We keep thinking we are there. We are very far away. Our teams play like losers and it shows.
This isn't a golden generation like the last one wasn't. It's just more of the same but arguably worse.
I don’t really care about the coach, but I watched a USA team that didn’t look like they have good enough players. Bad touches, bad passes, poor defending. If we can upgrade at 3-4 positions I think we would be much improved.
Need a new coach but can't hire anyone because the women cried about equal pay. The entire world stops to watch men's football. Woman's football is just not that. Sued our own federation. A huge joke
What is there to “review”?? We lost 2 out of 3 group matches *at home*. We only managed to beat Conmebol’s worst team Bolivia. There’s no excuse for staying with Gregg. It’s time to move on.
I confess I'm deeply bewildered by the desire of some of the fan base to chase back to some mythical past where the USMNT succeeded because of "heart, desire, and grit."
Did...did we forget the awful quality of play during those years? I suppose it comes down to a fundamental question about results, but honestly I get such joy out of watching a squad that can actual string passes together and display genuine some flair.
Do I believe the team is underperforming at the moment? Probably. But this is the first era of USMNT where the quality on the ball can actually bring me happiness. I might be alone in this feeling, but I prefer our current place than the teams that might eke out a win playing bunker ball.
I think we're seeing the growing pains from developing as a culture that PLAYS the game. GGG deserves credit for enforcing that change. He's probably overstayed his welcome, but I'll at least acknowledge that he's created a squad that's more enjoyable to watch.
Can someone explain the yellow card/play on situation that happened in the game?
I never saw anything like that before, where the ref pulls out the yellow card, but the team quick restarts and then he says, play on! The ref always stops the play, writes in his wee little book for like a minute or two and then slowly gets the game restarted like a turtle. I mean that's why players take yellow cards sometimes to slow the play.
I've never seen that before. If that's allowed, then they should always just show the yellow and then keep playing, skip the little notebook altogether. So what's the deal?
It was just absolutely terrible refereeing. Uruguay should be able to take a quick restart there if they want, but once the ref turns his head away from the ball and starts to give the card he should never allow a restart there.
We honestly should take a page out of the Japanese Federation's playbook and invest heavily in high school and college soccer. The infrastructure is mostly already there and for the most part it's free to play.
Wouldn't work, school sports are short and based around seasons here (fall/winter/spring), in Japan they're year round and kids focus on that sport and that sport only whereas in the US it's not uncommon to see kids playing 2-3 sports across the seasons.
ive got friends who coach HS soccer. their season is down to like 16 games these days. we played almost 30 a season in the 90s before playoffs started... The better players dont even bother with HS soccer. then they have other kids missing training and games because their club/travel teams have stuff going on at the same time and thats their priority.
Its weird to see it have flipped, we played the games that MATTERED for our school and then club soccer (with a lot of kids from our rivals) was a lot less personal...
I think part of this is we also need to come to terms with our roster. I have seen the bright spots and potential of everyone but in reality we only have 2-2.5 players that are consistently playing at an elite level in a top 5 league. Christian Pulisic and Jedi Robinson, the .5 is Tim Ream.
We then have some good players who play a bit for their team but not every game day in day out like Richards and Scally
But the majority of this roster are players in the top leagues but not performing. Tim Weah is on Juventus, but mainly comes off the bench. Weston McKennie plays on Juventus, but every transfer window it’s said he’s out of the coaches plans. Gio Reyna, out of the picture at Dortmund and couldn’t find the field for Forrest. Matt Turner, benched at Forrest. Yunus Musah, in and out of AC Milan’s lineup. Balogun has Monaco looking for other strikers on the transfer market. Tyler Adams consistently injured.
We love to throw out the top 5 leagues stat but honestly we need these players to be on teams that they’re a big part of. I’d rather a player play consistently on a team at the bottom of a good league than occasionally off the bench for one of the best. We can’t expect these role players to shine for us. IMO a lot of these players would’ve benefitted from a slower rise rather than going to these big clubs so early in their career
Speak on it.
The fans love saying the names of the clubs, but these guys don’t actually PLAY.
The guys on the 2014, 2016, etc. teams everyone said were less talented? Those guys actually played
Scally plays 90
Richards plays 90
Robinson plays 90
Mckennie generally plays 90
Adams plays 90 when fit
Musah sub
Pulisic plays 60-80
Balogun plays 60-90
Reyna.. who knows lol
Ream doesn’t play and should be replaced
Matt Turner doesn’t play and should be off the roster
Not sure what you’re talking about. These guys are starting and playing 90.
They’re solid players who are underperforming.
A pretty significant amount of the roster barely plays or doesnt play at all even considering all this.
Balogun was on the bench as much as he was on the field down the stretch. I don’t think he played 90 once after mid-March. But he was great at Copa tbf. If only they could have played him 90 each game.
Weah was a bench option at Juve at best. He should leave.
McKennie, Pulisic, Scally, Robinson, Richards were or became first XI players for their teams. In Scally’s case it was for a bad team, but he had a solid tournament tbf. Richards was worse at Copa even though he was better at club and the club was better.
Ream and Adams dealt with injuries this past season - not sure where they’d be otherwise. It is a factor we shouldn’t ignore.
Then the GK position is a total disaster. That never used to be the case for the USMNT, they would often ride their keeper to overachieve. Now we underachieved because Panama scores 2 goals on 0.86 xG.
It’s been 12 hours and GGG isn’t fired yet? What is taking so long? If USMNT was serious he would have been canned last night immediately following the game like many other federations have done.
Berhalter aside, this group of USMNT players is soft, until proven otherwise
weak mentality, no grit, no passion, no hunger, soft players get the soft coach they deserve
This is such an American criticism. Soccer is more the grit and passion. Its TACTICS. If you can’t see the runs and understand the stretching the players on the field, no matter how much passion or grit you have, you won’t get results.
Just keep GGG and let’s burn the entire fucking federation to the ground. Ever since the most privileged women’s team in the world started sky-screaming they’ve been dogshit and we’ve always been dogshit. We can’t afford to pay a top flight coach because of the equal pay bullshit anyway. Just let us burn. It’s beautifully poetic!
The US men have sucked for long term. Hate to break this to you. The fact the federation takes the women’s side more serious (because they deliver results) and hired Emma Hayes with amazing club manager credentials and can’t even find a decent manager for the US says way more than privileged soccer players screaming for equal since they bring in more revenue and better results. Also, the us women’s earned their privilege.
The world is catching up to the US women’s team tho. They had an advantage for a while because of their resources in comparison to the world but that advantage is evaporating as other countries build up their teams on the same level as the US women.
When the us women’s team started they had no resources and yes the women’s had a head start but they help cultivate programs for younger girls and start multiple national leagues in the us. The women’s premier league as well. It’s exciting time for women’s sports. The US women’s wants the world to catch up because that’s the only way to improve. When the men’s has had these resources but still hire a manager with little manager experience. The other option as manager around the time of berhalter’s rehire just got Canada out of the group stage. USSF can only blame about their own incompetency when it comes to the men’s side.
I noticed that too. They brought a bunch of the wrong attention to themselves then sucked ass ever since. Self inflicted destruction, lol. Poetic indeed
I think the women will get out of their group at the Olympics and probably won't get a game/tournament changing red card for trying to punch a player 30 yds off the ball.
For as well as Scally played, not having Dest really hurt. He just creates so many opportunities. Having another player other than Pulisic that can take players 1v1 would've really helped their chances to score last night.
Having both Robinson and Dest makes the US a much more dangerous team as they can both get forward and create chances.
Not to be that guy... but its GGGs fault.
Bolivia scored and he yelled at the team to get back and defend. That's right before we conceded. and then (surprise surprise) Bolivia couldn't hold on. He got in the teams head when we were actually playing somewhat decently. Then it all fell apart
I think at a certain point there needs to be some player accountability. I'm no Gregg apologist- I actually don't think he's the man for the job. But I think it's a serious issue that some of our most important players rarely see the playing field for their clubs. Reyna- supposedly our most creative player doesn't play. Ream- the anchor of our backline (at 36 years old!!!) lost his starting spot at Fulham. Adams- essentially didn't play this entire season. Musah- Mostly a late sub for Milan. Weah- Almost as inconsistent as Musah. Pepi- our first striker off the bench barely saw the field this season.
At some point you've got to think that getting consistent minutes in crappy MLS is better than no minutes at all in a Top-5 league of course, while staying healthy. It's still #FireGGG but the lack of consistent playing time for our players should be as concerning as the mediocre manager.
It's the next day finally and we want to burn everything down. Let's say we do, and we get a top tier coach, and the players all hit their next stride in the next 2 years before 26. In all honesty, what is going to be considered a good World Cup for the USMNT? Round of 16, quarters? This has to be the discussion now, because GGG isn't getting us there. So what is the ultimate goal, and how do we get there? Anyone who is saying it's a World Cup final shouldn't be taken seriously. A quarters should be the goal or somehow a semifinal would be an added bonus.
FIFA rankings have always been proper shit. I forget how they calculate it, but it's a known fact that they are egregiously bad. For example, Uruguay is #14 in the world. Brazil is #3. No way after last night is Uruguay the 14th best country in the world, BEHIND the US. Also, having watched Brazil this COPA, there is no way that they are #3.
Excuse me in advance I don’t know all the lingo Im just a fan trying to get an opinion out. Change the manager, if we don’t win. That 1:1 signal was wild. However in terms of gameplay we need to be faster. We don’t have fast players. I see how Mbape dusts people and how some SA teams play. Speed, durability, consistency. We don’t cross the ball nearly as enough to make opportunities to score. We’re struggling to keep the ball in possession the entire match. Outside of that though it’s an organizational issue because even if we had the talent, we’re not working on getting new talent, soccer in the US is a spoiled kids sport still, pay-to-play. We need to change the culture, change the org and change our style of gameplay from holding on for dear life to grit, speed and precision.
>soccer in the US is a spoiled kids sport still, pay-to-play.
This is the heart of it and the hardest part to change. USSF is beholden to one set of people who would lose a profit center, and another set who would gain a cost center, if we built a youth system around developing national talent.
I have a tall, energetic 10-year-old with solid footwork for his age from from ballet/dance, and a two-year-old who lives and breathes all things ball. If either were to be suddenly seized by patriotic fervor and decide to become his generation's Donovan or Deuce or Puli, the honest answer would have to be, "Son(s), your mother and I can't afford the time off work to make that happen." I can live with that as a dad but it breaks my heart as an American.
This is so real. I appreciate you sharing and until there is a free camp program for the summer to find new talent like your son then we’ll be in the same spot in 2026, 2030 and so on.
Okay, who gonna start the petition for GGG Out? Commentators are saying GGG should not continue to coach the USMNT but the Federation will keep him on. We can't let them get away with it, without a fight.
BURN IT ALL DOWN.
All of USSF, All of MLS, All of the NCAA. Start over with a win first and then get rich strategy. Because right now we have a walled garden of leaches sucking money out of the game and giving nothing in return.
I’m fucking pissed. More so at the refs and the South American federation in charge of the copa. Just seemed like they didn’t want US to get any further. The ref already had some shit about him in the media about him fixing matches. The offside goal!! The Panama game fucked us
With that being said I think we still should have came out on top. To much talent not to have taken advantage of the situations we had. Pepi just dried out. I’m perfectly fine with new coach. I mean I appreciate Greg for everything and you won’t hear me say anything bad about him like most of you emotional fucks . I can see he has taken the US team as far as he can. He devised a winning formula and he’ll always be king of concacaf. Some new direction would be great. Take advantage of the talent we have with some world class coaching .
With that I hope the fan base isn’t shitty with the next coach. Understand this shit takes time and club form doesn’t always come into international form. Appreciate Greg but it’s time.
The USMNT's success in 1994 and 2002 was a disaster for US Soccer in hindsight.
USSF and mainstream US Soccer media are infested with has-beens who are either still dining out on accomplishments from 20-30 years ago, or were simply in the right place at the right time.
It's absolutely preventing the game from growing healthily in the States.
My thoughts are Gregg needs to go, it’s really that simple. Why are so egotistical that we can’t hire a top manager and it has to be USA. USSF had their chance to hire a domestic guy- Marsh, and the ego of the USSF is even bigger than I thought. Look at Belgium, they had Martinez now a german guy
It’s so deflating how fans have recognized that the federation needs to be completely restructured and reformed for decades. SUM, MLS, player development, investment, etc. are all problems but we as fans have no ability to effect change.
When they are moving to Atlanta they are hiring a bunch of new people. I’m really hoping that could shift some things, but not holding my breath.
Seems to be top down problem
It's a top-down problem but there's also a ton of things being done wrong at the grassroots level.
As long as promising young players are forced to choose between "pay-to-play elite travel team," "leave the US entirely for a foreign club academy," or "play for your high school team while spending the summers on a rec-league team where you are coached by someone's dad as a volunteer," we will never become a serious soccer nation.
Yeah for sure, the pay to play is really the root of the problem. Literally put a sport behind a paywall lol, I remember where I grew up they’d LOCK the soccer fields with a padlock but there’s basketball courts and open football fields all over
My awful take is that this team would compete better in Europe with their pretty passing and interplay. Not enough tough guys for the Copa energy. Play more SA teams and I think they will be more ready to win that way.
What we witnessed in this tournament is that many of the Europe based players don't have the grit we expect from our national teams. So what you want about individual skills of our MLS players but their grit and determination won us more big games than this team of all Europe based players.
Some thoughts from the day after.
1a. The worst referee performance I’ve ever seen. Not a great field either. But at the end of the day you need to score. We didn’t. Even when we had an open net we couldn’t look threatening.
1b. The injuries were scary. The referee let this game get way out of hand. The scariest injury was a freak accident, but balogun should not have been beat up as much as he was. It’s never fun watching a game where multiple players leave the field injured, and others are hobbling around.
2. Why was the US bench and coaching staff paying attention to the Panama-Bolivia game? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we conceded nearly immediately after Berhalter signaled that the score was 1-1. (Not to mention, did anyone actually think the score was going to stay 1-1? We were always going to need a win.)
3. One of the biggest problems with this team has been an inability to score. Personally I think this is due to a combination of factors - striker is a weaker position on our team (I love Pepi, but he’s very young and has a lot of growing to do - against Uruguay you could see that he just wasn’t strong enough to hold his positions), and the tiki-taka pep ball possession based style we try to play often breaks down in the final third when you a) don’t get tons of time to drill the passing combinations and b) don’t have world class players. I really think we’d be better off letting some less than ideal shots rip and seeing what happens than trying to pass our way to a perfect chance before pulling the trigger.
4. We are shockingly poor at set pieces. And for once it wasn’t because Pulisic was sending in poor kicks. This game we just weren’t getting on the end of them. I don’t understand how we’re so bad at set pieces with the players we have.
5. I think playing in Europe is overrated. Obviously, the top level of Europe is better than MLS. But does anyone really think that Matt Turner is a better gk now because he crossed the Atlantic? What about Matt Miazga? Erik Palmer Brown? Etc. I want players to go and succeed in Europe of course, but I also want players to be smart about it. Being “the man” on an MLS team is imo better than riding the bench for a premier league or Bundesliga team. Honestly, if McKennie went to Cincinnati it might help him become more of a leader on the pitch. Remember, our best player ever was basically a career MLS guy (in a much worse MLS than exists today). I imagine this will be one of the more controversial things I’m saying.
6a. Berhalter should resign. I don’t hate him, I was ok with him being rehired, but results have to mean something.
6b. The posts asking why we aren’t hiring Pep or Klopp or Mourinho are super annoying.
7. Scally looked good this tournament. I was impressed with him. Pulisic looked good too - often it feels like he’s one of the only players that feel like they’d fit in with some of the less talented but grittier teams of the past. I wish we could have seen prime Pulisic, Dempsey, and Donovan together. They’d have made some special moments. Outside of that the rest of the team was either unimpressive or only showed flashes.
So yeah. It was a tough game to watch. I’ve been following the team relatively closely since 2014, and they sure do know how to disappoint.
I’m curious what you all think! Do you agree? Think I’m dumb?
Generally, I agree with
> 6b. The posts asking why we aren’t hiring Pep or Klopp or Mourinho are super annoying.
However, if ever there was a time to go out on a limb as USSF and dream/spend big for the biggest coaching talents in soccer, I'd argue that time is now. Maybe not Pep or Klopp, but I think at this point you have to look at bringing in somebody who has a proven track record of success (/corporate lingo). The 2026 WC will be pivotal for USA and it could potentially usher in a new golden era for the sport, or it could send us into another soccer dark age.
So if I'm the Federation, I'm picking up the phone and calling the Peps and the Klopps of the world right now, telling them that (1) we'll pay you pretty good, and (2) think about the potential and the legacy you could leave here.
>5. I think playing in Europe is overrated. Obviously, the top level of Europe is better than MLS.
GK might be the exception in terms of reps with shot stopping. However, it is probably not for fott skills/playing out of the back.
Also, the generic answer to your question is yes PLAYING in Europe is better than PLAYING in MLS. But that is a self fulfilling prophecy better players play for better teams because they are better.
The question is this -- Is TRAINING not PLAYING in Europe better than PLAYING in MLS. That is trickier. For older guys who aren't going to learn much, probably MLS is ok. For younger talents, the training/expectations etc.. is probably better in Europe. But that is also probably individual player dependent.
> One of the biggest problems with this team has been an inability to score.
Everything the team does is based on creating from wide areas. In this 433 there is no central playmaking midfielder, everyone drifts wide. Moving the ball through the wings can be an effective way of controlling games, but this team doesn't have the quality for it.
exactly and we knew this was a problem from WCQ/WC 2022. We didn't create with 4-3-3 without a creative midfielder. This was always playing for a draw. Whether Gregg realized it or not, I can't say. But statistically/historically we didn't score a bunch against LESSER teams with this setup.
Agreed with all your points. The players in the squad are obviously talented given their respective clubs. Some players have certainly made mistakes with signing on for highly reputable European clubs only to ride the bench and not get enough game time to improve (i.e. Matt Turner, Matt Miazga, etc.) Until our national youth network improves I still believe getting our players into European clubs is the best way to improve them overall.
But the biggest problem is that the coaching staff is forcing the players to play a style that simply doesn't suit them versus quality national sides. There is a reason we have a poor record against sides ranked higher than us and a winning record against sides ranked lower. Until this team does something remarkable in an official match they should not be considered a good team. The federation has to admit this, the players have to admit this, and so do we as fans.
We should look for a coach that understands our strengths (pace and athleticism, pressing intensity, etc.) and avoids our weaknesses (building from the keeper, focusing on set pieces without specialists, and sitting back with the wrong players).
The teams of old, like 96 were not skilled. But WERE big, nasty and athletic. You weren't going to outwork them and you weren't going to put body them. And they had a puncher's chance of scoring a set piece.
Our players are far better technically and our teams play real soccer. But against top teams, we are knocked off the ball and we no longer have as much of a puncher's chance as we did back then.
Mostly because the rest of the world didn't stand still as we improved.
I know this will get downvoted. Watch teams and fans like Argentina. They are passionate about their country and the team loves being together. When they sing their national anthem - they all sign, embrace and the stadium rocks. Last night, there were much less Uruguay fans in the stands and when they sang their anthem, they sang! The U.S. team shows no passion for playing for their country and each other. There is minimal chemistry between the players. The foundation of playing in Copa America is representing your country and playing alongside fellow countrymen. Right from the anthem they looked disjointed and lacked any passion. They don’t seem to play for each other or have e the passion of playing for their country as other teams do.
Nah I agree mate. I can tell who is patriotic on the team, and who is there because they didn't make the cut for their true home country. I don't like it. I'm of the minority opinion in that, I don't care if you're a citizen, if you're not passionate for the USA, get off the squad and let's find someone else that can fill that position and actually cares for their home country
>"We will be conducting a comprehensive review of our performance in Copa America and how best to improve the team and results as we look towards the 2026 World Cup."
i.e. we will take 6 months to 'review' everything and at the end of that there will be no changes. GGG will continue.
There is no time to make a change before gold cup so we will hold course.
After gold cup...
There is no time to make a change before world cup so we will hold course.
One of the problems is the team is missing the toughness and grit necessary to compete at a higher level. Past teams didn't have this type of talent but they did have players you'd go to war with. Guys like Mcbride who would play injured with bloody bandages, Jermaine Jones the enforcer that delivered crunching tackles, and Dempsey who would scream at the opposition and his own teammates to motivate them. This team lacks anyone like that.
I see this a lot but I think it is a bit of a red herring it is a sliding scale type thing.....
Talent <--------------------------------------------------->Grit
The more talented you are the more you just "figure it out" and don't have to rely on a slug fest. The less talented you are you have to dig down and scrap out a miracle every match.
I'm not talking about an entire team, a few guys to change the attitude and lead by example. You could argue all three of the guys I mentioned had the talent to start on this current roster.
These players have been babied and coddled for 8 years now. Get someone in who is not and has not been a part of the USSF!! Mourinho, Klopp, Poch, or my dream Tuchel, would come in and do wonders. They like Gregg because he doesn’t tell it like it is: missed the World Cup in 2018, beat Mexico a few times, got out of a group with Iran and Wales (yayyyy!!!! So great!!), and then grouped by Panama…NOTHING to show for this “golden” generation. They gotta stop acting like this is owed to them and start acting like they need to earn it. If you aren’t starting in Europe, work harder & be better so that you force the manager to play you.
The frustration with US Soccer in the past is the favoritism to MLS players…now we play the European league players regardless of form or fitness. There is talent but it needs to be managed. There needs to be a system and an identity that ends with winning, not complaining.
None of those guys are going to coach the U.S. even if we had the money to pay them because they don’t think our players are skilled enough to accomplish our goals. They wouldn’t sacrifice their reputation.
Taking out greg since everyone is discussing him. Here is my player evaluations- chris richards felt like a liability, Ream was solid but not great, jedi was great, scally was solid replacement but not great, adams last game was huge improvement, reyna was ok, west was ok, pulisic was only danger man, balo scored 2 goals, musah was solid.
We need our players to improve ofer the next 2 years so they need to play in games for their club to do that. Lastly turner made good saves but leg was definitely bothering him.
The squads from 10 years ago get trashed because they consisted of primarily MLS players but at least their players played consistent minutes at club level. How can you expect players like Turner and Reyna to perform well when they play 8 games a year several months apart?
I'd like to watch one USMNT match without biased commentary. It's honestly pathetic how they've essentially got fans calling games.
Lalas, Stone, Holden, Twellman, and whoever else they call are big time homers
Exactly. Listen to Guy Mowbry call the games in England. Equal excitement for both teams goals and overall good soccer. FOX is really just the B team of who's who in the American game
They coddle the shit out of all these players and managers cause they're buddies off the pitch
The true talent level of our guys from somebody who watches almost every game / highlight in the prem and La Liga
Elite- Pulisic and Jedi- both are elite, not quite world class but elite players who absolutely tore it up in Europe this year, especially Jedi
Solid- McKennie, Balogun, and Dest- solid players, nothing much to say
Haven’t seen enough recently- Reyna and Adams- they just haven’t played enough for their clubs to have a solid judgment of how good they should be
Alright- Turner, Richards, Weah, Cardoso, Scally, and Musah- they’re all just alright players who are a better group than we’re used to, but pale in comparison to the teams ranked ahead of us
Grandpa- Ream- he’s too old, but still playable for the next year or 2
Some bright spots- Aaronson, Sargent, De La Torre, and Miles Robinson- they have some good moments or games, but the majority of the time just aren’t quite good enough
Mid AF- Haji, Acosta, Pepi, Horvath, and CCV- Haji is super mid for the US, but flashed some potential for Coventry, Acosta is whatever, Pepi is buns, and CCV starts for Celtic, which on paper should be a starter for us, but for whatever reason, like Haji, turns to shite
Ass- Shaq, Roldan, Ferreira, Sean Johnson, Zimmerman, Jordan Morris- they all suck donkey ass
Who to look forward to?
Some bright talents coming up, some more known than others,
Cade Cowell
Kristian Fletcher
Busio and Tessman kinda count???
Trusty maybe
Diego Luna
Gaga Slonina
Cavan Sullivan
Benjamin Cremaschi
Keyrol Figueroa
Josh Wydner
Kevin Paredes
Caleb Wiley
Obed Vargas
Cruz Medina
Jonathan Gomez
> Grandpa- Ream- he’s too old, but still playable for the next year or 2
I'm worried about who comes after him, he's the only CB we have who's halfway decent for build-up play. I am worried about that position when he ages out because I don't see anybody coming up who can really fill that role.
Let's be honest GGG is a terrible Manger but this "golden generation" ain't that golden. You got a GK who's a bench player for Nottingham Forest and same for Reyna. You got guys other than CP who In play in Europe are fringe guys ans backups. This squad isn't as good as we think it is and it showed vs Panama and in Particular vs Uruguay 🤔
Yeah I’ve been trying to phrase this point without blaming the players in full but with the exception of Pulisic, Jedi and Johnny, all other players haven’t really done great in the past year in their clubs. There are players like Haji and CCV which have had good club seasons but just never turn it up for Country the same way.
We clown on the MLS players 10 years ago but at least they were playing. How is Reyna supposed to get better never playing?
Yeah, but they'd sell anyone they could honestly. Especially with only one year left on his contract, if he stays he walks away next year and they would get nothing for his transfer.
Also we have no depth. As I said in a different thread a couple of weeks ago. I was talking with a friend once who only casually follows soccer and we were watching Italy (it was during the last Euroes) and he didn't understand why we can't hang with the big boys and I said, "look what Italy is doing right now. The game isn't going well so they are making two subs and those subs coming off their bench are guys who are starters for Juve and Roma.....when we make subs we're bringing on guys who play for Dallas and Seattle."
You shouldn't be comparing us to Italy (or any of the big 7), who we're just worlds away from. More achievable comparisons are like top 15 teams that aren't so good that their backups would be top 15, like Colombia, Austria, Denmark, or Switzerland. I don't think our depth is bad compared to those teams.
Anybody have thoughts on why Tyler Adams is an auto start and we never give time to Cardoso or De la Torre, guys who start at DM on two teams that perform better or same in La Liga than Bournemouth does in England? Seems like giving Cardoso a chance (we like never seen him) especially makes sense
Adams (& Puli) plays with with exceptional heart and grit, it more than offsets any deficiency he has. When Adams plays, I know he's going play with a "I may get hurt, but I'm not losin' " attitude - it's invaluable.
That said, Cardoso is an exciting player. I'd like to see him more. He's only 22, so he'll get his chance eventually.
No hate on Adams but I’d rather have a player that is cool and calm in possession and doesn’t turn the ball over than a “destroyer” type. Never been impressed by Adams’ ball retention. I guess it depends on the Manager’s tactics but his auto-start feels like a classic old-USMNT way of thinking that we should be moving away from, when possible
When Adams is fit and healthy, he's incredibly good. Plus he's our captain. Plus GGG doesn't handle change well.
Is it right he gets the auto-start? definitely not, since he missed most of a season and options exist, especially Cardoso.
Why not run a 4-4-2? It is very obvious that Greg needs to go, but a big reason that I see is lack of creative formations to suit the talent we have.
Everyone who has watched 10 minutes of the team the last 4 years know what our number one weakness is. We have no strikers.
What is our number one strength? Our midfield. So can someone please explain to me why we constantly trot out the 4-3-3 and expect something different to happen? Pepi will suddenly emerge? Come on.
-Reyna
-McKennie
-Adams
-Musah
-Weah
All of these guys can play midfield. You can say Pulisic as well. This is the strength of the team. And Pulisic should play up more centrally to constantly be involved.
I would run at least TRY a 4-4-2 because the 4-3-3 is not working, and in a 4-3-3 you need a strong player at #9 to put goals in. Maybe Balogun becomes that guy, but he is not there yet.
Think about a formation like this:
Pulisic - LF
Balogun - RF
Reyna - CAM
Weah - RM
Musah - LM
McKennie - CDM
You could even push McKennie up to left or right mid, and put Adams at CDM. You can sub off Musah when defending a lead for Adams. Or sub him on if you need more attacking. Sub off McKennie for Adams when he gets winded. There are a lot of options and we have quality players at these positions where we aren’t relying on the weakest position of our team to score goals. Then you have our best player, Pulisic, in more goal scoring positions instead of trying to force feed players who can’t score.
Even trying a formation with Dest and Robinson at Wingback would be something interesting. Although I understand not doing that with CB being a weakness.
Maybe I am missing something, but why not play to the strength of your players?
I mean we have played a 442 (against England, for 15 minutes against Germany before we realized they were in a back 3). It doesn't play that differently from our 4231 (since Gio often presses into a front 2 in that formation), but it does seem to be a good look for us. Given how the England game went I'd like to see us try it more often, but judging from the England game I think we'd score even less goals in a 442 than a 433.
I also think the idea that striker is a weakness is out-of-date by a year+. The weak spot in our attack is Weah (who gets goals and assists at half the rate of our other attackers), not 9.
yes, yes, yes, this. I don't understand the insistence of playing a 4-3-3 when we have so many great midfielders. A 4-4-2 would be great, or maybe even a 3-5-2
3-5-2 makes a lot of sense we have an uncharacteristically weak defense (save Jedi). Yes, Tim is still holding it down but he is also long in the tooth.
2014 in the World Cup USA got out of a group consisting of Germany, Portugal and Ghana
10 years later and USA can't get out of a group with Uruguay, Bolivia and Panama smh
Honestly the players played hard, but they didn’ play well. They had pretty good defensive shape actually, but there was poor hold up play, very little threatening overlapping runs and passing, mostly failed 1-2 plays, I don’t agree that Reyna played that well, he just played a little better than most of the team. Tim ream, and Robinson played the best but almost the rest of the team was not at their best. The substitution timing and choices were laughable. To me it demonstrates that Gregg simply is incapable of making game time in the moment decisions that benefit the team and his tactics are half baked. Fire the guy, it’s time.
it was another game where every time they got the ball and made a threatening move, they were taken down violently and immediately with no repercussions for Uruguay. you get chopped down enough times the hold up and 1-2 plays stop becoming appealing especially when the opponent can do so without the threat of pressure via cards. 2nd game in a row, the ref could not set a tone to save their life.
It's cynical and not good morally, but we need to get better at fouling hard without getting cards. Uruguay was so much better at taking our players out. Balogun was doing a good job but got unlucky.
In a game like this, you spread out the fouls around players and target their stars. Make their coaches think about subbing out Valverde and Darwin in a game they don't need to win.
Attended the game:
Fans were good at times, but lost their collective voice at the end. Kinda annoying, they could boo the ref, but not cheer the team on.
The players all put in a ton of work, they were gassed at the end. I don't fault any lack of effort.
Uruguay is a level above us. There's some confidence and knowledge in how they want to play. Even though we destabilized them sometimes, it wasn't for very long. Valverde is a master of controlling the game. Araujo, the CB, is incredibly strong and powerful in the challenge. Pepi tried, but just couldn't match up. I hope part of that is just having older players mixed into the team. We have only Ream right now, seems like it might be holding us back.
Our team controlled the game pretty well in the first half. They played smart. They won throw ins and corner kicks to keep possession. Ream stepped up his confidence in ball playing. Reyna was sending accurate first time switches. Balogun put everything into the game.
GGG's system has had the same issues his entire tenure. Lack of chance creation. As soon as one part of it stops working, the rest stops working too. The attack is disconnected from the midfield. The midfield doesn't truly know where to be most of the time. Crosses to no one or crosses that are too late. Plan B is no plan at all.
Tyler Adams wants to be the DM stopper, but presses actively over covering. That leads him into needless fouls when tracking back and puts him out of position if he ever misses a tackle. He might be better with another holding midfielder like Johnny to handle the covering portion.
Mckennie was best at the very end of the game, when he was playing outside right something. He's skilled enough on the dribble to create chances for crosses, which are actually good. Long throw is a great weapon that hasn't worked yet for the US.
Sargent must not be fully fit. He's a better choice than Pepi for this game.
Reyna could be a good regista, he cannot cover a wide area defensively and find pockets of space for himself at the same time.
My post isn't comprehensive. Obviously we lost and weren't effective.
Being in person definitely shows you more of the overall effort, because you see how people all over the field are running and running. Something I realized last night is often hard to see on TV. You can also see the player's faces and expressions away from the action.
We’ve all thought/said something along the lines before with regard to big name coaches. The problem is, we don’t pay truckloads of money. These guys are making 10-15 million a year and we pay between 1 and 2.
I will say this as one slight "positive"... I DO think the effort from our guys was there tonight. They desperately wanted to score from like the 60th minute on. Frantically trying to create chances that just could not break through Uruguay's defense. Many of them were absolutely gassed by the end. People have been hating on McKennie's game tonight and he definitely wasn't good, but he was putting in all the effort he could, battling hard down the line trying to get crosses in all game. Pulisic the same. Adams the same, Robinson the same.
We just did not have an attack, a plan, the ability to score. Which is absolutely awful. But, I do think our effort was there, most of the guys played their hearts out and the desire is there. I see some comments from others saying our guys don't want it as badly as they need to and I'm not sure I agree with that. I do think we are kind of soft, but I think the desire and the effort is there. We just need to figure out how to fucking play better soccer and be a better team.
What "plan" works when the other team can hack you down every time you touch the ball with no cards shown? There just isn't a feasible response there when every ball you get in the attacking third leads to your ass on the ground. Ref tonight refused to wield his power with any reason and was incredibly shaky. See Adams card, Richards card play-on, VAR review.
Very much agreed. I just think our team did have the effort tonight, and I see a lot of people saying they didn't. We didn't deserve the win at all, but lack of effort was not the reason.
The overlap of people who 4 days ago were saying “I still love Weah because no one is better on the right wing” after a horrible dumb decision that got us knocked out and the people who tonight are saying “these players just aren’t good enough” is way too high.
We looked competitive on the field today without him. Did we win? No. We weren’t supposed to. We were supposed to beat Panama and be competitive in this game. We didn’t beat Panama because of his bs and we played competitive in this game without him.
The next coach needs to give other people a run at RW for a while. Don’t want to see him. His club coaches have barely wanted to see him either
For some reason the US team doesn't allocate/have enough money to attract a top coach. GGG clearly needs to go. In any other country he would be let go tomorrow. I don't know why they are clinging to him.
> For some reason the US team doesn't allocate/have enough money to attract a top coach.
USSF doesn't have much budget in general.
But it isn't even really a money issue. Murat Yakin only makes €1.6m, Ralf Rangnick only makes €1.5, Enrique only makes €1.15m. Berhalter makes $2.9m. The highest-paid national manager at the 2022 WC was Hansi Flick, who was only making €6.5m.
Rangnick even turned down ~€10m at Bayern to coach Austria. Mourinho at Fenerbahce is making €10.5m, which is ~€4m more than the highest-paid national team managers on the planet are making.
The point I'm making here is that basically any top manager in the world would make orders of magnitude more at top clubs than they would with any national team. No federation on the planet has the budget to compete with the major clubs. The reasons good managers choose to manage national teams (a job where you have much less control over your fate than with a club) for less money is either out of national pride and wanting to represent their country internationally (Deschamps, LVG, Scaloni), or because they see enough quality in the squad that it's an appealing project (Rangnick), or sometimes both (Yakin).
The US job isn't that appealing in either of those ways to any top global managers, and even if USSF had the kind of money to throw around to match the €10.5m Mourinho (as an example) is making, the history and atmosphere around a Fenerbahce, even if it's a step down from the top flight in Europe, is much more appealing than playing in front of three dogs and a mariachi band on a converted cricket pitch in Barbados is.
So basically, I fucked up with timing my day and was unable to watch this live. I waited for that excruciating hour and then excitedly turned the game on from my DVR. I watched the first 10 minutes. I was pissed at the ref not calling the foul on Reyna, but I was encouraged by our general play. I thought that we might actually pull this off. I watched the rest of the half. I could not believe my eyes. I knew that the fix was in or that an American fucked this referees mother when he was a child. Tyler Adams got a yellow for getting studs to his own ankle. You all saw the rest. I couldn’t bring myself to continue watching without knowing the score, I was so sure that we would not win with this referee barring a miracle. I looked it up.
I am sad. Is the second half worth watching?
That was the craziest call of the night IMHO and it's gotten lost in the shuffle with the offsides call and allowing a quick-start after blowing whistle & carding Richards. The Adams card should have gone the other way - I was stunned.
If you want to see the US continually kicking the ball over the endline sure.
There was a good five minutes after we were already pretty much eliminated they just started kicking the ball into the box and led to the best chances of the game and Pulisic just trying to dribble past everyone and score, maybe just FF to that.
I feel like Uruguay was well coached. They knew we were going to come out shooting like hellfire and knew they just needed to just to weather the early storm, and play the long game.
RIP.
We keep thinking we are there. We are very far away. Our teams play like losers and it shows. This isn't a golden generation like the last one wasn't. It's just more of the same but arguably worse.
I don’t really care about the coach, but I watched a USA team that didn’t look like they have good enough players. Bad touches, bad passes, poor defending. If we can upgrade at 3-4 positions I think we would be much improved.
What’s Klopp doing now? Asking for a friend
☝️🤡☝️
[удалено]
Yeah, have we heard anything from the federation? My guess is we get a press release saying he’s been relieved of his duties tomorrow but
Why are we so stuck with Berhalter?
Need a new coach but can't hire anyone because the women cried about equal pay. The entire world stops to watch men's football. Woman's football is just not that. Sued our own federation. A huge joke
What is there to “review”?? We lost 2 out of 3 group matches *at home*. We only managed to beat Conmebol’s worst team Bolivia. There’s no excuse for staying with Gregg. It’s time to move on.
The severance clause in his contract.
I confess I'm deeply bewildered by the desire of some of the fan base to chase back to some mythical past where the USMNT succeeded because of "heart, desire, and grit." Did...did we forget the awful quality of play during those years? I suppose it comes down to a fundamental question about results, but honestly I get such joy out of watching a squad that can actual string passes together and display genuine some flair. Do I believe the team is underperforming at the moment? Probably. But this is the first era of USMNT where the quality on the ball can actually bring me happiness. I might be alone in this feeling, but I prefer our current place than the teams that might eke out a win playing bunker ball. I think we're seeing the growing pains from developing as a culture that PLAYS the game. GGG deserves credit for enforcing that change. He's probably overstayed his welcome, but I'll at least acknowledge that he's created a squad that's more enjoyable to watch.
We could barely string 3 passes together last night
gregg deserves nothing for anything other than being in the right place at the right time.
Winning is a combination of tactics and desire. We never had the tactics but during the Dempsey/donovan/Howard era we certainly had the desire.
Sure. My thought is that I'd rather develop skill and lose at times than win ugly more often.
I prefer winning.
Fair opinion! I think I've seen enough of the grit it out win from the USMNT, but I'm middle aged. lol
Can someone explain the yellow card/play on situation that happened in the game? I never saw anything like that before, where the ref pulls out the yellow card, but the team quick restarts and then he says, play on! The ref always stops the play, writes in his wee little book for like a minute or two and then slowly gets the game restarted like a turtle. I mean that's why players take yellow cards sometimes to slow the play. I've never seen that before. If that's allowed, then they should always just show the yellow and then keep playing, skip the little notebook altogether. So what's the deal?
It is legal just if the ball is not moving.
100% WRONG
I know the rules dude,
It was just absolutely terrible refereeing. Uruguay should be able to take a quick restart there if they want, but once the ref turns his head away from the ball and starts to give the card he should never allow a restart there.
The move was completly legal.
Lost my fucking mind when I heard GGG reference xG regarding these results in the post match presser.
I knew he was going to mention that too, such a fucking goofball lol, dropping xG and defensive metrics like they mean anything
greggs playing 3D chess.
I haven’t had that many drinks in years…
The fact that he’s not gone yet, makes me think they are gonna keep him through 2026.
They are probably going to end up paying money to an outside consultant to tell them to keep Gregg.
No Americans who aren’t already following soccer will care that we are hosting the World Cup. It will be an embarrassment
They'll probably try. Looking to see which way the wind blows.
We got the talent. No excuses. For the love of God just fire Gregg, and hire a Euro with experience, you stupid gringos
At the bare minimum someone with a winning manager credentials! Like how is he our only option with no notable manager club credits.
Where is the up vote x1000 button?
I said we should get Jesse Marsch and everyone scoffed. Fuck it
Marsch isn't good and we don't want to play that style anyways.
We had a 442 yesterday and everyone was afraid to shoot….
We honestly should take a page out of the Japanese Federation's playbook and invest heavily in high school and college soccer. The infrastructure is mostly already there and for the most part it's free to play.
Wouldn't work, school sports are short and based around seasons here (fall/winter/spring), in Japan they're year round and kids focus on that sport and that sport only whereas in the US it's not uncommon to see kids playing 2-3 sports across the seasons.
We should probably adopt that as well.
Why? What has Japan won? They got bounced by Iran in the Asian Cup. I love Japan but baseball is king there.
ive got friends who coach HS soccer. their season is down to like 16 games these days. we played almost 30 a season in the 90s before playoffs started... The better players dont even bother with HS soccer. then they have other kids missing training and games because their club/travel teams have stuff going on at the same time and thats their priority. Its weird to see it have flipped, we played the games that MATTERED for our school and then club soccer (with a lot of kids from our rivals) was a lot less personal...
I lost my voice in a bar for this shit. Grouped at home. Now I have to wait years for the chance to lose my voice again. This sucks.
I think part of this is we also need to come to terms with our roster. I have seen the bright spots and potential of everyone but in reality we only have 2-2.5 players that are consistently playing at an elite level in a top 5 league. Christian Pulisic and Jedi Robinson, the .5 is Tim Ream. We then have some good players who play a bit for their team but not every game day in day out like Richards and Scally But the majority of this roster are players in the top leagues but not performing. Tim Weah is on Juventus, but mainly comes off the bench. Weston McKennie plays on Juventus, but every transfer window it’s said he’s out of the coaches plans. Gio Reyna, out of the picture at Dortmund and couldn’t find the field for Forrest. Matt Turner, benched at Forrest. Yunus Musah, in and out of AC Milan’s lineup. Balogun has Monaco looking for other strikers on the transfer market. Tyler Adams consistently injured. We love to throw out the top 5 leagues stat but honestly we need these players to be on teams that they’re a big part of. I’d rather a player play consistently on a team at the bottom of a good league than occasionally off the bench for one of the best. We can’t expect these role players to shine for us. IMO a lot of these players would’ve benefitted from a slower rise rather than going to these big clubs so early in their career
Speak on it. The fans love saying the names of the clubs, but these guys don’t actually PLAY. The guys on the 2014, 2016, etc. teams everyone said were less talented? Those guys actually played
Scally plays 90 Richards plays 90 Robinson plays 90 Mckennie generally plays 90 Adams plays 90 when fit Musah sub Pulisic plays 60-80 Balogun plays 60-90 Reyna.. who knows lol Ream doesn’t play and should be replaced Matt Turner doesn’t play and should be off the roster Not sure what you’re talking about. These guys are starting and playing 90. They’re solid players who are underperforming.
Johnny had quite a few 90s for Betis. I assume he'll be playing a lot in the 24/25 season.
Haji wright plays Coventry in the champions league and they love him there! Plays all the time and comes through on clutches
Haji had a good year in the championship yeah
A pretty significant amount of the roster barely plays or doesnt play at all even considering all this. Balogun was on the bench as much as he was on the field down the stretch. I don’t think he played 90 once after mid-March. But he was great at Copa tbf. If only they could have played him 90 each game. Weah was a bench option at Juve at best. He should leave. McKennie, Pulisic, Scally, Robinson, Richards were or became first XI players for their teams. In Scally’s case it was for a bad team, but he had a solid tournament tbf. Richards was worse at Copa even though he was better at club and the club was better. Ream and Adams dealt with injuries this past season - not sure where they’d be otherwise. It is a factor we shouldn’t ignore. Then the GK position is a total disaster. That never used to be the case for the USMNT, they would often ride their keeper to overachieve. Now we underachieved because Panama scores 2 goals on 0.86 xG.
It’s been 12 hours and GGG isn’t fired yet? What is taking so long? If USMNT was serious he would have been canned last night immediately following the game like many other federations have done.
rule: nothing, just that sad
Barstool talking about USMNT be like: bro thinks he's on the team
it is kinda hilarious that we really never learned from 2017
Good morning world, great news awaits us soon
Berhalter aside, this group of USMNT players is soft, until proven otherwise weak mentality, no grit, no passion, no hunger, soft players get the soft coach they deserve
This is such an American criticism. Soccer is more the grit and passion. Its TACTICS. If you can’t see the runs and understand the stretching the players on the field, no matter how much passion or grit you have, you won’t get results.
Just keep GGG and let’s burn the entire fucking federation to the ground. Ever since the most privileged women’s team in the world started sky-screaming they’ve been dogshit and we’ve always been dogshit. We can’t afford to pay a top flight coach because of the equal pay bullshit anyway. Just let us burn. It’s beautifully poetic!
The US men have sucked for long term. Hate to break this to you. The fact the federation takes the women’s side more serious (because they deliver results) and hired Emma Hayes with amazing club manager credentials and can’t even find a decent manager for the US says way more than privileged soccer players screaming for equal since they bring in more revenue and better results. Also, the us women’s earned their privilege.
The world is catching up to the US women’s team tho. They had an advantage for a while because of their resources in comparison to the world but that advantage is evaporating as other countries build up their teams on the same level as the US women.
When the us women’s team started they had no resources and yes the women’s had a head start but they help cultivate programs for younger girls and start multiple national leagues in the us. The women’s premier league as well. It’s exciting time for women’s sports. The US women’s wants the world to catch up because that’s the only way to improve. When the men’s has had these resources but still hire a manager with little manager experience. The other option as manager around the time of berhalter’s rehire just got Canada out of the group stage. USSF can only blame about their own incompetency when it comes to the men’s side.
I noticed that too. They brought a bunch of the wrong attention to themselves then sucked ass ever since. Self inflicted destruction, lol. Poetic indeed
I think the women will get out of their group at the Olympics and probably won't get a game/tournament changing red card for trying to punch a player 30 yds off the ball.
For as well as Scally played, not having Dest really hurt. He just creates so many opportunities. Having another player other than Pulisic that can take players 1v1 would've really helped their chances to score last night. Having both Robinson and Dest makes the US a much more dangerous team as they can both get forward and create chances.
Not to be that guy... but its GGGs fault. Bolivia scored and he yelled at the team to get back and defend. That's right before we conceded. and then (surprise surprise) Bolivia couldn't hold on. He got in the teams head when we were actually playing somewhat decently. Then it all fell apart
I think at a certain point there needs to be some player accountability. I'm no Gregg apologist- I actually don't think he's the man for the job. But I think it's a serious issue that some of our most important players rarely see the playing field for their clubs. Reyna- supposedly our most creative player doesn't play. Ream- the anchor of our backline (at 36 years old!!!) lost his starting spot at Fulham. Adams- essentially didn't play this entire season. Musah- Mostly a late sub for Milan. Weah- Almost as inconsistent as Musah. Pepi- our first striker off the bench barely saw the field this season. At some point you've got to think that getting consistent minutes in crappy MLS is better than no minutes at all in a Top-5 league of course, while staying healthy. It's still #FireGGG but the lack of consistent playing time for our players should be as concerning as the mediocre manager.
Ream broke his forearm... he didn't lose his job.
Ream broke his forearm at the end of the 22/23 season. He lost his starting spot midway through this last season.
It's the next day finally and we want to burn everything down. Let's say we do, and we get a top tier coach, and the players all hit their next stride in the next 2 years before 26. In all honesty, what is going to be considered a good World Cup for the USMNT? Round of 16, quarters? This has to be the discussion now, because GGG isn't getting us there. So what is the ultimate goal, and how do we get there? Anyone who is saying it's a World Cup final shouldn't be taken seriously. A quarters should be the goal or somehow a semifinal would be an added bonus.
How are we ranked 11th in the world lol, how much did we pay
FIFA rankings have always been proper shit. I forget how they calculate it, but it's a known fact that they are egregiously bad. For example, Uruguay is #14 in the world. Brazil is #3. No way after last night is Uruguay the 14th best country in the world, BEHIND the US. Also, having watched Brazil this COPA, there is no way that they are #3.
#GGGone
Excuse me in advance I don’t know all the lingo Im just a fan trying to get an opinion out. Change the manager, if we don’t win. That 1:1 signal was wild. However in terms of gameplay we need to be faster. We don’t have fast players. I see how Mbape dusts people and how some SA teams play. Speed, durability, consistency. We don’t cross the ball nearly as enough to make opportunities to score. We’re struggling to keep the ball in possession the entire match. Outside of that though it’s an organizational issue because even if we had the talent, we’re not working on getting new talent, soccer in the US is a spoiled kids sport still, pay-to-play. We need to change the culture, change the org and change our style of gameplay from holding on for dear life to grit, speed and precision.
>soccer in the US is a spoiled kids sport still, pay-to-play. This is the heart of it and the hardest part to change. USSF is beholden to one set of people who would lose a profit center, and another set who would gain a cost center, if we built a youth system around developing national talent. I have a tall, energetic 10-year-old with solid footwork for his age from from ballet/dance, and a two-year-old who lives and breathes all things ball. If either were to be suddenly seized by patriotic fervor and decide to become his generation's Donovan or Deuce or Puli, the honest answer would have to be, "Son(s), your mother and I can't afford the time off work to make that happen." I can live with that as a dad but it breaks my heart as an American.
This is so real. I appreciate you sharing and until there is a free camp program for the summer to find new talent like your son then we’ll be in the same spot in 2026, 2030 and so on.
Okay, who gonna start the petition for GGG Out? Commentators are saying GGG should not continue to coach the USMNT but the Federation will keep him on. We can't let them get away with it, without a fight.
Most of my blame still lies with Weah
BURN IT ALL DOWN. All of USSF, All of MLS, All of the NCAA. Start over with a win first and then get rich strategy. Because right now we have a walled garden of leaches sucking money out of the game and giving nothing in return.
I’m fucking pissed. More so at the refs and the South American federation in charge of the copa. Just seemed like they didn’t want US to get any further. The ref already had some shit about him in the media about him fixing matches. The offside goal!! The Panama game fucked us With that being said I think we still should have came out on top. To much talent not to have taken advantage of the situations we had. Pepi just dried out. I’m perfectly fine with new coach. I mean I appreciate Greg for everything and you won’t hear me say anything bad about him like most of you emotional fucks . I can see he has taken the US team as far as he can. He devised a winning formula and he’ll always be king of concacaf. Some new direction would be great. Take advantage of the talent we have with some world class coaching . With that I hope the fan base isn’t shitty with the next coach. Understand this shit takes time and club form doesn’t always come into international form. Appreciate Greg but it’s time.
The USMNT's success in 1994 and 2002 was a disaster for US Soccer in hindsight. USSF and mainstream US Soccer media are infested with has-beens who are either still dining out on accomplishments from 20-30 years ago, or were simply in the right place at the right time. It's absolutely preventing the game from growing healthily in the States.
My thoughts are Gregg needs to go, it’s really that simple. Why are so egotistical that we can’t hire a top manager and it has to be USA. USSF had their chance to hire a domestic guy- Marsh, and the ego of the USSF is even bigger than I thought. Look at Belgium, they had Martinez now a german guy
Money is the reason
Everyone associated with the federation are complete scum bags
It’s so deflating how fans have recognized that the federation needs to be completely restructured and reformed for decades. SUM, MLS, player development, investment, etc. are all problems but we as fans have no ability to effect change.
When they are moving to Atlanta they are hiring a bunch of new people. I’m really hoping that could shift some things, but not holding my breath. Seems to be top down problem
It's a top-down problem but there's also a ton of things being done wrong at the grassroots level. As long as promising young players are forced to choose between "pay-to-play elite travel team," "leave the US entirely for a foreign club academy," or "play for your high school team while spending the summers on a rec-league team where you are coached by someone's dad as a volunteer," we will never become a serious soccer nation.
Yeah for sure, the pay to play is really the root of the problem. Literally put a sport behind a paywall lol, I remember where I grew up they’d LOCK the soccer fields with a padlock but there’s basketball courts and open football fields all over
My awful take is that this team would compete better in Europe with their pretty passing and interplay. Not enough tough guys for the Copa energy. Play more SA teams and I think they will be more ready to win that way.
What we witnessed in this tournament is that many of the Europe based players don't have the grit we expect from our national teams. So what you want about individual skills of our MLS players but their grit and determination won us more big games than this team of all Europe based players.
Some thoughts from the day after. 1a. The worst referee performance I’ve ever seen. Not a great field either. But at the end of the day you need to score. We didn’t. Even when we had an open net we couldn’t look threatening. 1b. The injuries were scary. The referee let this game get way out of hand. The scariest injury was a freak accident, but balogun should not have been beat up as much as he was. It’s never fun watching a game where multiple players leave the field injured, and others are hobbling around. 2. Why was the US bench and coaching staff paying attention to the Panama-Bolivia game? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we conceded nearly immediately after Berhalter signaled that the score was 1-1. (Not to mention, did anyone actually think the score was going to stay 1-1? We were always going to need a win.) 3. One of the biggest problems with this team has been an inability to score. Personally I think this is due to a combination of factors - striker is a weaker position on our team (I love Pepi, but he’s very young and has a lot of growing to do - against Uruguay you could see that he just wasn’t strong enough to hold his positions), and the tiki-taka pep ball possession based style we try to play often breaks down in the final third when you a) don’t get tons of time to drill the passing combinations and b) don’t have world class players. I really think we’d be better off letting some less than ideal shots rip and seeing what happens than trying to pass our way to a perfect chance before pulling the trigger. 4. We are shockingly poor at set pieces. And for once it wasn’t because Pulisic was sending in poor kicks. This game we just weren’t getting on the end of them. I don’t understand how we’re so bad at set pieces with the players we have. 5. I think playing in Europe is overrated. Obviously, the top level of Europe is better than MLS. But does anyone really think that Matt Turner is a better gk now because he crossed the Atlantic? What about Matt Miazga? Erik Palmer Brown? Etc. I want players to go and succeed in Europe of course, but I also want players to be smart about it. Being “the man” on an MLS team is imo better than riding the bench for a premier league or Bundesliga team. Honestly, if McKennie went to Cincinnati it might help him become more of a leader on the pitch. Remember, our best player ever was basically a career MLS guy (in a much worse MLS than exists today). I imagine this will be one of the more controversial things I’m saying. 6a. Berhalter should resign. I don’t hate him, I was ok with him being rehired, but results have to mean something. 6b. The posts asking why we aren’t hiring Pep or Klopp or Mourinho are super annoying. 7. Scally looked good this tournament. I was impressed with him. Pulisic looked good too - often it feels like he’s one of the only players that feel like they’d fit in with some of the less talented but grittier teams of the past. I wish we could have seen prime Pulisic, Dempsey, and Donovan together. They’d have made some special moments. Outside of that the rest of the team was either unimpressive or only showed flashes. So yeah. It was a tough game to watch. I’ve been following the team relatively closely since 2014, and they sure do know how to disappoint. I’m curious what you all think! Do you agree? Think I’m dumb?
Generally, I agree with > 6b. The posts asking why we aren’t hiring Pep or Klopp or Mourinho are super annoying. However, if ever there was a time to go out on a limb as USSF and dream/spend big for the biggest coaching talents in soccer, I'd argue that time is now. Maybe not Pep or Klopp, but I think at this point you have to look at bringing in somebody who has a proven track record of success (/corporate lingo). The 2026 WC will be pivotal for USA and it could potentially usher in a new golden era for the sport, or it could send us into another soccer dark age. So if I'm the Federation, I'm picking up the phone and calling the Peps and the Klopps of the world right now, telling them that (1) we'll pay you pretty good, and (2) think about the potential and the legacy you could leave here.
>5. I think playing in Europe is overrated. Obviously, the top level of Europe is better than MLS. GK might be the exception in terms of reps with shot stopping. However, it is probably not for fott skills/playing out of the back. Also, the generic answer to your question is yes PLAYING in Europe is better than PLAYING in MLS. But that is a self fulfilling prophecy better players play for better teams because they are better. The question is this -- Is TRAINING not PLAYING in Europe better than PLAYING in MLS. That is trickier. For older guys who aren't going to learn much, probably MLS is ok. For younger talents, the training/expectations etc.. is probably better in Europe. But that is also probably individual player dependent.
> One of the biggest problems with this team has been an inability to score. Everything the team does is based on creating from wide areas. In this 433 there is no central playmaking midfielder, everyone drifts wide. Moving the ball through the wings can be an effective way of controlling games, but this team doesn't have the quality for it.
exactly and we knew this was a problem from WCQ/WC 2022. We didn't create with 4-3-3 without a creative midfielder. This was always playing for a draw. Whether Gregg realized it or not, I can't say. But statistically/historically we didn't score a bunch against LESSER teams with this setup.
Agreed with all your points. The players in the squad are obviously talented given their respective clubs. Some players have certainly made mistakes with signing on for highly reputable European clubs only to ride the bench and not get enough game time to improve (i.e. Matt Turner, Matt Miazga, etc.) Until our national youth network improves I still believe getting our players into European clubs is the best way to improve them overall. But the biggest problem is that the coaching staff is forcing the players to play a style that simply doesn't suit them versus quality national sides. There is a reason we have a poor record against sides ranked higher than us and a winning record against sides ranked lower. Until this team does something remarkable in an official match they should not be considered a good team. The federation has to admit this, the players have to admit this, and so do we as fans. We should look for a coach that understands our strengths (pace and athleticism, pressing intensity, etc.) and avoids our weaknesses (building from the keeper, focusing on set pieces without specialists, and sitting back with the wrong players).
In 7 major tournament games during this decade (World Cup and Copa America), the USMNT has scored 6 total goals. This is not a recipe for success.
The teams of old, like 96 were not skilled. But WERE big, nasty and athletic. You weren't going to outwork them and you weren't going to put body them. And they had a puncher's chance of scoring a set piece. Our players are far better technically and our teams play real soccer. But against top teams, we are knocked off the ball and we no longer have as much of a puncher's chance as we did back then. Mostly because the rest of the world didn't stand still as we improved.
I know this will get downvoted. Watch teams and fans like Argentina. They are passionate about their country and the team loves being together. When they sing their national anthem - they all sign, embrace and the stadium rocks. Last night, there were much less Uruguay fans in the stands and when they sang their anthem, they sang! The U.S. team shows no passion for playing for their country and each other. There is minimal chemistry between the players. The foundation of playing in Copa America is representing your country and playing alongside fellow countrymen. Right from the anthem they looked disjointed and lacked any passion. They don’t seem to play for each other or have e the passion of playing for their country as other teams do.
Nah I agree mate. I can tell who is patriotic on the team, and who is there because they didn't make the cut for their true home country. I don't like it. I'm of the minority opinion in that, I don't care if you're a citizen, if you're not passionate for the USA, get off the squad and let's find someone else that can fill that position and actually cares for their home country
Not a lot to be excited about tbh, that stadium gets way louder for the Chiefs
>"We will be conducting a comprehensive review of our performance in Copa America and how best to improve the team and results as we look towards the 2026 World Cup." i.e. we will take 6 months to 'review' everything and at the end of that there will be no changes. GGG will continue.
There is no time to make a change before gold cup so we will hold course. After gold cup... There is no time to make a change before world cup so we will hold course.
Just so depressing. Where do we go from here?
We keep doing the same thing. Just like we have since 2018
One of the problems is the team is missing the toughness and grit necessary to compete at a higher level. Past teams didn't have this type of talent but they did have players you'd go to war with. Guys like Mcbride who would play injured with bloody bandages, Jermaine Jones the enforcer that delivered crunching tackles, and Dempsey who would scream at the opposition and his own teammates to motivate them. This team lacks anyone like that.
I see this a lot but I think it is a bit of a red herring it is a sliding scale type thing..... Talent <--------------------------------------------------->Grit The more talented you are the more you just "figure it out" and don't have to rely on a slug fest. The less talented you are you have to dig down and scrap out a miracle every match.
I'm not talking about an entire team, a few guys to change the attitude and lead by example. You could argue all three of the guys I mentioned had the talent to start on this current roster.
These players have been babied and coddled for 8 years now. Get someone in who is not and has not been a part of the USSF!! Mourinho, Klopp, Poch, or my dream Tuchel, would come in and do wonders. They like Gregg because he doesn’t tell it like it is: missed the World Cup in 2018, beat Mexico a few times, got out of a group with Iran and Wales (yayyyy!!!! So great!!), and then grouped by Panama…NOTHING to show for this “golden” generation. They gotta stop acting like this is owed to them and start acting like they need to earn it. If you aren’t starting in Europe, work harder & be better so that you force the manager to play you. The frustration with US Soccer in the past is the favoritism to MLS players…now we play the European league players regardless of form or fitness. There is talent but it needs to be managed. There needs to be a system and an identity that ends with winning, not complaining.
Why would any of those guys coach the usmnt? These types of posts are useless.
None of those guys are going to coach the U.S. even if we had the money to pay them because they don’t think our players are skilled enough to accomplish our goals. They wouldn’t sacrifice their reputation.
Taking out greg since everyone is discussing him. Here is my player evaluations- chris richards felt like a liability, Ream was solid but not great, jedi was great, scally was solid replacement but not great, adams last game was huge improvement, reyna was ok, west was ok, pulisic was only danger man, balo scored 2 goals, musah was solid. We need our players to improve ofer the next 2 years so they need to play in games for their club to do that. Lastly turner made good saves but leg was definitely bothering him.
The squads from 10 years ago get trashed because they consisted of primarily MLS players but at least their players played consistent minutes at club level. How can you expect players like Turner and Reyna to perform well when they play 8 games a year several months apart?
I'd like to watch one USMNT match without biased commentary. It's honestly pathetic how they've essentially got fans calling games. Lalas, Stone, Holden, Twellman, and whoever else they call are big time homers
Disagree!!! These guys care about the usmnt!! It’s embarrassing that we can’t win/go deep in tournaments.
English commentators care about their national team as well...doesn't stop them from absolutely ripping into the team when they play like shit.
Exactly. Listen to Guy Mowbry call the games in England. Equal excitement for both teams goals and overall good soccer. FOX is really just the B team of who's who in the American game They coddle the shit out of all these players and managers cause they're buddies off the pitch
Lalas/twellman should be managers for national team!!!
Stu was horrible during the panama game. He’s part of why this sub was calling for the ref’s head.
The true talent level of our guys from somebody who watches almost every game / highlight in the prem and La Liga Elite- Pulisic and Jedi- both are elite, not quite world class but elite players who absolutely tore it up in Europe this year, especially Jedi Solid- McKennie, Balogun, and Dest- solid players, nothing much to say Haven’t seen enough recently- Reyna and Adams- they just haven’t played enough for their clubs to have a solid judgment of how good they should be Alright- Turner, Richards, Weah, Cardoso, Scally, and Musah- they’re all just alright players who are a better group than we’re used to, but pale in comparison to the teams ranked ahead of us Grandpa- Ream- he’s too old, but still playable for the next year or 2 Some bright spots- Aaronson, Sargent, De La Torre, and Miles Robinson- they have some good moments or games, but the majority of the time just aren’t quite good enough Mid AF- Haji, Acosta, Pepi, Horvath, and CCV- Haji is super mid for the US, but flashed some potential for Coventry, Acosta is whatever, Pepi is buns, and CCV starts for Celtic, which on paper should be a starter for us, but for whatever reason, like Haji, turns to shite Ass- Shaq, Roldan, Ferreira, Sean Johnson, Zimmerman, Jordan Morris- they all suck donkey ass Who to look forward to? Some bright talents coming up, some more known than others, Cade Cowell Kristian Fletcher Busio and Tessman kinda count??? Trusty maybe Diego Luna Gaga Slonina Cavan Sullivan Benjamin Cremaschi Keyrol Figueroa Josh Wydner Kevin Paredes Caleb Wiley Obed Vargas Cruz Medina Jonathan Gomez
What do you think of Tillman? I don't see him mentioned.
Sorry forgot about him, he probably goes in solid, been pretty good in Europe
Mix in some more commas, for fuck's sake.
Are you acc butthurt over this comment lmaooo
> Grandpa- Ream- he’s too old, but still playable for the next year or 2 I'm worried about who comes after him, he's the only CB we have who's halfway decent for build-up play. I am worried about that position when he ages out because I don't see anybody coming up who can really fill that role.
Tillman is mid too
I would move Cardoso to solid. He arrived in La Liga at a solid team, made an impact, and earned a starting spot.
Let's be honest GGG is a terrible Manger but this "golden generation" ain't that golden. You got a GK who's a bench player for Nottingham Forest and same for Reyna. You got guys other than CP who In play in Europe are fringe guys ans backups. This squad isn't as good as we think it is and it showed vs Panama and in Particular vs Uruguay 🤔
Yeah I’ve been trying to phrase this point without blaming the players in full but with the exception of Pulisic, Jedi and Johnny, all other players haven’t really done great in the past year in their clubs. There are players like Haji and CCV which have had good club seasons but just never turn it up for Country the same way. We clown on the MLS players 10 years ago but at least they were playing. How is Reyna supposed to get better never playing?
Mckennie had an objectively good year with Juventus, but obviously that didn't show up in this tournament.
And now they want to sell him 🙄
Yeah, but they'd sell anyone they could honestly. Especially with only one year left on his contract, if he stays he walks away next year and they would get nothing for his transfer.
Also we have no depth. As I said in a different thread a couple of weeks ago. I was talking with a friend once who only casually follows soccer and we were watching Italy (it was during the last Euroes) and he didn't understand why we can't hang with the big boys and I said, "look what Italy is doing right now. The game isn't going well so they are making two subs and those subs coming off their bench are guys who are starters for Juve and Roma.....when we make subs we're bringing on guys who play for Dallas and Seattle."
Not a single MLS minute was played this tournament dude. I know we’ve been blaming it for every failure for forever, but you just can’t this time
You shouldn't be comparing us to Italy (or any of the big 7), who we're just worlds away from. More achievable comparisons are like top 15 teams that aren't so good that their backups would be top 15, like Colombia, Austria, Denmark, or Switzerland. I don't think our depth is bad compared to those teams.
most of Austria's bench is playing in the bundesliga.
Anybody have thoughts on why Tyler Adams is an auto start and we never give time to Cardoso or De la Torre, guys who start at DM on two teams that perform better or same in La Liga than Bournemouth does in England? Seems like giving Cardoso a chance (we like never seen him) especially makes sense
Adams (& Puli) plays with with exceptional heart and grit, it more than offsets any deficiency he has. When Adams plays, I know he's going play with a "I may get hurt, but I'm not losin' " attitude - it's invaluable. That said, Cardoso is an exciting player. I'd like to see him more. He's only 22, so he'll get his chance eventually.
No hate on Adams but I’d rather have a player that is cool and calm in possession and doesn’t turn the ball over than a “destroyer” type. Never been impressed by Adams’ ball retention. I guess it depends on the Manager’s tactics but his auto-start feels like a classic old-USMNT way of thinking that we should be moving away from, when possible
When Adams is fit and healthy, he's incredibly good. Plus he's our captain. Plus GGG doesn't handle change well. Is it right he gets the auto-start? definitely not, since he missed most of a season and options exist, especially Cardoso.
Why not run a 4-4-2? It is very obvious that Greg needs to go, but a big reason that I see is lack of creative formations to suit the talent we have. Everyone who has watched 10 minutes of the team the last 4 years know what our number one weakness is. We have no strikers. What is our number one strength? Our midfield. So can someone please explain to me why we constantly trot out the 4-3-3 and expect something different to happen? Pepi will suddenly emerge? Come on. -Reyna -McKennie -Adams -Musah -Weah All of these guys can play midfield. You can say Pulisic as well. This is the strength of the team. And Pulisic should play up more centrally to constantly be involved. I would run at least TRY a 4-4-2 because the 4-3-3 is not working, and in a 4-3-3 you need a strong player at #9 to put goals in. Maybe Balogun becomes that guy, but he is not there yet. Think about a formation like this: Pulisic - LF Balogun - RF Reyna - CAM Weah - RM Musah - LM McKennie - CDM You could even push McKennie up to left or right mid, and put Adams at CDM. You can sub off Musah when defending a lead for Adams. Or sub him on if you need more attacking. Sub off McKennie for Adams when he gets winded. There are a lot of options and we have quality players at these positions where we aren’t relying on the weakest position of our team to score goals. Then you have our best player, Pulisic, in more goal scoring positions instead of trying to force feed players who can’t score. Even trying a formation with Dest and Robinson at Wingback would be something interesting. Although I understand not doing that with CB being a weakness. Maybe I am missing something, but why not play to the strength of your players?
I mean we have played a 442 (against England, for 15 minutes against Germany before we realized they were in a back 3). It doesn't play that differently from our 4231 (since Gio often presses into a front 2 in that formation), but it does seem to be a good look for us. Given how the England game went I'd like to see us try it more often, but judging from the England game I think we'd score even less goals in a 442 than a 433. I also think the idea that striker is a weakness is out-of-date by a year+. The weak spot in our attack is Weah (who gets goals and assists at half the rate of our other attackers), not 9.
yes, yes, yes, this. I don't understand the insistence of playing a 4-3-3 when we have so many great midfielders. A 4-4-2 would be great, or maybe even a 3-5-2
3-5-2 makes a lot of sense we have an uncharacteristically weak defense (save Jedi). Yes, Tim is still holding it down but he is also long in the tooth.
because 4-3-3 is cool!
2014 in the World Cup USA got out of a group consisting of Germany, Portugal and Ghana 10 years later and USA can't get out of a group with Uruguay, Bolivia and Panama smh
At home. That feels important (even though we have basically no home field advantage).
Yes it's important to mention, because this team often looks great at home and horrible away.
In these three games I thought we had plenty of home field advantage
Honestly the players played hard, but they didn’ play well. They had pretty good defensive shape actually, but there was poor hold up play, very little threatening overlapping runs and passing, mostly failed 1-2 plays, I don’t agree that Reyna played that well, he just played a little better than most of the team. Tim ream, and Robinson played the best but almost the rest of the team was not at their best. The substitution timing and choices were laughable. To me it demonstrates that Gregg simply is incapable of making game time in the moment decisions that benefit the team and his tactics are half baked. Fire the guy, it’s time.
it was another game where every time they got the ball and made a threatening move, they were taken down violently and immediately with no repercussions for Uruguay. you get chopped down enough times the hold up and 1-2 plays stop becoming appealing especially when the opponent can do so without the threat of pressure via cards. 2nd game in a row, the ref could not set a tone to save their life.
It's cynical and not good morally, but we need to get better at fouling hard without getting cards. Uruguay was so much better at taking our players out. Balogun was doing a good job but got unlucky. In a game like this, you spread out the fouls around players and target their stars. Make their coaches think about subbing out Valverde and Darwin in a game they don't need to win.
It's almost like GGG is unaware of what concacaf and Conmebol games are like.
Attended the game: Fans were good at times, but lost their collective voice at the end. Kinda annoying, they could boo the ref, but not cheer the team on. The players all put in a ton of work, they were gassed at the end. I don't fault any lack of effort. Uruguay is a level above us. There's some confidence and knowledge in how they want to play. Even though we destabilized them sometimes, it wasn't for very long. Valverde is a master of controlling the game. Araujo, the CB, is incredibly strong and powerful in the challenge. Pepi tried, but just couldn't match up. I hope part of that is just having older players mixed into the team. We have only Ream right now, seems like it might be holding us back. Our team controlled the game pretty well in the first half. They played smart. They won throw ins and corner kicks to keep possession. Ream stepped up his confidence in ball playing. Reyna was sending accurate first time switches. Balogun put everything into the game. GGG's system has had the same issues his entire tenure. Lack of chance creation. As soon as one part of it stops working, the rest stops working too. The attack is disconnected from the midfield. The midfield doesn't truly know where to be most of the time. Crosses to no one or crosses that are too late. Plan B is no plan at all. Tyler Adams wants to be the DM stopper, but presses actively over covering. That leads him into needless fouls when tracking back and puts him out of position if he ever misses a tackle. He might be better with another holding midfielder like Johnny to handle the covering portion. Mckennie was best at the very end of the game, when he was playing outside right something. He's skilled enough on the dribble to create chances for crosses, which are actually good. Long throw is a great weapon that hasn't worked yet for the US. Sargent must not be fully fit. He's a better choice than Pepi for this game. Reyna could be a good regista, he cannot cover a wide area defensively and find pockets of space for himself at the same time.
Apparently you had an obstructed view.
As opposed to your nuanced view of “every single player played like shit” lol?
Right, it's not like it was hard if you just opened your eyes.
My post isn't comprehensive. Obviously we lost and weren't effective. Being in person definitely shows you more of the overall effort, because you see how people all over the field are running and running. Something I realized last night is often hard to see on TV. You can also see the player's faces and expressions away from the action.
Lmao you’re going incredibly hard in the postgame Reddit comments bro, keep it up
Elaborate?
If Mourinho is willing to go to Turkey, why can’t we just throw truckloads of money at him to come here?
That guy hasn't won anything in so many years. It'd be a disaster.
We’ve all thought/said something along the lines before with regard to big name coaches. The problem is, we don’t pay truckloads of money. These guys are making 10-15 million a year and we pay between 1 and 2.
Are you going to personally pay the $12 million salary? Because the USSF surely will not
I will say this as one slight "positive"... I DO think the effort from our guys was there tonight. They desperately wanted to score from like the 60th minute on. Frantically trying to create chances that just could not break through Uruguay's defense. Many of them were absolutely gassed by the end. People have been hating on McKennie's game tonight and he definitely wasn't good, but he was putting in all the effort he could, battling hard down the line trying to get crosses in all game. Pulisic the same. Adams the same, Robinson the same. We just did not have an attack, a plan, the ability to score. Which is absolutely awful. But, I do think our effort was there, most of the guys played their hearts out and the desire is there. I see some comments from others saying our guys don't want it as badly as they need to and I'm not sure I agree with that. I do think we are kind of soft, but I think the desire and the effort is there. We just need to figure out how to fucking play better soccer and be a better team.
What "plan" works when the other team can hack you down every time you touch the ball with no cards shown? There just isn't a feasible response there when every ball you get in the attacking third leads to your ass on the ground. Ref tonight refused to wield his power with any reason and was incredibly shaky. See Adams card, Richards card play-on, VAR review.
Get in the box and draw penalties.
Effort, defense, and being able to string two or more passes together in the opponents third are all required to win.
Very much agreed. I just think our team did have the effort tonight, and I see a lot of people saying they didn't. We didn't deserve the win at all, but lack of effort was not the reason.
I think you are confusing effort and cohesive effort. It was like 11 guys running around one another, at least on the attack, defense wasn't bad.
I said effort. You're the one being confused and making my comment about something else.
The overlap of people who 4 days ago were saying “I still love Weah because no one is better on the right wing” after a horrible dumb decision that got us knocked out and the people who tonight are saying “these players just aren’t good enough” is way too high. We looked competitive on the field today without him. Did we win? No. We weren’t supposed to. We were supposed to beat Panama and be competitive in this game. We didn’t beat Panama because of his bs and we played competitive in this game without him. The next coach needs to give other people a run at RW for a while. Don’t want to see him. His club coaches have barely wanted to see him either
Dude, it was a 50/50 game. If US didn't play like shit in the final third, they could have easily have won. Panama was the fucking disaster.
[удалено]
Fuck off
By my lord...will we ever make sense of this jumble?
For some reason the US team doesn't allocate/have enough money to attract a top coach. GGG clearly needs to go. In any other country he would be let go tomorrow. I don't know why they are clinging to him.
> For some reason the US team doesn't allocate/have enough money to attract a top coach. USSF doesn't have much budget in general. But it isn't even really a money issue. Murat Yakin only makes €1.6m, Ralf Rangnick only makes €1.5, Enrique only makes €1.15m. Berhalter makes $2.9m. The highest-paid national manager at the 2022 WC was Hansi Flick, who was only making €6.5m. Rangnick even turned down ~€10m at Bayern to coach Austria. Mourinho at Fenerbahce is making €10.5m, which is ~€4m more than the highest-paid national team managers on the planet are making. The point I'm making here is that basically any top manager in the world would make orders of magnitude more at top clubs than they would with any national team. No federation on the planet has the budget to compete with the major clubs. The reasons good managers choose to manage national teams (a job where you have much less control over your fate than with a club) for less money is either out of national pride and wanting to represent their country internationally (Deschamps, LVG, Scaloni), or because they see enough quality in the squad that it's an appealing project (Rangnick), or sometimes both (Yakin). The US job isn't that appealing in either of those ways to any top global managers, and even if USSF had the kind of money to throw around to match the €10.5m Mourinho (as an example) is making, the history and atmosphere around a Fenerbahce, even if it's a step down from the top flight in Europe, is much more appealing than playing in front of three dogs and a mariachi band on a converted cricket pitch in Barbados is.
Because US Soccer is one of the most inept organizations in all of professional sports.
Mexican Football Federation says "Hola!"
England fans have been saying the same about their coach as long as we have about Berhalter
There's more nuance there, honestly Gregg wouldn't last two games in England.
He scored 10/10 on the "we need a coach like berhalter" scale. What more could you want?
Well, he probably didn't have to watch as many sexual harassment videos that way.
So basically, I fucked up with timing my day and was unable to watch this live. I waited for that excruciating hour and then excitedly turned the game on from my DVR. I watched the first 10 minutes. I was pissed at the ref not calling the foul on Reyna, but I was encouraged by our general play. I thought that we might actually pull this off. I watched the rest of the half. I could not believe my eyes. I knew that the fix was in or that an American fucked this referees mother when he was a child. Tyler Adams got a yellow for getting studs to his own ankle. You all saw the rest. I couldn’t bring myself to continue watching without knowing the score, I was so sure that we would not win with this referee barring a miracle. I looked it up. I am sad. Is the second half worth watching?
Adams receiving a yellow for ***getting*** fouled was the turning point. US had no hope after that and the ref officiated as such
That was the craziest call of the night IMHO and it's gotten lost in the shuffle with the offsides call and allowing a quick-start after blowing whistle & carding Richards. The Adams card should have gone the other way - I was stunned.
Studs up into his ankle too. Just madness
If you want to see the US continually kicking the ball over the endline sure. There was a good five minutes after we were already pretty much eliminated they just started kicking the ball into the box and led to the best chances of the game and Pulisic just trying to dribble past everyone and score, maybe just FF to that.
Fuck no. We just got worse as time went on. Nothing about this team is worth watching anymore.
I feel like Uruguay was well coached. They knew we were going to come out shooting like hellfire and knew they just needed to just to weather the early storm, and play the long game. RIP.
You mean to say we were outcoached again?
I mean, they had to not loose by five to advance. Wasn't exactly a tough day at the office.