As much as we like to drag Doyle for his takes (Miguel Berry for USMNT/Spanish National Team). This is a good breakdown of what happened today. https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/three-takeaways-as-usa-suffer-world-cup-exit-against-netherlands
I think the thing that's most frustrating to me is that the USMNT's goal scoring woes can be directly tied back to the inexplicable decision by Caleb Porter to bench Gyasi Zardes in favor of Miguel Berry, leading to not only a wasted Crew season, but to Gyasi Zardes struggling to regain match fitness and low on confidence with the Colorado Rapids, and subsequently being left off the USMNT roster. An in-form Gyasi Zardes puts in 2-3 more goals with his knee, face, or ass, but we didn't have that this World Cup. At least we have 977 minutes of Miguel Berry in a Crew uniform resulting in four shots on target to keep in our memories though. As always, the USMNT fate and fortune or misfortune comes through Columbus.
I just find it odd. We shit the bed all the way through qualifying, if memory serves it took to the very end to secure qualification. We played some horrendous games, Ricardo Pepi had to come in and save us a couple times. We didn’t even qualify last time. Our warmup friendlies were complete and total disasters. We have zero experience and zero strikers. We’ve made it past the round of 16 once. What were people expecting? I’d understand if we had Morocco, South Korea, maybe even Japan or Senegal, and didn’t get through. Those are slightly more even games. Even though this version of the Netherlands isn’t the best ever, they still have a good team. Look at their players and ours, and make a best eleven, how many Americans are in the lineup? Depay and Gakpo are better than Pulisic, Weah, and whatever striker we have. Yes, they are better. De Jong and De Roon are better than our midfielders (guaranteed starters for Champions League teams). Dumfries and Blind are better than Dest and Robinson. Van Dijk, Ake, and Timber are better than our CBs. I haven’t seen Noppert before, so I can’t compare him to Turner. Coach: Louis van Gaal: Ajax, Barcelona, Netherlands, Barcelona, AZ Alkmaar, Bayern Munich, Netherlands, Manchester United, Netherlands. Gregg Berhalter: Hammarby, Columbus, USA. The Dutch were always favorites. We had a legit chance, but to say a loss against them was a disappointment is crazy. If our big players humble up and go to clubs where they’ll be regular starters and expected contributors, instead of bench warmers on teams in which they’ll never be regulars, then 2026 will look promising for a QF run, I won’t get my hopes up beyond that though, barring a good draw.
So when talking about depth and development we start talking about Americans in the MLS. There has been a significant drop in Americans playing in the league. I recall seeing an article a year ago that said US players had less than 40% of on field time. MLS is now applying the same bias against US players like other leagues do. I think we are now seeing the output of lowered investment into American players. Yes we have a few "stars" but zero depth that challenges those "stars" place. This is trending the player pool back to how it was in cycles prior to MLS. Meaning we recruit players with dual citizenship, military brats, and expats. (new to the list former player's kids) The other part of the pool were kids that came from the youth national team system. Who is the last person that contributed to the team as a striker that was discovered that didnt come from the standard non MLS pool? Who do we have that is a potential Mcbride or Dempsey. Correct me if I'm wrong but I dont think they came from the youth national team system. I still think the US team in 2002 was lightning in a bottle. It was a bunch of really good unknown players, and the difference between now and then. Those guys combined salaries probably equaled CPs contract of today. Our two goalies were probably the highest paid players. So those guys were playing for all the marbles where the current group are already rich. The US exceeded my expectations for this WC cycle and Im happy about that. I didnt think they would get out of the group stage, thought this was going to look alot like the 1998 cycle. Like others have said the game today was really one coach getting outclassed by another coach. I also dont think Berhalter's system works well for the players he chose...because he usually relies on having a striker that can hold the ball up, feed others, and also be able to be good in the air. The 2022 team was missing that player badly. If they want to do anything in 2026 the US needs to find a striker for the system, and all signs dont' point to that player being discovered in the MLS anymore.
US striker pool for 2026 (as of Wright now): Sargent Ferreira Wright Pefok Pepi Dike Vazquez Uh……. Am I missing someone? Dike looks like a dud. Vazquez has raw tools but I’m not sure he’s international level (I’d want him in a gold cup roster). Pepi looks bad against top level competition, poor physical tools. Pefok is best in a two striker system. Wright sucks. Ferreira… seems more like a creator. Sargent has great tools but just doesn’t score at the top level, right now at least. I’m not saying no to these guys, I just have big doubts about all of them right now.
If there was a man of the match for intellectual dishonesty, this bozo would be swimming in Budweiser.
Let's reframe this. Japan finished first in their group ahead of Spain, Germany, and South Korea. Australia finished with 6 points ahead of Tunisia and Denmark. Morocco won a group ahead of Croatia, Belgium and Canada. South Korea finished ahead of Uruguay and Ghana. Each of these was a team overachieving expectations. The United States managed a goalless draw against England, and played out of the back while being tactically outclassed in a 3-1 defeat that flattered their performance against the Netherlands. What makes anyone think think this US team would have done better with a more favorable round of 16 opponent. Each team mentioned had a harder road to get where they were. This US team achieved the bare minimum, but people want to give them extra credit for style points. Screw that.
Uh, because Australia lacks a coach and players better than the US? South Korea ain’t what they used to be. Morocco won the group, but didn’t we beat their A Team this year in Cincy? Don’t act like a shittier opponent than the Dutch wouldn’t have made a difference, come on. Talk about intellectual dishonesty.
I'm logging in to unleash some feelings. I know most of you have had since noon to let your feelings brew, but I had to work, and I just got done watching at about 8PM, and I'm still raw. I'm also not reading what I've missed, because I'm still watching the other game and I'm trying to make sure I don't see any spoilers anywhere. Man. I'm just crushed. Despondent. Heartbroken. I'm sure I'll have something to say about the overall job Berhalter's done, or the early Pulisic miss, or the run of play for the overall totality of the match -- I'm sure I'll have analysis in the upcoming days. But for right now, I'm just sad. This isn't like the OSU/Michigan game, or the MLS Cup playoffs, or the CBJ. No matter how disappointing all of those things can be, you have the old cliche that there's always next year. But this tournament only happens every four years, and we had to wait EIGHT because of Couva last time around. And it's just over. Over so damn fast. Being an American soccer fan is lonely sometimes. You spend the entire year knowing that you're a relative afterthought, and that you're basically on the outside looking in. We don't sit at the cool kids table. But for a couple weeks quadrennially, you know that what you're watching is what the entire world is watching. Even if the people around you in your actual physical life aren't watching, for once, you know you're in the majority instead of the minority. And boom -- it's gone. The next ride isn't for four years, and you wind up feeling so unsatisfied in the end. This sucks. I wish I had something more profound to end this with, but that's the bottom line. This sucks.
We put five goals past Grenada June 10. Since then we managed 3 goals in 6 matches against El Salvador, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Wales, England, and Netherlands. In none of those matches did we score more than 1 goal. The likes of Saudi Arabia, Japan, and England have shown to go a level above what they showed when we played them against different opponents. We hang our hats on the fact that we tied a team that beat Argentina, or won their group, when the only team we defeated is Iran. And please, go ******** yourself if you are too stupid to realize that pointing this reality is not the same thing as putting words in peoples mouths that we are expected to win a match by six goals. I thought you were better than that.
I don't know how to express my feelings but it's something along the lines of "yeah it sucks that the US lost today but I'm really proud of our overall showing in this tournament." I'm both satisfied and disappointed, if that makes sense.
Yes, it does. I thought we would lose today and seeing Ferreira start gave me that sinking feeling. I'm really looking forward to our growth over the next decade. And now I'll go into idiotic homer contrarian jerk mode: Steffen would have saved all those goals.
Except that the stats say that "expected goals" actually favored the US. So IMHO, it's somewhere in the middle. The Dutch know how to finish--as might be expected from their experience. I get the disappointment, though. And I get that we do now have higher expectations. You may be right about "achieving the bare minimum". Yet there are good teams in this World Cup that didn't even do that. I'm a lot closer to this view.
I've seen one xG calculation that had the US ahead and two or maybe 3 that had the Dutch ahead. For all the moaning about Pulisic and Wright's missed chances, Turner made 2 or three big saves that were the difference between this being a 4 or 5-1 result as well. And there are worse teams that exceeded expectations. Most people thought, on talent we'd beat Iran and Wales, and hoped for a draw against England, and expected a loss but had hope against the dutch. We played below expectations against Wales. We blew a golden opportunity vs England. We scraped by Wales. The Netherlands match was over at the half. I guess people will point to the Pulisic goal against an inferior Iran as the World Cup moment. Or laud our possession stats against and playing out of the back. In the end for me it was a World Cup run with near no memorable results or moments. Would anyone in their right mind pay for a video yearbook of this experience? How long would the highlight package even run, 5 minutes? It's all very, very bland and just leaves one wanting so much more.
Lotta bark, no bite. pic.twitter.com/a43wWacY9v— Memphis Depay (@Memphis) December 3, 2022 A perfect tweet length summary of not only yesterday's match, but the USMNT WC experience as a whole.
Who is talking about winning by six goals? I never said give us someone easier and we’d win, I said it would make a difference. I have no idea what point you’re trying to make. We missed the world cup last cycle. We advanced out of the group this cycle. It’s literal progress. This team ain’t a cup favorite. What am I missing? I know your mentality is that second place is first loser, but that’s just lightyears beyond what the expectations for the US should be. I’m sorry people here bought into the Fox rah-rah red blooded patriotism hype machine, it’s unfortunate. Their ‘experts’ all predicted a US win pregame. That in itself is pathetic pandering that was clear as day. If you could provide a simple answer for my simpleton mind instead of writing a Shakespearian ode to woe about the life of being a US fan I’d appreciate it.
Yeah. Shocker… our team is young and naive. Our coach is young and naive. When we went up against a good team with a world class coach, we got exposed. We don’t have top class goalscorers. A 35 year old CB that was exiled from the team for over a year was our best player. Says it all really.
Maybe our players that can’t crack starting lineups at top teams in Europe just ain’t as good as the biased US based media would have you believe? Maybe Pulisic is just a bench warmer at the top level. Maybe Hadji Wright’s level is at a midtable Turkish team. Maybe Josh Sargent’s level is as a second division player. Maybe guys like Dest and Robinson have sufficient deficiencies in their game that make them ok attacking fullbacks for europa / conference league teams, but nothing more. Maybe Musah isn’t the next Gerrard or Lampard or Essien or Modric, he’s the next Darlington Nagbe with a better motor. Weah isn’t his dad, he’s an inconsistent starter for an up and down French team with financial issues. People act like we have world class players. Maybe Matt Doyle will try and convince you of that, but he’ll also try and tell you that the US should cap Miguelol Megabust Berry before Spain does. Our players are on the same level as teams like Japan or South Korea. Guys at a good level, but none of them are world class (except Son). None of them are the best player on their team. Know who should really be disappointed by this world cup? Italy Germany Belgium Mexico That’s disappointment.