Pre-match: USA v Mexico Gold Cup Final 2021 (8/1)

I don't know if, to validate a potential victory for Mexico, this is a serious question or sarcastic to be dismissive about pointing out the fact this is not, on average, 1st or even 2nd teamers, on the depth chart, for the US.

Hercules Gomez and Sebastian Salazar are duals and the premise of their show "Futbol Americas" is to cover both country's. They both settled on this being a c-team for the US.

To boot it's a c-team that's not been primarily geared to win, rather test out things for qualifying. For example, Berhalter acknowledged that, given the roster, Zardes would be starting it the priority was to win.

Whether that changes for the final, I don't know. I simply think Zardes will start because Dike's too injured and Gyasi is the alternative, while also getting Hoppe on the field as the ss or wing.

But the roster selection was even geared to try out extra strikers & d-mids to shore up weaknesses. So it's imbalanced to not even be a functional c-team.

A few of these players will be bumped up to the A or B team, but going in they weren't established as such. That's the point of the experiment. And it's been more or less successful. The execution has been a mixed bag, but simply by committing to it, the US is arguably the winner of this tournament. Making the final is the cherry. Winning it all would be fudge.

 

The latter omega from the Greek alphabet, which signifies that the question is meaningless.

 

If we play the same lineup, Pos / spot on the USMNT depth chart

LW 5th——CF 3rd——RW 8th
CM 1st ———CM 6th
——————DM 2nd
LB 4th—-CB 8th—-CB 7th——RB 2nd

Winger depth is for wingers in general
CM 1 is LLETGET, who I think Gregg would start over Yunus for now

so C-

 

If I am making this lineup, my thoughts would flow like this:

1) I only have 2 CBs I even remotely trust. And I am not sure Sands qualifies in a 2 CB set. Much better in a 3 CB setup. Do I have anyone who can play RCB in a 3 man backline? Cannon seems the only option. Can he go 90? If he can, do I waste his ability to link up this far back?

2) I have to play 3 in CM, we'll be overrun with 2. Acosta & Lletget are two. Busio, Roldan, or Williamson for the third?

3) Gotta start Zardes over Dike. But a lone striker can get lonely vs Mexico.

Option #1: Risky 352.

--------------------Turner----------------
-----Cannon---Sands---Robinson----
Arriola----------Acosta---------------Vines
------------Williamson------Lletget----------
---------------Zardes------Hoppe-----------

Feel free to start Roldan or Busio for Williamson. IDK if I trust Moore to play RCB, or Kessler at this stage. This is risky. But can morph into 433 by pushing Vines back & Arriola up.

Option #2: Safer 433

------------------------Turner-----------------
Cannon---Sands----Robinson----Vines
-----------------------Acosta----------------
-----------Williamson-----Lletget---------
Arriola-----------Zardes--------Hoppe

Moore for Cannon if Reggie cannot go close to 90. Feel free to start Busio for Williamson or Roldan (for Williamson or Arriola).

 

I feel Zardes is better coming on as a sub, he’s excelled at it the last 2 matches.

 

Anyone know what version of the Mex NT we're looking at? Having to field an Olympic team as well must have put a lot of pressure on their player selection. Presumably that's a mostly u23 team, so this one could be more vets. I honestly have no idea. But from the commentary about the semis they're not exactly lighting the world on fire, so I don't think it's hopeless though certainly the on-paper odds would favor them.

 

Zardes has also scored as a starter.

 

George is cap-tied to Northern Ireland.

Plus he's been dead for 16 years.

 

You've convinced me to get pizza AND Haagen-Dasz for dinner. I was going to have a salad. Thanks.

 

If Dike falls on his shoulder and can’t go on, or is hampered, I would rather that happens with him as a starter than if he came on as a sub, Another reason to bring on Zardes as a sub.

 

It's the finals. Dike has been performing weakly, since the injury. It's Zardes or Hoppe up top. Zardes has the fresh legs and has scored, so it makes sense to go with him.

 

Yup Berhalter never writes anyone off. Look at Acosta, he had performed poorly at a camp and looked entirely out of the picture. And then he played his way back into the team.

 

There is zero reason to start Dike. Whether his play has been hampered by injury. Or just not playing well doesn't matter. Its the final and you don't start him. This is no longer about looking at players or any of that. Been 5 matches to do so. Now its all out to win and Dike isn't it.

 

Neither is Arriola, but you can pretty much bet he starts. I’d say the same thing about Lletget, but he was solid vs Qatar

 

I love this idea. May have to copy it. Hard to even imagine what to pick for American food.

 

He should have never been in the picture the way he has. There are tons of younger midfielders than him already. Those guys should be improving at a much faster rate than Yeuiill. He isn't good enough and this should have never happened.

 

In fairness, it's not just about what you're record it, it's also about how you play and who you play.

How many truly impressive performances were there, in games you watched during this streak? Many a team have built a lovely record pounding on drivel and Washington Generals type opponents only to get mowed down like the grass on a baseball field the second they open a match against a real, opponent of quality, even middling quality.

I look at the run and I see some performances that I thought ranged good to excellent:

4-1 over Canada in the Nations League was excellent.

4-0 over Cuba was the expectation, but still, they did it.

4-1 over Jamaica in Europe was good.

2-1 over Northern Ireland in Northern Ireland wasn't perfect but it was solid.

3-2 over Mexico was what I sometimes like to call a German Victory, getting outplayed but winning anyway (and we just did that two more times in our past 3 matches as well).

4-0 over Costa Rica in June might have been a product of Costa Rica's minds being elsewhere, the tournament over and all, but thrashing them is still thrashing them, and two years ago in June we would've taken a win in any friendly of any consequence over what we got in those Jamaica/Venezuela, and this was a tour de force of the best of our 2nd stringers and worse playing without seeming stress

6-1 over Martinique was impressive as well, a classic tour de force in the same vein as those wins over Costa Rica, Jamaica, Cuba and Canada.

I've seen 7 victories since I believe that streak began that were truly excellent performances, but I've also seen a litany of poundings of undermanned sides (3 different games in the winter '20-'21 window fit that bill), and some really ugly wins where we had no business (in my view) pulling off the miracle, but did so anyway (Qatar, Canada, kinda Mexico etc).

My issue here is we need to take all the pieces out of this:

#1: Winning when you don't play well enough to win can be a habit, and a good one.

#2: Barely playing well enough to win, especially against inferior opposition because you rarely play up to your talent level can also be a bad habit or reflective of a bad coach.

#3: Winning against the run of play tends to disappear the tougher the quality of the opponent is, and winning because of set piece catastrophes (Nations League Final) is something that fundamentally can't be something you can bet on relying upon (see Zero goals off of set pieces in the '17 hex, see the fact that the Mexican defending in the Nations League Final was without question one of the worst pieces of corner defending ever, and 1000% can't be how you expect to win. This one is particularly important as tons of fans argued: set pieces count too, and to be fair, they do, and taking advantage of scouting and analytics to maximize the quality of your set pieces is something every coach and squad should do, however if you can't get goals in the run of play, sooner or later you will get beaten, especially as you play against teams better organized and well practiced in the art of defending set pieces). If our attack continues to struggle to generate chances in the run of play we absolutely will not maximize our potential this cycle.

Have we amassed a stunning streak of results? Yes. Absolutely. We also won a Gold Cup and made the semifinals of the Copa Centenario in '16-'17, but still totally ---- the bed in qualifying anyway. Individual results are nice, but don't mean a lot if the best you can argue is that the team is grabbing results, but not consistently playing well (which I think is the best depiction of the past 19 months or so). We may not have paid a price for struggles over the past two years with any great consistency, but we will eventually, be it on the road in qualifying when intimidated refs, and the inherent difficulties of playing road matches in the humid, and difficult confines of El Salvador, Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica and Mexico come home to roost, or in the World Cup itself.

There's a lot to recommend in the team figuring out how to play ugly and win, as they did against Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, Canada and Qatar this summer, but if we don't figure out how to up our performance in the run of play, we'll be back to playing ugly and losing as we did in '19 instead, at least when the competition gets stiffer. It's important that we take away the positives from this run, but also to own the problems as well, mentality definitely seems to be on the upswing of late, but actual run of play performing remains uneven at best. We absolutely must improve on this. I am not someone who views qualification as seriously under threat: our talent is simply of too high a quality for me to believe Berhalter can't at least figure out how to finish top 3 in the region, but I do fear that the issues that continue to persist in year 3 of the Berhalter issue will end up killing any chance we have at playing up to our potential in the winter of '22-'23 in Qatar. It's imperative he get out of his own way and the team's way so they can start performing up to their talent level.

 

you can only beat the team in front of you. If the Mexico win, they are champions of CONCACAF, yet again. Undisputed number 1 in the region. (Note: their young players are off in the medal rounds of the olympics, while ours…. aren’t). Yet another win by Mexico will merely confirm Mexico owns US at every level, club and country, barring an occasional friendly win.

 

Huh? Owns us at every level? Last full side vs full side I am pretty sure we won.

 

First if this idea was thrown out already I apologize; I miss a day on the boards and a new thread pops up with 8 pages of posts haha.

With that said, a few things seem clear to me:
• Dike can’t/shouldn’t go.
• We want Hoppe for a full 90’.
• We are short on wing depth.
• If Zardes, Hoppe, and Gioacchini all start we don’t have that 2nd-half impact sub.

Factoring all of that in: I think we start Hoppe up top, with Gioacchini and Arriola flanking him on the wings.
Then in the 2nd half we bring in Zardes for Arriola and move Hoppe to the wing.

Gives Hoppe a run at the 9, gives him a full 90’ (and Gioacchini too if you want, though you could sub Roldan on for him), and gives us Zardes as an impact sub.

 

Guess you didn’t get the memo, the Berhalter Brigade promised us that J Lewis was a super sub!!!!