Gregg Berhalter’s first opportunity to field a full-strength U.S. Men’s National Team is finally here, and Thursday’s friendly against Ecuador in Orlando should provide the USMNT coach with plenty of insight after months of planning and preparation.
USMNT fans will be hoping for a win, and for some promising performances from standouts like Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams, but for Berhalter the team’s March friendlies against Ecuador and Chile are more about beginning to build a body of work that will help him shape the team.
“It’s all about expectation, we know this game isn’t going to be perfect but it’s important to start,” Berhalter said. “We began talking to players in between camps with video, but it’s a different thing to do it on the field. We started to do that in training with the limited time we had and we will continue in the game. We will use the game as an evaluation period of what we want to build on going forward.”
“We’re in the process of forming that identity,” Berhalter said. “We want to be a team that competes and is brave. We want to give teams a tough time and create goalscoring opportunities. I would look at this phase as another step in the development and I think we will continue to figure out who we are as time goes on.”
Nine foreign-based players were included in this camp while several MLS players were brought back in from January. Some younger players like Josh Sargent and Timothy Weah were not included, but Bundesliga standouts Tyler Adams, Christian Pulisic, and Weston McKennie got the nod and will continue their growth at national team level.
The group doesn’t have a lot of time to figure out every single detail that Berhalter wants to execute, but they will get a sense of his ideas. With the Gold Cup just under three months away, these friendlies will be a part of the evaluation process of picking out which players can bring what Berhalter wants to the table and which ones cannot.
“It’s a change but sometimes that can be good,” McKennie said. “Before we had a little more free time in between camps but Gregg has ideas of how he wants us to play, what we wants us to do, and an overall style to the group. Knowing we weren’t in the January camp with some of these guys, it had us a little behind but he’s been great in helping us get up to speed and I think that will make us better.”
“It’s been great to be back and it’s been good to try and get involved with what Gregg wants to do,” Pulisic said. “He wants to play soccer, he wants to play the game, he wants us to build out of the back. It’s a style of play which I think is good and it’s what the country needs. It’s been positive.”
Like the USMNT, Ecuador is coming off a year without involvement in the World Cup. The CONMEBOL side has talent on its roster with Antonio Valencia, Enner Valencia, and Carlos Gruezo being the marquee names in the squad.
Unlike Panama and Costa Rica, Ecuador will provide a different challenge for the USMNT, and the goal after 90 minutes will be to get better as a unit and continue to grow the chemistry between this group of players.
“We’ve been studying [Ecuador] a lot,” Berhalter said. “They have some fantastic players. What I like about Ecuador is they have very diverse profiles. They have some players that are very skillful and some others who are very physical and strong. It leads to a very difficult team to play against and an exciting matchup for us. They are a very interesting team but we have become more familiar with them.”
“Compete” and “make things tough for the other team” have always struck me as the things bad team coaches say. If I am the bigger dog I am not trying to compete and make this victory hard for you. I am confident in success and focused on my game. Now my game may be a defend and counter strategy. But a winner coach would describe that as “we’re going to defend hard as a unit and counter when the opportunities present themselves.” Again, we are not mid-table Columbus. We have historically been 1 or 2 in this region for the past 30 years. Act like it.
There’s been a number of matches over the last three years when we did neither of those things. There are very few coaches in the world that at the pre-match press conference are going to say anything different than we are going to compete and make things hard for the opponent. That doesn’t mean that is what he is saying to the team behind closed doors, it is coach speak, avoiding bulletin board material.
The one time he had a team in a MLS final, at home, they came out flat as a pancake, were down 2-0 within 15 minutes, and lost. Other than that he coached a midtable plucky team. Forgive me for taking him at his word that in taking over a team that missed the World Cup, that he talks about us like a mid-table team that hopes to give the real winners a game on their way to our success. I would grant that a couple games in recent years they quit, but this is highly unusual and basic professionalism. My bar is a bit higher than basic professionalism and hoping to be plucky. Your apologetics are insulting to recent history. It’s like we’re back in 1986 and not a repeat qualifier that has been as good as a quarterfinal team. Act like it.
I count 8 who are Euro based given the option to pick as he pleased. I count 3 players over 30 and a fourth who is 29.
How many of those 8 are playing for the U23s that you said he was lying about having matches?
Misleading, as usual. First, I think the U23 team was in fact slapped together at the last minute when they managed to sign Kreis, as shown by the belated roster release. Second, your argument does not follow. Four guys who should have aged off the team are not explained by sending people to YNT. There are other age appropriate options. Players left off the senior team include: Zimmerman, Cannon, Parker, Moore, EPB, Green, Gall, Saief, Wood, and Nova. Most of them have aged out of YNT status and were simply left off in favor of old farts. There would have been some U23 options, too, but you vastly overdraw your apologia when you suggest that because some U23 isn’t there we can’t use some pretty good prime age players instead of 30 year old travesties who did things like literally blow qualifying.
I mean your implication seems to be that without using kids we can’t do better than Gonzo, Yedlin, Brooks, Ream, Miazga, and Lovitz. Sorry, no, it’s like he literally went down a list of problem-backs for the past 6 years and chose them all. He could have completed the team by adding Villafana and Cameron. That he wanted to run 3 camps in parallel does not explain why he chose the wrong senior players given that there are plenty of solid guys in their mid 20s who are not dribbling cones. The team is under construction but you don’t have to literally xerox Arena or field the worst LB i have seen in years because the U23s grabbed some people too.
You give me crap for “pecking order” but this is the very sort of thing that a pecking order coach does, which is that if he doesn’t have his pedigree favorite kids available, he resorts back to the players who used to start under the old coach. Because they are theoretical “next men up.” It’s like he didn’t watch the past 2 years and see who actually could defend. Many of the players who can defend are MLS grinders or low rent Europeans who aren’t the most fancied prospects. But for reasons beyond me GB only has kept around Lima and Long — who you will note he has already selected — of the people I think are here for performance. I don’t think a coach going off of, who have been the 8 best players in the shirt, would pick these defenders. I think a coach going off of, I don’t know what I am doing yet, so let me fall back on experience, would. He would then being ignored that experience went right off the cliff last cycle, and was outplayed by the no-names last year. The people he did pick it’s like, oh, that guy blew Peru, that guy lost CR, that guy lost Ireland, etc. Only Lima and Long appear to be on the team for positive performance in the shirt as opposed to because “he has started for us before and is experienced,” which is circular at this point.
What a joke.
Not misleading on Friday you were still talking about that this wasn’t happening. I tried to explain to you YNTs are different you don’t have to promote them, that things come out late. And you said that Berhalter and I were talking out of our “hats”. It was impossible to have a camp with U23s if it hadn’t been announced for months. You have to ask for players weeks in advance, this camp and matches were planned well ahead of time. The announcement of the roster was oddly late (a full day after the resort had posted pictures of the squad arriving and training) but it wasn’t slapped together last minute.