I was very complimentary after the first three group games, which is one of the best US group stage performances, definitely the best defensive performance. You could argue Berhalter is conservative, but after those games it was clear the team was well-prepared and well-drilled on what they needed to do for each game and they mostly accomplished it, which is very impressive. Saying all that, things fell apart so quickly and so badly against Netherlands that it almost undermines the achievements from the group. I think a lot of things come to bear in that game, some of which reflects on the team, some on Berhalter. It depends on how many options you believe Berhalter had at his disposal to both adjust tactically and overcome the spotty fitness of his team. I'm in the camp that believes he was probably more limited than it seems at first glance; we all observed a drop-off between the starters and back-ups. Having said that, the decision not to bring Pepi and the scant minutes to guys like, Aaronson, Reyna and LDLT (injured, I know) are still legit questions. I wouldn't say Gregg deserves to be fired, but if a better option comes along the USSF should pursue it. Saying that, I don't think it's easy to find a coach of Berhalter's caliber and better. Everyone should look at the caliber of teams eliminated in the first round of knockouts, all but 2 conceded 3 goals or more. It's hard to make the case the US really underachieved here.
his style was 2nd round at best - even with everyone healthy.by design! he boxed himself and the team into a corner with everything he did....there was such a low ceiling after the group on the team....he cant control injuries ....but a 26 man roster has not depth??? with a record number of players excelling in europe??? really? i will never buy that. he brought guys as thankyous for WCQ etc and vibes.....with the intention of using a short rotation. He underestimated that this World Cup was more condensed than any other.....depth was more crucial than any other and he eschewed it. He wasted soooo much time on so many players like long and ferreira who had no value in qatar (but brought them anyway - whether he knew or not it looks bad)....he never really looked for depth outside of MLS...he decided at the very beginning that MLS guys would be the depth ....but they werent even good enough for that...so they may have well had been coaches. in turn the US had a SHORT ROSTER - which, again, was unneccessary and totally avoidable - dont listen to anyone who argues differently..... in the end, he hung his players out to dry and they all loooked pretty bad in their final game. the US scored 3 goals and gave up 4 in Qatar...I mean....is that really all that great??! Opponents scored more goals than the USMNT in Qatar - and this is the guy a lot of people on here want back!! LvG called the US one of the best teams! - and they were outscored in qatar! Greggs teams wil never score. he relies on running his players into the ground to grind out a result or two....but in a tourney at this level, all the teams that try that will go out in the early phases.....i think he realizes this deep down....but takes it as its all he really knows. I will give him credit for actually trying to press the netherlands - it really shouldve resulted in 2 goals.....Cps missed 1 on 1 and wright's....he cant take the shots himself. that they pressed and took it to them was awesome and the right thing to do. But he has to have his temperature on the roster and make contingency plans....he never subbed out jedi....and jedi cracked...asking him to run more sprints than any other player in the comp simply to keep his low scoring "offense" "active".....btw jedi crossing the ball shouldnt have been a thing......at all. he had to know his guys were cooked yet went to the well yet again. all across the roster hany of the picks that didnt pick themselves were dreck - moore? really? he was an abomination...and there ARE alternatives. ferreira?? really. he didnt look good at any point in a nn grenada game all cycle....and he throws him in for his debut against van dyke???!? what? its just like boneheaded....like cte type level decisions....he's not the guy! its not him. thats it.
I suppose that's close to admitting that it doesn't look like the SUM/MLS cabal was behind Berhalter's hire. FYI, I think the courage to honestly admit a mistake is an important virtue.
Well, of course none of us understand how you view the game, you don't explain how you view it. That's a big assumption that folks round here wouldn't understand how you view the game. It's pretty arrogant, even for the internet.
Not sure why a lot of folks are assuming the US is going to play in Copa America in 2024.....CONMEBOL is still pissed about the amount of money they earned at the Copa Centenario......I wouldn't underestimate the chance of them not extending an invite to the USA.
Even if they do get in, it is going to be a bunch of MLS players (if they get released) because I don't think Euro teams are going to let players play unless they want the player to leave or the player missed the season due to injury.
Should we fire Berhalter? It beckons the question on the Netherlands game about what went wrong... (1) The Netherlands were a class above us and there’s not much we can do against a team with that much of a talent gap over us. -or- (2) Act of God player error. -or- (3) Players were not properly ready. Personally, from watching that game, you would have a hard time convincing me of number one. At no point, did I feel like we were just out-and-out outmatched on the field. I’m not dismissing the Netherlands by saying so. I’m not even saying that they didn’t even have an edge. But this wasn’t like the games of old where we just got dominated off the field. In fact, I came away from that game less impressed by the Netherlands and the margins between our team teams. Now, it could be two. Player fatigue probably contributed to this. That was a lot of soccer for a lot of players who had been carrying injuries and who looked ragged going into that match ~ although they did their best to give it their all. But sometimes you can’t help it, when you’re wiped out, you’re wiped out, and the symptom of that will be stupid mistakes, which is what I count three times forgetting to check your marks and letting your opponent get a free chance on goal. You know, mistakes that our youth teams don’t typically make. Besides, you know what, I’ve seen the best teams on this planet come out and lay a dud from time to time, where they make uncharacteristic mistakes for their quality. It happens. That’s soccer. Honestly, I believe that it’s two more than anything else. But it could be three. Our team just wasn’t ready for that game. It could be this. I can imagine big brain Berhalter spending thousands of hours studying England, Wales, and Iran, but when it came to a new team. There just wasn’t enough time for him to get ready for this, and for him to ready his team. And it overwhelmed him. This sounds like Berhalter. He can be great at something if you give him all the time in the world to plan for it. But ask him to shoot from the hip, be flexible on the fly, can he do that? This is one of my main critiques of Berhalter. He seems to lack an inherent sense of psychological flexibility to have the dexterity to handle complex problems under pressure and under a time frame. In my observation, this is why he always looks like he’s trying to throw spaghetti at the wall. He overthinks things and underresponds to what’s apparent in front of him. He just lacks that natural rhythm that some people are born with that makes them better at coaching than others. Furthermore, the best coaches know how to get teams to play like teams in short windows. Usually, Berhalter improves as a tournament goes on. When he has time to calculate. But give him 3 days, drastic increase in fatigue, and limited time to prepare. Nope. That’s above his skill set. This could be a maturity issue for him. Believe it or not, Berhalter is still a very young coach. And like a young professional in anything, they’re excited to tell you the theory behind things, but they lack the experience to know how to go with the flow. I’m sure we all know people in our professions who have a lot of book knowledge, but they can’t apply it like other people can. From my observation, this could be demonstrated by the example of players running into each other and confusion on who’s marking who. That happens in games. But when it happens 3 big times that leads to 3 goals. Sorry. That’s a coach who hasn’t drilled his team on how to play the team in front of them. Team discipline is a coach’s responsibility. Finally, I know Berhalter’s band of rescuers will swoop in and try save him from any criticism. But he needs to be criticized. That’s how we learn. The win was there for him. And he didn’t get it done. Let’s not sugarcoat it. That said, I’ll add a caveat. Berhalter still could improve to be a good international coach. Although, Berhalter is remarkably psychologically rigid, which he needs a lot of work on as a coach... I’ll compliment him on this.... he definitely knows how to care for his team and to get his team to care about each other. He’s a team building type of coach. And, I rate that very highly when it comes to rating coaches. Compare that to Klinsmann’s 2018 era. You could feel it off the team, even if they tried to keep it under lock and key. The locker room was not a good environment. And man we suffered from it. There’s no doubt that the talent quality dropped off the side of a cliff for that age group, but there was still enough talent to do better than second to last place in World Cup qualifying. That’s what happens when you don’t have a good team environment. The whole team will collapse. All you need to do is watch Jose Mourinho’s teams to see what happens when you have a bad team builder for a manager. Mourinho has a beautiful tactical mind. But he pisses everyone off to the point that no one wants to play for him. And then, his success crumbles. In my mind, that’s the worst trait that a coach could have. Someone who is bad for team morale. You don’t see that in Berhalter. You see him hugging his players. You see his players talking about how close they are and so forth. As it seems, Berhalter is more like a dad to these young players than a coach who is going to get the most out of their talent. In Army terms, he’s what you would probably call a Joe Lover. Great guy. Everyone likes him. But he doesn’t get the mission done. Ultimately, I believe that Gregg Berhalter would probably make the best assistant coach that any head coach could ask for. Particularly a coach who needs a little help steadying the ship on defense. Going forward. I think he’s got us as far as he’s going to get us. Unless he gets some help, he’s never going to solve the offensive problem. And here’s the thing, he already accomplished the most important thing that he could accomplish during his tenure: he fixed the locker room. Thank you for that. Truly. But now, I hope that the USSF will see we could use someone who can build off the amazing groundwork that Berhalter laid. Someone who can add some coherence and flexibility to our tactics and planning. And, at the same time, not jack up what Berhalter did well.
Teams that had to fight down to the final whistle of the third game in order to get out of the group are in deep shit when they're paired in the Round of 16 with a team that used a lot less gas in the Group Stage. It happened to us, it happened to Senegal, it happened to South Korea, it happened to Switzerland. It even happened to Spain. The World Cup is a grind, and the less energy a team has to use up in the Group Stage the better shape it is in for the knockout rounds.
Reasons Berhalter shouldn’t have his contract renewed: 1) Poor roster construction - no depth at striker so Sargent’s injury really hurt us; fringe players who were effectively coach’s selections were poor (Wright, Moore). 2) Terrible performance on set pieces. 3) Poor subs, went defensive too early and cost us the win in 1 match, almost cost us vs Iran. 4) Roster mismanagement- no rotation of players in group stage, tactically inflexible, couldn’t figure out how to use arguably our best player. 5) Badly outcoached by van Gaal. Naive tactics and failed to adjust 6) No signature wins. Didn’t elevate the level of his players. 7) Impotent attack - couldn’t manage more than 1 goal per match. 8) Poor record vs quality international sides over course of tenure, particularly away from home.
I admit I haven't read your petition. Fire Berhalter is, imo, more extreme than many people would endorse. You have a vocal group that despise every move he has made but getting enough signatures from that base isn't going to be very impressive. (of course it is possible that I am way out of touch). Your real goal should be (if it isn't) not so much firing Berhalter but simply not renewing (at least it sounds better). That way you include all of those that want to fire him, those that feel he did ok but that we can do better and even those that feel he did well but believe no coach should be kept on for a second term. Perhaps if you come across a bit less extreme, you may get more people to read it.
What are your measuring sticks for team improvement? You can't complain about or tout results in these tournaments again.
LvG has analyzed the US play in detail to find where and how to profit. You gould see that in the two first goals against the USA, where the Orange Squad "arranged" the US players by playing the ball around to get them into positions for a lethal execution. For the first goal it took a Dutch record 20 uninterupted passes to the goal scored. The second one wasnot accidentally a copy of the first one. He also used the match to prepare the players for the way of play, very defensive, against the top opponents further up the road. Because of the sparse prep time for this WC2022, the players hardly had time to get accustomed to this defensive system, so the next best thing is to do it in a match you think you're going to win.
Which of our players would have started for the Dutch team that beat us? That includes the 26 that were taken, as well as any you think were left off. No injured players please.
From @jaykoz3 % of minutes for the U.S. by active MLS players by WC and how far the team got: 1998 - 63.1% - Group Stage 2002 - 45.8% - QF 2006 - 32.3% - Group Stage 2010 - 18.5% - R16 2014 - 34.6% - R16 2022 - 10.6% - R16 So you are saying these MLS conspiracies are true, even though MLS players received the lowest number of minutes in WC play since MLS began. I am not convinced by your argument.
Clearly Tyler Adams over Marten de Roon, or McKennie if not. Very possibly Matt Turner though obvious LVG liked the unique aspects Noppert brought. Maybe you change the shape to get Pulisic in there who is a better version of Steven Bergwijn. Daley Blind is a grizzled pro who fits perfectly in that setup and is never getting dropped but I'd probably rather have Robinson. And Dest is awesome but alas Denzel Dumfries is probably a bit more awesome. The Dutch aren't a better team because everyone is elevated man-for-man (as opposed to, say, England where that is true), they just have a couple of superstars and are very tactically coherent as a unit and very well coached. That could be us!
2014 being a relative increase is interesting, though I'm sure that's almost entirely accounted for by Bradley and Dempsey playing all but like 5 minutes of that tournament having both recently returned to MLS. If for the sake of argument you categorized those guys as non-MLS would 2014 fit the trend line? (Gosh, I had totally forgotten Brad Davis started against Germany.)
They are a better team man for man. You came up definitively with only 1 U.S. starter to insert into the Dutch line up! Everyone else was a "maybe" or "probably" - no, the Dutch are not on the level of England, but they are a step ahead of us quality wise - especially when it comes to finishing. I don't like how we lost, I don't agree with coaching decisions made during the match, and on our days we can beat the Dutch. I thought we had a chance this time! But to bsky's post I quoted, there is no magic 26 player roster available and coaching upgrade that would have consistently gotten us farther into the tournament. And for the record, I don't want Berhalter back. Coaches should be one cycle and done, unless they overachieve significantly. Berhalter met the basic goal, time for someone else.
Interesting point. The SUM stuff potentially reduces some of it, but don't think it dies down completely and the NASL is definitely behind us. Not sure why you pro/rel has died down or call it zealotry. There quite a few very active groups of people who actually make a lot of good points. I had been looking at more narrowly. There are quite a bit of people who never thought twice about MLS who have grown to actively dislike it. These are long time USMNT and soccer fans. Maybe not a big deal but feels like it to me since it is what I am close to and experienced.
Good question. But the point of my post is it is absurd to believe Berhalter was hired only to further MLS's goals (Android cat's conspiracies), when in the end, he gave fewer minutes to MLS players than any previous coach. Unless it was some reverse psychology conspiracy thing, I find it highly unlikely.
Very few people actively dislike MLS. Why would they? They may not be interested in MLS and may prefer watching the EPL, but MLS engenders indifference not hate. Please point me to the waves of people who actively dislike MLS and their reasoning for that animus.
Wait, people don't think i can have an opinion that Aaron Long or Paul Arriola aren't good enough after watching them play 1500+ minutes because I am not in practice but you want to know how I would restructure a dysfunctional non-profit that overseas vast group of constituents with differing wants and needs that includes a group of billionaires all while being a member of a corrupt organization? You people are weird.