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Originally posted by Downtown Shocker Brown
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I'll ask these questions because the Berhalter out crowd refuses to come to grips with the reality of our talent level.
How many of our players would even make a squad, let alone play, let alone start for Spain/Germany/France/England/Netherlands/Argentina/Brazil/Colombia? One, maybe two (Pulisic/Robinson)? None of them would start. And who is being used in inappropriate ways? Pretty much all of the players are playing the same position for the USMNT they play for their clubs.
I say that to illustrate that while our players are more talented overall than before, we're still nowhere near the talent levels of those countries I just mentioned. We're still behind the likes of Uruguay, Belgium, Italy as well.
It's not necessarily that Berhalter is some great coach, but he has DOMINATED teams in our region like no other coach before and Mexico in particular. That wasn't always the case. While he doesn't have elite wins, those can be fool's gold, especially in friendlies. Klinsmann beat the Dutch in Amsterdam in a friendly in 2015 for crying out loud. It didn't make the rest of his tenure good.
For those who want him out, how should his approach change tactically? If we want to keep matches closer, we probably have to go to a low block and play more defensive, gritty soccer. We can't play the same style as the elite soccer countries because our talent is not close to them. But if we got better results against good teams playing more defensive and cynical soccer and averaging 35% possession, people would still be upset. People also forget that we outplayed England at the World Cup.
John Strong (PBP announcer for FOX - will be doing the US games this summer for Copa America) was recently asked about the worst thing about American soccer. He said it was our inferiority complex and self-loathing. He's exactly right. We can't have anything nice, and given the way that our fanbase acts, maybe we don't deserve anything nice.
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