CHULA VISTA, Calif. -- From the moment Gregg Berhalter was hired as manager of the U.S. men's national team, the questions about style began. After all, his tenure with the Columbus Crew revealed a team that prized possession and regularly ranked in the top third in the league in terms of chances created.

There has also long been a craving for the U.S. to not only win but win well, even in the face of a player development system that doesn't regularly crank out the kind of players who lend themselves to an expansive approach. That feeling has only intensified in the wake of the World Cup qualifying failure, and will be there when the U.S. faces Panama on Sunday in Glendale, Arizona. But the question remains: Will the style Berhalter implemented in Columbus simply be transplanted to the U.S., or would some tweaks be made?

As Berhalter sat in the lobby of the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center, with the afternoon sun shining through, he made it clear that the latter approach would be taken.

"I think the philosophy will be very similar. We want to use the ball to disorganize the opponent and create goal-scoring opportunities," he said. "But we have to make some adjustments from what we did in Columbus.

"There needs to be more balance to the game. Now we're working on how do we get that balance, but still be able to disorganize the opponent. It's still based on positioning, it's still based on spacing, it's still based on the principles of the game. When we're coming up with this game model, a lot of principles are the same but the formation will be different."

Berhalter's reasoning is two-fold. Not only does he have a different set of players at his disposal, but this is a national team that, by its nature, has a limited player pool. That point was driven home when the name of Columbus playmaker Federico Higuain was brought up. There is simply no one like him available to Berhalter here, a point he not only agreed with but expanded upon. He added that in the Columbus midfield he also had Artur, "who could make up for people's mistakes alone."