You're forgetting he's a total loser who picks loser players.

Yuiel is not what this team needs. We need a tenacious and physical 6. I wouldn't even care if he could actually dribble. Just someone to wreck the other team.

I think our best lineup has Reyna in midfield and someone w speed on wing (Weah?)

Berhalter subs too late.

Watching this game reminds why I wish they would hand out cards for embellishment more often.

Cant remember any recent USMNT coach that used or timed his subs well

I think Gregg needs a guy like Yeull when they are playing out of the back - good enough with the ball at his feet and a good passer under pressure. But then we give up that true stopper like we've had with Armas, Meastro, Beckerman in the past. Its like we're trying to play too much on the front foot. We have the skill and players to do it but there's no cohesion defensively on quick transitions and counters

Steffen/Horvath
DestBrooksReam?Robinson?
Adams
Musah-McKennie-
Reyna-Pulisic-
Dike-


Aaronson first off bench
Weah as a winger sub if necessary
Cannon for Robinson sub
Richards as future CB in 4-5 years
Reynolds as possible Robinson replacement


My top lineup

Playing for a trophy on Sunday!

Anyone still watching the other semifinal?

Moreno should be gone.

RealTalk said:

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HIs name is Jordan Siebatcheu but Pefok is on the jersey. Was confused so google told me Pefok is his mother's maiden name.

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I was watching in delay and was like who the heck is Pefok. Then I saw he had 4 caps and a goal and it spoiled me that he scored!

So, this is a crazy idea.....

I think Sargent should seriously consider a position change to centerback.

He's an amazing defender while playing the 9. His header really saved our asses.

Mexico Costa Rica got pretty damn scrappy and now they go to extra time. Not sure why Mexican players are allowed to retaliate with two-handed shoves over and over again and nothing happens.

Edit- never mind - straight to PKs

Kevin the 3-legged dog said:

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So, this is a crazy idea.....

I think Sargent should seriously consider a position change to centerback.

He's an amazing defender while playing the 9. His header really saved our asses.

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I see it. I don't think Sargent has the athleticism to be an elite striker on the international level. But I could see him being a really solid CB with good ball/heading skills.

Sargent is a #9 and the USMNT pool needs 9s in a bad way.

oh no said:

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Sargent is a #9 and the USMNT pool needs 9s in a bad way.

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He is a 9. But I think he could be a better CB.

H.E. Pennypacker said:

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Kevin the 3-legged dog said:

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So, this is a crazy idea.....

I think Sargent should seriously consider a position change to centerback.

He's an amazing defender while playing the 9. His header really saved our asses.

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I see it. I don't think Sargent has the athleticism to be an elite striker on the international level. But I could see him being a really solid CB with good ball/heading skills.

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Don't let his gingerness fool you. He's damn athletic.

When I think good 9 athleticism isn't necessarily at the top of the list. I'm probably wrong, maybe if you're playing old school route one soccer, but I'd value tactical awareness, hold up play and a knack for goal over pure athleticism

Mexico on PKs. The final will be fun!

Pahdz said:

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When I think good 9 athleticism isn't necessarily at the top of the list. I'm probably wrong, maybe if you're playing old school route one soccer, but I'd value tactical awareness, hold up play and a knack for goal over pure athleticism

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To be fair, people have questioned Sargent on all of those (with exception of holdup play) over the past year on both club and international levels. He's young, and hustles, so I'm not a hater. But I don't think he's a player on the level of Pulisic, Reyna, Dest, McKennie, Adams etc

We do have a dearth of strikers, so I'm not sure there are better options at the moment. But a 19 year old Altidore was a better player than Sargent IMO (for comparison sake). And this board has always liked to hate on Jozy.

When completely healthy my 11
Steffen
Cannon Brooks Long Dest
Adams Mckennie
Aronson/Weah Reyna Pulisic
In form striker
Not a fan of the 4-3-3 with this group. Good teams are going to eat that lone CM alive.

As someone who watched tonight and only knew Pulisic and Brooks when the game started, I thought Reyna and Sargent were impressive. To my uneducated eye, anyway.

I think sargent's tactical awareness, hold up play, and athleticism are fine and he's still a teenager playing professionally in Germany with a chance to develop into a great striker. Trying a move to the back line now would set him back and take him out of the USMNT player pool for a while and possibly forever. He needs to continue to be pushed and I want to see more and more depth in the pool at that position and I want to see Gregg try bringing in some different styles of #9s (like Jozy).

We do need better answers at #6 and #3. Dest is our best RB and RB is his best position. If the LB answer right now isn't Antonee Robinson, Dest is also our best LB. That's not good. I don't even know who the other options at holding mid are besides Tyler Adams and Yueill.

mrmill3218 said:

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Jackson Yueill is so bad.

Sebastian Lletget is so bad.

Berhalter is so bad.

There is no plan or clear tactics. The players are confused.

Berhalter has never won anything and has no idea what he's doing. We will waste this generation as long as 3G is the manager.

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I'm not a fan of him having the two 8s push so high up and crowding out our skiled wing players (reyna and pulisic)
we end up passing the ball around the back aimlessly, and have no ability to link the back line to the front.

We still managed to get Reyna and Pulisic on the ball eventualy, but all too often it was outside the attacking third. Most of their dangerous moments came off the press, which we currently do very well.

I expect to see Musah in for Lletget for the final. I think Lletget is decent, but I think there are better players in the pool than him at that spot, and Id expect to see him on the bench sooner than later.

Yueill may play decently in MLS, but he is NOT good enough for the national team. He can't close players down quickly, and for someone with teh reputation of being a great passer, he was constantly dispossed and hitting conservative passes backwards. Plenty of times he had space to turn and carry the ball forward, or turn and swap the point of attack, and instead was dispossed after playing slow.

To his defense, he frequently had neither Lletget or McKennie showing for the ball, which appears to be a tactical decision by Berhalter as they are pushed up high.

This is then forcing Reyna and Pulisic and Sargent to drop back to the midfield circle to get on the ball, which just makes no sense to me. I'm ok with that as a change of pace occassionally, though.

I just fear like you, that we are going to waste this qualifying campaign, and potential world cup. My real hope is we get someone like Adams healthy, as well as some of our more talented young central mids to progress into the national team over the next year.

Greg has already given in and adjusted his tactics somewhat once, hopefully he sees the light and develops tactics based around the talent we have.

I still expect us to challenge Mexico on Sunday, and depending on any lineup changes, have a real shot at winning. Moreso than winning, I want to see a much higher level of play than what we saw Thursday night.

H.E. Pennypacker said:

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Pahdz said:

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When I think good 9 athleticism isn't necessarily at the top of the list. I'm probably wrong, maybe if you're playing old school route one soccer, but I'd value tactical awareness, hold up play and a knack for goal over pure athleticism

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To be fair, people have questioned Sargent on all of those (with exception of holdup play) over the past year on both club and international levels. He's young, and hustles, so I'm not a hater. But I don't think he's a player on the level of Pulisic, Reyna, Dest, McKennie, Adams etc

We do have a dearth of strikers, so I'm not sure there are better options at the moment. But a 19 year old Altidore was a better player than Sargent IMO (for comparison sake). And this board has always liked to hate on Jozy.

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Agreed. Hes a work horse.. hes talented but I think my bets are going to be on Dike longterm. Berhalter needs to tell the CDM, "Any time Dest pushes forward, you're the new RB/LB." It is infuriating watching yueill sit in the middle of the park really not doing anything while Brooks gets dragged out wide and forced to defend in space. The biggest weakness Brooks has is his struggle to defend on an island.

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But a 19 year old Altidore was a better player than Sargent IMO (for comparison sake). And this board has always liked to hate on Jozy.

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I think you may romanticize young Jozy a bit, he was scoring goals in qualifying (and one famous one vs Spain) but his club career was less than impressive.

Sargent is currently scoring goals in the Bundesliga, and while he's a different kind of striker than Jozy I bet he'll do similar damage to the minnows of CONCACAF given the opportunity.

fig96 said:

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Quote:

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But a 19 year old Altidore was a better player than Sargent IMO (for comparison sake). And this board has always liked to hate on Jozy.

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I think you may romanticize young Jozy a bit, he was scoring goals in qualifying (and one famous one vs Spain) but his club career was less than impressive.

Sargent is currently scoring goals in the Bundesliga, and while he's a different kind of striker than Jozy I bet he'll do similar damage to the minnows of CONCACAF given the opportunity.

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Sargent is currently going to have to score goals in Bundesliga 2 because they were terrible and got relegated. He didn't have a good season with Bremen. I'm curious to see if he moves to another club this summer. Having a good international summer could help there.

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Yueill may play decently in MLS, but he is NOT good enough for the national team. He can't close players down quickly, and for someone with the reputation of being a great passer, he was constantly dispossed and hitting conservative passes backwards. Plenty of times he had space to turn and carry the ball forward, or turn and swap the point of attack, and instead was dispossed after playing slow.

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Yueill had a very rough game yesterday. He did gut stuck on an island quite a bit, but his first look was to pass it back to Brooks every time. If he did try to pass it forward, he failed to complete to pass. Honduras pressed hard anytime he had the ball and he really struggled with that.

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I just fear like you, that we are going to waste this qualifying campaign, and potential world cup. My real hope is we get someone like Adams healthy, as well as some of our more talented young central mids to progress into the national team over the next year.

Greg has already given in and adjusted his tactics somewhat once, hopefully he sees the light and develops tactics based around the talent we have.

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This is where I'm at. I think Berhalter was an incredibly average MLS coach who I feel got the job in no small part due to his brother being a higher up in the US Federation (although he left in 2020). I think he really struggles to make in game adjustments and routinely forgets to use his subs when something isn't working. Waiting till 10 minutes are left to make your first sub when we're really struggling to create anything isn't good. For instance, last weekend against the Swiss, we really controlled that match for the 1st half and then Switzerland adapted at HT and we never adjusted to that. Last night was very clear that the massive overload with damn near everyone in the final third wasn't working and leaving Brooks/McKenzie exposed on the counter.

Like PatAg said, you had McKennie and Lletget pushing so high that it crowded out Reyna and Pulisic + you also had Robinson and Dest pushed all the way forward as well. We can complain about creativity, but when you have 18-19 players crowded into the final third, there isn't a whole lot of room. A more competent team destroys that on the counter.

I'd love to see a similar lineup with Musah as an 8 instead of Lletget and Adams instead of Yueill. I also want to see some balance. If you're gonna push Dest or Robinson forward on an attack, the other side should hold back a bit more. The #6 (Adams or Yueill) needs to be prepared to slot into the empty side of the defense on the counter.

I just don't think Yueil is quick enough to rotate over to the wings to cover.

Other than Pulisic, Brooks and Lleget, I don't think any of the starters have actually played in a competitive CONCACAF match before. I'd chalk this up to learning experience and thought overall the team, as young as they are, handled the CONCACAF'ing pretty well.

I think a lot of folks had some unrealistic expectations for this team as far as polish and the ease with which they'd slide into the Berhalter system (which I'm not a huge fan of myself).

The MLS quota will keep Lletget and Yueill in the team even though they should be nowhere near any national team.

mrmill3218 said:

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The MLS quota will keep Lletget and Yueill in the team even though they should be nowhere near any national team.

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Lletget and Yueil are needed for depth. No way any player will be able to play 3 matches in a qualifying window so you'll have to rotate.

Until someone else steps up, there aren't any options beyond Acosta and Yueil behind Adams. You're going to need both during qualifying there are going to be times where Adams isn't available.

Neither McKennie nor Musah can play all 3 games at the 8 for any qualifying window so you'll need Lletget to help with rotation. Would help once Pomykal gets back to full fitness as he could be an adequate backup as well to give more options.

Which non-MLS based player would you replace those two with?

akm91 said:

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mrmill3218 said:

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The MLS quota will keep Lletget and Yueill in the team even though they should be nowhere near any national team.

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Lletget and Yueil are needed for depth. No way any player will be able to play 3 matches in a qualifying window so you'll have to rotate.

Until someone else steps up, there aren't any options beyond Acosta and Yueil behind Adams. You're going to need both during qualifying there are going to be times where Adams isn't available.

Neither McKennie nor Musah can play all 3 games at the 8 for any qualifying window so you'll need Lletget to help with rotation. Would help once Pomykal gets back to full fitness as he could be an adequate backup as well to give more options.

Which non-MLS based player would you replace those two with?

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There is a great defensive midfielder who spent his whole career in the Bundesliga - Alfredo Morales.

The good news is that we can still keep the MLS quota because he now plays for NYCFC.

Truly, the fact that Jackson Yueill is in this team is in itself a fire-able offense. The guy was terrible for the Olympic team that failed to qualify. He doesn't even stick out for his MLS team. There are players on my men's league team who are better than him. What is really going on here?

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There is a great defensive midfielder who spent his whole career in the Bundesliga - Alfredo Morales.

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He's played under Berhalter and didn't impress. He's also much older than and Acosta. Anyone else?

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Sargent is currently going to have to score goals in Bundesliga 2 because they were terrible and got relegated. He didn't have a good season with Bremen.

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I'm going to say you don't know what you're talking about and won't read the rest.
Sargent was consistently rated as the best player for Breman. And he's going to get transferred so I doubt he'll be in the 2.

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There are players on my men's league team who are better than him.

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Hyperbole much?