HalfSpaces Player (+/-) Grades: USMNT vs Iran

The USMNT isn’t one of the heavyweights. Brazil, Spain, France, etc. can all basically take the group stage for granted and assess the success of their campaign by how far they go in the knockout rounds. For the USA, making it out of the group is the goal and from there on out it’s gravy.

We’ve generally managed to do that since we started taking soccer seriously in the 90s. The misses were 1998 (disaster), 2006 (Arena’s 2nd cycle), and sorta 2018 (not making the tournament counts as not getting out of the group, right?).

Is Berhalter the best coach in the world? No. However, he’s got this group completely bought in and they made it through the group stage without needing help and that’s more than you can say about the high water mark team in 2002 (got bailed out by S. Korea). If they manage to get past the Netherlands on Saturday we are talking about the best USMNT performance in the program’s history. I still don’t think any coach should get a second cycle, but Berhalter has done a good job.

The Iran match was a thoroughly stressful experience. They didn’t make us wait as long for the goal as the 2010 team, but sweating out 10 minutes of stoppage time knowing that conceding a goal puts us out took some years off my life. The grades are reflective of a good team performance. The main takeaway for me is the dominance of the midfield. We’ll get to the individuals in a second, but the three midfielders combined for 42 events and a cumulative +23.* They were the best trio in Group B and that includes mighty England.

*Grading System Note* The overall scores have actually been a bit lower since I started giving/taking half points. I was spending too much time trying to decide if events were “worth” scoring so I started giving half points to stop the internal waffling.

The US midfield is good and unpleasant to play against. The Dutch may win the game on Saturday, but losing the midfield battle with MMA in there would surprise me. Their “fatal flaw” is that they don’t generate much offense, but with Holland presumably taking the game to the US, causing turnovers and creating opportunities to counter might be enough.

Anyhow, you’re probably here for the grades.

Grading Beverage – Eagle Rare Bourbon – I busted out my favorite for this one (thanks, Scott) and very much enjoyed a quiet evening of obsessively re-watching the game while imbibing. I don’t do well with “tasting notes” but Eagle Rare has a definite cherry flavor to it. Cheers.

The Grades

MOTM – Sergiño Dest (+10.5)

Is this controversial? I try to avoid reading/listening to much before I grade, but I don’t think I’ve seen much about Dest’s performance. He was phenomenal. He’s one of the 20(?) best attacking right backs in the world and his defense isn’t bad when he’s turned on. He’s been “on” this whole tournament thus far. Obviously, he had the direct assist on Pulisic’s goal, but there were many other moments that you might not remember. Like this one in the 67th minute:

Dest pings it on a line to Sargent who brings it down and draws a handball from Iran. There’s a timeline out there where this leads to Kellyn Acosta sinking a freekick and us not being nauseous for 30 minutes afterwards.

Here’s another moment where he fights along the end line and manages to get the ball to Musah. I think Dest has the best close control of anyone on the team. He can (and does) snake dudes at will. How many right backs can dribble multiple opponents and get their own shot if they need to?

Dest is a critical component of the team and I still can’t quite believe Berhalter kept him away from the Dutch. This team would look much different and less swaggy without him.

Other Positive Performances

Yunus Musah (+9)

What were you doing on your 20th birthday? Yunus Musah was dominating a World Cup match on his. Here’s a live look at Valencia’s negotiation guy watching him play against Iran: —>

Musah can break a press by himself, cover acres of spaces, and even be semi-useful around the box. He’s got a piledriver of a shot if he ever gets a chance to tee one up. In this match he did a little bit of everything. Musah and Adams (we’ll get to him in a second) were the only players to end up positive in all four game phases.

Look at him make up space and wipe that guy out. Musah is a “first man off the bus” midfielder. Line him up out there and make teams feel inadequate before the ball has even kicked off. I’m really excited to see how his game develops in the coming years. He’ll be 23 in the 2026 World Cup and that’s still pretty early for a central midfielder. He has a little bit of final product, but adding more of that could make him a truly world class midfielder the likes of which we haven’t seen from an American.

Tyler M_ _ _ _ _ F_ _ _ ing Adams (+9)

What am I supposed to type here anymore? He’s turning into N’Golo Kante in front of our eyes and the eyes of the world. Leeds has him signed through 2027 and they’re already talking about having to give him an improved contract and worrying about being able to hang onto him.

Adams has been my favorite US player for a couple years now and after this World Cup I should probably not be allowed to grade him anymore. Being impartial is going to be very difficult.

He’s a monster on the defensive end, but he’s capable of doing things like the gif above. He’s a midfield building block that the US is blessed to be able to use as its foundation. Sit back and enjoy his career. There’s no telling how far he might go.

Josh Sargent (+6.5)

This score doesn’t usually cause me to write a section up, but I wanted to give Sargent some credit. Our forwards have been pretty poor. They don’t score goals and they haven’t been overly involved in the attack. However, Sargent put in a shift against Iran and looked useful against Wales a few days ago as well (was involved in the build up to Weah’s goal).

My own personal theory for World Cup contenders is that they need a bad man at defensive midfielder (check) and a forward (preferably a target type) scoring goals (not check). Sargent had a couple moments in this match that were very impressive to me. Check this one out:

It’s not a great goal or a crazy piece of skill, but that’s a valuable thing. It gains field position while maintaining possession at a point in the match where we were struggling to do those things. The US hasn’t had a forward since Jozy Altidore that could do that for us. I hope Sargent is okay. He’s the best option we’ve got at forward and at time of writing I haven’t heard anything about his injury. Fingers are crossed.

Room to Improve

For the second consecutive match there’s no one to write up a full section on. Shaq Moore had a rough moment or two when he came on, but recovered to mostly hold his own.

Jedi had five (by my count) pretty awful touches but did enough in other areas that he ended up with a decent enough grade (+2). Look at the defense here:

Cameron Carter-Vickers was fine (+2.5) and did the thing that Zimmerman hasn’t so far. Avoided the one big mistake. Curious to see who starts against the Netherlands. I think I’m okay either way as long as Ream is out there.

Next Up: The Netherlands

I actually feel okay about this matchup. If you listen to the podcast you may have heard this analogy, but I’ll write it out here.

Back during the poker craze of the late oughts, there was a cash game player named Sammy Farha. He was frustrated at the time because he knew how pros play and he could take their money. Then all the poker newbies came in and played erratically, which irritated Mr. Farha.

The USMNT is Sammy Farha. Our best performances tend to come against teams that want to “play football.” There’s a reason the US looks better against Mexico than we do against Canada. We struggle to create when we have more of the ball and are supposed to break teams down. I doubt that’s going to be the game state very often on Saturday. A win would be a lot of fun, wouldn’t it?

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