This formation & player selection for Olympics QF, looked very similar to 2022 WC r16 vs Netherlands. That was one of the worst 45 minutes of opening soccer i have ever seen a US team play. They had zero quality shots on goal (did they even get a shot) & back passed every time. It looked all too familiar to a zero offense Berhalter-system coached game. On top of this, there was no formation switch/ or personal change at the half. At some point you have to start asking the hard questions, why does every time a mens US team program has the spotlight to do something the last few years, we revert back to (practically) a no-striker formation with a lot of back passing? Its like the program is still stuck wrapping up filming "Saving Gregg Berhalter". time for Sidney Cone to stop wearing the Berhalter kicks.
Just generally, does the USYNT get less out of its overage selections than any other good team? Morocco gets Hakimi and we get Mihailovic and Robinson? Don't we allegedly do a sweet-talking exercise for our head coach as part of the hiring process?
Par for the course for the Men's program which has had a losing mentality for generations, in stark contrast to the Women. I'm not really surprised anymore, just resigned to the MNT's permanent suckitude under clueless leadership at USSF.
At the end of the day you're at the mercy of who gets released, and Mihailovic and Zimmerman pulled their weight IMO anyway...MRob wasn't good but we had bigger problems. Hakimi probably doesn't get released if the Olympics are anywhere other than Paris
A couple of points... I agree completely that experience and consistency are important factors for defensive players. I also believe there a lot of other factors something to consider, but not a rule. Id say getting the best pairing is much more important with our pool. Your depiction of my idea is incomplete. I said doing that last cycle would have produced better results. We played Zimmerman, Ream, and CCV at the WC. I dont think any of them played together much in the cycle and not sure Zimmerman and Long were the best options. If we had rotated through MLS players, Zimmerman, Long, and Other MLS defenders would have had extra incentives to perform in club matches and when brought in, there would be increased competition to prove they belonged. There was a huge selection process problem last cycle. Way too many inferior players were regulars and ended up taking up all the non-playing depth on the team so nobody else could get in.
Indeed. A lot of the French teams released their players. [We were instructed that Balogun wasn't available, however there's been a lot of debate about whether he was ineligible for us at the Olympic level.] We prioritized Copa America over the Olympics. Simple as that. We had 8 U23s on that roster. If we didn't have Copa America...................then we probably could have brought Pepi, Reyna, Scally, Musah, Johnny, and those guys to the Olympics. Scally may have gone to the Olympics anyway if Dest hadn't gotten hurt. I suspect that when the Olympics are held in Los Angeles in 2028, we will do our utmost to send our best possible team to that event. We'll talk to teams early. Not schedule a competing tournament that summer. The truth is that when you peel away the top 10 players in our U23 pool..............the team only made the quarterfinals of the Olympics. Ask yourself a serious navel-gazing question: Are we one of the 8 best soccer programs in the world? People are on here arguing that a player from Real Salt Lake should have been picked over one from the Colorado Rapids. As if that was the difference for us at the event.
Who do you think we could have gotten to be released for the Olympics? I'm guessing you'd say someone who already was at the Copa. 1 - No way a team would relsease a player who already played in 1 summer tournament and 2 - No way a player during the off season should play in 2 tournaments. And if they didn't play in the Copa then they wouldn't have been good enough to make any kind of difference anyways. And good lord, we hadn't made it to the Olympics in years so how is getting knocked out at the quarter final round a "disaster"? People's expectations is ridiculous. It's not even a real tournament. It's U-23, but the best U-23s don't get released, but you can bring 3 over-age players, but only if you can get them released, and normal rosters are now 26 players, but you can only bring 20 to this tournament. Olympic men's soccer is completely dumb. Actually, it's fun to watch because it's soccer. But it's entirely meaningless. Just like the stupid European club tour tournament (or whatever you want to call it) that's going on in the states right now. I watched maybe a few seconds of Man City- Chelsea last night and it was bad.
Of course it's a real tournament. So much so that Brazil made sure it did its best to win it since it was the only major tournament they had not won. Seems too me like poor planning by the US federation
IMO, the US Olympic team was 2-3 players weaker than it should have been. That's ignoring bad luck such as a player like Aidan Morris signing and becoming unable to compete at the last minute. 8 players on the Copa America team were eligible for the Olympics. Further, the USSF had available leverage with the Copa America to be able to negotiate for 1-2 superior older players who may have been fringe players to instead go to the Olympics and play a more important role. Kristoffer Lund and Malik Tillman barely played this summer. Lund was fine as a backup at the Copa America, but Tillman could have been vital at the Olympics. And one of the Copa America strikers behind Balogun really needed to get sent instead; Pepi or Wright/Sargent (as overage players).
It's an incredibly flukey tournament regarding things like club releases, do you think all 16 teams had a genuine best U23 squad out there?
I think there were a number of players who they expected to be released who they lost at the last minutes. Reynolds their starting right back was one and Morris was another when he made a club move. I think Vargas also could have made the team after that but he had already switched after it appeared he had no chance of making the team (and said he preferred Mexico anyways). They also expected that Vazquez or another overage 9 would get released and that didn’t happen. Presumably those assumptions came from conversations they had already had. And then Pepi decided he’d rather play limited minutes in the Copa versus being the key guy on the Olympic team. All of the above was bad luck. It’s also the case that because of the missing generation the senior team is fairly young and you had a bunch of guys who went to Copa who were Olympic eligible and who would have gotten serious consideration for the Olympics on a team where the generations are more balanced. All of this was compounded by the fact that I think they made some bad choices roster wise. They should not have taken Mihailovic as the overage player for instance. Instead they should have taken an overage right back and taken Luna. And Basset over Cremaschi and Neal over Dietz. I don’t know if any overage 9s were available to them but if they were it’s probably worth dropping Robinson for one. That may not have been an option though. I also think Cowell in his current run of form probably should have gone over Booth, but that’s also unclear if that was a release issue or not. So basically it was a combination of 1) bad luck, 2) a senior team that’s super young because of the missing generation, all compounded by some poor roster decisions.
Yep. I know it was a question mark with him and Balogun. But it was something that USSF should have gotten a clear answer on.
The problem was the number of U23s on the Copa team. That was due to the whole 'Missing Generation' thing, which won't be as much of an issue in future Olympics.
The decision to take such an unathletic central midfield was certainly on the coaches. They even took Mihailovic over his teammate, a real '8', the age-eligible Cole Bassett. Did the Rapids refuse to release Bassett?
Shrug. That Morocco team we lost to was very good. Do I think Cole Bassett makes the difference? No. Would Yunus Musah and Johnny and Gio and Tillman (if eligible) and those guys have made a difference? Yes. Obviously. That's the caliber of player we needed if we wanted to win those games against France and Morocco. Or Spain and Argentina if we played them. And simply put, we prioritized Copa America. We all knew going into the event that was the case. Morocco didn't have a Copa America this summer. If folks want to know why Morocco got some better players than we did, that's the reason. They just had a couple of early WCQers in early June. Anyway, this group got right where I thought they would. I thought we'd get to the quarterfinal. That was my prediction. Of course my prediction was we'd get to the quarterfinal and lose to Argentina. Instead it was Morocco..............because they beat Argentina. Morocco was better than us. Simple as that. And I don't think Cole Bassett or Diego Luna or Esmir Bajraktarevic or anybody ya'll want to suggest would have made the difference.