I swear I didn’t do this on purpose, but I somehow forgot to record the Canada match. I watched it, but apparently I didn’t click the little plus sign on YouTubeTV that adds it to your library. Not gonna lie though – I wasn’t all that upset. It wasn’t a fun game to watch the first time and the prospect of grading/writing up three matches in a week while working full time and trying not to be an awful husband/father was daunting.
Winning in Honduras also made going back and watching this one again more palatable. If the US had lost that match and were sitting on two points instead of five I may not have checked CBS Sports for a replay. And other than the 27 Canadians who get CBS Sports…who is watching a replay of this? Exclusively masochists, right?
Anyhow, the grades are bad. Not exactly a shock, I’m sure. The team average checks in at 2.9. The worst average I’ve graded was -0.5 for the 2-0 loss to Canada in 2019. So while they weren’t in the negative, I don’t think anyone will be printing this out and putting it on the fridge either. Let’s take a look.
Grading Beverage: Yellowstone Bourbon again – finally finished up the bottle I got while we were on vacation down in Cocoa Beach. And tbh this one has grown on me as I’ve gone through the bottle. Originally, I said I wouldn’t pay $50 for it again…I think I might now.
If you haven’t read one of these USMNT (+/-) Player Grades articles before click here for an explanation of the system.
Grades
MOTM – Brenden Aaronson (+9.5)
Aaronson scored the goal, of course, but his performance had more positives to it than that. For a team that struggles mightily to create chances, the way Aaronson wins the ball high up the field is very important. 4.5 of the points I scored as positive for him came from pressing, winning the ball, etc.
This is the most critical piece of the goal he ends up scoring. I’d argue that this is even more important than the finish he eventually applies to cap off the move. You can tell that he plays for a Red Bull team. If the USMNT doesn’t improve on their chance creation from possession, then causing turnovers is going to be extremely important. Aaronson does that better than any of our other wingers (Reyna is decent at it too tbf).
Other Positive Performances
Nope. Next section.
Bonus Team-wide “Tactical” Content
Since there was basically no one to write about from a positive perspective (Pulisic, Adams, and Jedi were fine, I guess), I thought I’d take a look at something a little more team-wide. These are the events sorted by phase of play in the Canada match – specifically these are the plays that I categorized as “Offensive Transition” moments.
There are 14 events there and they aren’t even all positive, but at least they exist. The total phase score for the team comes out to +4.5. Here is the same portion of the event log from the Honduras match:
In the Honduras match there were 32 events that I categorized as “Offensive Transition” phase for a total of +28.5. Guess which match we scored four goals in? This isn’t exactly rocket science, but if the USMNT doesn’t create off the break then the team just doesn’t create (with the possible exception of set pieces). It might be time to lean even harder into the pressing identity Berhalter has moved toward in the last year or so.
Room to Improve
DeAndre Yedlin (-2)
Yedlin is fast, athletic, and up for the fight. He’s also been around the block a couple times with the USMNT. It’s probably why Berhalter has started him in a final against Mexico, away World Cup qualifiers, etc. He comes with some limitations however. He’s not much use in the attack (he does hit a pretty good cross now and again, I know) and his defending can be inexplicable on occasion. I’d say the blame is split pretty evenly between him and Brooks on the Canada goal in this match, but you can’t have your veteran right back making it that easy for Alphonso Davies to get by him. Bryan Reynolds could have been out there and done that. Yedlin has a place on the depth chart going forward and he’s hardly the only one that struggled in this match, but it wasn’t a great performance.
John Brooks (-2)
Writing this after the Honduras match is an interesting twist. Brooks’ performance against Canada wasn’t very good. Aside from the obvious error on the goal, Brooks struggled in other moments throughout the match. He committed a fairly silly foul in the 7th minute that gave Canada an attacking set piece and got beat a couple other times on defense as well (11′, 78′). To top it all off, he wasn’t great in possession, and that’s kinda supposed to be his “thing.” That isn’t all on him – a QB can’t throw to receivers that don’t get open, but that’s what he’s in the team to do. I’m not sure what to make of Brooks tbh – he’s got the best pedigree of any defender in the pool and he’s the best with the ball. I think the movement off the ball in front of him is going to need to be better to take advantage of those skills though.
Who are we?
I think that’s a question that needs an answer. We are not a possession team that can “disorganize the opponent with the ball.” At the moment, we are also not a high pressure team that manufactures chances by causing turnovers. In my opinion though, we have better personnel and temperament for becoming the latter. The “B team” in the Gold Cup created more against Mexico from open play than the “A team” did because they committed to pressuring Mexico hard. We lost to Switzerland in May, but we had them on the ropes for a while through pressure.
We need to score more goals and causing turnovers is a lot easier than passing and moving your way through a set defense. I have no idea if Berhalter will come to the same conclusion, but I hope so. It’s fun to watch and we have a few guys that are pretty dang good at it. Let’s hope the October window performances look more like the ones against Switzerland, Mexico, Honduras (2nd half) than the Canada/El Salvador showings.
*NOTE* I suppose a third “Identity” option would be the play great defense and hope to score a random goal or a goal off a set piece plan. It’s sort of what we did in the Gold Cup, but no one wants this. It is better than losing though…I guess.
If you enjoyed this and would like to be informed of future articles type your email address in the box and you’ll be notified of each new post. Also, feel free to follow me on Twitter @blharreld 🤓
