It was a frustrating match to watch initially and it wasn’t any better going over it with a fine-tooth comb. Five of the starters ended up in the red and seven players overall. I’m going to go over the individual performances because that’s what I do here, but when the performance is this lackluster I think you’ve gotta direct most of your ire at the coach.
Three game World Cup qualifying windows are new and everyone is trying to figure out how to handle them. Based on current standings, Mexico and Canada are doing rather well. How have they handled rotation? This graphic is from Jim Rooney (@Advancedusmnt on Twitter):
There have been injuries, but Berhalter is using more players than those two teams and building a cohesive team is going to be difficult that way. The problem there though, is that a couple of Berhalter’s “core” players are proving they aren’t up to the task. Lletget, Acosta, and Roldan have all logged extensive minutes under Berhalter and at least Lletget/Roldan need to be phased out imo.
The midfield depth after Adams/McKennie/Musah is either untested (LDLT/Busio) or not up to it (Lletget/Acosta). It’s a conundrum of Berhalter’s own making. By giving so many minutes to the same players he now has to try to integrate new players on the fly or ride with the guys it’s becoming increasingly clear can’t do it. This is how you end up with Shaq Moore starting when he has played 60 minutes this season and hasn’t seen the field since 9/19 while Joe Scally chills at home after being voted Gladbach’s player of the month. 😑
Hindsight is 20/20 and it’s easy to criticize from a laptop in my living room, but here’s another helpful tweet, this time from Garret Craig (@garretkc_fut) :
#USMNT minutes under Berhalter:
— Garret Craig (@garretkc_fut) October 11, 2021
1. Arriola 1,704
2. Ream 1,681
3. Lletget 1,661
4. McKennie 1,608
5. Long 1,534
6. Zardes 1,361
7. Roldan 1,260
8. Pulisic 1,258
9. Acosta 1,220
10. Cannon 1,161
11. M. Robinson 1,077
12. Zimmerman 1,059
13. Yueill 925
14. Dest 879
15. Sargent 874
Out of the 15 players with the most minutes under Berhalter there are probably 6-8 that probably shouldn’t be full strength 23 options. That’s not great, Bob.
Grading Beverage: Midnight Moonshine – I drank it neat, but I’d recommend mixing it with something.
Let’s take a look at the grades now, but remember that when everyone looks bad…it’s on the coach.
If you haven’t read one of these USMNT (+/-) Player Grades articles before click here for an explanation of the system.
Grades
MOTM – Tyler Adams (+4)…I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Adams wasn’t amazing, but he was competent and that pretty much makes you the best player on the field for the USMNT in this match. Adams came on and in the first 30 seconds did this:
After watching Acosta and Lletget hem and haw their way around the field for the first 45 minutes Adams was a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to truly turn the tide for the team. There were brief moments where the subs looked like they were having an effect, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the negative inertia that had been built up by the first half and much of the second.
Tyler Adams is a very good player, but he isn’t a creative attacker. The whole midfield needed to be replaced and he was the only new addition there for the entire game. Would have loved to see Busio and de la Torre get some time to see what effect they could have had. On the bright side we got to see more Yedlin. /s
Other Positive Performances
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Next section.
Room to Improve
Kellyn Acosta (-5)
I like Acosta. He was great in certain matches over the summer during the Gold Cup and you can never accuse him of not giving it 100%. This match was terrible though. He was too slow on the ball. His touch was bad. His service from set pieces was poor and he offered nothing offensively.
If he’s not up to it though, I don’t have any idea who backs up Adams at the #6. It’s another situation where the sheer number of players being rotated in makes it hard for anyone to look good. Passing it out wide to Sergio Dest can make you look a lot better than playing it out to a rusty Shaq Moore.
Cristian Roldan (-3)
He wasn’t on very long, but he was sure wasn’t great while he was out there. I sorta want to give him credit for trying to play progressive passes, but it almost looked like he was firing them blind. I mean look at these:
The event log for him is just a series of notes on confusing/bad passes. I know there aren’t a lot of you that click on the link so here:
I know Roldan is a really good player for Seattle and it’s confusing that his form there doesn’t seem to transfer to the NT, but I think it’s time to stop trying the same thing over and over.
Sebastian Lletget (-2)
I’ve been all over the map with Lletget. I hung on for a while thinking he wasn’t good enough for the international game, but then he strung a few good performances together in friendlies where he looked pretty good. I finally broke down and changed my assessment of him to: good floor player and nice depth piece. It’s still possible (I think) that he can be a good depth piece if he’s playing with the first choice team. He’s not good enough to be a key piece of the side though. He slows down attacks and plays way too conservatively. He hinders the attack by slowing it down more often than he helps it.
And a host of others
I could go on and on. Turner was shaky. Arriola tried hard but didn’t accomplish much. Zardes was invisible when he wasn’t scoring for Panama…but I don’t really want to write more sections like that.
Coaching
For the #FireBerhalter crowd. Just stop. He’s not getting fired before the World Cup. He’s the guy whether any of us like it or not. If the US wins on Wednesday then we’ve gotten one more point in this window than we did last time and things are on track. Losing to Costa Rica at home in 2017 was the real killer blow in missing that World Cup – can’t have that happen again.
I appreciate the defensive solidity that Berhalter has instilled. I’m also deeply frustrated by the lack of attacking edge and the poor talent evaluation/loyalty to players that have proven they can’t do it. It is what it is though – let’s hope Berhalter and co. figure things out before qualifying gets even more dicey.
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One of Roldan’s strengths and weaknesses is that he is “coachable”. It seems very likely to me that he was sent in with instructions to be “direct” and that is what he was trying to do on the long ball to Lletget. You can see Lletget pull up and look for the chip instead of maintaining his run just before Roldan hits it. Roldan is a team player, if he can’t get on the same page with the rest of the team his productivity goes down a ton.