USMNT: To Rüssia With Love

They're playing a 4-4-2 and fundamentally don't have dynamic wingers nor a dominating midfield presence. The passing is forced wide and the strikers aren't able to make up the difference.

The only good thing I'd say is that Guatemala are pretty consistently making dangerous passes under pressure. I'd be surprised if we aren't able to somehow stumble into a goal that way. But the pitch is very open and the US isn't winning in any area of the pitch at the moment.

Mix is out, which is probably a net positive.

Start the half with four straight unforced errors, nice.

I mean, I get it that the travel is brutal, the venue is inhospitable, Guatemala's players had more time together... but this is putrid. If you asked me what they are trying to do, what their identity is... I would say... "Stumble around aimlessly?"

How the fuck do neither of those go in?

First save was a bit lucky, second shot was right at him. Nice play by Yedlin to create the chances.

Bedoya has been the guy with every chance and he's fluffed every one of them.

OilCanShotTupac said:

Flat, dull, uninspired.

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And that's just the jerseys!

Some solid offensive play got two good opportunities just now and, it must be said, two great saves by the GK were required to keep the US off the board.

Are you fucking kidding me. 3 point blanks... nothing to show

Another nice setup, another shot right at the keeper.

Dempsey that's the worst shit ever.

It's just not their night

Oh come on.

Given that the entire formation is basically forced to get Dempsey into the lineup he really has to bury a chance like that. Or not shoot it directly at the keeper.

Who the fuck are these announcers.

We are getting ole'd by Guatemalan fans.

GUATEMALA!

"You can never rule out a goal by Chris Wondolowski."

Jozy coming in.

Jozy for Omar. Who needs defense?

SoxFanInCali said:

Jozy for Omar. Who needs defense?

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Fuck it, put him in for Howard

Not watching, did Cameron move to CB and Yedlin to RB? You know, their strongest positions where they shoild have started the match? Classic JK.

Bedoya, just another guy in a long line of guys who shouldn't be starting for the USMNT but must for lack of better options.

Lucky not to be down 3.

JFC

I don't think they even know what to do with this many attacking players on the field.

Moving to a (basically) back 3 was a good move. We've at least been able to have the ball a bit. We haven't developed the class to actually pass and stretch a team, but at this point we have to take the risk of conceding more to try to get back in this.

teddykgb said:

Moving to a (basically) back 3 was a good move. We've at least been able to have the ball a bit. We haven't developed the class to actually pass and stretch a team, but at this point we have to take the risk of conceding more to try to get back in this.

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We just don't look dangerous, every pass is over- or under-weighted, we're conceding possession easily and are too slow to move the ball. Bradley doesn't have his usual touch out there, Zardes is showing none of his promise, Wood is whining for calls rather than fighting for 50/50s... Titans Bastard is going to be furious when he catches up on this later.

edit: oh, for fuck's sake, Jozy. Real internationals net that 90%+ of the time. Perfect pass by Dempsey to spring him, it must be said.

edit2: ok, on replay i'll adjust that down to 75%. But still, he had all the angle he wanted there.

It's just not our night...

The Price Is Wrong said:

We just don't look dangerous, every pass is over- or under-weighted, we're conceding possession easily and are too slow to move the ball. Bradley doesn't have his usual touch out there, Zardes is showing none of his promise, Wood is whining for calls rather than fighting for 50/50s... Titans Bastard is going to be furious when he catches up on this later.

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Anyone who cares about US Soccer at all is going to be livid after this. We'll end up in the usual debate about MLS and Klinsmann.

On the plus side Castillo has looked very solid tonight.

You cannot be serious.

What's Eddie Johnson up to these days. Need some of that good mojo from when we used to at least be good against the dregs of CONCACAF.

I fucking hate Bedoya so much.

And Bedoya snuffs out another promising possession.

Jed Zeppelin said:

I fucking hate Bedoya so much.

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He's had a very rough night. Nothing has gone right and he's given the ball away a lot as a result.

So, Tuesday is now pretty much a must-win.

They've put themselves in a tough spot. Almost a must win in Columbus now. An unfortunate slip, a touchy red card, a bad ref's decision, or if Motta stands on his head again, this team may not see the World Cup until Qatar at the earliest.

And even if they go through in this group, this team is nowhere near ready for the Hex.

Feh.

Ideally we won't have to use a C roster again. Our A roster is scary enough as it is.

teddykgb said:

Anyone who cares about US Soccer at all is going to be livid after this. We'll end up in the usual debate about MLS and Klinsmann.

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The debate is over. We got clowned by a team that started 8 guys from the Guatemalan first division, 2 guys from MLS, and 1 from the German third division. By any objective accounting, we had more talent out there.

Our coach is a fool. It's time for the pink hats who think that anything European is better than anything American to acknowledge that the emperor has no clothes.

Klinsmann needs to be out of a job before the plane lands. Won't happen, of course, because he's Sunil's binky, but this is an absolute train wreck.

EDIT: I'm drunk posting. I stand by what I say, but take it easy on me.

Well, the good news is that the remaining qualifiers against Guatemala and Trinidad are both at home, and the only road game left is against a team with 0 points in qualifying.

There is Tuesday's game and nothing else. Discussions about Klinsmann or anything else are not relevant at the moment, because nobody else is going to come in and coach. If they lose that game, they are not going to Russia. I guess it's still mathematically possible but unlikely. If they draw that game they will need some luck to go to Russia.

If they win, there will be plenty more time for hand-wringing and calling for Klinsmann's head or whatever. At the moment, though, the fate of U.S. Soccer for possibly a decade turns on them being able to beat a team they just looked poor against. There's nothing else now. They need a win. If they lose, don't worry about Klinsmann. It will take care of itself and won't matter all that much anyway for awhile.

I think my favorite part of the game was Jozy grabbing his hammy literally as he was being subbed in.

If we're talking identity. I can't help but feel like Nike has to take a lot of the blame here.

Sir Alex Ferguson couldn't get this shitty bunch of players to be less shitty.

The problem, as always, is the talent. The talent has fallen off the table, and rolled into a waterfall, where it has gone over the cliff and fallen into the abyss.

But I'm ok if we also fire the coach. His stupid ain't helping matters. I just wouldn't expect firing the coach to do anything, except satisfy some of the more impatient fans. To illustrate, firing Klinsmann isn't going to make Dempsey less OLD and SHITTY. It isn't going to help Tim Howard regain the form he had in 2012; I mean, not even Roberto Martinez thought that was remotely possible. And firing Klinsmann will do fuck-all to address the Bedoya problem. Maybe the next coach leaves him off the roster entirely in favor of... WHO, exactly?

The problem against Gautamala ain't the talent. We have loads more even with a B or C team out there. I mean, honestly, this is like if the Sox handily lost to Pawtucket in a meaningful game. Pawtucket will have some guys as good as some guys on the Sox, but it ain't close overall. (As noted above, I couldn't watch, thankfully, it seems.)

Which is not to say there's not a talent issue but that is relevant when talking about playing Mexico or better. It's not an issue against any of the 3 other teams in this group. The US is by far the most talented team in this group.

I wasn't trying to re-ignite this discussion with my comments last night. It just seemed sort of inevitable that we'd end up talking about this today.

It's certainly starting to seem like JK has run his course. I always had hopes that he'd actually find a way to develop some ball playing talent who could space the pitch and play something more like proper football but it seems like that isn't in the pipeline, which is very sad. Even the younger players playing in the Olympic qualifying were hitting speculative long balls and hoping for the best. I remain convinced that Klinsmann's diagnosis was correct but his ability to medicate it has proven quite flawed.

But the Eurocentrism complaint still rings incredibly hollow. Every former "star" who returned to MLS has regressed and in most cases quite a bit. The spine that was supposed to carry us through this period consisted of Jozy, Dempsey, and Bradley and all 3 have become very, very ordinary or worse. Cameron has remained steady for us and was good yesterday. I was pleased with the play of Yedlin in general, his block late in the match was a very solid defensive play. He also seemed a bit more disciplined in directing his man to the touch line and playing with a bit more sense. On the non europe side, I was really pleased with how good Castillo looked.

In re: T_B's post above: If Sunil grows a pair I don't know who he's going to hire that's going to fix our shit approach to football. We are never going to be anything as a footballing country if we continue to play this defend and lump it forward style. We can probably agree at this point that JK said all the right things about this but hasn't been able to actually fix it. But I'm still not seeing a prospective US Manager who is going to do anything but continue to play very similar shit tactics.

Even if we did have better upcoming talent I have no faith that JK would know how to use it or put it in position to succeed. I mean, if he can't even figure out how best to deploy Bradley after all this time...

Jed Zeppelin said:

Even if we did have better upcoming talent I have no faith that JK would know how to use it or put it in position to succeed. I mean, if he can't even figure out how best to deploy Bradley after all this time...

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He's no better than Bob Bradley, who not only had the same problem, but had 20+ years of up-close scouting with which to help guide his decision? ;-)

OK, fire the coach peeps - who should be the manager for our next game(s)? And "anyone" is not a valid answer. The manager must be 1.) get-table for the USA soccer program (so fuck right off with your Bielsa fetish, he ain't taking on this pile of shit), and 2.) not a nepotism pick or a recycled/re-tread (so, no Arena, no Bradley).

I'll start the bidding at Jill Ellis, who I am not a fan of, but has demonstrated the tactical flexibility that @Titans Bastard is suggesting is the biggest problem.

OK, so now we have a new coach. Please tell me how NEW COACH is going to make chicken salad out of the chicken shit this talent pool has become.

You cannot play an formation with wide players, unless you are using Yedlin/Johnson out there, which means you are asking this group to play a 3-at-the-back system, and that means you also must select Kyle Beckerman (because there is no other competent DM in the talent pool).

I am certain there will be several answers chock full of MLS players. And I'll preemptively object that if they were any good, they wouldn't be in MLS anymore. I submit Matt Miazga as exhibit A and require that you see that display (yesterday) in the U-23 game before you're allowed to respond.

A chicken shit manager should be able to take chicken shit talent and not get eliminated from this competition.