Post-match: USA v. South Korea - September 6, 2025 - International Friendly

Reality: we have a team full of David Regis.

What now?

 

Benching Pulisic would be moronic. Dumber than Klinsmann dropping Donovan.

Adams probably, too.

The other three one could argue. I'd probably say that is exactly what Poch IS doing right now, questioning whether they should be starters. You answer that by trying alternatives. He's trying Berhalter, Luna, Arfsten, Roldan, etc. And they are showing that the are not improvements. You'd think Poch sees it, but maybe not.

 

Then why were those guys all better performers yesterday than Pulisic, Adams, Sargent, and Weah?

 

I like him on the team. I want him on the team. But not was a starter.

 

The worse problem is that Poch thinks the US should have won. And apparently, if you only look at some xG stat he can convince himself that’s true. So not only is the team off the rails, the manager does not apparently recognize it is off the rails. So Berhalter, for example, is going to keep showing up. A pool on how many minutes he gets in the WC would be pretty fun.

Of course as long as the players that are “better” than Berhalter keep having reasons not to contribute more, either through absence or poor play, then Poch’s hand is never forced.

Adams was below par for sure yesterday. I think that was at least in part down to a lack of coordination with and help from Berhalter, but that’s a bit subjective.

 

Roldan was clearly better than Adams yesterday. It wasn’t even close.

If you can’t change the way that Adams, Pulisic, Weah, etc., perform (they suck, again), and you can’t bear to get them off the field, then you are stuck with suck, and maybe we shouldn’t complain when we lose. We should just accept the inevitable.

 

The problem right now isn't players 30-50. Its players 1-10. Whatever the problem is, that's where the problem is.

 

Yes x1000. Robinson is out injured, no thanks Arfsten plug in McKennie. Weah is out of form doesn't look great on the wing, plug in McKennie. Thinking about playing Berhalter next to Adams because injuries or limited options? no thanks, plug in McKennie. Gio is not playing and out of form and Tilmann is just coming back from injury? You want to start Luna at the 10? No thanks, plug in McKennie.

 

Well, that is what is confounding. Our starters are not pulling their weight, which is exactly what you’ve been saying. But some of the guys he’s bringing in are clearly not good enough.

Maybe we need to send our starters to some sort of psychological retreat/bootcamp to get them to wake up. I’m half joking.

 

This has long been true in my opinion. We should play defensively like SK in a way. Compact, disciplined - then use our speed on attack, esp when a few of Balo, Dest, CP, Weah, Tillman, Luna, Jedi are on the field. We can press when the situation warrants, but I don't think it's our strongest suite. We don't need to be a pure counter-attacking team per se (is there such a thing?) but I would encourage tighter defensive shape and faster attack for our "skill set."

 

Berhalter created two better chances yesterday than Pulisic, Weah, or Sargent did.

Pulisic and Adams were both directly responsible for the first goal. Adams was involved in the second. Both times they left a guy on his first cap guarding one of the best attacking players in the world on an island.

Those were the results. That’s what happened.

Think about that for a minute and reframe. These guys without pedigrees are making more contributions to winning soccer and making fewer mistakes that contribute to losses.

It’s not the support players.

 

Well, in my meltdown last night, I admitted to the sad reality of feeling resigned to getting our asses kicked at home next year.

I suspect we’ll turn this around. But goodness gracious things don’t look good now.

If we do pull a rabbit out of a hat next summer, we’ll look back on this current drama with smiles.

 

I’m not a badge FC guy. Johnny has made major errors infront of our goal that have cost us games in his last two starts AND has added nothing to us scoring goals (a net negative player). Berhalter is racking up Expected assist and not making major boneheaded mistakes like Johnny ( a net positive player).
Musah has been a nightmare under Poch, and McKennie has been hit or miss with us for some reason (motivation?).
I think Musah would be a good option to try against Japan (who pressed Mexico into tons of turnovers in their own end) to see if he could break their press. For me Musah is a match up problem for teams that want to press us but can’t physically match up against Musah. He looks great against those teams and then is a liability against teams like Panama that can match up against him and turn him over in bad areas.
last comment because I’m all over the place but if Berhalter takes that free kick instead of Pulisic and scores or hits a nice shot like he often does with Vancouver, you’re not bitching about him but some other non badge FC player.

 

Because our better talent isn't performing, you don't necessarily just drop them and go with guys who likewise are not performing and oh by the way also have half or a third the talent. That's just idiotic IMO.

 

I wish we were a baller.

 

The David Regis slander is uncalled for. I'd love to see Regis on this team.

 

Its players 1-5.

 

The guys who aren't there are uniformly better than the scrubs he is insisting on starting and fantasizing as depth options. It is ludicrous that guys like Scally and Tessmann and more are getting left at home, that McKenzie is in Europe, and Blackmon is starting. LUDICROUS. Period. Has nothing to do with Badge FC and everything to do with talent, and no time left for idiotic experiments and fits of piques leading to more talented players with more experience w/these teammates being left at home for nice guys who aren't remotely close to good enough, let alone months away.

 

They were outperformed by MLS guys yesterday. Roldan was clearly better than Adams. Berhalter was 100% better than both Weah and Pulisic. McGlynn and Luna were better than them both as well.

 

Whats even more shocking is to watch the half-assed effort that Pulisic and Adams put in to mark their players before Blackmon was left rotating between two of them scrambling to defend Son.

 

And herein lies the problem for Poch (or ANY damn coach).

What's the coach supposed to do. Its almost a lose - lose situation.

Sit the Adams, Weah, and Pulsics?

Nobody thinks that Berhalter, Roldan and Luna are "better players than Adams, Weah, and Pulisic. Clearly the ceiling is higher with the later players. But tomorrow maybe you do get a better result not playing them.

At the end of the day this is about next summer and I don't know what else to do but to start trotting out the Best XI (highest ceiling and fit players) and continue to work on things.

 

Um no just no. They were all equally pretty shit. Berhalter did absolutely NOTHING. He turned the ball over and fouled people for 90 mins straight. I have no clue why you have such a hard on for him, its really really strange tbh.

 

why don’t you make an honest argument and reference the fact that the Turkey game (friendly I front of the GC tournament) was an important game and Johnny was fighting to win a s starting spot for that tournament, not some throwaway game he didn’t t care about.
If you start living in the world of facts like the rest of us we won’t be so annoying.