I does matter, because Berhalter tactics are ****. a good manager could get a lot more points out of this squad than Berhalter has.
***Official USMNT Thread***
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I does matter, because Berhalter tactics are ****. a good manager could get a lot more points out of this squad than Berhalter has.
Was at the stadium tonight. First half hour their energy carried them and they barely created. But they were the better team for that period.
The ref certainly could have been better, and I don’t like doing this but if we find out after the tournament that he has a $10m slush fund now wouldn’t be surprised. There were at least three significant calls made directly against the USA. So bad.
Greg needs to go. No new tactics, nothing coming from set pieces. The IS used to win games with grit and set pieces, now we run out of grit and have no set pieces and have better technical players. The biggest thing is they haven’t established and identity to me. Tonight with 10 minutes left they weren’t even pressing up the pitch. It didn’t make sense. Weah doesn’t play that doesn’t make sense when you need goals.
South American soccer sucks, they are the worse divers and time wasters and need to be told off for it.
Now seems like a good time to remind everyone that Gregg was literally fired from his job in the Swedish Second Division for "Lack of attacking play"
I know, shocking. /s
I know, shocking. /s
June 30, 2024
NEW YORK (AP) — The suspension of American winger Tim Weah was extended to two games by South American soccer’s governing body for punching Panama’s Roderick Miller during their Copa American group stage match Thursday.
Weah received a red card in the 18th minute of the United States’ 2-1 loss, resulting in an automatic one-game suspension. The Confederation of South American Football said Weah been suspended for a second game and fined $3,000 by a judge of its disciplinary commission. The money is to be deducted from the U.S. Soccer Federation’s payment from CONMEBOL for television, participation and/or prize money.
CONMEBOL said the discipline is not subject to appeal.
Weah will miss the United States’ group stage finale Monday night against Uruguay at Kansas City, Missouri, and a Copa America quarterfinal should the Americans advance.
I watched most of the game yesterday and I’ll repeat what I’ve seen on here. Heavy first touches, bad passing, etc. It was a tough watch to be honest especially considering they needed to win and there were just so few scoring opportunities.
Now, I keep seeing people say that there are like barely more people in Uruguay than Iowa, stuff like that.
I know people have banged on youth soccer and stuff like that. I have 2 kids playing competitive sports in the metro, and while I think Iowa is behind other places when it comes to soccer I think there is a little perspective required here.
Anyway these were some thoughts. I think USA soccer is growing and that’s great. I have grown to love the game. 20 years ago the idea that I’d rather turn on a rando soccer game vs. a rando football game would have been inconceivable to me, but I’m there. I’m just saying my experience over the winter and the spring really has opened my eyes to just how far there is to go to get soccer on par with some of these other sports when it comes to participation and organization.
Sorry, this got really long.
Now, I keep seeing people say that there are like barely more people in Uruguay than Iowa, stuff like that.
I know people have banged on youth soccer and stuff like that. I have 2 kids playing competitive sports in the metro, and while I think Iowa is behind other places when it comes to soccer I think there is a little perspective required here.
- My kids play competitive soccer, basketball, and baseball. Again we’re in the metro. You’d think there would be a ton of kids playing… there aren’t. My oldest is 14U. He plays for Rush, and we basically alternate playing Ames, Sporting, VSA, and maybe one of the two big clubs on the eastern side of the state all year. When it comes to State Cup you know it’s either going to be VSA or Sporting winning it every time. There’s really about 6-8 truly competitive teams in Iowa.
- They started playing club baseball this year. CIS is the main tournament organizer in DSM, and most weekends between 7U and 14U there are 200+ teams in these tournaments. There are more kids playing baseball in one tournament on each weekend in the DSM metro than there probably are soccer players at every level.
- My middle kid played basketball for Attack, and they played in a tournament in Omaha last winter. 500+ teams in that tournament. There were probably 5k-6k players competing in one weekend there.
- I know the first comment soccer people will say here: The cost of youth soccer is out of control! False. It’s right in line with top club programs for basketball, baseball, etc. Competitive high level sports is expensive, period.
- I think a bigger problem is there isn’t the structure there yet when it comes to the game. There isn’t the cultural heritage yet. There aren’t enough parents that know soccer well enough to teach there kids and give them a good foundation. There aren’t enough good coaches. There are barely enough refs to even keep things going. You know how many games I’ve AR’d? The kids on the team call me Bad Call Bryce because I’ve been doing it enough I’ve got a dang nickname.
- I mean this sincerely we really need communities investing in rec programs. There are kids who would play but the rec coaches so many times can be truly bad. We’ve had some great ones but It’s truly a flip of the coin here.
- Lastly, the clubs charge what they do because they need to pay their coaches and the fees for them renting fields. It’s not like these coaches are getting paid a lot, I promise you they aren’t and these clubs are absolutely not getting rich. But there are immigrant communities in the metro that do have that cultural heritage and love for the game that are underserved. I don’t know how to do it but man I’d love to get some of these men and women coaching, and some of these kids into the programs. But the cost, transportation issues, etc. make it really difficult.
Anyway these were some thoughts. I think USA soccer is growing and that’s great. I have grown to love the game. 20 years ago the idea that I’d rather turn on a rando soccer game vs. a rando football game would have been inconceivable to me, but I’m there. I’m just saying my experience over the winter and the spring really has opened my eyes to just how far there is to go to get soccer on par with some of these other sports when it comes to participation and organization.
Sorry, this got really long.
This is the problem, people can’t see that things have moved on from “club soccer”. The best kids have already been plucked out of clubs and moved to MLS academies by age 14. If you’re playing for Iowa Rush at age 14 you’re playing for a scholarship to Drake at best. The kids that are going to be future NT members and going overseas are already on a different level. Club soccer isn’t the problem, it’s irrelevant at this point.
My son is playing for a good time, that's not the point.
The point is that there isn't the structure in place to develop kids and get them ready for opportunities in academies. For the record I do know a kid that got pulled in to the Portland Timbers academy. I think there just isn't the structure in place to identify, train, and prepare kids for truly elite play in many cases and places.
The problem isn't the clubs per se. It's that there are probably kids who could maybe be pulled in to academies but there isn't the structure to get them to training they needs when they are younger to be in a position for that.
This is why it’ll take generations. Kids need coaches to teach them. Coaches need high level experience to be able to do that.
I know that Crew has kids that have been with them since they were 8 years old. This goes back to my point that there is NOTHING that can make up for lost time except time. The top countries like Brazil, France, Argentina, Germany etc have pretty much peaked in terms of what they can do…training, facilities, scouting and coaching infrastructure in the sense that they have all that and experience at the highest level, they can’t go up much more than they already are. The US has a lot of room to grow.
We are playing catch up and it’s not helping to make stupid coaching decisions like having retreads like Greg Berhalter and Bruce Arena leading the set up along with the incompetent fools running the money and the business and having input on player and staff decisions.
There’s really no reason why we should think we should be competing with Uruguay, or the other top SA countries. Theyve been doing it for a long time and doing it really well for a long time.
The MLS is currently a hindrance with their weird mix of old famous guys, old former usmnt guys, mixed wi th a bunch of western hemisphere guys that can’t cut it at home and little kids from the US. But that’s part of the growth curve, it’s part of catching up.
To add to this. Last night was a great opportunity for soccer casuals or not even soccer fans to watch our team in prime-time against a marquee opponent with actual stakes and they **** the bed. It just adds to the narrative that the men's team sucks, soccer is boring, etc.
The US Federation is more concerned with marketing and revenue (see ticket costs for friendlies and world cup qualifiers) than actual production on the pitch. Their making money hand over fist with sponsorship dollars and ticket sales and until the public starts boycotting they will not care to change anything. The wake-up call should have been after missing the 2018 World Cup, and yet there still doing these same non-serious hires of Southamptons GM and a mid MLS coach.
Yeah in simplest terms we are trash right now. We have better players than we’ve ever had but they aren’t better national team players. The whole US Soccer Federation stinks. The whole place stinks of nepotism and mediocrity.
You’re using the wrong bar. The question is do we have better players than the other countries? Pretty much no. We have one PROVEN top player and that is Pulisic. That ain’t gonna cut it. Tim Ream I would be the only other one that could maybe fall in to the list for the US.
Also the idea that we have better players than we have ever had is bogus. The 2002 WC squad was probably our peak because we had a strong core of players that were 28-32 years old with EPL or Bundesliga experience (imo those two leagues really are the best prep for international competition) and John O Brien at his peak (which was unfortunately very short) but he was awesome for that short amount of time.
That core with Reyna, Hejduk, McBride, Friedel, Cherundolo, Lewis and Sanneh was solid mentally and embraced physicality. This team we have now is weak in both regards.
You’re both right. The whole thing stinks like ****, and we have one world class player.
2002 WC team had like half the roster being MLS players.
There isn't a single player on this years starting 11 that doesn't play in Europe. Most of them for top flight teams. To claim there isn't a insane amount of talent is crazy to me. But you are 100% correct in the fact that the 2002 WC team embraced physicality and this team very much doesn't. It is mentally soft, McKennie looks like he doesn't even want to play soccer and would rather be anywhere else. Tim Weah is out there cosplaying MMA instead of playing winger.
But at the end of the day its a complete failure in attacking play that is killing this team. We are wasting Christian Pulisic, Reyna, Balogun, etc with completely uninspired breaking play, on fast breaks half our roster is jogging up field while the other teams are sprinting to get back. So inevitably we fail in the fast break. Its like we have never seen a counter attack in our lives. I could live with conceding a goal here and there if we averaged more than 1 a decade against actually good teams.
Half the team might have been MLS but the core wasn’t except for McBride, who had just come back from England. We had a bunch of players that could have made a great captain for that team as well.
Reyna - sunderland
Friedel - rovers
Lewis - Fulham
O Brien - Ajax
Cherundolo - Hannover
Sanneh - Nuremberg
All hard nose working class clubs All used to competing with less talent than 90% of their opponents on a game by game basis. That is how the Us should be and how it can be successful, not an attacking team, not a possession team, not a slick passes from back to front team.
Work rate, shape, defense first and defend as a team in depth. I really think a good tactician that emphasizes these things could do a lot of good for us. I always say Ancellotti and I know it’s a pipe dream but that kind of coach. Experienced, cares more about how to stop the other team from playing than how we play.
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Correct. But its not a talent thing. Its a mentality thing, which was my point.
The talent on this team is there. Its at least as good if not better collection of talent than any team in USMNT history. We lost to Panama. Panama scored twice the number of goals with a player who has recorded exactly 0 goals playing in the MLS as their leading scorer. Half of Panamas roster plays in the MLS and we have lost 3 of the last 4 to them. Those kinds of results should be unacceptable. People should be dismissed. Players should be losing caps to younger and more hungry players.
Its coaching and a complete lack of either caring or grit. But it is not a lack of raw talent.
