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

South Korea's starters were several domestics, several random Europe, a couple BL guys (1 Bayern), & their attacking star is now in MLS himself. Their manager is domestic.

So to attribute failure to MLS/our domestic league/lack of club pedigree rings hollow. Maybe their manager is just more informed about their pool, & can put them in a sensible, organized system.

 

Adams through the first 2 or 3 EPL games is, algorithmically, a top 50 player. So how does he come here and throw out a 5.5 FM? What is up with that.

 

i think if you look at his performance completely divorced from all context, role and usage thats a reasonable conclusion to draw. in the same way that its reasonable to say our team isnt going to improve to any significant degree by plugging in the guys who are far more effective at their clubs.

if our rw is going to have dest running up his ass, wanting to get in the same spots then the quality gap between a pulisic and a mcglynn is overwhelmingly narrowed. if our 6 has no support, is expected to cover a backline featuring two players whos primary roles are attacking and one cb who has next to no mobility at all adams isnt going to be a whole lot more effective than roldan.

there is no next to no correlation between bournemouth adams and usmnt adams, and it has nothing to do with fitness, work rater, effort or "heart". how we setup and play are the problem.

the last 30 minutes against sko are being used (mostly misused) to skew how we actually performed last night, contributing to the idea that we made some adjustments, got under-performing players out, etc. but heres what actually happened...

we dropped the bullshit setup and tactics. we didnt add, we subtracted. ream wasnt magically any better, any more usable- 6 spots/roles on the pitch dedicated to compensating for him were removed. we had 2 cm above 3 defenders. we brought on a guy who moves towards the opponents goal rather than our own. the fbs werent required primarily for defense.

adams would have looked a lot less injured and porous not being saddle with at least 3 other peoples jobs is my point. zendejas looked like a reasonable option without having to fight over the same space with another player (while puli simply traded dest for arfsten insuring there was no space for him to do anything). freeman moved into those wide areas we habitually neglect, and our "big offensive improvement" was mostly him banging the hell out of crosses into his defender. that and the random balls that pop loose when you suddenly have half a dozen guys trying to get into the box...

because this isnt an endorsement of a 3atb setup. its simply an indictment of an overly regulated style of play that, but its very design, creates consistent and wholly avoidable breakdowns in our defensive shape.

tyler cant pressure 3 midfielders by himself and a backline scrambling to cover for one player which opens space elsewhere (frequently without fbs in position). he can cover a 4 man backline as a lone 6 at the highest level in the world). both are true.

but ignoring context, role, usage (in addition to very, very different levels of player) isnt just missing the forest for the trees, its zooming in on bark to the point of abstraction.

 

Nah, probably '15-'17, a lot of horrible losses there, but that team was, lol, better too.

Remember how awful 1998 was, was basicallly a lost to Germany that was damn close to being 1-1 if Heydude scores, and if the far post is properly covered on a corner and not butchered (Sorber or who?). Iran won totally against the run of play, though admittedly, Sampson's panicked tactics opened our midfield to be abused in that very fashion (counterattack/transition goals). The team basically had 1 bad game, and it wasn't that bad, it was just the locker room that broke over his decisions in May/June combined w/being isolated at that chateau, which amplified the dissention because guys couldn't get away and decompress in Paris or whatever).

This, is straight up horse ---- play for 2 straight years, and its getting worse and worse, instead of flattening, or improving. It's the worst I've ever seen the team, period. Even '15-'17 was just largely uneven, this is straight downhill ski run/avalanche.

 

I remember the play where the Korean player received the ball boxed between 4 midfielders and Tyler played a passing lane…nobody else closed him down. I honestly don’t know who was wrong there, but I’m wondering why nobody at least closed him down…they turn, pass, pass, back heap flick goal.

But that was a collective terrible play. My guess is he simply plays with better players or players with better understanding

 

Balogun, Pepe and Wright will be our three strikers next June.
Since the latter two are absent right now, Balogun should be played against Japan, Ecuador and Australia to gel with Pulisic, Weah (if not injured), Adams, de la Torre, Roldan, Freeman, Richards, Ream and Dest at LB.
Freese GK. Pochettino did not bring a reliable CB to play for Ream instead. Zendejas might have to replace Weah if injured. What a deficient roster.

 

Adams was hurt at the GC but after yesterday's match it is becoming clear that Adams is not comfortable playing the way Poch is asking him to play.

Hopefully it does not become another Madrid getting rid of Makelele situation because according to their president, Makelele almost never passed forwardsand never more than 10 yards. Remember ZZ/Roborto Carlos comment to selling Makelele:

"Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?"

Adams is at his best sitting in front of the CBs and protecting the backline form problems often before they start. He is world class at that so let him do that!

Tyler is starting to look a little frustrated.

 

Negative momentum from the match, but…

This same team with Jedi, Richards, Balogun, Tillman, and possibly Johnny/Musah/McKennir/Reyna/Tessman is a completely different team.

What we learned is that Dest is back and impactful and Flo the same.

I’m hoping Poch is figuring it out. There is still a good team within the pool.

 

Once again, though, this squad demonstrates no real on-field leadership. And the worst part about that is that this generation of USMNT doesn't seem to know how to figure out things on their own. Not only does no one player seem capable of stepping up and pulling a rabbit out of their hat to turn a game around, eg. Donovan, Dempsey, etc. but they don't know how to get their heads together on the field and create their own plays, who cares what Poch might be yelling on the side-lines. Same with the defense -- no sense they're working together closely as a unit, as guys who don't need to be told by the coach what to do and how to do it.

 

Give me an f-ing break with this sh!t. Johnny Cardoso is proving himself every week against the very best players in the world. So, he had a not so great match against Panama or whatever 6 months ago? And you want to replace him with Sebastian f-ing Berhalter? And still think that is the right call after Berhalter has looked overmatched again and again against mediocre teams/players? WTF do you think is going to happen next summer if/when Berhalter has to face the players Johnny faces every week?

The issue should be why isn’t Poch getting the most out of Johnny, McKennie, Musah, etc.? And the solution is not let’s put in Sebastian f-ing Berhalter instead.

 

Could ask that about a lot of our guys. Coaching is about making the best picture from the puzzle pieces you have, not wishing you had a different set of pieces.

 

Yes, but if said better players don't ever perform, or rarely perform, or perform extremely inconsistently (and, let's be honest, Johnny has been almost purely crap in a US uniform), then where is the accountability if we simply reward these guys with more call-ups and more starts.

I say this as someone who thinks that Poch has allowed the auditions for the deep end of the pool to go on too long, that 5-6 "real" starters in these windows against World Cup-level teams like Korea, Japan, Ecuador, Australia, etc. simply are not enough to be competitive, especially when several of the other 5-6 aren't exactly second-choice material but rather deep-bench (spots 20-26 who are their for contingencies or specific situations, not 12-16 that you expect to use regularly) or else not good enough for the roster.

Johnny is probably one of those 12-16 on quality, though he hasn't played like it with us. But these windows should be, among other things, an attempt to get guys like Johnny to put up or shut up, in my opinion.

 

this is my real issue with Poch. I’ve not been impressed with the organization of the team. And for me, the number one job of a coach is to organize his/her team. It’s clear that players have been unsure of their defensive responsibilities (in the press and in set defense). This has been something I’ve noticed window after window no matter what group of players we have brought in.
BS is so focused on the roster and the lineups and missing the major issue that could plague this team unless this is fixed.

 

I’d love to be a fan of a team that is so good that it can just waste all of its set pieces and still win ….. but sadly I’m not.

 

Yes, I watched that one over. It's worth watching the build up to the play you referenced starting at about 41:40. There is plenty for Poch to cover with the players. Luna and Sergeant are pressing but from behind and seem focused on preventing back passes to the SK back line. This allows the SK midfielder to turn and both Berhalter and Adams are too far off the ball to make the pass difficult. The defensive shape just didn't look compact at all inviting SK to attack down the middle. Definitely didn't help that Dest didn't recognize the danger of the SK player inside of him leaving Ream in a 1 v2 situation until too late. Crazy how SK was able to get the US so out of sorts on that one.

 

I think this is directly correlated to the players brought in. Not who they but that they havent played together under Poch much. I agree this is an issue but I also think its fairly easily improved on once (if we do get there) we settle on the mainstay roster and start to play them multiple times together.

Its not as simple as saying player X does this and player y does this. It depends on the strengths of players X and Y.

 

You have it upside down.

Cardoso is one of several guys performing at high level European clubs who underperform 90% of the time with the US.

It’s not the coach or the system or whatever. It’s the underperforming players. They were at their best when Berhalter was literally forcing them to memorize cues so that they would know how to execute as a team. Without Berhalter chewing their food for them, they have sucked. These automatic-start players suck. They are not as good as you think they are.

 

The guys not pressing? Pulisic, Weah, Adams, etc. Rinse and repeat.

I thought they were rested up? What happened?

 

It did appear on that sequence that not everybody was bought in, sure of their assignmemt, or something. SK punked us.

 

No manager on the planet is making this an easy match for this player pool, period. Honestly if you're looking at this match with despair, I mostly just have to marvel at the fact that you got through the Bradley era at all. It will never be easy for the US to play matches like this, effectively an away game against a highly technical well-structured side with a superstar that the US frankly cannot get near in terms of talent who, surprise surprise, was a big part of both goals against.

Anyways... Korea was pretty good, the US wasn't so much but their 2nd half was decent in many ways. Part of that is obviously Korea being up 2 but regardless the US could have had at least one goal. I'd imagine that scramble near the end which was somehow kept out probably contributed to their 2.23 xG.

Berhalter was very profligate, I didn't like his decision making at all, but that curled dead ball alone shows you why he's there... a single swing of his leg could create a good chance to score.

Someone (usually) reasonable said to expect 1 draw and 2 tough losses in the group stage next summer, and I'd agree... if the US were playing Korea 3 times in a row. But they won't be.

 

Damn, @NietzscheIsDead is back from his lunch break

 

I'm not pretending that anyone didn't play poorly. Berhalter and Blackmon played poorly. I think, in contrast, Luna was fine; Arfsten was fine. Freese was good.

But you're the one that really only posted about Berhalter -- and like eight posts in a row were just like "Berhalter suxx." And yes, quite a few of literally said that Christian played poorly because he was playing with someone like Berhalter.

No, that's not it. We had 2 xG for a reason; our frontline couldn't score. A big part of that is only Christian. No one made him fail to execute in several key situations.

Christian's great. I have no interest in benching him. But I'm evaluating the game. If we're talking about the game against South Korea, none of that matters. If we're trying to figure out why we lost, Christian doesn't get credit for playing well in other games.

That's not playing favorites, that's just basic logic. If we're picking the team for the world cup, yes, a player's history matters. If we're saying why we lost, no, how Christian played in Qatar is irrelevant.

Of course someone vying for a backup role aren't THE SOLUTION! That's my point. The solution is the better players playing better.

The idea that the US can't possibly be asked to beat South Korea or Panama unless we have a full, healthy team of XI elite players or our best players can't be expected to perform is bizarre. And a real problem if true, because it ain't going to happen.

The US -- and many other teams -- have won international matches like this with the likes of Max Arfsten or Berhalter. Arfsten played fine yesterday; Berhalter did not. But a team whose best players were stepping up could have overcome that just fine.

People are overly freaked out about the World Cup, but they are also overly freaked out for the wrong reasons, just like last World Cup. We've done this once -- people thinking Sebastian Lletget or Jackson Yueill were going to get massive time in the World Cup. We know most of our Best XI healthy, and those are going to play.

But in 2022, guys like Adams and Pulisic really stepped it up and had good tournaments. They are going to have to do the same.

Also, don't put me in a bucket with Nietzche; he and I do not agree on a lot. No one sane is tossing Pulisic and Adams at all. I'm also not tossing McKennie or Tillman or any number of people for Berhalter.

But one player didn't lose up that game, and since I'm putting in just a bit of thought for next summer, I suspect Blackmon and Berhalter's minutes in the World Cup are going to be tiny compared to the other guys who had bad games.

Luckily, those other guys DO have more talent. But it's a minute since they played well for us.

 

Adams was good defensively for us yesterday, though he did hesitate at a couple of key moments, but I think that's the new player / organization component.

But offensively, he turned the ball over a lot. And in bad spots.

 

i love it. Adams had a poor game because of Berhalter. Lol. But then I’ll bash Berhalter because he had the pleasure / opportunity to play with Adams.

I love it. Keep ‘em coming. Maybe bash Luna for making Sarge suck. (Or whatever other looneytoons shit you got going over there… I don’t wanna stifle your creative process)

 

Luna played fine yesterday and played his role ably. I would have liked him to be more aggressive, but he was clearly more in charge of ball progression than attack.

He and Pulisic aren't used to playing together with each other, and it may just be that Diego is Christian's backup. Or it could be we let them play more than one game together before judging. Christian was freelancing so much (I assume on Poch's orders) that it wasn't hard to get in his way.

Freeman was good yesterday and showed more of why everyone likes him.

But you're responding to someone who still think Tillman sucks because of 15 minutes he saw like a year ago.