The U.S. men’s national team has learned its opponents for this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup.
Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Saudi Arabia have been paired with Mauricio Pochettino’s squad for the upcoming tournament. The USMNT last won the Gold Cup in 2021 and overall have won the competition seven times.
The Americans are unbeaten in their last nine head-to-head matches with Haiti despite losing the previous seven encounters prior. The USMNT holds a 22-4-5 record against Trinidad & Tobago and a 3-2-2 record against Saudi Arabia, who are a guest team in the tournament.
A total of 16 teams will take part in the competition, with the four group winners and four winners-up advancing to the knockout stage.
The knockout stage will feature the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds before the final takes place at Houston’s NRG Stadium on July 6.
Mexico are the reigning champions of the competition.
Here is a closer look at the remaining three groups for the Gold Cup:
Group A: Mexico, Costa Rica, Suriname, Dominican Republic
Group B: Canada, Honduras, El Salvador, Curacao
Group C: Panama, Jamaica, Guatemala, Guadeloupe
This idea that we’re treating the NT like an all-star team is overblown. Musah has played RB at times for Milan and was likely employed due to the late cancellation of Jedi. It’s not like we’re playing Weston and Tyler at CB with a CM of Pulisic, Luna, and Reyna. Maybe these guys aren’t always in their preferred positions but they are in positions they know. It’s not like we used to play Mike Sorber over some superstar because Mike fit the system. We played Mike Sorber because he was our All-Star at the time.
JR
I’ve never been as rigidly militant about positional designations as some:
1. Fundamentally sound , intelligent, imaginative players should be more than capable of playing a variety of roles.
Soccer is a simple, flexible game. The positional variations in question are not like, for example, asking Tom Brady to play center or nose guard.
A lot of you swoon when some big guy built like a tight end shows up. The beauty of this game is physically unimpressive players like Maradona, Modric and , of course, Messi can be the best players around but physical, athletic, beasts like Brandon Vazquez or Cade Cowell are just this side of slightly above average. I have heard their managers say that Pele, Rooney and Landon were the best soccer players on their teams period and it did not really matter where they were played, they would have succeeded. Pele and Rooney both said they wanted to play keeper for fun at one point. I don’t know about LD.
2. Many players began as one thing and morphed into another. Spurs bought a young rising star left back from Southampton named Gareth Bale. They turned him into a winger and the rest is history. The World Cup is full of players who started their careers in one position and eventually became a star in another role.
2. A positional change might be only for a few games a season.
If Weah had been our #1 starting right back in all of his USMNT games , in his 8 seasons he would have averaged 5.5 games per year. The reality is that most national team lineups are compromises , making the best out of who you can get to show up, like intramural teams.. Ruud Gullit, captain of the only Dutch team ever to win anything, the 1988 Euros, was a Balon D’or winner and an all time great. He had 66 caps and scored 17 goals for the Netherlands. And he wrote that he never felt comfortable playing for the Netherlands but he showed up anyway because it was his patriotic duty. So, when y’all talk about players being “comfortable” I say, who said it was supposed to be comfortable? A lot of us have praised Gregg for putting together a good locker room where everyone is comfortable with each other and in general seems to be having a good ole’ time. Maybe they are having too good a time. Maybe they are too comfortable.
Full disclosure, I have always been a huge fan of Celtic’s Lisbon Lions, the 1970 Brazil World Cup winners and Johann Cruyff and the Clockwork Orange. Those guys, especially the Dutch, had everyone playing everywhere so I’ve never understood the fans who complained about fullbacks straying over the halfway line or right backs occasionally being on the left hand side of the field.
Ironically, given CCV’s latest goal, Celtic won the European Cup final in 1967 vs. Inter, who famously promoted the use of Catenaccio (that’s a bunker for those who don’t speak Italian), one year before Man U did, with a goal from the right hand side just outside the box, from pretty much exactly the same spot where CCV scored his. It was a right footed rocket from about 35 yards scored by Celtic’s left back, Tommy Gemmel.
A right footed left back, imagine that.
USMNT issues aren’t the player pool, it’s the continuity, the teamwork, the understandings between the players in the critical moments re. who is doing what, going where, wtc.
we do not have that going on currently and it shows up all over the filed.
it’s not EASports man, can’t just jumble a group of good players together and field a team, or we can, and look disjointed and lethargic because edudes are not sure where or what each are doing
we need to figure that out quick
the thing about the 90s and 00s teams is they were not confused who they were trying to be, and the roster carpet matched the tactical drapes. the premise most nights is pass around the back and loft a cross in. that suits a mcbride instead of a landon. we rarely roster a target striker. teams like that should also be better team defense since their attack is low percentage. we are a sieve.
how many chances does the 2020 brigade get? you’re like, they need chemistry more than fresh faces. we’ve been trying to get them to play together for 5 or more years.
ever considered it’s tactics and personnel? first, my experience a lot of chemistry is getting some guys involved who are active and show to ball and like to combine. IMO weah reyna luna aaronson ferreira. their game is not just dribble a bunch and take people on — they genuinely look to set teammates up. and about 3/5 of that list couldn’t even make the team last time.
and then beyond that it’s a system tailored to the pool and then a selection tailored to the system. right now it’s like we indulged the snobs and picked a system at random. tiki taka does not fit the pool with limited exceptions. you need to do something that fits most of this pool. and then pick ruthlessly to that scheme. and be willing to bench or drop guys who don’t play the scheme well.
you look at the teams beating us and some of them are not better talent, they are simply well coached and not confused “who are we.” we are trying to be something we are not. we are trying to field fanboy all star teams who can’t play together or execute the scheme. and it shows.
“IMO weah reyna luna aaronson ferreira. their game is not just dribble a bunch and take people on — they genuinely look to set teammates up. and about 3/5 of that list couldn’t even make the team last time.”
Luna, Weah, and Reyna all made the roster. Thank goodness my second grade teacher taught me how to do fractions because that seems be 3/5 of your list did make the team.
JR, you’re making me laugh, and thank you
you make sense too, I listen
what briefly sparked end of last year was set up the “pivot” closer to midfield and send jedi behind the backline, who then sets up our speedy central strikers playing into the space behind the backline. that was more interactive and direct as the players had to knock on off each other and overlap.
when they came back after that they’d reverted to berhalter ball, let the defense get back, play in front of the opponent. we have no special skill at either breaking down a deep defense or scoring goals off crosses through non-target players. heck, the crossing itself is fairly pedestrian.
if you remember panama we got a couple early balls in behind them for weah but then abandoned the effort to send wings early down the sideline.
personally i think we look like some 80s NASL team that plays glacially slow, no skip passes, no tempo. it was drilled into my brain as a U16 to commit defenders with passes, to play 1 quick skip-pass instead of 3 slow ones, and that if i wasn’t sending teammates into the box but was instead playing keepaway by the flag, i lacked ideas.
i think this thing has regressed and the irony is the past decade has been the domain of the Progress People who lectured us we were going about it all wrong.
IV and his MAGA soccer view. If we’d just go back to the good old days, we’d be good. He looks back on 1994 and sees playing Brazil up a man for entire half and being barely able even to get on the ball as the greatest time in our history. 2002, wow how amazing it was that we beat (checks notes) Mexico in the first round. Forget that we got blasted 3-1 by Poland and only advanced because of a 70th minute goal by S Korea against. Never mind the ‘98 or ‘06 when his beloved defensive style had us finishing 32nd and 25th out of 32 teams. Much like the tarif, your park the bus and boot it long strategy won’t advance the US on the world stage. Just as Trump might get a favorable deal or two from small countries the put everyone behind the ball and hope your athlete can club it in that your club coaches in the 80s (who apparently know more about soccer than Pochettino) taught you might win a game or two on a big stage but never get us to the semis or final. This possession style didn’t get us any farther (yet) but the results are pretty similar (not drastically inferior as you suggest). The same ideas won 3 NLs before this year and a GC. The old ways would win about 1 GC out of 3. They’d finish us 2nd in our WC group and play better teams in the knockouts and lose.
beachbum,
Given the time frame, we’re pretty much stuck with this group of players and this manager.
Many of the players have been together as a unit since about a year before they went to Qatar. In National team terms that’s a good amount of time but, as you say, they often play like they have just met. That’s why I did not rate “Lucky” Gregg. He put this unit together and in doing so seemed to leave out something important. It’s now up to Pochettino fo find the missing link if that is possible.
Most of them are comparatively inexperienced either as full time first team professionals and/ or established internationals. I don’t see a lot of leaders in this flock of sheep.
When JK took over he had guys like Clint, Jermaine Jones, LD, Michael Bradley, Dolo, Boca, Howard, Guzan, Jozy, etc., tough guys who had been around and were not shy.
Right now CP is the leader by credentials and default. However, he is not, in terms of his basic character, a leader type of guy. And as a forward he is positionally unsuited.
Adams would be great but he’s never around. Weston would also be great but he blows hot and cold.
The closest I’ve seen them to looking really jointed and un-sluggish was when Jedi moved into midfield. That seemed to bring out the best in Jedi and they are going to need more moves like that.
V: I disagree these guys are inexperienced. The NL roster had 7 guys with over 40 caps. All of them starters in Qatar. You had 12 of them who have regular every week players in Top Five leagues in Europe for multiple seasons. It’s time to get past this “they’re young” narrative. Their average age at NL was 26.
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I do think the plan was to use Jedi in that tucked in role but when he opted out, the staff were left with just playing a basic style.
JR.
Inexperienced is probably not the best word to describe the difference between the 2024 guys and those JK vets I listed.
Maybe the clearest way to make my point is to say that the JK guys seemed to need minimal input from JK in terms of tactics (probably a good thing since JK was more of “tactical minimalist” ).
They seemed to be low maintenance workers compared to the current bunch who seem to be high maintenance workers.
If a boss wants X amount of work done, a low maintenance worker needs minimum direction and supervision from their boss while a high maintenance worker needs a lot more direction and supervision from the boss to get the same job done.
JK’s guys seemed to already have a very good idea of how to get things done. Whether that was because of JK or in spite of JK I could not tell you.
Compare that to Gregg’s Crew. They have always struck me as tentative and confused, especially if things got sticky. Since the vast majority of the teams Gregg played were inferior this lack of identity and leadership was not often tested. It’s really been left to Pochettino to sort it out, if that is possible at this late stage.
IV would like them to revert to playing like Bob’s 2009 Confed team that beat Spain. But that would not work with the 2024 group. That 2009 team was built on solid to excellent goal keeping , an impregnable central defense that had aerial superiority that was assisted by a solid midfield that tracked back but also knew how to spring a lethal counter that was led by burner Chuck Davies, who kept the Spanish defense honest, trailed by a lethal LD, Clint and Jozy to clean up.
Today we don’t have the keepers or the defensive nous, even with Tyler back. And , for the USMNT recently, Tyler’s defensive reality is not as good as his reputation.
So whatever Pochettino comes up with it won’t be as simple as dropping their alleged use of Tiki-tika. He’s going to have to very quickly develop an identity that suits the available players.
They really haven’t ever had that. I think he’s getting there and is on the right track.
The question is will he run out of time?
V: I agree our pool isn’t designed for defend in your half and counter. One thing IV never mentions is during those glory years we had EPL level goal keepers in Friedel, Keller, and Howard (even in his prime Guzan). What was the difference in our match with Panama? Orlando Mosquera. Maybe he’s not in the EPL but in Saudi he’s facing attackers like Aubameyang, who he stopped twice today, Mitrovic, Mane, and some guy named Ronaldo. Honestly, Saudi might be a good location soccer wise for our keepers struggling for time. Our positional discipline (Tyler Adams) and sense of urgency (CCV and McKenzie) is not good enough to sit back and give good teams 60% of the ball or more.
JR great point about the GK1s over the years. We do not currently have anyone on that level after being spoiled for so long. Put Howard or Friedel or Kellerman or various options onto this team, yes, I believe it would solve many issues, like many.
But it ain’t there, so Poch has to figure that out. as I said elsewhere, it’s a glaring issue.
IV and Vac, thank you both for the thoughtful replies. I agree with you both on all of it. it’s not too late but it’s got to be solved. Jedi’s use was when we’ve looked our best under Poch as you both mentioned, but need more than one idea, but that is a good one.
I’ll go more. Our set pieces are not dangerous and considering what we’re discussing, they could help solve much more than they currently do, which is relatively nothing.
and we need to settle on a GK1 that fits the tactics and I’m just not sure Turner is it tho his strengths are awesome; without game time his confidence in his feet wanes further from an already rocky perch. so who is it? I don’t think Poch knows yet either
finally, tactically we should never again ever concede a goal because we didn’t cover the weak side second level. enough already
Yes as I recall USSF brought in some world renowned set piece coach before the WC and it made no difference. Largely because Pulisic takes the set pieces, but he’s got several assists for Milan this year off corners so I don’t think it’s all his fault either.
hey JR, then try again I say. It didn’t work before, ok, try again dammit. It is terrible now, no reason it should suck so bad, none.
If that means someone else takes a free kick, or someone else is targeted, or someone else coaches the team on it, or we try different ideas…whatever man, just get it done. I’m not looking to place blame.
how’s that 😉
Beach,
I’d play Reyna and use him as the free kick taker. I know that’s not an extremely popular opinion here. I guess after Pulisic, Luna is probably the only guy that takes free kicks regularly for their club. Sargent and Wes are pretty good with their heads, but usually we put Ream in the mixer too where maybe we’d better with him taking the kicks. Richards continues to get better with his head on offense but McKenzie is undersized as a CB.
JR, I like your ideas, but mainly it’s just…to me, we cannot keep doing the same things that aren’t working and expect different results; for a while we can run with that, give things a chance, yes, ok, but at some point, you gotta cut bait to try something else before it’s time to go home and no bites. is now that time? idk, Poch will make the call and we’ll see. Straight up, if CP starts nailing consistent balls off the restarts, like he can, dilemma solved.
if not, Gio, Luna, idk, and on headers or power I hear you, but it’s not just headers, there are other possibilities if going for headers isn’t working…that’s what I’m saying
Beachbum,
“to me, we cannot keep doing the same things that aren’t working and expect different results; “
Regarding offensive set pieces, I don’t think CP is doing the same thing every time.
All set pieces involve at least two people.
As an attacker, the idea for CP is to get the ball into goal past the defenders. OR getting the ball to a team-mate who is able to do something good with the ball.
CP is not perfect but he has taken enough set pieces in his career that I am comfortable with him( or Gio) taking the bulk of the USMNT’s set pieces.
It’s our guys on the receiving end of the free kick that I’m worried about.
Do they know how to gt open?
From the BBC;
“Last season 247 – 19.8% – of the 1,246 goals scored in the Premier League came from set-pieces (excluding penalties). That was actually down from a high of 28.5% in 2010-11.
This season 19.4% – 39 of the 201 goals so far – have been set-piece goals.”
Those numbers are significant. Some EPL (Brentford, Arsenal) teams have coaches who do nothing but design set piece plays and coach them. Notwithstanding the lack of practice time, Pochettino needs to address this in some fashion.
The interaction is similar to what happens between a receiver and his QB in the NFL. The Ravens had receivers who often dropped easy balls or could not even get open and thus wasted Flacco’s rocket arm. The difference, of course, is that no one is trying to separate CP’s head from his body when he takes his kick.
The USMNT are offensively anemic and can’t afford to waste the opportunity that dead balls represent. CP is not the main problem. The rest of the team pissing away the opportunity is more of the problem.
are we sending the A team to the gold cup?
Doug McIntyre was on Alexi Lalas’s show today and said it’s going to be a mostly first team roster minus the guys at club WC. Of course he’s been wrong about things before.
If the US gets grouped in this tournament Poch should be fired, no excuses, get a result.
Thank goodness Panama was a seeded team!
Looking forward to it. Hope to see Luna in the starting 11. He is the new Dempsey.
“He is the new Dempsey.”
Maybe some day but right now that’s very, very premature.
Clint was much more of a scorer while Luna is more of a playmaker.
I don’t know much about Luna who seems like a great guy but Clint was one of the two toughest, most hard core, driven individuals who ever played for the USMNT that I knew of ( the other one being Jermaine Jones).
When Clint first came up for the USMNT fans blasted him for being too selfish and caring only about money and not caring enough about the USMNT.
Since you mentioned him here are some quotes from Clint in an article in ESPN the magazine just before the 2010 World Cup:”
– “I don’t want to get into how I’m perceived there versus here in the U.S. But I’m respected in Europe for what I do week in and week out on the highest level.”
– “In big games, I always come through.”
– “It was good for my first goal to mean so much,” says Dempsey [who went to Fulham from the New England Revolution of the MLS on a $5 million transfer and scored a goal that saved Fulham from relegation] “I paid back the club for my transfer fee. I wasn’t in debt to them.”
– “I pride myself on stepping up on big occasions.”
– “People who aren’t educated about the game are going to take whatever a commentator has to say as the complete truth. And that’s not always the case. That’s just their opinion.”
– “I was top three in the whole tournament in distance covered,” he says. “You can question my effectiveness, but you can’t question my heart and my effort.”
– “I’m respected by my teammates. And I’m respected by my coaches. That’s why they keep me on the field. The criticism comes with the money we get paid.”
– “Off the pitch, the best thing about [playing in the Premier League] is more money in your account. You go to Europe for the competition, for the soccer and for more financial stability for your family.”
– “I’m from nowhere, man.” [Regarding growing up in Nacogdoches, TX]
– “I feel like I’m effective no matter where I am on the field.”
– “I enjoy playing up top, because the closer you are to goal, the more chances you’re going to get, and one of my favorite parts of the game is scoring goals.”
– “You start to think that fate’s on your side. There’s a chance to do something unbelievable.”
– “You can be the face [of US soccer] or not be the face. You get only so many opportunities in major competitions, and you’ve got to take advantage of them. I gotta stand up and be counted in this World Cup.”
Wow, and I thought i was a big Dempsey fan. Interesting collection of quotes. I remember watching a post game interview with Dempsey after he won a game for Fulham and one of his teammates broke in to say he deserved recognition because he worked harder than anyone else. One of my big disappointments in the US failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup is that Dempsey lost a chance to be one of the few players, and only American, to ever score in 4 separate World Cups. Luna has a lot of potential, does he have the desire?
Gary,
Clint is arguably the best USMNT player of all time. Arguably.
Luna may eventually eclipse everything Clint ever did, but to anoint Diego a USMNT god, to put him in that category now, after a comparatively miniscule amount of data , while pretty typical of how it goes with the USMNT , is nonsense.
If you saw him when he was just starting out as a sub with the Revolution, you knew immediately he had some unique quality that was very rare among other American players in MLS at that time. That’s how obvious it was if you’ve been playing soccer all your life. Don’t need to be a pro scout because it was that obvious.
Is it bad that even with a group this weak I still wonder if we’re even going to get out of it? I mean…I hope not, but….
That’s bad because that would be a level of futility that is orders of magnitude worse than our worst performances in the past year or so. It just means you are far more pessimistic than is warranted. It’s about you more than the team.
quozzel,
There is an expression about not getting too high or too low.
In normal circumstances the USSF would probably put token importance on the Gold Cup, although playing Saudi Arabia, the kind of low profile, dangerous team we are likely to meet in the World Cup, is certainly worth it.
The Gold Cup is scheduled to maximize injury possibilities to our euros and generally has never served as an indicator of how we would do in the World Cup.
Unfortunately, since our lazy, softie, unpatriotic, tattooed millionaires shit the bed in the NL, the media and the fan base are in full blown hysterical panic.
Circumstances are not normal, and you are not alone in your concern.
Fans and Media want nothing more than to have our A team march in there blow everyone away, win the thing and group hug the fan base, never mind if we have some months yet before the rosters must be finalized. The Gold Cup allows the USMNT to further increase the chance that some of our already overused players will become even more injured. Depriving Jedi, Pulisic, Weston, Weah and Musah for example of some much-needed rest and exposing them to people looking to hurt them just makes so much sense.
And it’s always a good idea to make sure that Tyler, a known injury recidivist, gets a chance to get back to his normal brittle self.
Or you could call up a non-A squad.
There are enough long-term absentees from action (Dest, Malik, Turner, Gio, Wright, Flo, etc.) that that you could combine these rehabs with the Cupcake squad, Jordan Morris and IV’s fanboy faves, CC, Duane Holmes and Julian Green (to give you World Cup experience) to win the thing. And of course, Diego and Patrick are A teamers now.
Call it a B+ squad.
It is the last competitive set of games in which to get this team on the same page, but Pochettino is just going to have to figure out another way to get it done. That’s why he makes the big bucks.
Pochettino’s late hire was largely a PR move and always made this entire thing a tightrope act. The USMNT is now up against the wall. But I’ve seen worse, and these guys still have time.
We have now reached a point where we have enough experienced players who aren’t USMNT regulars to put together a pretty good team. Guys like Tessman , Busio , Caleb Wiley, Trusty, CCV, Yow, Paredes, one or two of the Aaronsons, Aidan Morris, McKenzie, Maloney, Tolkin, Pefok, Ledezma, Fossey, Reynolds, Sands, Zendejas,and Cade Cowell. And I’m probably leaving out a couple of guys. Almost all of these guys play either in first division European clubs or the English Championship and most have some international experience. Add to that some MLS players and you have a full roster.