Post-match: USA @ Costa Rica 3/30

If you look around you'll find me hating on a lot of Steffen and his performance too. I can attribute blame and serious flaw worth remarking on to more than one player or thing.

As far as my critiques of LDLT - every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. Sometimes the over-the-top gushing, which LDLT has been receiving recently, warrants a sobering analysis. He's just a guy, but he (and many fans seemingly) thinks he's American Messi or something, so is constantly demanding the ball, and believes he can play some kind of free role offensively and defensively. Against pushover teams like Honduras, or v. a reckless Panama side in our house, who gives a s**t I guess. But it doesn't make his performance special like was alleged (backed up by metrics). And against a better opponent like Costa Rica in their place, or given the situation protecting a lead there and at home v. Jamaica (letting dribblers passed him and almost committing a penalty in the box), you can see how his style can hurt us.

He sort of just does his own thing, not playing w/in the team framework or adapting to what the scoreline dictates we need. If you're putting your coach hat on that would piss you off. That may be why Berhalter's been so lukewarm on him in spite of his nominally solid play in Holland or just some flashy moments for US.

He has some utility for the US, but is a situational guy, like many alternatives toward the bottom of the roster like him should be. Some are acting like he should start over Musah, or an actual creator 10 who can make incisive passes and shots when we need to breakdown an organized d like El Salvador played. Those notions are way off base.

 

where are all the nerds that love comparing steffen and turners mls stats? im curious how his numbers last year stack up...

 

I expected a close game. CR is a solid defensive team.
I also expected us to come on top after learning how many B/C players CR was using.
Last night's game proves to me that our team can't score against a solid defensive team. Our only go-to move is the pass to the wing and cross and hope for the best. Against the CRs of the world, it is only going to get us a 0-0 tie at best.
We don't have an inside game because we don't have a CF that can hold the ball inside the box. Pepi is just too physically weak to do that. So is Ferreira. Pefok is bigger but he is too slow to be effective.
I think we need to revisit the options of Sargent and Dike at the very least.

We all knew GB is not an offensive-minded coach, hence, he was fired from his gig in Europe because he was too conservative with his game plan. He needs to hand off to an assistant that knows how to run an offense.

 

The game was bad, but I am going to focus on the positive that we qualified. If we hadn't taken that point in Mexico -- a game we easily could have lost -- and lost against CR, we would die to be in this position we are in now. So there's that. And with that loss, Gregg has some serious soul-searching to do these next few months, which maybe he wouldn't have done if we had masked it with a win.

I am also happy that none of our guys picked up serious injuries in the CR game. When Puli gets hacked like that, it's always a scary moment.

It seems to me that our boys do significantly better when the ref calls a tight game. I was at the Panama match and after the two quick fouls against the U.S., everyone around was booing the ref. I was like, this is actually good for us, as long as he calls it both ways (and I think he generally did).

 

This is a key point as to why we play so much better at home, in addition the disparity in field quality, & not being accustomed to partisan crowds earlier in the cycle.

It's why individual performances between players should never be compared when the home/road variable is involved.

In addition, we should not expect that just because we beat a good team at home, we'll oust an average or worse one on the road in CCAF. Though we've historically managed those road difficulties better in most past cycles. Combo of suspect decision-making by the coach and being more of a skinny, skilled, inexperienced team this time around.

 

I had the concern at the start of qualification. The team is young and doesn't have the quality/skill to breakdown a compact, organized defense. We spent the last fours looking for 1v1 attempts by Pulisic, Reyna, and a few others. Not going to happen consistently. The 1v1 skill is needed and has been missing in the past from the US, but we need better passing and movement in the midfield. It happens at times, but not nearly enough.

 

One of my biggest complaints this cycle with the USSF is that we haven't played enough away games against quality teams. Yes, COVID was a huge hit, but we needed a couple of games against better teams to test this team out. Winning the Gold Cup and Nations Cup at home is good, but is just not enough preparation for the WC.

 

That's a good point, Armas was like a blankey for him and a lot of coaches from that era (lol, accidentally wrote error the first time). Also worth noting that while the four injuries to the attack disabled the team in that '01 summer and fall, it also lead to Donovan's qualifying debut, and to Donovan and Beasley breaking into regular status by December of '01. That team evolved an actual ton between Arena's first game (I think early winter '98 or was it early winter '99?) and that '02 World Cup basically running through the last caps of that initial Golden Heroes Generation of '90-'95/'98, before turning it over to the kiddos of the '94 and '98 cups, and the new blood from '00-'02. There were like 3 different versions of that team between 1998-2003.

 

Matt struggled when he wasn’t playing, now he’s going to Arsenal to be the backup. Horvrath has been playing but that’s no certainty going forward. Zak badly needs a loan and lots of lots of PT. How much of his struggles is straight up lack of matches? Going into November it’s very possible all three are playing very little. Not great.

 

Steffen is better with his feet. And it does pay off some when playing out of the back. And Gregg is almost certainly going to keep on playing out of the back in general.

This is why I expect Gregg to keep Steffen at #1 unless one of the other contenders gets a long run of first team minutes in Europe.

Note, I think this is a mistake, and that Steffen's feet are not worth the lack of saves and the unreliability in the air. But I don't expect Gregg to agree with me on that.

 

There's a clear distinction between not playing or practicing for a few months because you were eating cheeseburgers and playing Madden OR being fit, practicing regularly, and playing Cup games.

Steffen statistically struggled mightily as a shot-stopper whether he was playing or not. That's proven at this point.

Horvath's going to be practicing all along the way, is starting as of now, and because of the trust engendered should at least get Cup games or someone's getting sold.

If nobody ends up playing much come the WC it won't be ideal, but regardless we'll have multiple better options than what we saw in Steffen who is purely a liability. The gk alternatives will be neutral to assets.

 

It would be a lot to ask an 18 year old to be the starter at keeper in a World Cup. I’m more hopeful that Horvath gets good minutes and can be the starter assuming Turner is behind Ramsdale (which I am 99.999% certain will happen).

What I am hopeful is Slonina can develop and be groomed to be the starter in 2026.

 

History says no.
It's too risky, leaving it until the last day in Costa Rica is the surest recipe for collosal failure.

 

The only way Turner gets much time is if Ramsdale gets injured.

 

Luca was fine, it was the knock on effect of taking out Adams and moving Acosta back. Acosta was MIA the second half, that was the issue.

 

I don't know if this will ever change because of the $. Maybe they needed to miss another WC to force their hand, when they could have argued the last time was an anomaly.

We played one real road game in Nations' League (vs Canada) and that was it to test us. Of course they failed that test.

I think the US bypassing the preliminary round of qualifying this time hurt the road performance.

The difficulty with the field conditions may always be an issue when we train on virtually immaculate pitches and don't have a street fb culture.

Alas, for the future many of these issues will become moot, with us not having to qualify next cycle, and the field expanding to 48. That's a double-edged sword - less troubles but games of relevance too.

 

Again, there’s no definitive evidence if or not it would have worked. We do have evidence that the path GB took did work. That is all.

 

Incidentally, why I think we play better against Mexico these days, relative to expectations v. opponents in CCAF, are: the relative field quality, them insisting on playing w/ the ball, and being more of a finesse than rugged opponent.

 

And that's all the evidence supports, that it worked. There is no evidence that it was the best path or the only path. I'm glad it worked. I thought the Panama rotation made sense and if not for a fluke goal off a corner, that would have been the point we needed to have been qualified.

I once hit a patch of ice while driving, did a 360, and made it safely to my destination without a scratch. I don't claim that the patch of ice was the key to my success.

 

I’m positive that doesn’t change that poster’s preference, which o share, that Steffen play more.

 

What in the hell does Berhalter think he's seeing to justify his nonsensical confidence in Steffen?

Btw, I'm amused at the silence of people that piled all over Turner for Panama and Canada for their silence now, Turner has played Steffen off the field since he finally got his chance and it's absurd that he's still so far from supposedly wrestling the gig back, let alone Horvath, who blindfolded would be better than Steffen sans Blindfold now.

 

Gotta hope #1:
The once rumored Nations League Final, where the regional champs battle it out for like an NIT/Confed Cup style NL Cup Championship actually returns to discussions (they popped up in discussions a few years ago then covid hit and I havent heard a word since).

#2: We start accepting Copa America invites and/or massage egos, pay off a cranky fed, to make the Conmebol/Concacaf Copa thing either a regular event, or make us a regular invite and participant to the Copa America.

W/o 1 or both of those two things happening, NL and Qualifying means it will be impossible to get legit competition in games.

 

Last night's match wasn't indicative of anything other than a bunch of tired players recovering from a stomach bug who just needed to make sure CR didn't score 6 goals. It means very little when projecting how the U.S. will do in eight months.

 

Steffen's whole Gaffe Machine act began in the summer of '19 from what I can recall and he was getting PLENTY of looks back then as a regular in MLS, so I don't think regular playing time changes the problem. The problem is how he plays when he seems to think he needs to go full DGAF around and outside the box which seemed to start back then, at least with the national team. Some of the problem back then at least might have been attributable to a chance in system in the back which didnt match player talent and skill sets in front of Steffen as well as constant turnover with whom was starting in the back 4 (could be wrong but I think there was plenty of flip flopping with the group of 4 which to me is a huge problem once games get serious, because you want: G-RB-RCB-LCB-LB-6-8 fundamentally on the same page and as intuitive as possible, and if you're constantly changing things up, that intuition aint gonna come.

Regardless though, I think this gaffe machine Steffen IS Steffen, at least when he has instructions from the back to be aggressive getting balls and distributing. If we had a stay at home Steffen, I think we'd have a better Steffen, a Man City distributing Steffen is a bad Steffen, period.