USMNT: Watching From Outside The Arena

Titans Bastard

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Why haven’t they hired a coach yet?
Because everyone in the USSF sucks at their jobs.

I saw this report today. The journalist doesn't really ring a bell with me so I don't know about the historical quality of his sources. But if true, it's maddening.

According to sources with knowledge of the situation, U.S. Soccer hasn't made it clear that he is the No. 1 choice and there hasn't been much interaction between the two parties involved. Now, that's not to say that he isn't the favorite, but U.S. Soccer is certainly taking its time with what is arguably the most important coaching hire this federation has had in quite some time, especially considering the young talent in the bright future on paper.
WHAT ARE WE DOING. It's been over 13 months since Couva and it's beyond unacceptable for this still to be up in the air.

It's one thing to debate whether or not Berhalter should be hired. But if the USSF really wants him, then at least freaking hire him so we can move on. But that isn't even settled? FFS. I can't really fathom how such dysfunction is possible.

The thing I'm curious about is whether the disjointedness is mostly due to not having a coach with any sort of tactical plan, or if the US despite our soccer optimists still just doesn't have the horses to possess the ball in the face of a superior pressing opponent.
Easily both. England is better than the US and it's not close, but at the same time we know what a spirited, greater-than-the-sum of its parts US team looks like even when they lose. Or at least, we have a hazy memory of what that was like. This game wasn't that.

I'm reasonably optimistic about our young players, but we have a long way to go. The generation of players born in the late 80s are old and largely gone. The generation of players born in the early 90s is terrible. The generation of players born on the late 90s and 2000 is pretty solid, but it's just one slice of the overall player pool. The US isn't good enough to build a quality NT purely around a range of 4-5 birth years.

Regardless of our true talent better, we will look better when there is an actual tactical scheme that everybody has bought into. A big reason why it's been so long that the US has looked like less than the sum of its parts is that Klinsmann/Arena/Sarachan all were basically Harry Redknapp with less personality — throw a formation together, roll the ball out, and tell everyone to try hard.

I think the US was once the soccer equivalent of that really solid mid-major program that everyone had respect for. It isn't now, and it won't be until the late 90s generation grows into their primes and IF the early 2000s generation turns out to be decent as well.

The good news is that we're not going to lose many relevant players from the pool over the next eight years.
 

Titans Bastard

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The U20s qualified for the WC last night with a 4-0 win over Costa Rica. A win or draw against Honduras will send them to the CONCACAF final.
 

Titans Bastard

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The U20s are playing right now against Honduras. They need at least a draw to advance to the U20 final against Mexico.

Pomykal — Soto — Akinola
Mendez — Amaya
Servania
Gloster — Richards — McKenzie — Dest
Ochoa​

Uly Llanez, the winger who is playing up a cycle and who has been really good this tournament, is out with a minor injury, I think. He's reportedly heading to Wolfsburg when he turns 18.

Link to video:

https://www.concacafgo.com/cu20c/live/db8c39de-5d29-4a68-97dc-1c99fc414eb1
 

Titans Bastard

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#CONCACAF comes to US-hosted games: somebody pulled the fire alarm, which you can hear in the background.
 

Titans Bastard

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3-5-2 today against Italy. Entirely new starting XI except for Pulisic.

Boy, that's an extremely inexperienced group among the CBs/WBs/GK. Godspeed against Italy, gentlemen.

I'll hopefully be able to catch the second half.

 

Titans Bastard

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"Kevin Lasagna" sounds like the name of a character in some offensive anti-Italian-American caricature.
 

InstaFace

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"Kevin Lasagna" sounds like the name of a character in some offensive anti-Italian-American caricature.
He has several times failed to put the meat between the two noodles, if you get my drift.

In contrast, though, I'd say our defense has been fully baked out there. Which is a surprise. Cannon had nothing left to give except fouls when he came off at 75', but everybody's had their moments.
 

cromulence

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That was the most predictable last minute winner ever. Nice touch to not know how much time was added on, so it felt like they'd just play till Italy scored. Which they did.
 

InstaFace

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Yeah after the corner when we cleared it I figured that was it. Cakir can be whimsical sometimes though. But we had like 20 chances to clear that last run, and you can't say it wasn't coming. Villafana, who'd played 20 good minutes out there, was a turnstile at the wrong time.
 

Titans Bastard

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Another shitty year is in the books for the USMNT.

Hire a god damn manager.
 

Jimy Hendrix

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Who wants to bet at this point that Camp Cupcake isn’t run by Dave Sarachan?

I ‘m just assuming the worst at this point, that way Gregg Berhalter can feel like a pleasant surprise.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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I mean, it's a given that at least 30% of the people in the room want to bring back Bob Bradley, yes?
 

Titans Bastard

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Who wants to bet at this point that Camp Cupcake isn’t run by Dave Sarachan?

I ‘m just assuming the worst at this point, that way Gregg Berhalter can feel like a pleasant surprise.
It won't be Julen Lopetegui, apparently.

 

Titans Bastard

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I feel like this year was almost more damaging than 2017. The team was just... gone. Man, it feels like a long climb back to relevance.
Yep. The federation is bumbling, the team is totally lost at sea, and it's fairly miserable to watch them. On top of all that, ticket prices are outrageous, so US fans basically aren't showing up.

Everything is fixable in the long run but the goodwill and apathy deficits are large at the moment.
 

Tangled Up In Red

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Did anyone see any good out of today? I thought Moore looked capable on his weaker side, if not a finished product. Horvath, Adams...
 

InstaFace

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Horvath was definitely a plus. The moment wasn't too big for him, he might be able to grow into a useful piece. I saw him doing better with shot-stopping, footwork and anticipating movement than I did marshaling the defense and initiating play out of the back, Howard-style, but I think the tools are there. I'm still on team Zach Steffen, but this was encouraging.
 

Titans Bastard

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Did anyone see any good out of today? I thought Moore looked capable on his weaker side, if not a finished product. Horvath, Adams...
I didn't watch the whole game and I don't intend to, but in general I'd say it's awfully hard to make meaningful evaluations of players when they are thrown into the game without much of a plan. The US player pool isn't very good right now, even by historical USMNT standards, but the team has also very much been less than the sum of its parts because Sarachan doesn't really do tactics.

It's good that young players are getting experience in the international game, but aside from that 2018 was mostly a waste. The environment around the team has made it impossible to fairly evaluate players and we haven't been building towards a shared understanding of the way the team will play.

I'm glad that Horvath made some good saves. For much of the last 12 months, he has been the GK equivalent of Rick Ankiel, where he totally lost confidence and made cringeworthy gaffes for club and country. He was dropped from Club Brugge's #1 keeper to basically #4 on their depth chart, but he began this year as the backup and won the starting job back a few weeks ago. He's an excellent stop-stopper who needs to work on other aspects of his game, but the same thing — more or less — can be said about Steffen.
 

DJnVa

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The best thing about that game is that the year is over.

I did read an article that Pulisic appears to be stepping up as leader. So, let's get a coach and start righting the ship.
 

Titans Bastard

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If Berhalter is indeed the guy, I will feel a little bad for him in that he will have to absorb much of the frustration about the pathetic "hiring process" of the USSF, over which he has no control. The manager needs to be able to handle some heat, but it's poor form for the federation to be making their manager's job harder for no reason.

The USSF deserves a ton of criticism for the process, from the "English only" criterion, to the fact that they aren't interviewing people, to the extremely slow timeline.

The performance of Gyasi Zardes in Columbus is actually a huge feather in Berhalter's cap.
 

Titans Bastard

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The U20s are facing off against Mexico in the CONCACAF U20 final tonight. No English TV, but it's streamed for free on CONCACAF Go.


GK: Brady Scott
RB: Sergino Dest
CB: Mark McKenzie
CB: Chris Richards
LB: Matt Real
DM: Brandon Servania
CM: Alex Mendez
CM: Frankie Amaya
LW: Paxton Pomykal
FW: Justin Rennicks
RW: Ayo Akinola

I assume Uly Llanez isn't healthy enough to start on the wing.
 

Titans Bastard

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As a non MLS watcher, where has Zardes been playing in Columbus?
As the forward in a 4-2-3-1. He is not asked to do much hold-up play, mostly just to make decent runs and apply one-touch finishes, which are the only parts of a forward skill-set in which Zardes is reasonably solid.

Within MLS, Berhalter has developed something of a reputation of a forward whisperer. Zardes, Ola Kamara, and Kei Kamara all set career highs in goals scored for Columbus across three of the last four seasons. Zardes was so bad in LA that by the end of 2017, Schmid used him at RB a few times.

I think Berhalter has definitely done a good job of getting the most out of meager resources by showing that he can establish a system that hides some player weaknesses and emphasizes strengths. That's why I hold out hope he could be a solid manager for the US.

Even if Berhalter turned out to be amazing for the US, right now we can't know exactly how he'll do. He's shown good qualities with Columbus, but it's just one club and largely one core of players. Sometimes managers can't capture the magic in other places — see Jason Kreis. That's why it is inexcusable that the USSF isn't even considering or talking to anyone else. It's a big world out there and the USSF has a responsibility to explore all options.
 

Titans Bastard

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1-0 at HT. The US U20s look better than Mexico, despite the presence of Mexican starlet Diego Lainez. Mexico is doing a decent job of getting in US heads and the ref is letting them get away with every dive. The US needs to avoid stupid cards and just play their game.
 

Titans Bastard

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2-0 US in the 50th minute. Really pretty exchange between Paxton Pomykal and Alex Mendez, culminating in a nice finish from Mendez for his second of the night.

I really hope to see more of Pomykal for FC Dallas in 2019.
 

Titans Bastard

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2-0 US in the 50th minute. Really pretty exchange between Paxton Pomykal and Alex Mendez, culminating in a nice finish from Mendez for his second of the night.

I really hope to see more of Pomykal for FC Dallas in 2019.
Highlight:

 

Titans Bastard

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2-0 FT. US U20s are back-to-back champions after finally winning the CONCACAF U20s for the first time in 2017.

They dominated Costa Rica and very comfortably beat both Honduras and Mexico, beating all three by a combined 7-0 score. Even when the US did well in the past, it was never this comfortable.

I think it's quite possible that this wasn't the strongest overall U20 cohort in CONCACAF, but at the same time, the US team was particularly short-handed — in theory, they could have had Tyler Adams, Timothy Weah, Josh Sargent, Andrew Carleton, Chris Durkin, Jonathan Amon, and a few others.


Tonight, Alex Mendez (CM), Brandon Servania (DM), Sergino Dest (RB), and Paxton Pomykal (AM) particularly impressed. I like the CBs, I thought Rennicks was surprisingly good at the #9. Llanez came off the bench due to a minor knock, but he's going to be a real player as a winger; he's still only 17.
 

Jimy Hendrix

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Glad to hear it! Gonna need someone to pin all our hopes and dreams on when the 19 - 23 year olds on the main USMNT fail to instantly solve our problems.

One or two more generations avoiding the black hole that Generation Brek Shea fell into and maybe we can have a pool where the depth doesn’t drop off a cliff very quickly.
 

Cellar-Door

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Welp, as expected, it is going to be Berhalter, and the year plus long search involved.... interviewing him and one other mediocre MLS guy (Pareja) so that they could say they looked at other options.

USSF needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt from the voters up with new people.
 

Titans Bastard

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The U17 national team has fairly frequent camps and plays in a variety of tournaments. The "Nike friendlies" are an annual event in December that features higher-tier competition and because of that, they're often used as a benchmark for prospect watchers. The USSF announced the roster for this year's tournament, which begins in two days.

GOALKEEPERS (3): Trace Alphin (North Carolina FC; Raleigh, N.C.; 0/0), Damian Las (Chicago Fire; Norridge, Ill.; 11/0), Chituru Odunze (Vancouver Whitecaps FC/CAN; Calgary, Alberta; 3/0)

DEFENDERS (8): Axel Alejandre (FC United; Chicago, Ill.; 12/0), Adam Armour (North Carolina FC; Cary, N.C.; 8/0), Sebastian Falsone (Virginia Development Academy; Warrenton, Va.; 0/0), Jonathan Gomez (FC Dallas; Keller, Texas; 0/0), Tayvon Gray (New York City FC; Bronx, N.Y.; 7/0), Kobe Hernandez (LA Galaxy; Los Angeles, Calif.; 11/1), Mason Judge (Eintracht Frankfurt/GER; Tampa, Fla.; 10/0), Joe Scally (New York City FC; Lake Grove, N.Y.; 11/1)

MIDFIELDERS (6): Masango Akale (Minnesota Thunder Academy; Minneapolis, Minn.; 0/0), Andre Luiz Costa (Rayo Vallecano/ESP; Madrid, Spain; 0/0), William Reilly (Atlanta United FC; Decatur, Ga.; 2/0), Giovanni Reyna (Unattached; Bedford, N.Y.; 5/1), Adam Saldana (LA Galaxy; Panorama City, Calif.; 14/1), Peter Stroud (West Ham United/ENG; Chester, N.J.; 12/0)

FORWARDS (7): Cameron Dunbar (LA Galaxy; Chula Vista, Calif.; 0/0), Ruben Hernandez (Club Leon/MEX; Manteca, Calif.; 0/0), Alfonso Ocampo-Chavez (Seattle Sounders FC; Kent, Wash.; 12/5), Ricardo Pepi (FC Dallas; McKinney, Texas; 3/0), Daniel Robles (Seattle Sounders FC; White Center, Wash.; 5/0), Alex Villanueva (Seattle Sounders FC; Maple Valley, Wash.; 0/0), Griffin Yow (D.C. United; Clifton, Va.; 3/2)

https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2018/11/26/20/49/20181126-news-twenty-four-players-called-to-u17mnt-for-2018-nike-international-friendlies

I definitely don't claim to be an expert on this group because you really have to be dedicated and watch a lot of grainy U17 and Development Academy streams to truly know what you're talking about. That being said:
  • A number of key players from this cycle aren't here for various reasons. The two most prominent missing players from this camp are George Bello (LB / Atlanta United) and Gianluca Busio (AM / Sporting Kansas City) have already played MLS minutes and are potential bench options in the playoffs.
  • I've seen numerous people talk up Damian Las as the best GK prospect we've had in a long time
  • Bello (LB), Scally (RB), Las (GK), Busio (AM), and Reyna (?) seem to be the highest-regarded prospects, but these things can change quickly. For me, Bello is a major hope at LB by the end of the 2022 cycle.
  • Reyna, who is reported to be heading to Dortmund, is one of those guys who is obviously talented but who doesn't really have a position yet. He could be a central AM, maybe a winger, maybe a second striker
  • Ricardo Pepi interests me; with FC Dallas U17, he has 19 goals in 8 games which gives him the DA scoring lead by a country mile. The large majority of U17 NTers are 2002s. He is a 2003; the few younger-year players who can hack it with the U17s despite their youth have a higher hit rate, so if he does well he'll have my full attention.
  • Andre Luiz Costa, who until this season was with Real Madrid, is the Mystery Man flavor of the camp.