The U.S. men’s national team returned to winning ways on Saturday in Gregg Berhalter’s return as head coach of the program.
Tim Weah scored the opening goal at CITYPARK after only four minutes while Ricardo Pepi and Christian Pulisic both added stoppage time insurance goals in a 3-0 victory over Uzbekistan in St. Louis. Matt Turner registered a three-save clean sheet in the result.
Weston McKennie laid off a pass for Weah in the Uzbekistan box in the fourth minute before the 23-year-old rifled a right-footed shot into the bottom-left corner for a 1-0 advantage. The blistering strike propelled the USMNT into an early lead and one it would not relinquish over the 90 minutes.
Folarin Balogun struck the right post in the 16th minute before Luca De La Torre’s follow-up chance was saved by Uzbekistan’s Utkir Yusupov.
Khojiakbar Alijonov came close to tying the match for Uzbekistan in the 22nd minute but was denied by Turner’s left post from long-range.
Uzbekistan continued to cause problems for the USMNT as the match went on but Turner stayed busy with a pair of additional saves to keep the score 1-0.
Berhalter rotated several players in the second half, including bringing on Ricardo Pepi, Brenden Aaronson, Malik Tillman, and debutant Kristoffer Lund.
Aaronson and Pepi would team up to ice the USMNT’s win in the 91st minute as Pepi’s right-footed strike nestled into the bottom-left corner.
Tillman drew a penalty-kick opportunity in the 94th minute and Pulisic stepped up to add an insurance goal, capping the final score at 3-0. Despite having some poor moments in possession throughout the second half, the USMNT ended the match on a positive note.
The USMNT will close out its September schedule on Tuesday in St. Paul, Minnesota against Oman.
BA needs to play more imo. he fits GB’s tactics
if the plan is to rely on Gio, I have my doubts
UNLESS he decides to finally, finally, finally get into top top top physical shape and become a reliable option. Then YES, by all means!
but all those years shielded by mom and dad, silver spooned…how tough is he? He can do it but it’s a LOT of tough work, sacrifice, 24/7/365, to give his skills a chance to play
so far he is the classic glass jaw athlete, which sucks and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone
I hope he can overcome it. we’ll see
The US attack was not only slow, it was so predictable. Bring it up the flanks with the wing leading the way, followed by the defensive back. Sometimes the back overlaps, other times the wing cuts inside. When they cut inside Balogun was closely covered so that any entry pass was almost always knocked away, especially since the passes weren’t good. On overlaps then a cross that rarely bothered them. Another thing I thought was interesting/strange was a report from the sideline reporter. I can’t remember exactly what she said, but it sounded like GB was giving defensive instructions to Balogun, as if he were a defensive mid. I kind of wonder why we are playing a 4-3-3, if your center forward is mostly static, rarely sees the ball and you rely mostly on your wings to attack. Makes more sense to me to have a #10 or withdrawn forward, to arrive late and look for holes/opportunities and play a flexible 4-4-2, A 4-3-3 makes a lot of sense if you are playing an open game with a lot of attacking opportunities, but it doesn’t make sense to me when you are playing a slow, possession game against a team packing it in.
I also watched Germany vs. Japan which was instructive. Although Japan is a better team than Uzbekistan, I think Germany had a worse game than the US. Germany played offensively very similar to the US, focused on possession, slow to move the ball. Japan showed conclusively that possession may not count for much. They also showed how you should attack, albeit they were aided by horrible German defending. When the ball turned over the Japanese attacked like it was a jail break. Unlike the US, the first ball went into the middle, then it would be passed to the flanks as they approached the final third. Because Japan attacked quickly, it opened up holes in the German defense. Their wingers beat the defenders on pace and got off good crosses. While one goal was headed in, most were hard, low crosses that were then directed into goal by the feet of forwards. On just about every goal the attacker had about 2 or 3 yards of space. The Germans seemed to think that if they could see their attacker, that was good enough. Amazingly bad. The c commentator had an interesting point in the first half. He said, to paraphrase, “it seems to be trendy now to invert a fullback, but I don’t see that it gains much.” I think he was referring specifically to Kimmich who started at RB and was mostly invisible in the game. I’ve thought he has been one of the best German players the last 6 or 7 years and Flick, who has now been fired, just wasted him.
Gregg’s tactics are designed to put the opposition defense to sleep (much like he does the fan base) through slow circulation from side to side and hope for gaps to open. Against a side that packs it in and are disciplined these gaps just don’t exist. There were multiple times Balogun was looking for someone to slip the ball in behind the CBs quickly where he run onto it with space to operate. Instead the ball went wide and the attack slowed.
This team looked its best during the NL matches against Mexico & Canada when we were using the 4-2-3-1 and had Reyna as the attacking CM. The attack flowed more quickly and smoothly. The players appeared to be more comfortable and relaxed which translated to their play.
Your comment “I kind of wonder why we are playing a 4-3-3, if your center forward is mostly static, rarely sees the ball and you rely mostly on your wings to attack. Makes more sense to me to have a #10 or withdrawn forward,” is a dangerous one, as it lays the justification GGG’s guy Ferreira. And we all know how much Gregg is looking for any justification he can to validate his inclusion.
Ferreira is hardly the only option. One thing I was thinking is how we could so use Tyler Adams and Reyna. Adams is the stopper we need at defensive mid so that the other mids can do more attacking and Reyna provides a lot of creativity and flexibility. When Sargent gets healthy he needs to be brought back into the mix.
he also assumes teams are going to let you freely circulate the ball at will, which is not the case. as holland and japan showed, in 2022 — as opposed to harsher refereed 2006-2010 (where cards were handed out freely) — if you try and slowly work it through the center of a modern midfield you will pull back a nub and they will be off the other direction at full speed. nor do we have the central players to do it.
ferreira is an interesting debate point as to me he and sargent best fit a tiki taka style, more of a false 9. we seem to have shifted to Fs suited to being played behind defenses, but the offense isn’t designed to get them the balls they need. the actual crossed balls in are probably best designed for vazquez to head, which is absurd.
i think some players backed GB because they were told the alternative was marsch — ie was worse. i think until we demand quality we won’t get it. to me the tactical theories don’t even match the personnel drapes. people will now criticize me for complaining about the coach when to me we don’t look good nor do we routinely grind out tough results against good teams either. how many years does a project have to last?
Gary, how do we get the ball to Reyna if Adams is your DM? That is the rub. We need Tyler’s defensive prowess but the offense grinds to a halt when he’s got to progress the ball. Not only is progressive passing a limitation his ability to find spaces to receive and turn isn’t very good. So then we’ve got remove either Musah or McKennie. Easy right because McKennie is more goal dangerous so we drop Musah. But then McKennie is turnover prown when progressing the ball so again we’re stuck with how do we get the ball to Gio? That leaves us just bypassing Adams and letting Jedi and Dest do it which is right where we are now. We’ve got some shiny pieces but they tend to break down consistently and they don’t exactly fit together.
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That Crocker and Berhalter were going to sit down and figure out what needed to be fixed and set out a plan only to show us the exact same ideas is troubling. It’s one match after 3 or 4 days training so expecting cohesive change might be too much to ask but show us something. If you skipped the Gold Cup to just come up with moving your wings from the channels to the touch line so that your best players had even less space and were more disconnected that seems like a waste of time.
JR: in a MF you should have 2-4 other guys besides adams feeding the key attackers. when we tried running out soft passing 6s we were being run off the field by canada and mexico. you need a basic division of labor with at least one rough character in there to deal with the fact it’s a 2 team game and they’re trying to bust us up while we try and outfox them.
the real issue is if mckennie and musah are the twin 8s it’s a sloppy delivery system to those key players. very few teams rely on pirlo to do their creation instead. that’s like a unicorn. what we need more is a basic, functioning split of labor. adams and musah bust things up. pulisic and reyna do the creating. we keep trying to hybridize it and don’t quite get what we want out of the jack of all trades approach. we have better mids, they play wing or don’t get called (green), because they aren’t two-way hustlers. why can’t we delegated the mopping and get just a straight pure tidy passing 10 out there who can do the basic job right as opposed to just crash the box like a forward, which we already have 3 of?
i was saying some variation on this at the world cup already. we are a xerox of a xerox of a xerox of spain 2010, though more defensive — possession as hyper organized clock kill — than offensive — true tiki taka with positionlessness. the thing is spain 2010 was a known problem so everyone and their dog has adapted. you sit back, invite us up, crowd the midfield, win the ball, counter on us. like holland did.
the world has moved forward without us. there is the argentine model. sit back. defend. have one guy press. rest play for the counter. get it to messi and di maria. take people on by the dribble. we have only really tried even a hint of this under callaghan this summer with reyna. we instead want to have the pass do the work but pass slowly.
some more cutting edge alternatives are, say, france, which is sit back then wide speed, or the japan/morocco style, swarm midblock and counter with speed, or holland was sitting back then going almost kickball wide then cross.
there is innovation going on. it is not here. we have empowered a charlatan who is trying a weak defensive version of dutch 433 ball. which is almost a contradiction in terms. 433 is silly for defense and we have no plan for goals other than either cross or improvise. which is very very weird for a 433 which can be so creative if used right. like i cannot believe that the fanboys back this stuff because it’s like a weak weak weaksauce version of what they claim to want. IMO it’s a bait and switch. we talked c. 2011 about taking defenses on with messi dribbling. we then adopted hyper organized clock kill soccer that is scarcely an improvement on bradley’s style. probably worse as bradley’ idea was at least designed to exploit elite opposition’s attacking aggression on the counter. i don’t know what GB is trying to counteract with what he does. it’s like there’s not a second team on the field in his head……or it’s not very good…..
I watched the game on replay.
Puli lost 5 of his first 7 ball possessions in the first 30 minutes of the game. Yikes!
That’s how bad he played. He was just making wrong decisions in passes and dribbling.
I don’t get it, from so good in Nations League games to so bad last night. If Turner doesn’t have a spectacular game the USA loses last night. So many players just seemed lethargic. Pulisic and some others may not want to play for Berhalter?
3-0 sounds fine to me. Uzbeks have given many teams complications. Good on them to sit and counter.
Flo is still learning from his teammates and his teammates are still learning how flo wants the ball.
Not going to be drawn into a ranting war about Berhalter and his tactics. Team will get better.
Question? Would rather win 3-0 while struggling at times. Or lose1-0 after thoroughly dominating a team but can’t get a goal? Purpose of the game is to put that round ball across the line into a net. Doesn’t matter how it gets in their sometimes.
Did you even see the game? On several occasions they couldn’t even complete a simple give and go. Several times unforced giveaways, with Ream’s being the most egregious, a 15 yard pass right up the middle to a wide open Uzbek player, not even close to an American player, and on and on. It’s a good thing Turner came up big.
US played quickly with Luca. I rewatched the first half. Luca would slide between the front 3 and the 2 DMs, turn and either dribble thru the DMs or by pass them with quick passes. I kind of thought Uzbekistan was trying to play like Japan, lure you in with traps, but we got thru them easily with the experienced De La Torre. Tanner (unsurprisingly) in his first real cap was just too deliberate in finding the space and moving the ball. Ream had some really nice passes when Luca was on, you could see Ream and Richards just waiting on Tanner and sometimes Musah to get open.
2Tone,
Watch the last two games of the recent Nations League.
We beat Mexico and Canada.
We had essentially the same lineups. Look it up.
The team looked cohesive and played well and everyone was excited. They won a title, even if it was a minor crappy little thing, a title still a title.
The difference?
It was a friendly against a largely unfamiliar, low rated opponent so maybe I guys weren’t that into it.
The other difference is that BJ was in charge for the NL and Gregg is in charge for this turgid affair. Perhaps no one really wanted to be there. But that is shocking considering this was the first chance this group of players had to welcome back their beloved, well respected, much missed mentor.
This was a chance to celebrate the return of the man, the dear leader, who will take them to the promised land.
Instead everyone acts and plays like “whatever”.
The manager is responsible for how the team approaches a game.
This is not the end of the world but it’s a very shitty look and piss poor welcome back for Gregg.
Maybe the players are trying to tell you something.
A lot of other factors in their though too.
– NL neither side sat deep in an well organized low block
– most of the guys had something to prove after poor seasons in NL, this week most were gushing about how well their new clubs were
– Gio Reyna is really freaking good. Luca played pretty well and progressed the ball quickly but you don’t fear he’s going to score. Gio draws defenders and the eyes of everyone.
– Good news Uzbekistan beat Oman 3-0 in June so maybe the 2nd match will go better.
Vac, Musah doesn’t contribute much as an 8 offensively. He played as a 6 in Nations League and was very good. The difference between Reyna and LDLT is pretty drastic but it was really the diferrence between Reyna and Musah as an attacking player which is huge and the difference between Musah and LDLT as a 6 which is also huge. I don’t think LDLT even played a minute in Qatar. That said, I still think his tactics are pretty bad. Ultimately, most games are settled by the quality of the players and not the coach and this game was no different. At least he started his best players. Ream and Arob probably did the most to hurt their standing but I think both will start against Oman.
I’ll answer. I’d rather see them win. 😀 After time, I forget about the game and remember the result. Kind of like when US beat Spain the Confederations Cup or when they beat Brazil in the Gold Cup. I guess I don’t actually forget but I am still glad they won those games. By the way, I am pretty sure they beat Brazil with Steve Sampson as coach proving a bad coach can be as lucky as a good coach or maybe Steve Sampson is the best coach US has ever had.
Not a great start for Berhalter. To be fair, Pulisic and a couple others were off all night, making uncharacteristic bad touches and decisions. Gonna try and hold my tactical critiques until after the second match, but wow this looked like regression…
What was weird was that this was the A lineup that’s played together a lot with just an injury sub or 2.
Yep that’s why Uzbekistan played down a man after that one player walked off field than dropped injured. They ran out of aubs and they played down a man last like 10 15 mins so usa lucky Uzbekistan used all their subs ad we scored twice via pepi and penalty
CP at times reminds me of landon a little and landon was at his best full head of steam sprinting at you. like the ACM goal the other day. the uzbek 3 was in his jersey all day. i also feel like if you compare the goal aaronson was in on with how CP played, CP wide has had a tendency to trap the ball then wait a beat before taking someone on. that dramatic iso pause allows more defense to get back and the defender to prepare. you then have to be that much better to create something.
aaronson gets that ball and there is no pause after the trap and he’s right after his marker. extra help doesn’t have time to get back and the defender gets no time to breathe.
the uzbeks’ 5 man backline also seemed to bother us. it looked to me like they had a loose defender sitting behind the guys when we had the ball by the flag. that makes it harder to wall pass the wing defenders because there is essentially a sweeper if you try it. GB seemed to acknowledge we struggled with that until they went down to 10 and switched to 4 backs.
i still feel what GB is generally trying to do is a muddle. if you want to build from the back you are going to end up playing half court soccer a lot. our intermediate goal seems to be keepaway by the flag, which i as a defender find unfrightening. i am not even quite sure how we are hoping to score after that other than whack a cross in. and one play where dest and weah had them out of sorts with no sweeper help, they didn’t seem to know what to do with it.
GB outright says our goal is possession. to me that’s over chance creation. i personally prefer more aggression and chance creation. go to goal, make things happen. you only saw that the last 20′ with the subs.
if i wanted to be cynical, while some fanboys think we’re trying to be barca or ajax, and need it as a fed, a variation on that sort of 433 is to use the formation more to hog the ball and milk clock than actually try to score. however my impression was at the world cup against holland we couldn’t hold the ball. i think that’s one reason he’s trying to crowbar some technical mids into his MF, but if one remembers last cycle he began it trying to make yeuill, bradley, and trapp work who i think he saw as more composed better passers. but then the DM spot and overall defense suffered and we ended up with adams, who he had resisted. i thought we had fixed this with musah and true DM play this summer. i swear this team goes in these dumb silly circles.
Berhalter’s ideas for breaking down a low block are not effective. This was just a repeat of away qualifying at El Salvador, wings and fullbacks running into each other while Uzbekistan could use the tightness to the sideline as an extra defender. The good news is there will be few low blocks at Copa America or WC.
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Unfair to compare to BJ and Hudson though. BJ never faced an organized low block and that first half against Panama in GC was a far worse performance. Hudson needed a Pepi goal to squeeze out a 1-0 win and a lucky bounce to draw Mexico in El Cashico.
you’re going apples to oranges on us. the comparison is NL finals not GC which was mostly B/C team and, well, often second rate. you correctly diagnose he has an issue beating a team sitting back. but one route around that is don’t walk the ball up, use speed. don’t let them get back. sit back then counter wide with weah. or have a 10 in who dribbles hard at the defense like reyna was this summer — or pulisic, or green, or any of our better technical mids. ie don’t do slow build in the first place. it won’t always work but 95% of slow builds will result in a defense sitting back if we get there.
i then agree where once we get there, if the defense is sitting back, there needs to be some other plan than a photo op by the flag followed by a cross. the usual value of a 433 is combining and position swapping. we are very in our channels and ball movement is usually predictable, slow tempo, and peripheral.
last point but subtle thing, balogun’s goals last french season struck me as more volleys but we for some reason were whacking in header balls – in which case call vazquez instead. balogun’s value is being played behind a defense. at a loss why we aren’t sitting back and countering for him then. this is one reason i say this is a mess, it’s a concept not suited to the personnel who often seem chosen as a fanboy all star team rather than because they fit what we are trying to do. it’s odd because at some positions like 6 he seems obsessed with types.
IV: plenty of people saying the interim never looked like that. Really 3 games with best choice, El Salvador (Hudson), Mexico, Canada. The only one that you could consider playing a low block would be El Salvador, which we looked poor against. Both Canada and Mexico came out and played which is why there was space to play in behind.
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Luca (contrary to your first points) was very good and was quickly getting the ball into the attacking third (go back and watch his time he wasn’t getting out pushed off the ball or overpowered). The first 30 minutes we were carving up their midfield but their backline was so deep there wasn’t space to get Balo, Weah, or Pulisic by them (and Pulisic’s touch was off). We were quickly winning the ball back and Uzbekistan had next to no possession in their half. When Tessmann came on and they started forcing turnovers they became more aggressive. Yunus dropped deeper to help but that only led to more defenders being set in their defense. The issue I don’t understand is when we do play crosses is usually there’s one guy in the box. Also under Berhalter we never look to play it back to the top of the box. It’s almost like everyone else knows the cross won’t work so their just setting up in their counter press spots.
JR, you’re conflating hudson’s mess with callaghan at NL, which while accidental (based on some injuries plus how GC went after) worked very well. for example hudson tried reyna at 10 but he had him positioned different — at times going back to the backs for the ball like LDLT was this last game — and got different results than callaghan who had him stuck in more like a SS or 10 slot where he seemed to have fewer defensive expectations, and an instruction to run the ball upfield and take teams on as opposed to play deeplying switcheroo like his dad used to. sorry but it’s amusing to act like hudson = callaghan.
now GC is another kettle of fish but that also wasn’t the “A” team. as i explained at the time, it suggested some of what we see at times is the talent overcoming the coaching. the weaker the talent the less chance that happens. GB at GC 21 lucked into a bunch of underrated players who outperformed what a GC team normally has toolswise. nico, etc.
Wow that was bad. Why play with anybody up top at all if tactically they won’t get the ball except for a low probability cross? Just draw a semicircle of 35 yards from the center of the goalmouth and that’s our plodding offense.
Team was absolutely clueless about how to deal with Uzbekistan sitting back with a guy on point on our side of the circle. It is the most elementary of traps. The last thing you should do is what Ream did every time which is walk the ball up, get too close to the point and STOP. And then try to make a 90 degree pass to someone checking back under great pressure.
Worst games I’ve seen from Ream and Pulisic. And we made the dude in the white tights look like Kavartskhelia.
You could see players thinking about what they’ve been instructed to do and not doing what is required with an uncooperative opponent.
Actually the semi-circle attack would have been an improvement. It’s not so much that the team had difficulty penetrating the UZB defensive shape it is that they allowed UZB to play defensive and also allowed them good counter attacking opportunities. One thing that works for any intentionally deep sitting defensive set up is that it tends to lull the other team into thinking that they are doing better than they are, which often results in the folks who are supposed to snuff out counter attacks either falling asleep at the switch or throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to join the attack. GB needs to stop trying to force is tactics on every game situation and come up with a contingency plan against setups like we saw yesterday. Preferably one that does not involve our goal post.
Is that how a well coached team plays?
Sheepeople will continue to “shill” (typical sheepeople”.
Lucky that USNT wasn’t losing 3 or 4 to 1 to Uzbeks, first half.
Again, Beerholder has not learn anything from B.J. or Hudson, Beerholder continue his fascist reign of USNT. Fan just get more “stress” rather “enjoyment” from this game.
What are sheepeople?
New pronoun.
V: in that case in my state you have to get parent permission to call someone sheepeople.
Sheepeople: the obey and only listen establishment corporate networks, refuse look at the diversity in: opinions, tactics, systems, formation and styles etc…Never the history USNT such diverse styles/technical-players, USNT should never focus just one “system”, but different tactics and formation depending on the team playing that day. Not just endless “pressing” and “crosses” = predictable
Uzbekistan had only 3 shots on goal (and one off the post). Allowing zero goals from that is hardly lucky.
Don’t let facts get in the way of a good rant.
Seriously, 3 shots on goal??? They were ONE on ONE with goalie.
MarioinQt: 3 shots on target, 8 off target 4 blocked. I do believe the shot by #3 is counted as off target even though it was their closest chance. A couple shots went just wide of the post. The turnovers by Tanner and Ream lead to the two breakaways. Ream steered #14 wide on the first one that was fairly easy saved and then Ream recovered sort of to limit the angle on the one he turned over but it was great positioning and making himself big without giving up the between the legs shot that prevented the goal there. Both of those came in the last 5-10 mins of half. They had two breakaways and only one was one on one with the goalie but Ream got back sort of. If you play the “lucky game” you could also say the US could have 3 or 4 too. “We were lucky to not give up 3 or 4” in the whole match I’d rate that somewhat true , but even the best teams don’t finish every chance. “In the first half” mostly false, would have taken that guy hitting the upper 90 from 25 yards which I wouldn’t consider we were lucky he missed.
Wow. Not a GB fan but not one of yours either. This is pathetic in so many ways. Says so much about you and it’s sad and ugly. Courage in anonymity. The social media disease. I feel bad for you because you clearly don’t understand what you are saying or doing and what it means you are. I assume you will get angry at this response instead of thinking. That’s what people like you do.
I was oping he would gain the fans respect back, but no Greggy Beerholder 🍻 👨🦲😂 and his weak tactics strike again.
You realize Fox News is corporate right without diversity of opinion?
Can’t believe we lost to Uzbekistan.
Oh wait….
Let the insults begin. Go!!
No insults. I think that the team played well until Balugen hit the bar instead of scoring to make it 2-0. After that …. wow – but not positive.
No movement off the ball. Poor possession. Bad give aways.
Under a couple of the interims, the team appeared fluid and ready to attack. Lots of constipation soccer on display yesterday.
If the Uzbek captain and center forward was an EPL level player, the USMNT loses that game
We are already revising history, Hudson only looked good against Grenada. I rewatched the match Luca’s injury is the turning point (which was right around the time of Balo’s header). Uzbekistan made some adjustments during the stoppage and Tessmann was not as sharp.
Constipation soccer 😂
JR: it’s almost like you’re trying on purpose to smash hudson and callaghan together. as though NL finals didn’t happen. on planet reality we kind of figured out some things this summer and now just like 2021 are hard at work to undo it all.
you keep coming up with excuses to not play like this summer. on what planet is how we played this weekend going to take us anywhere in the next world cup? spare me.
JR, I would say the turning point was when they switched Pulisic to the right. That type of switch is usually made when you are struggling and you want a different match up for one of your top attackers but Weah and McKennie were very effective on the right. To me, that is an example of poor tactics which I generally think is Gregg’s forte. I do agree that LDLT to Tessman was a huge drop off but that shouldn’t be a surprise since Tessman plays in Italian 2nd division. Arob in the attack is just bad and he just clogs up space. Dest picked his moments and was generally effective in creating good scoring opportunities I thought. Light years ahead of Arob. If you take away every good play from US and every bad play from Uzbekestahn, the score would have been 0-0 so I think it is a stretch to say Uzbekistahn was the better team. I know you didn’t say that but at least one person did on another thread.
That did also happen about that time. There were the big turnovers from Tessmann and Ream along with the long range shot off the bar that all gave Uzbekistan confidence. The switch is clearly proof that Gregg monitors our boards and was giving Its Ok what he’s been asking for. Weah on the left.