LANDOVER, MD — The U.S. men’s national team went into Saturday’s friendly against Colombia as a team with plenty of unanswered questions facing an opponent in some of the best form in the Americas.
Both teams lived up to those pre-match billings as Colombia showed the quality of a team riding a 22-match unbeaten streak while the Americans played like a team that will need to make major improvements if they are going to have a chance for success as the Copa America.
A pair of early first-half Colombia goals gave the South Americans a comfortable cushion, and a late second-half onslaught doomed the Americans in a 5-1 thrashing at Commanders Field.
The Americans had some brief hope of making the final score a respectable one when Tim Weah scored a second-half goal to make it 2-1 in the 58th minute, but three Colombia goals in the final 13 minutes left the Americans battered and beaten.
Colombia struck first in the sixth minute when a failed clearance attempt by Antonee Robinson fell to the feet of Jhon Arias in the penalty area. The Colombian winger reacted quickly to power home a hard shot from 12 yards out, beating Matt Turner to his near post.
Colombian striker Rafael Borre made it 2-0 in the 19th minute when Crystal Palace midfielder Jefferson Lerma won a header over Joe Scally and Johnny Cardoso in the penalty area to send a ball to a wide-open Borre. The Internacional striker connected on a bicycle kick to beat Turner from close range.
It was a short day for Christian Pulisic, who was replaced at halftime by Haji Wright after managing two shots and 14 of 15 passing.
The Americans showed more life in the second half, with Weah responding in the 58th minute with a goal off a Folarin Balogun assist.
Colombia nearly made it 3-1 in the 63rd minute, but Matt Turner rose to the challenge to make a full-stretch save to deny a James Rodriguez shot.
The Cafeteros found their third goal in the 77th minute when a Colombian counterattack sparked by a Johnny Cardoso turnover caught the Americans with players slow to track back, making it easy for Luis Sinisterra to find a wide open Richard Rios for a close-range finish.
Things only got worse for the Americans in the closing minutes of the match, with second-half substitute Juan Quintero setting up a pair of Colombia goals, with the first to Jorge Carrascal in the 85th minute.
The USMNT returns to action on Wednesday in Orlando against Brazil in their final tune-up match before the Copa America begins. The Americans open their tournament on June 23 against Bolivia.
Boy an awful lot of excuses being offered here today. Meaningless friendly. Well, Colombia didn’t seem to take it that way. Players didn’t play well, not Greg’s fault. Well, whose fault is it if the whole team plays badly? Isn’t one of the main jobs of a coach to get the most out of his players? There was a coach in the NFL decades ago who was famous for doing very well. It was said that he could take his players and beat your players and then he could take your players and beat his players. Sometimes you hear players say they would run through a brick wall for their coach. You don’t even need that. These players are representing 330 million Americans. Maybe they should be reminded of that. If a player isn’t giving it his all, then he shouldn’t be playing. Something is terribly wrong when you give away at least 4 goals.
Gary, who was that coach? Joe Gibbs went to 4 super bowls in 10 years and won three of them but his teams got completely blown out in many games, one of them in the super bowl. I guess he was a bad coach.
When Gregg wins three World Cups he’ll get some grace.
JR, my point exactly; setting the bar too high. I think by now I am arguing with every single person that posts on this site.
Tele57,
There is no such thing as a meaningless friendly.
Losing is not an issue; the issue was their very apparent lack of cohesion and the feckless nature of their adjustments as the game went on.
I’m sure Gregg had a list of things he wanted to see or work on but whatever they were, when Colombia inflicts this much chaos on you it’s hard to work on things.
England and the Netherlands played us in the context of the WC. meaning they both needed something out of us and did just enough to get it. England in particular were holding back. They needed one point and they needed a break. We gave them both.
Colombia looked like the subs were fighting to win more PT. They were just more tranquil than we were. They humiliated the USMNT. and made them look amateurish something neither the Netherlands nor England did.
Normally, I wouldn’t think anything of this game and chalk it up to one of those days and being unlucky to run into an on fire team.
But the timing is very bad. You want to be more like Colombia, building up your confidence for a good run.
Imstead,we have Brazil next and then the tourney starts. And unless you think Tyler is going to play significant minutes in Copa America, there’s no cavalry coming. The improvements have to be in house.
I expect them to be a lot better vs Brazil. Hopefully, not that much better because if they beat Brazil. they’ll get cocky again.
Vac, what do you get for winning a freindly?
Confidence. Assurance that the good work you’re doing is effective and appropriate and useful for future scenarios. The US will take none of that with them after this Ish Show!
…
You might as well ask “ what do you get for training? Let’s just go out there and compete?”
…
Same thing. Mira, same thing.
Whether you win or lose you get:
Insight into your players.
Gregg is a rookie international coach. He needs these games to learn him his job.
If you give up the lead you get to see how your players react to that kind of pressure.
If he plays long enough into the game you get to see how your player adjusts to being tired.
If you player is being CONCACAF , you get to see how well they keep their cool and you get to see if they understand how to retaliate without getting caught. And you get to see if they know how to protect themselves in the first place.
If they get yellow carded you get to see if they can retain their effectiveness. Do they understand how to lay while carrying a card.
Colombia was Gregg’s 70th game, yet he has been manager since December of 2018, nearly 5 and a half years ago. But for a club manager 70 games is about a season and a half diluted by those 5.5 years.
Not a lot of time. Gregg, I would think, wants as much game time, friendly or not, as possible for himself and the team..
National team managers can get a lot out of friendlies if they are open to them.
TX, training and scrimmages are hardly the same thing.
Vac, none of the stuff you mentioned has anything to do with the result. All of those things you said took place yesterday except being CONCACAFed and cards. Maybe I should have been more specific and said the result is meaningless.
I’ve calmed somewhat because it was just a glorified scrimmage and sometimes you do need to get beat bad to refocus, and Gregg typically doesn’t show all his cards pre/tourney. Here’s my internal struggle with those points though.
1. These guys we were playing were not a mystery almost everyone plays with a current NT player or has in the past. The guys talked in the pre game pressers they knew Colombia was 18 in a row without a loss, they knew they’d beaten Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil in the last year. Yet came out sloppy and lost focus the last 15 minutes.
2. Our team has basically been together for a cycle and a half and just got a beating from Germany. They nearly lost to Jamaica. Why do they need so many wake up calls. All 11 starters play in Top 5 leagues we shouldn’t come out flat and finish unfocused.
3. Their backups came off the bench and scored 3 g, our 6 came on and made very little impact if any.
4. If Reyna isn’t on the field we can’t do anything to build out. Our ability to play out of the back became non-existent once Gio and Tim (although he had a couple big mistakes too) left. Scally did well on Diaz but we rely a lot on Serge to break pressure. Shaq, Joe, and apparently Tim as well aren’t going to fill that role so we need to make some structural change to accommodate that because certainly everyone else noticed this too.
you want to revise your statement about how it’s ok on sargent because we chatted with the norwich medics and such. cause based on that trash i watched some folks need cutting. can’t cut anyone if there is zero fat. based on adams played 0 minutes while we got wrecked, and that article saying he too is a fitness race, we’re down on meat supposed to be on this steak, we need more camp players not less.
blows my mind a day later you’re back running interference for this nonsense.
IV: We could throw you out there, it doesn’t matter if it’s Pepi, Balogun, Vazquez, Pefok, Buff Arriola, Cole Campbell, or Gary Page out there as our striker. We don’t really try to get them the ball in any position to score. We tried to play Balo in behind once and he got a half chance, Wes tried to play I think Pepi in once. Other than that it is just hit and hope the CF someone how out jumps 3 defenders and the keeper. The players for Colombia are not higher quality than the US players. However, their inexperienced manager has lined them up in a way to be successful.
JR, yes, Gregg is not going to show too much in pre-tournament scrimmages as he shouldn’t. After Panama, any team the US plays will have better players collectively and much better depth.
1. It was 2-1 when he took Reyna off and Pulisic was already off. 2 best players. Obviously had more important things than trying to win the game like seeing wgo from his bench can contribute and who cant
2. The players on the field during the end of game collapse have not played togethor much
3. See 2
4. Wife yelling at me to hurry got to go
The problem is the players are confused in the back because Greg is always trying to force his imprint on the game instead of just realizing he’s got the talent to not make it complicated.
They’re confused they don’t know which formation he’s using and it’s gratuitous. That’s why they looked better under the interim coach He needs to simply relax and let them play
This has absolutely nothing to do with GB or the style of play……..THE PLAYERS WERE NOT GOOD ENOUGH. They had the possession and moved the ball around with better accuracy than Columbia (who haven’t lost in how many games????), and individually they dropped the ball. here are the stats:
–
———————USA—————————-COLUMBIA——–
–
———————-10————SHOTS————–15—————
–
———————–2——SHOTS ON TARGET—-6—————–
–
———————-53%——-POSSESSION——-47%—————
–
———————498———-PASSES————458——————
–
———————87%—PASS ACCURACY—–84%—————–
–
Matt Turner 6 shots on goal 5 balls went in
Our so call forwards……10 shots and only 2 on target
Our Defending (defense and midfield) was seriously lacking, especially on 1-V-1s.
We had better possession. better passing accuracy and connected better than Columbia so what gives???? When it comes to our forwards……who looked dangerous apart from Pulisic (that Columbia respected) and Haji Wright?? Who, in attacked, took on players, created space for themselves, let shots fly and looked dangerous in the final third? Who?
Even though we took a massive beating, not once during the game did we look completely in over our heads. So for once this has nothing to do with GB or formation selection……..individually the players themselves DID NOT SHOW GOOD ENOUGH.
“This has absolutely nothing to do with GB or the style of play.” Bizzy, even though the players have to be held accountable as well, GB tactics are way too predictable; they are pretty much the same for every game. He cannot make adjustments during a game and just does not know how to adapt to the opponent. The US’s 51%-52% possession domination of the game vs Colombia (“not Columbia”) just means they had 51%-52% possession and that’s it.
Peterp,
there is absolutely no excuse for the players. All GB can do is have a plan and coach his plan to the best of his ability. In other words Plan, train / practice then execute. Based off the possession and passing, the plan was not that bad but the players didn’t do their part to execute……and GB can’t go on the field and score the goals or save the shots himself. Colombia (thanks for the correction) did not overwhelm us as we had an even amount of possession, which meant nothing because the players did nothing. Shots were not saved, opposition lines were not broken, players were slow to the ball, players couldn’t dribble or create space for themselves, players were absence for the majority of the game, players sucked defending on 1-v-1 situations and no one impacted the match at all.
GB has his own faults but the performance of the players have to be good too but they were only a shadow of themselves.
bizzy,
“there is absolutely no excuse for the players…
the players didn’t do their part to execute……and GB can’t go on the field and score the goals or save the shots himself. the performance of the players have to be good too but they were only a shadow of themselves.”
If that is true then you have to come up with 26 new players pretty quick because Copa America is here in a few weeks.
” All GB can do is have a plan and coach his plan to the best of his ability. In other words Plan, train / practice then execute. Based off the possession and passing, the plan was not that bad ………..GB has his own faults but the performance of the players have to be good too but they were only a shadow of themselves.”
Gregg is the manager.
That means he is supposed to manage or coach a certain kind of performance out of these players.
This was his 70th game and most of these guys have been with Gregg since at least the World Cup and some far beyond. This game they came out pretty much like they always do but since they normally play crap teams they seemed unprepared for Colombia’s much higher level, like coming home expecting to play with your cat and finding, instead, a Bobcat in it’s place.
If the players aren’t good enough, they’ve mostly all been with Gregg a long time now and the subs are worse so if they haven’t worked out by now they never will. And the opposition in the immediate future is only going to get tougher.
Since Gregg is doing the best he can and is by your philosophy, without sin, then the obvious solution it to replace all 26. I guess IV probably has some college, high school or select team guys ready to go.
PeterP, I won’t argue that he has shown an inability to make tactical adjustments during games, but a pre-tournament scrimmage isn’t the time to show much tactically. It is like an NFL pre season game. Once they hit Uruguay, every team they face will have better players so it will take luck to advance beyond that point. Giving those teams more info on how to prepare tactically makes the already difficult task of beating a better team even harder. If they get out of their group it is going to take a lot of really good fortune to advance to the semifinals.
Statistics are nice, but did you watch the game? The statistics don’t show the times the US gave the ball away in their own third or all the mistakes they made in defense. There is an old saying in sports that statistics are for losers. This is a great example of this. Statistics don’t tell you what mistakes, what thei8r nature was, and where the mistakes occurred. Turning the ball over in the opponent third may mean you lose a chance to score, but rarely leads to a score. A mistake in your own third can be deadly. If you just went by the statistics you might think it was a close game. It wasn’t.
So I see the starting line up. I’m bummed there’s not much experimentation. I think ok. This is a chance for the first team to match up against arguably the hottest team in world football. Save the experiment for second half. Let’s see how our plan A approach with our A team stacks up. Well, the part that was forgotten is to bring the A game.
Wow, not one player had a good game. I spent the day watching my kid’s U9 try to play out of the back in the Vermont Soccer Festival. I swear it looked the same as the Nats. Too slow, scared and no ideas. Both teams were slow to get in passing lanes and were unable to execute passes resulting in consistent pressure and easy goals for their opponents. The big difference between the two teams though was one was a U9 team pulled from an area with a population of 25k the other was the USMNT pulling from the best our nation has to offer and its worlwide diaspora.
Truly a pitiful performance. The only positive I can see is that it is unlikely the entire team will lay an egg on the same day. I will throw out any analysis for this game. It’s forgettable. Until they do this again…then we have a big problem. But I honestly don’t think it’s even possible for them to play this poorly as a group again. Is it?
A baseline 4-3-3 needs to be dropped period. Even with Adams at the base it doesn’t work well. Thought that was clear at the WC, guess I was wrong the coach would have identified that. 4-2-3-1 with two patrolling DM/CM in front of the backline is needed with a CAM and the two outside attacking midfielders pinching in at times. You know when the US looked their best under BJ. But anyway I digress.
I mean at times wasn’t that what we had with Gio dropping deep next to Johnny? Oh you mean actually putting our best attacking midfielder not to be 50 yds from goal. Maybe just maybe we could have played an extra CB knowing Colombia would just play long balls into space, so that maybe there was a CB there when they played it past Robinson again and again and again. Or that when we turned the ball over in MF we had a third defender to make it 3-on-3 instead of 3 on 2.
Essentially what the 4-2-3-1 helps out with. But yes why is Reyna being used as the deeper of the two CM’s? Makes no sense. Mckennie needs to be in the two behind Reyna. Berhalter free Gio Reyna.
Colombia did exactly what Holland did. Prove to us you can play through us and score goals. And yet again Berhalter and the team failed. IMO it’s just an easy formation change that Berhalter has refused to do. Definition of madness is doing the same thing expecting a different outcome when the results stays the same. Either he adapts his thinking and tactics or he doesnt and this team will continue to underperform and fail.
2: this is a wannabe technical possession team that isn’t that technical or possessive. normal idea is be good at what your system presumes.
that and like i said after the world cup, it got figured out c. 2009 how to beat possession teams. holland, japan, morocco. soccer has gone in more of a speed, counter, and even longball direction. we’re trying to be purists like some pep team when good teams are designed to feast on our central sloppiness. like you said, dare us to pass through the middle.
2 Tone, he is putting Reyna there because McKennie has shown he lacks the discipline to play there and the best parts of his game go away when he plays there. Kind of like why Paul McCartney played the bass for the Beatles. It was 2-1 when Reyna was subbed out and the US was very much still in the game at that time.
that wasn’t formation and pushing wings back would have made that worse. on defense we had one player up then would jog the wing forward when they moved the ball to a side. meanwhile they are cranking longballs from the back.
most nights i am anti-press, anti-433. we’re facing a technical game. this was longball athletic soccer. harass the backs trying to play it long so the passes get rushed. have guys in the back who can defend on an island and have the speed and tenacity to win a footrace to a longball.
in terms of playing offense, colombia would just sit back and cover passing lanes and dare us to try to play from the back. then if someone started tripping over the ball jump on them. italian stuff. reminded me of atalanta.
what seemed to work was win the ball in the midfield and get it forward in a hurry before they got back. they missed adams.
Apart from the keeper issue behind the back line, and the back line issues, does anyone else think there might be a rather gaping Tyler Adams–shaped hole in front of the back line?
What do we know these days about his back problem or whatever? Is Berhalter likely just playing it safe until a game that matters, or is Adams still not really _able_ to play? Or still just too rusty, not up to speed? Speaking of needing guys who can play fast but with control …
‘58 … and predictably, once again, the Mexico fans have learned that they can stop the game by deploying the “maldito grito.” Convenient, when nothing else seems to be working.
Sigh. I had been hoping this would be a nice soccer day.
i keep saying we need to trial some 6s like we need a new one. setting aside, should adams be in camp, if your regular 6 can’t stay healthy enough to be out there friendly 1 then why isn’t that a point of emphasis.
Um … Isn’t that kind of what they’ve been doing, in seeing if McKennie, Musah, Cardoso, etc. can play in that vicinity, perhaps in tandem?
It looks to me as if the team just has more natural talent and speed in attacking or midfield players, so the coaches seem to be trying to find places for them all on the field, which means some who would enjoy attacking are sometimes going to have to play some defense for the US, even if their club teams have enough depth that they don’t usually have to do that job. McKennie, say, looks like he understands that, even though it’s a weight of responsibility he doesn’t usually have to bear.
In particular, hadn’t Cardoso had a pretty good year at Real Betis in that position? I don’t watch the Spanish league except when a few games are televised on channels I can get, but he looked pretty good to me, just young, How many times have he and McKennie played together? Maybe just time and practice will help.
The other catch seems to be that so few of the rest, except Adams, seem to really _want_ to play defense. (Including Jedi, perhaps, who had the luxury of going forward a lot for Fulham. I agree that Scally was the better of the two this time, but surely Robinson is smart enough to snap back.)
In fact … Unlike many of you, I’m not a coach, but … Isn’t that the way many young players start out? They imagine themselves in a starring role, racking up goals and assists, and have to be schooled to start out farther back, and prove their work rate and reliability first (and use their fast young legs to defend the older, wiser heads behind), before they get the privilege of going farther forward? I’ve thought that about Reyna at times, but he’s by no means alone.
Or are you saying we have several other top candidates for the 6, just waiting in the wings, who should have been called up instead, even though the team has so few chances for anyone to play against meaningful opponents?
If so, who would that be? (Sorry, I also don’t get to watch much MLS.)
Tej: I don’t consider calling one other dedicated 6 — johnny, who looked like heck — to be holding an audition for other candidates. adams may not be able to play, we have one dedicated 6 (johnny) who struggled, no one else to push him, we can slide over musah but he played 8 in the game and got a knock.
for comparison’s sake, we have four 9s called. we can only play one of them at a time, and even had to use wright wide. but that is what it looks like when it’s like, let me call several players in and have them compete.
part of the problem with the US is when an opening arises, we hand it over to someone handpicked as opposed to hold a competition and reward the winner. johnny is not fending off maloney and whatnot and having to play like he has a job to fight for. he got handed it. he can play like crap and we probably have to run him out there some more just to make numbers.
Tej: also, your betis comment underlines my concern about “club form” theories. you liked him with club A but does he do it for NT B? we just saw, not necessarily. we keep learning this lesson over and over.
i lean on arena on this one. arena’s critique of his former assistant is he loves him some analytics but isn’t attentive enough to how a player looks on the field. i think we have confused paper numbers with passing the eyeball test. or fitting our scheme. or talent in general. some players are in harder leagues with better teams and PT is limited and competition for roster spots harsh. reyna in particular gets routinely downvoted for this despite being more talented than his competition.
more broadly, i think (a) we weren’t going to win this tournament, (b) it’s distracting from the surgery we need (based on our mixed results of late) to act like that should be the sole priority, and (c) this tournament, if de-emphasized, would have been a good opportunity to try some stuff with several games to do it.
the irony of it is we will get other side of this golden opportunity of weeks of practices and games to try things, and based on the harsh lesson we are fixing to learn, figure out we need changes. we can then try and make those changes later on in shorter friendly windows, with less practices and 2 games a window. because we refused to admit “jamaica” or “germany” told us something, or that you can use a game as anything other than trying to win games. even when your regulars go out there and get clobbered. which screams some mix of system and personnel is WRONG. but, ok, we can now learn “how wrong” for 5 games or so. we are glacially slow to figure out we need to fix anything…..even when we know our 6 can’t stay healthy and isn’t healthy enough to play 1 minute this weekend…..
I’ll take a somewhat positive approach now. This was a massive hoodwink job by Greg and the USMNT. They played badly purposefully. That way Colombia has a ton of confidence in the knock out rounds when these two meet again. And bam the real USMNT shows up. They are going to hoodwink Brazil too.
Hope is not a strategy.
No hope. All hoodwink strategy. I like it. No way they didn’t hoodwink Colombia today. Lol
2 tone, not hoodwinked but definately not going to show much different that they can prepare for. The worst part of yesterday’s game was a demonstration of what Gregg already knows whi h is that his bench is very weak. Not going to be able to sub much and give his top players a rest. That is bad for tournament play.
Good news Brazil starting their backups tonight vs El Tri so expect to see the Brazil first team in four days. Sigh.
Perhaps the best thing that can happen after such a beat down at home is the players realize they need a full commitment from everyone to avoid a similar disaster in the Copa America.
Very true.
that’s what B teams do is try harder. A teams should be calling different players and playing a different way. ie doing something about it. B teams try harder because there ain’t no fixing B is B.
you really think motivation of the same guys is fixing 5-1?
I mean we beat Morocco, 5 months before they made the semis of the WC, but yes we should look like a well oiled machine.
Sorry that was a reply to Mat. We’ve beaten one good team in 5 yrs.
Winning freindlies doesn’t matter but neither does losing them.
Players aren’t sub level, the coach is. We cannot compete outside concacaf with this organization. When will they learn?
GGG =Greg gotta go!
Gregg didn’t dribble the ball right into the defenders feet leading to a 3 on 2 25 yds from goal, hold the ball far long in the center of the park leading to 2 on 2 the other way, weakly attempt to clear a thru ball to no one, nor did he get beat to two headers (although I give home some fault for picking the corner defense). It’s very easy to scout Gregg, because he’s so slow to change but yikes some of those turnovers.
Agree these players didn’t show their normal skills. Bad decisions across the field and especially defense. But most of these players are proven with their clubs and show they can compete. In this case, and often, they had no clear plan and thats on the coach.
We never beat a single good team under Berhalter. Just facts.
Another fact is that after like 5 years of being the coach, this team still has these games where they look like they never played together. That’s really concerning. We should look like a well oiled machine but in many games the players look confused and appear to have no idea about any tactics.
The difference between the US and Colombia was obvious in that regard. They looked so much more like a team. One difference seems to be when you know where a teammate is versus you have to look to find a teammate.
Mat, How many good teams have they played and which of those games were meaningful or freindlies that didn’t have any meaning ( like impacting the FIFA ranking which impacts WC pot selection)?
Shambolic defending. Los Cafeteros are clearly a level above the U.S. but 5-1 is embarrassing. Brazil next, oof! Maybe try a more defensive 4-5-1 to get in the game and keep things close. The 4-3-3 seems to open the field against non CONCACAF squads.
I suppose Mexico is going to somehow pull off a 2-2 draw with Brazil now too!
Hey that’s good. But Mexico was blasted by Uruguay.
I’ve been half-watching Mexico vs. Brazil. But it’s very, very hot in Texas, with many areas still cleaning up after dire windstorms, and an early Brazil goal sucked much of the air out of the gigantic A&M stadium. So the Univisión coverage has often been reduced to soccer gossip, advertising for Copa América, and showing Mexican fans sitting restlessly in the stands.
Not sure Mexico has what it takes to step up, speaking of pitiful, even against a Brazilian B team. Though I have to hope they snap out of it a little, or a lot of fans of el Tri in Texas will be disappointed. (Again. Still.) Not unlike USMNT fans.
Johnnyr, your point about NWSL in the other thread was well taken. Has everyone noticed that there are now two free-to-air games every Saturday night on ION (ion) — as in, right now?
And today there was even an earlier NWSL game on CBS — and they tend to have goals, often scored by Americans. (-;
El Tri just scored and Brazil was like enough messing around brought on Vinicius and Bruno G. Still might end up my predicted 2-2. They are showing an unusual amount of shots of the crowd. Everytime there’s an injury they take a full hydration break, still over 90 with the heat index there.
El Tri fans apparently now making pitch invasions there new thing. Multiple people ran onto the field the other night, I counted at least three maybe more tonight before TUDN changed their camera. You know it’s bad when you’re fans start time wasting when your down to keep it close.
And there it is 2-2 El Tri “wins”! Hold on Vini to Endrick (who’d been kind of bad up to that point). 3-2 Brazil. Mexico giving Vini Jr the Caitlyn Clark treatment (3 defenders on 1 player with the ball) leaves Endrick unmarked in the box for the header.
I stop watching after the first goal.
To be honest while Berhalter deserves continued criticism these players need to become men. I still see boys out there in their play and lack of grit and intensity. It’s to drop the boy and become a man.
I thought the Gio sub was poor. He was finally starting to cook a little leading up to the goal by Weah and then bam subbed.
personally my disappointment with the game, beyond the result and slop, was i thought we learned very little new other than maybe wright could play wide. i could care less how long gio plays a prep game or whether we win. poor game plan, no fight, and because the coach was perseverating, little novelty or learning. when you lose badly and learn little, waste of a game.
US women drop out in the first knockout round and completely overhaul their system. Men drop out in knockout round and learned nothing, no changes no new ideas same mistakes. I get that there is a talent difference between the men and women’s teams and Colombia is a better team than South Korea but this game was a near copy of Qatar. Colombia got up early, put it in cruise control, we score and then they just turn it up and put it out of reach again by forcing silly mistakes. The US is unable to play at pace under control. Either play too fast and out of control giving the ball away or so slow they fall into the pressure traps. Berhalter pre-tourney friendlies are usually ugly but this seems a new level of ineptitude. We also have to hold the players to some account those last three goals are hard to blame on the managers those were just naive plays by the US players (lucky not to be four with CCV’s slip). Kudos for Turner and Weah for doing postgames and at least owning their mistakes.
I’ll say again Miles Robinson is better than CCV. Robinson faces better attackers in MLS than CCV does in the SPL. I still think Robinson and Richards pairing is the best pairing. I like Reams ability to pass but it’s quite clear you can’t play a higher line with Ream. Robinson has the ability to cover ground and passes well enough out of the back.
What’s even scarier about Ream’s current form is you can’t play him deep, either, because he gets beat on the first step, as in goal 1 for Columbia. He was “there,” but didn’t stop the shot.
If you are going conservative, get 3 CB’s who can tackle, and who have a bit of speed, and go from there. IDK CCV, Miles, Richards? I’m starting to think we have very limited options, though.
women spent well above the market rate and their goal is win soccer tournaments. men spent half what the last coach made and they can’t decide if they’re doing aesthetics or crossing soccer. and some theory project has hijacked win soccer tournaments.
some point we’re gonna catch on, with adults, system is a tool to win soccer games. if you don’t win games you change the coach. you wanna change the aesthetics go back to kindergarten ball.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a US performance this bad. We gifted them almost all of their goals. The defense was often disorganized, way too many sloppy turnovers, most of them in the US third, and too often we looked like we didn’t have a clue about what to do on offense. Disgraceful and embarrassing. There is an expression you don’t hear anymore that really applies to the US in this game. “Bear down, you have to bear down.” A combination of lack of intensity and lack of concentration.
Had the same thought Gary. Venezuela 2019 3-0, I was trying to decide if the US actually played worse against Japan before WC but Japan just didn’t take their chances as clinically. England 2018 maybe. 2011 GC final but at least we led in that one, but the collapse was similar I guess.
Yup.
Totally.
Indecisive and hesitant, not too many creative ideas into the final third. (Colombia was pretty well “plantados” in the defensive third.)
Giving away possession cheaply. Over and over again.
The USMNT’s middle name.
Giving away possession cheaply. Over and over again.
Ball movement, positive attacking play.
Possession and close support, basic dribbling skills.
Most important: movement off of the ball.
Decoy runs to create space, knowing, having been well coached, about what kinds of decoy runs, to create when, and what kinds of space to exploit, and when to engage in the active or passive runs and passes, runs to create space, coordinated with brisk one-touch, attacking play.
Goal keeping. Missing Timmy Howard, from….New Jersey.
And CLINICAL FINISHING.
The silent assassin has gone missing.
Nice finish and nice weighted pass from Balogun. Nice goal Timothie Weah.
Bien fait!
what i was watching second half was, goal aside, a lot of guys running between their backs, but not getting fed.
Couva was worse. Surely you remember that?
I missed the game. Who won?
Colombia beat the USMNT 5-1.
1. First goal Jedi failed to completely clear a pass into the box and wound up actually assisting the Colombian forward.
2. The second goal was a ridiculous overhead bike by the Colombian forward. The ball fortuitously fell to him and he did a fantastic job to get on his bike.
To this point the game was about what I expected. The USMNT more often that not usually looked slow and disjointed. The effort was there but the sharpness was not.
3. Early in the second half Wright came on for CP and injected some life into the attack and Weah scored after a nice assist from Balogun. It looked like we might have a game but around minute 77 Colombia scored 3 rapid fire goals and finished off the USMNT.
Overall this was a very good game for the USMNT. Wake up calls are always welcome. They did very well for about 30 of the 90 minutes, which is more than I expected.
It doesn’t look like anyone got seriously hurt.
A number of our Euro guys looked heavy legged, which you might have expected. It’s been a long season.
I have not seen it said much here but this is a very. very good Colombia team. Talented , well drilled, well coached, they look like they’ve been together for a while and are confident.
They must be contenders to win Copa America.
Gregg needs more games like this. If the players haven’t been listening to whatever it is he’s been saying , this ought to focus them
Vacqui,
I appreciated you measured and reasoned approach.
“ I have not seen it said much here but this is a very. very good Colombia team. Talented , well drilled, well coached, they look like they’ve been together for a while and are confident.
They must be contenders to win Copa America.
Gregg needs more games like this. If the players haven’t been listening to whatever it is he’s been saying , this ought to focus them”
– our guys have largely been together since 2020, how do we still look like we don’t know each other.
-Nestor Lorenzo had 18 months of manager experience when he took over Colombia. His Melgar squad finished 5th in Peru. This wasn’t Luis Van Gaal. I used to say maybe there wasn’t someone better, but perhaps we should have interviewed more mid table managers in Peru!
JR,
I don’t know why Colombia looks more together than we do. But they play tougher teams than we do on a regular basis. For those of you who wonder why I go on about the crap competition that our weakling CONCACAF brothers provide us, games like this are why. Their players are more battle hardened than our guys. They are tougher, more disciplined. Because THEY HAVE TO BE. They have James to provide them with leadership.
For our guys, Colombia is arguably the best team they have ever played under Gregg. This kind of game is what I was worried about when I first heard we were playing in Copa America.
There is more of this humiliation to come.
Historically, whenever the USMNT has come back from a long time off that first game back has always been a challenge for them.
And today most everyone looked rusty, out of rhythm. And a lot of our guys haven’t been playing that much. When Ream was taking the ball out of the back it seemed like he had to hold the ball longer than he would normally like because our “normal” movement did not seem to be there. Sally did well but they missed Dest. JS is not as assured coming out of the defense with the ball as Sergino. I think they missed his fiery punk attitude as well.
The difference in this game was finishing.
Colombia’s first two goals were ridiculously clinical and they were totally ruthless with that three goal burst.
Really all we needed to do was score one more goal and prevent that three goal outburst and then you’re tied. Simple.
I saw nothing new today. Whatever flaws came out have been there all along and we’ve discussed them all before.
This team is not well organized, do not react well to adversity and in general are not well coached. I wrote that before Qatar and things haven’t really changed have they? At this point that is on both Gregg and the players. Maybe now the players will decide to listen to Gregg. I think he welcomes these games and if he does not , he should. He can use this game and beat them over the head with it.
You don’t often play someone who literally makes you pay for almost every mistake you make. And guess what, we have Brazil next.
Then on to Copa America where , again, there’s even more pain waiting for us.. We’re not talking a broken down Wales , an overmatched Iran or an overrated England looking for a break.
Fun fact: Colombia last played Bolivia in March of 2022 in the WC qualifiers for Qatar and beat them 3-0. Does that mean they should beat us 2-1?. I don’t think Bolivia are going to be overly scared of us.
I can’t wait to see what Uruguay has got.
Vac, I was just kidding. I watched the game but I had to watch on my phone with no volume pretending I wasn’t watching so I couldn’t make out too much specifically. I’m not a Gregg fan nor a Gregg hater but no one should be surprised by the result. Arob just seems to give the ball away every time he touches it; quite similar to his game against Holland and many other games for the US. Depth is weak and no one should be surprised by that although US would have won 6-5 if Green played. I don’t suspect Gregg is going to do anything different than the 433 against Brazil and we will probably see even more of the reserves. Like Qatar, he did not play the way he did in the tune ups. Ultimately, freindlies seem to matter more to the fans than the team judging by the posts on this site. The midfield when the team completely collapsed was LDLT, Musah, and MTillman (not to say it was their fault). Hope not to see that during Copa and don’t expect to, but we certainly might see it again against Brazil. I think England and Holland are both better than Columbia; if the US played that poorly against either of them it would have been a similar result.
V: if you check the tape, jedi’s man is nowhere near where he is. i don’t think jedi knows is why the last chance dive for the ball. if he knows where his man is, dozens of yards wide, he just lets that roll out. U14 common sense is don’t clear a ball towards your own net, but he’s panicked.
goal 2 we’re losing the 50/50s to get that ball cleared and then despite a slow arcing header no one is out to the kicker. i’ve stepped in front of a bike before. it’ll hurt but deal is no one is on the man.
on the later goals they were just flat out getting numbers up and committing defenders then finishing.
with about one exception, turner was brutal, but if you’re playing like that you’re shipping 3 goals or so on a good day.
wright provides some spark but due to GB is out there playing wing.
it is highly highly hopeful to watch that and think (a) we’ll switch it up for the real games or (b) we were hiding something scouted. reality is we have a pattern of this crap.
JR: dude, colombia sits 3rd in conmebol. low scoring (1 goal a night), tight defense (half a goal a night). bunch of 2-1, 1-0, 1-1, 0-0. something went wrong last night. what changed? it was us. spare me the hyperbole.
“it is highly highly hopeful to watch that and think (a) we’ll switch it up for the real games or (b) we were hiding something scouted. reality is we have a pattern of this crap.”
A “pattern” ? Hardly.
What you saw out there is who they are every game, more or less.
They are everything I ever said they were.
Soft, disorganized, undisciplined, not very well coached, used to bullying weaklings and thus susceptible to teams who can actually play a little. React poorly to adversity. Lack depth. Boys vs men.
This is the 70th game of the Berhalter reign. They have faced Colombia( 1-5), Netherlands( 1-3) England (0-0). And Uruguay (1-1) and Chile ( 1-1) in friendlies before Qatar.
With Copa looming the Colombia players seemed to be making a play for PT in the tournament . So they were not fucking around. They were showing us the difference between having to fight through CONMEBOL vs fighting thru CONCACAF.
This game was no different for the USMNT from any of their other games except that being the first one after along layoff, they usually tend to be clearly rusty.
They will be better vs Brazil. but the result of that game depends not on what the USMNT wants to do but on how much Brazil wants to push it.
Given their mindset(inconsistent) and ability level, they’re not in control of their fate vs adult teams.
At this point in their development they are not really upset capable.
These adult teams like Colombia and Brazil just have to decide if they want it bad enough.