1) it is a friendly. I'd rather use them as glorified scrimmages working on something instead worrying about results. 2) Agree completely. It seems like he has defined the roles of each position very specifically and then selected players by a different criteria. They should have a ton of tape to learn from going forward. Both on what players need to work on and when it is time to send longer balls. Lovitz, Long, Roldan and Bradley all started vs Canada. No idea if the issue is the style breaks down at the level of Canada because the player selection is so awful.
I think we are trying to import the use of Friendlies and what they mean from UEFA and the English commentators and fans we listen to so much. In England, especially, people are club fans and then national team fans. Many don't care at all about the latter. UEFA teams have a major tournament every two years and go through qualifying for it for long stretches in between. Friendlies are rare compared to CONCACAF; for that reason and is truly a time for experimenting. In the USA, most fans are USMNT fans first then club teams in various leagues second. Many fans don't even watch club football or follow players rather than teams. The USMNT plays very few competitive games and only a few against teams that are interesting. Friendlies have always been important games for the USMNT and their fans. Even another level is any game against Mexico. So, if you are going to run training scrimmages you have to tell people beforehand. You have to condition the fan base to something new. You have to not charge $150/seat for people to go view your glorified scrimmage. You have to not put it on ESPN or have the ESPN people tell the audience that this is all b.s. The "glorified training exercise" is an excuse that Gregg came up with later to try and excuse the poor game plan. He gets very defensive about any criticism. He would really be unable to function in any other football culture.
I agree. I think, and this is total speculation, that most of the focus was on how we played when we had the ball. It’s the big change GB was going to bring to the program. Personally I think setting a defensive scheme would have been much easier and made more of a difference. From there he could have instituted his offense and been much more successful.
TL;DR Gregg is not allowed to be pragmatic, if the system won't work fire his ass and bring in someone that actually knows how to be pragmatic like Vermes or literally anyone else. Hold the fing phone; we can't have an identity until after the world cup? At which point you assume you will continue working with the group? "The first thing is, it's a young group of guys establishing themselves on the international stage," he said. "The second thing is we haven't had an event to form our identity. So when you think about the team's [Alexi Lalas has] been on, you're defined by your year of the World Cup, the '94 group, the 2002 group, the 2010 group — that's how the public forms opinions on the team. We haven't had this opportunity because we're a young group. And we'll get that opportunity and the guys will work really hard in qualifying and then eventually in the World Cup to form what we feel can be a really strong group moving forward." Before he realized his system sucks and wouldn't work he said these kinds of things: “You have other guys like Weston that don’t necessarily play like that with their clubs. But because they’re high-level players, you would expect that they can take on information, take on concepts. That’s why they got to the level they’ve gotten to.” If you were hired after a sham coaching search, with a very weak resume, that interviewed no other candidates because your brother was running the show and you were given 14 months to wrap up your spectacularly mediocre MLS career and the only selling point possible was your system and instilling an identity, no, just no. You do not get to abandon that and be pragmatic, because you wasted 14 months of time they could have learned the system and there are literally 50 coaches we could hire right now who can unequivocally do a better job of playing organized, pragmatic American soccer than you can. NEW YORK (AP) — Gregg Berhalter promises to transform the U.S. national team into a pressing, attack-minded group the Americans rarely have been. Klinsmann was a con artist who said one thing and did another, the Berhalter's reign makes him seem honest and straight: "We want to see ball circulation, breaking lines, creating goal-scoring opportunities," he said at his introduction Tuesday. "That should be the DNA of this team." “The idea is that we are an attacking based team that wants to create goal scoring opportunities by unbalancing the opponent,” Earnie on the coaching search: “It's probably been the most conclusive and comprehensive search for coach in our history,” “The way we look at soccer can be very romantic sometimes,” he continued, “and you see something in front of you and you have this certain idea about it, and then you find out later on when you see data points of that that the eye doesn’t really meet what is actually happening on the field, because for some reason you see it in a different way. And that’s not good. So I want to make sure it’s backed up with that. It’s always one and the other, it’s never one by itself.” "He will push our men's team forward and with an identity and approach that will be uniquely and fiercely American." He can't instill a system, he can't create and identity, we can't disorganize our opponents, we can't break the lines, he can't teach young players... He can step aside.
Klinsmann also adapted and went from trying to do the tiki-taka thing to just defending with numbers and scoring from set pieces. He got fired not because he walked back on his promises (they all do), but because after the first cycle, even when trying the cowardly method, he was losing. Now Egg is at the point where he realized playing-out-of-the-back, 'proactive' attacking soccer is not an option, and he may either be honest and tell us all he's going back to the usual to manage the win (even if the games are boring as hell) or do the JK thing and keep talking about what he wanted to do, even if doing something entirely different on the field. Then, if he gets results, people can tolerate him like they did with Jurgi during his first cycle. And if he doesn't, then it's goodbye ASAP.
what if this entire out of the back scheme was done just to Build-up Steffan? Steffan left Freiburg and came to MLS, got better, Berhalter was the coach. Manchester City picked up Steffan. A major requirement for City is to have their GK's be outstanding ball-movers from the back. We have seen our team get destroyed just so Steffan can get as many reps playing from the back as possible. Think of it from berhalter's perspective, if Steffan makes it at Manchester City...………. hes "the guy" in his mind. He has that as his big achievement on his little tiny resume. he also had to appease his inner feelings and circle of friends and still build around Bradley. We have seen our entire USMNT program built around one Non world-class player for an entire decade and nobody did anything. Until McBride was hired, who was going to stop Berhalter's nonsense? His Big brother? lol.
I think most will be trigger shy when it comes to firing Eggstew in view of what happened last cycle. The next trap we fall into is Gio Reyna bailing out Berhalter's system the way Higuaín did at Columbus.
Addition to the above: I just learned from wiki that Claudio Reyna and Berhalter were teammates at St. Benedicts Prep school in NJ. that introduces some new vectors* *definition of vector: mathematics physics a quantity having direction as well as magnitude, especially as determining the position of one point in space relative to another.Compare with scalar. i.o.w, maybe Claudio could give Berhalter some direction if he's going to throw his son in the pot?
Honestly didn’t even think about that. Def a little anxious about it now but I’d still rather that then general egg
Surely some will argue this point somehow, but we are now way past the point where a coach will have any influence on our qualification. 2017 clearly never should have happened, as our collective talent was too good to not qualify, but was a once-in-a-lifetime screw-up strictly due to arrogance (awful coaching, awful man management, zero competition for players who were too old/no longer very good). My wife, who has never watched a soccer game outside of the World Cup in her life, could coach this current team to qualification. So much talent at this point it'll be impossible to miss the WC. Once we get there? That's when Egg has me worried. But I suppose the WC is largely a crapshoot for a mid-level team like ours anyways.
Quali's might be different in covid era but if it goes down like planned: You get down to the nuts and bolts and you realize that teams such as Jamaica, Trinidad, Honduras, et al, give a false impression in tourney's like the GC (always in the USA) when it comes to how difficult they can be away at Couva, SPS, the Office, etc. Throw in 2 losses each to Mexico and Costa Rica and Canada, say, and qualification would be very much in doubt, even if we place 4th, because there will likely be a play off against a strong team.
NFW are we losing twice to each of those teams. we should win all three home matches and go 1-1-1 on the away ones.
We have improving talent, but it's all very young and not very deep. Injuries could play a key role; that's my biggest concern. Away games in CONCACAF are always challenging, and if we have to go below the top level talent we have, we're not very good compared to the next tier of CONCACAF. Add in the youth and it's a concern. The best thing that could happen for this US team is health. The second best would be for qualifying to be done at a central location, probably in the US. The Orlando Disneyworld option type of thing. No hostile crowds, great fields, etc. That wouldn't prep us well for a World Cup, but it's better than going to Central America.
What would be the point of qualifying like that??? We have enough of a handicap with hosting the Gold Cup each time. Making things easier for us is detrimental to our long-term plans to develop as a soccer country.
An argument against this could be, that would do our young team better to get in and experience a WC. Also the WC could be a nice jumping off point for some of our domestic players to make a case for a move to Europe if they want.
Actually qualifying. That’s all. Two straight missed World Cups would be massively detrimental to our plans to develop as a soccer country.
Barring massive injury problems, I don't see how the hell we don't qualify with our current group of players. Even if they still try and build around Bradley I can't see us not getting in. But I've certainly been wrong before so who knows. In my mind, it's what happens when we get there that is going to be the real problem. We need to give ourselves the best possible chance to show well, grow the young guns, and carry some momentum into the next cycle, because that is the one that is going to be the biggie.
Some Berhalter quotes from a recent Athletic article: I left the last part in because some other quotes in the article make it clear he's been reasonably happy with Yeuill back there. I'm not super happy about this ... EXCEPT in a situation where we play with an attacking left back and right back. Put Robinson/Dest out there or Dest/Cannon and I'm fine with a stay at home/almost CB distributor. Still not sure that's best, but I'm not as concerned. Another quote: Berhalter remains a pretty big Sargent fan.
Other tidbits: Berhalter tried to call in Richards to January camp but was denied. Berhalter was going to call in Nico Goacchini (ugh, spelling) in March Berhalter loves Tim Ream
Yeah I really do not get yeuill. I think he's a fine option as a backup, but why the hell do you need anyone behind McKennie and adams? Those guys are insane defensively and cover tons of ground, but you need to add a midfielder behind two defensive MFers? Just for an occasional long diagonal? Two central defenders and adams/McKennie is all you need, and more, to defend the middle of the field.
The third ground covering midfielder should absolutely be morales unless Pomykal takes a big step. Yueill doesn’t have the ceiling to play with Adams and Wes in a dynamic midfield - I don’t see him playing at a higher level than MLS/Championship/B2.
It was kind of sad reading that Berhalter is still talking dynamic and getting into the box. Adams' biggest hole in his game is failure to control himself in front of the box; McKennie leaves acres of space behind him much in the way Tchani did for Berhalter when he lost the MLS cup; long diagonals from Yueil playing a Rhinoceros 6 isn't all it's cracked up to be in Berhalter's mind.