News: Fire Berhalter

Discussion in 'USA Men' started by bigredmachine, Oct 15, 2019.

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  1. Neubill

    Neubill Member

    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Jan 26, 2005
    Southern Kelehfornya
    We are not a top 8 team. Having an elite coach will not change that reality, not matter how much we want to identify as an elite team.

    The results we got in this tournament don't reflect a team that underperformed or overachieved.
    What speaks to our quality as a top 16 team is ending up as the runner up from the toughest group in the tournament. We belong in that club.
    Where we don't belong at the moment is in the elite 8 club and our defeat to a team from that club in a match that mattered is proof. Having an elite coach would not have changed this reality.

    I have been following the US in tournaments since we qualified for Italia '90. Although Americans have been world leaders in innovation and progress, expecting our fútbol program to be so innovative that we make quantum leaps with each World Cup cycle is unrealistic. Furthermore, this sport that we know as The Beautiful Game isn't a video game where we can apply cheat codes to win.

    We've come a long way since we went three and out in Italy. As a nation, we've hosted the most successful World Cup and in less than four years, we will be able to say that we've hosted the two most successful World Cups. We have a first division soccer league with academies that are scouted by elite European clubs. The league is improving with each passing year and gradually becoming a destination league for young players seeking a pathway to playing in Europe.

    As for our American players plying their trade in Europe, the numbers are increasing and they are performing well.

    Few gave us a chance to emerge from Group B. That shows well for us.
    Holland punished our mistakes. That shows the work we have left to do.

    We're not an elite 8 team, ...but we can be, and more.
    We have not reached our ceiling.
     
  2. gomichigan24

    gomichigan24 Member+

    Jul 15, 2002
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Those same European players were a huge part of us not qualifying and in Klinsmann getting fired. Arena didn’t call up Jones and Johnson but both were older and Johnson in particular had injuries. He wasn’t leaving European guys at home who could have helped us. We just didn’t have any and anything else is revisionist history.

    Acosta got more caps in 2021 because he was the only A team player to play in the Nations League, Gold Cup and qualifying. He played every minute of the Gold Cup and if you remember Adams had very limited availability for the Nations League. So it makes sense Acosta would play a ton in the absence of Adams.

    Long did not play a minute in 2021. Arriola played a ton in the Gold Cup, but not so much in qualifying.

    Lletget played well in the Gold Cup and well against Honduras in qualifying. He played very poorly against Panama and was basically discarded from that point.

    I don’t understand why you are so worked up about what happened years ago. The whole cycle culminates in the World Cup. And the question is what player should have gotten minutes that didn’t because these players played. And why would have those players have helped us in this World Cup.

    As for Brooks, the way his club career has fallen off has nothing to do with Berhalter or with the USMNT. They don’t have that kind of power and Brooks is in the circumstances of his own making. Wolfsburg did want to resign him, he just wanted way more money than they were willing to offer. And then he went months and months without finding a club. None of that has anything to do with Berhalter.

    Not everything that goes wrong with the national team is because we called up too many MLS players or too few European players.
     
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  3. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    In the end our weakness was on the sides of the defense, Dest and Jedi, both Europe-based players.
     
  4. gomichigan24

    gomichigan24 Member+

    Jul 15, 2002
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Part of that I think was also just lack of depth and that someone like Jedi had to play every minute of every game. The guys playing on one ankle to begin with, but he was clearly gassed in that last game.

    Same with Dest who wasn’t match fit and who we didn’t have a good replacement for.
     
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  5. Sufjan Guzan

    Sufjan Guzan Member+

    Feb 13, 2016
    Just spitballing here but I wouldn't be surprised to see some foreign coaches angle for it. I think guys that maybe want to do a different pace (which international football is a change of pace) will look at how this group has been doing, see the World Cup being in NA in 2026, and say "hey that's a challenge worth taking".
     
  6. Rezelby

    Rezelby Member

    Aug 1, 2010
    Is the argument that a better player was left on the bench in favor of those two?

    BTW, it was our weakness in the game against Netherlands but Jedi and Dest were great in the group, aside from Jedi getting the yips versus Iran
     
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  7. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    The argument is that we're out because of the too many MLSers in the squad, which is patently false.

    Zimmerman did well, Acosta did ok in his minutes, Ferreira was not any less effective than Sargent, and clamoring we lost because we didn't bring a semi-retired Brooks in place of Long or Serie C-level Busio instead of Cristian Roldan is nuts.
     
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  8. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    We've decided on Jurgen Klopp. I'll expect a press conference tomorrow.
     
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  9. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    A few things:

    1.) Fan is short for Fanatic. Fanatics can be crazy, and sometimes unhinged.....just sayin

    As for playing time:

    % of minutes for the U.S. by active MLS players by WC and how far the team got:

    1998 - 63.1% - Group Stage
    2002 - 45.8% - QF
    2006 - 32.3% - Group Stage
    2010 - 18.5% - R16
    2014 - 34.6% - R16
    2022 - 10.6% - R16

    Not much of a correlation there, despite what some want to claim.

    I'm sure some will have opinions on these numbers.....

    As for GGG playing too many MLS'ers after quarantine?? A lot of this was so the European players club situations weren't disrupted due to those countries quarantine guidelines. Which, some were very strict.

    The US lacks talent up top. Those yelling for Pefok to be included, did y'all not see his previous chances with the USMNT? There's a reason Union has benched him. He wasn't going to be the answer. Pepi? Maybe? Though his turn around happened too late. Vazquez? Prolly should have gotten a look in June or September, but who would he have replaced in those windows? Dike can't stay healthy longer than 2 months. Who else is there?

    Can we just be f'n honest with ourselves here? Reyna has barely played in the last 12-18 months due to injuries. Yes, he is one of the most talented players the US has. He has huge potential. He's important to Dortmund. It's not out of the realm of possibilities that Dortmund personnel spoke with Gregg. This World Cups more condensed Schedule, plus high temps.....they've been managing his workload. IMO, they should have played him more in Qatar.

    Due to injuries to our top top players the last 3 years, they've barely played together on the national team. Those injuries are not Gregg's fault.

    Leaving Steffen off the WC roster? Shrug? Steffen was Gregg's keeper at Columbus. He brought him to MLS from Freiburg. It's not like he isn't a Gregg guy. Turner played great, Steffen's omission is a nothing burger. You can make an argument to bring Slonina over Johnson to get him experience in that environment. There's also an argument for rewarding Johnson for his years of service, and his last two seasons of play. He wasn't going to play ion Qatar unless something catastrophic happened.

    Anyways.....Gregg's not getting Fired. Earnie Stewart has never fired a coach. Gregg's contract is up at the end of this month. When asked, he said he was going to take a few weeks to decompress and than make a decision on his next move. He's likely going to move back into the club game.

    It's hilarious how those meaningless competition trophies that Gregg won (Nations League and Gold Cup) are going to suddenly be so f'n important when the USMNT doesn't have a coach........

    MLS training camps open in January....Jim Curtin ain't taking that job, and neither is any other MLS coach. Not a week or two before the season starts. Also, the USSF isn't going to pay to buy out any contracts either. Jesse Marsch probably won't be available in January either.

    Who's taking over for Gregg inj January? Anthony Hudson???
     
  10. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    No offense meant, but I think this is a perfect encapsulation of the hype machine when we compare any lineup -- much less one that hasn't really been healthy enough to play together before to one of the most dominant lineups in NBA history comprised of 3 NBA Hall of Famers.

    Perhaps our expectations are a mite high? ;)

    I love Gio, but these might be a tad bit high.
     
  11. superdave

    superdave Member+

    Jul 14, 1999
    VB, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The brain. I’m pretty sure it was his brain.
     
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  12. dlokteff

    dlokteff Member+

    Jan 22, 2002
    San Francisco, CA
    There's no correlation, but just an obvious trend of less MLS players.

    The funniest thing is Klinsmann, who everyone believed was this huge Eurofile, is the weird outlier in reversing the trend. He did try, with Green, Chandler, Brooks...but in the end he concluded that they either weren't ready or not good enough, and played the likes of MLS journeyman Beckerman instead. He coached to win the games. These coaches don't give a shit about MLS vs. Europe. They coach to win the games!

    As for January, I'm hoping thry let Varas coach it with a U20/23 team. Hopefully we can get a fulltime manager for the Nations League in March.
     
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  13. gomichigan24

    gomichigan24 Member+

    Jul 15, 2002
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I do think if we can confirm our participation in Copa America 2024, that very much adds to the attractiveness of this job. It gives you two major tournaments, plus 4 smaller ones to experiment with.

    This will never happen, but it’d be awesome if we could do what Qatar did and get added into one of the European qualifying groups with an odd number of teams. Of course Qatar probably paid a lot of money for this, which we’ll never do. But we need to figure out something to do with those qualifying dates.
     
  14. gomichigan24

    gomichigan24 Member+

    Jul 15, 2002
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Anthony Hudson definitely runs January camp if Berhalter steps aside, but I think all of the MLS coaches take the USMNT job if offered. In the US Soccer ecosystem, this is seen as the best available job (and also pays much more than any American MLS coach makes).

    If Berhalter doesn’t want to return I think you have an interim coach for January and run a process to have a permanent coach in place by March.

    I don’t think Jesse Marsch leaves Leeds for it, and I hope he’s super successful there, but it’s also not outside the realm of possibility he gets fired.

    I don’t think Berhalter has actually decided what he wants to do. I imagine that he very much misses the day to day of the club game. But I also think he appreciates the opportunity to coach the team in a World Cup at, cares deeply about this group of players, probably feels like they have unfinished business, and very genuinely wants to change the way the world views US Soccer. I’m sure there will be discussions with Earnie Stewart and a lot of thinking and decompressing over the next few weeks.

    There’s also the option of Berhalter signing a short term extension through March or June. Gives Berhalter some more time to think things through and gives US Soccer some time to sound out potential options. In that scenario the Nations League final could be his swan song and we’d aim to have a new coach in place for the Gold Cup.
     
  15. gomichigan24

    gomichigan24 Member+

    Jul 15, 2002
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I feel like Varas has to focus on just the U20 team. They have a World Cup next summer and January is basically his last chance to look at new faces.

    After that he just has just the March window and the U20 World Cup itself.
     
  16. dlokteff

    dlokteff Member+

    Jan 22, 2002
    San Francisco, CA
    I'm fine to drop the U23 guys and make it a full u-20 team. There's not many that add much anyways.

    The short-term Berhalter extension, I don't like that at all. Gotta cut the cord, now. Or they go all in with Gregg. No in between
     
  17. rgli13

    rgli13 Member+

    Mar 23, 2005
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #2217 rgli13, Dec 5, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2022
    that seems somewhat likely, as does a caretaker (though i would say only through jan camp in that case)- i think a serious look at 2 short term (meaning 2 year contract) managers is worth seriously looking at.

    include gregg if must (im obviously not), but we could look at pellegrino, cherundolo, curtain, etc for the first half of this cycle with the option of finding "the guy" for the second half/26 wc.

    as much talk as there is about how attractive a job this is its really not...yet. theres a negative 94.3% pep (just a random big swing) even considers signing up for 3 and a half years of gold cups and nl with the possibility of a copa, thats not going to happen, and frankly id be suspicious of any non-american manager who would sign up for that. that has "looking for a fat paycheck" written all over it.

    what can happen is we hire curtain (again- example- pellegrino is my preference) next tuesday, and he a) does terribly, b) shows us hes the guy and gets the second half of the cycle/wc or c) does fine but we can still make our play for pep, or mourinho, or van gaal or whoever you each think is sexiest. cause two years from now the usmnt job is extremely attractive. young team, crazy talent, host country, minimal haiti- that turns heads. 3 game windows with two nl matches and squeezing in a friendly against guatemala is a pretty garbage gig if youre not personally invested in growing us soccer.
     
  18. comoesa

    comoesa Member+

    Aug 13, 2010
    Christen Press's armpit
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    But Scally...
     
  19. gomichigan24

    gomichigan24 Member+

    Jul 15, 2002
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I feel like short term extension gives both sides time to consider their options.

    If we’re going to replace Berhalter it would good to know what the alternatives are before we do and figure out whose interested.

    Similarly Berhalter has a bit more time to decide what he wants to do and figure out what clubs in Europe are interested or not interested.

    And that way we have someone to coach January camp and possibly the March window if needed.

    To me the the short term extension doesn’t preclude getting a new coach or being back Berhalter. It just means we don’t have to decide in the next three weeks.
     
  20. bsky22

    bsky22 Member+

    Dec 8, 2003
    Who made that argument. I sure didn't and I seem to be only one not scrambling around to try act like Berhalter didn't waste a majority of this cycle on MLS stiffs.

    Zimmerman was good at what he does and his weaknesses were exposed. His overly aggressive style that caused people to act like he was some world class defender cost us two points. His distribution slowed our ability build out of the back, lost us possession, and pit to much pressure on Ream in the last game.

    Acosta did OK, but our team dropped off big when he came on. Everyone will tell you he is just an emergency sub for Adams, but somehow he played twice with Adams never coming off.

    Ferreira was starlight trash. He never got involved and turned the ball over numerous times. You would have been better off going with comparing him Wright. Sargent got going in the Iran game and his injury hurt us greatly.

    Dest and Robinson were poor against the Netherlands (Adams didn't track as well). Of course, they both had decent tournaments. Now Yedlin wasn't good and Moore just doesn't belong.
     
  21. bsky22

    bsky22 Member+

    Dec 8, 2003
    Didnt i just explain this to you. The team wasn't prepared. We have better depth than what was chosen. This was primarily due to the coach wasting time on inept MLS players. There is limited time to prepare for a WC.

    Just about every MLS player on the roster was treated as a special player to get them minutes at the expense of other players. Ferreira was supposedly our main forward leading up to the WC. Aaron ********ing Long. Acosta picked out of irrelevance to a every game player. At any given time between 2019 and the WC, there were MLS guys playing bigger roles than they deserved.
     
  22. gomichigan24

    gomichigan24 Member+

    Jul 15, 2002
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Which players weren’t prepared/played poorly because they didn’t get enough minutes in 2019?

    Who was the better depth that we didn’t pick who would have helped?

    Who would you have taken as a backup 6 instead of Acosta?

    Why is it such a big deal that Aaron Long was on the roster and played zero minutes? How would things have been different if EPB or McKenzie had been in that spot and also played zero minutes?

    Jesus Ferreira played 45 minutes across 4 games. They were not a good 45 minutes, but if you want to lay the failures of this World Cup campaign on him, I don’t agree with that.

    Interestingly neither Ferreira and Acosta were amongst those getting minutes in 2019.
     
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  23. Dan Loney

    Dan Loney BigSoccer Supporter

    Mar 10, 2000
    Cincilluminati
    Club:
    Los Angeles Sol
    Nat'l Team:
    Philippines
    If only we had a team full of Bundesliga players, we would have made the quarterfinals easy.

    Excuse me, I've just been handed a note

    EDIT - I'm sorry, I'll read that again.

    If only we had a team full of Serie A players, we would have okay NOW what do you want
     
  24. bsky22

    bsky22 Member+

    Dec 8, 2003
    Remember the only reason I brought 2019 was your false claim about Berhalter turning the roster over and that a bunch of players weren't ready. Your continued fixation on it is weird. It is best to not have this discussion by me answering your questions as my arguments are very different than how you keep trying to frame this.

    We finally saw the potential of this group in the first half vs Iran. The performance in this half was miles better than we played the rest of the cycle. It is the only time that XI played together. Long and Ferreira weren't apart of that success but were players that were getting regular minutes all 2022. Ferreira played in 10 of the 12 games in 2022. Long was used as a sub in two of the three games in first window he was fully healthy and then started 3 and played 45 in the other 3 games. Explain how them getting regular minutes helped prepare the team for the WC? Explain why giving more minutes to Sargent (45 total mins in 2022) and CCV (216 mins) wouldn't have been a better option?
     
  25. adam tash

    adam tash Member+

    Jul 12, 2013
    Barcelona, Spain
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    how are ream and zimmerman just getting off with that embarassment vs Netherlands??? lacking on both sides of the ball?

    Berhalter banished Brooks because he cant play in a high line. But the Netherlands strategy was to make the CBs beat them with passing (couldn't) and to get them to defend in transition (couldn't)

    yeah there other players who broke down - jedi, in particular and adams and dest - but the US had the numerical advantage in the box on every single goal that the netherlands scored....where were the CBs???

    the chosen ones ggg rode with??

    on one level, I applaud that the US "went for it" and pressed...and the injuries were a killer - richards and miles were missed - but I dont get how the Cbs are just getting off without much criticism here .... and their selection for this style of play isnt under more scrutiny....

    zimmerman and ream cant play a high line vs knockout round WC teams!

    fatal mistake by berhalter.
     

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