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USA Post-World Cup Thread


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#16
ivo

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Thierry Henry turns down the France womens job, reportedly is interested in the US men's job.

 

https://www.espn.com...n-usmnt-sources

 

I absolutely love the guy.  He would be a big change from Berhalter.  National team coaches don't have a lot of time with the team to actually coach, but I would like to see what kind of influence Henry would have on our attacking players.  Guys like Pulisic and Weah could really benefit from playing for Henry.

 

 https://www.espn.com...n-usmnt-sources

 

Can you imagine the conversation if Claudio were to call Henry to complain about Gio's playing time?

Obviously love Henry.

 

I do question the lack of success in managerial stints so far. Would be a large gamble for our best ever generation in a home WC. Could easily be the best chance of a great performance in our lifetimes (hopefully not, but there's a chance it is!) 

 

Would be cool to see and gambles can sometimes pay off, so I'd be okay with it, but would be surprised if USSF choose to go that route. The risk is too high.



#17
Bklynfootballer

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Would that push Balogun to choose the US?

#18
guanaco20

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Would that push Balogun to choose the US?

I was thinking the same thing but the only French connection Balogun has is playing in Ligue 1. He was born in NYC to Nigerian parents but grew up in London. He seems to be a huge Arsenal fan boy so leans towards representing England. Our best bet is for Musah, whom apparently is a close childhood friend, to do some recruiting for the US National Team.

#19
magicmoron

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I was thinking the same thing but the only French connection Balogun has is playing in Ligue 1. He was born in NYC to Nigerian parents but grew up in London. He seems to be a huge Arsenal fan boy so leans towards representing England. Our best bet is for Musah, whom apparently is a close childhood friend, to do some recruiting for the US National Team.


Arsenal = Thierry Henry

 

Also this:

https://twitter.com/...054817103310850



#20
Bklynfootballer

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Yes, also seems to be feeling disillusioned with his English NT prospects...

https://www.goal.com...22695a9f092b511

#21
Bklynfootballer

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That said, this kind of decision is about more than one player, but player recruitment and overall prestige jumps up a few notches if our manager is Henry.

#22
Speedball

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Yes, also seems to be feeling disillusioned with his English NT prospects...

https://www.goal.com...22695a9f092b511

So it's possible that the US might get Balogun because Metro didn't get Toney? I'll take that.


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#23
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So it's possible that the US might get Balogun because Metro didn't get Toney? I'll take that.

and because the US has Arsenal legend Henry as coach, who only knows US soccer because of Metro... ha... if it all happens, I will claim Balogun as a former metro playing for nats. I mean close enough. 



#24
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Doyle with a glass-very-full view of Berhalter's WC performance today. https://twitter.com/...5803559936?s=20

 

Most parts of this are true, of course, but some are revisionist history, and he almost completely glosses over the game vs Netherlands. Berhalter certainly hit par at the WC, and if (most) players like and want him to stay, it wouldn't be a horrible choice. Surely, we can do better, though, right?



#25
Arsenal14

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Doyle with a glass-very-full view of Berhalter's WC performance today. https://twitter.com/...5803559936?s=20
 
Most parts of this are true, of course, but some are revisionist history, and he almost completely glosses over the game vs Netherlands. Berhalter certainly hit par at the WC, and if (most) players like and want him to stay, it wouldn't be a horrible choice. Surely, we can do better, though, right?

I just don't understand the people who talk about how much the US style of play progressed under Berhalter. They barely created chances and were so. fucking. boring. For years! Possession without purpose isn't ambitious; it's pretty easy to achieve, and it wasn't a step up from previous American styles.

#26
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I think Doyle is at least like 95% right here. We went in with a squad that is not as elite as many fans think, gave each team a different look that set our best guys up to make plays, and for the most part they just didn't execute. If they had, we would have run away with the group and GGG is immediately heralded as the greatest coach in USMNT history.

 

The biggest thing for me is what he says about the Athletic article by John Muller. In my lifetime I've only ever seen the USMNT play bunker and counter at the World Cup. This was the first time they've ever looked like a modern team. That LVG misquote drives me nuts because it was actually a legendary coach praising GGG's tactics through the tournament so far.

 

I'm not sure what some people expect of GGG. Is the team supposed to look like peak Brazil out there? Losing to the Netherlands in the knockout stage is not underperforming, that's spot on for the roster we have.



#27
ivo

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The biggest thing for me is what he says about the Athletic article by John Muller. In my lifetime I've only ever seen the USMNT play bunker and counter at the World Cup. This was the first time they've ever looked like a modern team.

Is this because of GGG or is it because this was also the first time we had a starting 11 that was mostly non-MLS players? Would a different coach get more out of the same roster? (Usage of Reyna/Aaronson and lack of rotation all point to yes, imo.) That's the million dollar question.

It would be nice if Pulisic converted that early chance and if we had a 9 that can finish half chances (many teams can say the same), but the Dutch outclassed us, both with talent and tactically, come on. Blaming only execution is as silly as blaming only GGG.

The WC was not a GGG failure, obviously, but it was hardly overperformance either. Hanging on for dear life vs Iran can't be hailed as some tremendous success based on the outcome by saying "it worked."

Major kudos to Gregg for recruiting a handful of top dual nationals that will be mainstays for a long time. Would love to know who the actual options on the table end up being - think there is a better alternative in terms of motivation and tactics out there.

#28
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ivo I don't think you were the target audience of Doyle's rant with your nuanced questions, moreso the legion of USMNT fans on Twitter constantly making GGG out to be a tactical baffoon when anyone who watches the game with a critical eye knows that's not true. That's the context in which I agreed Doyle was 95% right. It's not to say that GGG a perfect coach or had a perfect tournament, just that he is not the biggest and certainly not the only reason we did not advance further.

 
It's always an interesting conversation to try and tell what on the field is the result of coaching vs individual players. It's incredibly difficult to do, especially for people like me who never played at a level higher than varsity. When Henry was at Barcelona he said something like "Pep's job is to get the ball to the final third then it's on us." So my metric for a coach's performance is whether the team's best players are regularly getting the ball in spaces to make a dangerous play. I think the Iran game is actually a good example where we dominated the run of play all over the field, but could not turn any of it into a comfortable lead. I think GGG did his job that even if the result made it look like we scraped through.
 
Would a world class coach like LVG have gotten more out of the same group? Of course it's possible, I'm all for a hire of that magnitude over GGG. But even he only took his superior tactics and roster one round further. Imo our talent still has a few levels to go before any coach on the planet should be expected to take them deep into the knockouts.


#29
elf

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I think Doyle is at least like 95% right here. We went in with a squad that is not as elite as many fans think, gave each team a different look that set our best guys up to make plays, and for the most part they just didn't execute. If they had, we would have run away with the group and GGG is immediately heralded as the greatest coach in USMNT history.
 
The biggest thing for me is what he says about the Athletic article by John Muller. In my lifetime I've only ever seen the USMNT play bunker and counter at the World Cup. This was the first time they've ever looked like a modern team. That LVG misquote drives me nuts because it was actually a legendary coach praising GGG's tactics through the tournament so far.
 
I'm not sure what some people expect of GGG. Is the team supposed to look like peak Brazil out there? Losing to the Netherlands in the knockout stage is not underperforming, that's spot on for the roster we have.

I disagree. The reason we didnt execute wasnt because berhalter did not have good enough talent. He didnt execute because of poor judgement and unable to adapt to the talent you have on the squad.

He decides for a weird reason to bench his best player and then is shock as to why he doesnt take it well. The way he mishandled reyna was an epic failure. With a talent like Reyna, he needed to start every game.

Berhalter knew for years that he had a bottleneck in the wings and no central forwards in the pool. He should have tried reyna, pulisic or weah at central forward in friendlies or qualifications. Experimenting for the first time against the Netherlands in the knock out round is just setting someone up for failure. That is what he did with reyna when he never played forward.

Player selection has been another issue. Hudson has already done a better job in selecting players than berhalter. The squad that was called up for the nations league is already a superior squad thatn what we took to the world cup (the only big loss is adams)

In the world cup, USA had the most crosses in the box. Where was our target striker? Oh yeah... they were left off the squad.

In the world cup, why didnt our most athletic defenders play? Berhalter perfer passing ability over defensive ability. Oh yeah, we dont have good passing defenders.

People will point out we got a tie against england but forget to mentioned that they were in terrible form entering the world cup. Before the world cup, they didnt win a game for almost a year.

We are lucky that we were in a weak group or else we would have never made it out of the group stage due to berhalter.

#30
JBigjake54

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we were in a weak group or else we would have never made it out of the group stage due to berhalter.


If we didnt concede a PK against Wales, or scored against England, we play Senegal & ENG play NETH.

We are good enough to beat the best teams, and bad enough to lose to the worst teams. 





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