Does anyone remember what Wil Trapp did in the match? It's really hard for me to remember anything he has ever done with the National Team. His only action seems to be getting rid of the ball as quickly as possible, usually laterally or backward. This guy plays in the middle of the f-ing field, yet he is completely invisible!
There is definitely a lot you can question about Berhalter in terms of team selection and formations but, I really do not think the problem is "playing out the back". At this point playing out the back is basically a fundamental of the sport. You do not need to have the talent of Barcelona to play out of the back. Watch the European Qualifiers and the South American Qualifiers almost all the sides of playing out the back at this point. Just hoofing the ball against a high press just invites more pressure. And at this point most MLS/USDA academies are playing out the back. The players who grew up in other countries are used to this style of play. And the ones who were able to join foreign academies at young ages also know this style of play. Our young players are no longer trained in bunker ball. 1170154847515160576 is not a valid tweet id And isn't friendlies the time to work out your playing style instead of just trying to grind out results?
Sadly, a healthy Adams would have papered over a lot of these deficiencies folks have been rightly pointing out. The ability to win the ball, work in tight space and break pressure, doesn’t touch on the fact that he is also a good long passer. He would have dug the team out of holes several times last night. Breaking pressure takes movement and precise passing, but those passes only need to clear 20-30 yards. The movements just need to be quick and decisive. Watching the US team was like watching paint dry.
I'm starting to get the sense that Klinsmann and Berhalter are more similar than different in a key sense: they both outsmart themselves. They do it in different ways. Klinsmann did it with endless tinkering, and by changing the tactical plan at the last minute without training in the new plan at all. Berhalter does it by trying to force an overly complicated system on a national team with limited training time, and by trying to force square pegs into round holes. The result is the same: eleven individuals on the field rather than a team. Under both coaches, the USMNT has often looked like a pickup team where the players met five minutes before kickoff and are still learning each other's names.
The beauty of soccer is that it is simple. You always play to your strengths and keep it simple, every good team does this and sometimes strengths include building from the back. This set of players clearly cannot do that and trying to do so over and over and over again only frustrates, discourages and kills confidence. On top of that it discourages fans to the point of abandon!
In order to build from the back, we would need a team where every player had the ability of Pulisic. That is what France, Germany, England, Croatia and other world powers have. We aren’t there yet and shouldn’t pretend to be there it will only result in chaos and misery.
Two hilarious things to me: 1. Friendlies are the time to push and work on things. So yes, the team forced things out of the back. It's a friendly. 2. I love the "the players should refuse to come in" and "Dest is definitely picking the Netherlands now" as if Berhalter told Dest to get nutmegged and then give up on a ball or that Weston McKennie should be incensed at the coach after the poor game he had. I love both those players and think they will play a huge role for the US in the future. But pretending they didn't account for the primary errors that led to Mexico's first two goals is ridiculous.
With results like this, it won't take too long for the players to give up on this guy. I think you might already sense that in Pulisic, if you watch closely his body language on the field. Loose a few WCQ games and he's a gone man, just like Klinsi. This guy is so terrible, he doesn't even have a winning honey moon period like most coaches.
I'm all for preaching patience when the tactics are sound, and the coach shows enough flexibility to mold the team into a workable unit, not force them into some preconceived, overwrought notion of a team. Berhalter has shat the bed, and no amount of patience is going to fix him, just a hard look in the mirror. I'll forgo seeing him publicly self-flagellate, so long as he actually throws his preconceived notions in the waste bin. Poor play with flashes of brilliance coupled with plenty of mistakes can be understood. What can't be excused is a team that seems so clueless, makes fundamental errors and pursues a game plan that makes no sense given the field of teams standing in their way for the World Cup. What strikes me the most about Berhalter, as he is similar to Klinsmann in at least one respect, is the ready made lie that sounds plausible, "just give it time, we'll get there in a year or two." My concern is not about making it through the Hex, it's that he's setting the team up for another crash and burn at the World Cup. Hex games are survivable, the World Cup is pretty much do or die.
We have more than enough quality to build from the back against CONCACAF opponents who are not Mexico
With respect to this, I suspect USSF would have hired him even without Jay Berhalter's involvement. In retrospect, when they hired him, the soundbites sounded remarkably like the soundbites when Klinsmann was hired. There's probably several people at USSF who are susceptible to this kind of rhetoric about creating a system.
Is anyone surprised by this terrible take from this poster? How many times do we have to “force things”? It’s the same thing we tried to force in the Gold Cup FFS. I guess playing Trapp/Bradley as a regista is just something we’re trying too, eh?
??? The USMNT not a youth team. There is a difference between playing the ball out of the back and refusing to go direct even when the team is giving it to you. Also, we missed the WC. Every match will be analyzed.
doesn't make sense adams doesn't play the six like ggg thinks trapp/bradley play it. I get that ur throwing names out there but you did exactly what we need to stop doing and that is thowing random names out there hoping one of them magically solves everything. Holmes...lletget...pomykal...they aren't the magic fix. if zardes/trapp/zimmerman are on ur team and ur playing out the back mbappe could switch to the us and they still wouldn't score goals against decent teams. the us is 7/8 players away not a single guy in the midfield.
I keep reading excuses about the youth of our team, and it's a friendly. If the youth is prone to mistakes, why are they being (briefly) coached into a high-risk setup? It's the coaches job to put them into the best position possible for success. Not only has he not done that, but it feels like no progress has been made in friendlies/gold cup games. I hate using that word 'progress' for a national team, because it shouldn't be tactically complicated like a club team, but isn't that what Berhalter is trying to do? Now we have some talented youth going back to their clubs with lower confidence, and no visible direction going forward.
As any casual observer may have noticed, there were some terrible tactical instructions given to the back line. Beerholder is developing players to play his tactically nieve style. Dest is a right back, starting his first match with the US in his first appearance with the US in camp, so let's make sure we place him far up, wide, and isolate him on the LEFT. That will work, because the system tells me so. I will put cannon on the right, way right and wide and isolate him on the touchline. He has two cynder blocks where his feet should be, but ok, he can connect those passes with the CB without a problem even though I've stranded him on Kawai. Now the biggest development in this match and it is amazing Beerholder had this brainwave because I guarantee you no one elese on earth has had it, I'm going to make LONG and ZIMMERMAN, my two power forwards, I'm going to have them run the break for me, isolated, and pass out of the back against players who are quicker, smarter, more ruthless, more experienced and far, far better on the ball. It will work. It has to. This was James Worthy and Abdul Jabbar running the break against steve nash and john stockton. WTF was he thinking? Why even think it to begin with. If you are going to play power forwards at CB, get the ball into a position where their POWER is a strength not a weakness. This was such a terrible idea conceived by a man completely unaccountable and unassailable in his job. This is no longer hte USMNT. And I guess the time has come to say goodbye, probably for all of you. This is the US only branch of the MLS marketing department.
At least against Uruguay we certainly aren’t going to play out of the back so even with the second string out there they will look tons better than against Mexico.
A good, not great just good, coach will bring in as much youth as possible early in any cycle and place player around them and place them in positions to succeed. While there will be players that do not succeed in this situation their failure will not be so glaring as to appear fatal. A bad coach may also bring in youth but he will place them in situations where any mistake will be punished to the maximum possible. What Greg B. has done is place much of our youth in a position where any mistake gets exposed and punished to the maximum and that teaches nothing except how to fail. Even our best young players are being played in such a way as to maximize weaknesses and minimize strengths. Our national team is being trained to be good losers but I, for one, do not want "good losers." I want winners that when they happen to lose are mad at themselves, the opponent and even the coaching staff. It is possible to be "mad" and use that to build upon but being good losers only makes losing acceptable. There was an American football coach named "Vince" that was generally loved by his players after wins but hated after losses. I believe that is one of the best ways to get the best out of a team. That is when they win it is the players that won but when they lose it is the coach that lost. Greg B. spinning losses like it is a "good" thing is just stupid and serves only to make losing an acceptable and expected outcome. That is the USMNT is not just losing matches Greg B. is turning them into losers.
According to certain posters, it’s a friendly so we should keep on trucking on (build out of the back, baby!)...
Uruguay are sending a weakened team and once again it is a friendly. If they want playing out of the back to be fundamental to how the team plays they have to keep working on it especially in friendlies. Were people applauding when Jurgen was bunkering in friendlies to grind out meaningless results? Why do some suddenly believe that results are the only thing that matters in friendlies?.
Because losing is corrosive and forcing a style that doesn’t suit our pool is asinine. It literally is pursuit of a “look” that defines style over substance. We need to learn how to grind out wins - that’s the special sauce and the thought that we can just turn it on outside of friendlies is asinine.