Sergino Dest won’t play a part in the CONCACAF Nations League semifinals.
Dest was sent off in the 39th minute of the U.S. men’s national team’s 2-1 quarterfinal second leg loss to Trinidad & Tobago on Monday night. The USMNT advanced to the 2024 Copa America and Nations League semifinals 4-2 on aggregate.
The 23-year-old assisted on Antonee Robinson’s opening goal in Port of Spain, but did not finish the first half on the field.
Dest was given two yellow cards in the 39th minute after not agreeing with referee Walter Lopez’s decision. Dest picked up the ball after a turnover and punted it off the field, leading Lopez to issue him a first yellow card.
The PSV defender proceeded to argue with Lopez about the decision, ultimately receiving a second yellow card and an ejection. Tim Ream, Gio Reyna, and Matt Turner were all seen in disbelief by Dest’s actions, which marked the second-consecutive Nations League tournament in which the right back was ejected in.
https://x.com/tdmas_cr/status/1726762738330828912?s=20
Joe Scally replaced Reyna before halftime, taking Dest’s spot at right back.
Gregg Berhalter admitted postmatch that Dest apologized to the team after the game following his actions, but knows it was a silly mistake from the talented full back.
“It is concerning because that’s not what we want to represent,” Berhalter said. “That’s not who we are as a group. We pride ourselves in staying mentally disciplined, battling through any type of conditions, whether they’re good decisions or bad decisions. We’re supposed to keep going and respond in an appropriate way, and that obviously wasn’t the right response from Sergino.
“He apologized to the group,” Berhalter added. “He said it’s not going to happen again. As a team, the players, the staff, we need to hold him accountable because it’s inexcusable. It really is. And we were very firm with our words after the game. He put a number of guys in jeopardy, made a number of guys do a lot of extra work in this weather, and it’s inexcusable.”
Dest will now return to PSV for the continuation of his season-long loan spell from Barcelona.
What I fear and have always feared is that Gregg berhaulter will lean on his experience playing in holland at the beginning of his career, and his idea, is for the USA ro play like the Dutch. Itās coming to fruition, at all the levels. Weāre weak against counters. Leaving space all over the place. Give up possession and weak teams are on the counter against us. Really should have been 3-1 early in the second.
Is berhaulter the coach of dortmond or the USMNT. We had a player on the pitch who was controlling the game, he is removed We give up a couple pretty quick goals, and it was close to being worse. Seems like in the heat of the moment, a bad coaching move was made.
There is a strange double speak within US Soccer. I say Julie foudy probably know more than all these knuckleheads and she is a cool customer. Coach Gregg, you panic and then make poor decisions. We donāt want to be playing like no Dutch teams. Sorry!!! Dutch national teams or otherwise. And itās evident, itās not just on the field, but itās in the locker room, and goes all the way to the coach.
Modern soccer is not about possession. If a team is going to commit to playing from the back, logic dictates a full commitment to defense first, and that is not happening.
Weāve had two types of foreign born players. Those that fall into the Thomas Dooley camp, and those that fall into the David Regis category. Talent only means so much if the heart is not there. And an abundantly talented player has been proven to actually hurt a team if his heart is not there.
So you all okay with Turner assaulting Dest in retaliation for the red and Ream yelling in your face??? š¤¦āāļø I am not okay with it, Dest popping off was wrong but reatilaying by assaulting someone is not cool. Pushing someone is assault!
Retaliating*
have you ever played a team sport, because that happens frequently when players on the same team are admonishing someone for doing something stupid like he did……this team gets a lot of stick for coming off as “soft”, so I for one was fine with his teammates being stern in letting him know what he did was idiotic, and laying hands on him comes with it some times. There was nothing about it that would constitute assault. If anything Dest verbally assaulted the ref!
Yeah, I’m okay with what those guys did to Sergino. He’s lucky it wasn’t worse.
Players have been shot and killed for less . Of course that was by irate fans but does it really matter? Shot is shot. Dead is dead.
More to the point Sergino had just made those two guys lives very, very hard for the rest of the game.
And had TNT pulled of a miracle ( it was possible) they would have had Sergino to thank. And that would have taken money out of Tim’s and Matt’s pockets. No one appreciates that.
Stryker,,
That’s quite dramatic.
Are you proposing Turner be charged with assault? If so, are you okay with Dest being charged with assault?…for his actions against his opponents on the Mexican National Team this past June. In the state of NV, the statute of limitations for assault is 1 year.
On a side note, I’m sure what Dest received in the locker room at halftime was a lot worse than Turner pushing him.
Papi Grande where did I say that? You all annoying on this site always miscontruing what I say on purpose!
Being able to walk away is an absolute must when playing in CONCACAF. If Dest (and McKinnie too) continue to get themselves tossed, even if they were screwed by the ref, then teams are just going to play dirty when those guys are on the field. On the bright side Aaronson was getting the full CONCACAF treatment last night and managed to keep his cool.
What’s bright about Aaronson?
He was awful and has been so for some time.
GB has some experience with counseling for anger management and apparently it helped him learn to control himself. While we will (hopefully) never know, I fully expect GB to tell Dest to get anger management therapy.
I don’t think further punishment is needed or warranted. Dest already knows he screwed up big time and his teammates were pretty obvious in their immediate behavior. Dest needs to learn how to control his anger and instead channel it into something more productive. Failure to do so will make him less attractive not only to the USMNT, but to most club teams. Or at least like IV says the “mastoeni calculus” must be applied.
According to a lot of the players Dest will have to earn back their trust before he is back in their good graces. Now, I don’t know hat that looks like in terms of further punishment, but I’m guessing Berhalter will leave it up to the leadership council made up of players to determine what happens next for Dest, but if I had to guess he’ll be away from the team for a minute, because this is not some one-off, it’s a pattern of behavior
don’t call him up for a year, more even
he clearly has no respect for his teammates, who were imploring him to stfu, and he couldn’t, and then put them in that position. it’s almost like he was doing it on purpose altho I hope not, asking to be sent off
maybe the trust can be rebuilt with teammates, idk
inexcusable, absolutely. the punishment needs to be harsh so everyone knows just how inexcusable it is
I don’t know what the appropriate penalty is, but there needs to be a lot more than just an apology to the team. How can he be trusted to play any away game in CONCACAF if he couldn’t handle a bad call today? I have taught elementary school for a while and I would expect better from 3rd graders and above.
Berhalter seems to be a pretty hard guy.
GB is also a bit new age and I suspect that privately GB will be very clear about Dest getting anger management counseling and that he needs to address what was really behind this blow-up.
The Hispanic commentators on the X clip, and I am doing a fairly literal translation. “Oooh, Dest just said something to Walter Lopez, and if Lopez has pantses he should card him. …………………And, of course we can see clearly that the ball didn’t leave the field of play. ………………….But, we know that Walter Lopez is a bad referee, yes a pretty bad referee. Oh no, it looks like he just bounced Dest from the match.”
OK so the referee Lopez is on somebodies payroll, and/or he is just a biased, and unequivocally bad referee. Still, it does not excuse Sergino Dest’s behavior and foul mouth, nor his ego-driven state of mind, nor his senseless pride, anger, and bad speech. If you are going to wear your country’s colors and represent on the pitch, you have to be bigger than that and keep the stopper in the bottle. Your bad speech will lead you to ruin and you will be reborn as a fox for 500 years. Or at least, carded out of the semi-final match. C’mon dude, rise above and be more noble than this.
I was watching the game on tv and it did look like Dest was fouled. That said, the tv feed was by no means conclusive respective to the foul or whether the ball was out of bounds.
Additionally, refs will miss things…that just the nature of the game. Specific to the foul that Dest was mad about, it’s worth pointing out the USMNT players’ reactions, or lack there of…no one else complained. Players’ reactions do not dictate whether a foul should be called or not, but it can tell the referee a lot.
All that said, there is no way Dest’s behavior towards the referee, his teammates, and the game itself, is excusable…he must keep his head.
As a side note, great handle…one of the better ones I have seen in recent times. Well played.
Thank you Papi Grande. Yes refs are not infallible, (and neither is VAR for that matter), and not to beat a dead horse into the ground…….Dest will have gotten several major “talking tos” and hopefully he is a man of his word and will learn to cool his ire the next time. And that is the point. He is only 23 and if he continues to be a major part of US Soccer going forward, which barring injury he well should be with his skill set, he is going to face the phenomenon that some posters on this site call “getting CONCACAFed”, i.e. facing hostile crowds and unsympathetic referees in Central American countries who seem to favor the home team. You just can’t let that stuff get to you.
i don’t assume anything off of coach or player reactions. some teams rush to the defense of their players and some are lackidaisical. i do believe this can help “sell” fouls. i also believe it helps somewhat deflate the victim on the play, who can be quite angry, if others have stuck up for him already. it’s been my theory that quiet coaches or passive teams can lead to isolated mouthy players as the player feels like he has to speak for himself, no one else will.
this is not to excuse the response, which was infantile and uncontrolled. you have to think about the bigger picture and have controlled aggression. we are ahead 1-0 when this happens. you laugh off the call and point scoreboard. at most you run your mouth a little to vent and take a single dissent yellow. you then chill out because the idea is win soccer games. this was dumb and counter-productive.
re his “punishment,” he automatically gets one, a suspension in march. a lot of the other stuff being thrown around is paternalistic. daddy has to put the player in timeout like weston and reyna before him. i don’t see the point. he either has learned his lesson and he serves his suspension and plays, next game or next window — or you run a risk-reward on whether he’s starting to become a problem. “punishment,” to me, in this context, is lame. i am sure the loss, the red, and his teammates ripping him in the locker room, are sufficient, if this is about emotional lashing out. what this requires instead is the “mastroeni calculus,” is this hothead worth the risk.
last point, to me the various issues we have had with our two starting wings, weston, and dest, underline the need to have redundant other players identified who can step in, and that we need to maintain competition and rotate other people through these camps. this window was a mess because we have a crap system and rely too heavily on too few players who aren’t 100% perfect.
PG and patabendita,
Dest’s red card is a good thing. If he’s out of control best to leave him out of Copa America where I promise you he would have been targeted even before all this.
Even before this game it was likely that, at the Copa America, those CONMEBOL teams were going to try to provoke USMNT players. In the last Copa America the USMNT had three different players red carded in three different games.
That’s not an accident. The USMNT has not been considered a savvy team and this edition is even younger and more naive than those 2016 guys were.
Whatever was going on on the field between the players in the TNT game, it will be far worse in Copa America, because unlike TNT, most of the CONMEBOL teams can do a better job of making you pay for a red card.
Forget about Dest. I’ve seen stupider red cards from smarter players. He’ll either learn to control himself better or he won’t.
Gregg just has to do a cost benefit analysis. If he thinks that what Dest can do for the USMNT is not worth the red card risk, then leave him out for Copa America.
But if he decides to leave Dest out of the Copa squad he’s probably ending Dest’s USMNT career for good, at least for as long as Gregg is the manager.
If you can’t trust him at the Copa , why can you trust him at the World Cup?
Remember USMNT fans wanted to ban diva shitbag Gio for life for Reynagate. And Sergino is at least as arrogant and selfish as Gio ever was.