Post-match: 2026 FIFA World Cup Draw; December 5th - 12pm

Tbh I don't think this team is built to grind out 0-0, 1-1, or 1-0. At least, not intentionally... We really have no choice but to play for wins because I do not trust the CBs or GK to shut teams out.

 

Good. Guy was taking cheap shots all over the place.

And thanks for the nice rundown on Australia. Good luck to the Socceroos on all of your other matches.

 

I would love for it to be Kosovo. They famously love America. Be happy to play them.

https://www.whereonplanetearth.com/p/american-lover

https://www.npr.org/sections/parall...the-country-with-the-biggest-crush-on-america

 

It is my firm belief that we are a lot better than our ELO ranking, and that our team (better in most respects except GK than in 2022) will be peaking and motivated and playing intelligent ball. But yes, I think you point out quite aptly that this is anything but a dream draw. It's not a terrible draw, especially since we're in the top pot, but it is far from easy. There were a lot of teams that would have been very unlikely to make the World Cup under the previous format, and we drew none of them. It's a very competitive group, and likely a very competitive path through the latter stages of the tournament)

 

I only meant in terms of who might be the easiest opponent.

 

Unless we need you to lose so we can advance.

 

I think rather than better than our ranking, we're more, wildly volatile in terms of performance.

We couldn't put together one window in the Ocho where we played 3 straight or even 2 straight (in the two game window) games. Not once. Same was true at the WC, where we struggled to put together complete strong performances in games, let alone stretches of games. Early on post WC, it started to look like that was changing, pretty good March window, great June window, but by the fall when Berhalter took over, we were back to one game good, one game bad, every single window until we face planted at Copa America where we produced 3 crap performances in 5.

There are many problems, but in terms of this stuff, the single biggest problem is that we are more than capable of playing like a top 10 team, on our day, and not even in a rare sense. I could totally see us producing say, 3 truly fantastic games if we managed to play 5 or 6 games in the WC, but I've literally never seen windows ever w/this generation of players where they strung more than 2 in a row, like EVER, other than June '23. Not once. Until this fall, and the sample size is WAY too small for me to trust that "they get it now" especially considering they were just 1/2 to 2/3's portions of what most of us regard as the top 26ish.

I will say this, we are absolutely capable of playing like a natural 1 seed, with top 10 capacity at the WC, but as we showed for two straight years (9/23 to 9/25), we are also capable of getting clubbed like a 1980s baby harp seal (see Colombia beating us 5-1), or just putting in a totally putrid performance (see NL vs T&T, Jamaica, Panama and Canada, as well as Copa America vs Panama, and Uruguay, and friendlies against Uzbekistan, South Korea etc).

If the team carries in the mentality and commitment they showed in October and November, then they will absolutely smash the opponents in the group and probably make a run to the quarters or deeper, but again, this recent 5 game winning streak with 5 straight strong performances is a streak more than twice as long, of quality performances as anything I've seen since 2013-2014, so color me skeptical until they prove it in games that count. The ability is there, period, but the evidence that mentally they can do that? Get themselves up, and get it done, over and over and over? That, is a total unknown in a present, and a resounding "NO!" in the past.

 

I get the feeling that Poch agrees with you that we won't shut most teams out. But, we don't need to if we can play the fluid, beautiful soccer that we've seen of (very) late.

 

GGG's team conceded zero open play goals in the group stage in 2022. Underdog teams generally don't outscore their opponents, they grind out games and hope to either nab a goal somehow someway or win on penalties. If we go into Belgium or any other opponent of such quality thinking we can outplay them technically, we will get smacked, just like what happened in the Dutch game back in Qatar. GGG could and should have set things up more like the England game, but instead he tried to beat the Dutch at their own game and we got exposed.

 

My Peruvian dad always said that the best defense is a good offense. I think he and Poch come from very similar stock, and I'll be happy if we take our shot on that idea (especially given how Poch has the team playing in the last few months).

 

I believe they get to host Turkey if they play each other…. Thus I have them getting out of that group and to the WC.

 

And specifically I noted that the first game in a window had a strong tendency to be bad, to the point I formulated a theory that they were overtraining and not hitting the first game (usually a friendly, tbf) at peak performance levels on purpose, so as to make it seem hard and the rest of them seem easier.

 

I think for games like that you have to play a little more cagey, not go all out forward, "defend" with possession, and then just hope your guys are more efficient than theirs as you trade a handful of chances each. I just don't think sitting all the way back will work though, we'll just allow goals anyway without any real threat back at them. But maybe the upcoming friendlies against these sorts of teams show us otherwise. Either way it'll be a nice problem to have, as it means we got out of the group and hopefully to R16.

 

Ehhh, I think what happened was three fold (in order of importance):

1. LVG watched our tape and figured out how many enormous gaps we created between our attackers and our back four, and relied on Adams to clean up all said messes, especially on the wings, and attacked that frailty (it's why I mentioned in game that we should have had Arriola out there to sub on for Weah when he tired after the first 55-60 minutes, Arriola would go energizer bunny and is a naturally inclined defender who would have closed up the gaping holes against Wales that was part of what LVG noticed, we took Morris instead, and so didn't have a good like for like sub for Weah, we kind of did with Pulisic (Aaronson was perfect for that role on the left)).

2. The stat that we outran the Dutch in the group stage by more than 2x as many miles meant our players were exhausted going in, unlike this WC, there was only 3 days of rest between games, not 5+, and our bench options were injured, so our players got even further run into the ground.

3. Pulisic's opening chance was so shocking that while not flubbing his shot, he panic shot (wondering if it was offside) and the Dutch got lucky with a hockeystyle almost butterfly save, if Pulisic scores that, LVG's genius game plan is thrown in the trash, and we're in business. He didn't. It was a game where we produced tons of xG and flubbed literally all of our chances (Wright's goal being a hail mary heel flick back into the mixer that went in).

I don't think we lost to the Dutch really because we tried to play against them Dutch style. I think it was a mix of LVG just being an infinitely better coach than Berhalter tactically, our team being exhausted and lacking in subs in the shortest rest WC ever, while using a Berhalter approach that was the worst possible for a winter WC with short rest, and bad luck (we literally gave up 2 throw in goals in four games, after having given up, like what, 1 in the past 75 games?).

 

Also.........................the Netherlands had a better player at every position on the field.

We can call Pulisic and Memphis Depay, then at Barcelona, a push on the left wing if folks would like. In 2022, I don't think that was a push. But whatever.

That Netherlands team took eventual champion Argentina to penalties in the next round. Let's not forget that.

They were dramatically better than us.

We can overanalyze until the cows come home.

Their backline in a 3-5-2 was Van Dijk in his prime, Nathan Ake in his prime, and Jurrien Timber.

And we were throwing guys like Jesus Ferreira, Haji Wright, and Jordan Morris at them.

 

LVG is a better tactical coach than Berhalter, almost certainly, but this was not a tactical masterclass.

It was a case of Dutch team being incredibly precise players and executing over a team that got sloppy. Perhaps even if we don't get sloppy, we still lose, as the Dutch are just a very strong technical team.

I don't think our gameplan was appreciably different at the start than against England. There were some changes, for sure, but overall, we intended to play the same style of aggressive defense against the Dutch that we executed against England. We were taking a few more tactical chances, I think, because playing for a draw would be dumb, but that aggressive defense is what fixed us for WCQ and it's what got us through much of the group stage.

We could have sat back and bunkered, to other poster's point. This would have been dumb in my opinion. This group of players were not used to it, and they have never played it well. Passive defense is not a strength of basically anyone on that roster, and allowing ourselves to get picked apart without a Keller or Friedel or Howard back there is a mistake.

Were we tired? Sure. Though we spent the second halves of two Group Stage matches sitting back and not being aggressive (which people complained about). Were we so tired that our players had no choice but to make mistakes 10 minutes in? I doubt that, but it's not proveable either way.

The reality is that Dutch players have earned their reputation as incredibly strong tactically and technically for a reason, and they were going to punish mistakes. We made them, got behind against a more talented team* and that was that.

Let's not pretend it was a tactical masterclass on either end. It was the better team also playing better than the worse team.

* Man, the debates about this before and after the matched are funny in retrospect. I bet I can still find the people telling me Jurrian Timber sucked because he was still in the Eredivisie or claiming Josh Sargent and Haji Wright were as good as Memphis DePay.

 

And yes, that'll happen to us in 2026.

Cuz we're not one of the 10 best team in the World.

The Netherlands in 2022 was.

If we line up to play Belgium in 2026, they are currently a top 10 team.

Belgium is hard to figure out right now, because they've played NOBODY in 2025.
TO me their roster doesn't look as impressive as that 2022 Netherlands team.

That Netherlands team could EASILY have eliminated Argentina. Easily. Their choice of their penalty kickers is one of those mysteries of the universe.

 

I will take Belgium in a heartbeat at that stage. They are still talented, but their best is much beginning to age out. De Bruyne is terrifying in many ways still, but even he's not quite the same player.

The Netherlands are a much better team.

 

Never believed that at the time, and I still don't.

I think their team as a whole was/is better, but they did not have better players at every single position, that's just flat out ludicrous. People argued that to make themselves feel better about us squandering one of the more user friendly routes forward. We didn't get Spain, Brazil, Argentina, or France, the auto-losses, we got the team that hadn't won a major tournament since the eighties (their only one) and had last been serious contenders going into a WC in '98. They were and are good, probably better this cycle, and they are and were better than us, but it wasn't at a scale that was impossible to match w/o a herculean effort like Spain in '09, or defensively/goalkeeping wise against Belgium in '14. We could line up and say we could play with them with certain players like Pulisic, McKennie, Adams, Dest and Jedi. The problem was, all of them were putting in 90's, with only 3 days rest for two weeks, and were bone tired and it showed (adams effort on the first goal is without question, probably his worst defensive lapse in the shirt I've ever seen by orders of magnitude for instance).

I just don't buy this argument. The funny bit is Ferreira was one of your guys, it wasn't my idea to leave Pepi, the guy that was scoring at a nearly every game clip in the Eredivisie, at home, and start a liliputian against the biggest defense we'd faced at a WC since Germany a decade earlier (probably bigger), it was Berhalter's, and to a degree, yours and others who thought Ferreira was a okay. We were out of options, so I understood why Berhalter just rolled the dice, but it was also a decision that was totally unnecessary if he'd just actually brought, lol, the patently obvious striker, but he didn't, and he left us in the lurch.

It makes people feel better to pretend we never had a chance, but that always was, and is bull----. We had a chance, not as strong a chance as we had in the R16's in '02, but a better chance than we had in '10 or '14, we just blew it (and part of that was just flat out bad luck in terms of injuries, and Pulisic's shot that goes right into their keepers leg). we're we favorites? Nope, but we were not +1000 dogs either. We were +300, and a regulation draw was +230.

People have been lying to themselves for years about how high a mountain that match was to climb and they still are.

 

ELO agrees with you, I can't make sense of that, seems patently obvious to me that Argentina, Brazil, England, France, and Spain were all better at minimum.

As of now, Belgium isn't a top 10 either, in that case, elo agrees, they don't even have them top 10 in UEFA, let alone in the world as a whole. I'm confused at Fifa's fandom. I'll concede they had a nice Euro '21 (kicked but in the group, beaten by the eventual winners in the QF's), but they were abject trash at WC '22, and subpar at Euro '24 to boot, so I don't get it at all. Their superstars are now in their mid thirties/retired save for one emerging star, they had a good qualifying campaign, but UEFA set up their powers really well to easily qualify, only Sweden and Italy really made a complete hash of it.

So I don't know, I think our best, is absolutely better than Belgium's best today. The team's I want no part of, who I think do have a best better than ours this cycle no matter how awesome we might lucky enough to see our USMNT play are probably

Spain: The worlds best, but maybe lack the mentality of the '08-'12 champs.
France: I have thought their coach has held them back despite the '18 title and still does.
Brazil: They are a mess, hopefully Ancelloti can help them find themselves....
Argentina: More mentally tough, than elite as a team, but theres enough talent to still get the job done
England: Do they have the coach to bring out their attacking best? Maybe....
Portugal: Like Germany of late, these guys can be world beaters Monday, and chicken ---- Friday.

Maybe Germany, maybe Netherlands (both are kind of weird like us with uneven performances, so at a lower ebb, we still might beat them, so long as they aren't at top level, but otherwise, we'd need to be at top capacity to beat them) and I could add Uruguay, and Colombia probably too based on the Copa America, but both of them have been erratic since the Copa America, Colombia has bounced back of late, but Uruguay is still a mess, so it really depends with them. Morocco's a weird one, I will wait until the AFCON to try to suss out their form, qualifying was too easy, the AFCON will bring more of a challenge (Mali in the group stage, probably an easy R16 foe, than the winner of a match between probably Cameroon or Ivory Coast vs either South Africa or Egypt), a semifinal probably against the winner of a QF likely to pit Burkina Faso/Algeria vs Nigeria or Egypt.....I imagine the North African teams will dominate this AFCON, but it will be interesting to see how Sub-Saharan powers and semi-powers like Nigeria, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso play having gotten their hearts broken in qualifying.

 

I don't particularly care if we were worse at every position or not -- I think we had enough talent that you'd be arguing nits to no point to try and prove that and once you do that, it's not true.

But we were the less talented team, and not by a small amount.

The only places that the Dutch weren't well equipped was maybe Noppert at keeper (though Turner is not an ace in the hole, either) and ... maybe an aging Davey Klassen? Are we really pretending a top Eredivise keeper is worse then who? Pepi? Pepi is irrelevant; the 2022 version of Pepi against Memphis dePay? C'mon. Luke de Jong, who kept Pepi on the bench at PSV until this year, didn't really even play!

Van Dijk, Timber and Ake is an insane backline. DeLigt, Dumfries, De Jong, surely we aren't arguing these guys? De Roon was and is still at a very good Atalanta team -- I have no idea how he exactly stacks up against Weston or Tyler, but he's no slouch. People liked to dog DePay, which was absurd even with Pepi on the roster. Cody Gapko is a pretty good player as well.

Basically it was a team of VERY good Eredivisie vets with big numbers and then the rest absolute stars. Arguably the best defensive line in the world.

We'd kill for anything approaching that. We had Christian, Tyler, about 65 minutes of McKennie, and Jedi and Dest within shouting distance of their compatriots. I would say most of those guys were below their counterparts -- no one is taking Tyler or Weston over DeJong, and our FBs probably lose out as well at that point. But even if we call it straight up at 5 positions and call keeper a tie (I honestly have no idea there) ... that's half the team that we might be even.

And the gap has names like van Dyke, Timber, Ake, DePay, Gapko.

Our best players were probably in line with their counterparts, but the gap at other positions ranged from big to massive. FFS, they had backup defenders that are probably still better than any defender we have.

They were also a much more experienced team, both in general and with each other.

 

This in the terms of the manner in which the US lost.

 

I added the Whoscored to my little chart. Turkey vs US in a neutral field is pretty even. But Turkey have 4 players who are in the top 15 players in top 4 leagues. We have 1 (Pulisic). We do better the further you go down the lineup.

 

I think jet lag plays a big role in this first game slump. Rarely mentioned but even a 7pm east coast game time is 1am in Europe.
Tough on the body and mind.

 

My argument isn't that we were better, my argument is that they were not better across the board, because they weren't, and we weren't matching up with 2009 Spain or 2006 Italy or 2002 Portugal (coming off a should have been Euro Finals appearance in '00 in their view) or '14 Portugal 2 years before they won that tournament etc. This was a Dutch team that was good, but not elite, for the Dutch, and it wasn't the powers that would have been auto-losses. The bracket set up so we were guaranteed to avoid the automatic losses if we failed to win the group (no Spain, no France, no Brazil, no Argentina etc). It was the Dutch, a clear second tier elite side, not one of the truly big dogs.

It was a game we could have won, and Vegas agrees with me. We weren't +1000 or +2000 or even +500 to win, we were +300. People, again, have been lying to themselves about the scale of the mountain. The Portuguese of '02, Italians of '06, Ghana of '10, and Portugal and Belgium in '14 were all better sides, and we got results against all five of them in regulation.

We were expected to lose, odds were we were going to lose, but you know what they were listed as? -250 for the Dutch to advance, +200 for the USMNT. Those aren't long odds, and the betting markets in Macau and amongst Euro betters in Europe and even Vegas were not tilting that line to the US. It's a reflection of what I'm saying. Ecuador was unlucky to draw them, Senegal came very close to pulling off a draw as well. They were beatable, favorites, but beatable.