And spread across a brief debut in Summer '22, a last chance hail mary to win a WC slot in the september '22 ---- show window, then no appearances until fall '23, at which point he became a regular bench player and occasional starter during the disastrous run of windows for the entire team in September, October, November, March and June of '23 and '24. 15 or 16 caps seems like a lot until you dig into how it worked out in terms of when and usage. That doesn't change the fact that he stunk in them or excuse it, but it does help to explain what was happening as the team slowly quickly broke down in '23-'24.
No excuse. 545 simply isn't much. And a player who continues to excel in UCL is going to get more opportunities with the National Team. The reality is very few players have looked good with the US who are 39th! on the elo for a reason.
Pulisic plays a playmaker role for the US anyway. I'm not sure why folks are so entirely deadset on the playmaker being one guy in the center of the field, but Pochettino's 4231 or whatever we want to call it wasn't that anyway. Pulisic and Aaronson (or Aaronson and Tillman) played much more like dual playmakers playing in the half spaces -- very similar roles except obviously Pulisic would touch the ball much more. We didn't see much of the latter two because we couldn't get the ball forward much in possession, against Mexico but the ball ran through Pulisic in the game against Panama, much like it usually did under Berhalter. It seems a good spot for him to me -- he's comfortable in that half space, and it allows him to still use his speed and his ability to both get the endline and cut into the box while still making him the on ball focal point of the offense. Playing him at "CAM" under the last Poch setup really just means moving him to the right side ... okay? Not much different aside from defensively. We could put him there and play Wright on the left, but you are removing an option to come back and help with the build up in that case.
Wright, Paredes, Aaronson, Pulisic, Reyna, and Weah can all play the wing. A variety of skillsets can be utilized in the position. It's not all about dribbling.
There's no reason to give up on Tillman, who is still 22. 545 minutes isn't a lot, whether it is Tillman or anyone else. And I also hate when we use caps instead of minutes knowing damn well a bunch of them were for like four minutes. That all said, though, every player did not look like crap for the last year and certainly every player didn't look as bad as Tillman has at times. I'm not going to get into the fiftieth iteration of the coaching argument, but the reality is that if Tillman were really a star ... he would have played much better than he did. Pulisic didn't look like trash. Adams couldn't play a long time, but he didn't look like trash. Weah and Dest didn't look like trash when they weren't committing idiotic red cards. And so on. The pass we give to players is just kind of silly. Doubly so when we scream about accountability.
Adams and Pulisic are vets in the team. The team is 39th on the ELO. Very few have been playing well. It is what it is.
Yep, 10 of his 16 caps were less than a half hour long, meaning sub on's into broken games, or close outs, and in either case, the game model approach was donezo. He's had basically 6 total matches were he played more than 28 minutes ever. It's not nothing, but its not much of something either. It's explanatory, but also not a great excuse for figuratively rarely if ever impacting a game (I think Hoya found an impact in one match on the lead up to a goal, and as I mentioned earlier, he had the hockey assist via winning a long ball, and sending an outlet pass to a streaking Pulisic I think (or was it Jedi) who got the assist on Pepi's late finish to make it 2-0, but that's it, all time, in the shirt).
I do think if we can get a core of Balo/Pepi at striker, Pulisic, Weah, at WF, Reyna, McKennie, Adams, Tillman, and Musah for CM, and Jedi and Dest at fullback, with just JAG level goalkeeping, we will win the summer Gold Cup pretty easy. But each core guy you pull out of the group had a potential domino layer impact in certain cases (the attack doesn't function properly without Jedi, Reyna, or Weah, Pulisic, Reyna, and McKennie are really the only guys who can create goals out of nothing, the defense falls down multiple orders of magnitude in quality without Adams, and especially with no Adams and no healthy McKennie, if Dest or Weah are missing, and especially if both are missing, the Right side of the attack is utterly useless etc).... We'll have injuries, no doubt, in March, and this summer, but we can survive a lot of them w/o multiple layer problems, but there are some players in particular who clearly have cascade effects, I'd argue they are Jedi, Weah, Reyna and Adams above all, and when you combine those guys with certain others, the effect can be quadruply bad instead of simply worse. We aren't 39th in the world, there's no doubt of that in my mind, or even 29th, or 20th in my view, but take enough injuries, and have the mental makeup of the team fall off like it clearly did in '23-'24, and we can easily play more like a 30th caliber team than a 15th-20th. That combo of injuries, Berhalter II, mentality collapse, really wrecked the team the past year (along with probably other factors) but I remain relatively sanguine about most of those issues if the injury issues of the core cacade effect players go away.
I don't give him a pass, I've said he has sucked, but I do think part of the explanation for his failure has been when he's played, and how dysfunctional the team has been during the majority of his PT (9/22 was a total ---- show where the attack was completely and utterly worthless and caused a board wide melt down here, the Uzbek game was complete ---, the home and home with T&T was horrific, the Jamaican NL SF was so bad it felt like the refs felt pitty for us, and gave us one last corner to spare our blushes. The attack was non-functional for virtually the entirety of Berhalter II. The only windows where it functioned against non-comedic attacks were: well zero. There weren't any. At best you can say, they throttled a bad Oman and Ghana, they were spry against Germany even though they were thumped, they were okay against Brazil, and not horrible against Bolivia, that's it). It doesn't excuse it, I just think it helps explain it, but it doesn't fully explain it. A guy with 25 goal contributions and some thrilling performances in '22, '23, and '24 should not be totally neutralized consistently against absolute utter garbage, which was a huge chunk of the opponents we played with him in '22, '23, and '24. He's sucked. Let's figure out why, and how to get him to provide a quality impact. I'm not looking to explain or excuse away everything, or pretend sucking wasn't sucking, but I do think its largely explicable, and will probably change under Poch, I hope anyway. As for players that were largely blameless in this swoon, I'd probably point to Reyna, Pepi, Pulisic and Jedi. Reyna's been a goal contribution machine, Pepi ran super hot throughout '23 before cooling off last spring and summer, Pulisic was consistently reliable for really the first time since probably he debuted eight years ago (he's always been good, but I can't recall him consistently producing every seeming window like this since he was a teenager, until winter '22 through summer '24), and as we've learned, Jedi has hit God Mode for LB's the past few years. After them it's a legit drop off to other guys who were generally hit and miss like Balo (when Reyna was around), McKennie (when he was right and mentally in gear), Weah (in spots) etc. But as a team, the attack was largely broken during '23-'24 after Berhalter arrived, the only exceptions being beat downs against Oman and Ghana.
In part. I'm not sure I agree with your evaluations of those games -- it's hard for a 3-0 or 4-0 win to be a total shitshow, for example. But of course, the circumstances will always play a role. I just think the T&T match at home is the perfect encapsulation of why a lot has to be put on him. It was very close to an A team lineup with the exception of Tillman and Paredes taking the winger roles. Reyna was at CAM, Balogun at striker, Dest at RB. We controlled the ball. Tillman was playing in a spot he often plays for PSV -- in the half space, on the edge of the box. He had Reyna and Dest feeding him. People want to pretend that he's been put in terrible situations, but this was exactly where you should use Malik Tillman. He didn't have to progress the ball -- they sat back. He had super skilled players playing off him. And he couldn't control a ball. He got bullied by the T&T defenders, who are not small but Malik ain't exactly Brenden Aaronson here. We lost possession after possession with Reyna and Dest -- his club teammate! -- trying to play one-twos with him. Which is something he's awesome at for T&T! In fact, our offensive ineptitude that game was pretty much just the front line being unable to receive a pass (Malik, Flo) or even make a correct run (Paredes). We pulled Tillman and Paredes and scored three goals and had 2-3 penalty shouts in that time. Putting in Pepi and Aaronson and basically having players who could at least receive a pass from Reyna unlocked a whole lot. Some of that is luck, but a whole lot of that was execution. I don't think we do anyone any favors by putting that all on a coach. Especially when players like Reyna and Dest had no issues with execution in that game. I don't want to give up on Malik or anything and I hope Pochettino both finds good ways to use him and to motivate him ... ... but he's not on the same level as our core even with good club matches. Which is where a lot of people put him. If Berhalter was pulling everyone down, players like Pulisic, McKennie, Adams, Reyna, Dest, etc., all managed to play very well despite the anchor. If they can overcome it and he can't, they he's not as good. By definition. If he needs to be used in such a specific way to create value that being played in his primary position in his primary role in the same spot on the field is just not quite right ... then he's not as good as someone who excels in multiple roles or wherever you stick him. He's young, inexperienced and talented. Of course, you keep giving him chances. But I we have pretty clear evidence to date that he's not as good as our best players.
Oh, I know, but I look at Oman, and Ghana, and it's lovely and all, but Ghana was in a death spiral at the time and Oman's run in WCQ was donezo at that point and they were playing like ----. It may be a bit cherry picking, but the big games in the Berhalter II windows were the Uzbeks, Germany, T&T home and Home, the NL games and the Copa America, and they were either disappointing, or sucked in every single one of them save the NL Final, and the Brazil match friendly. I can give the team a nod and say they did what was necessary against Oman and Ghana and more, but even at that, it underlined something I noticed with Berharlter's NAT's that basically persisted over the entirety of his time with the team: No Clean Windows pretty much ever. Maybe March '19? I can't think of any other ones beyond pounding on Canada and Cuba in November of '19. When you dig under the hood you see that Summer '19 was a mess, then fall '19 you had the El Tri and away Canada hell matches, post covid reboot against Wales was hideous, roadies vs Northern Ireland and Jamaica weren't bad, but the Northern Ireland game wasn't great either, the NL June '21 window stunk against Honduras, the Gold Cup was an uggfest with great goal keeping and clutch play, but, still an uggfest. Every WCQ window featured a step on a rake match or two: Window 1 was just entirely a disaster beyond 1 half in Honduras. Window 2 had Panama away, window 3 had Jamaica away, window 4 had Canada away, window 5 had the second half against Costa Rica, Summer '22 had the horror against El Salvador, Fall '22 had the uggfests against Japan and Saudi, the WC had bad second halves in 3 of 4 matches, and 1 match pratfall against the Dutch, after he came back in '23, we stunk it up against the Uzbeks in his first window, Germany in his 2nd, both sides of the T&T home and home, the jamaica match of the final NL window, and then the Colombia, Panama, and Uruguay matches of Copa America. It was utterly bizarre but true, and kind of points to both a Berhalter issue, and a player mentality and focus issue. They were totally and completely incapable of consistently playing well in any window virtually ever, as I underline, i think they only did it twice, both times in 2019. Bizarre as hell.
In regards to Tillman, I think this is largely irrelevant. He underperformed his teammates in most of these games. I don't think there's anything special here; I think he's a young, talented, improving player that isn't as good as his stronger supporters nor as bad as his detractors. Which seems wishy washy, but I just find the idea that club in completely different spaces overrides the differences between players that we see repeatedly for the US lacking. He will play better for us, but he's also not Pulisic. On the rest of it ... I think this is about expectations relative to the talent level. I do think we clearly underperformed over the summer, and we were erratic much of the entire Berhalter era ... but I also think if we expected consistent domination AND consistent 3-0 scorelines against teams in that 50-100 range ... I don't think our talent level actually predicts that. Teams in our talent level are inconsistent against that level of comp pretty much by definition. Sometimes they dominate but barely win; sometimes they struggle but rack up 3 goals, sometimes they struggle and don't win; sometimes they dominate and then get a dumb red card. That's not to say we can't pick and choose and criticize on Berhalter. But I think if we're going down the road of criticizing 3-0 or 4-0 wins over teams ranked where Ghana and Oman are, we're acting like we are Germany or Argentina or something. And to also pretend that even the best teams don't have games like the T&T match at home that I've mentioned -- we dominated, they had no chances, we just took forever to score in terms of execution ... that's simply not true. Now, was our level of inconsistency too inconsistent? The overall performance lower? Certainly at the end, though I would argue not for most of his term. But we are not so talented that usual variance of performance doesn't show up. w
I think the reality that we never put a single consistent window together after 2019 is a shocking marker illustrating how something was wrong, period, and still is. I do not, and will never expect a team to dominate every single or most or even half of 2 and 3 game windows. But the fact that we couldn't even put together one set of back to back, or back to back to back windows EVER in five years? Its freaking nuts. Technically I'm fibbing a little. They did I think in March of '19 (I can't remember), and that November '19 window they absolutely smashed Canada and Cuba, so there you go, and some might say the B team Gold Cup in '21 was kind of a great window, even if it was w/a different set of players, and only had one crappy performance (the win against Canada). But after that, not one? Not one, in 2020, 2021, 2022, or 2023 or 2024 is flat out crazy to me. That's what alarms me. You'd think just on pure randomness alone they'd have some windows where they just finished off everyone and kicked butt, but there are no examples of that anywhere other than perhaps the post covid reboot window in March '21 where they were good against Jamaica and adequate against Northern Ireland. For me, w/the best talent we've ever had, period, I'd expect a window here, and a window there across years, being consistently good, from time to time, but the reality is it didnt really happen at all, w/one or two very particular exceptions. Crazy to me. But off topic, so I'll shut up about it.
I don't disagree in general on the inconsistent effort/performance of the team -- that's one of the reasons why I would have let Berhalter go. But my point was more that if you are going to act like beating a two Top 100 teams 3-0 and 4-0 is not a window where we were consistently good, your standard for what a good game is is simply too strict. Despite the loss to the Netherlands, I think the World Cup qualifies -- no, we did not dominate, but we shouldn't have. That's kind of my point -- playing a team ranked near and closely winning is a good performance. You don't beat another similarly ranked team 3-0 very often. I think the Mexico-Jamaica window had two good games -- we only tied Jamaica because of a banger from Antonio. I don't fundamentally view that performance as underperformance for this team (especially given our general lack of health in these windows). I think we definitely were inconsistent. Sometimes for reasons we can't control -- the level of injuries. Sometimes because of a questionable choice on rotation. And sometimes because the team just seemingly couldn't get up for stuff. But I also think teams our level have a lot of those issues. The last half year of it was definitely a real decline and has seen our ELO drop from the low 20s to wherever it is now. But despite all that inconsistency ... our ELO was pretty damn close to our talent, especially when you consider that it has a TON of B team results built in. Which means despite the variability ... the performances still were right there.
Against T&T, right-footed Tillman played on the right and left-footed Paredes on the left. T&T defended wide and deep. This left both players with open shots from the weak foot. Both botched their attempts. The smart thing to do would've been to have the players switch sides. Instead Berhalter persisted, until the subs were made. Aaronson's only relevance in all of that was of playing on the side that allowed him to cut inside to shoot with his strong foot.
LOL, you are at least consistent. Tillman couldn't even receive the ball well enough for shooting on whatever foot to matter, but I think it's cute you think that was the issue. And if the line is "an attacking player who often plays wing can't play on his strong footed side" ... well, again, not that good a player. Weirdly, right footed players get their shots off from the right all the time.
look at time as abstractly as you want, hes been in the team (training and matches) over what, ten camps? over more than 2 years, under 5 different managers. this isnt a guy learning a new phone system. we used like a hundred different players, different setups, etc- it hasnt been a stable environment for anyone. but dozens and dozens of those players have come in and given at least some relatively accurate account of themselves...except malik. weve seen seriously bad form/headspace (musah) and weve seen seriously bad players (sonora). weve seen guys who have "taken time to adjust" (cardoso)- even if theyre still super inconsistent weve seen a match/appearance or two that shows we should be investing the precious little time we have in them. malik has a run, that pass that time and delusional supporters. as far as im aware he has no "haters" who either take joy in his complete failure to contribute to the nats or dont see how good (and still very young) a player he is with psv, and in club moments before. hes been given chance after chance and not one of them added up to a good ten minute shift. we dont have 15 starting 70+ minute matches to get him and if he cant show anything in training or all 500 whatever minutes why should we? its non-sensical. the only overreaction is saying what hes shown with the nats justifies his place. if, after poch gets a look at all the cms/ams/narrow wingers/second strikers/whatevers he needs to see (having not seen half of the assumed world cup cm pool yet) he still wants to use a 7th spot on malik great. i dont know what this make-believe lifetime ban some of you imagine anyone wants even if it were a thing has to do with anything. and if malik is only capable of playing one role in one system with one set of teammates and thats not available with the national team then thats just tough luck...but we all know thats not remotely the case. he hasnt shown enough at any role, in any setup, with any teammates with the nats. look, maybe tyler and gio never (through the 26 world cup, to save anyone from thinking i literally mean until the end of recorded human history) get fit, maybe luca doesnt find some way back into the team, maybe we continue to be above guys like maloney, maybe we are stupid enough to toss guys like morris out for one bad match in his first 4 pseudo-first team matches (the other three being far better than any appearance by tillman) he can be a defensible choice. and hey- anyone is if you want it bad enough- you dont even need such a staggering disconnect between club/nt performance (before even getting to the relatively high level of club play). but tillman has shown less than wil trapp and jackson yueill for the nats, and its not due to a lack of time. that hes roughly 14 times the player the two of them combined are at the club level means absolutely nothing unless ive somehow wandered onto the psv forum. cause- unfortunately for any argument he is/should be a roster lock- things actually happen. and based on, you know, that reality of what hes actually done he deserves to be in the team exactly as much as alan sonora.
It's literally a direct response to your point that the issue was that they were both on their strong foot side.
Tilman sure inspires more than his fair share of crackpot tomes. In any event, more of the top players in the pool are now in form, which should enhance the performances of each player selected.
He’s sucked for us because he doesn’t want or can’t be a fulcrum, isn’t a real winger and isn’t a striker. He’s a technical player that doesn’t want to facilitate from the middle third. He wants to receive the ball in the half-space while facing goal. And he’s very, very good from there. Reyna is the only CM we have who is truly good on the ball and is able to both relieve pressure and progress from the middle third. Tillman needs one or more partners like that to lay the groundwork for attacking movement. It’s difficult to impossible to feed a player like Tillman from the wing, from CB or DM. The problem is that Reyna’s weaknesses don’t really allow a player like Tillman to occupy the central midfield with him for long stretches of time. Tillman is a niche player. When given defensive responsibilities deeper in the formation he doesn’t shy away from them and can be quite effective, but he doesn’t adapt his approach on the ball much if at all to accommodate that deeper position. He’s publically been very clear about his preferences on the pitch. He’s a sub for us at best.
There is a danger of overanalyzing every touch and every minute of a young player's career. It takes time to settle into a new team, and combine that with the culture shock and the stress of a huge life/career decision.... maybe we should chill out on the banishing a young player who clearly has bags of talent idea, and provide him with the environment he needs to excel and improve instead.