Mathguy64 said:

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Panama clearly had a plan on corners. They were in swingers aimed right at goal. The two before the OG were literally on goal and Turner had to make tap over saves. They had a plan. It paid off. Welcome to pressure Gregg.

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I'm not even all that upset by this. In terms of xG, we actually didn't do too bad on defense.

The issue with this game was the complete and utter lack of offense…

The five #USMNT shots tie the team's fewest in 40 games under Gregg Berhalter.

The 0.22 xG are by far the team's worst under Berhalter (previous low: 0.53).

— Paul Carr (@PaulCarr) October 11, 2021

https://instagr.am/p/CU3xU_8gxgG

I'm still pissed I wasted $5 and my time, makes me much less inclined to bother watching Weds game. As I said earlier, given GBs plan, might as well have just conceded the game and rest everyone.

it was a weird/ unlucky goal they conceded on that corner. In-swinging leg at goal instead of an out-swinging leg service into or behind the six yard box shouldn't concede a goal. Zardes playing near post should have been able to clear that instead of blocking Turner's view and letting it slip right by him on the face of the goal.

...but that one unlucky goal wouldn't have mattered much if we could muster up more than 5 shots in 90 minutes and maybe score an away goal every once in a while. Poor offensive / attacking effort.

Midfield - we were very disorganized building up and combining until Adams was subbed in after half Some sloppy play by Musah in the first half. Are we depending on Lleget to be a huge central midfield contributor in Qatar? We think our player pool has gotten so much better and deeper in recent years, but when we don't have McKinnie and Adams, our midfield can be pretty inept.

Forwards - we were not relentless or creative in the attacking third - never dangerous - all game long. Arriola was all over the place with great effort in the first half, notably tracking back and helping to win balls and defend - but of course no goals- it's Arriola. ...but where were Weah and Zardes? Pepi brought a little juice initially on subbing in - why has Hoppe not gotten in on two games yet? Aaronson only played a half subbing for Arriola and he looked extremely gassed and much slower than Arriola in the final 20 minutes. Is he fit right now?

Defenders - overall played fine. We need more minutes for Shaq and Bello if Antonee and Dest are ever not available in Qatar. They didn't concede goals, defended well, both had a few chances for overlapping attacking runs, but we weren't dangerous enough with them. Shaq has so much talent, but still makes some bad decisions. Central defenders - I don't trust McKenzie yet. Why not just play Miles and Zimmer all three games in this window? And if you're going to rotate CBs so they all have chemistry and there are multiple good pairs, when does Chris Richards get a shot if you're going to keep rostering him and think he'll be one of your guys in Qatar? I still think Miazga needs selections until McKenzie and Richards are truly ready for this kind of action. Zimmerman played well.

Regardless... 4 or 5 shots all game long - ZERO shots on goal - was pathetic.

I agree the defenders were decent at defending - but they were pretty awful at advancing the ball.

It certainly seemed like they got pressured way too often by what honestly didn't seem like too scary of a high press.

Maybe my perception there is wrong, but if it's accurate, you also have to wonder why we kept trying to play it out of the back, which goes back to Pat's point about Ggg's inability to recognize problems and adapt mid-game.

Their goal was NOT weird and unlucky, the only unlucky thing is that they had not scored on the prior corners doing the same thing.

They had 3 players unmarked on the front post, and they were putting the ball RIGHT there every time.

it was wonky because none of their players on the front post got a touch or a glancing header or anything to score that ball. They hit Zardes with that corner and he failed to clear it or do anything productive with it- block it, control it, etc. He whiffed- screening Turner in the process. Inexcusable mistake by Zardes, and really lucky for Panama because I bet if you hit 20 more corners right at that front post, Zardes clears it out all 20 times.

Sure they need to clean that up and be better, but overall the team has been pretty decent on set pieces. My point is that Zardes mistake on the defensive set piece is not why they lost. ZERO shots on goal. Discombobulated midfield and uninspired attacking players.

The substitutions Berhalter made last night were really confounding, like there was no clear plan.

After all the subs you had:

Aaronson---Pepi---Roldan

Lleget----Adams---Acosta


Bello--Zimmerman----McKenzie--Yedlin


Three of these subs were after the goal. So who was to be the creator in this attack? Who was going to carry the ball and distribute? If your goal was to replace Weah and Musah at the 60' mark, then who was to carry us forward after that?

Adams is great, but his skill set is not the same as Musah's, so the midfield was largely an empt space after the substitutions.

Berhalter runs the 4-3-3, its his baby. He has to understand the importance of having creators in the midfield, especially when there are only 3 true mids.

If Roldan ever sees the pitch for a USMNT in a game of importance I will call for Berhalter's head right then. He may be a good dude and hard worker, but he is not capable of handling the ball and providing service needed. He was our worst player on the pitch last night, which is really saying something. Zardes was our second worst, and that is ignoring the deflection off his head into our goal. I am trying to think if there was one productive thing Lleget did all night. The three of them (Roldon, Zardes, Lleget) should not see the pitch at all on Wednesday evening.

oh no said:

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it was wonky because none of their players on the front post got a touch or a glancing header or anything to score that ball. They hit Zardes with that corner and he failed to clear it or do anything productive with it- block it, control it, etc. He whiffed- screening Turner in the process. Inexcusable mistake by Zardes, and really lucky for Panama because I bet if you hit 20 more corners right at that front post, Zardes clears it out all 20 times.

Sure they need to clean that up and be better, but overall the team has been pretty decent on set pieces. My point is that Zardes mistake on the defensive set piece is not why they lost. ZERO shots on goal. Discombobulated midfield and uninspired attacking players.

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Becuase of how we defended it, Zardes had to react to the ball heading right at 3 players unmarked, moving TOWARDS his goal.
This is just another thing that goes back to coaching and Gregg.

oh no said:

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Zardes mistake on the defensive set piece is not why they lost. ZERO shots on goal. Discombobulated midfield and uninspired attacking players.

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I totally agree, but I'll add that Zardes played like bullcrap the entire game...

agreed.

...why not Hoppe for Weah instead of Roldan? What did Gregg think Roldan was going to do in the 2H?

...and Busio, or someone, anyone, on for Lleget? Or bring Adams on for Lleget instead of Musah? We didn't really have any creative attacking central midfielders available anyway, but I think any of them can try to act like a #10 better than Lleget can play 8 or 10.

..and critique Moore all you want, but how is Yedlin on for Moore not a waste of a sub? We badly needed a goal so we switch out an attacking wing-back defender for a traditional right back... while Aaronson is gassed and jogging out there down the stretch.

Whatever you feel about Acosta and Lletget normally, if you are going strictly off how the game is going it is mindblowing that neither player was subbed out. That is indefensible

Definitely not the right kind of turn in the central midfield in that moment. Need to check your shoulder and make quick decisions and solve problems centrally, and a square ball when checking towards the ball - a negative pass might be the best decision, but we need players that are always thinking about how we're going to break lines and advance the ball to the attacking 3rd.. Lleget makes negative passes to keep possession far too often. In that moment, there is no man-on. No one coming at him. A first touch turn forward and he can take another touch forward, draw a defender in, and find a diagonal ball going forward rather than the negative pass.. he was playing scared on the road.

I agree with both of y'all.

Roldan is a freaking magician man - every WCQ game he subs in and then disappears. Seriously. I'd love to see his stats on touches (I tried to find stats and failed). It was insane that he came on instead of Hoppe.

And yes, we absolutely needed Busio on for Lletget or Acosta.

As bad as Zardes was, I'd have rather seen him stay on and get our midfield sorted out. Sure his lack of touches was partly due to bad runs, but it was mostly due to the **** midfield… and the fact that our defense lost possession so often.

There weren't enough subs to fix such a crappy starting 11.

That was not our "best 11" from this squad, but on paper, that lineup should have been good enough to at least draw with Panama. It's a problem when Ariola and Zimmerman are the best performers out there when you needed it to be guys like Musah and Weah though. …and if Greggg is expecting some break out performance from Lleget, it's not coming. Lleget needs to be connecting all of his passes, not turning the ball over, and making things happen going forward; not backwards. We can recycle through the 6 or the 4-5 if we need negative passes to keep possession and switch the field.

This may have already been mentioned (I did not read every post so I apologize), but first touch was important against this team because Panama was clearly pressing hard on every touch and their philosophy was to challenge our technical ability against their athleticism. It worked. We had so many sloppy first touches and lazy passes that played right into their tactic. Whoever #4 is needs to be benched, way too sloppy to be a NT MF, he stuck out like a turd in a punch bowl, but there were others that did not handle pressure and tight spaces. We were challenged to play technical and failed. Bottoms line. Play proper and high level soccer and we wouldn't have had to worry about corners.

PatAg said:

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Walker Zimmerman: “we need to have the confidence to play.”

Not hard to see who he could be talking about when this is the kind of tempo that was established in the opening 5 minutes

Watch Musah try to spark an attack and watch Lletget immediately take it backwards pic.twitter.com/cnRGE5wI2f

— MLS Buzz (@MLS_Buzz) October 11, 2021

what the **** are we doing here

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The worst part is he had optionS (not one option,not 2, but 3 options) to go forward with the ball. He could have played back to Musah or gone out wide to Bello, or Weah, all 3 of whom were open and available.

Roldon and Lleget are nice complimentary players to have on the bench if needed, but they are not your "must get a goal so bring him in" guy or your "boss the midfield for 90 minutes and create opportunities" guy.

Given our depth at the wings and midfield, I really see no need for them to ever be on the pitch except as "bring in for last 10 minutes to help defend a lead" guy.

Really unfortunate he wasn’t available for the Panama match…oh wait https://t.co/ioOSY3jbAE

— American Hooligans🇺🇸⚽️ (@AmericanHoolis) October 12, 2021

de la Torre needs to be given a longer run out tomorrow.

+ we get Weston back (haven't seen or heard any injury news?) hopefully.

Lleget and Acosta played a full 90 on Sunday in Panama. I don't think we see them at all tomorrow. We shouldn't anyway.

Adams, McKennie, and de la Torre or Musah. I hope.

I like de la Torre and Musah coming on for one another. They are very similar in their skill set and both can carry the ball and drive at back lines well. Having Adams and McKennie back in the starting lineup with one of Musah or de la Torre will be huge.

Costa Rica tomorrow is a must win otherwise its the 2018 cycle all over again.

Finally watched the match off the dvr. In espanol.

Acosta really sucks at free kicks. He should probably not do that anymore.
Nipple was a pest, but didn't really do anything and still sucks. He sucks monkey nutz.
Where the F is Hoppe? He crack a cancer joke around Gregg and land in the doghouse?
That team looked like a Steve Samson team.
Pepi is 18 years old. I don't think playing a couple games with 2-3 days off in between is going to affect him. Say Gregg, you know that kid that is scoring all your goals and is the talk of the soccer world? Maybe play that guy and not Skunk head and Nipple. Just a thought.

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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Finally watched the match off the dvr. In espanol.

Acosta really sucks at free kicks. He should probably not do that anymore.
Nipple was a pest, but didn't really do anything and still sucks. He sucks monkey nutz.
Where the F is Hoppe? He crack a cancer joke around Gregg and land in the doghouse?
That team looked like a Steve Samson team.
Pepi is 18 years old. I don't think playing a couple games with 2-3 days off in between is going to affect him. Say Gregg, you know that kid that is scoring all your goals and is the talk of the soccer world? Maybe play that guy and not Skunk head and Nipple. Just a thought.

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Milwaukees Best Light said:

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Finally watched the match off the dvr. In espanol.

Acosta really sucks at free kicks. He should probably not do that anymore.
Nipple was a pest, but didn't really do anything and still sucks. He sucks monkey nutz.
Where the F is Hoppe? He crack a cancer joke around Gregg and land in the doghouse?
That team looked like a Steve Samson team.
Pepi is 18 years old. I don't think playing a couple games with 2-3 days off in between is going to affect him. Say Gregg, you know that kid that is scoring all your goals and is the talk of the soccer world? Maybe play that guy and not Skunk head and Nipple. Just a thought.

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I agree 100%...

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