Listening to Lalas, I’m not sure I understand how he really feels. If only he’d show some passion when he talked.
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Maybe they can get Lalas to talk about Biden’s debate performance.
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The failure in this tourney wasn’t tonight, but last match vs Panama. Even down a man the US should beat a minnow. Tonight was a good battle. Berhalter needs to go for complacency vs Panama and past performance rather than putting up a good fight vs Uruguay.
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https://x.com/D_D_Bass/status/1807981475062575213?t=FHnvsfy1nRm9ZUL2HRroYw&s=19
Ref refuses to shake Pulisic’s hand
US can’t simply play decent games any more. They have to win some against higher ranked opponents. Berhalter has no strategy and makes no adjustments.
Longer video after the match with Pulisic and the refs. It appears Pulisic told them to join Uruguay celebrating.
https://x.com/Absolute_Toast/status/1807974548656079341?t=fpmznGKbil-tGcggzg56SQ&s=19
There’s times where he’s made adjustments and it’s worked great, but those seem like a distant memory. This group increasingly feels like it wants to play to just under the level of its competition, and I don’t know why.
Sure, we can obliterate a St. Kitts and a Grenada, and a Trinidad & Tobago [when sufficiently motivated after getting our asses handed to us and missing out on the World Cup]. Then we play El Salvador, at home, and it’s a 1-0 slog. We get Jamaica at home and it’s a 1-1 tie after a late goal, and 3-1 AET after a very late regulation goal. No offense, but we shouldn’t be struggling to be the #53 team in the world and shouldn’t be floundering against the #43 team in the world. We shouldn’t be on cruise control against the #84 team in the world. We shouldn’t be getting our asses spanked by the #12 team in the world.
I don’t know what the solution is, other than running these guys into the ground when they can’t get their shit together so maybe they’ll finally put forth some effort, but I know I’ve seen enough of Berhalter to say “he’s squeezed everything he can out of this team, we need someone better than him in charge.”
Picking up Euro habits, I see.
What is his best win and what adjustment has he made that knowledgeable fan was impressed by that led to a win against non-CONCACAF team?
A big part of the problem is that Berhalter and this USMNT don’t have any great wins. Beating a Mexico team when they were down bad is probably the pinnacle.
I think I found a reason.
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I didn’t realize we were limiting this to non-CONCACAF teams, but also note I’m also not mounting any kind of a defense of him staying.
I think calling him out for lack of adjustments against top squads is totally fair. I’d call him out for a general lack of planning for how to compete with top teams. I’d call him out for having an allegedly highly talented team that, while ranked T-31 in the Elo rankings, is really more a mid-40s team because I can’t find one country above us that I think yeah, we’ve got at least a 50/50 chance to win that and I see a bunch under us that I think we could win or lose it, but a draw seems pretty likely.
Is it the players? Is it the system? Both? I don’t know, but as much as I don’t like “you can’t fire the players, so you fire the coach” there really isn’t any way to get better players on the team. We’ve pretty much got the best players available. The easiest solution is to shitcan the coach and see if someone else can find chemistry, find a system, find something to get these guys to play to their alleged talent level.
Mexico can’t score.
Our team has enough talent. We don’t have a style that fits the talent. We are all over the place. We conceded 74% possession to Panama. Even w a red card that is absolutely ridiculous to concede that much possession. And, to boot, if you’re gonna yield that much possession, park the freakin’ bus, put on your runners like Musah and Aronson or another defender like Robinson and park it. None of them played.
I feel we should consider moving Pulisic behind front 3 and putting Adams and Musah behind him or go 3 in back and move ARob up w them. Something.
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Thats a hard “no”. The US has little talent.
The results speak for themselves.
We can beat Mexico, we had the win over Iran. Lots of draws, lots of losses otherwise.
Maybe there’s other potential dual nationals we can find that will play for us who can come in and be mediocre in a lethargic system. That’ll probably fix things.
Enough of the also-ran. Team USA should tune in to BRA-COL see how teams play soccer and how to play for the flag.
Looked like a foul, resulting in a penalty. Copa VAR says no.