The U.S. men’s national team entered the 2023 Concacaf Gold Cup as reigning champions of the tournament, and although many would’ve expected a more complete performance against Jamaica on Saturday night, the fight inside the squad remained the same as before.
Matt Turner’s key penalty-kick save paired with Brandon Vazuqez’s 88th minute equalizing goal helped the Americans avoid a first group stage loss since 2011 in Saturday’s 1-1 comeback draw. Jamaica was dangerous in the opening stages of the match, but the USMNT benefitted from a failed clearance in the box as Vazquez delivered an instant impact off the bench.
“I knew I had to make a movement in the box. I live for that,” Vazquez said postmatch. “It means the world to me. I think we have an extremely talented group. To be able to come in and make a difference, I’m extremely proud.”
Not only did Vazquez play a key role in the 90+ minutes, but veteran shot-stopper Turner also came up clutch when needed. With the Americans already down 1-0 thanks to Damion Lowe’s headed finish after 13 minutes, Turner denied Leon Bailey from the penalty spot after Aidan Morris was whistled in the box for a foul.
Turner, who is one of five USMNT players that was also part of last week’s Nations League Final Four roster, made his moment count and ultimately kept the Americans from falling into a big hole before halftime.
“He’s a player that came to us and wanted to play both tournaments,” Callaghan said of Turner “His commitment to this team, the commitment to the craft, and then I always say big players make big plays. And Matt made a big play there where I think it also shifted the momentum a little bit with that. So those are what we expect.
“That was his moment to step up, and it’s the same thing we preach to all of the guys, that when your number is called, you’re going to be expected to step up,” Callaghan added about Turner.
The USMNT will be happy with its fight back to earn one point on home soil, but ultimately previous scoring chances were left on the table. Jordan Morris, DeAndre Yedlin, Alan Sonora and Aaron Long missed key chances in the first half before second-half substitutions such as Vazquez and Cade Cowell added a spark in the final third.
Luckily for the USMNT, its toughest group stage match is now behind it, with Trinidad & Tobago and Saint Kitts and Nevis still approaching on the schedule over the next week. However, Jamaica knew that its chance to claim three points was missed, allowing the USMNT to grind its way back and level things up before the 90th minute whistle.
“Normally we take a little bit of time to get going. But this is also a very good U.S. team,” said Jamaica goalkeeper Andre Blake. “We lacked the killer instinct. We needed to score that second goal. We had the chances. Unfortunately, when you let a very good U.S. team hang around, playing in the US, they’re always one goal away from getting back into the game.
“I have to give, and I want to give U.S. credit,” said Jamaica manager Heimir Hallgrímsson. “There was a lot of energy in their team. I think that was where they had the upper hand. They are in season; young, energetic team. A lot of our players are coming from a break from their season, so I knew this game would be tricky.”
It’s June 26, 2023.
It’s a little early to be having final exams for the 2026 WC roster or even the Copa America 2024 rosters. The worst player was Aidan Morris and he may yet rebound.
The games at this point can help a player make a positive case for themselves and give everyone a feel for what it’s like to play for the national team but even if they suck it doesn’t necessarily send them permanently to the outer darkness.
That’s why, contrary to what some think, clubs matter. They give a player a chance to improve and make a case for another shot at a call up.
I’m not sure if it is 26 or 23 players but , with Gregg Selection Rules back in force, we can be sure that Aaron Long, Christian Roldan, Jesus Ferreira and Paul Ariolla are locks for both rosters.
So we’re basically looking at 19 to 21 spots.
By the way, a lot of you hated Yedlin on this roster. But with no Weston or Kellyn around out he (and possibly Miazga) are the only hard men we have. This USMNT is generally soft. Someone has to handle the dark side.
It used to be said that Greg would always call up Lletget, or even Will Trapp. And then he stopped calling them up. At some point, Roldan, Arriolla and Long will no longer be called up. Maybe we’re at that point already, unless it’s a B/C team. Which, by definition, means that those players are longshots at best to make the Copa America or World Cup roster.
Ferreira I think only strengthened his case with his play against Jamaica. Maybe striker is not his best spot, but he clearly adds something, even with the A team.
johnny, i want him to weed out trapp and co. but ideally to do so on sufficiently quick a timescale where they don’t hog tons of caps at the expense of others. like ideally not a geological or astronomical timescale. as in, you get a game or two, and the ones that stayed made a consistent positive impression. how many games did it take to weed out zardes? jozy? bradley? trapp? etc.
speed up the editing process. and part of that to me is cutting non-performers, but part of it is also not handing them uncontested roles to start with, unearned, where it’s like, how dare you tell me my starting _____ shouldn’t even make the team. but in so many cases, it was true.
anyhow, my point, roldan is on 30+ caps now, if you haven’t seen it, it’s not happening. neal got his window in january, i thought he looked like a weak link, done, on to the next one.
people’s diss towards me of this is not a development team cuts both ways. you get your window. you either make it work or not. your hype favorite doesn’t deserve a longer plank than my experiment. marginal trialists who cost us games should be done for a couple years. period. it sounds harsh to some but i think the process would move faster if there were actual performance “teeth.” as in one got kept for playing well or punished for not. that also serves as motivation for the team to show up and play hard and creative. merely showing up and fulfilling the coach’s white board dream — whether playing bad or not — no longer suffices.
and as far as i am concerned this is how the team operated for decades pre-berhalter. analytics did not override track record. robles didn’t get 10 more chances to prove haiti 2-2 was a fluke. sometimes a guy was a one-game flash in the pan but i’d rather be deciding between zendejas and djordje, guys who have played well in their time but perhaps mixed bag, vs. giving neal or miazga one minute more. “oh, but you’re being so harsh, but the U20 tournament, but FC cincy. comes back months, years later — same player.” why did i just waste another cap, or worse, a 6 game tournament run?
Anything is possible.
Gregg did bring Roldan and Aaron Long to Qatar for no apparent reason.
But Gregg is finally getting smart about it.
His mistake with Lletget was he played him too much and exposed him for the one trick pony that he is.
With Roldan and Long, he got smart and limited their minutes.
Ferreira did well in this game. It was getting close but, fortunately for him, Jesus’ minutes with the A team will now be limited with the emergence of Flo, Gio, Pepi and possibly LDLT, Zendejas and maybe Sonora. And Josh Sargent, Pefok, Dike, etc. may yet be recalled. So Jesus is now safe.
Gregg’s attachment to “HIS” guys is extremely strong.
Jesus has been given 18 caps, two years and a World Cup to make his case. How many other players get that much of a chance to make the B team?
I’m sure if a reporter asked him about Aaron he would give a rousing powerful defense of Aaron’s character, inner strength and his personality. Long is a great person, someone to root for.
But I doubt Gregg would be able to defend his actual playing ability. I know this because I recently heard Jesse give that exact defense for Aaron Long. His coaches love the guy.
This is not a bad thing.
“His” guys are like a security blanket that Gregg needs to perform well .
Give him what he needs. We’re talking about guys at the end of the roster who are unlikely to play a minute. Is it fair? To who? Other bubble guys who might play 5 minutes? Konrad De La Fuente?
It’s Gregg’s ass on the line. If he thinks these guys make the whole unit better by making a better off the field contribution to the frat boys, we may think that’s BS but that’s his call.
For better or worse, Gregg is building another fraternity. Another Delta Tau Chi. Years from now they will be the good old boys club.
And anyway, who cares about fairness?
jesus has 8G 4A in 19 caps. mind you, a lot of those are from about 2 games (tnt, grenada), but still, his involvement is more “relative,” as in, should it be him, vazquez, wright, or pefok. to me i am not going to freak out too much if you’re on the B team if that’s the nature of the discussion. it implies you’re productive and borderline and debatable. there’s a list for GB that for most coaches ever around this thing wouldn’t be debatable. we already named some of the oldies. roldan is one of the current ones. seanjohn, long, busio off this roster. steffen, horvath, mckenzie, hoppe off some recent ones. every coach has 1 or 2. bornstein, olsen, etc. this is still a list. to me part of the job is the selection is smarter than the average fan and not lagging behind it/perseverating.
i still think it has something to do with analytics or something because NT performance doesn’t seem to justify the decisions but they happen anyway.
i still think some of it is previously numbers or scouting or an idea in the coach’s head of your value would open a door, but performance would walk you through it. give or take the odd play like the slide tackle on honduras, i have no idea how roldan is objectively on the team. he would get run out as a sub chasing the game at 19 gold cup in the final and nothing would happen. he was one of the least effective subs the other night, we turned it around, but it wasn’t him. usually you earn minutes. i know he has decent MLS stats but they never have translated. there has to be some chalkboard or paper based obsession that explains this. some spreadsheet column they are looking for and he in theory provides. i don’t get it.
Mr IV,
“i still think some of it is previously numbers or scouting or an idea in the coach’s head of your value would open a door, but performance would walk you through it. …………… i don’t get it.”
You say you don’t get why these USMNT managers do what they do?
I suspect that one big reason might be because they never tell anyone why they do what they do. At least they don’t tell the fans.
If they did that you wouldn’t have to agree with them or even believe them but at least you’d have a starting point. Right now we mostly have a lot of speculation. Which is fun but ultimately a little frustrating.
In American sport, for example, in the NFL and the NBA, the media is overpopulated with pundits who are either ex-players, coaches or executives (general managers) or analysts who have spent much of their lives studying their specific game.
If there is an NFL or NBA game, player, team, executive, season or era that has not been analyzed to death and recorded somewhere, I’d be shocked.
So, if you’re a fan of those leagues and you want to know how every single aspect of why the Steelers, the 49’ers or whoever did what they did, there’s probably something or someone somewhere with some authority or gravitas and authenticity that will explain it to you.
That is probably because there is such a huge demand from US sports fans and because, in comparison, there is no shortage of players, coaches, managers, GM’s executives, or media people who have spent the balance of their lives studying their game and their business. who will gladly explain every detail of it.
But with the USMNT that kind of interest and media attention has only recently, in a comparative sense, been brought to bear.
As we are all so keenly aware now, the US soccer world is very much a small town, Mean Girls kind of world. It’s hard to imagine a Gregg/Claudio/Danielle dustup happening in the NFL or the NBA. I still don’t understand why Earnie didn’t just tell Claudio and Danielle that they were being unprofessional and to go fuck themselves in the most professional manner of course.
Instead no one seems to want to step out of line for fear of being shunned. Look at Eric Wynalda. And look at his counterpart, Toady Lalas, USSF apologist.
And all the recent USMNT managers, Bruce, Bob, JK, Dave, Hudson, are still in the game somewhere and none of them have written that great tell all book yet.
It wouldn’t make the kind of money that, for example, Jason Garrett would make if he wrote a similar book about his time with the Cowboys. And they would quickly make the kind of enemies that none of them need to make.
So, there is not a lot of incentive to be open and honest.
When was the last time you saw all of them in a candid round table discussion or podcast about the USMNT where they would answer the questions you have?
I see programs like that about teams in the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc., etc. on a fairly regular basis.
For example, I would love to see a series of roundtable discussions featuring
Managers
Arena, Bob, JK,
Executives
Dane Murphy, Sunil Gulati,
Players
Danny Karbassiyoon, Hugo Perez, Herc Gomez, Boca, Landon, Jon Spector, David Beckham, DMB and Ben Olsen.
All injected with truth serum. Or at least drunk.
This kind of coverage and in-depth scholarship is probably found in other countries, but in terms of volume and accessibility we’re a little behind the curve here. But the demand may be growing.
In the US Alexi Lalas is touted as a knowledgeable authority on US soccer. That should make your blood run cold. And it tells you all you need to know. I remember Alexi being paired up with Michael Ballack on the coverage of, I believe, the 2014 World Cup. I remember watching Ballack closely and you could almost see him thinking ” this clown is what passes for an expert on football in America?” It was acutely embarrassing.
On one level that’s fine with me. Sports analysis in this country is way overkill as it is. I tend to watch USMNT games with the sound off. I don’t worry about who isn’t playing and how old they are. I just enjoy the game and prefer to think that the players and managers are who I hope they are, not the blockhead scumbag unpleasant people that they might really be.
Don’t forget Haji Wright! That dude is terrible.
here’s a sensible process. player x plays club. NT scouts club. NT likes x. NT calls x. NT plays x some. x either plays well or sucks. x now has NT track record. i can compare him to the team he was called up with. i can compare him to recent players at his position. i can assess how good or bad i thought he was. why on earth at that point am i going back to club scouting?
i think we’ve have gone through this 20 million times where we know that a streak for his team doesn’t mean x scores for us. he may even score for us when out of fashion for his club.
i get that a rookie or long term omit can only trade in club scouting. here is how i do for club. email/call me. that is a proxy for their nonexistent recent/ever NT appearances. but an existing player has a track record for the NT. that is more telling how they can handle NT games than going back to club like they are some 19 year old with no cap history.
we have a finite number of games and roster slots. if you spend those on regulars you only learn so much. and if you spend them on players who suck cap 1, that’s game 2 that y doesn’t get to compete with x. why? because you think we’ve been harsh to x? how many games does a dud get before i can call him a dud?
personally i’d rather spend my time on y, z, a, b, c. someone with more hope for the roster than x. to me repeatedly calling x as either a second chance or “because club form” can often be just perseverating about your hopes or analytics. “but i thought it would work.” “but his numbers said he would _______.”
how many times does, say, roldan or neal, get before we can move on? to me this used to be done a lot more (a) ruthless and (b) with finality. you played well, you got brought back. cumulatively this gives you a team of players who, ummm, play well when played by the NT. not a dumb idea for a NT. you played indifferent or literally cost the team, you disappeared. this encourages good effortful play and reduces potential weak links.
worse i think this can become the experience paradox. neal is here because he is experienced. ignore how the experience actually went. assume he is better than any other option or “gets the system” better than they ever could. based on what i can see kid is just trying to keep his head over water. i really think we should avoid this sort of “B team loop” tautology where like the january bunch just kind of “is” the B team, because someone had a plan, no matter that they lost once and tied twice. they then come to GC and…..tie another one. to me if you can’t win a game that’s nudging me i had the wrong B team. time to try someone else. at that point i could care less what i thought i saw on paper. and to use my time wisely this should have been obvious back in january on many. are we seriously going to re-debate january because we thought they played well in club in april? soccer is not magic. players don’t usually change that fast. we then surprise surprise get about the same exact player back.
You’re trying to make it sound as if it is an exact science, one that you have invented.
It’s not.
Arena followed your plan at Couva. They had under-30 youth, Pulisic, and many players with a very distinguished record of accomplishment in USMNT shirt, including a still very lethal Clint Dempsey. There was absolutely no rational reason why they could not have scored at least one goal to tie that game. But they did not, did they?
Shit happens a lot more than you think.
The process is always a case by case basis.
Performance in a USMNT shirt counts more than club performance, yes, but only to a point.
After the Jamaica game:
• Flo has 2 caps, 1 goal
• Ferreira has 19 caps and 8 goals and went to the World Cup
Ferreira has the better track record yet barring injury or something really weird, Flo is our forever #9.
And if you’re talking merit, Jesus has dropped from a starting #9 to somewhere on the fringes. He’ll have to beat out Flo, Pepi, Pulisic, Weah, Gio, Zendejas, Sonora, Jonny, LDLT, Ariolla, Morris, Wright, Josh, Vasquez, Pefok, Dike and Cowell for an attacking role of some kind.
A certified Gregg favorite, Jesus will be on the Copa and WC 2026 roster but in what spot we don’t know yet.
All managers, even Gregg, want to pick the roster of players that they believe give them the best chance to win. The best any manager can do is exam ALL the data he has and then deal with what’s in front of them and this is particularly stark for National team managers.
We can disagree with their choices but it makes no sense to think that they don’t try to do their best. After all the more often they get a result, the more likely they are to keep their job.
And that means there is:
• Club performance data
• USMNT performance data
• The managers personal experience data with that player, from his research of his personal network, info from his friends and contacts, any previous personal encounters with the player and most of all from what he sees in training, which is something you and I have no access to.
I have no idea if you would be a better USMNT manager than Gregg.
And I have never said that Gregg knows more about soccer than you do.
But I am 100% certain that he has access to a lot more information about the players and the entire situation than anyone on SBI does. Theoretically then , Gregg or BJ , are better placed to make a good decision on the players. Not that they will.
I’m sure if you had access to the same info you would do better but then life isn’t fair.
The result will be out there for all to see.
After that, the fun part about second guessing a manager is trying to figure out what he knows that you don’t and why he did what he did.
V: that is complete bull. arena did not try youth or experiment at couva. arena called a bunch of O-30s on their last NT legs. dempsey, wood, feilhaber, guzan, howard, rimando, nguyen, bradley, cameron, gonzo, villafana, besler, nagbe, jozy, beasley, zusi, bedoya, etc. etc. this is not some short, selected list around kids. that is what i call “old man soccer.” and it didn’t work. other than christian it was older than dirt. c’mon now.
half the reason the “field was open” for all these U20s the following 2022 cycle was how old and bad the 2018 cycle team had gotten. the other half is then their own talent. but they walked into a team with huge swiss cheese holes from almost everyone retiring or becoming useless. keeper emptied out. MF had already emptied by about 2016. (jones, beckermann, etc.) christian is one of the few holdovers left.
be real. we all know the real debates at the time were (a) should he give mckennie an early call? (no.) or (b) should he shift towards the GC 2017 team that won that summer with some younger players. (no.). he instead went back to his O-30 usual suspects. one presumes, “experienced,” “battle tested.” he then lost the costa rica and tnt games. he didn’t pay any attention to how the battles had actually gone. and that was that.
side point, i have seen the 2014 and 2018 cycles as we had a very poor development period, where for years maybe pulisic was all that emerged elite. i thought JK plugged the hole with his germans and negative tactics salvaging 2014. the team then began getting old and crappy again and he got fired. if there is an interesting question it’s whether a selective inclusion of some of those germans might have gotten him through, say, couva. like if i am going to see omar, eff it, brooks is better than that. or villafana vs. chandler or FJ.
it was either that (germans) or actually play younger players. but the argument he lost because of going young is laughable. that was a bunch of old farts mostly playing their last cap ever (or should have been). if i criticize GB it’s that some of that era’s guys (zardes, bradley, jozy, etc) somehow had another go beginning of last cycle. like he literally struggled to “get” why 2018 had happened and had to slowly work his way towards this newer bunch simply being better.
V- related point, but you do not accurately describe my sense of how the selection process previously went. under prior coaches the rosters would mostly be picked on who had played well in prior NT games. the last guy to make a world cup roster might be on a streak, using that criteria as a tiebreaker against some other marginal debatable choice. we might pick january camp based on club numbers. you might get 20′ in a normal friendly based on club numbers. if those low risk opportunities went well, you might then get longer chances in tougher games. in short, scouting or analytics might open a door. you had to walk through it yourself. if your 20′ was indifferent or bad that was the end of it. if you used your minutes well, like pulisic, you got more serious usage. but the first, second, and third selection criteria were “how did his games go.”
maybe the last guy on the team made it because he had 15 goals in league. and history showed that some people picked for that kind of reason — say, wondo — let us down at the world cup if they were forced on the field. we didn’t think he’d play. or we thought he’d be streaky ready. nope. jozy goes down hurt. he misses the sitter.
so i’d argue still stick to NT play.
i don’t doubt that GB has shifted to a process that now considers more (a) reputation, (b) club stats, and other factors. that is not how we have generally run important games. those historically have been scouting factors to get you sub minutes in trial. to then test if you can do it in an international game. no, now balogun goes right into the starting lineup. no 20′ test. but so did pepi, ferreira, dest, etc. only as further talent accumulates are we reconsidering whether they should have been just handed the jobs they got off paper alone. to be clear, even pulisic had to serve his 10′ cameo apprenticeship.
you act like NT play is also “paper” or co-equal. no. if the question is what should his role on NT be, or is he worthy, primary indicator is how did his last NT cap go. everything else is a proxy or guess. is using some other team to guess how our team works. we should always favor how it went on this team. duh. 95% of people picked for club stats should be uncapped or have been off the team a year or three. if you haven’t played for the US in years, or never, yeah, what do your club numbers look like. more pointedly, how do you play?
sorry but to me a lot of this points to analytics (spreadsheets) trying to shove aside scouting (eyes). arena was critical of GB on this very basis. and to me it explains the glacial progress on pushing out unworthy players. it takes years to shove out people i knew sucked their first cap. that can only be that the coach has some idea in their head, or some number on a paper, that is overriding how the games go.
sorry but to me it verges on well duh to keep around the players who impress in the games. to accumulate on a roster a team of ones who do. once i am in that process so what if some NT scrub went back and had a nice club season. that is some other team.
I view the glass as half full. This team was thrown together at the last second and is almost completely different from the team we had only a week ago. The young players will do better as they acclimate and, hopefully, the veterans will have a moment of self reflection (or a boot up their backside) and start performing like the experienced players they are supposed to be.
no, they put out a provo list several weeks ahead that already seemed a tad conservative, and they announced their GC list around the beginning of NL when some teams were giving theirs after our final. such that robinson is being carried injured on our 23. plus, so much of this roster was predictable from a sort of secondary pool of players who had seen january and mexico friendly action together. the irony of the whole thing to me is they can barely beat anyone this year with the Bs — though probably will handle st. kitts and tnt — and yet the Bs are kept together like we are training the baby dream team or something. the results and certain performances should be shouting, no, not this unit as a group, no, not him specifically. and yet…….
Taylor Booth attracting interest from a host of clubs including Manchester United and Lyon.
Aidan Morris is in over his head. Good player but not enough to start for the USMNT B-Team
Alan Soñora looked a step behind every play. A good sub at best. Not enough to start for the USMNT
Jordan Morris has lost THE ONLY THING that made him an asset…….Speed. With the jets gone at 28 I think he should be on standby.
The USMNT B-squad camp should rely heavily on:
Midfielders:
Djordje Mihailovic**
Luca de la Torre
James Sands**
Brenden Aaronson (as a Midfielder)
Taylor Booth
Julian Green
Kellyn Acosta
Forwards:
Haji Wright
Jordan Pefok
Malik Tillman
Brandon Vazquez**
Jesus Ferreira**
Cade Cowell**
Álex Zendejas**
There are so many better players BJ Callaghan could have called in to look at. We dont have all the details but I think this particular Gold Cup list is an opportunity wasted as far as future player review and evaluation.
The U-20s just finished their WC. I am not sure any of those players who are not on the Gold Cup roster would make much difference. Luna might get some credit in my book just for being a big pain in the ass for opponents, but I am not sure a player whose forte is pure aggressiveness would be a step up. In any case those U-20s got a good look already. What older players would you have invited? Surely none of the hand-full who will be looking to earn a starting spot on their club team in Europe over the next few weeks. Acosta and Tillman (both of them were injured). Wright and Pefok have had multiple call-ups, what would you learn from calling them in? Green is skillful, but he is no longer a young unknown.
The U-20s should be integrated during friendlies…..not actual competition. You field players that are good enough to make the first team but are subs or were not selected for some reason or another. Again:
Midfielders:
Luca de la Torre – CM /RM /AM
Brenden Aaronson (as a Midfielder) – AM /CM / LM
Taylor Booth – CM / RW /RB
Julian Green (28) – CM / AM / LM
Forwards:
Haji Wright – CF / RW / LW
Jordan Pefok – CF
The Gold Cup is a tournament……..a competition with historical regional prestige. We should call in the players that are A-team bench players (not getting play time / starting) or who are playing at a high level but probably didn’t make the A-Team based purely on maybe necessity, requirement and form (lost spot to someone better at the position in the system). We have all the midfielders and forwards (who call actually score goals) listed above and we call in Aiden Morris, Julian Gressel (29), Christian Roldan (28) and Jordan Morris (28)???
Maybe there is something restricting their call-ups, but I just think, with the backup talent we have, we should have put out a way stronger team.
You would learn a lot more with some guys who were left off the roster than with Long and Miazga (the two worst center back pairing ever), and Yedlin , J Morris and Roldan who have no business being on the national team’s A.B,C.D…or Z side . You don’t gain anything with these guys. The USSF and the national team coach need to move on from these players as they have nothing to contribute to our future A team in 2026. Now, since the roster is set, I would start Reynolds over Yedlin. I would also start Mihailovic because of his creativity and probably Neal in the next game. It seems more like the USSF wants to promote MLS in this tournament when they should have probably brought in players like Palmer brown (Troyes), Brooks (Hoffenheim ) , che (Bundesliga- Hoffenheim), Trusty, (Birmingham City). There are few other players as well that could have been brought.