It's interesting to me that Berhalter is getting such praise from the international press, but that he's become such a polarizing figure here in terms of how he's done during the World Cup.
uh, yeah...thats the coaching philosophy from the thread title. if he didnt get to score, no one does.
. Look at what he has done for Musah and Dest, e.g. They were languishing at clubs before shining with USA. Weah is starring with stuff he can't do at club. At the end of the day, I think Berhalter's failing will be that he had 4 years to build solid subs at key positions and ended up with a hobbled LDLT and questionable Acosta. Adams, Musah and McKennie are tiring from tournament play with games every 4 days, there's yellow cards, etc. Pulisic has a pelvic contusion. Adams ran more than 8 mi v. Iran. Klinsmann was much smarter in that regard. He had guys like Bedoya, Zusi, Beckerman, Morris ready to go. Berhalter couldn't make up his mind with Pefok, Wright, Pepi, Sargent. To me it looks like Pepi's midfield game could have helped us see games out like Iran. I remember early cycle saying such and such game would be a great time to try out a 2nd GK like Horvath only to see Steffen playing game after game after game. Now we end up with Horvath but his experience is negligible in terms of p.t. with senior team. i.o.w., Berhalter is doing fine with the first line players but what happens when they start becoming unavailable, tired out, etc.
Berhalter isn't perfect but overall I think he's done a fairly good job. The main criticism of him has been the subs, but I think that to me is more the case of not having good depth he really wants to put on the field in high pressure moments. The two biggest overall criticisms I would have are 1) we aren't very good on set pieces and 2) we are not that great a team in transition.
It's certainly the primary issues with our offense. Set pieces constitute anywhere from 25-40% of goals in a World Cup usually (2018 was 40%, but that was high), and we have none. Also none really in qualifying except against Honduras. We seem to run plays, but either the service is completely trash or we're out of sync. It's honestly the biggest knock on him right now. Some of it is that we've really moved away from good set piece guys -- we have McKennie and Zimmermand and no one else. But part of it is the insistence on Pulisic (which I kind of get, given that he's guaranteed to be playing), and the rest of it just seems out of whack. We'll run a really creative play and then the next six will be completely giving up. I'm clearly missing something. Transition ... man, I know there's some coaching on transition, but like, this is mostly on the players. It's a lot of head down, too much dribbling, missed passes, bad touches, etc. Maybe there's something tactical there in how we break but I'm not good enough to see it. Early on we didn't push it enough, but that hasn't been true for a year. There was a transition goal in both the Wales and Iran games we left on the table.
It's clear this is where we most miss Reyna as he is by far the best set piece taker on the team. And Berhalter clearly recognizes we have a problem here, he brought in a set piece coach from a club who is famous from being much better than any one else at set pieces. It hasn't gone anywhere yet, but he's definitely trying to address the problem (unsuccessfully so far). It feels like if we're better in transition we win the Wales game and the Iran win is a comfortable one. I vaguely remember you clipping some shots from the qualifier at Canada where there were opportunities, but the players just didn't take advantage of them. I don't know how much of his coaching, but it feels like we often waste transition opportunities.
The rest of the world sees a huge improvement from cycle to cycle. Some fans here see improvement but mistakes made that seem to be repeated. It's somewhere in between IMO. He could be the 'best' we ever had based on results if he can keep winning. As is, he's going to be remembered as the architect of the new generation based roster.
1) yeah 2) transition backwards is good. In the forward direction you will see transition come back into the game if Aaronson starts.
There are definite patterns in transition. Per Tim Ream, the Iran goal was according to plan. Definition of a team goal 🇺🇸 Winning a first and second ball, build out under pressure successfully, moving together up the field, numbers centrally and out wide beating a low-block with quality movement and positional details. Fantastic work by the USMNTpic.twitter.com/5RjfN0Wqgf— Rodrigo Carvalho (@rodrigoccc97) November 30, 2022 Doyle has noted that this pattern was seen in other games: shot... pic.twitter.com/X1GNSwBeQ0— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) November 30, 2022 Other chaser...pic.twitter.com/wHWT5RU99b— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) November 30, 2022 I'm sure there are others.
USMNT Elo gain/loss by manager 👀 pic.twitter.com/CYHjtFgLwA— natfan9.bsky.social (@NatFan9) November 30, 2022
So many of our issues are around players dribbling either with their head down or overconfident in their dribble. I am sure if you go back far enough there's instances of not breaking to maintain possession, but ever since the opening of qualifying, those are few and far between. The verticality shift that started at the Gold Cup and continued to Weah starting killed most of that. Our issue is that the fastest and most effective transitions are passes and we had a team of players who like to dribble. They are good at it, but it's so much faster to pass the ball. And we just don't. The Canada on in that vein was that both we and Canada both were the early recipients of a bad goal kick. Canada scored on a series of direct one touch passes. Musah took ours, overdribbled, let he defense set, then tried to force a ball. Is that Berhalter? Eh, that's just what Musah does. I think both club and country coaches can influence these guys, and certainly you can build a transition plan so they know where to pass, but some of this is just their instinct. Against Iran, Christian in the 2' just doesn't pass to Sargent who would have been on. Later, a great pass from Tyler to Sargent ends with nothing as Sargent passes to a covered player ignoring the wide open teammate. I mean, Berhalter can drill this shit, but you only have so much time. This is much more instinctual ball. I think these guys just need to play together more so they understand what they are going to do. They need to communicate a bit more and then trust a bit more. Pulisic needs to look up because he knows Sargent is booking and trusts he will finish. Sargent needs to look for Pulisic because he knows CP will always make that run. Both spent a lot more time looking at the ball; that's also a thing. Weah and CP have a lot more time together, I think, and it showed a bit on that nice break against Wales. It wasn't transition, but Wes and Weah almost had that nice goal as well. But you know, I've never played or coached this level. Maybe there is some transition coaching that isn't getting done.
ESPN article has a negative review of GGG's abilities late in the game: "Why they won't: Matches are 90 minutes long. One problem with relentless running and pressing: It wears you out, especially when some of your most important players came into the World Cup with recent injuries and fitness concerns. McKennie is only averaging 69.3 minutes per match, Dest 78.0. And as these players begin to tire, the Americans' effectiveness vanishes. xG, first 60 min: USA 2.19, opponents 0.91 (actual score: US 2-0) xG, last 30 min: opponents 2.23, USA 0.35 (actual score: opponent 1-0) Fatigue has indeed limited certain key players, and manager Gregg Berhalter's substitution decisions (both timing and personnel) have been, to put it diplomatically, shaky. When things move into game management mode, the US quickly fray. The fatigue isn't going to suddenly get better as the tournament progresses." https://www.espn.com/soyccer/fifa-w...argentina-and-more-will-or-wont-win-world-cup
Group "B" best threat creators (via pass and carry):L. Shaw 🏴A. Gholizadeh 🇮🇷C. Pulisic 🇺🇸R. Sterling 🏴 pic.twitter.com/L4So4YpFNi— markstats (@markrstats) November 29, 2022
Some of it is probably luck. Weah's semi-transition not-goal is a goal under slightly different circumstances.
I'm not exactly sure what this means, but looks like we had 5 of the Top 10 threats in the group. Pulisic, Musah, Dest, McKennie & Weah. Gotta like that, no?
That pattern has been a big topic going back at least to the 2019 Gold Cup. See the first goal in the Jamaica game. Interestingly, the second goal, scored by Pulisic, is almost identical to his finish yesterday. It's funny that people talk about how Berhalter wasted years of time not calling the right people and not implementing any type of system, when there is actually so much evidence that he actually has done pretty well at those things. For all of the talk about how "Gregg runs this team like it's a club team" and "he tries to do things that are too complicated," this team seems very well organized, clear on their roles, etc.
Means we dribble well, which is a bit unusual in the modern game where passes count more (note the large cluster at the bottom of the graph). We have players that can carry the ball through lines. It’s interesting but means we don’t get in against open goals often as dribbling is much slower than passing.
This is probably the best place to put this: In the coaching search, there was some guy that said Roberto Martinez was "not good enough." I ridiculed that comment for three years. I'm here to eat my crow. USA is through, Martinez's Belgum crapped out. Anyone have any good recipe for crow? Also, someone mentioned Berhalter's blocked shot vs. Germany. Another Berhalter factoid from that match .... he was marking Ballack when Ballack scored. Can't fault him much. Ballack was a beast on set pieces. We gave Germany a bunch of free kicks, and Berhalter was already on a yellow - because he was defending Ballack on set pieces.
TBF, the Belgium locker room sounds like a complete nightmare. Coaches can’t fully control that. But yeah, they massively underachieved for sure.
A lot of text has been posted in this forum about Berhalter switching so many horses between competitions. The argument is that the team plays better with familiarity. The counterargument is that you need to go with the hot hand. IMO the first argument has been overextended by the critical side of the . There is a core of players that have played many minutes together. There is also a small handful of players that forced themselves in to the competition over other names. My argument is that this is mostly intelligent guesswork but only some managers are willing to do this. So far, these three games have shown many more plusses in Berhalter's choices than negatives. The most important part though is that he is very willing to go with current form and that he prepared the expectations from the very beginning to incorporate this idea. The team has had no issue and moved forward without a stutter. That part is very important and adds to the list of how Berhalter has built a positive culture.
Thank you for your service Gregg, good luck in Charlotte Michele Gioannone said in his opinion, Gregg Berhalter will leave the USMNT 🇺🇸 after the World Cup regardless of what happens. As far as I remember, his “reporting” “in my opinion” has been 100% accurate. He is either a genius or has inside sources, or a bit of both.— Tactical Manager (@ManagerTactical) December 2, 2022
I still think Martinez is a pretty good coach. Like all, he has some tendencies and blind spots. People here might've hated him because he definitely leaned into Belgium's aging Golden Generation instead of starting a youth movement. That said, they only really didn't go through because DeBruyne was pretty bad for him, and because Lukaku missed like 8 sitters at the end of the last game. You can say they should have done better, for sure, but also, that team was a ticking time bomb at this point that didn't execute. Maybe that was his man management. People claim he wasted the Golden Generation, but he took over from an underperforming coach and had a great 2018 WC. The guy has a semifinal in a World Cup and barely lost to 2018 France. Like, beating that French team was the expectation? But people will clown him for it. Euro performances were middling, losing to the hot Wales run and eventual champions Italy. All these guys come with biases, quirks, preferences, etc. Look at how many people hate Thomas Tuchel and he's like a Top 10 coach including Club, right?
We should talk more about the defense. A lot more. The last time the US had two shutouts in a WC was 1930. Let that sink in. Shutouts are not normal for us. Whatever we say about Berhalter, his defensive strategy has been at new level for this team. Going in to the knockout phase this will be something we lean on.
Wouldn't be surprised if he tries to parlay this into a club job. Most managers don't like to be NT managers for a long time just because it's so different from the day in and day out of running a club.
I think it’s informed speculation. He doesn’t have any actual info, but he’s speculating based on what he knows about Berhalter. I don’t think Berhalter leaves the USMNT for an MLS team though. If he leaves it’ll be for a club job in Europe.