Post-match: Trinidad & Tobago vs. USA - November 20, 2023

Then don't show up for the games, find an excuse or a soft injury...anything. But to do what Dest did is totally inappropriate, a total lack of respect for his teammates to put them in that position. If you have pegged Dest's attitude correctly, he shouldn't play for the US ever again. We can all trash the coach however you want, but you don't disrespect the country you represent and the teammates you are playing with like that. The yellow was silly, but the red was just petulant and ridiculous, there is no excuse for that -- none.

Agree that an apology to the team is needed, frankly I wouldn't want him back for the next window at all. But I don't see how the team is connected to each other on a daily basis -- at the very least Dest owes his teammates an apology. And quite frankly, the fans as well. Just terrible.

 

Reyna does need to get more playing time on the club level and did play fine but not great today. He wasn’t a problem although sitting out the 10 man half helped with that.

 

The heat Berhalter is taking for this game is ridiculous. We came into this game knowing that one goal would effectively end the tie. We did that relatively early in the game and looked like we were coasting.

Then, Dest ********ed up, and everything went to shit. Berhalter's response to that was questionable, at best, but the mission was already accomplished at that point, too.

 

Dest has apologized on Instagram to the team, fans, and nation fyi

 

I did watch it. And I was yelling at the tv to stop talking. You could tell he just lost it and almost wanted to get kicked out at that point. My guess is he mouth offed to the ref, the ref said something back to him? And dest had the mentality that this crap ref who couldn’t ref 3rd division European soccer is telling me off? F him. Completely uncalled for from dest.

But this isn’t club soccer where they play 50 games. This team might play like 8 games in a year and you want him to miss half of them? You’d make Bryce Harper miss 81 games (half the season) for going at an ump and getting tossed)

 

haha, look at brandon craig, lund-ing in on the gram

 

Firing a coach after advancing is a wild opinion lol

 

He has more in him, he needs to be better without the ball. Needs to play more. I'm a huge fan but he still hasn't gotten back to where he was before his injuries.

 

Are we sure they have to pay equally to the coaches of the Men and Women's Teams? I mean if so that's just stupid because the market isn't there for that.

Both of my daughters have played sports in college and I'm a huge fan of women's sports (oldest was lacrosse, middle daughter is currently playing volleyball), but let's not pretend the market rate for top 5 much less top 20 coaches in the sport for each gender are even remotely similar for market salary.

 

This -- like many of the other posts here -- is a complete overreaction to the situation. Gregg had this tie wrapped up and the team was cruising until Dest flipped out.

 

Some of the US soccer writers are complete morons. I've seen Goal.com and ESPN rate Aaronson a 7. What game were they watching? Pepi was wide open for a tap in but Aaronson was selfish and a took a shot from a worse angle. He also missed a chance he should have scored on. He's constantly losing the ball because he can't beat anyone off the dribble. He tries to tackle and falls to the ground. This dude goes down faster than a Republican Senator in an airport men's room.

 

Strong response from him. Glad to see him accept responsibility and man up about how stupid it was.

 

We have precious opportunities to get the most of our team, and you think it’s acceptable for the A team to essentially just throw a game?

 

You make a good point here. Though, I'm interested in how you saw Bradley as coach. What I recall, most strikingly, from Bradley's tenure is that the team would often come out flat and wrong-footed in a given first half. But the man would say his words in the lockerroom at the half, and make adjustments, and they'd come out kicking for the second. Berhalter is the opposite--they usually have the right plan in the first half, but there's never the second half "Bradley boost". I think Berhalter needs to allow himself to be more "emotional". I don't think he'll ever be that, though. He's too controlled, and always has been as a coach.

 

First he punted the ball into the stands and got a yellow. Then he mouthed off to the ref and got a second yellow. Smokey, this isn't 'Nam, this is football. There are rules. If you can't control yourself, you don't get to play. That's the way it is. He will never change if he just keeps getting a slap on the wrist. Time to put his big boy pants on. Go away for awhile and re-think things.

 

You think squeaking by on goal aggregate against Trinidad and Tobago is an acceptable standard? You don’t think we could do better? Expect better? Your expectations are to struggle to advance against the 99th ranked team in the world? Wild opinion too.

 

Throw a game? Weren't you one who was calling for a Slonina start? Are you missing the fact that we essentially put this tie to rest with that goal in the first half? Why are we freaking out on Gregg so much????

R-E-L-A-X

 

You are on to something. Maybe we should combine Bradley's brain and Berhalter's brain. Then we'd get a coach who speaks like a robot and who does the bounce pass and verticality like nobody's business.

 

Good post these guys are still relatively young and are stupid sometimes.

 

thats fair in a vacuum, but id argue its something better addressed in a friendly. hes had two windows to look at them together- why now? was using one on luca as a dlp really a priority?

any way you look at it, going on the road with a 3-0 lead with a setup weve never really played (one designed to score, not defend or even possess) and that being relatively very attacking (for us) in the first place arent logical decisions at all.

 

I have no problem with trying and rotating new players. What I have problem with is anytime we play, if we do not play with professionalism.

And, Slonina is a legitimate professional. This isn’t trying out some nobody.

 

I think Bradley was pretty good at second half adjustments and Bradley could get absolutely irate and emotionally charged, LOL.

I mostly liked Bradley, I felt that mostly the team played really hard. I mean there were for sure stinkers, but it just wasn't like you would watch them and think they half-assed it and there were no adjustments.

I should add that I don't like 2 WC cycle coaching either. It didn't work with Bradley and I suspect it wont work with Gregg and he'll be replaced in a year or so.

 

Yeah man, Jurgen Klopp is allegedly getting paid $18m in salary alone. Tata Martino's and his entire staff were scandalously overpaid at ~$15m in 2022 (when they missed the WC Last 16 and lost a bunch of domestic compestions to the guy who got paid way less "cus the equal pay"). His personal take-home, base salary was ~$2.2m USD. Berhalter out-performed him, but is undeniably a less experienced and less successful manager, and is currently making $1.6m per year.

If you want to talk about Gregg Berhalter replacements, I'm with you. But we have to be real about it.

 

Slonina is struggling on a bad team in Belgium after struggling in MLS....on a bad team.There's absolutely no reason to throw him into this type of game.

It makes no sense to attribute Dest's lack of professionalism to Gregg Berhalter. His response to the game state was really poor, so I get criticizing that. But the game was also already won by that point.

 

We would have probably won the game if Slonina started…but we were in great shape prior to the red.