Just got to watch the match. The mis-traps in the first halve were just weird. At the pickup games I used to play in, if a new guy showed up and mistrapped like that, they'd never see the ball again. Aside from the 1st half mistraps (which isn't a small thing), I thought everyone played well. McKennie: I'm convinced that we were trying training ground stuff and it wasn't coming off. Every free kick I remember went to McKennie. And, every time he got to the ball, he played it across the face of the goal instead of on goal. That has to have come from the gaffer. McKennie could have had 3 goals, should have had 2. I'm convinced that we were running "plays." Which leads to Dike: if you've got Daryl Dike in there, why do you not play one free kick ball to him? I think that's a big mistake. And, his lack of opportunities affects people's perception of his match. He should not be written off, or going to the back of the line. Pepi: he surely looks the part. There's a lot of skill there. His goal was nice, but ES's center backs are poor by international standards. Definitely needs more opportunities. Dest: He was our best offensive wide player by a stretch. Put in a bunch of crosses that found American heads, had a penalty shout. Mediocre defender. I'd like to see him tried at AW sometime. Jedi: Where he excels is counter-attack soccer. This game wasn't that. Aside form the mistraps (see above), I thought he played well and defended very well. Turner: that was a great save at the beginning of the match. I don't think he's really a drop-off from prior NT keepers. The talent gap between the US and ES is enormous .... I'd be fine if Hugo was the next MNT manager. Zendejas/Reyna - I think these 2 guys are the best dribblers that have ever suited up for the US. Musah is not too far behind. Puli: not his day. I've always said he is not a natural goal scorer (or assist man, really). We can't rely on him for goals. He works his but off and gets into positions where he can score, that is, he get's into positions where anyone could score. That's part of being an attacking player. But, I still think that if we could find away to shift his role to more of a ball-progresser than relied-on-for-goals, that would be good. I'd like to see us tinker with him and Reyna, seeing how they fit centrally and wide. Anyone know what the xG for the two teams was this game? I'm asking because I don't and I'm curious.
Has anyone noticed that the team continues to underperform xG? Please tell me someone has been tracking that.
From this game, it looks like it's the pass-run timing and intent. The midfield and forwards are not on the same wavelength at all. In my view, for 80% of the situations it's the runner starting before checking that the passer is recognizing the play. For Dike, it's because he is running for an over the top ball and this team mostly does on the ground passes.
First of all, that’s a very long, comprehensive post, and I appreciate the time and thought put into your reply. Well done. I’m going to address this starting from The bottom of reply and work my way through to the top. Your last paragraph stopped me cold. How is reaching a semifinal in a WC or thumping Concacaf sides away from home an unrealistic or impossible task? It shouldn’t be, it should be a stated goal and that should filter through the organization. Changing the mindset is not a “problem” that can be engineered away. It’s not a problem of detail, it’s a broad organizational issue, and it requires leadership at the very top to waterfall down to national team coaching, youth team coaching, etc. The fact that US Soccer allowed the sporting director and GM to leave without proper succession planning is a joke. The fact that we didn’t have a shortlist of candidates prepared for Berhalter’s departure is a joke. The Reyna drama is a joke. Because USSF/US Soccer come from humble beginnings hurts us a bit. That “volunteer” mindset and underdog mindset has meant that US Soccer needs to build consensus, listen to all opinions, seek stakeholder input. It’s an incredibly inefficient way to run a large organization. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember the exact financials of USSF/US Soccer, but we are talking hundreds of millions annually. You wouldn’t run a company that way. Hell, you wouldn’t run a large non-profit that way. There is a lack of leadership and vision. Unless, of course, you’re happy with knockout round performances. If that’s the goal, don’t change anything. I disagree that change is nearly always incremental. That’s engineer speak, and there are way too many examples of how approaching problems in a different way have caused massive changes in society, sports, business, etc. Landing on the moon required a massive change in mindset. Tesla/SpaceX, the invention of the automobile, the internet, social media (not necessarily good, ha!), so many required huge leaps of faith. By the numbers or logical analysis, most would have said its impossible. Winning the Gold Cup and Nations League are nice. The competition is thin and the Gold Cup is held in the US. It’s close to a cream puff tournament, Mexico aside. Still, we’d all trade multiple Gold Cups for a semifinal run in the ‘26 WC, I am pretty sure. Neither one of us is actually in a position to diagnose the issues of US Soccer organizationally, we just see the symptoms. On a post in another thread awhile ago, I suggested we table a godfather offer for a top coach, and I was blown away by how many thought we couldn’t possibly afford $15m a year for our USMNT coach/manager. US Soccer has pretty much come out and said that salary demands are not an issue. Why are we as a soccer community so entrenched in smallthink? I won’t comment in-depth on your technical analysis other than to say, I think it boils down to coaching. Quality is an issue too, but we are talking mostly about quality in finishing and we don’t have a clinical striker or even wingers that can fill that role.
Like I said, this is in process. I noticed continued xG debt and started checking the offensive patterns. From that point on I don't care about xG, it's only purpose is to point me to a possible fixable issue and from then on I look at the video focusing on the issue. In my opinion that's the way to use advanced stats.
I have no idea how you got that from my last paragraph. None. Those are goals. I know winning a World Cup is a stated goal. But if we do not accomplish those goals immediately, it does not mean we are not on the right track. It does not mean that the only path is to blow everything up. It is absolutely normal that building things takes time. I have no visibility to what the US Soccer mindset is that you think is so problematic. I really don't. What do you even think the mindset is? What proof do you have whatever this mindset is exists? If your idea that is the mindset is that we need to win the World Cup tomorrow or everyone is fired and everything is scrapped, that's counterproductive to any growth. Merely setting a goal does not deliver a goal. I have sympathy for the GM lack of succession planning. It's not something you are internal filling, and while I'm sure someone had a list of possible successors, the reality is that you can't line up an external person at that level for a job you don't know if going to be open. You can only have names. There should have already been discussion of potential future coaches at all times. I don't know that there wasn't. Perhaps they had some but are committed to letting the new GM pick. But it's not a company. It's a Federation. Honestly, there's nothing here for me that is on USSF. It's all on the Reyna's in terms of that interaction. I agree with you on some parts of this. The Gulati days were necessary bootstrap, like a start-up. What Cordeiro tried to do, and Earnie's role, the GMs, all of that, was to start to essentially corporatize the soccer side of things in terms of making things with set structures and processes to run smoother and more efficiently. They seem to have done some with more to do. What I don't agree with you on is why US Soccer needs to build consensus and seek stakeholder input. It's not because of the volunteer mindset -- Gulati ran things his way with even more of a mindset. It's because US Soccer is NOT a company. It is literally a federation. It is made up of all those stakeholders and those stakeholders vote on things like bylaws and presidents and structures. You absolutely have to convince AYSO to do something because you can't dictate to AYSO. You can't get rid of them and just suddenly have something you control pop up in its place. US Soccer doesn't have corporate control over amateur leagues or pro leagues -- it is a TRADE ASSOCIATION. You can't change this like a company. If you are JT Basten or Earnie Stewart, the head of AYSO is technically one of your bosses. The idea that you can just "fix this" -- whatever it is -- tomorrow, as President or Sporting Director, is incorrect. And to say they lack vision... I disagree. You cite the revenues -- and yes, US Soccer did about $117M in revenues in their FY2022. But $95M of that went straight into National Team expenses. Rents, salaries, travel, etc. There's not that much money out there for youth development, coaching education, refereeing, overhead, etc. for a nation as large as the US. I ran the numbers a while ago, but when Germany did the famous Das Reboot we wanted Klinsmann to help us do here -- they funded their at 10x the per capita funding we have AND they have a full fledged professional system. They NEED to use partners to get things done. (And let's not forget that the stated mission of US Soccer is to forward soccer at all levels at the US, not just win a Men's World Cup). I'd also say they've had a very strong high level vision, but limited resources, and they rely on others. They absolutely make mistakes. But the big picture of US Soccer absolutely made sense to me at the major beat level: There's simply no way we ever get investment in development without a domestic league. They started one, helped build one, and now we have a growing and stable domestic league. Which hadn't been true for 100 years. They identified in the mid-2000s that our development was focused on the wrong things. They set up new guidelines, standards of play, built the DA, got MLS to require academies and invest now something at $100M a year in development. They've secured 2 WCs. On the women's side, they have 4 WC wins. But hey, the Fed's incompetent. Those are literally the two biggest things they needed to do, and it is really hard because even MLS with super rich owners, almost went under. It got done. They could have never funded it alone. US Soccer makes tons of dumb decisions, I am sure. They do a lot of dumb stuff. I think you're wrong that they don't largely know what they want to do long term. I think some of this stuff is hard, and I think ALL of this stuff takes time. Countries like England have had 120 years, and their leagues got to grow up in an era when it was cheap to build a stadium, when soccer players were paid pennies and where every team had a captive audience because even radio didn't freaking exist. You offer "accountability" and "do something." I say they actually have. It's not engineer speak, it's from tons of social and organizational studies and from my personal experience moving 1,000+ organizations via change management. I mean, not really. Landing on the moon took a decade from when we even made the commitment, but it also trends back to the advance of rockets in the decades before, physics at the turn of the century, the invention of the transistor at Bell Labs when they were trying to figure out telephones. The first steam-powered vehicle was created in 1672 by a Jesuit in China. It was a toy. In 1769, a Frenchman made a self-propelled tricycle. In 1800 we got a steam powered car. The ICE was invented in 1807. In 1881, there was a 3 wheeled electric car patented. Benz gets the credit for the first car in 1886, and few people even owned one until years after the Model T came out in 1908. Hell, Tesla is using an electric car -- which is as old as dirt. There's plenty of genius there, both in battery tech and business model. But it also took over a decade to gain momentum and billions in government funds. It was far from the first electric car, not by a century. I am all for innovative thinking. But that doesn't mean shit isn't incremental or take time and resources. But people are tough to change, and all change is built on prior success. Violent change very often ends in full regression (see: French Revolution) but those examples are hardly relevant for a soccer federation. No one is saying there aren't changes. But also, there's a lot right going on. Because the $45M that is three years of that would eat up a tremendous amount of cash that people would like to use for other things. Maybe you could get a small portion back -- Pep Guardiola presented by Visit Qatar! -- but there's opportunity cost to everything. I also don't even know who you'd get with that? That pay is in line with top club coaches, but a lot of those guys aren't interested in coaching a National team. If Pep wants to coach a national team, I don't think pay will be the barrier. The word out of US camp is they are willing to pay top salary for a national team coach -- $5M or so these days. I think we can get a high quality coach for that. I'm far more worried about the attractiveness of the job than the pay. I don't think any club coach making $15-20M wants to come here anyway. Coaching can influence a team, but a team wins and loses on the talent and execution of its players. A coach can help or hurt, but the level of attribution that fans put on coaching is more or less flipped from what the real impact is. Studies of club coaches for soccer will tell you a coach has almost no impact. I don't believe those; I think there is too much noise in how they are doing that. But at that level, it's pretty often a coach is amazing in one place and awful in another. There's no way for me to know exactly what the split is. I do think Berhalter sacrificed offense for defense. YMMV if that was smart. Most people hate it, but perhaps a looser team doesn't get out of the group. I have no idea at a more detailed or coaching level if what he was doing was the issue or not. I do put a lot of the set piece stuff on him. But what I do think is this. It's a coach's job, offensively, to put players as frequently as possible into situations of advantage in the attacking third. I don't think we were brilliant at this, but aside from set pieces, our biggest gap was in the conversion rate of those advantages to goals or even shots. That's usually on the players. Where I think Berhalter most affected our offense was that he sacrificed chances to create numerical superiority for defensive solidity at times. But I'm all for an ambitious coach. Let's do it! An while we're at it, let's go get the World Cup at home! And get into Copa America! And generate more and more talented youth through professional academies! (Like seriously, in 16 years we've gone from 0 pro academies to ~40, but over half of those are less than a decade old. Many haven't even had a single full class go through). I am all for new ideas and change. But there's got to be specifics and a plan, or nothing gets done. And I think there's a lot of good stuff going on, and I'd bet a lot of people doing a lot of good work.
When scuffed says Gio doesn't make that run, do they mean he should jump on Pulisic's back piggy-back style to be sure they both make that run? (Please don't answer that). Check out what Velazquez says about Aaronson's goal v. Grenada - the guy is watching too many u8 games.
We need these or other new players into the pool. This window we were missing Adams and Weah. It’s nothing new. “Availability” was an issue with our players all last cycle. Gio being available is practically a miracle. So we need to become deep at all positions to not hap gaps in our roster.
Agree, not his day. Probably short rest plus El Sal game plan to neutralize the threat on his side. (Notably, our lone goal came from a long through pass into the right channel.) Disagree about goal scoring and assists. He had a hell of a day three days prior. Produced 4 assists + 1 goal in 64min of action. Yes it was Grenada, but no one else put up those numbers. For me he's the first name on the lineup, attacking from the left. You fill in the rest of the names from there.
Yeah I agree. Their intent was definitely to mark Puli out of the game. I watched an interview with Hugo’s son a while back and he came right out and said that the tactic El Salvador used in the World Cup qualifiers against the US was to overload Pulisic with multiple defenders, frustrate him and force him away from the goal where he is most dangerous. Force him back into the midfield to find the ball well away from any dangerous area. Puli is our best player, at minimum our best attacker but he isn’t perfect. It’s on him to recognize what is going on in that scenario and unload the ball immediately. If the opponent is going to overload on Pulisic’s side then someone is going to be open and the weak side switch was indeed on quite a bit. It didn’t help things that ARob had a poor game on the ball either There were some donkey touches from Cristian also, which are just plain out of character for him. He had a bad game. It happens.
Aren't both Pulisic and Reyna sick from the flu and McKinney supposedly played with the flu? I wonder if more guys had it but didn't know until later.
At some point, can't remember exactly when, maybe coming out for the second half, Pulisic looked unwell - the opposite of bouncy and energetic.
I'm starting to think you are some sort of white knight for US Soccer. Why spend all this time defending them? Do you work for USSF? You used the words "impossible", not me. I merely said why should those goals be considered impossible. Why shouldn't beating Concacaf minnows soundly be a metric for progress? You're using a lot of double-speak to "score points". Example above. "if we do not accomplish those goals immediately, it does not mean we are not on the right track." This is true. But, similarly, if we do not accomplish those goals, IT DOES NOT MEAN WE ARE ON THE RIGHT TRACK. You're saying, hey, I don't see a mindset issue, so it must not exist. I'm saying that I do see a mindset issue. I've outlined this in previous posts. Can I absolutely prove that there is a mindset issue? No. But you can't prove there isn't. Results are really the only indicator and that's a tenuous connection at best. Let's agree to disagree and move on. Why do you have sympathy? I don't. This is a $100m organization. You need interim / succession planning. We're now 4 months into GGG's departure. If I was running a company with $100m in revenues, or a public company, what kind of CEO would I be to leave potentially the three most key positions vacant? Would shareholders be happy? If revenues and performance suffered during this time, is it because management failed to fill key positions in a timely manner? It's not a company. It is a non-profit. Non-profits are different, and you could argue, have a more difficult task than a company. They must fulfill a mission as well as remain financially viable. There is no dividend to shareholders and all revenues generated are poured back in to fulfilling the mission. That doesn't mean that there is a lower requirement in terms of accountability to the mission. If anything, non-profits need to be more nimble and focus on mission centric outcomes. There is all kinds of drama at other FAs as well. IMHO, GGG could have avoided airing locker room soap operas. The Reynas look terrible too. So you're saying a lot of things that are true. It is a trade association. There is, well, divergent agendas amongst the membership to put it lightly. In some ways, it's like herding cats. I think though, that is consensus that when the senior national teams perform well, everyone benefits. Are you insinuating that there isn't the resources for a Das Reboot here? With the 6th richest professional league in the world? With massive partners like Nike, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, etc? A huge youth program? The World Cup in 2026? I'm not even saying we need a Das Reboot, but I really don't think money is a problem. Building a domestic league was no small task, sure. They have done some things well. They've also completely bungled Promotion/Relegation, solidarity payments, have consistently supported pay-for-play at the youth level, and, in my estimation, underperformed at the USMNT level. Anyone who has a kid in youth soccer is generally appalled at how chaotic it is. The DA is a joke, the cost of play is high ($3K per kid just for club fees). The 4 WC wins for USWNT is fantastic. We were, however, leading the world in girls youth soccer and Title 9 for college helped pave the way for the women's game. How much credit do we give the USSF for that? The competition is much more fierce now, which is great for the women's game. No one is saying they haven't done anything. We're just saying "Do Better". Again, you're being ridiculous. All changes are incremental? That is horses**t. Landing a man on the moon was a huge undertaking and the fact it was done in just a decade was one of the greatest accomplishments of mankind. There is a ton of books on incremental vs. disruptive change or innovation. I don't think you understand the true definition of incremental innovation. This is like a slightly better screen and camera on a new iPhone. The camera and screen were on the previous iPhone, just not as good. The "invention" of the iPhone itself was disruptive innovation. You're confusing all the little tasks at the micro level that need to be completed in order to launch the first iPhone, which is the disruptive change. Funny you used the automobile as an example. Everyone in the auto industry acknowledges that the greatest innovation in the history of the industry was disruptive innovation of the assembly line, which simultaneously reduced the cost of vehicles as well as improved build times. This was a concept, a change in the mental model we had before of everything being made bespoke. You get what you pay for. Are we really trying to save pennies on the most prestigious and important positions in US Soccer? How much will it cost FIFA to hold the 2026 WC? They are targeting $14B in revenues. How much will US Soccer make in co-branding? USSF made over $50m hosting Copa America. What will they make for hosting an expanded World Cup? USSF has $37m in cash. They made $47m in licensing, sponsorship, TV in the year before the 22 WC. They will probably increase that number significantly in this year's financials, and I'd be surprised if we don't double that number for the '26 WC. You are thinking small, not big. Money should never be an issue in US Soccer. Neither one of us knows who is and who isn't willing to coach the USMNT, nor do we know their salary demands. You seem to worry about the prestige/attractiveness of the position. Isn't this a self fulfilling prophecy? If you assume the "dream" coach won't be interested, then you won't get him/her. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. More horses**t. Too many examples of great managers/coaches taking mediocre talent to win major trophies. Talent is, of course, a huge factor. I'm not saying it isn't. Luck is even a factor! Our national player pool is to some extent a fixed variable that we don't have much control over, at least in the short term. Coaching, facilities, biometrics, physios, training, nutrition, psychological support, all of these are controllable variables. Obviously, we should be doing everything we can to provide best-in-class for these factors. If we do that, but fail to make a WC semifinal, so be it. But at least we did everything we possibly could to reach our goals. To sum up, you believe that US Soccer is doing a decent job. I think they are not. My take is by no means unique. There has been a lot written about what is wrong with US Soccer, particularly a lot recently and also during the 2018 WCQ cycle. If you feel the need to reply to my post, by all means, do so -- who knows, maybe you get paid to do this! I will, however, not respond, as it is clear to me that you have an agenda, or at the very least feel compelled to defend USSF, which to me is silly. There is no organization that is perfect, and we have to try to improve. Constructive criticism is how we get better, and I just don't see how that is offensive in any way.
I'm not going to reply in full; we're retreading old ground and frankly, you have made three posts and in none of them have you managed not to be personally insulting. So I'm going to reply honestly to this part and then put you on ignore. I dislike complaint without solutions, and I disliked when people make arguments without trying to understand the other side. I get very tired of the generic sports fan who watches to complain and yell at people. It's always rubbed me the wrong way that people think something they cannot do is simple and easy or that highly complex problems have a clear answer as if everyone else but them is incapable. I've never worked for US Soccer and I never will. Don't know anyone there. But I have absolutely worked on meaty problems, and I have absolutely had to make hard decisions and watched as people far more capable than me had to to do the same thing with much bigger decisions. Sometimes they do make terrible or selfish decision, but more often the choice is much, much harder than one thinks. Most evverything is always harder, takes more time, and more work, and more convincing than anyone expects. Everything. In every situation on here, you know where I generally defend? Situations where the person has made no effort to see the other point of view. Gregg Berhalter might not be the best coach in the world, but he's more successful in soccer than everyone on here ... you don't have to agree, but you try to understand his choices. Earnie Stewart just got hired by PSV, has won executive of the year in the Netherlands, but sure, I am sure Earnie is just lazy and unambitious. There's not real challenges; he's clearly awful. Furthermore, when I look at your posts, there's literally nothing there. If you have some cool innovative idea of how to rethink soccer, offer it up. But the assumption that everyone out there is not trying, or is too dumb compared to whatever, is just arrogant bunk. It's incredibly ironic to me that you think mindset and goal setting is the issue here. That people who have been professional athletes and played at World Cups are really likely to be defeatist people who aren't aiming high enough. Here's my suggestion to you: volunteer for US Soccer! If you have a brilliant idea about how to get Coca-Cola to donate more money above the contract they've already signed, please let them know. I know you think they are all immoral morons with no head for innovation, but they might surprise you if you give them a good idea! For example, go look up the story of the DA. They identified a problem, came up with a reco, went out and sold to a thousand disparate people and then kept it together and kept molding it through years where there was a ton of pushback and resentment. It's been a massive success, and to another comment you made ... they've literally now passed the operating costs onto MLS! Shouldn't they get credit for this? It's taken a decade plus. Perhaps it could have gone faster, but the assumption that it could have is not backed up by anything I've seen from you. You just offer up that they must not be amazingly innovative people because it took them a decade to build a development system that other countries have been building for a century. I'm not one of them, but you could say there are times I am insulted for some of these people. And I'm sure some of them are awful at their jobs and some are complacent and some are corrupt. But plenty of them are smart, hard working and know what we need to do ... it's just not something you snap your fingers and it happens You offer complaint without solutions. You offer insult without allowing for the chance that what you think is easy is much harder than you think even though you've never done it. So, yeah, I'm different because I think that people you are talking about deserve the respect of thinking about what they might be thinking, and not assuming they are morons straight out. And I like actual discussion about things with real critical thought. That's all.
It is nothing more than a myth. That looked like Weston from his first year at Schalke when he was sitting deeper as a #6/#8.
I am very sorry to go back on my word, saying I wouldn't respond. There is so much in here that is so inaccurate. You're a bit of a forum bully. I never insulted you in the first post. I called you "being disingenuous" in the second, which is hardly a diss. You fired back that these were "drunk at a bar takes". Then we were off. You questioned my complaint that we should be thumping Concacaf minnows at home by saying the roster differences were not that stark. I gave you evidence that most of our players are coming from top clubs ranked high in 538 club rankings (200 on up), whereas almost all of the El Salvador roster was in leagues well outside the top 600. You gave no response. I suggested we had a mentality issue and we needed to pay a top coach top dollars to change that at the USMNT level. You said that was impossible because we don't have enough money. I replied that we have $37m in cash and should expect an other huge windfall of revenue from the 22 and 26 WCs. No response. I gave credit to USSF for establishing MLS and a world class USWNT. Similarly, I said they've bungled the DA, pro/rel, solidarity payments and pay for play in youth soccer. No response to everything but DA. I can tell you, I have a daughter that played DA. In fact, she played DA, then went to a higher league because there was a breakaway league in SoCal where the top teams were not playing DA (SD Surf). I can tell you from watching a lot of youth soccer, there are a lot of great players in lower leagues and a lot of mediocre players in the DA teams. The other points I made, you ignored. When I called you out on your junk about incremental innovation vs. disruptive innovation, you had no response. Big goals and big change sometimes require paradigm shifts in the way we think. Again, no response. You brought the personal crap into this, saying you'd worked on a lot of meaty problems (like you were somehow superior because you've tackled tough problems) and these problems are difficult to solve. No one said these were easy issues to solve. Complex problems rarely are. As an aside, I started a SaaS company that disrupted a a traditional industry. We started with the two founders, built a huge platform, and when I sold we had 160 employees and 5 offices with a damn good exit. I'm pretty pissed off that you're insinuating that a poster doesn't have your depth of experience. I've managed large teams at an executive level of over 1000 employees with P&L responsibility and $50m+ annual revenue. Your insinuation that your professional experience is superior and therefore my opinion is invalid is damn elitist. Smart and capable people are usually hired to solve tough problems and are at the top of the organizational pyramid. That's why they get paid a lot. If they don't deliver, they are fired. Great ideas can come from anywhere in an organization. I'm not saying the USSF employees are stupid or incapable, I'm just saying there is a lot of room for improvement. One measure of success for USSF is revenue (this has grown!), one is participation (grown) and one is results with our flagship programs, USWNT and USMNT. USWNT had nowhere to go but down. But that high standard has been maintained. The USMNT, on the other hand, has largely been mediocre. There hasn't been any improvement in results since the quarterfinal appearance in 2002. We've had 5 WCs since then, crashed out in the group in 2006, made knockouts in 2010, 2014, failed to qualify in 2018, made knockouts in 2022. How can anyone look at that and say, wow, there is no need to to re-examine our USMNT program? In summary, again I think you're a bit of a forum bully and you are a bit tone deaf to thoughts and ideas that are different from yours. You probably won't see this, but at least it will be preserved forever on the internet.
After the ‘02 WC the jig was up and CONCACAF teams defended us like they defended against Mexico, except Mexico which had a superiority complex that could not allow them to respect us until we repeatedly proved that to be foolish. In ‘06 WC the Czechs gave us a taste of our own medicine and we couldn’t beat them with the ball. We got somewhat lucky in qualifying then and in the ‘10 cycle with late goals but you could say set pieces were such a strength that it was somewhat repeatable. Klinsmann’s main tactical change was to build from the back but he made us worse on the break and really we had no real plan for progressing into the final third let alone attacking a low block. That WC cycle also featured a good deal of luck and worse performances in WCQ (xGD of .26 compared to the 2022 cycle’s .96). A large portion of the ‘14 cycle’s actual goal difference was due to Donovan. He had no solution to facing those teams. The ‘18 cycle was largely a continuation except with an aging pool followed by the missing generation. This past cycle I actually found teams lost respect for us. Missing ‘18 damaged our credibility. CRC did not approach the game in the US like they would in the past. El Salvador away, Panama away, Honduras away, Jamaica home all took more expansive approaches. As you can see those were the first legs, over qualifying we proved (with the A team) that they should revert back.
Players play international games, not the teams that pay them. Career, Donovan and Dempsey averaged 1.5 goal contributions combined per 90. At their peaks it was closer to 2. Pulisic produced .69 per 90 this cycle. He is our highest level proven productive attacker. We have talent but you actually need end product. If your model is fundamentally flawed then your conclusion will be as well. The actual results BTW: Record and stats vs Elo 1600+ teams (~top 60 in the world, Hex quality) pic.twitter.com/pA1DHbBLxP— natfan9.bsky.social (@NatFan9) November 30, 2022 The US is mediocre at soccer because a relatively small % of our population gives a shit. Our country is much less dense and our metros are much less dense and harder to get around than our betters’. Assuming even distribution of talent within a populace we need 10x the population and 20-50x the area to produce the same talent as them. That low talent density means it’s hard for players to get good competition coming up until they reach the very concentrated levels where teams can collect the best players from entire metros (and beyond). That’s the core fundamental issue that structures everything else.
Update on the review of offensive production. I've thoroughly reviewed the video of this game. I don't think we were that great offensively. I am seeing that as a group, we are a little off in execution in both the final pass, final run and final shot. Tight, overly anxious, rushing are descriptive words that I would use for what I see as the common denominator. I am going to renew my subscription to Paramount+ and take a look at some of the qualifiers because one game is a small sample size. This analysis is still in development.
I wonder if a solution is extended summer camps for the best players even at very young ages. Would have to be paid for to get parents interested. No way long travel during school season but summers could be a partial fix.
There kind of seem to be two ends to address the situation as it exists. Facilitate concentration or broaden access. Then you can look for targeted or broad solutions.