The Premise:

Gregg Berhalter certainly comes off as a thoughtful, intelligent guy. He’s played for the national team, coached with and played for national team coaches… On some level, he had been “the chosen one” for the head job months (?) before actually getting the position.

Imagine now Gregg, Josh, Nico, etc. sitting in a smoke filled room, paper strewn everywhere, whiteboards with colored magnets positioned in crazy formations, trying to figure out how to best use the talent available to them with the whole pool available. Let’s say they have a list like this one:

Now let’s go on a little bit of a tangent for a second. Below you will see the final AP College Football rankings from 2017 and 2018.





Notice that UCF (the University of Central Florida) checks in at #11 in 2018 and #6(!) in 2017. Now, there is no way in the world Central Florida has the 6th or 11th best roster/talent in the country. What they do have is coaches that have figured out how to emphasize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. They’ve gotten the best out of the talent available to them.

This is what Berhalter’s staff meetings probably look like, right?

Back to our smoke filled war room. Now imagine you are on that USMNT coaching staff. What are the weaknesses you are trying to minimize? What are the strengths you are attempting to take advantage of? Even more than that, look down the pipeline and where do you think we might have a high end player break through in the next 12-24 months?

Weaknesses:

Outside Backs:

The glaring weakness is what it pretty much always has been (minus a couple years while Beasley was good), left back. Is anyone confident that any of those names can do the job? Garza is always injured and hasn’t convinced when he’s played for the US. Villafana has never been that great for the NT and Robinson is an unproven 20 year old that’s looked good a couple times and gotten roasted a couple times.

Right back isn’t a whole lot better. I know there’s a bunch of people that love Yedlin and I know he stoned Leroy Sane a couple weeks ago, but he’s just an okay right back, no more no less. Benitez even wanted to bring in competition for him at the beginning of the season, but Mike Ashley was too cheap to spend the money.

Lima certainly turned in two nice performances in January, but it’s not like he locked down Spain and Argentina. I’m hopeful, but it’s two games in January, he didn’t lock down a starting job based on that.

Winger:

The US has one proven, dangerous winger and that’s Pulisic. Weah is looking promising, but he’s playing striker for his club team(s). Arriola looked pretty good in January, but he’s more of the “try hard” type of winger the US usually puts out there (Zusi, Bedoya, Davis, etc.). There’s a few lottery tickets here, but nothing Berhalter and co. can count on just yet.

On the bright side, GGG is something of a winger whisperer. Justin Meram never looked the same outside of Columbus. Ethan Finlay was a fringe national team player in Columbus and fell off the map when he left. Let’s hope Berhalter can work his magic and get another productive winger going opposite Pulisic. Assuming he even plays there…

Strengths:

Center Mid:

This is what Pulisic looked like in 2015

For whatever reason this is the area the US is producing the most talent. Adams and McKennie are the obvious examples, but looking down the road a year or two and we may be talking about Alex Mendez, Richie Ledezma, Taylor Booth, etc. as not just a starter, but maybe even our best player. And before you get all indignant, just remember that at this point after the 2014 World Cup Christian Pulisic had 0 senior team caps (he was 16), and almost no one outside of YNT fanatics had even heard of him.

If you include players like Bradley, Trapp, Lleget, Mihailovic, Roldan, even Kellyn Acosta you can see that there is quality and depth available in this part of the field.

Central Defense:

A quick perusal of the depth chart shows a myriad of options at center back. Brooks is the clear #1 there, but there are a whole host of capable partners for him. Miazga has played well for the national team and is back to playing regularly for Reading. Long and Zimmerman both impressed in January with Long even earning the captain’s armband. CCV may not be the best passer ever, but he’s carved from adamantium. Even Tim Ream is a good passer and plays consistently in the Premier League (his team is giving up 17 goals a game, but I like him – leave me alone brain).

What about forward?

Six months ago I might have listed forward as the USMNT’s biggest weakness. Now, I’m not sure what to call it. I tend to think Jozy is #1, but a lot can change quickly. If Josh Sargent is getting starts down the stretch for Bremen then maybe he passes him up. I can even see Weah being exactly what Berhalter wants at forward. I’ve said this before, but Weah really reminds me of Aubameyang (via @joeincleats) when he played at Dortmund. Oh and Bobby Wood still exists.

Jigsaw Time:

So the task at hand is to design a system of play that minimizes the fullbacks while emphasizing the midfielders and central defenders. I think Berhalter trusts himself to solve the winger issue on the other side of Pulisic.

The way we saw the US play in January sure looked like it did that, didn’t it? Lovitz was basically a third center back and Lima was frequently a central midfielder.

From @dalglishpaul on Twitter

Playing like this lets Berhalter get three and maybe four (if Adams really does play the Lima role) central midfielders on the field and possibly even three center backs as well. Would anyone be shocked to see a lineup like the one below in March?

This lineup was suggested by Arthur Kogan – one of the hosts of the USMNT Only podcast

It’s been suggested that the way the US played in January was a temporary thing, or that it seems unlikely the team will play that way going forward. I disagree. I think that’s the way Berhalter will set the team up when he thinks the US is better than their opposition. And let’s face it…in CONCACAF the US is basically always better than their competition.

Mexico probably has more talent and the US will likely be underdogs at Costa Rica, but not because Costa Rica has better players overall. Other than that, the only time the US plays a competitive game against a more skilled opponent is the World Cup or a random Copa America. In other words, I think the USMNT will be playing this system a lot. There will be tweaks, maybe the LB is the hybrid midfield role if Berhalter loves Fabian Johnson there or something, but I’d be surprised if Gregg spent this much time and effort at January camp to chuck it for a new system of play three months later.

Sadly, unless Gregg decides to tell us all what he’s going to do we’re stuck waiting around for another month. Sure is fun to speculate though, isn’t it?