Post-match: USA v. Japan - September 9, 2025 - International Friendly

Such a bummer that even with this legit win people are choosing to downgrade it based on Japan's starting 11, xG, and/or focusing on a missed pass here and there. WTF do they even watch the game? Don't you have to enjoy a 2-0 against a top 25 team that has been nearly lights out for years?

 

It's a small sample, but the 3 CB setup had great results

Sargent is going to need a lot more "help" to get on the WC roster than that, from my perspective.

 

There’s a difference between enjoying the game (I did) and having any major takeaways from the game. This is News & Analysis, so when analyzing our performance it is malpractice not to take into account the fact that Japan changed their entire starting 11. This was a wildly different team than their “Top 25” ranking. If you want to rah rah about it, feel free, but in the post game analysis thread it is silly to expect people to not, you know, analyze our performance.

This was a good performance against a fairly weak side. Some individual players earned the right for more looks, but I’m not sure there’s a lot more to take from it.

 

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??? go on...

 

i dunno, ask jozy, deuce and johannson...and that was without an extended roster.

 

I think this is largely down to playing a weak opponent.

 

Klinsmann and Kochen time for keeper. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more European based all jokes aside with what you said. Would be nice to see Tessmann and Morris again and see how they do.
Maybe Koleosho finally gives up on Italy and joins the winger group. Maybe Germany falters in qualifiers and they can get Nathaniel Brown.

 

I have not been a Freeman fan (I watched every minute of our Gold Cup run). I'll give this game a second watch, but my first impression today was that Freeman was really good. Room for improvement and all, but very solid contribution. More than anything, though, is that the WHOLE TEAM performed well throughout.

 

I thought Freeman improved a bit as the game went on, but I agree that he looked poor going forward for most of the game. His first attacking play was slow and clumsy, and ended with a very weak cross. Later in the first half, he had an opportunity to play somebody into the box, but he failed to weight the pass properly and booted it out for a goal kick. When he had some other chances to get down the right side, he typically deferred if there was someone else nearby to take on the responsibility. He started to improve his control and his passing eventually, and was able to combine well a few times.

I was also less impressed by Roldan than some others here. Before the game, I actually expected that he might stand out as one of our better players tonight, based on having watched quite a few Seattle matches this summer. In his pregame interview, he sounded focused and ready to shine. I thought he played okay for most of the game, but he made more errors than I would have expected, and at times looked a bit lost defensively.

Arfsten played really well, I thought. Good (and quick) decision-making, and confident activity. This was the type of game (and opponent) where his strengths were allowed to flourish. Too bad he sort of mis-hit that one shot in the first half where it looked like he might score.

Richards is clearly one of our best defenders right now, but it was a little scary to see him revert to making the occasional "oh no" pass out of the back. Japan could easily have scored on one of them. That tendency was his achilles heel for the Nats last summer, so I hope we won't be seeing any more of that any time soon.

It's been awhile since I've seen Adams do anything very impressive. Don't know quite what to make of that. He wasn't a liability tonight, I just miss some of the more outstanding plays he is (or was?) capable of. I know he's not necessarily expected to score goals, but I thought he passed up at least one good opportunity to fire off a shot in this game.

The Zendejas goal was a beauty, but I'm not fully convinced about him just yet.

Luna sort of disappointed me tonight, but he didn't have much time to find a groove.

It was good to see Dest being unselfish around the box, passing well, and setting up some good scoring chances as a result.

I tend to think that McGlynn has enough to offer as an attacking weapon (off the bench) that he should remain in the running for a roster spot. Not an ideal talent at this level, obviously, but man... that left boot.

I'm totally on board the Balogun train, and hope he stays healthy. Nuf said.

Great to see a game (finally) where I felt proud of the team again.

 

Great win, guys. A win that makes us proud.

Takeaways:

- The Arfsten-Zendejas goal was one of the nicest skill goals we have seen in a long time. Arfsten roasts his guy and delivers a fantastic ball that curls on to Zendejas’ preferred foot (lefty to lefty) and Zendejas volleys that ball into the far corner to beat the keeper. It’s a brilliant goal. To pull something like that out of the hat to take the pressure off was big in this game and you could see it in the team.
- Arfsten is going to the World Cup folks, quit complaining that he’s an MLS guy and appreciate that we have another skill player to throw at defenders. The guy is legitimately good and he’s ambidextrous.
- Zendejas deserves another look. When you come through for the coach and the team like that, you deserve the chance to do so again.
- Balogun was excellent in this game. He had a much more focused and determined look to him than we have seen. He was always involved, always probing, always working off the ball. He absolutely deserved the goal.
- This game was closer to what Milan sees from Pulisic than what we have seen from him of late. He was much better than he was against SK.
- Blackmon was good in this one as well.
- You can see the potential in Freeman. He makes some fantastic plays out there and watching that dude eat up the field is something else. He has so much explosiveness and power. He made some great passes and he missed some passes. If he puts it all together, he’s capable of being a star right back on any team in the world, including the top teams. His ceiling is higher than anyone else in the squad, including Pulisic. He’s an explosive brute with feet and vision. Freak. Not dissimilar from Alfonso Davies.
- Richards/Ream is a good and growing partnership.

 

Ya, people can feel good for a min but don’t lose perspective. We’ve got Ecuador next, current ELO #9 and 2nd in CBOL WCQing.

 

they might be your friends, but i am what i am (minus the spinach). that block button is a completely valid option.

 

We just saw why IMO -- even a not-great Japan side had some joy going in behind the wingbacks, and their best chance came from some holes in midfield because US was a lil light there with "real" CMs. It was a good performance and all, but to me it feels unnecessary with a full/healthy CM and ARob.

Not sure if it was gogorath or gomichigan who said the following, because I always confuse them as they both start with g and for me are among the best posters on this board, but when the side is depleted... 3 ATB makes a lot of sense. With full compliment, which I assume we hope to have at the World Cup, I think it arguably takes away from 2 of the biggest areas of strength in the side.

Either way, consider my interest in the formation and which way Poch will lean in October for 2 tough matches, piqued. I must admit this went a lot better than I thought it would, with these 2 wingbacks (who were both IMO quite good).

 

This Japan squad, full strength or not, typically gets results.

They lost today.

The team deserves kudos. Its a quality win against a good team.

 

The team had a complete 90 minute performance today. They were on it, with it, full effort for 90 minutes. I'd love for that to be the standard for performance for the USMNT regardless of debates over the level of the opponent, but it has NOT been the standard. The FOCUS that the whole team exhibited today was exceptional (from a USMNT perspective) and they deserve great credit for bringing it, and for maintaining it, from whistle to whistle.

 

I forgot to mention Matt Freese, who had every bit of responsibility in that clean sheet. He had two excellent saves.

It is worth mentioning that he had a couple of excellent saves in the SK game as well.

 

thats interesting, i have seen very, very little of his play with orl so prowess in the box is, again very interesting.

we have essentially opted out of set pieces for so long im a bit behind in putting the pieces together over the last little while. first off, i dont think theres any set piece taker in the world worth the current limitations seb currently has, which is partly why i havent put a lot of focus on it.

i do know we have overemphasized richards as "the" target (to the point of near exclusivity, which isnt tenable), and the late push corners from the left were targeting ream- which is asinine, cause hes never been a threat in the air. there were two or three (i guess it was mcglynn taking) pretty spot on delivered, but all were easily won/cleared right over his head.

can you speak to his positioning (if its been consistent and where), cause i havent noticed at all. and i have no trouble believing he could wreak havoc in there i just havent had any reason to check (again, all every fk dropped over the ball for richards).

maybe we could a get little wes/freeman threat in there, take the entirety of the heat/attention off cr. i dont think freeman is going to see a ton of time (hell, wes may not either in pochs genius plan that totally exists). gotta find a taker though. we all know it cant be puli, i dont see gio starting, maybe dest? freaking put ream on that end if hes going to be on the pitch...

 

Re: the Haji/Poch rumors…supposedly, Haji was not happy that he got zero starts and so few minutes this past summer (especially versus Big Pat), and Haji “showed” his unhappiness when he scored his Gold Cup goal and didn’t celebrate at all.

 

Not smart.

 

Balogun is a better striker for this USA men’s team. Feel badly for Sargent, but I’ll be surprised if he makes the final roster.

 

So, we lost to SK 2-0, beat Japan 2-0, Japan tied Mex 0-0 and SK tied Mex 2-2.
So we have 3 pts tied with SK who have 3 pts, but beat us head to head. Mex has 2 pts, Japan 1. If we tie Mex and Japan beats SK, Japan will have 4 pts, we will have 4 pts. So Japan and US will progress. If we beat Mex, we have 6 but an SK win over Japan would put them over us on head-to-head, but we both progress. If we lose, we go home. Come on Dos a Ceros! I feel good about our chances. WC here we come!!

 

Some other pros and cons of 3atb:

Pro: Players in comfortable roles. Obviously Arfsten benefitted greatly. Adams doesn’t have to drop between center backs to facilitate. Pulisic gets even more space to roam and I think he likes coming back for the ball and contributing that way, also.
Con: We’re going to need about 5 viable center backs if we play this formation. Where are they coming from?
Pro: Suddenly weak depth on the wings becomes pretty deep, when they aren’t true wingers. Besides Pulisic and now Zendejas I think in the mix, there’s Tillman, Wes, Musah, Luna, Reyna, or Balogun, Weah, Wright, Downs for a different look, too.
Cons: 3 atb scares the hell out of me! When they build out of the back, they are spread out all the way across the field, there’s huge swaths of land between them. We have to be immaculate with our passes and control, and eek that’s not our strong suit. Also, it will end up with Freese having to pass more and I don’t love that.

 

Dela Torre’s game seems exclusively focused on shuttling through the mid-field. It never seems to lead to anything though. It always feels very one dimensional. Almost like he’s doing drills out there.

 

That's all nice, but we're not very good right now. The problems against SK are still there in plain view.