Post-match: USA v Bolivia -June 23, 2024 - Copa America

Then why not credit Berhalter with putting the right lineup and tactics in play to score early? Instead its on to the next thing you can come up with to bash him. Is he the best coach around? Hardly. Is he as bad as a good percentage of this board makes him out to be? Not even close.

Now if somewhere in the post game thread you gave him some credit then I missed it and my bad.

 

It was a win but didn't realize Bolivia was so bad. They are down there with Luxemburg and Haiti.
Our Gold Cup B Squad should be able to handle them.


We're still giving the ball away really, really easily. Gotta tighten that up or we'll get punished against decent teams. (not even good teams, but just decent teams) Still have a lot of work to do.

 

Thanks! That's pretty interesting and not entirely unexpected. Feels like the big blowouts might be a bit low based on that dataset ... but on the other hand, I'm willing to bet most routs at this level of play are absolutely in friendlies so maybe that's actually better than a larger one with friendlies.

 

Agree. And I don't see this as a coaching issue either. Most of those give away passes yesterday were not with a guy under pressure. They were just shit passes. The players need to step up and fix themselves. Hopefully we see some changes in the back against Panama. Richards was so bad passing I shuddered everytime he had the ball. Maybe his field of vision is too narrowly focused and he doesn't "see" the opponents or maybe he really just can't pass. I didn't watch him a lot during the EPL season but man his last few efforts have been not near good enough.

 

I do think some of the edge in youth teams is time together and focus on them. IIRC, Japan is similar to Mexico in that they have a ton of camps. We do not, and we have far less than we used to and nothing like the Bradenton days.

That said, I do think we sometimes overstate how far we've come in technical skill. We have a couple of guys who are right up there with anyone, but it's clear even playing mid-level to lower level teams like say El Salvador, or a mid-level European teams that in terms of passing accuracy, weight and first touch, our standard player is still behind.

Tactically, well, we see a lot of talk about how we coach too restrictively now, but I suspect the Japanese youth teams are very restrictive and organized. Pluses and minuses to everything.

 

I do not give Gregg credit for simply preforming his job at the most basic level. His choice of lineups have never been good but our pool is not an easy one to choose from as we have between 3 and 4 really good players and a bunch of cannon fodder. Gregg consistently misuses his players and is second or third rate as a soccer coach.
As long as he continues to screw up his tactics as badly as he does I will continue to call his coaching one step up from total crap. But, I will admit, that is an important step.

I really think Gregg is a bad coach who has gotten lucky in the time he was chosen as the USSF's puppet. He is not faced with the selection his predecessors had where even if they selected the best players possible and played them at their best positions they still were VERY lucky to qualify for the WC or even win consistently in CONCACAF.

However he did not fall on his face and the players like him (That is actually a minor negative) so I will give him credit for that but that is all the credit he really deserves.

Under Gregg the USA team is actually a deal worst than the sum of its parts. We have 11 players that happen to play together while well coached teams have exactly that, a team.

But I guess mediocre is good enough so that is where we will remain at least until we relegate the "chimp in charge" to the local zoo where he belongs.

 

I'd be interested to know who you see as the 3 or 4 but mostly how you deem the rest as cannon fodder. Pretty sure that your cannon fodder list would have to include a number of players who start in Euro top 5 leagues.

But I appreciate your response, even if I disagree with it pretty much across the board. I will try and refrain getting into Berhalter discussions with you from here on out.

 

Reyna played wing for Forrest. Or are you just talking about the USMNT?

 

oh, so gregg does influence if we score now? youre not saying he kicked that ball in for balo (who hadnt scored for us since sept), are you?

 

Why do you think Zardes, Kei, and Ola Kamara had so much success in his “system” that does not play to a true #9?

How is the game yesterday, where our STs got 9 combined shots, a good example of the system not playing to a #9?

 

Meh don’t see that being an improvement.

 

Giving the ball to the other team in your half is a much bigger worry.

 

Did Forrest not run a 4231? Thats what I’m recalling from the handful of games I saw. More of a possession based attacking midfield role. Feel free to correct me!

 

Like there was little difference for Gio between that role and when he played wide for BVB or when he played wide for the US.

 

That’s one way.

The other is for GB to recognize the weakness in the player pool and adjust his tactics. That’s what I would like to see him do.

It’s one of the ironies of our fan base today that the faction that hates Berhalter the most also overrates our player pool, so their criticisms of GB don’t make a whole lot of sense. They criticize how he coaches the players they wish we have and not the players we actually have.

 

Had he done this and the backups failed to get a result….there is zero…ZERO chance you wouldn’t be here criticizing him for doing exactly what you are proposing now.

I can’t stand Berhalter. But get a fricken grip.

 

You seriously think there was a snowballs chance in hell that Bolivia could've gotten a result vs the US?

Seriously? How, exactly,, save for 2 red cards and a PK?

 

If all this is true, then our results reflect a 25-year run of unbelievably good luck on the field. At some point, maybe you have to consider the possibility that either the coaches are better than you think, the players are better than you think, or both.

 

30. I’m sure I will at some point, just not so sure it will be with the current coach.

 

No. Most of the victories are against CONCACAF and that does not take luck, just good survival skills.

If we had a decent coach we would still win against the nothings of CONCACAF but we might also get good results against better teams.

 

Like, well, advancing to the knockout stage in 4 of 6 World Cups this century? With players who allegedly would be "VERY lucky" to qualify at all for most of that time? And with players who are still mostly "cannon fodder" now?

Oh, weren't you the one who said, because of Gregg, we could lose to Jamaica by 7 or 8?

 

There's actually >20% 3+ goal wins in there (including one 5-0 and a 7-1).

And, yes, I suspect blowouts are very much more common in friendlies.

Let's take a look at US history. Currently, the CONCACAF teams directly above and below Bolivia in the Elo ratings are Jamaica, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Haiti.

Since 1990, we've played this cohort 71 times on US soil. Obviously, Elos have been up, down, and all over the place over that time, but that group represents a reasonable facsimile of the level of Bolivia last night.

51 matches have been "competitive". Our record in those matches is 76% win, 16% Draw, 8% Loss. Funny enough, the Elo Sim of the Bolivia match last night... USA win 77%, Draw 16%, Loss 7%. So, that jibes.

Those 51 games only contain 5 matches with a result of 3+ goal difference, 3-0, 3-0, 3-0, 4-0 and 6-0 (all US wins). So that's just 10%, 4%, 2% in terms of 3+, 4+, and 5+ victories for the USA against competition like this in non-friendlies on US soil.

Suffice to say, going in expecting us to rout Bolivia just doesn't match with any historical precedent.

Looking at the 20 friendlies, yes it's more volatile. We rout more (but we also lose and draw more). Our record is 20% loss, 25% draw, 55% win. But when we win (sample size of 11, so grain of salt), good chance we win bigger. Nearly half are routs of 4-1(1x), 4-0(3x) & 5-0(1).

 

Thanks, I have one request. If we win the World Cup in your lifetime, raise a glass to those of us here who made that ultimate success possible through our constant carping.

 

I think there's a familiarity benefit to the underdog, and a familiarity penalty to a favored side, when you're playing the same sides over and over and over, ad nauseum.

And when pretty much every cashgrab "gold" cup and cashgrab nations league are constantly hosted at the same sites over and over and over ad nauseum, familiarity erodes some (not all) of any "home field advantage."

I think that's more down to the abject lack of an efficient #9 for most of the USMNT's recent history. But yeah, one should pretty much never expect a rout from the USMNT, even in a comfortably-won match like last night.

 

Richards is our best center back not named Ream right now and he needs to be allowed to play through these mistakes. He's only got 20 or so caps, yeah? He's adapted to all the other challenges before him, he's an outstanding athlete and player...you have to think he will figure it out.