I just don’t think it’s worth getting upset or complaining given that we won the Nations League and with Musah having been fully integrated with the team in qualifying.
He’s leaving in two months. Not sure they’re incentivized to give him minutes anyway at this point (not that the counting stats have impressed since he came back from his surgery.).
Does kinda feel like a repeat of ‘19-20 rather than his excellent ‘20-‘21 but I should probably do better leg work than relying on occasional check ins w/his game log lol.
Weah found out he was starting like 5 mins before kickoff. That was not the plan, that was forced improvisation, like the players saving his —- inspite of his total incompetence in the 2nd half against Honduras.
The Octagonal has 40 percent more games and a lower percent of teams that qualify, so you can't go by what third and fourth got in Hexagonals. That reminds me a sports novel by Matt Christopher. The protagonist is a boy who is a good player new to a team. A drill was for two players to pass back and forth until one shoots. The protagonist decided that since he didn't know the quality of his teammate, he would shoot without passing. The teammate he didn't pass to was the captain the previous year, and it resulted in games with players who would pass to the prior captain but not the protagonist or vice-versa, and the coach noticed something was wrong.
Yep, but I'd be fine with shifting him to 6 to accommodate Busio late in a game if we need a goal and Adams was hurt yet again and unavailable.
True that they don't have any real incentive to play him for developmental purposes but IF they felt that he could help them improve in the standings that would surely give them incentive. The fact that he is not playing probably has more to do with his drop in form than to his impending departure.
Arriola in the top 2 over the past 18 months? Really? Hmmm, let me add some numbers up... Lletget has 1,283 minutes (which is probably the highest of anyone, but I'm not going to add up everyone's minutes on transftermarkt). Arriola has 380 minutes since the pandemic began. McKennie has 750. Acosta has 1,246. Tyler flipping Adams has 588. Dest has 795 minutes. Antonee Robinson has 704. Zimmerman has 419. Aaronson has 826. And, the cherry on top, is that Yunus Musah (he who hasn't gotten a chance) has 578 minutes in the time frame you note. Hell, Yedlin has almost as many minutes as Arriola (295) as does Tim Weah (354). These are just a sampling of players that I picked because I thought they'd played somewhat regularly. I'd be interested to know where you heard that the "stats of minutes played for the past 18 months" show Arriola in the top 2.
I mean, he's getting transferred inside the organization. There's incentive to develop him, but clearly not enough to overcome the attempt to make the playoffs. It's a pretty drastic drop-off. His value was probably inflated by the early goals, but he's definitely run a bad run of form if the guy I watched early in the season can't help the Red Bulls now.
I never said Musah didn't get a chance to play period. I said he didn't get a chance to play meaningful games when he has played just about all friendlies since the Walles game. The minutes played quote I threw out about Lleget and Arriola having the most minutes, I got it from another thread. I believe those numbers include ONLY games that count not friendlies..
I think those stats were for since Berhalter took over. I can’t imagine that if you only took non-friendlies over the last 18 months that Matt Turner wouldn’t be number 1 given that he started every Gold Cup game and 5 of 6 qualifiers.
18 months is a bit of a silly time frame considering that Arriola missed 2020 with an ACL tear and the US didn't play a competitive match between November 2019 and June 2021. But anyway, Arriola has played 380 minutes in competitive matches in the last 18 months and in the last 4.5 months.
Arriola has played 1,853 minutes in competitive matches since the start of his international career on May 22, 2016, under Klinsmann, Arena, Sarachan and Berhalter. Edited: he's played 1,069 minutes in competitive matches under GB since December 2018, including 235 in the 2021 GC. McKennie has played 1,283 minutes in competitive games under Berhalter.
I want to start by saying I think this conversation has been pretty interesting, so I don't want to be taken the wrong way when I say that I find much of it somewhat strange. I have never completely understood some of the reasoning about inclusion of different players and how it relates to Berhalter's plans and future actions. I say this because, as a coach, he is (or at least should be) prioritizing different things at different times. Because he was using Bradley, for instance, when most if not all felt that he should move on, people started projecting him as Berhalter's favorite starter til the end of time. I still don't know exactly what his thinking was (I can think of some possibilities but that isn't for now). I will say that my guess is he probably had in mind a role a bit more like Ream's at the moment: a veteran that wasn't necessarily first choice but could provide veteran leadership and, at times be inserted into a game (or even as a starter) and be effective. I don't know when he expected certain young players to overtake the older vets but I do know (at least I think I know) that he wanted to have it figured out by wcq. Has he met that goal? I would say probably...probably mostly. I would also say that most of the people that argue so strenuously about his choices would mostly agree with his current first 11 -15. With that in mind, should the first 5-12ish months totally obliterate his current roster, and or overshadow the roster and choices for wcq? I would say no, but I guess I am not part of a consensus. For a coach that has to completely rebuild a team from the ground up and has little actual time to do so (and even less time if you include the whole group) he has to prioritize based on a few things. On top of that task, some (many/most?) of the players are/were extremely young and, while it was obvious that some would be ready before wcq, they weren't yet ready. 1. deadline 2. what has to be established first (not in order and with the understanding that all of the following will be in constant evolution) a) team style of play b) team as a unit (unity, team mentality, overall philosophy, camraderie etc) c) roster d) best 23 e) best 15 f) best 11 g) etc (these are all kind of off the top of my head, some things he might want to develop) 1st: NO game (friendly or otherwise) is unimportant BUT the key is that they are important to Berhalter for different reasons based upon what we are playing for (friendly vs tournament etc) and MORE IMPORTANTLY where on the time line. 2nd: Berhalter cannot focus on all of the goals at once...at least not if he wants to be successful with any of them. As a result, he needs to triage the situation and determine the best order. One thought might be "is it better to establish a team first and then add players as they develop (youngest of young) and or as they become available (primarily European based players....not available during January camp and later during pandemic) We see some of his obvious prioritizing (at least I think it is obvious) in the two games/tournaments that matter the most pre wcq. The nation's league final and the gold cup. I think it is pretty obvious that he wanted to use the Nation's league cup as a dress rehearsal for wcq adn the gold cup to work on and develop depthchart and team mentality. If you want to know who Berhalter felt was his best 11 at the time of NL, look at the starting lineup. With the exception of Adams (recovering from injury if I remember correctly) I don't think there are too many that would have too much of an argument. I don't remember if there was an injury at cb but McKenzie got the start and even before his errors, there were people that disagreed and Ream was another. Because it would have been a hardshiip to Euro players to spend so much time at gold cup, he decided to use players that weren't in NL. That was mostly MLS players, with a few exceptions. Agree or disagree, I think it is pretty hard to argue that he did not have a different goal for gold cup than for NL (or wcq). Because he had a different goal, he should be graded differently. (by the way, since there were 6 games played during gc, (540 minutes available) compared to one at NL, anyone that played multiple games rose pretty fast up the minutes played chart without it being any sort of comment (one way or the other) on their place in the first 23. What it did do was allow a few players to stake their claim to a place in the first 23 and ultimately the first 11 for a couple of players (Turner, Robinson) For what it is worth, the rotation in Panama was probably part of the gold cup experiment. it worked in the gold cup (the whole squad was rotated from nl to gc). I personally disagree with a few of the choices he made for the Panama game but it was likely other things (Berhalter prepping team and or player self prep and or overconfidence etc) that were ultimately to blame. You cannot convince me that the team we put out on that day should not have been able to play better than they did. I won't be 100% sure that we won't see another window with a large number of changes, but I wouldn't expect it this coming window.
In the last ten seasons, here is how many clubs had at least 76 points, how many points fourth place had, and how many points fifth place had: 2020-2021: 1, 67, 66 2019-2020: 2, 66, 62 2018-2019: 2, 71, 70 2017-2018: 3, 75, 70 2016-2017: 4, 76, 75 2015-2016: 1, 66, 66 2014-2015: 2, 70, 64 2013-2014: 4, 79, 72 2012-2013: 2, 73, 72 2011-2012: 2, 69, 65 The means are 2.3 clubs with at least 76 points, 71.2 points for fourth, and 68.2 points for fifth.
Thanks for that historical and statistical review and corrective to my admittedly pull-out-of-the- posterior surmise.. So in the current era of the EPL not dropping points guarantees you a CL spot, but if you drop JUST 10, your probability of a top 4 finish is low. and you may not make it even if you drop just 1 though that probability is also low. What a league!!
I’m surprised at the stance your taking here. GB’s first game when he had a chance to call in any player he wanted was the Ecuador game here in Orlando. In the 4-3-3 we had TA @ RB, Trap, WM, & CP as our mids with Morris, Zardes, and Arriola as our forwards. Are saying that team played as good as our last team against CR?
This is a fantastic and thorough overview. All of my thoughts (but none of my lousy ability to lay it out in coherent written word).
Good post. I think much of what you say can be summed up by saying, Berhalter is thinking rationally about how to manage his player pool vis a vis the schedule he faces, and has a first 11 we all should like." A national team manager has to be both a long term planner and a game-right-now manager. Those roles sometimes conflict. And unlike a club manager, his pool is not his own. As such, the cliche, "we focus on one game at time": is not operative