the only offense this team has is down the wings, in part through overlapping wingbacks. wtf are we talking about inverted backs. let me lecture you all about an idea he occasionally tries that doesn;'t work. i'm convinced when we try to play like he intends it doesn't work.
Mendez was better in qualifying than Pax, both were great, but Pax was overall better than Mendez in the WC. Mendez is better when we have the ball and can push numbers up around him while Pax is better in defense and covering the field in transition. Playing against weak teams Mendez was more valuable, playing against higher quality opposition Pax was more valuable. Mendez could become so valuable offensively, as one of the few real 10 candidates, that it makes him a national team player or he could play like Belz has been telling me he has for Jong Ajax and not be worth having the team built around him. Ledezma wasn’t fit for the U20’s so he can’t be thrown in for comparison, but he has been playing some good pro minutes and looks to have a more well rounded set of attributes. Seeing as I strangely haven’t seen much contemplation of Berhalter’s actual attacking roles here’s a lot of that re: Pulisic and Reyna. There are even videos and pictures for the simple among you! http://positionalplayscholar.com/index.php/2020/03/23/building-for-the-near-future/
That's odd because I rate Pomykal ahead of Ledezma and Mendez as far as a player I would put on the pitch to win a game. Having said that, I would put Ledezma on the chalk board as a replacement for Pulisic's skill in running thru midfield and I would put Pomykal at the offensive 8 for his offensive vision (with Delgado at the defensive 8). Both are great at risk assessment. I noticed that the tape on Ledezma speeds up real fast on France's 2nd goal after ledezma sends a long, diagonal Berhalter type pass forward, not under pressure, which falls to a horde of French who proceed to cut up the American defense, avoiding Pomykal placed on US's right and blowing thru Ledezma on US's left. Luckily, Pomykal subsequently provides the crucible for USA's winning goal by "winning" the ball in the middle third and putting France on the back foot. The ball moves around a lot before scoring but France is continuously on the back foot thru the sequence. That is winning football. Pomykal is a winner and a great Captain. Get out of Dallas, Pax. No need to go to Europe. Just go with Miami or LAFC or Toronto or Seattle (if you can take the surface)
I'm not sure exactly what folks mean by "wannabe-Pep antics" -- is that merely the inverted fullback or a general playing out of the back? The biggest change in the second Canada game was the defensive tactical change. Instead of sitting back in a soft, bend but don't break 4-4-2, we pressed. We didn't do as much in January, but we also didn't completely sit back. That defensive change affected the offense. But the offense didn't really change so much as the opportunities changed, creating more transitional and open space chances and less bunkered defense. Costa Rica was weirdly intent in January in not being aggressive so we had less chances to show it. The team still largely played out of the back when the counter wasn't on, and was looking for many of the same patterns of play. I think people should consider actually believing Berhalter when he says things like they played out of the back exclusively versus Mexico in the friendly as a training exercise. He's always been a pragmatist. He's proven he doesn't care about results in friendlies, and he's proven to have a much more reasonable tactical approach when it matters.
The poster, in his link, outlined what Berhalter had aspired to. Against Canada, the team had 36% possession and 69% pass accuracy. That's not what he had aspired to, which is fine with me. That's the way we should be playing.
He'll learn. Klinsmann did learn, remember at first he wanted us to play a possession, proactive, passing game. Egg will move on from that, and perhaps go for the JK approach: defend with numbers, go for set pieces, and win friendlies by bringing in your better players at the end (or just don't make any sub until very late).
I think the training exercise thing is partially true but was not the whole story. If it was so imperative for the team to try that against a good team, why leave the supposed starting #6 with his club team? Basically, in this all important training exercise, "where it would have been negligent to not do", he starts a kid in his first cap out of position, starts his fourth string #6, doesn't have his #1 CB choice, and plays his third or second string RB. He also is playing a player in his first cap in three years at the #8. GB goes out of his way in interviews to dismiss that result as a "training exercise". After the game, he was livid that the media wanted to portray it as anything other than they played well and lost. Whatever they supposedly learned they didn't show any improvement in Toronto. But of course, hardly any of the players in that "training exercise" were in the lineup at the same position in Toronto. There was more than a "defensive shift", in the home Canada game. That was a welcome change no doubt though. In that game, there was only one back pass. In the Mexico game, the team would take the back pass every time. CBs were getting the ball in the corner, deeper than the GK, passing the ball through the 6 yard box to try and maintain possession at all costs. In the second Canada game, every first back pass was followed by a long ball.
You could be right about it not being the whole story. But the rest of your argument here isn't compelling to me. It's a friendly; a training exercise; I don't have any issue letting Toronto keep Bradley (who I assume you are talking about as the #6). You're making it all important, but I don't see anything that says Berhalter thought about it that way. Instead, it's clear he cares less about friendlies than fans do. C'mon now, it's Sergino Dest. In the middle of a recruiting war that the USMNT won. Both talented enough to start and Berhalter, like many of us, seems to know winning Dest was the most important possible outcome of that window. I won't defend a Trapp selection, but I'm not sure how starting Walker Zimmerman conflicts with this being a learning exercise. He's obviously part of the pool. Playing Reggie Cannon at RB is hardly a negative. He's outplayed Yedlin on the year, and this was Yedlin's first real camp with the USMNT in a while. And Morales! People clamored for him - he was getting his shot. I don't know why this points to it not being a learning experiment, either tactical or personnel. I guess the bigger question for you is: given those choices in a friendly, what "other" thing do you think was going on? What was he trying to do with that? I just think it's pretty clear Berhalter doesn't care about losing friendlies and he was shocked at the anger over losing one. I think he failed to get the fanbase at all, especially considering it was Mexico. In general, the increased offensive aggression was likely a few things: 1. We forced more turnovers 2. Canada played more aggressively than Mexico, opening up longer passes 3. It being a competitive match, Berhalter definitely did not have as strong a push to ALWAYS play out of the back But that's actually supporting my point. I think the Mexico game was like Norman Dale in Hoosiers. Five passes before shooting, no matter what. It's not effective to do that, but you learn something from it. In a friendly, you can lose and it should be no big deal, so you can try to force the issue. Then, when a real game comes around, you should be better at it ... but you also don't have to force the issue. To be clear, I don't know if that's really a good strategy of teaching with the national team. But I think it's more or less the theory. I don't expect Berhalter to be a doctrinarian in games that count. He's never been that in his career. He wasn't that in the Gold Cup and he wasn't that in Nations League. Whether he's a good coach at this level is still TBD. But I'm not worried about him being so stuck to a system (I am a bit worried about Earnie being that way). Berhalter is just planning differently -- he CLEARLY doesn't care about friendly results and has been planning for WCQ from the beginning. Again, no idea if the plan will work. But it actually seems targeted on the right timeline and objectives. I actually would have de-emphasized performance in the GC and Nations League as well, but it's pretty clear the fanbase would have imploded completely if he did.
You are reading too much into my post. I agree Berhalter hasn't cared about winning friendlies, he had a bigger agenda. What I do think is that there was serious blow back from the Mexico game and he became very defensive. As time has gone on he continually tries and reference that game as some great opportunity to POTB against an 8 man press (as if that is even something any team would do ever). My point is that he is trying to rewrite history. Players are human beings; this isn't Football Manager where you can plug players in anywhere. 1. Starting Dest was important and he is important to the program. He didn't need to play on he left. He rarely plays there for Ajax and is generally not good defensively on the left. In that window, it was shown that he is not good defensively on the left and was beaten much much worse than the infamous Antonee Robinson undressing against Brazil; in both games. 2. Yes, Morales deserved a call up and a start. But, again human being. He had never played before with McKennie or Trapp. Having some familiarity helps performance. Which is why so many around here moan that Gregg is picking the wrong players, because the correct players are not getting time with each other. 3. Zimmerman and Long have shown no ability to play the ball at the level necessary to beat an 8 man press from Mexico. Again, this is all fine if you think the result doesn't matter. But it turns out it did matter. That is why Gregg is trying to rewrite history. If Gregg went into that game, thinking this is a "once in a lifetime opportunity", as he calls it. That it would be, "negligent!" to not try it, than his actual personnel and line up decisions make no sense. Which is why I maintain all this talk is simply CYA. To put another way, you are saying Gregg didn't care about the result, so why not try any of these guys and see what happens. But Gregg is saying it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work on something critically important. But not so important than Bradley has to be called in, or the LB with hundreds of minutes plays, or we don't even try since our best ball playing CB is unavailable. He also didn't call in the best possession #9, and used a player (Zardes) that is totally incapable to filling the role. The only difference between my point and yours is that I think his game plan against Mexico had zero chance of working because of the players he selected/had available. That the exercise had zero benefit because it was not going to work. If a lesson was being imparted, it was that the team was going to play like Gregg wants and not how the players think it should work. Lesson learned in humiliating fashion! I disagree that he was preparing for WCQ'ing. I think he was running a long experiment on a different way to run a NT program. That the Mexico result raised a red flag that the experiment wasn't working. The first Canada result put an end to it hopefully. The second Canada game showed a completely different approach to how to manage the game. The passive mid-block 4-4-2 defensive shape was abandoned for a 4-2-2-2 pressing scheme. This is more than a simple more aggressive play. The passive mid block was used not as a defensive strategy to win games, but to generate goal kicks to practice build out. That it was abandoned, hopefully, signalled the experiment was over. I think McBride being hired was another signal that Earnie had had enough and deemed the experiment a failure and it was time to salvage the pieces and move on with the NT as a NT and not a club.
A key fundamental is that the 2nd Canada game didn't have us build around a regista who needed to be compensated for defensively. That allowed us to play a different type of game. There's no more important decision that who our spine players are: let's hope that we've moved beyond Bradley and Trapp. Quite frankly, Yueill isn't good enough to be in the center of the pitch for us either against Mexico or better teams.
I don't think we're that far off; I'm just less critical and I think you are overreading some things. For example, I don't remember Berhalter saying anything about the Mexico game being a "once in a lifetime opportunity." It's pretty clear to me he views friendlies as a chance to experiment and teach, did so, got massive blowback because it was Mexico and because this fanbase treats every game as life and death and did get defensive. I don't really have a problem with any of that. Honestly, I don't want my coach making choices to appease a fickle fanbase. Berhalter's game plan has always been more pragmatic in games that count. He experimented in most of the friendlies, and playing much more rationally in the Gold Cup, in Nations League. I think he brought out the press in Nations League because he had to to win -- losing the group was a disaster. I don't know if he thinks the press is the best long term way and was simply saving it to force more possession play, or if he thinks it won't work versus better teams, etc. We will have to see. But I don't think that his soft defense was ever a long term choice. I don't think he re-evaluated the entire strategy. I think he was playing a certain way to force more possession play and playing out of the back as practice, and then when we shit the bed against Canada in Canada, he realized he needed to pull out all the stops because losing would be really bad. I don't think the hiring of McBride had anything to do with Berhalter or the intent to play possession/positional play. I think Earnie is more enthralled with than Berhalter. I think that was more about workload and getting someone to do the work that neither Earnie or Berhalter like -- schmoozing with the media and other clubs. Earnie doesn't want to be the face of US Soccer -- he hates giving interviews. And Berhalter repeatedly has said the worst part of his job is trying to secure releases and work with clubs. So they got someone to do those things. I fully expect to see more pragmatic gameplans in WCQ. I don't think we are breaking from the overall strategy anytime soon. And I don't think McBride signals anything about discontent with Berhalter. Berhalter will be fired if we get behind in WCQ and he won't if we don't, McBride or no McBride.
I'm with @Patrick167 on this one. As for MacBride? I think his hire says to Berhalter "you are skating on thin ice". Deservedly so. The background noise, to me, whispers "Berhalter you can't run a national team like a club, you don't have much time - like Tata said - and it is time to construct a team, not a system."
So who do you put there when Adams is not available? It is hardly an irrelevant question considering the time Adams has been out injured.
If you guys think the idea of building a system, not a team, started with Berhalter and not Earnie (or higher), I think you are crazy. But there's no real way for us to prove this either way.
Earnie bailed and left Berhalter with the short straw when MacBride came on board. In the future, were I President, I would institute a "US Managers' Council" (not sure how many should be councilors) which meets and discusses the team after every window leading up to WCQ. They would have to attend games in person as much as feasible. The councilors should be current American managers and their discussion should be secret and unrecorded except for minutes of meetings containing only consensus conclusions, if any, submitted to Pres. for dissemination as the Pres. sees fit. It would probably work as well as the people selected for it.
This guy fits what Gregg had wanted to do with Breadley, Trapp, and Yueill. But Gilmour reminds me more of Brendan Aaronson.
lol of course you would and that would be a massive mistake. Thank god you don’t have any player selection duty’s. You’d take Delgado over Wes too.
Yeah, I just think they have similar skillsets and physical attributes. Head on a swivel. Great at receiving balls. Makes lineup breaking passes. Skinny-strong. Tough on the ball. Great at switching field. Great at making out passes. For a cm, excellent quickness and and good pace. Obviously, Chelsea are much higher level than MLS, so I wouldn't make a superlative comparison of the two. If Gregg wants to use a deep-lying playmaker, Aaronson, would make for a better pick than would Trapp, Bradley, Yueill.