Yedlins, M Robinson, Morris, Sands, Palmer-Brown, Roldan, Prefok ... players that arent good enough, too old, or that he won't even use. If they can't get minutes here, then find players that can. Will he do it? I am guessing NO. He is too stubborn and arrogant and that is why we will go 3 and out
How the Ocho keepers stacked up, based on the shots on target they faced... pic.twitter.com/8dDUzy91RJ— Paul Carr (@PaulCarr) March 31, 2022 Very hard to believe Steffen (or indeed any GK's) passing is worth two goals over 14 games.
I still give a lot of credit to the 2002 surprise success (as compared to qualifying) to the unfortunate injury to Armas right before teh Cup, which forced Arena to play Mastroeni. Pablo was so much better at receiving and moving the ball it made a huge difference. (That plus some nice luck in how the group state results shook out).
your A doesnt mean any more than someone elses C-. youre not even using the right grading scale- wc qualification is pass/fail. everything after that is whatever youve thought since august.
I was trying to think of keepers in the Ocho that Steffan had been better than, but really couldn't. Here we see it. Please DO NOT TRY TO GET THIS INFO TO GREGG. Gregg will only make a change here if he thinks it's his idea and based on his insight. Otherwise, he will feel defensive of his faith in Steffan. Seriously, Gregg has a problem at keeper and I bet he knows it. Becaue Gregg is so committed to playing out of the back, I imagine Zach's feet are going to keep him at #1, but Gregg will have to be wresting with this exact question: how many goals are those feet worth?
If you take a step back, the game was fairly even with a slight edge to the US. Switch goalkeepers and we either tie 0-0 or win this game. We had our opportunities and good/great goalkeeping kept us from scoring a goal. Bad goalkeeping gave them two goals. I see no reason Stefan should be starting and I'm not sure that he should even be on the roster at this point. As far as the other players, there were a lot of "could have been better", but with three games in a week, two road games, and team stomach flu, I'm not going to complain. I was never concerned during the game that we weren't going to qualify. Congrats for the US for qualifying!
so true. and its not only that- its almost never 1 or 2 thing. our big guys came up big more than once. mastro over armas. senneh becoming a freaking monster for exactly one, perfectly-timed month. two wildly promising kids- one of whom wasnt only a spark but burned shit down. an all-time what if player in o'brien getting that one moment we never got from holden, or davies past one huge qualifying goal. so much has to come together. i wholly believe we have more talent right now than we ever have, but we still need so much to go right if we are going to be more than a wc participant.
Man, sorry, but no. If we played a b-c team in Mexico, we would have gotten no points. Then we would have marched into CR needing a win? No thank you. And they would have played their starters. I too was disappointed in the performance last night, but it worked out in terms of our main goal. In one month no one will remember or care what place we finished in CONCACAF qualifying, and we were always going to end up in pot 2.
We would have marched into Costa Rica needing a tie, not a win. I think the overall decision to prioritize Mexico over Costa Rica was probably the right choice. But this game doesn't bear it out conclusively. We played well versus Mexico, had the better chances, and thankfully got the tie. But it was still a 0-0 tie. I wasn't a full B team proponent, but a full B team might have gotten a 0-0 tie. Or let's say they lost. The team that came into Costa Rica needing a tie would have been a lot fresher. We don't pull Tyler Adams at half. Our team definitely pulled its foot off the gas at some point. Again, I think the existing the strategy worked, and in retrospect, Mexico has been softer and we've been a better matchup. It was also goof to go hard at Mexico because it leaves CR as an option, and because the Panama game was easier (and so better to be the second game than the first you "try" in). But this outcome may also be different if it is only the A team's second game.
I don't like to criticize players because generally, they are giving it their all (or close to it). But my memories of Zach throughout the Ocho will always be the negative things—indecision and poor decisions, rather than great distribution or shot-blocking. I can't imagine we wouldn't get better results with either Turner or Horvath.
I would add that after we held them scoreless in the first half and nearly scored just before their against the run of play goal, we seemed to start coasting mentally. We knew we were qualified, and if we hadn't given up the first idiotic goal, we probably draw or win, but when we did that, play clearly wilted a bit, and then the bird brained gaffe machine Steffen killed whatever chance for a draw we had w/his antics minutes later. The second half simply got less and less organized after we failed to score w/those two chances and they got a relatively flukey opener and then definitely flukey, dumb as hell second. Generally I appreciate your break down as I think it captures all the core points, I don't blame LDLT, I think he added a lot to the attack in the 2nd half, but I do think it also impacted our overall defensive solidity/shape etc. It added more going forward temporarily, but when combined with a DGAF attitude after the first and definitely after the 2nd goal, it added nothing because players clearly were only trying to make sure we didn't lose 6-0 after that, they no longer were trying to generate the draw or a comeback. I also 100% believe we would have likely won or at worst drawn against their older, slower, more tired vets, we ran into fresh hungry legs in a game they wanted as a send off for guys like Navas. Catching those old, slow, tired legs on yellows would've helped more than getting their B team.
The difference between Borjan and Steffen was about 4 and a quarter goals saved, and I think Turner would have been in that grouping w/ Borjan & Blake, if not for the Canada match, which was a few months into Matt's offseason, when he allowed the type of scores he had not allowed in his entire USMNT career. And looking at Horvath's club stats, they are even better than Turner's. So I think he'd be between Borjan and Navas at more like 5 goals saved. So the gap indicated, that's still significant between Steffen and the alternatives, is actually flattering. And no, the distribution by Steffen, which isn't even that good for him anyway, is not making up that gap regardless.
Glad we passed the overall test and we are in. But lots of work to do over the next few months. The Draw will be most interesting and as always will have a huge effect on how we do. With so many young players there is a substantial opportunity for several of them to make some big leaps forward. Let's hope they do. But we MUST get more creativity out of our MF. We can't run everything down the wings. Especially without a true #9 to take care of business on crosses. It is still shocking to me that the US is struggling to find a top class keeper after being spoilt for choice lo these many decades.
We are in. But that was poor. Dead legs a factor, probably. Steffen CANNOT start in goal. Enough. He absolutely sucks at coming off his line to collect things. The CMs were not good. A Rob was tired. Zimmerman made a mistake. We did not cash in any chances. We do not have a CF who is dangerous or can create for others.
Man, why do you hate LDLT so much? Why so many posts in this thread pinning the loss entirely on him? The keeper and the back line were obviously big factors in those goals. I thought Luca did a good job progressing in the middle, especially moving the ball forward up to ARob (where, admittedly, it often died). I get people have different opinions on a game and may evaluate LDLT in a more negative light. But the fundamental reason that the US lost? That seems a bit excessive.
This attitude and opinion is cancerous. I can tell you right now that IF Lebron or MJ were wearing the USA jersey they would NOT view any competitive match as "meaningless". Champions play to win, losers play to trot out built-in excuses. Thanks for making it clear to which category you belong.
First sentence is straight up speculation, especially since the B team just recently beat Mexico for the GC. Then you follow that with a false claim. If we didn’t tie Mexico, than we would have needed a tie in CR. We would have had our starters on only one game in the window instead of two; so not the tired legs we went into that game on.
this is as stubborn a refusal to accept reality and/or give credit to both the manager and the team as any "irrational berhalter hater" take could ever be.
Yeah I don't get the whole thing about Steffen being so superior with his feet. That is the book on him, but in reality I never really see it, with the Nats at least. I remember when Horvath came on in the NL final and thinking the dude was significantly sharper than Steffen had been in distribution. In any event, I don't think GGG will be trying to consistently play out of the back in the knockout rounds at the WC, particularly if Miles and Zim are in there, at least I hope that isn't the plan.
Look at our history. You do not want to be on the road for your final game, in Costa Rica, needing a result, against Navas. Far too dangerous and risky. you assume way too much to think that our A squad, if rested, would have marched in there and taken what they wanted.