Somehow the argument that the US doesn't currently have the talent is construed as a defense of Berhalter.
When the argument is "You cannot hold Berhalter responsible for how the USMNT plays. The players are just not up to his standards." it does pretty much come across as a defense of Berhalter. Particularly when the proponent of that argument refrains from discussing why this "talentless" squad played so much better in that brief shining interim where GreGG was not The General.
You're using hyperbole. The squad has talent. It lacks top ten talent. The team played very well in two games with BJ in charge and a full-strength team minus Adams. Then he blew all credibility in the Gold Cup. I know it was a C team but the selection and in game management was awful. And there was that 1-0 home win over El Salvador under Hudson.
No mystery. The Nations League was the only time since summer 2021 that all the best attackers in the pool have been 100%. And every decision the interim coaches made that people disagreed with were conveniently blamed on Berhalter pulling the strings behind the scenes.
The Gold Cup knockouts under Callaghan were probably the worst I’ve ever seen from the U.S. His run is overhyped due to our top guys rolling an already rattled Mexico.
In the current twitter teenagers vs Gregg Berhalter “war”, Gio Reyna has been the avatar of the disgruntled teenager. As it becomes more and more clear that Berhalter has been not just hyper-accomodating to Gio at the expense of other players, but that he has shown nepotism-like favoritism for him despite Gio’s bad behavior (even enabling it?), the Teenaged Twitter Berhalter Hate Brigade will soon have to decide to abandon Reyna or become silent about Berhalter. Which path will they choose? I think they’ll quietly move on from Reyna just like they have about every other player who “should have been playing” in front of obvious stalwarts like Weah, Pulisic, McKennie, etc. The next martyr for the cause…It will definitely be a young player…my guess is that it will be Joe Scally or Kevin Paredes.
Thanx! You know, I may have spoken too soon. The Teenaged Twitter Anti-Berhalter Brigade has taken up the martyr Ricardo Pepi. In retrospect we should have all seen this one coming, isn't that right, guy?
It took them two months to go from saying Pepi's presence on a roster was proof of Berhalter's incompetence or favoritism, to saying Pepi's absence was proof of Berhalter's incompetence or favoritism.
I'm just glad that Pepi is making it to where he has to be put on the field by both of his coaches. The guy is making it happen. That was a BIG goal for PSV. Congratulations Earnie.
Could someone please tell me what GGG's greatest on field accomplishment as Coach is? Are you really going to hang your head on gaining a draw against England? Getting out of a group with Wales and Iran is that what you are going to brag about? Finishing third in the Federation?
I actually think Berhalter's biggest accomplishment was taking over a totally fractured locker room (as described in that ringer article) and stabilizing the national team. Turned over the program to the new generation. Kicked butt in dual-national recruiting. In many windows we had the youngest national team in the world. Only Ghana was a younger team than the USMNT at WC22. And that was totally skewed by the return of Ream. If we had Robinson or Richards instead of Ream, we would have had the youngest team at the World Cup. 2021 Nations League Champion 2021 Gold Cup Champion Qualifying for the World Cup Round of 16 at the World Cup I'm no Berhalter lover, but let's not pretend like has zero accomplishments. Mexico hired the much more balleyhooed Tata Martino, leading these boards to pontificate angrily about why we didn't hire him. Berhalter got the better of those meetings. We are perfectly capable of recognizing Berhalter's accomplishments last cycle while also believing that he shouldn't have been re-hired for the 2026 cycle.
That Iran team was far superior to the Algeria team it took a miracle to beat in 2010, and the England team was better than the England team we hung on to scrape out a draw against in the same year. We took it to 2023 England and outplayed them. Wales was better than Slovenia.
This is why I have trouble taking so much of the criticism seriously. He won Nations League and a Gold Cup with a B team, both of which are actually Federation competitions with a winner. WCQ is neither a competition with a winner, or anywhere near the official championship of CONCACAF. But hey, winning actual Federation competitions doesn't fit your argument, so let's just ignore them! Other things: he also made it out of the group, which we're about 50/50 on. He successfully recruited a number of dual nationals. Clint names some other softer things, like rebuilding the culture, and I'd add that he's clearly been assisting what is a fairly successful run of youth teams as well. Of the US stuff, I'd say the B team Gold Cup win is probably the best single "coaching" accomplishment. Canada and Mexico had a couple of injuries, but no one brought anything close to a B squad like we did and we still won. With Columbus, he made the playoffs 4 out of 5 years, made the semis twice and MLS Cup Finals once with a payroll that was always bottom half of the league and often bottom quarter. He also knocked out much more talented and higher seeded teams in the playoffs at least once, including Tata's Atlanta. He does not have a signature win, though we also simply haven't had many chances due to the nature of national team schedules now. (And personally, I think fans wildly overrate friendly victories over bigger teams anyway; signature wins are only in competition for me). His US teams have been poor on the road, like most US teams.
"That Iran team was far superior to the Algeria team it took a miracle to beat in 2010" Your kidding right? 11 players from the Iranian League, 2 from the Quatri League, 2 from the Greek league 1 from the Danish league. One each from Porto, Brentford, Roma, Turkey, Russia and Croatia. vs A player from Dortmund, Eintracht Frankfurt, West Ham, Wolverhampton, 3 from Nice, 1 from Caen 1 from Metz, 1 from Rennes , 1 each from Roma and Lecce, 1 from Villa Real, 1 from Feyenord, 3 from the Belgian Leagues And how many of our players play on a higher level than the 2010 team?
"Of the US stuff, I'd say the B team Gold Cup win is probably the best single "coaching" accomplishment". But couldn't beat a USL level TnT team when you have a lead?
Iran is actually pretty good -- Top 20 now in ELO. So regardless of the obsession with league, they are beating people. It's also funny to me how people act like this is the first time we've had good players. Here's our lineup in that game: Howard - Actually playing at Everton Cherundolo - Hannover in Bundi Boca - Ligue 1 Rennes Demerit - Watford in the Championship Bornstein - Chivas USA Edu - Rangers Bradley - Gladbach Donovan - LA Galaxy Dempsey - Fulham Altidore - Hull City Herc - Puebla I'd take about half that lineup to start over the 2022 team. Keeper, RB, a CB slot and maybe both CB spots go to 2010 on level, and three of those really in reality. Bradley, Donovan and Dempsey would also very likely carve out spots. That's probably 6 starting spots to 2010. 2010 was a pretty talented team.
Let me just put it this way. Under GGG when have we beaten a team we should not have with our A team?
I'd have to go back and see what games we weren't favored in. I doubt we were favored in the 2021 Nations League against Mexico. I don't know if we were favored against World Cup Semifinalist Morocco, but we surely weren't favored to beat them 3-0. Maybe there's someone here claiming Berhalter has been a raging success, but I don't see it. But let's not pretend there haven't been successes, and let's stop talking them down.
To be fair because of COVID he's not had many chances. 2 draws against Uruguay and 1 against England. Defeats to Holland and Germany. In contrast Klinsmann had something like 16 games against top ten teams over 6 years and won about 3 (off the top of my head).
Nah, look at the roster, that team looked a helluvalot like the '21 Olympic Qualifying roster. A mismash of ---- that didn't fit together and lacked any creative flair, for the most part. What happened was always gonna happen when the roster was announced, the only question was whether or not they'd be able to produce a decent run, or flame out horribly in the group stage or their first knockout game. Anyone who honestly looked up and down that roster, which I'm nearly positive Berhalter either constructed, or definitely had a role in (way, way too similar to the '21 Olympics flaws for me to believe that's just a coincidence), knew going in the performance would be god awful. You can't bring those guys as your base of attack from CM, and the Wings, and striker, and expect to accomplish much. When he had the pieces, he produced the best two competition performances we've ever seen from the big dogs against our confederation, period. And quite easily. Maybe its wrong to give him a mostly mulligan for the Gold Cup, but generally you can't make chicken salad out of chicken manure as the saying goes. Your CM's were: Sands: Flushed out of Rangers (a historically bad Rangers that you guys didn't rate when ripping Tillman) Busio: Lost his starting job while playing for cellar dwellar Venezia (they flew up the table after he was benched. Roldan: Nearly 3 dozen caps and little impact ever. Mihailovic: About to be drummed out of Holland. His rose has lost its luster. A. Morris: Stock collapsed with his performance there. Yueill: Bigsoccer's Post Will Trapp whipping boy. That's supposedly the "Creativity" of the roster, let alone the lineup. I'll wait for you to stop laughing. Your WF's and Strikers were: ST Jesus Ferreira Brandon Vasquez WF Jordan Morris Alex Zendejas J. Gressell Cade Cowell This is better, I don't think people really raised an eyebrow about much of this beyond maybe Gressell, and annoyance that Zendejas kept getting caps. It's a decent group, the problem was, as previously mentioned, there was zero creativity in central midfield to speak of, it was a pile of d-mid's and defensively oriented mid's, and Busio's finesse game that fit better in the nineties. Anyway, what happened was predictable. Many of us projected a crash out in the first knockout (and some, I know I was one, wondered aloud if they'd even make the knockouts), a few hoped for better, but few were surprised that the team looked awful. You can't drag a midfield into a tournament like that and expect much other than maybe some defending and a hope and a prayer that with good goalkeeping, maybe we can steal games like in '21. It didn't happen (though we did steal at least 1 and maybe 2 results). Does he deserve blame for this? I don't know, because at the end of the day, I don't know what Berhalter wanted from this and him, but my guess is, that like with U23 qualifying 2.5 years earlier, what he actually wanted was to see edge guys in battle conditions where the game model's didnt favor them, and see how some of them swam, more than generating results. What we learned was generally not good for most, though not all. I am highly skeptical we went into that tournament trying to win, because if we were, why did we bring that roster? It was obvious from day 1 those guys weren't winning squat and would struggle to make the semifinals. It's also interesting to note how many guys from it that were regulars in '20-'22, fell off the shelf completely following that tournament? Lending more creedence to my suspicions that at least half of the reasoning was player evaluation, rather than winning anything.
It's like some people only remember the results that fit their narrative. Its really simple. Do we think the USMNT had the talent pool of a top 8 nation in the World in 2022. [Right now the top 8 nations in the rankings are Argentina, England, France, Brazil, Holland, Portugal, Spain, and Belgium.] If you don't, and you'd be correct in thinking we didn't..............then what the hell is the issue? We were a Round of 16-caliber team and not a quarterfinal team. And that is an accurate reflection of the 2022 pool. It would have been a huge upset for us to beat Holland. A team that took eventual champions Argentina to friggin' penalties. If you're argument is that Berhalter is garbage because he didn't beat Holland, then you've just got anger issues.
I tend to take the NL infinitely more seriously than the GC. I may be wrong to do so, but I do not believe the objective w/that Gold Cup roster was winning a tournament, I believe it was player eval for Berhalter cycle 2. That could be a crazy argument, but I don't think you get that roster, so heavily tilted towards defending, w/some speed on the wings, w/zero creativity centrally and think that team was built to actually a play a tourney. It was built to examine depth from player 24-60+. That's my perspective anyway, it wreaked on U23 WC Qualifying in '21, and this roster looked a damn good bit just like that one. Wreaked of player eval to me. I'm not gonna quibble with the idea that he wasn't on his A game at all, and that coaching was a problem, but I am curious as to why, and I tend to think it was about the objective of the team going in, but that's just speculation on my part.