Nice going Greg, you wanker. You screwup wase worse the the Goose's. At least his pass moved a few feet before it was intercepted. Hope you enjoyed your career with the nats cause I NEVER want to see either you or Klien playing for the US again. Berhalter was in over his head all day. So was Gibbs and Klien. We were Pathetic
This was Gibbs's 1st start with the National team, I think he showed some real promise. But Greg, man, if it hadn't been for a German hand and a blind Scottish ref, you might be viewed differently. However, either cut the crapness or retire from the international scene.
Regisesque That was dreadful. At least fake like you were pushed and fall down, like Regis did in Italy last year.
Well not only are you incredibly short-sighted (if we ditched every player who made a boneheaded play we'd have none left), but you're also blind. It wasn't a back pass, he got ridden off the ball. Still a bad play, but it wasn't a pass.
Re: Re: Greg "the Goose" Berhalter [R] whatever. Berhalter's was the bonehead play of the match. hard to know what happens without it happening, but we know what happened with it. he has to get rid of the ball in that situation. as for Gibbs, i'm willing to be patient. several miscues on touches/trappes early on, but seemed to settle down a little. this was his 1st start, and it was Brazil. understandable that he would be very nervous. he may end up not making it, but it shouldn't be over this game.
Okay, here is the biggest mistake that Arena made: Berhalter looked REALLY bad playing against NZ several weeks back. A fluke? Who knows. Against Turkey, he was SINGLEHANDEDLY, and I do mean SINGLEHANDEDLY responsible for letting the second goal through. Out of all of the people on this roster, INCLUDING Califf, I thought for certain that the one player who would not be on the field would be Berhalter. Nope, Goal Brazil. That, was a big, fat, obvious personnel mistake on Arena's part.
I am angry at that guy whose name I won't say. Damn, just plain dumb, and then to give up on the play and watch Cherundolo and Gibbs try to save your ass instead of doing it yourself? Shameful. As Agoos' horrid WC ended his career, that guy better show up the next time he's in a USMNT uni or not show up again. Gibbs did settle down, and played well. Much better than Vanney. Also, he plays center back for St. Pauli (did 2 years ago at least), and could have played for "that guy" instead, with either Vanney, Hejduk or Convey on the left. 'Dolo looked confident (enough) out there.
First of all i watched the game, but the title of the thread makes the end result a bit obvious....Yes, it was a stupid mistake and yes, from time to time we make those w/o consequences. What really hurt me the most was watching a team that had no reaction, no clear plan on how to get back on the scoreboard...Wasn't our lineup supposed to be an improvement on the one vs. Turkey? Also Brazil did not do anything special that should have stopped us from attacking with more frequency that we did today...So we have a game left against what almost certainly will be Cameroon's reserves (already through)...I really hope we can save face there
My initial reaction was "I never want to see him playing again for the USMNT". I was really really disappointed with this because I was looking forward to a great tactical 1-0 game but the 1 ended up on the wrong side. I thinking about playing in Costa Rica without our top 11 available during WC quals and wanted to be impressed by our ability to give up possesion and prevent scoring over 90 minutes. I have to say nonetheless, that this crop is much more capable than the squads we had during 2002 WC quals since those squads could not shut down anyone for more t han 10-15 minutes. There is progress. After calming down, I thought back to a very insightful comment I read earlier on these boards that essentially said that Berhalter is great at defending in the air. This really makes a lot of sense to me because those are the situations where he has stood out in the past. The other role he has managed is playing infront of a back 3 as a man marker. As the last central defender he lacks foot speed period. If Boca or Pope (or Mastroeni or Califf) had lost that ball, most times Adriano would not have gotten a chance to put in his own rebound.
I think these two matches definetively answers several questions about our national team. We are still very reliant upon several individual players which are the foundation of our team. MLS defenders are fundamentally ill prepared to cope with international quality football. Finally, we have yet to come close to replacing Pope, or Sanneh in our defensive lineup. Brazil controlled possession today because we lacked a player that had the ability and vision to distribute in the middle (Reyna), and therefore we were backpeddling or playing long balls to the flanks all day. I have been impressed with Beasley's overall game over the past two games tho, he has matured both offensively and defensively IMO, and is undoubtedly destined for Europe. Berhalter and Califf are both crap, but that hasnt changed.
Berhalter doesn't need to play at this level thats for sure. There are very few MLS defenders that can play at this level. One that comes to mind is Eddie Pope.
God, if Berhalter can play in Europe... (complete the sentence) A) Just make MLS an extension of UEFA, we'd have a European Cup by now B) Never mind that Howard's leaving, Celta Vigo's calling about Lisi C) Freddy Adu really IS the next Pele D) (fill in your own, there are so many to choose from)
If Berhalter hadn't given up on the play, Adriano still might not have gotten a chance to put in the rebound. Berhalter stopped running when the first shot was taken.
Exactly, that was the culmination of a circus of errors by Berhalter, but the worst part was that he gave up on the play...stopped chasing Adriano, and as a result there was nobody to defend him on the rebound. Howard bailed him out, Berhalter should have been there to clear out the rebound, not watching from 25 yards out (he actually jogged AWAY from the play?) Am I wrong?
At last, a voice of reason. Berhalter is very good at what he does best, playing a big, physical forward and winning balls in the air (e.g. Vieri). The problem was that Brazil and Turkey don't play that way, they play mostly on the ground and use speed to create. In these situations, Berhalter's lack of speed is exposed. It has been mentioned in the past that one of Arena's strengths is putting players in situations where they have clearly designated roles which utilize their strengths. I don't think he is doing a very good job of this in this tournament.
as I posted in a new thread, Arena clearly said before this tournament that he was NOT going to play his best team and go for wins.He said he was primarily going to use these games for player evealuation. I think this is what he meant. If Arena learns who CAN'T cut it, then it was a great tournament.
I noticed him getting beat on those as well. Plus: Bocanegra's even better at it than Berhalter because Bocanegra has a vertical leap. If Berhalter's skill set consists entirely of winning high balls, methinks sticking Jim Curtin back there would work just as well. I'm not seeing it, and the lack of effort is troubling.
Re: Re: Greg "the Goose" Berhalter [R] Hey the boy is showing what a EUROLEAGUE could do for an american young soccer players, I hope Heydude get cure with a good inmersion on MLS for couple of seasons....
I was very disappointed in Berhalter after the match, Arena too. I just can't believe that he would start on the back line after playing crappy against Turkey and even NZ, as someone said before. I fully thought Mastroeni would take his role in the back. He just looks lost out there. And again, as someone already noted, when he is beaten, he just stops and watches his marker. Also in the Turkey game, when Tuncay maneuvered around howard to slot it into the open net, instead of running like hell to the goal to clean up any loose balls that might get through howard, he just stood there and watched! If for some reason does want or absolutely needs to use Berhalter, he should have used a 3 man sweeper system with Berhalter as a man marker and someone with speed to clean up his mess. If Bruce again uses Berhalter against Cameroon, I will have lost all confidence in him.