He's been given free reign. He was asked to play one of the high touch CAM roles in the fall, and he didn't really step up. I think he should be given more chances, but no one is holding Malik back except perhaps Malik. When he's with PSV, he doesn't need to go get the ball or create the dangerous situation. Someone gets him the ball in the dangerous situation. If he waits for that with the US, and especially with this GC roster, he may be waiting forever. None of this is impossible, but I continue to find it bizarre that people can't admit that maybe Malik needs to step up himself. He's got a to play a different game with the US to be effective.
Malik has the same height, build and similar movement as Alli. It's pretty clear when you look at their stats and videos of their plays. I'm sure that's what Poch is talking about.
Yes, AND he spends most of the quote talking about how Dele Alli was an absolute killer out there; a competitive monster who was so much so they had to tell him to turn it down in training because he was close to hurting someone. And then he literally says that if Malik competed like Dele, he'd be that good. I feel like I am taking crazy pills here. Most of the quote is about competitive fire. Yes, there's compliments in it, but Poch talked about that IF for most of the quote for a reason. Hint: that reason is he's trying to light a fire under Malik.
Malik's personality is not going to change, nor should it. The question for me is why is a certain segment of posters focused on changing Malik into say Jermaine Jones. I don't see those same posters demanding Jack McGlynn turn into JJJ?
I don't want him to be Jermaine Jones; you're the only one who has brought up him. Poch brought up Alli, an attacking mid, and I brought up Clint, also mostly an attacking midfielder. More importantly, I simply want him to be effective for the US. I think to do that, and in order to reach his potential, he's going to need to be more aggressive. We don't have the ability to get him the ball in the same places he's used to; in order to be as influential, he's going to have to get it more regularly, and that's a change from how he best plays with PSV. Fairly simple. No Jermaine Jones references needed.
lol, I don't agree w/you entirely about the guy, I'm much higher on him than you, but yeah, if you watch sports enough, that quote translates too: "He's has the potential to be truly great, but he has to WANT IT." I don't really think there's any other way to read it. He's acknowledging the talent he has, but questioning his ability so far to turn that potential into actual performance in the shirt. It's his job to pull it out of him though, whereas I think you think its Malik's. I've seen more than enough coaches with players like this and nearly all of the great coaches figured out the buttons to push.
And this is an attempt to push that button for sure. I'm decently high on Malik. Of course, I'm nearly always more in the middle of player assessment. I was one of his bigger supporters when people said he sucked after his first couple of matches, and now that he's hype king, I'm playing the other side. Players are rarely as good or bad as the vocal portions of the fanbase think. I just get tired of the idea that he plays no role in his lack of performance for the US ... or that we should ignore that and crown him based on club play. And so I'm more critical than most. I mean, we've seen him play for the US. There's just so many assessments that ignore that. He has oodles of potential. Great physical tools, excellent skills. Good IQ. We'll see if the switch flips. If it doesn't, I think he's just a guy who is going to much more successful playing robin to other people's batman. I'm not sure the US is ever going to be good enough to see the best of a player like that. We'll see. Despite what it may seem, I am rooting for him. I think this Gold Cup could be good. Luna is clearly the type of mentality to be more assertive, but given our lack of ball progression generally, it could be a nice balance of being able to play off Luna and needing to get a bit more assertive.
I think one of the gaps here is also is that while I think of one Malik's improvement areas is clearly mentality in regards to the USMNT, I don't mean that in a sense that he's deficient or (the bad version of ) unplayable, etc. There's just a lot of folks who take that commentary to the extreme, and then argue against it. I don't think he's mentally weak or some kind of reject. I don't think he's a slacker. His style of play isn't unusual. It's only really an issue in the context of the role he's being asked to play more with the US. There's a lot of players who aren't the alpha dog. That's okay. He's certainly not the only guy on the team that way. It's certainly a bit harder when you play a central attacking position to not have that, and I think it's very likely even harder when it is international play, which has a lot less choreographed team play. I don't think he's a slacker or doesn't want to win. I just think that this iteration of the USMNT could use a more aggressive mentality out of our attackers than he's displayed so far. And I think that's one of the reasons for the gap in his performance at club and internationally. I hope he kills it at the GC.
Dempsey, Jones, and Dele Alli all have a very similar large chip on shoulders, hyper confrontational, borderline anger management personalities. They all grew up in very similar backgrounds more or less. That is just not either Malik or Tim Tillman. Just not who they are or will be. If Poch wants Malik to be more ball dominant, or more selfish, or take more offensive risks he just has to work with him and be very clear that is what he wants.. Malik is very coachable and plays within whatever game plan his coaches give. Just look at comments from all his prior managers at Bayern II, Rangers, and now PSV.
Tillman's numbers over the past two seasons in starts in UCL and starts against the Eredivisie Top-6* in league and cup. Left Wing: 4 Games 0 Goals 1 Assist CAM: 2 Games 1 Goal 0 Assists CM: 14 Games 6 Goals 3 Assists Small sample size for LW and CAM, but his production at CM has been incredible. And just for this past season, his numbers at were 8 Starts 6 Goals 1 Assist. I suppose staying a season could help to improve his attacking passing game... Berhalter is on 4 goals 6 assists in his last 11 matches. He and Tillman could make for a nice Gold Cup pairing in 433 with Adams at the single-pivot. * = the teams that finished the league in the top-6
Not sure where that data on Malik is from, but that stuff is difficult to categorize by position given the fluid nature of the modern game. As an aside, those numbers are ridiculous for Berhalter. He’s a trailing 8 who typically joins the play late. Those guys don’t usually produce like that. Also notable for Berhalter is that he is an excellent free kick delivery player, with an excellent trajectory, precision, and repeatability. He’s a free kick machine, which shows in his assist numbers. He’s a really good player.
You are much higher on Berhalter's potential than I am. After all the hype I have watched his last 4 matches and what I see is a player who is about where Acosta and Roldan were at the same age. Acosta did have international class tactical knowledge, mentality, and tools to be effective at the international level. Have to see how Berhalter looks against the top of CONCACAF. Berhalter has 1G and 4 A in MLS and his ststs are heavily influenced by the fact that he takes all Vancouver's set pieces.
I'm definitely just drinking heavily from the small sample size trap cup. Dude has 10 goal contributions in a couple of months, 1700 mins or so. His best season so far, entire season, is 6 goal contributions (admittedly only about 2500 mins), to me this just screams bull---, a classic small sample size trap scenario. The only thing that makes me thing it's possible he could be developing is the incremental improvements you see each season: Zilch in 1000 or so minutes apiece in '21 and '22, then 6 goal contributions in '23, 8 in '24, and now 10 so far in '25. So the growth lines are there, but man, jumping to a projected what, 25-30 goal contributions if he wasn't called away to national duty this year? That's not remotely normal growth, that screams "something odd happened". I could see 12, or 15, but 30 if he were to stay healthy, not be called away, and play out the season? That's more than double or really almost triple expectations. Screams "small sample size" madness. But yeah, could it hurt to call him up? Probably not, the window was already butchered so thoroughly by injury absences and CWC, that I almost don't care, I'd just rather call up players I think are actually good, or potentially good, rather than in the midst of a hot streak.
Berhalter’s argument is not just statistical. He passes the eye test very well. This is a good player coming into his prime and making a significant jump in the way he affects games. His pedigree is very good and he’s a coaches son. The idea that players like Berhalter should be omitted while they are making jumps in performance is the kind of stale thinking that led to missing the 2018 World Cup. The team should be open to competition at all times.
I like to see young players get opportunities if they can contribute at the international level. Do you think Berhalter is GC ready? Is he able to step on the field and play if Adams goes down? Is he a better option than Eneli? Is he playing better than SJ's Beau Leroux who is 3 years younger (2G 3A)? I don't know, seems premature to me but we will see.
I just see Berhalter as 'next man up'. Berhalter is an 8 so wouldn't specifically replace Adams's role.
Maybe Malik is just one of those players we have that are great at a high quality club, obviously class players, producing for an extended period of time, but just never put it together in a U.S. shirt, just like… … Oh, right, that’s not how reality actually works. (You know for a fact Timmy Chandler is a whole different thing)
Or he just made an outlier stat jump that doesn't reflect where he is. This is exactly the catastrophizing people normally associate with me and my chicken little takes. My view, and a quite reasonable one, is that what he could be in the midst of, is small sample size trap" simple as that, and that is, statistically speaking, the most likely scenario. As I said in my post, I don't have a problem with him being called up, the window is trashed anyway, so who cares, but I also think that when a guy with no pedigree, age 24, suddenly does something for like 2+ months that he's never done ever before in his entire career, its far far more likely that its randomness and a hot streak, than it is a sudden transition to greatness. I have no dog in this fight, it would be nothing but good news if suddenly we've got another depth player whose actually good, that would be fantastic. But history and math says, this is just a small sample size hot streak and nothing more. 90-95 times out of a hundred, at minimum, that's what this is. Otoh, if it isn't, more power to him and Poch, I don't really care, nobody's made some huge claim to a spot that he's currently taking as far as I can see, I've got no problem with him being called up beyond a rational consideration of what he's doing versus where he's been and his age. I have no problem with him being in, I don't really care, throw out gigs to guys on hot streaks, to high performing players, to vets whatever, don't care, if they're hungry, they want it, and they're doing something, that's fine. Do I think there are better options? Absolutely. Do I think he's likely to continue to be "this guy", absolutely not, but does he have as much right for an edge spot as anyone else? Maybe, and I'm not about to lay down in front of him and block his way. But yeah, even for the catastrophizer of catastrophizer, ME, the above take was a bit, I don't know, strong, to attach the call up, or non-call up, or relative strength of a player's performance to be awarded with a call up and cap, to Couva, lol. Couva's a monster with a thousand fathers, and Sebastian Berhalter had ---- all to do with any of it, metaphorically, or literally.
In the real world Malik is leading PSV in tackles and interceptions, even more so in UCL play. He goes and gets the ball better than anyone else on PSV. He has been lauded for that fact by his manager and by Earnie Stewart.
I'm skeptical of Berhalter's transition to the national game until I see it, personally. He should get a shot, but as you note, it's a very new thing that he's this good. But that said, he's been really, really good. Not just in goal production, which can be very variable, but in the underlying metrics, in advanced metrics, and by people simply watching and scouting. I think it is VERY likely he's taken some amount of step forward -- not odd for a dude who just turned 24 and found a good situation. It's that latter that I am a bit hesitant on. There's a long list of players who look great and there's a lesser known but really good guy breaking out next to him, and in Berhalter's case, that's Pedro Vite. Dude is going to be sold soon, because he's just a fantastic all-around player. When that happens ... it's likely Gauld comes back and Sebastian has to take Vite's place. We'll see how that goes. Either way, he deserves a shot.
If only there was a stat that was predictive of future G and A in a smaller sample than G and A itself.
If you criticize Malik Tillman you hate Poch "He {Malik Tillman} is one of the most talented players I think that we have in USA." "He {Malik Tillman} is one of the most talented players I think that we have in USA." @USMNT's Mauricio Pochettino has high praise for Malik Tillman after his Gold Cup brace vs Trinidad and Tobago 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Wd4a7NbBZz— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) June 16, 2025 Malik Tillman in the USMNT's win over T&T:◉ 9.3 FotMob rating ✅◉ Man of the match 💫◉ 2 goals ⚽️◉ 4 chances created 💥◉ 2/2 (100%) accurate long balls 🎯◉ 2/2 (100%) tackles won ⚔️◉ 8 recoveries ⚡️◉ 5/8 (63%) duels won 🦾#usmnt pic.twitter.com/G8tgL3oJJF— USMNT Report 🇺🇸🇹🇷 (@USMNTReport) June 16, 2025 An amazing feeling for Malik Tillman. pic.twitter.com/yV2o8mBZk9— U.S. Soccer Men's National Team (@USMNT) June 16, 2025
Bravo Malik and Pochettino as well. There is a budding special dynamic between those two. It’s quite public and visible, so hopefully the rest of these guys see what happens when people buy in: Pochettino can put them in position to grow and have success.