I assume you're joking, but there are enough people out there who actually believe this it's mind blowing. 2017 was the most pathetic performance by everyone involved, and we still nearly qualified. The only player from that team that crosses over is CP, and he's somehow even better now. We are pretty close to having our entire starting lineup playing regularly in Europe's top leagues. In 2017, we had CP playing in a top league. If trajectory continues as it seems to be, we will likely win the Hex, or whatever it is, going away. This team is loaded.
You're way too pessimistic. We would have qualified last time if we didn't have a 2/3 MLS quota and the primary challenge we have right now is our current coach who not only has used the same quota but is also building around an average MLS CM as our most important position. Mexico and Costa Rica are declining and only Canada is ascending but have even less depth than we do.
It is certainly possible that I am naive but we have too many quality players not to get out of CONCACAF. Unless the injury bug gets bad there should be no excuse at all for failing to qualify...none. GGG could always make things interesting but the reality is that the bar is not that high for qualifying. We shall see.
Depends on the format, too. The rumored "three winners of 3 groups of 4 plus best second going to the intercontinental playoff" leaves little room for error.
So we all agree he got completely out-coached, right? I mean I legitimately don't understand if we are disagreeing about something or not. He got surprised by an inferior team, (bad coaching), by something as simple as Canada adding another CM and targeting Bradley and could not come up with any effective countermeasure for 90 minutes (bad coaching). Whatever, all of our players have either become healthy, stayed the same, or in the case of some of our most important players; Gio, Pulisic and McKennie, improved noticeably since our last game. Even JK and BA trying to coach this team at the same time should qualify with room to spare.
Yes, but I don't think it was inherently the tactics; it was player selection and motivation, IMO. I think he knows what to do in general. I don't think he's a tactical genius, but I think he's demonstrated with Columbus that he can scheme. Where I think something like Canada happens is simple: he has some questionable player evaluations + some attempt to rotate and give players chances + injuries + two of his best players honestly playing poorly. It happens. I think the only parts that I sit here and say that's on Berhalter definitively are: 1) the selection of Lovitz (ever) and Roldan (who was fine under previous coaching and horrendous under Berhalter). 2) the passive defensive posture Things I don't put on him: 1) Giving Yedlin a chance is the right thing and smart, even if he doesn't fit anything we are trying to do. 2) Giving Sargent a chance is the right thing, even if Zardes had outplayed him to that point. 3) There's also no reason to completely abandon an offensive schema for a Nations League game jsut because it isn't optimal for that game -- testing players and development is more important than winning that game ... especially since we still won the group 4) McKennie and Pulisic playing poorly. They just had a bad game. Watch it, and watch them both fail to receive easy passes or make accurate passes. They were bad. Hung over? Tired? Who knows. 5) General malaise the team has. You can manufacture a lot here ... but it's a USMNT game; the players shouldn't need a ton of hype. So yeah, there are coaches who would have never called Lovitz and jettisoned Roldan long ago. And I've never liked that defense. But the rest of it? I guess people want to set this up as he's tactically inept and he's not. He's trying to teach a set of players the style of play and to do that, you have to accept some failure. His problem there is rooted more in way too much confidence in some of the players and his ability to teach them. I don't think that gameplan struggles with players like Reyna, Adams, Robinson, Dest, or even just slightly increased competence like Lletget and Cannon.
This is my fear. Put us in a tough group, then add a schedule that works for countries that are competently handling the global pandemic, and watch as we have to try and qualify with only MLS players because our Europeans can't or won't come over...
the three biggest mistakes that Berhalter has done are building around Trapp/ bradley/ Yueill in the most important position Putting several of our core players (Pulisic, Adams, Weston, Brooks) in positions that amplify their weaknesses and mitigates their strengths Holding to a 2/3 MLS roster construct across every single camp I can’t see how you fail to mention this. These have been the keys points in this entire thread since the beginning.
Halfway through 2020 (3 years after Couva, when he was finished) and still seeing Bradley's name as a key part of the USNT, never fails to amaze me.
I came across this image recently that I found interesting. It compares teams based on how often they apply pressure in the opponent's final third, and how successful they are at pressing and recovering the ball all over the field (not just in the final third). Although the image doesn't name every team pIotted on the chart, it appears to be based off of data from fbref.com, so you can figure out which team is which by searching through the site. I've linked Schalke as an example: https://fbref.com/en/squads/c539e393/Schalke-04-Stats#all_kitchen_sink_defense According to that, out of the current USMNT players who have started games this year for clubs currently in a top league, Pulisic, Adams, McKennie, Reyna, and Brooks all play on teams comfortably within that top right quadrant -- which means their teams pressed high and successfully much more than average. Sargent's Werder Bremen falls right within the center of that chart, so right around average. Yedlin's Newcastle is the one team that's deep in the bottom left quadrant. The club that Sergino Dest is most heavily being linked to next season is arguably the best team on that chart by those combined measures, while Steffen is reportedly going to be a backup keeper at Man City next year, which also presses very aggressively according to that. And if Weah gets minutes at Lille next season, he's also going to be on a team that's comfortably within that top right quadrant. In other words, our players in top leagues tend to play for clubs employing an aggressive and successful pressing style, while playing pretty much the opposite style for the USMNT.
Thank you very much for that, it is fascinating it's own right and it encapsulates something that has seemed intuitively obvious to, (I think), many of us.
Didn't see much of Chicago's beat down on Seattle but I was getting the feeling that Wicky was happily coaching free of the constraints of the Eggstew system which some of us were theorizing had plagued his u17 team at the WC finals. Any chicago&U17&Basel experts care to comment?
My assumption was that Pulisic is as good on the right as he is on the left. At least I thought so but it appears people who have watched him more than me disagree. If Morris can reproduce last night's performance for the NT... wow! He was super fast and always looking to pass and move.
Need to improve his one-on-one tackling but I see the resemblance. Since we're comparing players - I think that Morales is a poor man's Bedoya (at Ale's prime). No flash but a player who can grind it out with a hard shift even against top level opponents - he's rarely going to get pushed around unless a coach puts him in a new position he's never played before against a great team. Roldan is an even lower level Bedoya (and Ale may still be better than him even though he's over the hill). I don't think either are difference makers but we know that Morales can hang (perhaps by his fingertips) with B1 players. I'm hoping/expecting that Pomkal and/or Aaronson will surpass both after they move to a higher level.
I don't understand posters who don't want Morris in the lineup. If a preferred system forces us to make choices between two good players and another system doesn't, well........
It'd honestly be interesting to see. Being on the left allows Pulisic to use his dominant foot to cut inside, which is his best move. When he played RW for Dortmund, he did that less and tended to go to the endline more for the cross. His left has gotten better, so perhaps the gap between the two is due more to the improvement in his game than simply right/left. But since both Morris and Pulisic play to score and aren't traditional stay wide and cross style wingers, they are both probably better with their dominant foot on the inside.
Would just play Morris at striker, CP on the left, and Reyna underneath. Reyna and CP could be swapped, depending on the opposition.
Last season, he had 4 goals in 5 matches playing the number 9. He'd also played as a striker in his rookie year, for which he won Rookie of the Year.