Roldan and Lovitz belong nowhere near this side. Truly remarkable that they consistently get called in.
there will be at least one long write up how it actually shows that Berhalter’s system is awesome. it’s like drunken master kung fu - we disorganize our opponent by looking wasted.
Thank God its over. We were terrible actually... Can you imagine us playing Mexico? or even Honduras? GB has GOT TO CUT THE DEAD WOOD and find more real players. My biggest fear is GB just wont do it. He is still calling in Trapp but Im glad he isnt playing. However he is taking up space for future players. Trapp is never going to be a player at this level. Why call him in? Can say the same for others Roldan... Hes terrible too. Lovitz, ... terrible.... Ream... ok against Cuba.....not OK against better teams. Why did GB play Lovitz while Dest rode the bench? Lovitz so valuable that Montreal traded him away for nothing. And finally, GB himself ...... just cant put together a team that can score at will, or even generate shots. against a team like Cuba. Most good college soccer teams could beat Cuba. Lets see how we do against Honduras in June. If we cant beat them then our qualifying chances have got to be suspect. GB is NOT THE ONE TO TAKE US THERE, He is going to fail unless he changes and he has shown no signs of being willing to do that
Honestly the guy he's keeping out of the lineup is probably Lletget, who does produce more in the 8/10 hybrid role than Roldan.
We still have zero ability to take free kicks and we still play down to the opposition unless they are so bad that they almost defeat themselves, like Cuba and a good portion of the rest of CONCACAF. I do not think that the US players practice things like free kicks correctly. "Good players practice until they get it right once or twice. Great players practice until they never get it wrong." We have a number of good or near good players but we have no great players and none that look to become great because they do not want it enough. They are lazy mentally and it shows in their play and practice.
Cannon getting his work permit is Yuge! He has come from cut from Gold cup roster to a high noon showdown with Yedlin for the RB spot.
hope you all really savored that canada win, cause every correction that was made to rectify that ridiculous loss was immediately undone tonight. to the surprise of absolutely no one. look, we beat cuba! i think after maybe 2 points from the first four hex matches berhalter will head fake toward change again, maybe give us one last gasp, but this game didnt even need to happen. all i take from tonight, from seeing the starting 11 tonight, is that managing to beat canada- CANADA!- at home is going to be the high point of berhalters tenure. its infuriating to know that we are going to try (and its pick em at best if we will be able) to qualify with bradley, lovitz, christian roldan as an attacking mid. youre kidding yourself if you think we arent. and im kidding myself that we can even get that playoff spot playing with berhalters guys, playing the way berhalter wants to play. he wants bradley, lovitz, etc. he wants to probe endlessly, relying solely on opponents ineptitude for scoring chances. zero pressure defensively, zero drive to attack. we all think we (however much you individually did) saw progress vs canada- that was the outlier. theres no progress coming from berhalter, just steady as she goes, abject mediocrity.
I just basically came to the realization that soccer is dead to the US for the next 12 years. Forget it. It is finished. When people at the top and bottom all believe the same lie you are done. The best American football player of the last 20 years was trained by his parents and removed to Europe at 16. No product from the US system is even 20% as effective. Those are facts. You don’t change that overnight especially in this climate of 25 minutes of progress and bullshit PowerPoint systems v
This felt like more Berhalter saying to some of the players "prove to me you belong on this team" than a game to learn anything else from. Think of the last time we played an away game on a crappy field, we lost 2-1 and missed out on the world cup. It was a result, that's what matters. He got a few more players eligible for work permits, and kept a clean sheet. Also no major injuries.
I didn't watch any of the games this year, but we just beat Canada and Cuba so you haters should all STFU.
Perhaps the best way to look at this result is to see who played near their ceiling: - Morris - Zardes - Yueill Any other takes? The biggest concern in the ability to make our difference makers play at a high level. I thought Brooks was pretty good but not near his ceiling and McKennie and Morales were well below their ceiling.
I'm not sure that's warranted given that most of the rest of our best young players came up through MLS academies and in many cases played in MLS at the senior level before moving to Europe. Pulisic is a generational talent but would still be our best player (albeit not nearly as good as he is) if he'd come up through the Union academy and moved to Germany at age 19. We have more 18-25 talent (both quality and quantity) than we've ever had and the lost generation would be starting to age out at this point. The talent is there, the problem is that we continue to call in MLS journeymen like Lovitz and Trapp.