Perspective is a useful tool, especially in an age of instinctive reactions and hot shots. The US men’s national team, three games from its 14-game World Cup qualifying campaign, is, all in all, well placed to reach its ultimate goal. Five points in three games, two of which away, is an acceptable, if not entirely satisfactory, score. Considering injuries, self-inflicted absences and other factors, five points actually seem right in hindsight. The United States did not play particularly well overall, with circumstances including, but not limited to, the tactics and performance of individual players being part of the puzzle.
Now that the first three-game window in seven days is complete, you can look back with some of the perspectives that aren’t necessarily available or applicable right now to review the entirety of what has just surfaced. Depending on your view of the world glass half full or glass half empty, there is a lane to choose. Against each other, the United States have just played three of the four lowest-scoring teams in the Concacaf Octagonal and could only garner one win, even sliding towards a home draw against Canada. It’s not very encouraging. On the other hand, he has already taken more points (four) from away games in this final qualifying round than he has earned in all the useless qualifications for the 2018 World Cup (three). This is a nice bonus, especially considering the lack of Concacaf road experience among the team. Despite the reasonable levels of panic that occurred after Honduras took the lead on Wednesday night, the US remained behind for just 21 minutes and, as Gregg Berhalter has already pointed out, have yet to lose. Tyler Adams, Miles Robinson, Brenden Aaronson and Matt Turner have proven their good faith, while Ricardo Pepi has emerged as a potential star.
The manager’s propensity to downplay poor results at times or to take a more analytical and measured approach to them may not suit proponents demanding immediate magnitude or immediate consequences, but it is arguably a truer and more accurate reflection of union status. It’s that perspective thing again.
This is not to say that there are no reasons for concern after three games. Clearly, not everything went according to plan, but this is often life in the Concacaf cauldron. With the next international window not opening for a few weeks, here’s a closer look at what are and perhaps aren’t the serious problems facing the US on the winding road to Qatar 2022:
MAYBE EXPRESS
we‘s qualification position
Across three games, the United States is one of three nations (Canada, Panama) following two points behind Mexico, top-ranked. The United States is in third place after the tie-breaks, but the positioning at the table so early in the Octagonal is hardly set in stone. As Berhalter pointed out after the victory on Wednesday night, even a defeat would not have doomed the United States to bankruptcy. Sure, it would have made the job a lot more difficult and contributed to a deterioration in morale that could have plummeted quickly, but from a purely mathematical point of view, there are a lot of games to play, and it will take a while for anyone to manage. conclude an anchor or eliminated from contention.
It has become quite clear that every match will have an aspect to be won until there is some separation in the standings. When the margin of error isn’t that great, that tends to be at stake. Defeat or draw against Jamaica at home on October 7, and then suddenly the trip to Panama becomes much more important, and so on. The only way to accumulate that margin for error is to take care of business, which is more easily done at home. With two home games in the October window against two winless teams, taking six points from them should be the basic requirement. This alone would have let in some relief and dispelled the sense of impending doom.
Berhalter’s job security
We may never know how a defeat in Honduras would have altered the calculation for the United States from a personnel perspective. Wednesday’s second half looked like half-time and no admission had been made of a poor game plan – admission via tactical changes, not via post-match commentary, for what it’s worth – could this have been the case? Would two points in three games, in the wake of all the baggage provided by his predecessors, have been enough to unplug the Berhalter era?
His calm and quiet comments before and after the Honduras victory suggested that he never felt like his job was being threatened, and after the summer the United States has had and the progress it has made over the past two. years, maybe it would have been a rash call. At some point, US Soccer Sporting Director Earnie Stewart and USMNT CEO Brian McBride may have had to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of qualifying position and change of manager, but a 14-game window is the weather? Should a manager’s confidence be reduced to three games that aren’t final in one way or another? Regardless, the win resolved any uncertainty that might have arisen and simplified things to the point it did in the second half – family lineup, players in positions they’re used to – Wednesday would go a long way to ensure the job issue doesn’t come back. more.
The question forward
Aside from injury or absence from COVID-19, it’s hard to imagine anyone but Pepi starting as a forward against Jamaica in his home state of Texas when qualifying resumes. The 18-year-old’s contribution, none other than his senior international debut, has been so immense and, considering the lack of statements made by Josh Sargent and Jordan Pefok when given the chance to start as a forward, it appears to be Pepi’s contribution. place to lose. He did a little bit of everything in Honduras, going deep to see the ball, lifting it up and putting it aside and running the crafty behind to the point that, in some respects, he had a hand in all four US goals. in the second half. It was a disservice to have him play on the flank at Sargent on Wednesday, but if he is to play in his most usual central position, he is a reserve. It is also worth monitoring the health and fitness of other strikers who haven’t played this time around, such as Tim Weah, Gyasi Zardes, Matthew Hoppe and Daryl Dike. There may be more competition for minutes, but Pepi has definitely made his case for more of them.
REAL CAUSE OF CONCERN
The state of Weston McKennie
Berhalter emphatically stated that no player is above the collective by omitting McKennie from Sunday’s match against Canada and then sending him back to Juventus for team protocol violations which reportedly included his leaving the US team bubble and welcome a stranger. The door is still open for an October return, and in a few weeks we will know if all is forgiven, but for a player of his stature on the team he commits such an infringement to the point that he was given the boot with high-risk matches on the docket says a lot. Simply put, he needs to know better, and the United States can only hope that the consequences become a motivation to adjust and compensate by performing at their best. If he’s left out for another window, then the likes of Yunus Musah and Julian Green, two very capable midfielders who weren’t part of this first hang-up, could be called to some immediate action.
The problem of injuries
Christian Pulisic and Sergiño Dest’s ankles and Gio Reyna’s hamstring have little time to recover. Even if the three players are allowed to go against Jamaica, have they ever played for their clubs before? Dortmund coach Marco Rose has already indicated this Reyna will lose a few games, which is not a good sign for his fitness in a month. There are still no words on the prognosis for both Pulisic and Dest. Team rotation and depth would always have been factors in such a compressed qualification process, but dealing with injuries to key players so early is a difficult set of circumstances.
It remains wild that Adams, Pulisic and McKennie only played 114 minutes together on the senior national team and that Adams, Pulisic, McKennie and Reyna have yet to share the field together. As Adams said so eloquently, as he often does, last week, “If we don’t go out and do the things we’re good at, then we’re just a bunch of names on a piece of paper.” As in, it doesn’t matter the individual talent and club resumes that some players can boast about, it doesn’t matter if they can’t put them all together as one. The first step in doing this is simply to be able to take the field as one, but it has proved more difficult than expected to achieve and may not be done until November.
The form of John Brooks
What was supposed to be the constant on the US bottom line suddenly seems more of a question mark than might have been anticipated. The United States gave up two goals, and both were scored by the players Brooks should have scored. He lost track of Cyle Larin in the US box for Canada’s draw in Nashville and was shot in midfield and too slow to react to keep Brayan Moya from getting a clear look at his diving header Wednesday night in Honduras. Brooks’ difficulties in Central America are not entirely new, but for a team with so little experience, the player who scored in a World Cup (2014), competed (and acted) in the Copa América Centenario (2016) and has emerged as a player quality for a quality Bundesliga club should be able to be more rock. He has the tools to get there yet, but this was a horrible window for him, and was punctuated by his being knocked out at half-time against Honduras.
Brooks is also one of five players who took a yellow card in the first window (an accumulation of two at any time in the Octagonal results in a one game suspension) along with McKennie, Adams, Pefok and DeAndre Yedlin. It’s hard to imagine him staying clean in a physical region like Concacaf for the rest of the course (for what it’s worth, he saw yellow in the Nations League final against Mexico, but before that, his last yellow for the US was in a 2016. World Cup qualifier match, including against Mexico), which means Miles Robinson, Mark McKenzie and the rest of the US center-backs should be advised that their number will need to be called. What once seemed like one of the few figures on this team may no longer be the case.
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