Freese made a save on a sure goal with the kind of get low reflex Turner doesn’t have at the moment. Looked the part otherwise, but not much to do. Keep it going with him, he did nothing to put himself back on the bench. Big Pat is a house, I would hate to defend him until I realized to not confront him and instead wait for the inevitable bobble and take the ball away. I think he improved as the game went on and he can be useful in this tournament, he’s a physical force in our part of the world. Unfortunately, I don’t think this advantage translates in the WC where defenders are not only strong but savvy and know how to unbalance strikers. More to come in this tourney, but I’m for a Wright start going forward.
Nice to see some accurate long passes breaking lines and more direct play. Luna and McGlynn stood out in that regard. We're finally dangerous on set pieces thanks to Berhalter and McGlynn. Let's see how this B team evolves. Hopefully we'll identify a few contributors to the full team.
Decent win but nothing too impressive, seemed like a lot of the guys would forget how to soccer at key moments (maybe nerves)... on the other hand when the US messed up T&T had no ability to punish them. Tillman MOTM obviously but Luna also looked good. 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 Tillman and Luna sure, as for McGlynn... Reminder for anyone who was impressed by this performance, 7-0 with Herrera, Long, Vines, Yueill, Lletget, Arriola, Lewis, Ferreira: just so everyone knows we won 7-0 with this US team pic.twitter.com/pPCkuf3YQC— Michael (@usmnteaglegun) June 15, 2025 Agree with this Give me Haji or Downs for Agyemang and Tolkin for Arfsten and hopefully Adams or Johnny are back to replace Berhalter.— Marcus Chairez | US/SC (@USSoccerColl) June 16, 2025 I was wondering where those three were sitting, usually players not on the bench are right behind where I have my season tickets...
As far as managerial choices were concerned, my only second-guess is making Tillman go 90 after he had gotten whacked twice in the second half. We'll need to stick with the "first team" lineup against Saudi Arabia again. They're a WC group stage level opponent. We can rotate the squad against Haiti when we should already be qualified for the knockout stages if we take care of business on Thursday.
I don't get the Agyemang hate. He's such a force for the defenders to deal with that he creates opportunities simply by existing. He keeps showing incremental improvement every time I see him. I've never rooted for a player to break through so hard. His pressure made the 1st goal, and so many times he won the ball in dangerous positions in the box. He had a decent SOG and was able to play someone into a dangerous position in another instance. Really solid play. I hope he gets the start next game where the defenders will be smaller and he can more easily brutalize them.
“I think he’s one of the most talented players that we have in the USA.” — #USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino on Man of the Match Malik Tillman. Tillman scored his first two international goals in Sunday’s 5-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago.— Doug McIntyre (@ByDougMcIntyre) June 16, 2025
in addition to luna, and malik finally coming good (though lets not get too ahead of ourselves), a little lost in the shuffle is it seems like richards is also closing his club/country gap. he looks a lot more comfortable, even with the pieces around him changing constantly. so thats 3 positives i think we have, in addition to a couple thousand questions. arfsten got a couple of real easy assists to a couple of our (relatively) better, more experienced guys here so hopefully that can push him on a bit, give him a little confidence boost after agyemang just assassinating chances for us the last 3 matches. and those goals from ba and haji should be instructive as well- super direct, not screwing around. our attack gets a little over-passy at times, though i guess thats a step up from going straight back immediately. we have a lot of fat to trim in a lot of areas on this roster, but needless cutbacks (of the too often 6 full yards away from themselves as well as defenders variety) and too many touches to guys in more open but less dangerous areas we just dribbled into are up there. i want our guys to be a little more direct, maybe get pat some balls he can hit one time- which he actually does pretty well, way more than trying to make space himself at least. but mostly i feel relieved. i dont know what yorke is thinking not bunkering, or even just a couple of mids dropping in, but on top of the quality gap (yawning chasm?) their backline looks as lost as us when we have to defend.
With him you take the good and the bad. In order to be effective, a striker has to have at least one REAL weapon, and Agyemang has his size/strength. He can body his way past defenders, and that makes him liable to beat someone 1v1 in front of goal. On the other hand, in the second half there was a moment when a bad T&T giveaway in their own half meant that we had an excellent opportunity with multiple runners heading into the box, and Patrick took so long to figure out that T&T got back into position and all we got out of it was a half-chance. His touch is ok. His finishing is ok. His decision-making is slow. He's definitely not a first-choice striker for us. But he distinguishes himself from our other depth options in actually having a real weapon to lean upon.
Pochettino made the brave decision to switch away from Turner to Freese. I would say to give Freese the big test against Saudi Arabia, and then we can use that as the decider on whether to stick with him going forward or to go back to Turner.
I feel like this topic needs it's own thread, but how bad was Fox's production of this game??? - shitty picture quality (I'm guessing because of lower quality cameras) - sound completely off by a couple of seconds for the first part of the game and then the field mics duplicated sounds after they "fixed" it - poor camera/producer work with random shots of blue sky at one point and an angle on a corner kick that missed the ball being in play for a few seconds - replays that were poorly timed so that they couldn't be finished or were messed up so that it showed a black screen instead Just a terrible look for the Gold Cup and the sport as a whole. I've thought for a long time that the production of games is one of the unspoken issues around the game in the US, and this broadcast by Fox was the latest exhibit.
Kind of striking to see Brendo used as a late sub for a B team like this. I'm not his biggest fan, but I think of him as an automatic top-25 guy for us, and Poch might not.
That and his strength are what make him so confident and strong on the ball and menacing in the press.
Saudia Arabia is the real test. Past WC team. Berhalter won't start. Adams probably inserts. Wright hopefully inserts. Hoepfully we win and rest a bunch of guys vs Hiati.
just a couple of thoughts here- while theyre pretty useless to me a 9.3 futmob score is ludacrous, and i thought seb did look a lot steadier (though yeah, obviously the drop from switzerland to trindid will do that). and just in addition to what ive already posted im med-high on freese. imo turners form makes him unplayable, but with very little "data" on freese playing the ball at this level i like his positioning a lot more than even "vintage" turner. im not a gk expert by any means, but he seems to cut off some amount of trouble strictly in his more aggressive positioning and looks more commanding of the box. i hate to go back to one relatively insignificant moment, but he got out and punched a ball clear against turkey in a way turner never has. ive always thought turner allows/arguably invites entirely too much danger into his box but he very generally made up for that with shot stopping. if we are going to patiently wait for mcglynn to have to walk in full circles around the ball to get it on his only foot i really hope we can wait for some indication freese isnt a better option here and now than turner.
Yeah his flaws are obvious, and I’d rather he not be on the World Cup squad, but he’s good enough to help us win this tournament.
I am watching SA vs Haiti. I expect both of them to be a much better test than T&T. Honestly don’t really see much difference between Haiti and SA so far in this game. I expect them to be about equal challenges. I think this is a diminished SA squad.
what skill is it that you’re talking about. The ability to play quick passes into places in spaces no one else will, his ability to take quick little touches when cutting across the box to get off dangerous shots that don’t get blocked, his ability to hit long balls with the proper weight, or the dead ball thing?
I don’t know their pool well enough to know how many but some of their guys are with Al Hilal for the Club World Cup.
Absolutely. I mean we can (and should, if we are able to) rotate against Haiti, but I think the starting job for this tournament now belongs to Freese for as long as he doesn't blow it. Turner can earn his way back into the XI if he can win the starting job at Lyon. Otherwise, I'd continue to continue to look at Freese, Steffen, other options in the Sept/Oct/Nov/March windows. Bench-rusted Turner has been too shaky on too many occasions.