Horrible. The collective and individual decision making was terrible. So either all the players became suddenly stupid, or Berhalter put them into an ill fitting tactical strait jacket. Over time, players lost technique as they were all playing without rhythm. This summer we started to play direct when the opposition gave that to us. We massively digressed in that area. Watching us pass INTO pressure was demoralizing. I wish we would play in the style of GGG’s Crew. That would be such a massive improvement.
But but he won the Gold Cup, he’s a great coach. I see you same posters now. He’s always been a dreadful coach. Embarassing effort. The only really good player was subbed off after 60 minutes. He played a world class RWB at… LB!!
This just felt like a team who's only had a couple of days practicing together. We were really never threatened. The offense looked like a bunch of guys who didn't know where they needed to go with the ball.
Elaborating on this post from the PbP thread. The core concept of this team is defensive solidity. Berhalter was a centerback, he knows defending, and international matches are usually low-scoring affairs, often decided by set pieces, which we seem to be good at. That's fine. On a different night, Robinson buries his header, McKennie his, Pefok his, and we're comfortable 3-0 winners. That level of finishing (which, on a club level, is also what someone like Mikel Arteta, also defensively-minded, seems to expect) isn't sustainable or even realistic. So we need to create more chances, but why don't we? The answer, for me, is in the rigidity of the team, and it has to be design. There is ZERO overlapping play on the wings. Like, how many times did you see, for example, McKennie or Adams ping a pass to Reyna/Konrad, then have that winger lay off a ball to an overlapping Dest/Yedlin to whip in a first-time cross to a waiting Sargent/Pefok? The answer is at most 1, because that's the number of attempted crosses that Dest and Yedlin had. Combined. Dest you can explain away by saying that he's playing as an inverted wingback, which is a problem in and of itself, but you don't have that explanation with Yedlin. They're obviously being instructed to defend first and stay behind the winger. But with no players overlapping, all an opponent has to do is press the guy on the ball, usually receiving a pass with his back to goal, because again, he isn't overlapping, causing either a turnover or a backwards pass. This happened over and over and over again, which makes players force bad passes, which leads to more turnovers, and the cycle continues. It's hard to coach fluidity in a national team because of how infrequently they play together, but basic concepts like the attacking shape of a 4-3-3 are baked in to any high-level professional. There's no excuse for such an impotent attacking performance unless it's exactly what the coach is looking for. And Berhalter is. ETA: Starting an inverted wingback and an inverted winger on the same side is the antithesis of expansive attacking play. Like, if you're going to start Dest on the left, it's stupid, but you have to pair that with a left-footed pure winger. Pairing Dest with either Konrad or Reyna just means they're going to run into each other for the entire match.
I really feel like this is the opposite of the problem. Right now the US is dependent on the wings and the fullbacks making great individual plays. Or we are trying to score quick goals on the press. But I don't think we're stuck in a tactical straight jacket. Dest, Konrad, Reyna all have time on the ball to try things, but they are facing too many players when they do. I don't know. There was stuff I didn't like. Dest doesn't work on the left. He's never worked on the left for us. He shows no signs of working on the left. Berhalter should try him on the right. Maybe there were too many new roles for young players. Shouldn't have played all 3 attacking half space merchants in the starting lineup. If you don't score, there aren't enough options of the bench. I don't think Aaronson worked centrally. But I think the assessments here are a little harsh.
I don’t blame Gregg I blame Earnie. We play in the style that Earnie promised during the coaching search, and not the way the Crew played. We always look better when we play more direct and with more flow, I.e., more like the Crew. If Gregg gets fired, Earnie will just hire someone else who promises a rigid 4-3-3 that doesn’t try to score goals,
Exactly, and this is what I was groaning about, as much as I heard everyone cheering the presence of either Aaronson or Reyna in the middle (and, as you'd noted, it didn't work). I wanted Pefok from the outset at CF.
The fact this thread has the fewest responses out of all postgame threads just shows how confused our fanbase is. It ain't the players. It's easy to play "good" D against ES because they aren't very good. We score less than 1 goal a game from the run of play (outside of Martinique, which is not even a country). The team doesn't even look that close to scoring. Whatever Gregg is trying to do offensively, it simply aint working. It's not Sargent's fault, it's not Reyna's, it's not Pefok's. Pepi isn't gonna come in and score a hat trick against Canada. This team just has zero clue about how to create dangerous chances.
Not sure I buy the takes about El Salvador wanting things to be scrappy here. They're hustling and getting stuck in but they want to play ball and their team shape is actually better than USMNT's (IMHO) over the first hour: pic.twitter.com/38GS4EZI5v— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) September 3, 2021 Wew, did Hugo ever out-coach Gregg tonight.
The press is the only ********ing consistent offensive tactic in the Berhalter system and it was non existent tonight against the shakiest team in possession in the octagahexonalgon, why?
I agree. I talked about this in the forwards thread, but it could have gone here. Having watched the game, what do you think is our theory of goals? What do you think was our first option for creating chances? Was it flowing combinations around the box? Aggressive counterattacks? Spread the ball wide and try to cross the ball on? My answer is we don’t have that.
Check out the coaching philosophy thread, there are very long and detailed posts by scholars such as @Bob Morocco breaking down the nuances… But basically it boils down to getting into a Man City style 3-2-5 shape. That’s it. Just get in that shape and it’s mission accomplished. 6 1-0 wins in the 8 games prior to this. The press is actually our only offensive strategy to date, where was it tonight? Beats me.
Honestly, I have zero idea what we're even trying to do. We're not getting width and lobbing in crosses. We're not combining centrally. We're not playing long balls to stretch the D (we tried a bit early, and it worked with Sargent, but stopped), we're not overloading anywhere. It just looks like a bunch of players who have never met each other playing some pick up. A tie is fine against ES, but we should be dominating play. Not losing the possession battle. What were our best chances? There were zero flowing moves. ES looked more cohesive in the final 3rd (even without the talent to get the final ball or two). The pefok chance was a deflection. Not sure how Reyna got in for that cross to McKennie, but that was the best chance we had and it was just Reyna doing the guy 1v1. Set piece for Robinson. And that's it? The Acosta chance from a cross? Just zero combo play, zero through balls. Set pieces and a couple lucky crosses/deflections leading to zero goals? (if I'm wrong on the Acosta header cross/Reyna cross, my bad).
We look this way because that’s basically what we are. We lost almost the entirety of 2020. The few friendlies we played we waisted massive amounts of minutes on players that had no hope of ever helping us…and massive amounts of minutes on U23 players that would end up making our terrible Olympic qualifying roster…or not even making that. We then heavily rotated our nations league games to “prep” for this short turnaround bullshit. And of course we skipped the gold cup when all of the other teams used it to prep for the ocho. this team plays like it hasn’t had a lot of minutes together because this team hasn’t had a lot of minutes together.
Berhalter obviously has the ability to create a well organized and effective defense. Berhalter obviously hasn't the ability to create a well organized and effective offense. The subs had impact for about 5 minutes, and then it dissipated.
To emphasize your point: Tyler Adams made his US debut in November 2017. Tonight was his 15th cap, his 5th under Berhalter. Some of that is due to injury, sure, but a lot of it is a conscious decision by Berhalter/USSF.
berhalter isnt good enough. he wasnt "not good enough" tonight, he didnt get a couple of things wrong, he wasnt plenty good for all of our previous underwhelming, disjointed garbage performances that happened to end up 1-0 because of one bounce that went our way where tonight none did (with the same embarrassingly low number of chances)... he. isnt. good. enough,. oh, but a bunch of of semi-pro and college guys couldnt get points on the road in 89 either, so why should we expect pulisic and reyna and mckennie to? maybe its not his fault after all ... our fans arent good enough either. .
Why you surprised? This game has the feel of the first game in Euro camp which plays a false 9 and NO one occupied the space of two center backs and made the midfield so congested.