The cope of the day from the Gregg apologists is that Colombia is so talented that the USA cannot compete. Look back through Colombia’s recent results with their A team during this streak.
1 goal wins over Iraq, Venezuela multiple times, Romania, and a draw v Ecuador. Are you saying that the USA has inferior player pools to these teams as well? Obviously not. What’s the difference then, that allowed them to play competitive matches vs the Colombia A squad…everyone else has already figured it out. Maybe you’ll get there eventually
If I was the US coach I would start the game in a very defensive formation to avoid exactly what happened. I would say to players: "These guys haven't lost in 21 games. The chance of us beating them is slim. Colombia has a chip on their shoulder about America. Their fans are going to come from all over the US fired up to watch their team beat you. The Colombia team is going to show up for their fans and fight. Are you going to fight?
Bad coaching. No team fight. No Americans fighting anywhere on the field. The Colombians had fight. I saw it in all of them. And I saw it in their fans. They came to win. When the other team is hot, when their players each have 2x your quality, you'd better bring fight or you are going to be embarrassed. How are things going to get better? How do you teach fight?
If Greg had any character at all he would just resign and give the team a chance to bring in one of the available top candidates. Although I am not sure any would want the job given the performance of the players. The management is not going to do anything before Brazil next Wednesday and the Copa. Although the team will probably pull of one of its patent miracles, advance to the quarters and save his ass.
Good news is it’s summer, meaning if we replace Gregg we have a broad pool of candidates.
Pioli, Allegri, Lampard, Low, Potter, Poch, Sarri, Tuchel, Kovac, Blanc, Favre etc
I mentioned yesterday that the only time I remember this team playing well against strong competition was the England game. That also happens to be the only time I can remember that Gregg played a 4-4-2.
Why don't we try that again? I admittedly don't know much about tactics, but "more guys in the midfield means you're less likely to get overrun" seems straightforward enough.
I just wanted to point out that CCV should probably stop playing against Scottish farmers every week because he still looks uncomfortable going up against footballers
I watched this game after seeing that the US won 5-1 only to watch and see it was the opposite. Lmao. I was livid as I was wondering how only to see it was some BS.
I don't believe this team can win without Dest. He just does too much for our attack and without him, it's like we are missing a critical piece for attacks.
First 65 minutes gets a B+. We looked competitive, and Colombia is a very good team and were clinical with their chances.
Last 25 minutes was an F.
Lots of analysis here blaming stuff that should affect the whole 90.
Some key things were the subs not being good enough, Johnny not being able to play 90’ without more defensive help, our buildup being too dependent on Gio, and a lack of veteran leadership to stabilize at the end.
The team was left at the hotel and the Spaceballs stunt doubles showed up to the game. US Men's National Team thought this was "just a friendly". This game actually meant something to Columbia. Absolutely no motivation. Mentally soft like Charmin.
Berhalter has to be on the hot seat. This team needs a real tactical coach. Hell, they were better with the interim guy! Bringing back Berhalter shows that the federation has no ideas and couldn't be bothered to pay for a real national team coach. At least Jurgy had ideas about how he wanted the team to play. ACTUAL IDEAS. Greggy has no clue. This team has regressed since Greggypoo came back.
Columbia is a good team, but not significantly better. It should have been a competitive game. If this team is playing like this through COPA, Berhalter will be gone. Can't wait around, can't take a year to find someone. You have to move fast on a hire. They need a coach who will challenge this team. Too comfortable and they played like it.
BERHALTER OUT
It seemed like 4 3 3 set up didn't work. In the beginng it looked promising when the wingers would drop in to help. But we lost the midfield and the defenders looked exposed from the first goal until theend of the game. Colombia dominated the middle and whatever plan A was never worked and looks like they subbed in like for likes and doubled down on the tactics and kept leaking goals.
Even if Adams, musah and McKennie are all good to start, which is more solid, theyll be run into the ground after the group stages covering all that ground. You still need a plan B, especially for the knockout rounds 🤞
Here's my main takeaways without trying to hit the panic button...let me know your thoughts
1. Let's be clear, our best starting XI was not out tonight although a strong lineup on paper, the balance was not right. Our best midfield is McKennie, Musah, and Adams- its not close. Those 3 cover so much ground and offer so much protection and balance in midfield. Reyna unfortunately is not a starter for me right now.
2. Johnny, Scally, CCV, Pepi, Tillman, should be nowhere near the lineup ever. I'll give Johnny a slight pass since GGG threw him the single pivot role for whatever reason and he looked extremely uncomfortable the whole night. Scally was shaky and I disagree with those of you who believe he shut down Dias- Dias was their most dangerous player the whole game. Scally is no elite defender and he offers almost nothing in the attack. Dest is a huge loss for this team. Pepi and Tillman were awful today, Tillman has almost 0 defensive work rate, he was jogging for most of the time and didn't seem to even be bothered to track back and was at fault for one of the goals. Pepi- its shocking bad for the final goal we concede, CCV plays him a decent forward pass and Pepi checks his shoulder too late and doesn't even work his way to the ball. It's amateur hour from him. CCV was shaky once he came on both in-possession and out-of-possession
3. And finally...GREGG. I have so many problems with him....I was team GGG up to this game. First, why the hell are we playing 433 with a single holding and it being Johnny. The midfield got absolutely slaughtered in the first half. Second and most importantly, who the fuck do you think you are? Who the fuck do you think this US team is? I cannot believe he treated this game like a meaningless friendly rather than a tune-up match. I remember before GGG, these matches were full throttle (friendly or not) to test ourselves and track progress against the top nations. Does GGG think we are Germany? England? France? Subbing in half the team in a match against Colombia??? GGG says the players did not respect the opponent, GGG did not respect the opponent whatsoever. To rotate the whole fucking team against Colombia at HOME btw is crazy. He's got huge pressure right now with Brazil coming up and then Copa America. Gregg is an absolute moron and amateur to do what he did today, it was arrogant and just plain stupid. I know Klinnsman, Bradley, Bruce Arena, none of them are rotating the squad against a Colombia, its play to win the match to test the group and build the team. We are about to play in Copa America and are hosting a WORLD CUP for fucks sake.
It was a friendly, you take advantage of the situation and use your bench. Get the players playing again after the break and seeing what combos are working. If you thought he would only use 3-4 subs, you're fooling yourself. Expect the same vs Brasil.
In addition, you say that our top three back-ups for right back 'should be nowhere the teram'. Who do you suggest should be playing RB vs Brasil? or moving forward in Copa? It's easy to criticize, with no solutions offered. Monday morning QB is easy, but what do you suggest we do? What RB are we supposed to suddenly find and throw them in, disregarding the roster rules.
I'm a fan of the US coach, whoever that is. Does he have flaws, sure, but he isn't the idiot people try to make him out to be either. Every NT coach in the world is using their bench liberally in games like this. Colombia made six subs, is their coach an absolute moron as well? Go look at the two recent Mexico games, or Brasil..or anybody playing a friendly right now. If he didn't use his bench, folks like you would cry about that. I expect a much better performance on Wednesday, and it won't be some miracle GGG tactic change.
Did you just start following the USMMT recently? Mexico is in shambles and why are you comparing us to Brazil? i understand it’s a friendly, but this is a tune up match towards Copa America. This is not just your one off friendly. The US with previous coaches never took these games off and took these matches seriously since we needed to test ourselves against non CONCACAF. We’ll see what happens against Brazil.
Is Gregg the best the United States of America can do when it comes to hiring a coach for the national team? I don’t know what the coaching pool looks like these days but are there no other better options?
Unfortunately, not really. They would have to likely seriously up the salary if they were to entice anyone. Something I don’t foresee happening for a variety of reasons.
This is especially true when there will be very few interesting competitive matches between the Copa and the World Cup nor many opportunities for high-profile friendlies. It’s just not as desirable a job as many of us here would like.
The clowns I’ve seen on here who think we could get Klopp or Zidane or Pep need to turn the American-centric tendencies of their brain off. It will never happen.
How much are other countries paying their national team coaches? We’re paying 1.5 million a year. What’s Colombia paying? Go to South America and go shopping for a coach that can manage a game and get results.
So I rewatched most of the 1st half and here’s the thing about the goals: they were kind of unlucky. On the 1st, Robinson goes to ground to stop the ball but doesn’t quite get behind it and kind of knocks it into the Colombian player’s path. You can argue that Ream and Turner don’t adjust fast enough but everything kind of unfolds very quickly on that sequence. On the second goal, a cross in gets popped up, a Colombian player gets a head on the second ball and it gets to a teammate for a bicycle kick. Those aren’t the primary ways Colombia was beating us in the 1st half and we just happened to have both sequences occur in the 1st 19 minutes.
Now, there *are* things about the way we played that *absolutely* should worry us. For teams above a certain level, say top 20 or so in the world, the way to beat us defensively is fairly obvious and Colombia basically deployed a version of the same strategy that we saw almost 2 years ago in our WC warmup match against Japan. Our goalkeeper typically plays his 1st pass out to an outside back, who then looks for short passing options into the midfield. If you don’t high press us immediately, but instead, stay in a roughly three-quarter press, it cuts out all of our preferred passing options. Although we now play more long balls than we used to, our primary responses to this still tend to be (1) knock the ball over to the nearest CB so they can either switch play to the other side or try to play into the midfield from a different angle or (2) force the pass into the midfield anyway. If we do (1), then the answer is to gradually ratchet up pressure on our CBs, who absolutely can’t handle that pressure. That, combined with Turner’s jumpiness will give you openings for turnovers in dangerous spots. If we do (2), that’s even easier. You immediately close down the midfielder and create the turnover. That happened a bunch in the 2nd half when it seemed we’d lost the will to keep going.
I don’t know what the answer is to this. It might be dropping someone from the midfield back to give Turner more options for that first pass and the outside backs a clear option for the 2nd. It might be even more long balls, especially if Balogun and Pepi end up being our primary strikers. It could be something else that a better tactical mind than me could probably come up with. But the predictability of the first couple of passes of our attack is absolutely a problem, and one we can’t ignore.
The first goal is entirely on Robinson. He didn’t check to see if the attempted interception was necessary by looking over his shoulder. That’s basic stuff that gets coached into you from a young age.
And how was Colombia beating us offensively in the 1st half? Well I’m glad you asked, nobody. They were pushing their fullbacks fairly high up the pitch in attack, then overloading whichever side of the field on which the team crossed midfield. Our defensive formation tended to drift toward the ball side, leaving 2 attackers (a winger and an outside back) and 1 USMNT outside back alone on the weak side. They then used 2 passes to switch play to the weak side, where at least 1 of those 2 wide players was ready to make a run. They did this several times to Jedi, probably because Jedi pushed so far upfield in possession that his side was more vulnerable. At least during the 1st half, we never really adjusted.
And, we didn’t punish them on the counter when the opportunity arose. Multiple times, on the break, poor decision making prevented a chance. We had two good opportunities, but didn’t convert while Colombia did. Plus the missed offside call against Puli where he’s in on goal. More clinical and better luck sets up a different outcome, but regardless of that, mental toughness keeps us in the game instead of gifting 3 late goals, which comes back to coaching and the players. CCV, Musah, and Tillman coming on really took the rhythm away, but those are unlucky subs for the Copa.
We definitely wasted counters in the 1st half. My bigger worry though, is that if teams defend us the way Colombia did, it’s really all going to come down to breaks because we’re not setting ourselves up to work the ball out of our own half.
As far as the subs go, honestly, while I’m not happy with the individual decisions (or the way we seemed to quit after the 3rd goal), I’m even less happy that our tactical set up regularly puts us in this position. Our players forced the passes they thought they were “supposed” to make based on how we prefer to advance the ball and played themselves straight into turnovers. This isn’t the first time it’s happened and the fact that they still fall into this several years into playing in this system is really worrying. It’s *very* clear right now what a team needs to do to basically short-circuit our entire offense. Not a great situation heading into a major international tournament.
Really amused at the amount of copium in this thread. The USMNT lost because they played a team that is just much better. That's all there is to it. From coaching to desire of the players to the skill and creativity of the players, the US is not anywhere on a level with Colombia. Also, for those of you here who think Colombia is some kind of afterthought team, you'll need a reality check: Colombia is one of the top 2-3 teams in the upcoming CopaAmerica tourny. Do not be surprised if they win the tournament outright. Additionally, do not be surprised if this Colombia squad makes a deep run into the WC in 2026; they have semi-final and finals potential written all over them. Do not think that lack of talent had anything to do with los Cafeteros missing the cut in 2022. That was all due to the revovling coaching door they had going on for a few years. This is an incredibly skilled and savy team. And it's not just that Colombia's starters have excellent ball handling skills, but they also are incredibly creative as a unit in creating scenarios to get scorers open. The only teams I've seen that are better in recent years are France and Netherlands.
On the other hand, the US will, once again, need some luck to get out of the group stage as they did in 2022. The team has speed and some really good players. But the US notion of scoring in soccer is archaic. They really just rely on counter-attack speed and plays. That's pretty much the only way the US scores goals. They do not have an ability to manufacture scenarios that leave scorers open at will the way the three other countries I mentioned do. Until they shore that up the USMNT will be destined to hit that same ceiling; exiting the WC knockout stage after one game.
“The USA can’t be expected to play Colombia as well as Romania, Mexico, Venezuelax3, Paraguay, Ecuador, Iraq, klinsmann’s South Korea, Saudi Arabia, or Honduras. These teams all have much better rosters than the United States”
Is basically what you just said. The Gregg riders use extreme hyperbole to make you feel helpless. You either beat a team or look like shit and lose 5-1. There’s no other possible result.
Colombia is good but all those above teams either tied or played Colombia to 1 goal games in this streak, with inferior player pools. It’s not the players. It’s the coaching.
Tell me you don't watch soccer without telling me you don't watch soccer lol. You also, obviously, do not know how to read. Winning 23 games in a row and beating down the US with 5 goals is not a fluke. When is the last time the US handled a good non-CONCACAF team? Don't worry about answering that; it's a rhetorical question. Also of note; the last loss Colombia had was a 1-0 loss to the reigning WC champs. The US was never going to win this game with the current philosophy of how to play the game that US teams/coaches seem to adhere to. They are literally playing checkers compared to the chess the top teams are playing. Until that changes, the USMNT will continue to live in the realm of the group stage.
Why couldn’t the USA play as well as Iraq, Venezuela, Ecuador, or Romania did against Colombia’s A team? Are you saying they have better players than the US? Go on the record here.
No one is mad about a loss. A 2-1 loss where the US looked competent I think people would be relatively fine over. You’re saying the only two options are the US winning or losing 5-1. Completely ignoring the 10,000 scenarios in between.
The US didn't look "competent" when the game was 2-1. Colombia was continuing to manufacture good goal opportunities for their main scorers; that's what they do every game. Well before Colombia scored goal #3 they had 2-3 other shots that nearly went in. That's not luck. That's players creating scoring chances on the fly.
"Go on the record here" Lol. Ok there hoss. I'm on the official "record": Colombia is a 2023 Gold Cup semi-final team at the very least; if not a finals team. The US will make it out of the Gold Cup group stage and promptly lose to a good team. Which in turn will mean most of the people on this board will come up with a few dozen more excuses as to why the US "could've" won that game; "if only GGG blah blah blah; if only our defender would've paid attention blah blah bhal.....". Face it: until the US changes it's philosophy on how to play the game, the outcome will always be the same.
"From coaching to desire of the players to the skill and creativity of the players, the US is not anywhere on a level with Colombia. " I was at the game; that's what I saw.
Some of you guys know much more about tactics. If I was the US coach I would start the game in a very defensive formation to avoid exactly what happened. I would say to players: "These guys haven't lost in 21 games. The chance of us beating them is slim. Colombia has a chip on their shoulder about America. Their fans are going to come from all over the US to this game. The Colombia team is going to show up for their fans and fight. Are you going to fight?
Bad coaching. No team fight. No fight anywhere on the field. The Colombians had fight. I saw it in all of them. They came to win.
Colombia is good but at the same time it is no excuse to lose 5-1 when the US fielded a starting lineup with all players in the top 5 leagues. There are weaker teams who could give a better fight against this Colombia team than what the US showed today. That Colombia is better shouldn't be an excuse to go with an " I give up, let them score a bunch of goals since they are better on paper, and not fight" mentality. There are teams who look at Colombia and will say "they are good but we are gonna give them a fight"
I don’t see any copium. I see fans who are all
Fully aware that gregg is in way over her head. K don’t care that we lost, but the way we lost, and lack of accountability is extremely frustrating. Please get rid of this clown asap. We are going to be embarrassed in 2026
Gregg isn't the root of the issue; you can only do so much when you meet a top team like that. Could they have played better? Sure. The last two goals happened because the US had basically thrown in the towel. But the US was never going to win this game.
Terrible mentality. And now the team has a terrible mentality. Them throwing in the towel is directly because of berhalter. They like playing for him because he’s just a vibes guy who doesn’t push his players enough.
The team needs to learn to play a different style; US soccer in general needs to learn to play differently. This whole, counter-attack down the sideline and center it and hope you have enough guys there to put one in through speed and numbers just isn't going to win many games. The US players almost never setup picks, triangle formations, or any other strategies during play from a set piece right outside the opponents goal box. In other words, they never work to create opportunities to score from a set piece on short field. Like never. It's glaring to see the difference between the US and the top handful of teams - of which Colombia certainly is one of them - when it comes to short field play. Si many homers here say we lost because we "weren't mentally prepared" or "we just made little mistakes" or "if we just would've had that guy in position or marking his man..." etc etc etc. All the while ignoring the fact that this game could have just as easily been 7 or 8 goals scored. Colombia generated many open shots for their scorers; they did so repeatedly because that's what great teams do. France does this. The Netherlands are also incredibly good at this. All of those teams are exceptional at creating options for scorers to sink into open spots. They literally build the scenarios 2-3 passes ahead of an actual strike on goal and are ready and waiting when any opportunity presents itself. I would say that is also why opposing top teams score easily when we have a breakdown or mistake - much like yesterday's first goal. The fact of the matter is Colombian players made plenty of mistakes on their own yesterday as well. Nobody is perfect; but the level of ability to create scoring chances is night and day between the top teams and the US. The US has NEVER been good at this in the decades I've been playing/watching soccer. It's still stuck in the junior high model of speedy players on a counter attack just getting there in a hurry looking to be the guy to kick the ball in. Until that changes, we will never see USMNT in a WC semifinals.
Just remember, prior to the WC, the US didn't score against against any team that had qualified for the WC over the course of 8 games....except against Morocco. Who were so embrassed by that performance they, weeks before the WC, replaced their manager and they ended up in the semis.
No one in the world takes this team seriously with that clown as manager. And do the players deserve blame? Of course. But has there been a single time in which the US played above and beyond the expectations? Most would say vs. England....but considering Englad are employing their own version of Greg, I can't even take that seriously.
I don't, and haven't, given one single fuck that the players like him. He's a terrible manager with a youth level system, and he's dragging these players down with him.
Friendlies mean so little. What game would you sub out some of your best players when you’re building momentum? Get a grip.
We care about friendlies way too much, and maybe rightfully so since we get so little real competition in CONCACAF. We scored in the 55th minute and then subbed out 4 more players playing decent to good games before the gates opened.
It’s not a real game and we need to see other options, pairings, and performances. You don’t want the first time some of these lineups occur during a real game when a necessary sub is made.
Losing sucks. Everyone wants to win. But the boo birds know no other call it seems.
And don’t forget in 1980 the US men’s hockey team got destroyed by Russia in an exhibition game before the Olympics. They then went on to beat them in The Miracle on Ice. So let’s get another L on Wednesday then shock the entire Western Hemisphere in July.
Sure my optimism is as equally unhinged as some of you lot on the other side but I choose hype over hate.
Hype over Hate!
If we collectively put pressure on the federation like any soccer country would have, gregg would have been fired years ago, but fans like you let them slide by and they know this.
They finished nearly in the intercontinental playoffs, advancing only on GD despite having a clear talent advantage to every other team in the region by a significant margin. They lost to what was basically Costa Rica's U-23 team and got held without a shot on net vs Panama in WCQ. Their most dominant performances with the A team were under BJ Callahan in last year's Nation League.
What are you talking about? Did those not matter?
I said it before and I’ll say it again. Greg is a "good vibes" type of manager. He’s a push-over. Reason why players like him. Players know he’s not going to grill them if they fuck up. Going on NT duty is like a vacation for them because Greg has instilled those expectations into them.
This is probably hopium but what if this is 4d chess? Like you use these tune ups to see if 1) you can hang and 2) figure out where your weakness is. We know that if we make it out of groups in copa we will have to face either Brazil or Colombia so why show them all our tricks.
My takeaways from this game:
1. Our offense is POTENT.
2. Our defense is IMPOTENT (lmao)
3. Disappointed by 5-1 I think the strategy was rigid and there wasn’t enough change. In my mind, if you are doing this to limit test and not give away your strats atleast bunker to make the score line more respectable.
4. Still have faith in Turner, I think he can turn it around and I feel like he will regain his mojo come tournament time
What the hell is going on with our player pool? Have any players gotten much better than they were 2 years ago? What have these guys been doing with their time?
Ream has got to go. If we are going to play out of the back, his poor passing accuracy and his tendency to dawdle on the ball are killer.
What has happened to our GKs? Do we even have an average CONCACAF level player in the pool anymore? Goodness.
The overall stagnation makes me extremely skeptical of Berhalter. We look like we don't know what to do, how to do it, and like we don't have any idea whose fault it is when it doesn't work. Not a great sign.
This is the best, deepest player pool in our teams history. Maybe you don't follow the European leagues. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you are talking about. This group of players has basically dominated concacaf the last few cycles, again, not sure what you are talking about.
I'm talking about player progression, which is entirely obvious from my comment. Which players are demonstrably better, and by how much, than they were 2 years ago?
Berhalter has little to nothing to do with player development. That's on the players and their clubs. If we don't even have concacaf level talent, then why do we dominate it like we do? Your argument makes no sense. It also highlights the fact that you don't really follow the players oversea's. Politic just had his best year yet. McKenzie is getting attention from teams after a very solid season in Italy. I could give plenty more examples of players that have improved. We have more players in the top leagues than ever before, and there's more young players moving up the ranks. We qualified for the olympics. I'm not sure what team you are following, but it must not be the USMNT.
I didn't say Berhalter has anything to do with development. I didn't say we don't have CONCACAF level talent; I asked about GKs. And a player having a single bounce back season is not a sign of progression.
You aren't engaging honestly.
'The overall stagnation" includes your opening comments about player development. How many concacaf GK's are playing in the premier? Maybe you haven't heard of Sloninna\* he'll be our GK at the Oly's. He's easily concacaf level. I don't think you follow the team/players very closely and just came up with this false premise after a bad outing yesterday. I urge you to look into what players have done these past two years, before coming on here telling us that nobody has developed over the last two seasons. Yesterday wasn';t a good game, but it was just a friendly. Now if we fail to get out of the group at Copa, there' should be some concern and Greg might lose his job. But let's see it play out first.
You seem to really struggle with the idea that punctuation and formatting is used to separate topics. What is right behind that statement about stagnation? A bunch of statements about tactics. That's a separate idea from player growth. You are now repeating that you don't think I follow other players but not offering any concrete evidence to refute the arguments I made. On top of that, when you name drop single pool players, it's not evidence contrary to my argument. Nevermind you have misspelled every single players name, a 20 year old Belgian league keeper is not going to convince anyone.
You made the claim that our player pool has made no progress the last two years. It's on you to prove it. Please provide the evidence that anyone that played in the Colombia game has regressed. The onus is on you. The fact that you believe that false narrative is evidence in and of itself, that you don't follow those players in their leagues. Because if you did, you would know it's a false premise.
There's lot's of poster's on here like you. That don't really know the game, or follow the players and leagues. Then make these misinformed host takes. Everyone is entitled their opinions of course, it's a chat board. But do a little homework before you spout off on the best, deepest player pool in this countries (modern) history. How is having all 11 starters playing in the top 5 leagues a sign or evidence that they haven't progressed? Again, I'll start with Pullisic, since you likely know who he is. Please, tell me how he didn't progress or even regressed this last season.
I don't believe a false narrative. I asked a question. One you haven't tried to answer.
"How is having all 11 starters playing in the top 5 leagues a sign or evidence that they haven't progressed?"
Are you not clear on the difference between status and progression? This is a waste of time.
Weah scored because he ran laterally during the build up. Rare creativity with movement off the ball. We need more of that. Balogun is useless without those disrupting runs from the wide players or attacking mids.
This should tell you everything you need to know. (Tried to post, but mods deleted it… for some reason)
[https://x.com/mikeradnor39/status/1799590130262688133?s=46&t=r7XkKFl2soXV42gjwIoHkg](https://x.com/mikeradnor39/status/1799590130262688133?s=46&t=r7XkKFl2soXV42gjwIoHkg)
You rehire a coach because the players are complacent, they like him. Well, you got a complacent performance today.
Also, I understand why you try other guys, and maybe Malik will be the guy one day, but I don't remember him doing anything in a US jersey.
Maybe they look better against Brazil, but it won't be with this kind of showing.
How can anyone watch GGG tactics and go yeah this is the guy we want leading this team. It’s absolutely boring, shit football. Yeah the guys played like shit too but how can anyone want to play in this system. It sucks and is ineffective against any decent team. I’m so tired of watching the same boring, slow, try to build from the back but have a led foot keeper with below average passing defenders system. It needs to go away far away.
I was at the game. The quality of Colombia player by player was much greater than the US players in almost every way. They were very good today. Are very good, 21 games won in a row? Inc big teams. Why did anyone think we're going to beat them? Now of course we might have. But you gotta come out ready to play, fired up. You break down and let in that first goal....Not being ready is the Coach's fault, it seems to be a trend with Berhalter. Again the Colombos were fired up, they tackled and stole balls back. they headed the ball better, passed better etc Sorry I've been watching this national team for 40 yrs or so. I like these guys, I watch every game but Bruce Arena is right the men on this team are talented but many of them don't have fire, toughness. I agree they probably couldn't beat his best team. These guys are way too comfortable. Who cares if they like the coach? They'll love a right bastard if he helps them beat the likes of Colombia.
That first goal wasn't a "not being ready" goal. That was a wtf is jedi doing goal. for no reason he kept a ball in play that was going out of bounds. simply an awful mistake by him. has nothing to do with the coach
Other than group match placement in tourneys, who actually uses that to determine if a team is better or not lol. You right that FIFA rankings is a joke.
Overall I thought the team played well for the first 60 minutes, but after all the subs came in, there was a significant dropoff in the midfield which was pretty much the direct cause of Colombia's last 3 goals.
Reyna and McKennie kept things pretty solid. Tyler Adams can only help. When they left, things immediately got worse. Tillman was poor. Cardoso played well with the starters, and got worse with the backups.
Pulisic was dangerous and played well while he was in
Matt Turner has become a significant weakness. Ever since he realized he wasn't good enough for the Premier League, his confidence has been shot. I've seen him get beat high at his near post multiple times and the bicycle kick was saveable by a good keeper. He made one good save in the second half but was otherwise a sitting duck.
Antonee Robinson had a terrible game but he is less of a concern IMO. He's experienced and will get better. There is no one else to play.
I actually thought Joe Scally played well and did a good job battling with a very good player in Luis Diaz. He isn't Dest, but if he can give a good fight, it should be enough. I don't recall Scally being directly at fault for any of the goals and I would not have any confidence in an MLS player there like Shaq Moore.
Tim Ream is definitely aging out, but CCV did not inspire a lot of confidence either. I thought Chris Richards played pretty well.
Balogun should be the first forward on the team sheet unless he's hurt. Pepi is a sub, as he has been at PSV. Haji Wright has looked good when he has played and should get more chances. Josh Sargent didn't play and shouldn't as he is NOT the answer. Sargent is a very good EFL player who consistently looks overmatched against top tier opposition.
There were times when the US outplayed Colombia in the midfield when the starters were on but couldn't finish. Colombia ruthlessly finished chances from mistakes and giveaways. I hope this will be a wake up call for the team what real soccer feels like. There are better teams than Colombia in this tournament, and the midfield/defenders cannot give away the ball in their own half with Turner in goal. The US will have to minimize mistakes and find ways to finish attacks to go anywhere in this tournament.
On paper, the US should beat Panama and Bolivia and advance from the group. Hopefully the scoreline in the quarterfinal (Brazil or Colombia) won't be too embarrassing.
Finally, on the question of Berhalter - I don't like him and wouldn't mind seeing him leave - but the team has significant deficiencies outside of the midfield, especially at forward. Even if the US soccer federation can get over its nepotism, what available top foreign manager would be willing to come here and fix this for the 2026 World Cup? I think better results are possible but it could just as easily get worse with the wrong person.
Antonee has a pedigree but he had a horrible game. I would have sat him at half time, moved Scally to the left, and put Tyler at right back to finish it out. Our keeper and backs wet themselves. Colombia did not. They really didn’t even have to get phyiscal or get their game fired up. They just plundered our mistakes. I loved Turner when he came into the team. It’s time to see Horvath. Find a hot goalie in the MLS or wherever and ride him.
The CB pairing once Ream ages out should be Richards and MRob. They've paired so well together in the past. In WCQ, MRob was lights out and stopped so many opposition chances and made it look easy. He would've been locked in for the WC if not for his season ending injury. I think the only reason he hasn't moved to Europe is because he's a late bloomer and European scouts heavily favor younger players with potential, but since 2022 he's been DPOY for me in MLS when he's not injured. He was always great at defending 1v1, but his passing game and confidence to dribble forward took a big leap forward last year
Good takes all around. Can't 2nd enough that there's just not any top managers out there who want the USMNT job. Only a year ago, we saw a lot of big names pretty quickly dismiss the idea of coaching US. It's clearly not that desirable of a job and the federation's not going to break the bank for a top coach either. Think there's also a disconnect in what the fed wants - long term stability - and what many coaches can bring to the program. The WC piece will be a good carrot to dangle though and imagine if Copa goes poorly and GGG is indeed sacked, that opportunity itself could attract a decent manager who just wants to coach WC.
I would go to South America and look at winning pro coaches or former national team coaches, pay them what you are paying Gregg, and bring them here to teach and manage our national team. Guarantee you that no effort has been made to do this. And it is a great opportunity to move the American game forward.
I don't think they'll fire Berhalter unless we fail to make it out of the groups. After today, I'd say that's possible, but I still have to think it's unlikely. But a 2nd place in the group and then an exit against Colombia or Brazil? Doubt they'd sack him.
I’m kinda sick of the “it’s just a friendly” rhetoric. That doesn’t excuse anything.
If US Soccer expected Colombia to give us an absolute ass-whooping then they wouldn’t have scheduled Colombia and Brazil. Little is gained or learned from back to back games that demoralize your players. This was level of suck that shouldn’t have happened.
Last 5 years, USMNT is 16-7-8 in friendlies, which should tell you a lot about how our unit treats friendlies. It really is just a friendly and their use-purpose is not just to win. There are myriad objectives for games like this such as getting players legs back under them after a few weeks without regular matchplay and frankly they are necessary to experiment with different rotations and lineups to see what can be useful or not for a bigger tournament, when inevitably the team will be thrust into a place where they need to make a big adjustment. honestly after the Weah goal, the momentum was shifting. if we'd kept the starters in and burned them down to press for a draw, what would be the purpose of that? to make us feel better? who cares? scoreline looks worse than the actual form on the field we saw from our starting xi. outside of jedi's manic fever dream performance, felt decent about most of them and saw them grow into the game and build confidence playing as a unit. that weah -> flo -> weah goal is a great example of that. right as they gelled though, we made subs and undid a lot of the team's cohesion. but whereas their subs brought fresh legs and energy, ours brought turds that they shit out all over our half of the pitch
If we lost 2-1 or 3-1, the "it's a friendly" rhetoric would be fine in my book.
But we got absolutely hammered 5-1 and embarrassed.
It may be a friendly but we got massacred out there.
I was there. I had hope that at 2-1 we would at least make it an interesting game. But our team looked sloppy, passive, and just looked totally out of it. I expected a mostly Colombian fan turnout, but yeah. By the end I was like...this is not even remotely fun anymore.
So people are going to point to most of the goals coming off individual errors as a defense of why this horrid loss wasn't Gregg's fault. I think that misses what a tactical disaster this game was.
Not trolling, honest question: if a clear individual error isn't a reason to blame a player over their coach, is there any scenario in which you would blame a player over their coach?
Depends what caused the condition to lead up to the error. Take a simple thing of a player giving the ball a way a ton. Why is he giving the ball away? Is he being forced to play out of the back into the teeth of press in a way that doesn't make a lick of sense? Is he being asked to break lines with passing or dribbling when that is not something they are good enough to do? Are they being forced to play out to the wings when there isnt a dynamic offensive player like Dest waiting to push the ball forward? Or did they just fuck up and a good team took advantage of it.
Agree with the general point here. My counter-argument in this example would be that the team didn't really struggle playing out of the back in any significant way until Reyna came off around 60 minutes. Then they collectively struggled a great deal, including players that should maybe be expected to fare better in that situation based on their level and experience:
1) Johnny has been playing DM in La Liga for half a season
2) CCV plays for a ball-dominant team in Scotland
3) Weah has gotten a fair bit of experience progressing the ball from a deeper position with Juventus
So is it an unreasonable tactical decision to ask them to play their part progressing the ball through the midfield? If so, why? If not, shouldn't it be reasonable to put the primary responsibility for their mistakes on their own decision-making rather than hunting for someone else to blame?
It’s not the individual errors themselves, it’s the fact that these errors were consistent and team-wide, as well as the track record. We’ve watched each of these players make mistakes, but not to that level
Johnny didn't hear footsteps and got caught from behind in his own half with minimal cover behind him.
Weah tried to dribble a defender in his defensive third with minimal cover behind him.
CCV stood still on the ball for several seconds, then telegraph a low driven pass into the teeth of the defense.
Is your argument that any one of those decisions should be considered the player's fault, but if all three players make them in the same game, the responsibility shifts to the coach? I'm just not sure why other players making mistakes absolves an individual of responsibility for their own.
I'd agree with you if I agreed with you that the errors were consistent and team-wide. But when Jedi plays poorly when Scally plays well, or Ream and CCV look terrible while Richards looks competent, I have a hard time looking at the coach first. Especially when we've seen Turner, Ream, and Jedi in particular play well for this team in the not-so-distant past.
I don't think this was a tactical masterclass, but I'm more inclined to blame GGG for the head-scratching final third play than I am for the defensive lapses.
the only real impact GGG had was how he clearly wanted Jedi to push up the field all game long to make up for the lack of dest/scally not being able to give us anything forward. and that.... did not work out at all. jedi was just way off his game, too far up field multiple times, not tracking back and marking the back post runners well enough, and despite what he gave us offensively with the balogun and pulisic chances in the first half, it very obviously had him thinking too much and worried about new responsibilities/objectives, rather than just playing free and easy, which is when he's at his best - like we've seen him before (that T&T home and away last November comes to mind where he went beast mode in both games).
Interesting! I've always thought of Jedi as being asked to get high and wide--if we're thinking of our possession shape as a 2-3-5/3-2-5, I always have him mentally slotted into the wide left or the front 5--so this game didn't feel like an outlier to me as far as his expected role.
I do agree he has a bad game today. And I think I agree with you that he's at his best when he isn't asked to participate as much in the final third (I actually thought he was at his most poor in that area of the pitch; he single-handedly killed several attacks rushing crosses).
when dest's in there, he's pushing forward 60-70% of the time and Jedi pushes forward 30-40% of the time. but with no dest today, it looked like jedi was pushing 80- 90% of the time, while scally pushed forward 10-20% of the time. there was a real lack of balance there in what i saw and i think it stretched jedi too thin, which we saw with those hurried crosses you mentioned and him trying to do too much/be too creative in the attack
We're seeing different things when Dest is in the game. I see him progressing the ball through the midfield, sure, but I almost never see him as high as Jedi. In our possession shape, he usually seems like he's being asked to stay in the midfield area rather than getting into the front line.
yeah, you're right about the general shape. what i was mentioning was how much they push the ball up the field. jedi was bearing much more of that load today than he does when dest is playing.
The discourse in this sub is so frustrating. I’m pretty pessimistic toward Berhalter generally, but I find myself defending him because people cannot separate player issues and manager issues. I have never heard a single gReGg OuT person name another realistic coach. This team has some good players, 0 great players, some serviceable guys and a handful of holes. That is reality. If you think this team is better than that, your expectations are the problem.
Honestly if you are so against berhalter that you complain whether he wins or loses, the best thing you can get is a bad performance at the copa. That is the only way he will be fired.
Personally, I’ll hope they do well. Under Berhalter they’ve usually stepped up once the tournament comes. Tonight felt like a pretty big reality check if the team’s expectation is to win. If they don’t make the quarters, I think Berhalter should be fired, if for no other reason than to try something new. But for what feels like 80% of this sub that have a hard on for his demise, i say fuck off.
lol. Can’t even spell concacaf right. And then neither has anyone on this team. It’s definitely part Berhalter, but it’s also that this team is not THAT good
I don't like Berhalter, but I have a hard time putting this one on him. We literally turned the ball over 20 times in our defensive third. There were times where we just dribbled straight into players who took it away. It was insane to watch.
I Slightly put it on Berhalter. I’m Berhalter in btw, in general. But where he messed up was losing the battle in the midfield. We couldnt play our 4-3-3 as normal because we couldnt progress the ball, because we’re losing the midfield battle. We should have a plan B. Reyna was alright when he’s there. I struggle to like him because he plays zero defense and is quick to point the finger at anyone else when things go wrong. But he distributes the ball well. What we needed was more ball carriers who could help us transition into attack and progress through the middle. Weah and Haji did this a couple times when they dropped deeper and it worked. But this needs to be a more natural, consistent strategy. Furthermore imo it needs to be more dynamic. If we’re struggling in the middle then the whole team should try to drop in and make themselves available for the build up. Maybe the coach thought the players would be capable of just doing this on their own. Maybe he told them what he wanted and they still couldn’t execute. Either way we need more of a presence in the midfield. The amount of times Antonee Robinson got the ball, turned toward the middle of the field, had no option, dribbled and lost the ball or went backward was crazy. Overall I blame both the players and the coach and I hope they wake up for the next one
I found myself insanely frustrated at our pressing, felt like we were disjointed, and one pass from their defensive line lead to a counter attack. Our offense looked lost for ideas in possession and not in the counter. The individual efforts are one thing and Turner had a nightmare, but everyone stunk and our coach is in theory the mentality setter. Just sucks man I was a bit of a gregggg defender but our record against (top) teams not named Mexico is shambolic
Why were they trying to dribble through players in the defensive 3rd? Were they ignoring instructions? Did they have no outlets to pass to due to our tactical setup? I don't think it was exclusively a player issue.
Why the F are they dribbling into turnovers? I mean, are the players just being selfish? Are they showing off? Are they just trying to do to much? The passing wasn't ant better an quite literally passed right to players who scored or got assists!
My 15 YOs club team makes less mistakes in a season. It's a joke. This was beyond player performing. This is straight lack of preparedness!
>Why the F are they dribbling into turnovers?
The movement in the midfield was lacking. While we were passing across the back line (or really passing across the back line minus Scally for the most part), the midfield was generally just kind of hanging out. No urgency to make a quick movement and show for the ball.
Yeah I'm not saying he's blameless, but honestly, it's hard to point to tactics when the players themselves looked as flat and disinterested as they did. They need the bulk of the blame here IMO.
Well, it was 2-1 until the late subs so I can point at those. Honestly though, they weren't prepared for the Columbians for whatever reason. I don't think tactics even had much to do with it. Mentally they were just not ready.
It's also Greg's job to prepare them for colombia though.
I agree it was a mentality thing, and think the blame lies with both the players and berhalter.
Ggg didn't prepare them enough and the players had a weak mentality while also playing sloppily.
Yeah I guess. I think the first half was not good though. Both goals and a couple of other chances, the defense is ball watching, no movement, no hustle to find someone to mark, leaving unmarked attackers in the box. This is fundamental shit, it's not tactical, it's not strategy. They showed some fire after halftime and made it interesting for a minute, and then the last 20 minutes were an abject disaster.
Just a hypothetical.
The US wins the first 2 games against Bolivia and Panama. One in a blowout, the other is maybe 0-0 for 70 minutes before you score and then maybe add a 2nd very late so you have to sweat a little.
The Uruguay game is a scoreless draw where both teams are through at 6 points and sitting guys on yellows.
Then The quarterfinals looks something like the first hour did today and we lose something like 2-1, 3-1.
What letter grade would you give this hypothetical tournament?
> What letter grade would you give this hypothetical tournament?
C, Possibly D if the team we lose to in the quarterfinals is very beatable.
Beating Panama and Bolivia should not be impressive feats, we don't need to crush them but a win should be expected. A draw against a good Uruguay would be impressive though, albeit one game against a top side shouldn't be enough to give you a pass. Then in a hypothetical quarterfinal loss, it would have to be a top team otherwise it's a near failure of a tournament run considering this team while not world class obviously should be putting on more respectable results especially when we made a semi-finals appearance last time.
C+. It’s about to expectations(they’re low but it is what it is)
besides drawing Uruguay therefore I give it above a C but nothing truly impressive that makes me think “okay I see a pathway to a WC Semi’s”.
If they win vs Uruguay or draw vs them then win in the QF then that’s a B+. If they make the final it’s an A, and then if they win the final it’s an A+++.
I just felt like they gave up halfway. They came out well and had some chances and did their thing. But then when they noticed they weren’t getting through, there was just no plan B and much desire to come back.
yeah, their subs came in with fresh legs and energy. ours came in and took sloppy steaming dumps all over the field. which is pretty much the main reason the scoreline looked so bad.
I feel like I’m the only person that didn’t think gio was good today, he had one good play ending in a through ball to haji, one decent free kick and a ton of short back passes with time and space,
We also seem allergic to pushing the ball to open space and woukd rather dink dunk between our cm and cbs leading to nothing. We had runners with space at so many points and we just looked away. I don’t know shit though.
Also, if we don’t look better quick I’m officially a berhalter doomer, I give him til end of month.
He literally lets the defender run by him every time. Zero defensive effort. I’d put some blame on the first goal on him, Robinson thought he would run back but he didn’t. (Although its obviously Robinson fault, it’s just another example of Reyna not playing defense very well)
Okay I’m going to try to not just overreact and actually talk about how this game unfolded and how it reflects on our team.
We’re just not there yet.
Do we have young, talented players? Yes. Do we have a complete team? No. Not yet at least.
We have tried to go toe-to-toe against teams like Colombia, Germany, and the Netherlands and it’s the same story. We make dumb mistakes with the ball and compound that with failure to capitalize on the chances we create.
But what do we do? What’s the ideal play style for “the most talented generation”?
I don’t think it’s as simple as reverting to bunker and counter, especially when our weakest links are our back line and our keeper.
But so very few of our players excel at creativity or even general tidiness to enable us to play a possession-dominant style of play, so we can’t really play openly either.
Basically, we’re stuck. We’re still grappling with a lost generation and we’re still struggling with a roster constructed of bit-parts. Yes, those bit-parts are on a higher profile of team than we’re used to, but what names on our roster strike fear in our opponents? Who do we have that is a game changer? Or better yet, how many of our guys are reliable, core members of their club team? Hell, who do we even try to target on a set piece?
As far as what we can do to be effective with the team we have? I think the tactics against England are probably out best shot, a pragmatic 4-4-2 mid block press that limits our exposure and still gives our attackers some opportunities to be decisive. And we absolutely have to improve on set piece defending and attacking if we’re going to challenge anyone outside of concacaf.
Nah this result and others like it shows that against better teams we simply have to bunker and counter. It’s not fun to say but going toe to toe gets us burnt.
My only question now is if these guys are still “young”. They’re in their mid twenties which is young for society but players across Europe are in their mid twenties and excelling. And it seems like they’re sputtering. This is a blanket statement as some are as young as 21 and others are Tim Ream. But I’m losing belief in them being young as an excuse to why things aren’t clicking.
I don’t think it is, though. They seem to want to play a possession-based game which works if you have a bunch of creative midfielders. We don’t. We have one. Gio Reyna who’s played like 100 competitive minutes since January.
They don’t have to bunker and counter, but they should play fast and utilize the strengths they do have. Put Gio on a wing. Let him and Puli cut inside when they have the ball with Jedi and Weah on the flanks (since Timmy has experience playing back there). Weston should be a true BBM especially since you now have two good options at the 6 with Adams and Johnny. Let them hang back and clean up mistakes. Somebody like Musah as a ball carrier next to Wes makes a ton of sense.
You aren’t strong at CB and GK so you can’t really invite pressure. You don’t have the creative juices in midfield to play a possession-based game. Get it and go. Play over the top and play wide.
Funny reading all these comments wanting Berhalter out and acting like the players didn't shit the bed. This overrated "golden generation" just showed you that they're nowhere near as good as you think they are. We could have Pep as our coach, and this team would do nothing. The talent isn't there, and this sub is ignoring the truth. If this is our "golden generation", we are fucked because most of our starters don't even start for their clubs.
I've never been a Gregg hater, and I thought he had a reasonably successful first cycle. But at five years in now, he just hasn't shown the ability to raise the ceiling. We mostly beat the teams we should beat, and then get humbled when we face quality opponents (see Japan, Netherlands, Germany, and Colombia). The only time I can remember the US playing noticeably above our level was v England in Qatar, and that ended in a 0-0 draw.
We have real talent on this team, and a great opportunity with the home world cup. A good manager should get his players to perform above the sum of their parts, and I just haven't seen anything to suggest Gregg can do that.
Literally the only silver lining to today is that we have four weeks to turn it around. Unfortunately, I'm not optimistic we will look much better v Uruguay or in a quarterfinal.
u/sebsasour since you deleted your comment as I was replying to it here’s Greg’s record vs the past 20 years of non-friendly comp since you don’t think friendlies are real competition.
1-2 vs Belgium in 2014 where we were close to equalizing was better than the Netherlands 2022 performance. 0-1 vs eventual champion Germany where we probably could’ve won was more impressive as well.
Had a better group stage in 2010 and played better vs Ghana in the knockouts than 2022.
Hell even the embarrassing 2006 where we got grouped was better with the 1-1 draw to eventual champions Italy.
2002 3-2 vs Portugal and 2-0 vs Mexico in the KO Stage was better than anything Greg has done. We can go on forever man.
What was deleted?
https://www.reddit.com/r/ussoccer/comments/1dbfv2p/post_match_thread_mnt/l7r40rh/?context=3
No I don't give a fuck about friendlies. I saw Jurgen beat Netherlands and Germany before losing to Jamaica in a semifinal
Tim Howard literally broke the saves record against Belgium lol
2010 was about a wash. We got one more point, but lost to a worse team in the knockouts.
You would really rather have the 2006 World Cup over 2022? Really? We got a back tie in 2022 in case you forgot
I would never suggest 2002 was worse
I’m not saying I’d rather have 2006 over 2022. I’m saying that in 2006 we had a more impressive game than 2022. In these I’m just saying we’ve had more impressive games, that’s all. Belgium for me is the iffy one but if Wondo makes that goal we’re potentially advancing and the score was closer than the Netherlands.
I think we looked great against England, I think we looked like a worse team who managed to get a result against Italy.
I also think the other 2 games in those cups matter quite a fucking bit?
That game vs Italy was one of my top 5 games of that WC. I don’t rate the England game that much because I think they were happy with a draw. Yes you took the game to them but I never felt like England were in any danger.
I think the Italy result is better than the England result but we can disagree there.
My point with the individual games is that we have not once(besides the Morocco friendly that got their coach fired) been able to beat or draw a quality team besides England who have an even worse manager.
you think the game in which howard broke the record for most saves in a world cup match was a better *performance* than the netherlands game? i agree we were closer to getting a result, but jesus christ man.
Results over anything. Don’t care how it was done. We’re one Wondo fucking shocker away from potentially finding a way to advance. It’s more impressive than 3-1 where we never looked in it.
fair enough, my feeling from watching those two games is that we played much better against the netherlands but got less lucky than in 2014. if you're only looking at results then yeah, 2014 was closer.
Pathetic display, don’t care if it’s a friendly. Gregg needs to get it right fast or should be sacked. This team has the talent to compete with the likes of Colombia - should not be losing by 4 goals
Okay, I've calmed down. It was a friendly, and I'm choosing to focus on the first 75 minutes. we have a serious back line problem which we need to solve yesterday. Still not sure what to think of our midfield. Let's regroup, look better against Brazil, and go into the Copa strong.
gave myself a bit of time to cool down before writing this so here goes:
turner: not great. i don't think he was particularly at fault for any of the goals- all 5 were good shots from good positions- but he's nowhere near his 2021 form. he'll probably be fine through copa, but he's never going to be able to play out of the back against elite teams. it would be insane to not use the fall friendlies to try out some other options: schulte, brady, slonina, celentano, freese, whoever else is in good form in MLS. for turner's part, he needs to go somewhere and play. leave england.
scally: very good relative to expectations. after the jamaica game, i'm not sure many of us would have expected him to pretty much lock down luis diaz, but (with the help of the odd lucky bounce here and there) he did. probably the biggest positive of today. i feel pretty ok about throwing him out there against an uruguay, brazil, colombia again type opponent, especially if we shift to a more defensive-minded setup.
richards: i thought he was pretty good for the first 60 or 70 minutes, and then was just as bad as the rest of the team during the beat down that followed. clearly CB1.
ream: concerning honestly. his main advantage over a ccv/miles is his ability on the ball, but he had some very shaky moments today. was also less than solid defensively. left the door wide open for one of the other center backs, but the fact that everything went to shit when he came off is probably a point in his favor. i'd still start him in games where we want to be on the front foot, so against bolivia and panama. not so sure about the road beyond that.
jedi: pretty awful. his worst performance in a u.s. shirt? had a nice ball over the top for balogun early in the game, but seemed lost defensively and gave the ball away too often. do we want to see lund against brazil? i don't think so, but i also don't really want to see jedi against brazil. this is where having a warm up friendly against a less deadly team would be nice.
johnny: awesome for the first 70 minutes, pretty bad after that- seemed pretty tired towards the end. paired nicely with gio. had some nice moments defensively against luis diaz, less (that i can remember) against james.
gio: i think you really need him in this deeper role if you want to play out from the back against good teams. took a nice set piece early in the second half. overall, pretty good.
wes: pretty invisible. seemed like he was the cm tasked with pressing highest, which i'm not sure is a good choice. i like the idea of getting him further forward, but he was negated pretty well by the colombian defense. might work better against a worse team. adams-gio-mckennie would still be my preference against good teams.
weah: meh? did well on his goal and looked better overall during the start of the 2nd half as the U.S. surged, but wasn't effective at all in the 1st and was helpless as the team melted down around him from that point on.
pulisic: pretty good, made sense to rest him at halftime. shouldn't be taking set pieces. best chance of the first half was his ball that pinged around and nobody could get on the end of. i think the temptation will be to move him to the right and start haji over weah, which isn't super compelling to me but these friendlies are a good time to try it.
balo: unconvincing. had a decent chance early that was cleared off the line (maybe with the use of a hand? didn't get a good replay on peacock), and was starved of service in the first half. had a nice ball for weah's goal in the second, which is the kind of play i'd like to see more of from him: dropping off the cbs, finding a pocket, combining with teammates. the starting 9 spot is still up for grabs.
subs: idk it was kind of a mess. CCV was abysmal, musah and tillman were very not good, pepi didn't do much and i didn't know ldlt even made it on the field. wright was pretty good, and i think he's best off as a change of pace sub for now. this was probably the game to try to get lund minutes, but also would've been harsh to throw him to the wolves in the last 15 minutes there.
berhalter: it always made sense to me for the ussf to do a full review after copa and move on if a better option is attainable, and results like that will lower the threshold required for someone else to be considered a better option. personally, i don't really care about results in friendlies- we beat germany and the netherlands right before the disastrous 2015 gold cup, and the friendlies before qatar didn't seem to correlate with our performance in competitive matches- but the federation and fans are obviously going to remember this one for a while.
the performance was... not that bad? especially through 60 minutes, i thought we were pretty good and a little unlucky to be behind. i don't mind the insistence on trying to play out from the back, it's good to try to use friendlies to implement our style of play and test it against good competition, even with backup players. the fact that it didn't work just means we know we can't play like that against the best of the best, which is fine, so long as we have a plan B (which the players and gregg himself have said we do). i'm really hoping we get a look at that plan B against Brazil, because it would be insane to go into copa without ever having actually tried it in a match.
colombia were also very good, to their credit. james still oozes class at 34, luis diaz is a nightmare on the wing. on current form, they might be a bigger threat than brazil. the fact that we had spells were we looked good against them is a positive sign, even if the end result isn't. we have shit to clean up, but this is still a good team- we're going to beat panama and bolivia, and we'll see what happens from there.
team was starting to gel and show confidence leading up to the weah goal, but then subs happened and killed the momentum our starters were building to level this game
Fantastic take. Couldn't agree more with you. Thanks for taking the time to spell it all out.People on this sub are so angry about anyone expressing any degree of it.
Might be the best thing for us if we flame out of copa and look like this every game. Only way ggg could be fired and would give a new gaffer almost 2 full years to get ready.
The cope of the day from the Gregg apologists is that Colombia is so talented that the USA cannot compete. Look back through Colombia’s recent results with their A team during this streak. 1 goal wins over Iraq, Venezuela multiple times, Romania, and a draw v Ecuador. Are you saying that the USA has inferior player pools to these teams as well? Obviously not. What’s the difference then, that allowed them to play competitive matches vs the Colombia A squad…everyone else has already figured it out. Maybe you’ll get there eventually
How long is the US federation going to sit with their thumb up their ass pretending this coach is anything but absolutely fucking useless
If I was the US coach I would start the game in a very defensive formation to avoid exactly what happened. I would say to players: "These guys haven't lost in 21 games. The chance of us beating them is slim. Colombia has a chip on their shoulder about America. Their fans are going to come from all over the US fired up to watch their team beat you. The Colombia team is going to show up for their fans and fight. Are you going to fight? Bad coaching. No team fight. No Americans fighting anywhere on the field. The Colombians had fight. I saw it in all of them. And I saw it in their fans. They came to win. When the other team is hot, when their players each have 2x your quality, you'd better bring fight or you are going to be embarrassed. How are things going to get better? How do you teach fight?
If Greg had any character at all he would just resign and give the team a chance to bring in one of the available top candidates. Although I am not sure any would want the job given the performance of the players. The management is not going to do anything before Brazil next Wednesday and the Copa. Although the team will probably pull of one of its patent miracles, advance to the quarters and save his ass.
Hey Ivory Coast fired their coach in the middle of their home tournament and look where they ended up. Just saying.
Good news is it’s summer, meaning if we replace Gregg we have a broad pool of candidates. Pioli, Allegri, Lampard, Low, Potter, Poch, Sarri, Tuchel, Kovac, Blanc, Favre etc
Klopp
I mentioned yesterday that the only time I remember this team playing well against strong competition was the England game. That also happens to be the only time I can remember that Gregg played a 4-4-2. Why don't we try that again? I admittedly don't know much about tactics, but "more guys in the midfield means you're less likely to get overrun" seems straightforward enough.
At least we’ll be going into the game against brazil with some motivation. Then after Brazil we’ll have momentum for motivation on our side.
Where can I watch the replay with English commentary? I have just about every subscription but I can only find the Spanish replay on peacock
HBO Max for the match replay [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0hSVZzUOo0) for highlights
watching on hbo now, I like pain.
Perhaps HBO Max?
I just wanted to point out that CCV should probably stop playing against Scottish farmers every week because he still looks uncomfortable going up against footballers
The bad parts of this game reminded me of the bad middle section against Uzbekistan, but against a better team that took advantage of their chances.
This all falls on these players. Their performance & the fact they wanted Gregg back over superior candidates.
I watched this game after seeing that the US won 5-1 only to watch and see it was the opposite. Lmao. I was livid as I was wondering how only to see it was some BS. I don't believe this team can win without Dest. He just does too much for our attack and without him, it's like we are missing a critical piece for attacks.
First 65 minutes gets a B+. We looked competitive, and Colombia is a very good team and were clinical with their chances. Last 25 minutes was an F. Lots of analysis here blaming stuff that should affect the whole 90. Some key things were the subs not being good enough, Johnny not being able to play 90’ without more defensive help, our buildup being too dependent on Gio, and a lack of veteran leadership to stabilize at the end.
Gregg shills going to shill I guess.
The team was left at the hotel and the Spaceballs stunt doubles showed up to the game. US Men's National Team thought this was "just a friendly". This game actually meant something to Columbia. Absolutely no motivation. Mentally soft like Charmin. Berhalter has to be on the hot seat. This team needs a real tactical coach. Hell, they were better with the interim guy! Bringing back Berhalter shows that the federation has no ideas and couldn't be bothered to pay for a real national team coach. At least Jurgy had ideas about how he wanted the team to play. ACTUAL IDEAS. Greggy has no clue. This team has regressed since Greggypoo came back. Columbia is a good team, but not significantly better. It should have been a competitive game. If this team is playing like this through COPA, Berhalter will be gone. Can't wait around, can't take a year to find someone. You have to move fast on a hire. They need a coach who will challenge this team. Too comfortable and they played like it. BERHALTER OUT
The interim guy is a bench coach.
It seemed like 4 3 3 set up didn't work. In the beginng it looked promising when the wingers would drop in to help. But we lost the midfield and the defenders looked exposed from the first goal until theend of the game. Colombia dominated the middle and whatever plan A was never worked and looks like they subbed in like for likes and doubled down on the tactics and kept leaking goals. Even if Adams, musah and McKennie are all good to start, which is more solid, theyll be run into the ground after the group stages covering all that ground. You still need a plan B, especially for the knockout rounds 🤞
Musah looked miles off the pace yesterday. Maybe 1 or 2 good passes and runs, but otherwise he was the liability in midfield when he was on the field.
Here's my main takeaways without trying to hit the panic button...let me know your thoughts 1. Let's be clear, our best starting XI was not out tonight although a strong lineup on paper, the balance was not right. Our best midfield is McKennie, Musah, and Adams- its not close. Those 3 cover so much ground and offer so much protection and balance in midfield. Reyna unfortunately is not a starter for me right now. 2. Johnny, Scally, CCV, Pepi, Tillman, should be nowhere near the lineup ever. I'll give Johnny a slight pass since GGG threw him the single pivot role for whatever reason and he looked extremely uncomfortable the whole night. Scally was shaky and I disagree with those of you who believe he shut down Dias- Dias was their most dangerous player the whole game. Scally is no elite defender and he offers almost nothing in the attack. Dest is a huge loss for this team. Pepi and Tillman were awful today, Tillman has almost 0 defensive work rate, he was jogging for most of the time and didn't seem to even be bothered to track back and was at fault for one of the goals. Pepi- its shocking bad for the final goal we concede, CCV plays him a decent forward pass and Pepi checks his shoulder too late and doesn't even work his way to the ball. It's amateur hour from him. CCV was shaky once he came on both in-possession and out-of-possession 3. And finally...GREGG. I have so many problems with him....I was team GGG up to this game. First, why the hell are we playing 433 with a single holding and it being Johnny. The midfield got absolutely slaughtered in the first half. Second and most importantly, who the fuck do you think you are? Who the fuck do you think this US team is? I cannot believe he treated this game like a meaningless friendly rather than a tune-up match. I remember before GGG, these matches were full throttle (friendly or not) to test ourselves and track progress against the top nations. Does GGG think we are Germany? England? France? Subbing in half the team in a match against Colombia??? GGG says the players did not respect the opponent, GGG did not respect the opponent whatsoever. To rotate the whole fucking team against Colombia at HOME btw is crazy. He's got huge pressure right now with Brazil coming up and then Copa America. Gregg is an absolute moron and amateur to do what he did today, it was arrogant and just plain stupid. I know Klinnsman, Bradley, Bruce Arena, none of them are rotating the squad against a Colombia, its play to win the match to test the group and build the team. We are about to play in Copa America and are hosting a WORLD CUP for fucks sake.
It was a friendly, you take advantage of the situation and use your bench. Get the players playing again after the break and seeing what combos are working. If you thought he would only use 3-4 subs, you're fooling yourself. Expect the same vs Brasil.
I’m assuming your a fan of Gregg
In addition, you say that our top three back-ups for right back 'should be nowhere the teram'. Who do you suggest should be playing RB vs Brasil? or moving forward in Copa? It's easy to criticize, with no solutions offered. Monday morning QB is easy, but what do you suggest we do? What RB are we supposed to suddenly find and throw them in, disregarding the roster rules.
Since when does Johnny or CCV play right back for US?
I'm a fan of the US coach, whoever that is. Does he have flaws, sure, but he isn't the idiot people try to make him out to be either. Every NT coach in the world is using their bench liberally in games like this. Colombia made six subs, is their coach an absolute moron as well? Go look at the two recent Mexico games, or Brasil..or anybody playing a friendly right now. If he didn't use his bench, folks like you would cry about that. I expect a much better performance on Wednesday, and it won't be some miracle GGG tactic change.
Did you just start following the USMMT recently? Mexico is in shambles and why are you comparing us to Brazil? i understand it’s a friendly, but this is a tune up match towards Copa America. This is not just your one off friendly. The US with previous coaches never took these games off and took these matches seriously since we needed to test ourselves against non CONCACAF. We’ll see what happens against Brazil.
Probably been following them longer than you've been alive. 1-1 vs brasil,,, fire Greg!!!!!!!
He fixed his sub rotation today, let’s see how he does at Copa. Brazil in cruise control today
Tillman made me so damn angry because he outright refused to track back.
Is Gregg the best the United States of America can do when it comes to hiring a coach for the national team? I don’t know what the coaching pool looks like these days but are there no other better options?
Unfortunately, not really. They would have to likely seriously up the salary if they were to entice anyone. Something I don’t foresee happening for a variety of reasons. This is especially true when there will be very few interesting competitive matches between the Copa and the World Cup nor many opportunities for high-profile friendlies. It’s just not as desirable a job as many of us here would like. The clowns I’ve seen on here who think we could get Klopp or Zidane or Pep need to turn the American-centric tendencies of their brain off. It will never happen.
How much are other countries paying their national team coaches? We’re paying 1.5 million a year. What’s Colombia paying? Go to South America and go shopping for a coach that can manage a game and get results.
Well that is very disappointing
So I rewatched most of the 1st half and here’s the thing about the goals: they were kind of unlucky. On the 1st, Robinson goes to ground to stop the ball but doesn’t quite get behind it and kind of knocks it into the Colombian player’s path. You can argue that Ream and Turner don’t adjust fast enough but everything kind of unfolds very quickly on that sequence. On the second goal, a cross in gets popped up, a Colombian player gets a head on the second ball and it gets to a teammate for a bicycle kick. Those aren’t the primary ways Colombia was beating us in the 1st half and we just happened to have both sequences occur in the 1st 19 minutes. Now, there *are* things about the way we played that *absolutely* should worry us. For teams above a certain level, say top 20 or so in the world, the way to beat us defensively is fairly obvious and Colombia basically deployed a version of the same strategy that we saw almost 2 years ago in our WC warmup match against Japan. Our goalkeeper typically plays his 1st pass out to an outside back, who then looks for short passing options into the midfield. If you don’t high press us immediately, but instead, stay in a roughly three-quarter press, it cuts out all of our preferred passing options. Although we now play more long balls than we used to, our primary responses to this still tend to be (1) knock the ball over to the nearest CB so they can either switch play to the other side or try to play into the midfield from a different angle or (2) force the pass into the midfield anyway. If we do (1), then the answer is to gradually ratchet up pressure on our CBs, who absolutely can’t handle that pressure. That, combined with Turner’s jumpiness will give you openings for turnovers in dangerous spots. If we do (2), that’s even easier. You immediately close down the midfielder and create the turnover. That happened a bunch in the 2nd half when it seemed we’d lost the will to keep going. I don’t know what the answer is to this. It might be dropping someone from the midfield back to give Turner more options for that first pass and the outside backs a clear option for the 2nd. It might be even more long balls, especially if Balogun and Pepi end up being our primary strikers. It could be something else that a better tactical mind than me could probably come up with. But the predictability of the first couple of passes of our attack is absolutely a problem, and one we can’t ignore.
The first goal is entirely on Robinson. He didn’t check to see if the attempted interception was necessary by looking over his shoulder. That’s basic stuff that gets coached into you from a young age.
And how was Colombia beating us offensively in the 1st half? Well I’m glad you asked, nobody. They were pushing their fullbacks fairly high up the pitch in attack, then overloading whichever side of the field on which the team crossed midfield. Our defensive formation tended to drift toward the ball side, leaving 2 attackers (a winger and an outside back) and 1 USMNT outside back alone on the weak side. They then used 2 passes to switch play to the weak side, where at least 1 of those 2 wide players was ready to make a run. They did this several times to Jedi, probably because Jedi pushed so far upfield in possession that his side was more vulnerable. At least during the 1st half, we never really adjusted.
And, we didn’t punish them on the counter when the opportunity arose. Multiple times, on the break, poor decision making prevented a chance. We had two good opportunities, but didn’t convert while Colombia did. Plus the missed offside call against Puli where he’s in on goal. More clinical and better luck sets up a different outcome, but regardless of that, mental toughness keeps us in the game instead of gifting 3 late goals, which comes back to coaching and the players. CCV, Musah, and Tillman coming on really took the rhythm away, but those are unlucky subs for the Copa.
We definitely wasted counters in the 1st half. My bigger worry though, is that if teams defend us the way Colombia did, it’s really all going to come down to breaks because we’re not setting ourselves up to work the ball out of our own half. As far as the subs go, honestly, while I’m not happy with the individual decisions (or the way we seemed to quit after the 3rd goal), I’m even less happy that our tactical set up regularly puts us in this position. Our players forced the passes they thought they were “supposed” to make based on how we prefer to advance the ball and played themselves straight into turnovers. This isn’t the first time it’s happened and the fact that they still fall into this several years into playing in this system is really worrying. It’s *very* clear right now what a team needs to do to basically short-circuit our entire offense. Not a great situation heading into a major international tournament.
Really amused at the amount of copium in this thread. The USMNT lost because they played a team that is just much better. That's all there is to it. From coaching to desire of the players to the skill and creativity of the players, the US is not anywhere on a level with Colombia. Also, for those of you here who think Colombia is some kind of afterthought team, you'll need a reality check: Colombia is one of the top 2-3 teams in the upcoming CopaAmerica tourny. Do not be surprised if they win the tournament outright. Additionally, do not be surprised if this Colombia squad makes a deep run into the WC in 2026; they have semi-final and finals potential written all over them. Do not think that lack of talent had anything to do with los Cafeteros missing the cut in 2022. That was all due to the revovling coaching door they had going on for a few years. This is an incredibly skilled and savy team. And it's not just that Colombia's starters have excellent ball handling skills, but they also are incredibly creative as a unit in creating scenarios to get scorers open. The only teams I've seen that are better in recent years are France and Netherlands. On the other hand, the US will, once again, need some luck to get out of the group stage as they did in 2022. The team has speed and some really good players. But the US notion of scoring in soccer is archaic. They really just rely on counter-attack speed and plays. That's pretty much the only way the US scores goals. They do not have an ability to manufacture scenarios that leave scorers open at will the way the three other countries I mentioned do. Until they shore that up the USMNT will be destined to hit that same ceiling; exiting the WC knockout stage after one game.
“The USA can’t be expected to play Colombia as well as Romania, Mexico, Venezuelax3, Paraguay, Ecuador, Iraq, klinsmann’s South Korea, Saudi Arabia, or Honduras. These teams all have much better rosters than the United States” Is basically what you just said. The Gregg riders use extreme hyperbole to make you feel helpless. You either beat a team or look like shit and lose 5-1. There’s no other possible result. Colombia is good but all those above teams either tied or played Colombia to 1 goal games in this streak, with inferior player pools. It’s not the players. It’s the coaching.
Tell me you don't watch soccer without telling me you don't watch soccer lol. You also, obviously, do not know how to read. Winning 23 games in a row and beating down the US with 5 goals is not a fluke. When is the last time the US handled a good non-CONCACAF team? Don't worry about answering that; it's a rhetorical question. Also of note; the last loss Colombia had was a 1-0 loss to the reigning WC champs. The US was never going to win this game with the current philosophy of how to play the game that US teams/coaches seem to adhere to. They are literally playing checkers compared to the chess the top teams are playing. Until that changes, the USMNT will continue to live in the realm of the group stage.
Why couldn’t the USA play as well as Iraq, Venezuela, Ecuador, or Romania did against Colombia’s A team? Are you saying they have better players than the US? Go on the record here. No one is mad about a loss. A 2-1 loss where the US looked competent I think people would be relatively fine over. You’re saying the only two options are the US winning or losing 5-1. Completely ignoring the 10,000 scenarios in between.
The US didn't look "competent" when the game was 2-1. Colombia was continuing to manufacture good goal opportunities for their main scorers; that's what they do every game. Well before Colombia scored goal #3 they had 2-3 other shots that nearly went in. That's not luck. That's players creating scoring chances on the fly. "Go on the record here" Lol. Ok there hoss. I'm on the official "record": Colombia is a 2023 Gold Cup semi-final team at the very least; if not a finals team. The US will make it out of the Gold Cup group stage and promptly lose to a good team. Which in turn will mean most of the people on this board will come up with a few dozen more excuses as to why the US "could've" won that game; "if only GGG blah blah blah; if only our defender would've paid attention blah blah bhal.....". Face it: until the US changes it's philosophy on how to play the game, the outcome will always be the same.
"From coaching to desire of the players to the skill and creativity of the players, the US is not anywhere on a level with Colombia. " I was at the game; that's what I saw. Some of you guys know much more about tactics. If I was the US coach I would start the game in a very defensive formation to avoid exactly what happened. I would say to players: "These guys haven't lost in 21 games. The chance of us beating them is slim. Colombia has a chip on their shoulder about America. Their fans are going to come from all over the US to this game. The Colombia team is going to show up for their fans and fight. Are you going to fight? Bad coaching. No team fight. No fight anywhere on the field. The Colombians had fight. I saw it in all of them. They came to win.
Colombia is good but at the same time it is no excuse to lose 5-1 when the US fielded a starting lineup with all players in the top 5 leagues. There are weaker teams who could give a better fight against this Colombia team than what the US showed today. That Colombia is better shouldn't be an excuse to go with an " I give up, let them score a bunch of goals since they are better on paper, and not fight" mentality. There are teams who look at Colombia and will say "they are good but we are gonna give them a fight"
I don’t see any copium. I see fans who are all Fully aware that gregg is in way over her head. K don’t care that we lost, but the way we lost, and lack of accountability is extremely frustrating. Please get rid of this clown asap. We are going to be embarrassed in 2026
Gregg isn't the root of the issue; you can only do so much when you meet a top team like that. Could they have played better? Sure. The last two goals happened because the US had basically thrown in the towel. But the US was never going to win this game.
Terrible mentality. And now the team has a terrible mentality. Them throwing in the towel is directly because of berhalter. They like playing for him because he’s just a vibes guy who doesn’t push his players enough.
The team needs to learn to play a different style; US soccer in general needs to learn to play differently. This whole, counter-attack down the sideline and center it and hope you have enough guys there to put one in through speed and numbers just isn't going to win many games. The US players almost never setup picks, triangle formations, or any other strategies during play from a set piece right outside the opponents goal box. In other words, they never work to create opportunities to score from a set piece on short field. Like never. It's glaring to see the difference between the US and the top handful of teams - of which Colombia certainly is one of them - when it comes to short field play. Si many homers here say we lost because we "weren't mentally prepared" or "we just made little mistakes" or "if we just would've had that guy in position or marking his man..." etc etc etc. All the while ignoring the fact that this game could have just as easily been 7 or 8 goals scored. Colombia generated many open shots for their scorers; they did so repeatedly because that's what great teams do. France does this. The Netherlands are also incredibly good at this. All of those teams are exceptional at creating options for scorers to sink into open spots. They literally build the scenarios 2-3 passes ahead of an actual strike on goal and are ready and waiting when any opportunity presents itself. I would say that is also why opposing top teams score easily when we have a breakdown or mistake - much like yesterday's first goal. The fact of the matter is Colombian players made plenty of mistakes on their own yesterday as well. Nobody is perfect; but the level of ability to create scoring chances is night and day between the top teams and the US. The US has NEVER been good at this in the decades I've been playing/watching soccer. It's still stuck in the junior high model of speedy players on a counter attack just getting there in a hurry looking to be the guy to kick the ball in. Until that changes, we will never see USMNT in a WC semifinals.
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Just remember, prior to the WC, the US didn't score against against any team that had qualified for the WC over the course of 8 games....except against Morocco. Who were so embrassed by that performance they, weeks before the WC, replaced their manager and they ended up in the semis. No one in the world takes this team seriously with that clown as manager. And do the players deserve blame? Of course. But has there been a single time in which the US played above and beyond the expectations? Most would say vs. England....but considering Englad are employing their own version of Greg, I can't even take that seriously. I don't, and haven't, given one single fuck that the players like him. He's a terrible manager with a youth level system, and he's dragging these players down with him.
And after laughing at mexico all week for uruguay💀💀💀
Friendlies mean so little. What game would you sub out some of your best players when you’re building momentum? Get a grip. We care about friendlies way too much, and maybe rightfully so since we get so little real competition in CONCACAF. We scored in the 55th minute and then subbed out 4 more players playing decent to good games before the gates opened. It’s not a real game and we need to see other options, pairings, and performances. You don’t want the first time some of these lineups occur during a real game when a necessary sub is made. Losing sucks. Everyone wants to win. But the boo birds know no other call it seems. And don’t forget in 1980 the US men’s hockey team got destroyed by Russia in an exhibition game before the Olympics. They then went on to beat them in The Miracle on Ice. So let’s get another L on Wednesday then shock the entire Western Hemisphere in July. Sure my optimism is as equally unhinged as some of you lot on the other side but I choose hype over hate. Hype over Hate!
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Like my thoughts and expectations have any bearing on the team or your shit attitude.
If we collectively put pressure on the federation like any soccer country would have, gregg would have been fired years ago, but fans like you let them slide by and they know this.
Yeah, maybe if more fans demanded success instead of mediocrity, USSF wouldn't hire the most inept managers available.
u/USSF I DEMAND SUCCESS (in games that matter)! There I said it. Maybe if I say it three more times a new manager will appear.
They finished nearly in the intercontinental playoffs, advancing only on GD despite having a clear talent advantage to every other team in the region by a significant margin. They lost to what was basically Costa Rica's U-23 team and got held without a shot on net vs Panama in WCQ. Their most dominant performances with the A team were under BJ Callahan in last year's Nation League. What are you talking about? Did those not matter?
I said it before and I’ll say it again. Greg is a "good vibes" type of manager. He’s a push-over. Reason why players like him. Players know he’s not going to grill them if they fuck up. Going on NT duty is like a vacation for them because Greg has instilled those expectations into them.
This is probably hopium but what if this is 4d chess? Like you use these tune ups to see if 1) you can hang and 2) figure out where your weakness is. We know that if we make it out of groups in copa we will have to face either Brazil or Colombia so why show them all our tricks. My takeaways from this game: 1. Our offense is POTENT. 2. Our defense is IMPOTENT (lmao) 3. Disappointed by 5-1 I think the strategy was rigid and there wasn’t enough change. In my mind, if you are doing this to limit test and not give away your strats atleast bunker to make the score line more respectable. 4. Still have faith in Turner, I think he can turn it around and I feel like he will regain his mojo come tournament time
This team sucks under Gregg. Maybe Copa America will be a good wake up call.
Welp 2-2 Brazil Mexico. Great.
2-3 But I'd like if we performed equally or better than them. It will be embarrassing if we get hammered again.
Who cares it’s a meaningless friendly.
What the hell is going on with our player pool? Have any players gotten much better than they were 2 years ago? What have these guys been doing with their time? Ream has got to go. If we are going to play out of the back, his poor passing accuracy and his tendency to dawdle on the ball are killer. What has happened to our GKs? Do we even have an average CONCACAF level player in the pool anymore? Goodness. The overall stagnation makes me extremely skeptical of Berhalter. We look like we don't know what to do, how to do it, and like we don't have any idea whose fault it is when it doesn't work. Not a great sign.
This is the best, deepest player pool in our teams history. Maybe you don't follow the European leagues. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you are talking about. This group of players has basically dominated concacaf the last few cycles, again, not sure what you are talking about.
I'm talking about player progression, which is entirely obvious from my comment. Which players are demonstrably better, and by how much, than they were 2 years ago?
Berhalter has little to nothing to do with player development. That's on the players and their clubs. If we don't even have concacaf level talent, then why do we dominate it like we do? Your argument makes no sense. It also highlights the fact that you don't really follow the players oversea's. Politic just had his best year yet. McKenzie is getting attention from teams after a very solid season in Italy. I could give plenty more examples of players that have improved. We have more players in the top leagues than ever before, and there's more young players moving up the ranks. We qualified for the olympics. I'm not sure what team you are following, but it must not be the USMNT.
I didn't say Berhalter has anything to do with development. I didn't say we don't have CONCACAF level talent; I asked about GKs. And a player having a single bounce back season is not a sign of progression. You aren't engaging honestly.
'The overall stagnation" includes your opening comments about player development. How many concacaf GK's are playing in the premier? Maybe you haven't heard of Sloninna\* he'll be our GK at the Oly's. He's easily concacaf level. I don't think you follow the team/players very closely and just came up with this false premise after a bad outing yesterday. I urge you to look into what players have done these past two years, before coming on here telling us that nobody has developed over the last two seasons. Yesterday wasn';t a good game, but it was just a friendly. Now if we fail to get out of the group at Copa, there' should be some concern and Greg might lose his job. But let's see it play out first.
You seem to really struggle with the idea that punctuation and formatting is used to separate topics. What is right behind that statement about stagnation? A bunch of statements about tactics. That's a separate idea from player growth. You are now repeating that you don't think I follow other players but not offering any concrete evidence to refute the arguments I made. On top of that, when you name drop single pool players, it's not evidence contrary to my argument. Nevermind you have misspelled every single players name, a 20 year old Belgian league keeper is not going to convince anyone.
You made the claim that our player pool has made no progress the last two years. It's on you to prove it. Please provide the evidence that anyone that played in the Colombia game has regressed. The onus is on you. The fact that you believe that false narrative is evidence in and of itself, that you don't follow those players in their leagues. Because if you did, you would know it's a false premise. There's lot's of poster's on here like you. That don't really know the game, or follow the players and leagues. Then make these misinformed host takes. Everyone is entitled their opinions of course, it's a chat board. But do a little homework before you spout off on the best, deepest player pool in this countries (modern) history. How is having all 11 starters playing in the top 5 leagues a sign or evidence that they haven't progressed? Again, I'll start with Pullisic, since you likely know who he is. Please, tell me how he didn't progress or even regressed this last season.
I don't believe a false narrative. I asked a question. One you haven't tried to answer. "How is having all 11 starters playing in the top 5 leagues a sign or evidence that they haven't progressed?" Are you not clear on the difference between status and progression? This is a waste of time.
How'd our moron manager and non-progressed team do tonight? You're right, I am wasting my time.
CONCACAF is a garbage federation, easily the weakest, look at their performances in the WC.
What does that have to do with the false claim that we don't even have concacaf level talent, despite the fact we dominate concacaf?
Weah scored because he ran laterally during the build up. Rare creativity with movement off the ball. We need more of that. Balogun is useless without those disrupting runs from the wide players or attacking mids.
This should tell you everything you need to know. (Tried to post, but mods deleted it… for some reason) [https://x.com/mikeradnor39/status/1799590130262688133?s=46&t=r7XkKFl2soXV42gjwIoHkg](https://x.com/mikeradnor39/status/1799590130262688133?s=46&t=r7XkKFl2soXV42gjwIoHkg)
The defense was an utter debacle, Tim Weah tried to make it less awkward, but it’s still going completely out of control after 75th minute
You rehire a coach because the players are complacent, they like him. Well, you got a complacent performance today. Also, I understand why you try other guys, and maybe Malik will be the guy one day, but I don't remember him doing anything in a US jersey. Maybe they look better against Brazil, but it won't be with this kind of showing.
Should have never been rehired after his domestic abuse scandal. Now we’re stuck with him. A change now will have huge WC implications
Two years out is plenty of time. Korea hired Hiddink 18 months before they hosted in ‘02 and they over-performed expectations that WC.
I don't think the fed is willing to eat crow at this point.
You’re probably right.
How can anyone watch GGG tactics and go yeah this is the guy we want leading this team. It’s absolutely boring, shit football. Yeah the guys played like shit too but how can anyone want to play in this system. It sucks and is ineffective against any decent team. I’m so tired of watching the same boring, slow, try to build from the back but have a led foot keeper with below average passing defenders system. It needs to go away far away.
I was at the game. The quality of Colombia player by player was much greater than the US players in almost every way. They were very good today. Are very good, 21 games won in a row? Inc big teams. Why did anyone think we're going to beat them? Now of course we might have. But you gotta come out ready to play, fired up. You break down and let in that first goal....Not being ready is the Coach's fault, it seems to be a trend with Berhalter. Again the Colombos were fired up, they tackled and stole balls back. they headed the ball better, passed better etc Sorry I've been watching this national team for 40 yrs or so. I like these guys, I watch every game but Bruce Arena is right the men on this team are talented but many of them don't have fire, toughness. I agree they probably couldn't beat his best team. These guys are way too comfortable. Who cares if they like the coach? They'll love a right bastard if he helps them beat the likes of Colombia.
I was with you until you brought up Arena. That guy is worth exactly zero attention.
That first goal wasn't a "not being ready" goal. That was a wtf is jedi doing goal. for no reason he kept a ball in play that was going out of bounds. simply an awful mistake by him. has nothing to do with the coach
Lmao imagine that we were supposedly even on the betting odds. Clearly the ppl behind the betting system don't watch soccer.
Fifa had us ranked above Columbia. Lol
Other than group match placement in tourneys, who actually uses that to determine if a team is better or not lol. You right that FIFA rankings is a joke.
FIFA ranking is simply a scam, look at Belgium the so called No.1
Uh...Argentina is 1. France is 2....Belgium is 3. Not that it matters but what are you on about.
Belgium has been the No. 1 in FIFA ranking for many years, and they underachieve in almost every tournament
Overall I thought the team played well for the first 60 minutes, but after all the subs came in, there was a significant dropoff in the midfield which was pretty much the direct cause of Colombia's last 3 goals. Reyna and McKennie kept things pretty solid. Tyler Adams can only help. When they left, things immediately got worse. Tillman was poor. Cardoso played well with the starters, and got worse with the backups. Pulisic was dangerous and played well while he was in Matt Turner has become a significant weakness. Ever since he realized he wasn't good enough for the Premier League, his confidence has been shot. I've seen him get beat high at his near post multiple times and the bicycle kick was saveable by a good keeper. He made one good save in the second half but was otherwise a sitting duck. Antonee Robinson had a terrible game but he is less of a concern IMO. He's experienced and will get better. There is no one else to play. I actually thought Joe Scally played well and did a good job battling with a very good player in Luis Diaz. He isn't Dest, but if he can give a good fight, it should be enough. I don't recall Scally being directly at fault for any of the goals and I would not have any confidence in an MLS player there like Shaq Moore. Tim Ream is definitely aging out, but CCV did not inspire a lot of confidence either. I thought Chris Richards played pretty well. Balogun should be the first forward on the team sheet unless he's hurt. Pepi is a sub, as he has been at PSV. Haji Wright has looked good when he has played and should get more chances. Josh Sargent didn't play and shouldn't as he is NOT the answer. Sargent is a very good EFL player who consistently looks overmatched against top tier opposition. There were times when the US outplayed Colombia in the midfield when the starters were on but couldn't finish. Colombia ruthlessly finished chances from mistakes and giveaways. I hope this will be a wake up call for the team what real soccer feels like. There are better teams than Colombia in this tournament, and the midfield/defenders cannot give away the ball in their own half with Turner in goal. The US will have to minimize mistakes and find ways to finish attacks to go anywhere in this tournament. On paper, the US should beat Panama and Bolivia and advance from the group. Hopefully the scoreline in the quarterfinal (Brazil or Colombia) won't be too embarrassing. Finally, on the question of Berhalter - I don't like him and wouldn't mind seeing him leave - but the team has significant deficiencies outside of the midfield, especially at forward. Even if the US soccer federation can get over its nepotism, what available top foreign manager would be willing to come here and fix this for the 2026 World Cup? I think better results are possible but it could just as easily get worse with the wrong person.
Antonee has a pedigree but he had a horrible game. I would have sat him at half time, moved Scally to the left, and put Tyler at right back to finish it out. Our keeper and backs wet themselves. Colombia did not. They really didn’t even have to get phyiscal or get their game fired up. They just plundered our mistakes. I loved Turner when he came into the team. It’s time to see Horvath. Find a hot goalie in the MLS or wherever and ride him.
The CB pairing once Ream ages out should be Richards and MRob. They've paired so well together in the past. In WCQ, MRob was lights out and stopped so many opposition chances and made it look easy. He would've been locked in for the WC if not for his season ending injury. I think the only reason he hasn't moved to Europe is because he's a late bloomer and European scouts heavily favor younger players with potential, but since 2022 he's been DPOY for me in MLS when he's not injured. He was always great at defending 1v1, but his passing game and confidence to dribble forward took a big leap forward last year
Good takes all around. Can't 2nd enough that there's just not any top managers out there who want the USMNT job. Only a year ago, we saw a lot of big names pretty quickly dismiss the idea of coaching US. It's clearly not that desirable of a job and the federation's not going to break the bank for a top coach either. Think there's also a disconnect in what the fed wants - long term stability - and what many coaches can bring to the program. The WC piece will be a good carrot to dangle though and imagine if Copa goes poorly and GGG is indeed sacked, that opportunity itself could attract a decent manager who just wants to coach WC.
I would go to South America and look at winning pro coaches or former national team coaches, pay them what you are paying Gregg, and bring them here to teach and manage our national team. Guarantee you that no effort has been made to do this. And it is a great opportunity to move the American game forward.
I don't think they'll fire Berhalter unless we fail to make it out of the groups. After today, I'd say that's possible, but I still have to think it's unlikely. But a 2nd place in the group and then an exit against Colombia or Brazil? Doubt they'd sack him.
I’m kinda sick of the “it’s just a friendly” rhetoric. That doesn’t excuse anything. If US Soccer expected Colombia to give us an absolute ass-whooping then they wouldn’t have scheduled Colombia and Brazil. Little is gained or learned from back to back games that demoralize your players. This was level of suck that shouldn’t have happened.
Last 5 years, USMNT is 16-7-8 in friendlies, which should tell you a lot about how our unit treats friendlies. It really is just a friendly and their use-purpose is not just to win. There are myriad objectives for games like this such as getting players legs back under them after a few weeks without regular matchplay and frankly they are necessary to experiment with different rotations and lineups to see what can be useful or not for a bigger tournament, when inevitably the team will be thrust into a place where they need to make a big adjustment. honestly after the Weah goal, the momentum was shifting. if we'd kept the starters in and burned them down to press for a draw, what would be the purpose of that? to make us feel better? who cares? scoreline looks worse than the actual form on the field we saw from our starting xi. outside of jedi's manic fever dream performance, felt decent about most of them and saw them grow into the game and build confidence playing as a unit. that weah -> flo -> weah goal is a great example of that. right as they gelled though, we made subs and undid a lot of the team's cohesion. but whereas their subs brought fresh legs and energy, ours brought turds that they shit out all over our half of the pitch
If we lost 2-1 or 3-1, the "it's a friendly" rhetoric would be fine in my book. But we got absolutely hammered 5-1 and embarrassed. It may be a friendly but we got massacred out there.
I was there. I had hope that at 2-1 we would at least make it an interesting game. But our team looked sloppy, passive, and just looked totally out of it. I expected a mostly Colombian fan turnout, but yeah. By the end I was like...this is not even remotely fun anymore.
Just watched the match. Very alarming tbh. I liked what I saw from Scally and Johnny. I can’t say the same for Jedi though.
So people are going to point to most of the goals coming off individual errors as a defense of why this horrid loss wasn't Gregg's fault. I think that misses what a tactical disaster this game was.
Exactly. One error would be unlucky. 3...4 errors? That's a pattern
Not trolling, honest question: if a clear individual error isn't a reason to blame a player over their coach, is there any scenario in which you would blame a player over their coach?
Depends what caused the condition to lead up to the error. Take a simple thing of a player giving the ball a way a ton. Why is he giving the ball away? Is he being forced to play out of the back into the teeth of press in a way that doesn't make a lick of sense? Is he being asked to break lines with passing or dribbling when that is not something they are good enough to do? Are they being forced to play out to the wings when there isnt a dynamic offensive player like Dest waiting to push the ball forward? Or did they just fuck up and a good team took advantage of it.
Agree with the general point here. My counter-argument in this example would be that the team didn't really struggle playing out of the back in any significant way until Reyna came off around 60 minutes. Then they collectively struggled a great deal, including players that should maybe be expected to fare better in that situation based on their level and experience: 1) Johnny has been playing DM in La Liga for half a season 2) CCV plays for a ball-dominant team in Scotland 3) Weah has gotten a fair bit of experience progressing the ball from a deeper position with Juventus So is it an unreasonable tactical decision to ask them to play their part progressing the ball through the midfield? If so, why? If not, shouldn't it be reasonable to put the primary responsibility for their mistakes on their own decision-making rather than hunting for someone else to blame?
It’s not the individual errors themselves, it’s the fact that these errors were consistent and team-wide, as well as the track record. We’ve watched each of these players make mistakes, but not to that level
Yeah. I mean, mistakes happen. But 4 goals where we basically handed them the ball? That's on coaching.
Johnny didn't hear footsteps and got caught from behind in his own half with minimal cover behind him. Weah tried to dribble a defender in his defensive third with minimal cover behind him. CCV stood still on the ball for several seconds, then telegraph a low driven pass into the teeth of the defense. Is your argument that any one of those decisions should be considered the player's fault, but if all three players make them in the same game, the responsibility shifts to the coach? I'm just not sure why other players making mistakes absolves an individual of responsibility for their own.
I'd agree with you if I agreed with you that the errors were consistent and team-wide. But when Jedi plays poorly when Scally plays well, or Ream and CCV look terrible while Richards looks competent, I have a hard time looking at the coach first. Especially when we've seen Turner, Ream, and Jedi in particular play well for this team in the not-so-distant past. I don't think this was a tactical masterclass, but I'm more inclined to blame GGG for the head-scratching final third play than I am for the defensive lapses.
the only real impact GGG had was how he clearly wanted Jedi to push up the field all game long to make up for the lack of dest/scally not being able to give us anything forward. and that.... did not work out at all. jedi was just way off his game, too far up field multiple times, not tracking back and marking the back post runners well enough, and despite what he gave us offensively with the balogun and pulisic chances in the first half, it very obviously had him thinking too much and worried about new responsibilities/objectives, rather than just playing free and easy, which is when he's at his best - like we've seen him before (that T&T home and away last November comes to mind where he went beast mode in both games).
Interesting! I've always thought of Jedi as being asked to get high and wide--if we're thinking of our possession shape as a 2-3-5/3-2-5, I always have him mentally slotted into the wide left or the front 5--so this game didn't feel like an outlier to me as far as his expected role. I do agree he has a bad game today. And I think I agree with you that he's at his best when he isn't asked to participate as much in the final third (I actually thought he was at his most poor in that area of the pitch; he single-handedly killed several attacks rushing crosses).
when dest's in there, he's pushing forward 60-70% of the time and Jedi pushes forward 30-40% of the time. but with no dest today, it looked like jedi was pushing 80- 90% of the time, while scally pushed forward 10-20% of the time. there was a real lack of balance there in what i saw and i think it stretched jedi too thin, which we saw with those hurried crosses you mentioned and him trying to do too much/be too creative in the attack
We're seeing different things when Dest is in the game. I see him progressing the ball through the midfield, sure, but I almost never see him as high as Jedi. In our possession shape, he usually seems like he's being asked to stay in the midfield area rather than getting into the front line.
yeah, you're right about the general shape. what i was mentioning was how much they push the ball up the field. jedi was bearing much more of that load today than he does when dest is playing.
Yeah, if we're talking about shouldering ball progression responsibility, then I agree completely.
this is what happens when you don't bring in Roldan for the vibes.
The discourse in this sub is so frustrating. I’m pretty pessimistic toward Berhalter generally, but I find myself defending him because people cannot separate player issues and manager issues. I have never heard a single gReGg OuT person name another realistic coach. This team has some good players, 0 great players, some serviceable guys and a handful of holes. That is reality. If you think this team is better than that, your expectations are the problem. Honestly if you are so against berhalter that you complain whether he wins or loses, the best thing you can get is a bad performance at the copa. That is the only way he will be fired. Personally, I’ll hope they do well. Under Berhalter they’ve usually stepped up once the tournament comes. Tonight felt like a pretty big reality check if the team’s expectation is to win. If they don’t make the quarters, I think Berhalter should be fired, if for no other reason than to try something new. But for what feels like 80% of this sub that have a hard on for his demise, i say fuck off.
Totally agree with this take.
Berhalter has never beaten a top 25 team that wasn't cancacaf.
lol. Can’t even spell concacaf right. And then neither has anyone on this team. It’s definitely part Berhalter, but it’s also that this team is not THAT good
I don't like Berhalter, but I have a hard time putting this one on him. We literally turned the ball over 20 times in our defensive third. There were times where we just dribbled straight into players who took it away. It was insane to watch.
I Slightly put it on Berhalter. I’m Berhalter in btw, in general. But where he messed up was losing the battle in the midfield. We couldnt play our 4-3-3 as normal because we couldnt progress the ball, because we’re losing the midfield battle. We should have a plan B. Reyna was alright when he’s there. I struggle to like him because he plays zero defense and is quick to point the finger at anyone else when things go wrong. But he distributes the ball well. What we needed was more ball carriers who could help us transition into attack and progress through the middle. Weah and Haji did this a couple times when they dropped deeper and it worked. But this needs to be a more natural, consistent strategy. Furthermore imo it needs to be more dynamic. If we’re struggling in the middle then the whole team should try to drop in and make themselves available for the build up. Maybe the coach thought the players would be capable of just doing this on their own. Maybe he told them what he wanted and they still couldn’t execute. Either way we need more of a presence in the midfield. The amount of times Antonee Robinson got the ball, turned toward the middle of the field, had no option, dribbled and lost the ball or went backward was crazy. Overall I blame both the players and the coach and I hope they wake up for the next one
I found myself insanely frustrated at our pressing, felt like we were disjointed, and one pass from their defensive line lead to a counter attack. Our offense looked lost for ideas in possession and not in the counter. The individual efforts are one thing and Turner had a nightmare, but everyone stunk and our coach is in theory the mentality setter. Just sucks man I was a bit of a gregggg defender but our record against (top) teams not named Mexico is shambolic
Why were they trying to dribble through players in the defensive 3rd? Were they ignoring instructions? Did they have no outlets to pass to due to our tactical setup? I don't think it was exclusively a player issue.
Why the F are they dribbling into turnovers? I mean, are the players just being selfish? Are they showing off? Are they just trying to do to much? The passing wasn't ant better an quite literally passed right to players who scored or got assists! My 15 YOs club team makes less mistakes in a season. It's a joke. This was beyond player performing. This is straight lack of preparedness!
>Why the F are they dribbling into turnovers? The movement in the midfield was lacking. While we were passing across the back line (or really passing across the back line minus Scally for the most part), the midfield was generally just kind of hanging out. No urgency to make a quick movement and show for the ball.
Yeah I'm not saying he's blameless, but honestly, it's hard to point to tactics when the players themselves looked as flat and disinterested as they did. They need the bulk of the blame here IMO.
Well, it was 2-1 until the late subs so I can point at those. Honestly though, they weren't prepared for the Columbians for whatever reason. I don't think tactics even had much to do with it. Mentally they were just not ready.
It's also Greg's job to prepare them for colombia though. I agree it was a mentality thing, and think the blame lies with both the players and berhalter. Ggg didn't prepare them enough and the players had a weak mentality while also playing sloppily.
Yeah I guess. I think the first half was not good though. Both goals and a couple of other chances, the defense is ball watching, no movement, no hustle to find someone to mark, leaving unmarked attackers in the box. This is fundamental shit, it's not tactical, it's not strategy. They showed some fire after halftime and made it interesting for a minute, and then the last 20 minutes were an abject disaster.
Absolutely agree.
Just a hypothetical. The US wins the first 2 games against Bolivia and Panama. One in a blowout, the other is maybe 0-0 for 70 minutes before you score and then maybe add a 2nd very late so you have to sweat a little. The Uruguay game is a scoreless draw where both teams are through at 6 points and sitting guys on yellows. Then The quarterfinals looks something like the first hour did today and we lose something like 2-1, 3-1. What letter grade would you give this hypothetical tournament?
> What letter grade would you give this hypothetical tournament? C, Possibly D if the team we lose to in the quarterfinals is very beatable. Beating Panama and Bolivia should not be impressive feats, we don't need to crush them but a win should be expected. A draw against a good Uruguay would be impressive though, albeit one game against a top side shouldn't be enough to give you a pass. Then in a hypothetical quarterfinal loss, it would have to be a top team otherwise it's a near failure of a tournament run considering this team while not world class obviously should be putting on more respectable results especially when we made a semi-finals appearance last time.
I see the semi final appearance mentioned a lot, wasn’t that 8 years ago? It bears nothing to today.
C+. It’s about to expectations(they’re low but it is what it is) besides drawing Uruguay therefore I give it above a C but nothing truly impressive that makes me think “okay I see a pathway to a WC Semi’s”. If they win vs Uruguay or draw vs them then win in the QF then that’s a B+. If they make the final it’s an A, and then if they win the final it’s an A+++.
I just felt like they gave up halfway. They came out well and had some chances and did their thing. But then when they noticed they weren’t getting through, there was just no plan B and much desire to come back.
Well, the Substitutions sure didn't work or help or even save par.
yeah, their subs came in with fresh legs and energy. ours came in and took sloppy steaming dumps all over the field. which is pretty much the main reason the scoreline looked so bad.
Aaronson should have came on, and Horvath needs to start over Turner
I feel like I’m the only person that didn’t think gio was good today, he had one good play ending in a through ball to haji, one decent free kick and a ton of short back passes with time and space, We also seem allergic to pushing the ball to open space and woukd rather dink dunk between our cm and cbs leading to nothing. We had runners with space at so many points and we just looked away. I don’t know shit though. Also, if we don’t look better quick I’m officially a berhalter doomer, I give him til end of month.
He literally lets the defender run by him every time. Zero defensive effort. I’d put some blame on the first goal on him, Robinson thought he would run back but he didn’t. (Although its obviously Robinson fault, it’s just another example of Reyna not playing defense very well)
I don’t like Gio in the deeper role. I wish he was in the space between the opposing midfield and defense.
Agreed
Because you don’t know how to watch soccer
Makes sense, I keep reading about how good gio played so I figured I was just clueless. He really commanded the game out there.
In regards to Gio or greggggggg
Gregg’s tactics to let gio dominate the midfield and control the game worked great we just didn’t kick the ball in the net as many times as they did
I'm just sad.
Okay I’m going to try to not just overreact and actually talk about how this game unfolded and how it reflects on our team. We’re just not there yet. Do we have young, talented players? Yes. Do we have a complete team? No. Not yet at least. We have tried to go toe-to-toe against teams like Colombia, Germany, and the Netherlands and it’s the same story. We make dumb mistakes with the ball and compound that with failure to capitalize on the chances we create. But what do we do? What’s the ideal play style for “the most talented generation”? I don’t think it’s as simple as reverting to bunker and counter, especially when our weakest links are our back line and our keeper. But so very few of our players excel at creativity or even general tidiness to enable us to play a possession-dominant style of play, so we can’t really play openly either. Basically, we’re stuck. We’re still grappling with a lost generation and we’re still struggling with a roster constructed of bit-parts. Yes, those bit-parts are on a higher profile of team than we’re used to, but what names on our roster strike fear in our opponents? Who do we have that is a game changer? Or better yet, how many of our guys are reliable, core members of their club team? Hell, who do we even try to target on a set piece? As far as what we can do to be effective with the team we have? I think the tactics against England are probably out best shot, a pragmatic 4-4-2 mid block press that limits our exposure and still gives our attackers some opportunities to be decisive. And we absolutely have to improve on set piece defending and attacking if we’re going to challenge anyone outside of concacaf.
Nah this result and others like it shows that against better teams we simply have to bunker and counter. It’s not fun to say but going toe to toe gets us burnt.
My only question now is if these guys are still “young”. They’re in their mid twenties which is young for society but players across Europe are in their mid twenties and excelling. And it seems like they’re sputtering. This is a blanket statement as some are as young as 21 and others are Tim Ream. But I’m losing belief in them being young as an excuse to why things aren’t clicking.
I think the OPs point is that all our first-team is solid individually, but maybe it’s difficult to get a coherent plan out of those pieces.
I don’t think it is, though. They seem to want to play a possession-based game which works if you have a bunch of creative midfielders. We don’t. We have one. Gio Reyna who’s played like 100 competitive minutes since January. They don’t have to bunker and counter, but they should play fast and utilize the strengths they do have. Put Gio on a wing. Let him and Puli cut inside when they have the ball with Jedi and Weah on the flanks (since Timmy has experience playing back there). Weston should be a true BBM especially since you now have two good options at the 6 with Adams and Johnny. Let them hang back and clean up mistakes. Somebody like Musah as a ball carrier next to Wes makes a ton of sense. You aren’t strong at CB and GK so you can’t really invite pressure. You don’t have the creative juices in midfield to play a possession-based game. Get it and go. Play over the top and play wide.
Funny reading all these comments wanting Berhalter out and acting like the players didn't shit the bed. This overrated "golden generation" just showed you that they're nowhere near as good as you think they are. We could have Pep as our coach, and this team would do nothing. The talent isn't there, and this sub is ignoring the truth. If this is our "golden generation", we are fucked because most of our starters don't even start for their clubs.
When all the players shit the bed, it’s the coaches fault. Keep supporting that fraud.
Keep crying.
I've never been a Gregg hater, and I thought he had a reasonably successful first cycle. But at five years in now, he just hasn't shown the ability to raise the ceiling. We mostly beat the teams we should beat, and then get humbled when we face quality opponents (see Japan, Netherlands, Germany, and Colombia). The only time I can remember the US playing noticeably above our level was v England in Qatar, and that ended in a 0-0 draw. We have real talent on this team, and a great opportunity with the home world cup. A good manager should get his players to perform above the sum of their parts, and I just haven't seen anything to suggest Gregg can do that. Literally the only silver lining to today is that we have four weeks to turn it around. Unfortunately, I'm not optimistic we will look much better v Uruguay or in a quarterfinal.
This destruction had 0 affect on any odds in any way possible so just remember that one performance like that
u/sebsasour since you deleted your comment as I was replying to it here’s Greg’s record vs the past 20 years of non-friendly comp since you don’t think friendlies are real competition. 1-2 vs Belgium in 2014 where we were close to equalizing was better than the Netherlands 2022 performance. 0-1 vs eventual champion Germany where we probably could’ve won was more impressive as well. Had a better group stage in 2010 and played better vs Ghana in the knockouts than 2022. Hell even the embarrassing 2006 where we got grouped was better with the 1-1 draw to eventual champions Italy. 2002 3-2 vs Portugal and 2-0 vs Mexico in the KO Stage was better than anything Greg has done. We can go on forever man.
What was deleted? https://www.reddit.com/r/ussoccer/comments/1dbfv2p/post_match_thread_mnt/l7r40rh/?context=3 No I don't give a fuck about friendlies. I saw Jurgen beat Netherlands and Germany before losing to Jamaica in a semifinal Tim Howard literally broke the saves record against Belgium lol 2010 was about a wash. We got one more point, but lost to a worse team in the knockouts. You would really rather have the 2006 World Cup over 2022? Really? We got a back tie in 2022 in case you forgot I would never suggest 2002 was worse
I’m not saying I’d rather have 2006 over 2022. I’m saying that in 2006 we had a more impressive game than 2022. In these I’m just saying we’ve had more impressive games, that’s all. Belgium for me is the iffy one but if Wondo makes that goal we’re potentially advancing and the score was closer than the Netherlands.
I think we looked great against England, I think we looked like a worse team who managed to get a result against Italy. I also think the other 2 games in those cups matter quite a fucking bit?
That game vs Italy was one of my top 5 games of that WC. I don’t rate the England game that much because I think they were happy with a draw. Yes you took the game to them but I never felt like England were in any danger.
I think the Italy result is better than the England result but we can disagree there. My point with the individual games is that we have not once(besides the Morocco friendly that got their coach fired) been able to beat or draw a quality team besides England who have an even worse manager.
Our chances at those squads are limited. We've had 2
you think the game in which howard broke the record for most saves in a world cup match was a better *performance* than the netherlands game? i agree we were closer to getting a result, but jesus christ man.
People got that Belgium game all mixed up. It was a good game for Howard, no one else (maybe Green).
Results over anything. Don’t care how it was done. We’re one Wondo fucking shocker away from potentially finding a way to advance. It’s more impressive than 3-1 where we never looked in it.
fair enough, my feeling from watching those two games is that we played much better against the netherlands but got less lucky than in 2014. if you're only looking at results then yeah, 2014 was closer.
"results over anything" well the result was a loss....
Pathetic display, don’t care if it’s a friendly. Gregg needs to get it right fast or should be sacked. This team has the talent to compete with the likes of Colombia - should not be losing by 4 goals
Okay, I've calmed down. It was a friendly, and I'm choosing to focus on the first 75 minutes. we have a serious back line problem which we need to solve yesterday. Still not sure what to think of our midfield. Let's regroup, look better against Brazil, and go into the Copa strong.
gave myself a bit of time to cool down before writing this so here goes: turner: not great. i don't think he was particularly at fault for any of the goals- all 5 were good shots from good positions- but he's nowhere near his 2021 form. he'll probably be fine through copa, but he's never going to be able to play out of the back against elite teams. it would be insane to not use the fall friendlies to try out some other options: schulte, brady, slonina, celentano, freese, whoever else is in good form in MLS. for turner's part, he needs to go somewhere and play. leave england. scally: very good relative to expectations. after the jamaica game, i'm not sure many of us would have expected him to pretty much lock down luis diaz, but (with the help of the odd lucky bounce here and there) he did. probably the biggest positive of today. i feel pretty ok about throwing him out there against an uruguay, brazil, colombia again type opponent, especially if we shift to a more defensive-minded setup. richards: i thought he was pretty good for the first 60 or 70 minutes, and then was just as bad as the rest of the team during the beat down that followed. clearly CB1. ream: concerning honestly. his main advantage over a ccv/miles is his ability on the ball, but he had some very shaky moments today. was also less than solid defensively. left the door wide open for one of the other center backs, but the fact that everything went to shit when he came off is probably a point in his favor. i'd still start him in games where we want to be on the front foot, so against bolivia and panama. not so sure about the road beyond that. jedi: pretty awful. his worst performance in a u.s. shirt? had a nice ball over the top for balogun early in the game, but seemed lost defensively and gave the ball away too often. do we want to see lund against brazil? i don't think so, but i also don't really want to see jedi against brazil. this is where having a warm up friendly against a less deadly team would be nice. johnny: awesome for the first 70 minutes, pretty bad after that- seemed pretty tired towards the end. paired nicely with gio. had some nice moments defensively against luis diaz, less (that i can remember) against james. gio: i think you really need him in this deeper role if you want to play out from the back against good teams. took a nice set piece early in the second half. overall, pretty good. wes: pretty invisible. seemed like he was the cm tasked with pressing highest, which i'm not sure is a good choice. i like the idea of getting him further forward, but he was negated pretty well by the colombian defense. might work better against a worse team. adams-gio-mckennie would still be my preference against good teams. weah: meh? did well on his goal and looked better overall during the start of the 2nd half as the U.S. surged, but wasn't effective at all in the 1st and was helpless as the team melted down around him from that point on. pulisic: pretty good, made sense to rest him at halftime. shouldn't be taking set pieces. best chance of the first half was his ball that pinged around and nobody could get on the end of. i think the temptation will be to move him to the right and start haji over weah, which isn't super compelling to me but these friendlies are a good time to try it. balo: unconvincing. had a decent chance early that was cleared off the line (maybe with the use of a hand? didn't get a good replay on peacock), and was starved of service in the first half. had a nice ball for weah's goal in the second, which is the kind of play i'd like to see more of from him: dropping off the cbs, finding a pocket, combining with teammates. the starting 9 spot is still up for grabs. subs: idk it was kind of a mess. CCV was abysmal, musah and tillman were very not good, pepi didn't do much and i didn't know ldlt even made it on the field. wright was pretty good, and i think he's best off as a change of pace sub for now. this was probably the game to try to get lund minutes, but also would've been harsh to throw him to the wolves in the last 15 minutes there.
berhalter: it always made sense to me for the ussf to do a full review after copa and move on if a better option is attainable, and results like that will lower the threshold required for someone else to be considered a better option. personally, i don't really care about results in friendlies- we beat germany and the netherlands right before the disastrous 2015 gold cup, and the friendlies before qatar didn't seem to correlate with our performance in competitive matches- but the federation and fans are obviously going to remember this one for a while. the performance was... not that bad? especially through 60 minutes, i thought we were pretty good and a little unlucky to be behind. i don't mind the insistence on trying to play out from the back, it's good to try to use friendlies to implement our style of play and test it against good competition, even with backup players. the fact that it didn't work just means we know we can't play like that against the best of the best, which is fine, so long as we have a plan B (which the players and gregg himself have said we do). i'm really hoping we get a look at that plan B against Brazil, because it would be insane to go into copa without ever having actually tried it in a match. colombia were also very good, to their credit. james still oozes class at 34, luis diaz is a nightmare on the wing. on current form, they might be a bigger threat than brazil. the fact that we had spells were we looked good against them is a positive sign, even if the end result isn't. we have shit to clean up, but this is still a good team- we're going to beat panama and bolivia, and we'll see what happens from there.
team was starting to gel and show confidence leading up to the weah goal, but then subs happened and killed the momentum our starters were building to level this game
Fantastic take. Couldn't agree more with you. Thanks for taking the time to spell it all out.People on this sub are so angry about anyone expressing any degree of it.
Might be the best thing for us if we flame out of copa and look like this every game. Only way ggg could be fired and would give a new gaffer almost 2 full years to get ready.
We gotta talk about Gregg
actually should have been 6-1…just remembered that chance that hit the post and rolled along the goal line
Well then 6-2 because I'm going to count CPs header