General Thoughts

So last night I was livid. Watching your team get killed by their biggest rival is not a pleasant experience. I’m also not going to tell you they played well. They didn’t. The attack could have taken a cocktail of Viagra/Levitra/Cialis/Hims and still been impotent. (Although watching them run around might have been funny.)

BUT you often have to get worse before you get better. I played tennis in high school/college. I switched from an Eastern grip to a Western grip on my forehand at one point and hit everything into the net for a while…but eventually my forehand was better than it had been.

My question is how long do we need to wait? I still think the US player pool fits a Red Bull-style pressing system better, but Stewart/Berhalter have decided on this Dutch system and they are sticking to it. I hope they’re right and the USMNT comes out the other side playing nice soccer while winning games. I’m nervous though.

Watching the game again in the way that I do is rather bloodless and academic (at least I try to be). The US was outplayed, but not as horribly as it seemed live. The first goal was due to a great play by Tecatito and inexplicably losing Chicharito. The second was a bad pass by Steffen and Morales not quite being awake enough to rescue it. The third was a counter while the US threw everyone forward trying to get a goal back.

Not fun, but not a total disaster. It may turn out that Steffen isn’t a good enough passer for this to work against really good teams, but I’d rather him screw up against Mexico in a friendly than in World Cup Qualifying.

The really frustrating part is what everyone is saying…player selection. The guys that EVERYONE KNOWS aren’t good enough continue to get called in due to favoritism, knowledge of the system, continuity, whatever. That’s got to stop. Call up kids. Call up other journeymen to see what they’ve got. Something, anything other than the same guys that we know can’t get the job done.

Sees Trapp at the 6 again…

Seeing a midfield three against Uruguay of Yueill at the 6, Pomykal at one 8/10, and Lletget at the other would be different and interesting. But we all know that’s not who we’re gonna see. Trapp will be back out there – totally over his head and we’ll learn nothing.

*RANDOM ASIDE* I also think the US Soccer itself gives everybody a bad taste that does the team no favors. They come across greedy, tone deaf, insensitive, (a little racist?), and insular. That’s not the team’s fault. It’s not even Gregg’s fault that he’s related to the guy that hired him. The team is just the easiest target for our displeasure.

Anyhow, to the grades…

If you haven’t read one of these before click here for an explanation of the grading system.

The Notes

Completed +/- Grades

MOTM – Christian Pulisic (+10)

He wasn’t perfect. There’s that image out there of him not playing Zardes into space and he can be a bit of a ball hog. However, it’s pretty obvious he’s a level above everyone else out there (on his team). He gets frustrated and says, “Screw it. I’m gonna go score myself.” Which isn’t great, but if you watched that game last night and you are any kind of competitive…you get it. He was again the most dangerous player on the field for the US and should have had an assist on the play below.

Other Good Performances

Sebastian Lletget (+7)

Da Boy had himself a 15 minutes. I didn’t realize it last night because I was too busy rage scrolling through Twitter, but he was very good. I haven’t been a big fan, but I’m very curious to see how he looks against Uruguay. Scoring a goal usually takes a series of good plays or 1-2 excellent ones. Aside from the Pulisic pass above, Lletget provided the only other “special” offensive moment of the night with his curling ball to Morris that drew the penalty. More of this on Tuesday, please.

Sergino Dest (+3)

Honestly, Cannon was more consistent and had a little better game, but I’d like to talk about “Serge” for a second. I feel like you always hear how, “He’s not a good defender.” and “He was shaky defensively at the U20 World Cup.” BS. I watched, re-watched, and graded every single U20 World Cup game and Dest was excellent. He struggled a little (one bad mistake really) against the Ukraine (who eventually won the whole freakin’ tournament), but other than that he was fine to excellent in every other game (+4 against Nigeria, dnp against Qatar, +14 against France, and +11 against Ecuador).

He got megged on the goal, didn’t foul the guy, and then Tecatito got by him again for a chance again in the 37th minute. That’s it. He didn’t pass it to the wrong team (*cough Ream *cough*, keep guys onside *cough* Omar *cough*), etc. I’m not a professional analyst and I’m sure I miss things, but here’s some gifs of good defending. He can be my LB anytime.

Shockingly, Trapp doesn’t get to the loose ball after Dest stands up Corona

That’s about it for “good” performances. Cannon was solid, not spectacular. Long was decent as well. Morales was all over the place in good and bad ways (I’d like to see him again though.) On to the other performances.

Room for Improvement

Tyler Boyd (-5)

I’m really disappointed about Boyd. I thought he was going to be an easy upgrade at RW and be the goal dangerous winger the team has been so sorely lacking. Instead, he was mostly invisible when he wasn’t sticking out for holding onto the ball too long. 😢 Maybe more time in the system will turn it around. He’s better technically than Morris or Arriola, but his last few starts have been inauspicious.

HOW does he not play this ball to Cannon?!

Walker Zimmerman (-3)

This one is a little harder to figure. A lot of Zimmerman’s negatives came from poor passes that went to the wrong team. The problem is he didn’t always have great options. He was stuck as Berhalter’s “distributing CB” for the night and there weren’t a lot of easy passes to be had. I tried to only neg him when I thought he had a reasonable option, but Zimmerman wasn’t great.

Zack Steffen (-2)

Zack’s distribution actually wasn’t as bad as I remember from watching it live, but it wasn’t good either. The second goal was pretty much on him IMO and he had several other bad passes throughout the game (5′, 32′, 62′, 73′). He’s got to be better than he was against Mexico if the US is going to play through good teams.

Conclusion

I’m glad the USMNT has picked a style. I hope it’s the right one. I hope they stay committed and push through bad results/performances like this one. I hope Berhalter is a good enough coach to get it done (his resume looks pretty dang thin right now). I hope the light at the end of the tunnel is closer than it appears to be right now. That’s a lot of hopes…

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