i agree with everything in this post, except for your perspective on Solnina. A 19 year old goalkeeper who is starting a second tier 1st division is still in a great place. Look at what 3 years of starting in the epl did for that french kid for leeds utd. not in the euro squad, or even in the olympic team.
Eupen is a smaller club than the Chicago Fire. I get it, though. If you're trying to find a spot for a young keeper to get guaranteed playing time in Europe, it ain't easy. Meslier of Leeds isn't eligible for the Olympic team. You know a guy in the France Euro team? Brice Samba. The guy who started ahead of Horvath at Forest in the Championship. Another keeper we mocked on these boards. He moved to Lens and had a great season. Keeper is just a different beast. Slonina is still only 20. Far from his prime. So we see how he advances. But I would argue that the notion he's BETTER right now than any other USMNT option..........................isn't really based on anything. Its just the board unhappy with Turner and throwing darts out there. Same is true of Schulte, Brady, Callendar, Celentano, or whomever.
Slonina is a great prospect but he’s just a prospect still more than ready for the senior team. The thing about goalie is the pipeline looks strong but those goalies aren’t quite ready yet. That Leeds goalie Meslier was actually terrible for Leeds and far and away the worst shot stopper in the EPL. Had Leeds had a better goalie they probably wouldn’t have been relegated.
I agree, I don’t blame Berhalter for leaving out deserving players. I’m just saying after 5+ years everything was stale. There was complacency that developed from the security the players felt from Gregg. That’s not a bad thing for a coach but it was just time. The players need a shake up.
I don't know about friendlies being a time to "send a message." But it is definitely the time to try something different. Of course there is the argument that the Colombia and Brazil friendlies were also needed to help the starting lineup gel. Obviously there is a balance to be struck. But I think there were a couple things that should have been tested out in those friendlies: 1) Miles Robinson as an alternative to Ream 2) Using a player who normally doesn't play right back there. Someone who can come closer to replacing the offensive contributions that Dest provides. The roster was not lacking for plausible candidates: McKennie, Musah, Weah. I think a new coach is likely to look at these two situations (and obviously others) and try something different. I hope so. New coaches tend to be more open to bringing in new players but also playing old players in a different position.
I think simple things like Weston not feeling he’s guaranteed to start, Adams not always starting because he’s a captain America meme, would benefit the group. I’m not saying anyone is playing better at the moment than those guys necessarily. I’m saying a new manager will simply have new ideas and that’s a good thing. We’ve lost our edge.
I think it bodes poorly that we didn’t see this (and that he appears to be behind CCV), but we are going to at least get a chance to see him at the Olympics. This is something we should have done, but less from the sending a message/competition standpoint and more from the perspective of trying to replicate what Dest brings from the position.
The Olympics will help assess the extent to which both Zimmerman and Miles are at the same level as they were pre-injury. But it's not quite the same as facing Brazil and/or Colombia ramping up to a major senior team tournament. Playing CCV is one of Gregg's weirder legacies. I'd take McKenzie over him, let alone Miles.
I do think though the Olympics will give us some high level reps for Miles Robinson against France and a likely quarterfinal match against Argentina. If Miles Robinson looks great that’s a sign he should have been getting more of an opportunity. And if he looks terrible that’s relevant info too. I think playing CCV in the Panama game may be the decision which ultimately cost Berhalter his job.
I think some players may be a bit overrated, but I think the bigger thing is there are players where the fanbase just doesn't understand at best or willingly ignores at worst some of the players weaknesses. To go along with that, something I've missed more on the twitter side of the fandom, it feels like more fans are acting like development stops at 20. Are there some players who are in MLS I think would have helped in Copa? Sure but I also don't expect CCV to look out of his depth vs Panama
Panama is a good team. A lot of players would look bad against them. But we have plenty of players who are better than what Panama has. Gregg just made a very bad choice in going with CCV.
Amazing how people say "player X" was the problem against Panama. The problem was Tim Weah's red card. Any other "player X" was put in a terrible position by Weah. CCV has played well in a US uniform against opponents better than Panama.
Good point. That said, there is a camp there. Maybe someone is getting beat out in camp but Berhalter reverted to guys he trusted. But also maybe not. I think it's tough to play the guy who isn't better in camp if they are the new choice. I don't think the Adams gamble worked out -- although I don't know that Johnny is better. I have a hard time benching Reyna because his skillset allows so much. Do we think Tillman really beat out even a rusty Reyna? I do not. And here's where I disagree, because I think where we are in the talent curve, we are stuck between two different levels. Elite teams can play their system and largely plug and play with the exception of truly world class players. Teams without much talent can play their system and plug and play because the talent differentiation is low. But teams with our talent pool are stuck between the dyamics of "being too dependent on a player" and "exploiting the player's talents to their fullest." It would be a big mistake to not run out Adams as a single 6 because we don't have a good enough backup. Having a 6 who can defend the counter without assistance is a huge enabler for a team. Not utilizing that because you have to adjust when he's out is a mistake. Similarly, not using Dest as a key component of the build up would pointless. Why have Dest? Yes, Scally can't do that role, but that doesn't mean that when you have Dest, you don't play that way. Limiting yourself to a system that you can plug and play into is limiting yourself to the lowest common denominator. I see no reason to wait for the entire pool to progress to a three deep before advancing. And I know this an extreme of what you are saying, but I think it limits our upside. For example, if we went to a bunker and counter, we probably shouldn't even bother calling in Dest. He'll be a defensively liability and most of his offensive value isn't there. If we play similarly with a double pivot, Adams isn't actually a positive anymore, either, IMO. The way you manager it is you build to your talent and adjust. And when you adjust, no, it's not going to be as effective. That's because you are replacing a better player that you are using to close to their fullest for a worse player. So with Scally coming in, you adjust for a different build up pattern. At some point, you need a bigger shift, but this is a relatively EASY adjustment. It's not lacking impact, but it's not impossible. You'd see less drop off in a bunker and counter between Dest and Scally, but that's more because you are holding back the benefit of Dest when you are full strength than the other way around. I don't know that Berhalter always made the best adjustments, but we can't be limiting taking advantage of our stars' strengths on the chance that they are unavailable. We shouldn't plan for 100% health, either. Nor play something that requires it, but I don't think we do. But if you don't build your team to take advantage of McKennie's chaos or Dest's ball control or Adams' defensive range ... you aren't taking advantage of the so-called talent. The older US teams were easier to manage this -- the talent was in Landon, a counter-attacker at heart, Clint, a general shit stirrer and then a whole lot of solid defenders and keeper. We've never had a true controlling 10 of that quality and only Reyna as a metronome. We just never had to make these choices very often. For me, Berhalter's mistake in offensive tactics was simply a matter of risk-taking. He trusted the players to make plays far more than he should have, and we simply needed numbers more often.
My point was more that my desire to bring someone like Walker in or play Miles may have been influenced more by CCV's play
I get what you are saying about using the best traits of the players you have, and I agree when those players are healthy, available and playing well. But I also think you have to be able to adjust when those players are either unavailable or not performing as well as you would like. You can't be so all in on designing a system for specific players that it all falls apart when they are missing or not having their best performances.
Sure, I can see that. You always want some level of competition. I think the problem is how do you instill that if the people you'd start over them are clearly inferior? The actions are going to tell, and benching the better player for a lesser in a lesser game doesn't seem like a permanent thing, and doing it in a big game is tough to manage with the broader team at large that wants to win. A new coach will absolutely have an edge because they can come in and say things like every spot is open and then because we don't have anything until the Gold Cup, they can absolutely play guys for specific reasons, etc. Maybe four friendlies in a row would communicate that those spots are at risk, but I think it is simply very hard if the competition isn't there. Klinsmann lost a lot of the team when he cut Landon from the World Cup. If someone is clearly not trying or committed or clearly not playing well, it's not going to cause an issue. But if Adams is outplaying Johnny all day in camp, you risk alienating everyone else by starting him in a big game. That said, the midfield is one place where you might be able to do that. Maybe CB as well.
I agree, but it's a balance. Design to use Dest's ball progression so that you can use say, Reyna or McKennie further forward. But when you don't have Dest, you need a plan B. We have to acknowledge that Plan B is going to be worse by definition (or it'd be Plan A) but it's how much worse that's the rub. My bigger issue at times with Berhalter would have been more around not leaning into the strengths. This is risky with a team as inconsistent as ours, but we didn't push forward attacking as much as we could when we had players in non-traditional areas who could ball progress for us or guys who could stop counters. That all said, I think it's a lot trickier to plan for this level of talent than elite or lower levels.
It's an interesting theory. Can you elaborate on "talent differentiation is low" (for less talented teams)? So because we're likely on the right tail of a bell curve, the ratio of superstars to stars ; stars to journeyman starters ; etc. is always a reflection of the right tail. The superstars of the Belgian 4th tier should still be more numerous than Belgian 4th tier journeymen because we haven't crested the top of the bell curve. So, if you're Saudi Arabia, you have zero Bellingham-class players and probably zero Pulisic-class. Maybe your 2-3 biggest stars are on a par with Musah or Johnny. Maybe your starters are on a par with Pepi or Tillman. Is that a lack of differentiation? Or is that a bit fractal, working with the right tail of the "Saudi soccer" bell curve instead of the worldwide one, but still the same basic shape of the tail? To put it another way -- suppose there are 20x more Pepi-class than Musah-class players in the world, and 20x more Musah-class than Pulisic-class, but KSA only gets a constant fraction of each. (At the top this means a fractional player, meaning one comes along every N generations.) So will they just have a team of interchangeable Musahs? (Not literally, I mean Musah-caliber strikers, defenders, keepers etc.) Or will they have a couple of Musahs to orient their team around just as we orient around Pulisic? What about Guatemala? Do they orient around the occasional Pepi who would be their superstar, or are they a bunch of indistiguishable... I could name names but you get the point. Likewise, England may have several Pulisic-caliber guys but they wouldn't orient around them because they can find others. They might orient around Bellingham, though, because he's as dear to them as CP is to us.
I mean you've got in. Right side of the talent curve and all that In the context of stylistic choices, this is what I see... If Spain wants to play with possession / control, and their possession minded RB or CM goes down, they have another, perhaps slightly worse person, to step in. But that player is not so unskilled as to necessitate a major system shift. If El Salvador, playing a very cynical, defensive system, has a RB go back, it's incredibly easy to find someone who can play a conservative, defensive RB that isn't that much worse. If we use Sergiño Dest to help us control possession, and he goes down, we don't have anyone like him to replace him. That role needs to shift to other player(s). Our next best option may end up being a very defensive RB like Scally. But if we play like El Salvador (exaggeration), then we never use Dest to his fullest. El Salvador and Spain never need to adjust as much. Obviously, losing a superstar is rough, but Spain didn't change their set up drastically because Gavi and Pedri went down. But if Reyna and Adams go down, we have to. And if we play try to play the way that our subs can effectively ... then are we using Reyna and Adams effectively when they are there. Now, we're not the only team here, and I don't think we necessarily managed it all that well. And I think there's an open debate between what I guess is @nobody 's POV -- which is, until you CAN be more like Spain, you play like El Salvador (obv. exaggeration on the extremes). Whereas I am more like, let's try and play somewhere in between and push ourselves now, not wait until we are so deep as to not be (as) concerned.
I mean Adams didn’t always start this summer. And I think people forget that he was one of our best players at the World Cup and a healthy Adams is one of the key players on this team. He’s only one of the guys on the team who plays with an edge. And McKennie wasn’t good this summer and it’d be great if we had someone who could challenge him when he’s not at the top of his game. That player doesn’t exist in the pool currently, but maybe a Cremaschi or Tessmann type gets there in the next two years. New manager is not going to set up the same way and will have different tactical ideas. But Adams and McKennie will still play a lot even if their roles might not be precisely the same.
Some systems/coaches can plug in a player with quite different qualities from the incumbent and still work fairly well. In fact, I would argue any good system/coach should work to exploit the individual qualities of each player. If a system/coach is so rigid as to exclude this then obviously that's not a good situation.
England is different because they have a number of players who are Pulisic caliber who didn’t even make the team. Or they lose a guy from Musah from their pool and a year later an even better version in Mainoo emerges. We can argue where they rank compared to other countries but it’s just an assembly line of talent in a way that we can’t really match.
They don’t all play the same style however. Austria for one presses super aggressively (more than anyone else in Euros), whereas that’s not as true for the others (and I think Slovakia and Slovenia were near the bottom for the whole tournament).
there's nobody but me who claims Aaronson is a star and my evaluation comes with the reservation that he needs to learn how to shoot. What you'll see over time on these boards is an increase in the importance of pace in the game which is what Aaronson gives ya. The players who are difference makers for us, imo, are Ream, ARob(Kev Paredes), Adams, Johnny, Pulisic, Aaronson, Reyna, Weah (at RB). If you scratch Ream for age issue going forward, the next manager has to fill the blanks here: --------aaronson------9-------pulisic --------reyna-------adams----johnny --ARob/Kev----cb--------cb------weah -------------------------GK There are others who might play a key role at some point like Scally, Musah. Aaronson wouldn't necessarily start every game; he is probably best used against better teams like Uruguay, say. Against teams ranked lower than us I'd go with Haji at lw and use Aaronson in relief. In any case, the next coach has to have an urgent look at goal keeping and cb's. I'd guess that Sarge and Balo are the 2 9's in contention - Sarge for hold up and Balo for quick runs behind the line. Personally, I'd go for Sarge to start and Balo coming on for late goals scoring against tired centre backs. Your derogation of worker bees doesn't do much for me. The reason I like this guy so much is his first step tracking back - which happens in his head. This story was hilarious: 🇪🇸 Marc Cucurella replies to Gary Neville: “We went all the way, Gary. Thanks for your support”. pic.twitter.com/RXYw9sMkaf— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 14, 2024