2021 USMNT Thread

[IthacaMatt]

I wish I’d seen more of what you described against Canada.

US played the ball out of the back with some dicey turnovers that would’ve been cashed in quite easily by a stronger opponent.

We didn’t seem to have capable wing play to takes advantage of Canada owning the middle of the field. The middle could’ve been called the QEW with how much traffic they controlled.

I applaud the approach to emulate that style, I just didn’t see it enough to recognize it.

I saw a lot of booted clears to relieve pressure (perhaps due to an errant pass or poor touch) and a willingness fo stay compact defensively rather than a high press.

Well, these are the "deep bench" guys you're watching, and those who are totally untested. So give them some time to grow into the roles.

 

[ForCuseSake]

Well, these are the "deep bench" guys you're watching, and those who are totally untested. So give them some time to grow into the roles.

I understand this wasn't the A team but they also weren't playing a significantly more talented team (like an Italy, France or Belgium).

I guess I didn't expect these B team guys were that deep on the bench and would be as ineffective against Canada (no disrespect to Canada). Especially with familiar names like Zardes who, while he may not have high level international quality, should still be able to do damage against Canada. I'm not as up on the player pool as I was last cycle.

I think you're pretty close to the mark using Southgate as a reference. One thing I liked about Klinsmann is that he ditched the bunker approach quite consistently regardless of opponent.

 

[DeGrozz]

I understand this wasn't the A team but they also weren't playing a significantly more talented team (like an Italy, France or Belgium).

I guess I didn't expect these B team guys were that deep on the bench and would be as ineffective against Canada (no disrespect to Canada). Especially with familiar names like Zardes who, while he may not have high level international quality, should still be able to do damage against Canada. I'm not as up on the player pool as I was last cycle.

I think you're pretty close to the mark using Southgate as a reference. One thing I liked about Klinsmann is that he ditched the bunker approach quite consistently regardless of opponent.

That's part of the conundrum though.

Even with this roster, we probably could run a twin d-mid, target and counter system, win 5 games, and roll the dice against Mexico in the finals. But why regress to 2006? If you're going to try to implement a positional system there's no point in running out the empty bucket. The point of these games is trying to figure out who's going to be playing with our only 8 or 10 can't-leave-off-the-roster players.

Yeah, it is gonna be tough watching someone like Pines who's trying to learn his own and his teammates rotations, but that shouldn't prevent any team from looking at youthful talents in less meaningful games.

 

[ForCuseSake]

That's part of the conundrum though.

Even with this roster, we probably could run a twin d-mid, target and counter system, win 5 games, and roll the dice against Mexico in the finals. But why regress to 2006? If you're going to try to implement a positional system there's no point in running out the empty bucket. The point of these games is trying to figure out who's going to be playing with our only 8 or 10 can't-leave-off-the-roster players.

Yeah, it is gonna be tough watching someone like Pines who's trying to learn his own and his teammates rotations, but that shouldn't prevent any team from looking at youthful talents in less meaningful games.

So if I understand you and Matt correctly you’re saying the talent level was so low it failed to execute Berhalter’s system competently enough to avoid bunkering down under pressure.

I’m not disagreeing, I’m second guessing my ability to assess tactics and reconcile talent.

Edit - I don’t think I said the young guys shouldn’t get a crack in a meaningless tourney. I’m just having difficulty following Berhalter’s plan and understanding how the program is developing to that end.

 

[SUfanNC]

With the way players are going down in this tourney I think it is smart to bring b players in that are fighting to get on the team.

 

[DeGrozz]

So if I understand you and Matt correctly you’re saying the talent level was so low it failed to execute Berhalter’s system competently enough to avoid bunkering down under pressure.

I’m not disagreeing, I’m second guessing my ability to assess tactics and reconcile talent.

Not really...

If you're going to look at what Berhalter's system is trying to do its this:

You can essentially break the field down into a grid of 30 squares (to simplify it -- they're fluid, they obviously get compressed during game play, but it makes it easier to visualize). Five lanes going the length of the field (sideline to edge of the 18 on both sides and three lanes through the center of the field). These are vertical spaces. Also think of 6 cross sections going from our own endline - to the top of the box, top of the box to halfway to midfield, halfway to midfield to midfield, and then repeating on the other end. These are called your lines or horizontal spaces. They essentially create a grid on the field and each square in that grid creates a space -- guys like Pep Guardiola actually set up these grids (in their own variation) on their fields when training this way.

The way that Greg wants to play in possession (and think of this for all but the most offensive two horizontal sections of the field) is that you'll never have more than one player in any space, more than three players in any of the horizontal lanes, more than one player in any of the two spaces north or south of the ball, and always at least one player in a diagonal space from the ball.

He does this because he's looking to gain a numerical advantage in each area of the field that he is playing the ball in. For example, every time a US keeper gets a ball you're going to see the same thing happen. Your left center-back will split out wide left, your right center back will split out wide right, and (depending on if you are playing a 3 or 4 across the back) your central midfielder (think of when Tyler Adams will drop back between your CBs in a 4 across the back) or central defender (James Sands these last few games) will drop back centrally to the top of the 18 -- you'll almost always see the goalie with the ball in the six yard box and a line of three players across the 18. The reason that they do this is that even if the defense is to bring pressure with each of its 3 forwards/attacker, you will still have a numerical advantage in this area (if they brought more -- you could overrun them in the midfield, no one wants that). The thought process is that 3 defensive players should not be able to cover 4 offensive players. It's why playing the ball with your feet is such an important part of being a Euro goalie and why Steffen isn't playing more regularly -- because he is an world-class elite shot stopper, but he still struggles in possession.

That part is easy enough. I'll use our base 4-4-2 example (with who I think our core players will be) to explain the next step.

After Steffen gets the ball, Brooks breaks out wide left, Richards breaks out wide right, Adams drops centrally to receive the ball. Your next move (and this is why Brooks is constantly screaming at Dest -- because he's awful with this stuff) is that your outside backs move up offensively and need to watch where McKennie is dropping off on Adams's diagonal position. If McKennie is dropping off to Adam's northern diagonal right, it's the left back's responsibility to rotate into Adam's northern diagonal left. Your left back is now playing inside and ahead of your left centerback -- it's what's called your rotation. It's basically why in these systems you often see players that can appear out of position. The tough thing to get used to though is that it's not always that simple. If your left wing (Pulisic) drops back to help in possession (and ends up on Adams northern left), you all the sudden have 4 guys on the same horizontal (Left back, Pulisic, McKennie, Right back) -- that's basically the green light for your left back to get forward and into a more advanced offensive horizontal space. There are probablu thousands of different scenarios like this that players can find themselves in but they're always supposed to find the right position to create a simple pass or second pass in possession. Someone like Pep would say that every defensive structure would have the perfect movement into and out those spaces - it's why his game plans are 2 or 3 hundred pages long. Someone like Tuchel would say Pep overthinks the game and that players should be trained to organically move into space and it should just be a second nature.

You basically play this positional game of trying to achieve a numerical advantage throughout this grid as you move up the field.

What I think people are most confused about in this system (outside of players still trying to learn their positioning), is how you'll eventually finish in the final third. The reason that you are running this positioning based system is that the ball will always move faster than the opposing players. So if you can overload one area of the field, you can try to open up space that fits your offensive philosophy. If you have someone like Messi, you devise a plan to create space for him in the horizontal area of the field between your opponents backline and defensive midfielders (false 9). You can then hope to get him the ball in that space, make a central defender step up "between the lines" and either exploit a defender weaker than your offensive player or utilize the vacated space from the defender who stepped up "between the lines" with what's called a "third-man" run, where a teammate runs into that open space vacated by the defender that stepped up and is hopefully open to receive a pass. If you have someone like a Haaland or a Lewandowski, you try to devise a way to find them space between the opponents defenders -- it's called a half-space. If you have someone like Josh Sargent, or Gyasi Zardes, or Matthew Hoppe... ??? I'm not really sure what we're trying to do in our offensive third... One would assume though, we may try to find a way to move the ball up the field and move the defense in a way to isolate someone like a Puli against a wing defender who may not be as strong as an on the ball defender, creating a scoring opportunity, but we've really struggled here and seem to lack a philosophy in the final third.

Most possessions don't end is a shot or goal though -- even simple possession in soccer is really, really tough. Immediately after the transition from offense to defense (for example, we turn the ball over), in this system, we still should have a the advantage with the number of players in that area on the field. The thought process is that if you quickly throw all of your players at the ball, and at opponents that could receive a simple pass, in an area of the field where you already have a numerical advantage and win back possession quickly, you'll have a positional or qualitative advantage on the field going forward. It's the core tenant of every Red Bull team (from my buddy's U-8 team in New York [NJ] to the way they play at Leipzig.) It's the reason why someone like Tyler Adams is so valuable in this sort of system. This may be inaccurate from memory -- but I think if you look at the goal that we scored against Mexico in added extra time, it was the result of exactly this. I believe we turned the ball over in our own half, quickly pressed the ball, recovered it, and had a mile of space open up the right side of the field which eventually led to our penalty -- it's exactly what this system is made up to do.

Berhalter's system (and a lot or club systems) is basically a twist on the dutch version of total football with a more aggressive defensive philosophy.

That's why it looks like there is such a discrepancy between the players on the pitch right now. James Sands has been playing this system for the last 7 years of his life under Patrick Viera and Pep Guardiola's former top assistant at Barca, Munich, and Man City, Dome Torrent -- it's why I said earlier that I thought we'd find not only a missing link in our back-3, but also our most like-for-like replacement of Tyler Adams this tournament -- he plays both very well. Many of these guys though are 22 years old, have been playing in the same academy since 17, and are used to a less complex, more static possession system where the same players are in the same positions all the time -- it's basically what led to Canada's best scoring opportunity in the beginning of the second half where we errantly lobbed a backpass to where you'd normally find your holding midfielder in a more static formation that Larin (?) intercepted and mishit from 20 out.

The issue Berhalter is going to run into is that this is a pretty good (and widely used) strategy across the club level. Teams press the ball more, hold a higher line, and generally play a more aggressive style of defense -- the name of the game is to defensively force your opponent to make an error and capitalize on it. This is why offenses are set up to exploit a more aggressive defense. In soccer at the club level, defensive styles control the tempo of play. At the international level, teams have less time together, their defensive tactics are less complex, and you'll have a bend, but not break defensive motto -- including holding a deeper back-4 line like what you see in many of the South American leagues that have a more wide-open level of play and playing a softer press. Defenses are harder to move around -- it's the classic frustration you see when teams 'bunker'.

Anyway, that's kinda (I believe) why we look less sharp than expected right now. For 90% of these guys it's a different system than they are used to, the movements off the ball are complex, they aren't pre-determined like a basketball or football play -- if you haven't played with players before you'll be less likely to understand their unscripted, off the ball movements and they'll make more mistakes in their movements as they learn the system.

Not gonna lie though -- I typed this up during the commercial breaks of the NBA final after a day of heavy day drinking celebrating some professional wins, but hopefully it will vaguely shed some light on what Greg is trying to do, and actually did very successfully -- at least in the MLS and why it's not what everyone has hoped it would be thus far on the national team stage.

 

[cusefan88]

I don't want to quote the long masterclass post on tactics above me, but it's a very specific reason why most national team coaches try to avoid complex systems. You are not with the players very often and you can't really choose exactly your squad (like buying/selling).

I think GGG needs to continue to simplify and refine his "system"

 

[Alsacs]

Klin

I don't want to quote the long masterclass post on tactics above me, but it's a very specific reason why most national team coaches try to avoid complex systems. You are not with the players very often and you can't really choose exactly your squad (like buying/selling).

I think GGG needs to continue to simplify and refine his "system"

I don't want to quote the long masterclass post on tactics above me, but it's a very specific reason why most national team coaches try to avoid complex systems. You are not with the players very often and you can't really choose exactly your squad (like buying/selling).

I think GGG needs to continue to simplify and refine his "system"

Klinsmann was an arrogant manager but he had the proper mindset.
He also recruited his butt off to get dual nationals into the USA.
Ernie Stewart did a great job getting Sergio Dest to chose the US over Netherlands.

I just find GB to be a guy who won’t ever get the job done so I wish we hired somebody who could.
I want the manager to either be a good recruiter or teach good fundamentals.

 

[upperdeck]

much the same process of the JB zone.. but its just a zone people say. every sport has this issue.. players are fine when the ball goes where you expect it, but you need to move as a unit and when the ball in any sport ends up in those other areas, breakdowns in the unit lead to bad results.

 

[ForCuseSake]

Not really...

If you're going to look at what Berhalter's system is trying to do its this:

You can essentially break the field down into a grid of 30 squares (to simplify it -- they're fluid, they obviously get compressed during game play, but it makes it easier to visualize). Five lanes going the length of the field (sideline to edge of the 18 on both sides and three lanes through the center of the field). These are vertical spaces. Also think of 6 cross sections going from our own endline - to the top of the box, top of the box to halfway to midfield, halfway to midfield to midfield, and then repeating on the other end. These are called your lines or horizontal spaces. They essentially create a grid on the field and each square in that grid creates a space -- guys like Pep Guardiola actually set up these grids (in their own variation) on their fields when training this way.

The way that Greg wants to play in possession (and think of this for all but the most offensive two horizontal sections of the field) is that you'll never have more than one player in any space, more than three players in any of the horizontal lanes, more than one player in any of the two spaces north or south of the ball, and always at least one player in a diagonal space from the ball.

He does this because he's looking to gain a numerical advantage in each area of the field that he is playing the ball in. For example, every time a US keeper gets a ball you're going to see the same thing happen. Your left center-back will split out wide left, your right center back will split out wide right, and (depending on if you are playing a 3 or 4 across the back) your central midfielder (think of when Tyler Adams will drop back between your CBs in a 4 across the back) or central defender (James Sands these last few games) will drop back centrally to the top of the 18 -- you'll almost always see the goalie with the ball in the six yard box and a line of three players across the 18. The reason that they do this is that even if the defense is to bring pressure with each of its 3 forwards/attacker, you will still have a numerical advantage in this area (if they brought more -- you could overrun them in the midfield, no one wants that). The thought process is that 3 defensive players should not be able to cover 4 offensive players. It's why playing the ball with your feet is such an important part of being a Euro goalie and why Steffen isn't playing more regularly -- because he is an world-class elite shot stopper, but he still struggles in possession.

That part is easy enough. I'll use our base 4-4-2 example (with who I think our core players will be) to explain the next step.

After Steffen gets the ball, Brooks breaks out wide left, Richards breaks out wide right, Adams drops centrally to receive the ball. Your next move (and this is why Brooks is constantly screaming at Dest -- because he's awful with this stuff) is that your outside backs move up offensively and need to watch where McKennie is dropping off on Adams's diagonal position. If McKennie is dropping off to Adam's northern diagonal right, it's the left back's responsibility to rotate into Adam's northern diagonal left. Your left back is now playing inside and ahead of your left centerback -- it's what's called your rotation. It's basically why in these systems you often see players that can appear out of position. The tough thing to get used to though is that it's not always that simple. If your left wing (Pulisic) drops back to help in possession (and ends up on Adams northern left), you all the sudden have 4 guys on the same horizontal (Left back, Pulisic, McKennie, Right back) -- that's basically the green light for your left back to get forward and into a more advanced offensive horizontal space. There are probablu thousands of different scenarios like this that players can find themselves in but they're always supposed to find the right position to create a simple pass or second pass in possession. Someone like Pep would say that every defensive structure would have the perfect movement into and out those spaces - it's why his game plans are 2 or 3 hundred pages long. Someone like Tuchel would say Pep overthinks the game and that players should be trained to organically move into space and it should just be a second nature.

You basically play this positional game of trying to achieve a numerical advantage throughout this grid as you move up the field.

What I think people are most confused about in this system (outside of players still trying to learn their positioning), is how you'll eventually finish in the final third. The reason that you are running this positioning based system is that the ball will always move faster than the opposing players. So if you can overload one area of the field, you can try to open up space that fits your offensive philosophy. If you have someone like Messi, you devise a plan to create space for him in the horizontal area of the field between your opponents backline and defensive midfielders (false 9). You can then hope to get him the ball in that space, make a central defender step up "between the lines" and either exploit a defender weaker than your offensive player or utilize the vacated space from the defender who stepped up "between the lines" with what's called a "third-man" run, where a teammate runs into that open space vacated by the defender that stepped up and is hopefully open to receive a pass. If you have someone like a Haaland or a Lewandowski, you try to devise a way to find them space between the opponents defenders -- it's called a half-space. If you have someone like Josh Sargent, or Gyasi Zardes, or Matthew Hoppe... ??? I'm not really sure what we're trying to do in our offensive third... One would assume though, we may try to find a way to move the ball up the field and move the defense in a way to isolate someone like a Puli against a wing defender who may not be as strong as an on the ball defender, creating a scoring opportunity, but we've really struggled here and seem to lack a philosophy in the final third.

Most possessions don't end is a shot or goal though -- even simple possession in soccer is really, really tough. Immediately after the transition from offense to defense (for example, we turn the ball over), in this system, we still should have a the advantage with the number of players in that area on the field. The thought process is that if you quickly throw all of your players at the ball, and at opponents that could receive a simple pass, in an area of the field where you already have a numerical advantage and win back possession quickly, you'll have a positional or qualitative advantage on the field going forward. It's the core tenant of every Red Bull team (from my buddy's U-8 team in New York [NJ] to the way they play at Leipzig.) It's the reason why someone like Tyler Adams is so valuable in this sort of system. This may be inaccurate from memory -- but I think if you look at the goal that we scored against Mexico in added extra time, it was the result of exactly this. I believe we turned the ball over in our own half, quickly pressed the ball, recovered it, and had a mile of space open up the right side of the field which eventually led to our penalty -- it's exactly what this system is made up to do.

Berhalter's system (and a lot or club systems) is basically a twist on the dutch version of total football with a more aggressive defensive philosophy.

That's why it looks like there is such a discrepancy between the players on the pitch right now. James Sands has been playing this system for the last 7 years of his life under Patrick Viera and Pep Guardiola's former top assistant at Barca, Munich, and Man City, Dome Torrent -- it's why I said earlier that I thought we'd find not only a missing link in our back-3, but also our most like-for-like replacement of Tyler Adams this tournament -- he plays both very well. Many of these guys though are 22 years old, have been playing in the same academy since 17, and are used to a less complex, more static possession system where the same players are in the same positions all the time -- it's basically what led to Canada's best scoring opportunity in the beginning of the second half where we errantly lobbed a backpass to where you'd normally find your holding midfielder in a more static formation that Larin (?) intercepted and mishit from 20 out.

The issue Berhalter is going to run into is that this is a pretty good (and widely used) strategy across the club level. Teams press the ball more, hold a higher line, and generally play a more aggressive style of defense -- the name of the game is to defensively force your opponent to make an error and capitalize on it. This is why offenses are set up to exploit a more aggressive defense. In soccer at the club level, defensive styles control the tempo of play. At the international level, teams have less time together, their defensive tactics are less complex, and you'll have a bend, but not break defensive motto -- including holding a deeper back-4 line like what you see in many of the South American leagues that have a more wide-open level of play and playing a softer press. Defenses are harder to move around -- it's the classic frustration you see when teams 'bunker'.

Anyway, that's kinda (I believe) why we look less sharp than expected right now. For 90% of these guys it's a different system than they are used to, the movements off the ball are complex, they aren't pre-determined like a basketball or football play -- if you haven't played with players before you'll be less likely to understand their unscripted, off the ball movements and they'll make more mistakes in their movements as they learn the system.

Not gonna lie though -- I typed this up during the commercial breaks of the NBA final after a day of heavy day drinking celebrating some professional wins, but hopefully it will vaguely shed some light on what Greg is trying to do, and actually did very successfully -- at least in the MLS and why it's not what everyone has hoped it would be thus far on the national team stage.

This was informative and much appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[DeGrozz]

I don't want to quote the long masterclass post on tactics above me, but it's a very specific reason why most national team coaches try to avoid complex systems. You are not with the players very often and you can't really choose exactly your squad (like buying/selling).

I think GGG needs to continue to simplify and refine his "system"

I think he's running a baseline model, of a fairly complex system to be honest. Hopefully this year we'll identify the true 30 players who will contend for a spot in 2022. Once some of these fringe players start getting on the field with 10 other guys who know their movements better they'll hopefully start processing the game more organically.

Most people have been asking for a more modern style from the US for the last two cycles and for coaches with a much more complex scheme than this one. Now that one of the simplest models of it is finally here, we're seeing there are growing pains -- you can basically scrap it and go back to what we're used to or accept that we'll need to fight and claw our way through games as we learn it to get to the next level.

We'd all love to see a team with a flowing possession and complex defensive trapping scheme where we try to make our opponent move the ball to where we want rather than prevent them from moving the ball to where they want, but what I think most people want to see run is calculus -- we're only learning trigonometry here. It's gonna take time.

 

[Orangezoo]

I think he's running a baseline model, of a fairly complex system to be honest. Hopefully this year we'll identify the true 30 players who will contend for a spot in 2022. Once some of these fringe players start getting on the field with 10 other guys who know their movements better they'll hopefully start processing the game more organically.

Most people have been asking for a more modern style from the US for the last two cycles and for coaches with a much more complex scheme than this one. Now that one of the simplest models of it is finally here, we're seeing there are growing pains -- you can basically scrap it and go back to what we're used to or accept that we'll need to fight and claw our way through games as we learn it to get to the next level.

We'd all love to see a team with a flowing possession and complex defensive trapping scheme where we try to make our opponent move the ball to where we want rather than prevent them from moving the ball to where they want, but what I think most people want to see run is calculus -- we're only learning trigonometry here. It's gonna take time.

Great write ups. In most cases even many amateur coaches don't look at it so analytically. I mean at it's core it is similar to the Dutch system as you noted but also somewhat akin to the Spanish system too.

For the less technical soccer minds it's effectively creating triangles all over the field where ideally you have 3 v 1 or at least 3 v 2. Small sided games are a part of many practices but really are best suited to emphasize this style of play.

Adding another layer you are deciding also where you want your triangles so to speak. The skillsets required to play this type of football are advanced to say the least. You can see where a player like Pines sticks out like a sore thumb because his skillset doesn't fit this style. In fairness it doesn't really fit well with many of the roster on the current GC version.

So what you are seeing is even a very inefficient execution of the primative version of this system and often it shifts to look more like a leaky 5-2-3 where you have both middies playing either too far up or too far back because the ball isn't moving quickly or accurately enough.

I think the hardest thing though is that when you lack having 11 guys who can run this system it is more difficult to accomplish the goal of identifying the remaining guys who should get a shot to fill out the roster for qualifiers. For instance I'm looking at guys like Dike, Hoppe, Busio who have looked impressive but more so from an individual aspect and plays made vs being able to execute in this system well.

 

[Forza Azzurri]

I think he's running a baseline model, of a fairly complex system to be honest. Hopefully this year we'll identify the true 30 players who will contend for a spot in 2022. Once some of these fringe players start getting on the field with 10 other guys who know their movements better they'll hopefully start processing the game more organically.

Most people have been asking for a more modern style from the US for the last two cycles and for coaches with a much more complex scheme than this one. Now that one of the simplest models of it is finally here, we're seeing there are growing pains -- you can basically scrap it and go back to what we're used to or accept that we'll need to fight and claw our way through games as we learn it to get to the next level.

We'd all love to see a team with a flowing possession and complex defensive trapping scheme where we try to make our opponent move the ball to where we want rather than prevent them from moving the ball to where they want, but what I think most people want to see run is calculus -- we're only learning trigonometry here. It's gonna take time.

This post 100% nails it.

And this post is the exact reason why, so far, I am happy with Berhalter despite the continual formation and personnel changes.

What he is attempting to do with this team is light years ahead, tactically, of anything the US National Team has done before.

It is not always pretty and gets uglier quite quickly the deeper you go into the talent pool and we are not going to look like Spain (to be clear nobody does this like Spain does) or even Italy anytime soon but you have to start somewhere and I am thrilled that we are finally committing to playing this way.

 

[Forza Azzurri]

Not really...

If you're going to look at what Berhalter's system is trying to do its this:

You can essentially break the field down into a grid of 30 squares (to simplify it -- they're fluid, they obviously get compressed during game play, but it makes it easier to visualize). Five lanes going the length of the field (sideline to edge of the 18 on both sides and three lanes through the center of the field). These are vertical spaces. Also think of 6 cross sections going from our own endline - to the top of the box, top of the box to halfway to midfield, halfway to midfield to midfield, and then repeating on the other end. These are called your lines or horizontal spaces. They essentially create a grid on the field and each square in that grid creates a space -- guys like Pep Guardiola actually set up these grids (in their own variation) on their fields when training this way.

The way that Greg wants to play in possession (and think of this for all but the most offensive two horizontal sections of the field) is that you'll never have more than one player in any space, more than three players in any of the horizontal lanes, more than one player in any of the two spaces north or south of the ball, and always at least one player in a diagonal space from the ball.

He does this because he's looking to gain a numerical advantage in each area of the field that he is playing the ball in. For example, every time a US keeper gets a ball you're going to see the same thing happen. Your left center-back will split out wide left, your right center back will split out wide right, and (depending on if you are playing a 3 or 4 across the back) your central midfielder (think of when Tyler Adams will drop back between your CBs in a 4 across the back) or central defender (James Sands these last few games) will drop back centrally to the top of the 18 -- you'll almost always see the goalie with the ball in the six yard box and a line of three players across the 18. The reason that they do this is that even if the defense is to bring pressure with each of its 3 forwards/attacker, you will still have a numerical advantage in this area (if they brought more -- you could overrun them in the midfield, no one wants that). The thought process is that 3 defensive players should not be able to cover 4 offensive players. It's why playing the ball with your feet is such an important part of being a Euro goalie and why Steffen isn't playing more regularly -- because he is an world-class elite shot stopper, but he still struggles in possession.

That part is easy enough. I'll use our base 4-4-2 example (with who I think our core players will be) to explain the next step.

After Steffen gets the ball, Brooks breaks out wide left, Richards breaks out wide right, Adams drops centrally to receive the ball. Your next move (and this is why Brooks is constantly screaming at Dest -- because he's awful with this stuff) is that your outside backs move up offensively and need to watch where McKennie is dropping off on Adams's diagonal position. If McKennie is dropping off to Adam's northern diagonal right, it's the left back's responsibility to rotate into Adam's northern diagonal left. Your left back is now playing inside and ahead of your left centerback -- it's what's called your rotation. It's basically why in these systems you often see players that can appear out of position. The tough thing to get used to though is that it's not always that simple. If your left wing (Pulisic) drops back to help in possession (and ends up on Adams northern left), you all the sudden have 4 guys on the same horizontal (Left back, Pulisic, McKennie, Right back) -- that's basically the green light for your left back to get forward and into a more advanced offensive horizontal space. There are probablu thousands of different scenarios like this that players can find themselves in but they're always supposed to find the right position to create a simple pass or second pass in possession. Someone like Pep would say that every defensive structure would have the perfect movement into and out those spaces - it's why his game plans are 2 or 3 hundred pages long. Someone like Tuchel would say Pep overthinks the game and that players should be trained to organically move into space and it should just be a second nature.

You basically play this positional game of trying to achieve a numerical advantage throughout this grid as you move up the field.

What I think people are most confused about in this system (outside of players still trying to learn their positioning), is how you'll eventually finish in the final third. The reason that you are running this positioning based system is that the ball will always move faster than the opposing players. So if you can overload one area of the field, you can try to open up space that fits your offensive philosophy. If you have someone like Messi, you devise a plan to create space for him in the horizontal area of the field between your opponents backline and defensive midfielders (false 9). You can then hope to get him the ball in that space, make a central defender step up "between the lines" and either exploit a defender weaker than your offensive player or utilize the vacated space from the defender who stepped up "between the lines" with what's called a "third-man" run, where a teammate runs into that open space vacated by the defender that stepped up and is hopefully open to receive a pass. If you have someone like a Haaland or a Lewandowski, you try to devise a way to find them space between the opponents defenders -- it's called a half-space. If you have someone like Josh Sargent, or Gyasi Zardes, or Matthew Hoppe... ??? I'm not really sure what we're trying to do in our offensive third... One would assume though, we may try to find a way to move the ball up the field and move the defense in a way to isolate someone like a Puli against a wing defender who may not be as strong as an on the ball defender, creating a scoring opportunity, but we've really struggled here and seem to lack a philosophy in the final third.

Most possessions don't end is a shot or goal though -- even simple possession in soccer is really, really tough. Immediately after the transition from offense to defense (for example, we turn the ball over), in this system, we still should have a the advantage with the number of players in that area on the field. The thought process is that if you quickly throw all of your players at the ball, and at opponents that could receive a simple pass, in an area of the field where you already have a numerical advantage and win back possession quickly, you'll have a positional or qualitative advantage on the field going forward. It's the core tenant of every Red Bull team (from my buddy's U-8 team in New York [NJ] to the way they play at Leipzig.) It's the reason why someone like Tyler Adams is so valuable in this sort of system. This may be inaccurate from memory -- but I think if you look at the goal that we scored against Mexico in added extra time, it was the result of exactly this. I believe we turned the ball over in our own half, quickly pressed the ball, recovered it, and had a mile of space open up the right side of the field which eventually led to our penalty -- it's exactly what this system is made up to do.

Berhalter's system (and a lot or club systems) is basically a twist on the dutch version of total football with a more aggressive defensive philosophy.

That's why it looks like there is such a discrepancy between the players on the pitch right now. James Sands has been playing this system for the last 7 years of his life under Patrick Viera and Pep Guardiola's former top assistant at Barca, Munich, and Man City, Dome Torrent -- it's why I said earlier that I thought we'd find not only a missing link in our back-3, but also our most like-for-like replacement of Tyler Adams this tournament -- he plays both very well. Many of these guys though are 22 years old, have been playing in the same academy since 17, and are used to a less complex, more static possession system where the same players are in the same positions all the time -- it's basically what led to Canada's best scoring opportunity in the beginning of the second half where we errantly lobbed a backpass to where you'd normally find your holding midfielder in a more static formation that Larin (?) intercepted and mishit from 20 out.

The issue Berhalter is going to run into is that this is a pretty good (and widely used) strategy across the club level. Teams press the ball more, hold a higher line, and generally play a more aggressive style of defense -- the name of the game is to defensively force your opponent to make an error and capitalize on it. This is why offenses are set up to exploit a more aggressive defense. In soccer at the club level, defensive styles control the tempo of play. At the international level, teams have less time together, their defensive tactics are less complex, and you'll have a bend, but not break defensive motto -- including holding a deeper back-4 line like what you see in many of the South American leagues that have a more wide-open level of play and playing a softer press. Defenses are harder to move around -- it's the classic frustration you see when teams 'bunker'.

Anyway, that's kinda (I believe) why we look less sharp than expected right now. For 90% of these guys it's a different system than they are used to, the movements off the ball are complex, they aren't pre-determined like a basketball or football play -- if you haven't played with players before you'll be less likely to understand their unscripted, off the ball movements and they'll make more mistakes in their movements as they learn the system.

Not gonna lie though -- I typed this up during the commercial breaks of the NBA final after a day of heavy day drinking celebrating some professional wins, but hopefully it will vaguely shed some light on what Greg is trying to do, and actually did very successfully -- at least in the MLS and why it's not what everyone has hoped it would be thus far on the national team stage.

This is a master class.

You should drink heavily and then post more often.

 

[Alsacs]

Two Years of Berhalter: Tactical Evolution

We return to our series on Gregg Berhalter with an overview on how the tactics have changed over the last two years. Spoiler: there have been growing pains.

www.starsandstripesfc.com

This article shows how our tactics have sucked and Berhalter has had to adjust because what he wanted to do originally never worked.

The national team thankfully has had a major talent infusion so that when the A team takes the field in September hopefully we get atleast 5 points in the 3 WCQ games.
I would take 2 draws and 1 win.
I betting we end up with 4 points anymore than 4 is a win.

 

[Orangezoo]

This post 100% nails it.

And this post is the exact reason why, so far, I am happy with Berhalter despite the continual formation and personnel changes.

What he is attempting to do with this team is light years ahead, tactically, of anything the US National Team has done before.

It is not always pretty and gets uglier quite quickly the deeper you go into the talent pool and we are not going to look like Spain (to be clear nobody does this like Spain does) or even Italy anytime soon but you have to start somewhere and I am thrilled that we are finally committing to playing this way.

I think it's going to be really critical that at a minimum they qualify and even further they have a good showing in Qatar.

I say that because committing to this system is long term and as we know without results comes impatience. Also, getting the talent pool to the point where the B team is full of talent playing in Europe as well is a key milestone. If the US can get there then they can realistically be ready to threaten for WC titles by the time 2030 rolls around. Obviously crazy things can happen prior to that but outside an anomaly to me this seems the most realistic runway. Also, unlike say Belgium, once we have a system and talent pool flowing the drop offs shouldn't be severe.

 

[cusefan88]

Two Years of Berhalter: Tactical Evolution

We return to our series on Gregg Berhalter with an overview on how the tactics have changed over the last two years. Spoiler: there have been growing pains.

www.starsandstripesfc.com

This article shows how our tactics have sucked and Berhalter has had to adjust because what he wanted to do originally never worked.

The national team thankfully has had a major talent infusion so that when the A team takes the field in September hopefully we get atleast 5 points in the 3 WCQ games.
I would take 2 draws and 1 win.
I betting we end up with 4 points anymore than 4 is a win.

They should beat a Davies-less Canada side and IMO the other two games are tough. El Salvador is likely to host in DMV area with a highly-partisan and charged crowd. Tons of Salvadorans in that area.

 

[Alsacs]

They should beat a Davies-less Canada side and IMO the other two games are tough. El Salvador is likely to host in DMV area with a highly-partisan and charged crowd. Tons of Salvadorans in that area.

Basically every non-Mexico home game has to be 3 points.

We aren’t playing the match in El Salvador?
If we aren’t then that should be 3 points.

 

[cusefan88]

Basically every non-Mexico home game has to be 3 points.

We aren’t playing the match in El Salvador?
If we aren’t then that should be 3 points.

Reports last week suggested because of COVID rules in the country, they would explore playing in the DC area where the bulk of Salvadorans live now. They want Washington NFL stadium because they think they can sell 40k+ tickets just for them.

 

[Alsacs]

Reports last week suggested because of COVID rules in the country, they would explore playing in the DC area where the bulk of Salvadorans live now. They want Washington NFL stadium because they think they can sell 40k+ tickets just for them.

They could have the entire arena but it’s not like playing in El Salvador on their terribly managed pitch and their fans bombarding our team hotel with noise.

 

[Forza Azzurri]

I think it's going to be really critical that at a minimum they qualify and even further they have a good showing in Qatar.

I say that because committing to this system is long term and as we know without results comes impatience. Also, getting the talent pool to the point where the B team is full of talent playing in Europe as well is a key milestone. If the US can get there then they can realistically be ready to threaten for WC titles by the time 2030 rolls around. Obviously crazy things can happen prior to that but outside an anomaly to me this seems the most realistic runway. Also, unlike say Belgium, once we have a system and talent pool flowing the drop offs shouldn't be severe.

Qualification is a must. Zero excuse not to qualify.

I am more circumspect about the World Cup because so much depends on the group.

If they end up like Hungary did at the Euros and have three heavyweights in their group, I cannot really get upset at not getting out of the group.

Having said that, the number of countries around the world that I really don't expect us to have a realistic chance to beat continues to decline.

I am less optimistic than you on when we can realistically compete for a WC. There is a reason that only 8 countries have ever won it. It requires talent, depth of talent (Italy's fourth choice winger, Bernardeschi, would probably start for us. Our fourth choice winger?), and then some luck (injuries, opponents, penalties etc.)

 

[Orangezoo]

Qualification is a must. Zero excuse not to qualify.

I am more circumspect about the World Cup because so much depends on the group.

If they end up like Hungary did at the Euros and have three heavyweights in their group, I cannot really get upset at not getting out of the group.

Having said that, the number of countries around the world that I really don't expect us to have a realistic chance to beat continues to decline.

I am less optimistic than you on when we can realistically compete for a WC. There is a reason that only 8 countries have ever won it. It requires talent, depth of talent (Italy's fourth choice winger, Bernardeschi, would probably start for us. Our fourth choice winger?), and then some luck (injuries, opponents, penalties etc.)

I definitely agree that the list we can't beat is shrinking. Watching the Euros and Copa America this year further sealed that for me even further. Maybe 2030 is a little early but I think we aren't too much past that if it takes longer and mainly because the athlete pool and growing interest for the sport in this country is increasing every year and by a multiple of 3 or 4.

When the youth talent is growing faster than even the most obsessed of soccer heads can have a target lock on them in this country then you know we are in the right direction at least.

 

[Alsacs]

I definitely agree that the list we can't beat is shrinking. Watching the Euros and Copa America this year further sealed that for me even further. Maybe 2030 is a little early but I think we aren't too much past that if it takes longer and mainly because the athlete pool and growing interest for the sport in this country is increasing every year and by a multiple of 3 or 4.

When the youth talent is growing faster than even the most obsessed of soccer heads can have a target lock on them in this country then you know we are in the right direction at least.

2026 at home we could compete for the WC.

We will be at home. We have a really young roster.

A player I am super excited to watch develop whom we haven’t talked about for a while in this thread is Yunus Musah.

In 2026 with home advantage I expect a Semifinal type of run depending on how hard our draw is.

 

[Orangezoo]

2026 at home we could compete for the WC.

We will be at home. We have a really young roster.

A player I am super excited to watch develop whom we haven’t talked about for a while in this thread is Yunus Musah.

In 2026 with home advantage I expect a Semifinal type of run depending on how hard our draw is.

I'm not as bullish as you are but hope that is correct. I like Musah as well. I think he even could be a super sub if not the the starting 11

 

[Melancer46]

The drunken tactics talk here was incredible. I've always loved watching soccer games but have never really understood the tactics around it outside of some pretty primitive stuff I learned from video games or random videos I had seen on YouTube so really appreciate that stuff.