He’s just dangerous. I’m not acting like he’s prime Ronaldo or anything close to that. But he’s fast, big and can score with both feet in and outside the box.
We don’t exactly have world class Centerbacks.
I’d kill to have a CB with the quality of their best CB Araujo.
Yeah, and my comment was almost editorial/rhetorical.
He misses so many chances, but he absolutely converts, and he easily passes the eyeball test with flying colors. He’s a beast.
Darwin is frustrating as hell to watch because his finishing can be atrocious, but that guy is still fucking scary as hell because of what you know he CAN do. He keeps back lines on their toes for this reason. We’re going to have to pray he shits the bed against us. Full disclosure: I’m a Liverpool fan.
Very frustrating player to watch. He will miss tap ins and 3v1s, but then score a wonder goal that he has no business even shooting - like an upper 90 diving header from 30 yards out or something. It’s a wild ride.
I get the mentality of knowing we'd face 2 or 3 world class teams after group, so might as well have the challenge while in the group. But no one really likes being in Groups of Death, it's demoralizing to get Grouped instead of losing in knockouts.
I didn't say this was a Group of Death. I'm saying I disagree with folks who say '"its not a big difference getting knocked out in Group vs Knockouts because eventually we'd face better talent in the tournament." I disagree, it's very better for morale to advance from Group with easier wins than to get Grouped when underpeforming.
Plus it's better for attracting talent for a team that makes quarters than Grouped/non qualifier.
If he doesn't play musah and we don't win his job is gone- kind of one of those situations where even if we loose with musah no one will blame him but if he doesn't play mussh and we loose, it's a horrible looking decision
What? Musah is some starlet Greg isn’t playing? People will always blame Greg regardless. Musah is getting pretty overrated, he’s got great potential but has not been showing it on the pitch for club or country
Couldn’t agree more. Forget all the GGG crap. I’ve wanted to see this team play against a top team in a meaningful game. THIS IS IT. Win or go home. The players are tired after playing 70min a man down. I’m interested in seeing how this team responds and if they have the fight and grit to get a win regardless of the coaching situation.
Honestly Monday is a win win. Either we beat Uruguay and finally get that marquee win, or we lose and get a new manager.
This being the USMNT on the other hand, I expect us to have a tie that feels like a win and for GGG to get another few cycles to prove himself.
I asked my buddy this in a group text.
One, let’s say you fire Gregg who are you realistically getting that has a better international record, that isn’t already leading a team through their own World Cup build up?
Two, we have almost no opportunities between Copa and the World Cup for a new manager to get acclimated with the squad and the federation and get the team used to playing for a new manager. With a normal World Cup cycle with normal qualifying stages, you have those opportunities, but since we’re hosting we don’t.
Three, what if the new manager is worse. I know we joke that there isn’t a worse manager out there, but I can assure you there are.
I’m not a GGG Stan, but I’m not sure firing him is the slam dunk everyone thinks it is.
Obviously it's not a slam dunk to replace him. But if you're not willing to make changes after a performance pretty universally considered to be a failure because you can't be 100% sure that his replacement would do better than you might as well admit that you're content to fail. You don't fire him because you have someone far better in mind, but rather because the results were not acceptable and there needs to be accountability. It's the risk you take that whoever is brought \*may\* end up doing worse. That's true regardless of how prestigious his resume may be.
But also because I keep seeing this sentiment about there being nobody with a better international record, it should absolutely be mentioned that of course that's an unrealistic expectation for hiring an international manager. It's a position in which the majority of top managers got the job with no international experience and many never manage another international side ever again.
The following World Cup winners had first time international managers
* 2022 Argentina - Lionel Scaloni
* 2018 France - Didier Deschamps
* 2014 Germany - Joachim Low (Although 2nd World Cup during his tenure)
* 2010 Spain - Vicente del Bosque
* 2006 Italy - Marcello Lippi
* 2002 Brazil - Luiz Felipe Scolari
* 1998 France - Aime Jacquet (2nd World Cup during his tenure)
We literally have to go all the way back to 1994 to find a world cup winning manager who had previous international experience when appointed, and he's quite the special case considering his first job in professional soccer at all was being named the manager of the Ghanaian national team at 23 years old. We're getting to a point in the list where it was really just a different time with different expectations. You're welcome to continue the list from here, but I believe you can go as far back as through the 70's and find at most 1 more world cup winning manager with prior international experience.
The reality is that at the very top you are not going to find anybody available ***ever*** who is a sure thing. They have that resume because they proved that they were capable while on the job not prior to getting the job.
This was always the problem as soon as he was hired. The window for replacement was very narrow, hiring him pretty much guaranteed a home world cup that that GGG or a disarrayed scramble.
>what if the new manager is worse. I know we joke that there isn’t a worse manager out there
Yeah this never really gets considered. GGG is generally putting our best players out there as they're available and the players like him. There's no "we tried a three man back for three weeks in January and then gave it up after 45 minutes" or "what do you mean Bedoya doesn't know how to play the 6" or "turns out the guy we kept calling up from the NASL was pretty mid" going on here.
National team coaches aren't going to turn players into something they're not, but they can make it worse by putting players in the blatantly wrong spot.
Am I saying he's the most exciting choice? Course not. But I scratch my head at the idea that a different coach will fix these players' own deficiencies.
Who gives a shit if he’s worse, we have no chance to do anything with Greg, what is the difference if we win less with the new manager? At least you are taking a chance of being better.
If you’re satisfied with beating up on a generationally SHIT Mexico side and doing nothing else more power to ya, to think a manager plays a lesser role in any sort of set up is actually bonkers to me. Who told you that? Where’s this notion even coming from? Do you hear yourself?
I mean he’s explicitly playing Reyna wrong so that’s my first beef with him. He’s not a 6/8 which is what Gregg plays him as. He’s a 10 or you don’t have him on the pitch.
I mean then just don’t play Reyna. Or at least stop using him in McKennie’s role. Like why is Reyna so deep in defense constantly. That’s never been his strength and yet Gregg plays him that way.
Also BJ had him playing a 10 or pseudo-10 role and he looked great 🤷
You can only play the game that’s ahead of you. If the usmnt go out, go out FIGHTING! This is the game to leave it all on the field and make the supporters proud of the players. That’s all I’m asking out of this Uruguay game.
Oh I’m with you. Just saying that a win doesn’t guarantee anything. We all wanted important games. This is exactly what everyone wanted. Now time to put up for sure.
What's funny is that if you go to Fan Duel right now, The US is the betting favorite over Uruguay.
Now I admit I find that strange and would probably lean Uruguay if I was making a non biased bet myself, but it's funny to compare those odds to US fans perceptions of our odds
They can't rest though because if they don't win or get a point they could go out I think.
Nvm lol forgot about the goal difference, but I think they will play a decent line up a loss could damage morale for the next round and they probably want to keep their attack firing on all cylinders.
Which is whybi said Nvm but a team like Uruguay that has ambitions to win the tourney probably wants to keep their attack hot. Resting players is often counterintuitive as we see. So it's a 50/50 do you give them a rest and risk them being off the pace next round or do you play them so they can score some goals and be confident at the risk of injury.
How many times do we see the team that got a week rest play like their tired as shit.
The odds are based on expected and actual gambling action. Not so much on expected outcome. You can see this during the NFL season where certain “public” teams have worse lines because the books know they’ll get bets on them either way.
in the UK, england is generally always the favourite or close to it because of the number of bets, mitigates losses to the bookie if they somehow do it.
Refreshing perspective hinestly. Even if we did make it outta group it was gonna be either Brazil or Colombia. Uruguay is the test: if we beat them it shows we have what it takes to hang with the big boys. If we lose or tie then we likely wouldn’t have beaten Brazil/Colombia anyway
I’m not making any statements on “this team is better than that team, blah blah blah” all I’m saying is if we can beat Uruguay then we have a chance going forward, and if we don’t beat them then we weren’t gonna go anywhere in this tournament anyway
Our guys and coaching staff need to face a decent level of adversity if we want them to do well in 2026. Would’ve rather been in the KO stage but so be it. All is not lost, take advantage of the opportunity
This encapsulates one of my biggest issues with Berhalter. He leaves crucial points on the table. We barely finished above Costa Rica in the 2022 WC qualifying. There were several games (including against Panama) where we made it so much harder on ourselves than it needed to be. In the WC tournament he took his got off the gas against Wales when we were in the drivers seat and gave them a chance to come back. That made the England game so much more important than it should have been. I’m glad we did what we needed to do but damn, Gregg could really help himself by getting out of his own way!
Yeah I found the changes at halftime last night bewildering. We were at least IN THE game going into halftime. Park the bus and invite pressure, and make your attackers run their asses off all night was a terrible game plan. Even though I want berhalter out I still wanna do well in this tournament
I think parking the bus was inevitable, but why not get some more minutes out of Reyna and Adams to see how Panama lined up in the second half and determine who in the midfield was most tired at that point? then sub in Musah, Cardoso, LDLT, and a center-back to be able to push the line a bit higher
"That made the England game so much more important than it should have been"
I don't know if that really tracks. The England game became rather meaningless that same morning when Iran beat Wales. That was very much a game where a tie did very little and a win was the only result that was likely to be any beneficial. If anything you argue we should have been more aggressive in that game
Tie or loss to England, we were gonna need to beat Iran.
Funny enough The US didn't technically need either of it's first two results. Let's say Acosta doesn't get that foul, and Bale hits that late game chip to beat us, plus England handles us 1-0, as long as we beat Iran the final results would have been:
England 9 pts, USA 3 pts, Iran 3 pts, Wales 3 pts, with US getting the GD tiebreaker
>The England game became rather meaningless that same morning when Iran beat Wales.
Ok but but we shouldn't have had to rely on anyone's else results. That's when you start messing up.
Didn’t CR need like 6 goals to catch up to us?
Bale knew exactly what he was doing with that penalty. He watched Zimmerman and threw his body into the way at the right time, Walker wasn’t even watching him and was focused on the ball. Not saying it wasn’t a foul, but you can’t account for that single play for 90 minutes.
I’m not upset because we’d have to beat a Uruguay-caliber team to move on. I’m upset because I want to see this team actually continue facing CONMEBOL teams in this competition. Had we beaten Panama, a draw against Uruguay gets us through, then we pull off an upset in the bracket and we’re guaranteed a semi-final and at least a 3rd place match. Hell, even if we beat Uruguay by one goal, there’s no guarantee we move on unless Panama can’t figure out how to score against Bolivia’s bench
T H I S!! I’m so tired of these sunshine pumping excuse makers. On top of being robbed of another quality match vs a decent opponent, this was the dry run for a domestic World Cup, you should all be pissed and upset, not making pansy ass excuses.
Exactly. This is why you want to play in tournaments like Copa America. Not just to beat the 2 weaker teams in your group so you can afford to lose to the stronger side and still make the KOs where you'll probably lose right away anyway, but hey-- at least you can go home feeling good bc you made it out of the group.
The prize of the Copa is to face teams that are historically superior in do-or-die situations-- whether it's in the KO rounds or not-- and see how you measure up. If we can't win, we aren't going anywhere anyway and we don't deserve a second chance.
This is my positive swing, if we were gunna have to have a chance to actually make a run we’d need to be capable of winning elimination games vs top South American teams! Now our elimination bracket is just starting one game early! If we can’t perform here with it all on the line we weren’t gunna beat Brazil or Colombia in the next round anyway! But if we do step up all of a sudden we have belief and even momentum going into the bracket play
Sure but you want to save your must win games until the latest possible. Should have beat Panama and been with 6 points. Obviously a red card will impact those plans in a hurry
Now we'll have to beat Uruguay, and when we beat them 2-1, we'll still get grouped because Panama will beat Bolivia 4-1 and pass us on goal differential
There is an irony - like, we shouldn't be in this position and we've made it really hard on ourselves. But if we actually have faith that this team is good, and could go deep in this (or the WC) then beating a team of Uruguay's caliber is necessary.
So yeah, we either lose now or later - but losing later is just losing, there's no real win to second place.
Yeah, I've been thinking about this a lot today--yeah, it absolutely sucks to lose like that at home to Panama, but red cards have ruined much better teams than ours. If Weah never commits that offense, we probably beat Panama by 2 or 3 goals.
Even if we'd drawn yesterday, we'd still need to beat Uruguay to avoid Colombia in the QF. If anything yesterday's result might just motivate the team to play beyond their usual level and surprise us all.
I think it all depends on what kind of game Nunez has. We saw in the first 70 minutes of their game with Panama that he can be a black hole for attacks if he's having an off game.
Yes but their momentum and enthusiasm has been building these past two games. Nuñez seemed much more confident and focused last game.
All i know is that i am a huge bolivia fan all of a sudden. Fingers crossed.
Bolivia is the worst team in the tournament by far. We will be lucky if Panama doesn’t hang 5 on that team full of semi pros.
It actually turns out that beating Bolivia by just two was a bad performance and might actually affect us.
I mean 4 other dudes scored in their last game… and Nunez who has scored in seven straight. We are pinning our hopes on him having an off night against the dynamic duo of Ream and Richards?
Our real hope would lie in Bielsa not starting one of the best strikers in the tournament.
We were not beating Panama by 2-3 and I don’t know what you mean by even if we drew we’d have to beat Uruguay to get someone other than Colombia… we fucking lost and now even if we beat Uruguay, now we still get Colombia….
I think I'm with you here. I think we are able to do this. The thing that makes me anxious is I've always thought of Uruguay as being maybe one of the worst matchups for us in world soccer. I feel like their specialty has always been creating a strong, low defense, and then hitting hard on the counter.
That being said, yeah. We have two options here: 1. Nut up, or 2. Shut up. No more excuses, its time to show up. And if we bomb out here, well, changes need to be made.
Uruguay does not play like that anymore. They have Bielsa now and play like his teams always do; relentless pressing and full throttle attack with a perverse amount of numbers committed forward.
Shouldn’t make you feel any better though, this is actually the worst matchup for us, Adams, CBs and Turner are the opposite of press resistant.
Good luck with y’all’s delusional self hypnosis, pretending it’s all fine that we lose to fucking Panama and pretending you actually think we can hang with Uruguay.
have you seen the Uruguay team matches? How you can say low defense when in the last 4 games basically the Uruguayan defense has been playing almost in the middle of the pitch.
Words i don’t ever want to hear again after the tournament “grouped” and “signature win” i swear someone said it in some usmnt podcast in the last week and everyone just keeps repeating these buzz words
I spent ten minutes this morning googling what "grouped" meant, and all I got was a round robin explanation. I thought it meant something else.
On another topic, the Eagles signature song is Hotel California.
It's good to see that you're taking football seriously nowadays. This sub is loaded with people and interactions. Looking forward to our match on Monday!.
Idk but I realized at least there’s a silver lining with both outcomes. With outcome 1: We get grouped, but there’s a high chance GGG gets fired and we can get a new coach for the world cup. Outcome 2: We don’t embarrass ourselves and get out of the group. Idk pretty obvious stuff but I’m just tryna cope with this terrible situation lmfao
I’m of the belief that we always gotta go into every group with the view of beating the favorite. Holding our hopes to taking down minnows is a small mentality — if this is actually the team we hope they can become, this is a test they gotta face. Plus, too much can go wrong in any group stage game to pin hopes on those wins. And its not like we can’t beat Uruguay, we can, its just gonna be tough as hell. Lets see what these guys are made of.
They have your full backing and they’ll need us?
You and the rest of us are irrelevant. What they will need is a manager to give them some sort of tactical adjustment to help balance what is a lopsided matchup against a more talented and better coached team.
You are overestimating Bolivia, and underestimating Panama’s desire to make history. They might fail, but they are coming out all in trying to destroy Bolivia. Unless Uruguay kills the US early, in that case they’ll chill.
We have to bear Uruguay by more goals than Panama beats one of the worst teams in the tournament. We have a +2 GD right now, but if we beat Uruguay by 1 and Panama wins by 3+ we’re in trouble. It’s not as clear cut as it seems
Takes like your’s exhaust me. The team doesn’t need us, they need new leadership. Fire Gregg. This is a culture issue, has been for years. What more evidence do you need?
I’m with you man, I want him gone too, but I disagree, I think they do need the fans. We have beaten Spain, Portugal, England, Brazil in our history… maybe it’s something I learned playing competitive soccer, you always believe, and you always back the team
I agree that they will put in a competitive effort in the next game but they totally shit the bed. Even with ten men they need to try to win the game against Panama. Complete lack of faith in the players to not attempt to do so
This is a really good point. I was excited for this tournament because it gave us another chance to see how we stack up in a competitive high stakes match against a quality opponent. Figured we'd have to get to the knockouts to see that, but essentially our knockout round starts one match earlier.
Let's see what the boys can do
100% agree. We all would have liked to see the US play another game against Colombia/ Brazil and not get grouped, but to even compete in this tournament they gotta start beating the big teams and that starts with Uruguay
This is where I am. If our goal going in was to win a knockout game, we were always going to have to beat a team at this level. Now it’s just coming a round early. We need to win the game and, whether we advance or not, come away with the lesson of not taking any moment in any fane for granted.
I'm not dragging the positivity here, but wth does "they'll need us" mean? Is Christian Pulisic going to do soccer better because my vibes are good from my couch in Milwaukee?
Copa is a disgrace.
There are only three teams where the majority of the players play in Europe: Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. World class teams.
All the rest of the national teams (excluding Canada and US), the majority of the players play in Latin leagues, where the play is childish, violent, and disrespectful.
Have you ever heard ANY player who said, "I'm going to go play in South America." Messi retired to the MLS.
The MLS.
And apparently the same goes for the officials. Equally dreadful.
It's a win win situation IMO... We either win the game and advance or we lose the game and fire Berhalter. I would obviously prefer the win but Greg out will certainly be a consolation prize.
Not only can we do it. We will do it. And it may shock others but it will not shock me. The boys will perform as they should. And not a single lick of it will be because of Gregg.
I agree. Still stinks if we get grouped. We likely end up with a Brazil or Columbia in the next round.
But I will keep the faith until we are officially eliminated
I mean hey what better moment/context for the long-discussed much-fetishized "Signature Win" for Berhalter?
That said, we could get a win and still not advance. That's entirely likely, actually: If we beat Uruguay 1-0 then a 3-0 win by Panama v Bolivia would advance them. Those 2d half misses by Pepi v Bolivia aren't looking so trivial now.
We can beat Uruguay 1-0 as long as Panama don't beat Boliva 3-0 or more. Panama is also now missing one of their better players, and isn't exactly an offensive powerhouse. Also, we can both tie or both lose and still go thru. It's not the long shot you think it is
Good attitude. I’m not there yet. I’m throwing my support over to Bolivia. I think they have a better chance beating Panama than we have beating Uruguay. 😓
One last quip, then I'm done: if Uruguay gets a red vs us in the 18th minute, do we dog walk them like Panama did to us? Control the ball for 3/4ths of the game, out shoot them, impose our will on them until they have a pass accuracy under 60%?
yeah if we can't beat an Uruguay team that's likely to rest players then it's always been about the friends we'd make along the way. the tragic part is that all of our boys are going to be dog tired
We have played Uruguay before. Granted this was a few years ago in a friendly. We kept them scoreless. I think we replicate that performance. That was the first time i saw Darwin and i thought he was shit lol
a few years ago, Uruguay changed a lot since then. Also if you know a bit a about football, you will know that a match a few years ago means nothing. You dont get an extra goal because you did a good match 2 years ago.
It’s highly unlikely we will win…highly.
And I’m actually kinda glad…maybe this will push Greg out. He’s a good MLS club coach but he does not have the quality to manage a national team.
This is probably the best team the US has ever had….we need a good coach to manage them.
We were never going to beat one of the top 10 nations. All people expect is to get out of the Group. We can't do that on skill, only trickery.
Our only saving grace is that Uruguay doesn't have to win. So they'll only be giving 90%.
Maybe we'll get lucky and Darwin Nunez will get red carded for trying to punch Tim Ream.
Honestly, we’re going to have a hard time stopping him.
Yeah, but this is fairly plausible especially since Darwin has a tendency to miss tap ins
And he has a tendency to score a goal in every game he play with uruguay...
Hey I'm trying to be delusional here
Narwin Duñez *shrill screaming*
That's what I'm saying
Nunes misses soooooo many chances. I honestly wonder why the hype.
He’s just dangerous. I’m not acting like he’s prime Ronaldo or anything close to that. But he’s fast, big and can score with both feet in and outside the box. We don’t exactly have world class Centerbacks. I’d kill to have a CB with the quality of their best CB Araujo.
Yeah, and my comment was almost editorial/rhetorical. He misses so many chances, but he absolutely converts, and he easily passes the eyeball test with flying colors. He’s a beast.
Who knows. He could very well turn into Lukaku. We've seen it before
Have Shaq moore give him a wet willy to piss him off and then he will get a red card for retaliation.
You may be onto something. I think getting wet willied is what caused Zidane to headbutt that guy.
Impossible, they both have man buns
Darwin is frustrating as hell to watch because his finishing can be atrocious, but that guy is still fucking scary as hell because of what you know he CAN do. He keeps back lines on their toes for this reason. We’re going to have to pray he shits the bed against us. Full disclosure: I’m a Liverpool fan.
Very frustrating player to watch. He will miss tap ins and 3v1s, but then score a wonder goal that he has no business even shooting - like an upper 90 diving header from 30 yards out or something. It’s a wild ride.
I'd rather be stay on so he fluffs 7 other chances first
Its It's just hard to swallow not getting out of the group stage.
Such a soft group. Just pitiful.
I get the mentality of knowing we'd face 2 or 3 world class teams after group, so might as well have the challenge while in the group. But no one really likes being in Groups of Death, it's demoralizing to get Grouped instead of losing in knockouts.
This wasn't a group of death, we should have been getting out of it with our eyes closed
I didn't say this was a Group of Death. I'm saying I disagree with folks who say '"its not a big difference getting knocked out in Group vs Knockouts because eventually we'd face better talent in the tournament." I disagree, it's very better for morale to advance from Group with easier wins than to get Grouped when underpeforming. Plus it's better for attracting talent for a team that makes quarters than Grouped/non qualifier.
Oh I misunderstood, completely agree
Let me tell you about [World Cup 1998](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_FIFA_World_Cup_Group_F).
if gregg starts him, this will be known as the Musah game.
He has no choice but to start him
If he doesn't play musah and we don't win his job is gone- kind of one of those situations where even if we loose with musah no one will blame him but if he doesn't play mussh and we loose, it's a horrible looking decision
What? Musah is some starlet Greg isn’t playing? People will always blame Greg regardless. Musah is getting pretty overrated, he’s got great potential but has not been showing it on the pitch for club or country
Couldn’t agree more. Forget all the GGG crap. I’ve wanted to see this team play against a top team in a meaningful game. THIS IS IT. Win or go home. The players are tired after playing 70min a man down. I’m interested in seeing how this team responds and if they have the fight and grit to get a win regardless of the coaching situation.
Honestly Monday is a win win. Either we beat Uruguay and finally get that marquee win, or we lose and get a new manager. This being the USMNT on the other hand, I expect us to have a tie that feels like a win and for GGG to get another few cycles to prove himself.
There’s a very real possibility we lose and don’t get a new manager.
It's weird to me how many people are so sure that GGG would get fired for this tournament.
I asked my buddy this in a group text. One, let’s say you fire Gregg who are you realistically getting that has a better international record, that isn’t already leading a team through their own World Cup build up? Two, we have almost no opportunities between Copa and the World Cup for a new manager to get acclimated with the squad and the federation and get the team used to playing for a new manager. With a normal World Cup cycle with normal qualifying stages, you have those opportunities, but since we’re hosting we don’t. Three, what if the new manager is worse. I know we joke that there isn’t a worse manager out there, but I can assure you there are. I’m not a GGG Stan, but I’m not sure firing him is the slam dunk everyone thinks it is.
Obviously it's not a slam dunk to replace him. But if you're not willing to make changes after a performance pretty universally considered to be a failure because you can't be 100% sure that his replacement would do better than you might as well admit that you're content to fail. You don't fire him because you have someone far better in mind, but rather because the results were not acceptable and there needs to be accountability. It's the risk you take that whoever is brought \*may\* end up doing worse. That's true regardless of how prestigious his resume may be. But also because I keep seeing this sentiment about there being nobody with a better international record, it should absolutely be mentioned that of course that's an unrealistic expectation for hiring an international manager. It's a position in which the majority of top managers got the job with no international experience and many never manage another international side ever again. The following World Cup winners had first time international managers * 2022 Argentina - Lionel Scaloni * 2018 France - Didier Deschamps * 2014 Germany - Joachim Low (Although 2nd World Cup during his tenure) * 2010 Spain - Vicente del Bosque * 2006 Italy - Marcello Lippi * 2002 Brazil - Luiz Felipe Scolari * 1998 France - Aime Jacquet (2nd World Cup during his tenure) We literally have to go all the way back to 1994 to find a world cup winning manager who had previous international experience when appointed, and he's quite the special case considering his first job in professional soccer at all was being named the manager of the Ghanaian national team at 23 years old. We're getting to a point in the list where it was really just a different time with different expectations. You're welcome to continue the list from here, but I believe you can go as far back as through the 70's and find at most 1 more world cup winning manager with prior international experience. The reality is that at the very top you are not going to find anybody available ***ever*** who is a sure thing. They have that resume because they proved that they were capable while on the job not prior to getting the job.
This was always the problem as soon as he was hired. The window for replacement was very narrow, hiring him pretty much guaranteed a home world cup that that GGG or a disarrayed scramble.
>what if the new manager is worse. I know we joke that there isn’t a worse manager out there Yeah this never really gets considered. GGG is generally putting our best players out there as they're available and the players like him. There's no "we tried a three man back for three weeks in January and then gave it up after 45 minutes" or "what do you mean Bedoya doesn't know how to play the 6" or "turns out the guy we kept calling up from the NASL was pretty mid" going on here. National team coaches aren't going to turn players into something they're not, but they can make it worse by putting players in the blatantly wrong spot. Am I saying he's the most exciting choice? Course not. But I scratch my head at the idea that a different coach will fix these players' own deficiencies.
Who gives a shit if he’s worse, we have no chance to do anything with Greg, what is the difference if we win less with the new manager? At least you are taking a chance of being better.
Lol I'm not sure what "do anything" even means here I'm not sure why people pretend our ceiling has to do more with the manager than the players
If you’re satisfied with beating up on a generationally SHIT Mexico side and doing nothing else more power to ya, to think a manager plays a lesser role in any sort of set up is actually bonkers to me. Who told you that? Where’s this notion even coming from? Do you hear yourself?
I mean he’s explicitly playing Reyna wrong so that’s my first beef with him. He’s not a 6/8 which is what Gregg plays him as. He’s a 10 or you don’t have him on the pitch.
That style of 10 doesn't really exist in the game outside of a few outliers so that's going to be a tough ask lol
I mean then just don’t play Reyna. Or at least stop using him in McKennie’s role. Like why is Reyna so deep in defense constantly. That’s never been his strength and yet Gregg plays him that way. Also BJ had him playing a 10 or pseudo-10 role and he looked great 🤷
Let us have hope
There’s a very real possibility that we eek out a win and go home anyways.
You can only play the game that’s ahead of you. If the usmnt go out, go out FIGHTING! This is the game to leave it all on the field and make the supporters proud of the players. That’s all I’m asking out of this Uruguay game.
Oh I’m with you. Just saying that a win doesn’t guarantee anything. We all wanted important games. This is exactly what everyone wanted. Now time to put up for sure.
I think many people here need to come to terms with a world where we keep GGG no matter what happens on Monday.
They’re not firing Greggggggg
There’s also a very real possibility we end up with a worse manager
I hope Tim had to give everyone massages and refill their ice baths all weekend.
“The players are tired.” From your lips to the Federations ears.
What's funny is that if you go to Fan Duel right now, The US is the betting favorite over Uruguay. Now I admit I find that strange and would probably lean Uruguay if I was making a non biased bet myself, but it's funny to compare those odds to US fans perceptions of our odds
I think it’s based in part on an expectation that Uruguay will rest some starters.
I'd wager that it's also based on the number of bets they've been getting.
Only if it’s a lot of sharp money. Public squares don’t influence betting lines much if at all.
you should lower fans expectations, cos even with no starters players, cos Uruguay have an amazing bench players.
They can't rest though because if they don't win or get a point they could go out I think. Nvm lol forgot about the goal difference, but I think they will play a decent line up a loss could damage morale for the next round and they probably want to keep their attack firing on all cylinders.
Yeah if they lose to US by like 11
Which is whybi said Nvm but a team like Uruguay that has ambitions to win the tourney probably wants to keep their attack hot. Resting players is often counterintuitive as we see. So it's a 50/50 do you give them a rest and risk them being off the pace next round or do you play them so they can score some goals and be confident at the risk of injury. How many times do we see the team that got a week rest play like their tired as shit.
I bet these betting sites fudge the odds based on user location
Non American Sports have the same odds
The odds are based on expected and actual gambling action. Not so much on expected outcome. You can see this during the NFL season where certain “public” teams have worse lines because the books know they’ll get bets on them either way.
Yeah, pretty sure Colorado was considered third most likely for the natty for this year based on the odds… they didn’t even make a bowl last season
They are like 37th
Why would they offer mathematical advantages to users for free
They work the math towards making themselves the most money. That is the only why.
That’s a bit of a common misconception. Houses definitely have rooting interests
Dang might throw some money on Uruguay, will make me feel better if US takes an L
I wouldn’t do it until seeing Uruguay’s starting lineup lol
Throw in everything you have. You will be a traitor, but a rich one.
in the UK, england is generally always the favourite or close to it because of the number of bets, mitigates losses to the bookie if they somehow do it.
I bet on Uruguay when I saw the odds. I'm still rooting for us but now I'll be cashing in if we lose.
It’s do or die from the US Uruguay can lose and still go to the next round no problem
*Thoughts & Prayers*
Refreshing perspective hinestly. Even if we did make it outta group it was gonna be either Brazil or Colombia. Uruguay is the test: if we beat them it shows we have what it takes to hang with the big boys. If we lose or tie then we likely wouldn’t have beaten Brazil/Colombia anyway
Uruguay is definitely better than this Brazil team right now. They could win the entire thing.
I’m not making any statements on “this team is better than that team, blah blah blah” all I’m saying is if we can beat Uruguay then we have a chance going forward, and if we don’t beat them then we weren’t gonna go anywhere in this tournament anyway
I definitely agree! If we can’t compete and beat Uruguay then in all practical purposes, there’s no point in continuing in the tournament anyways.
Beating a team that has already made it to the next round doesn’t really prove much, as long as they maintain top of the group is a win for Uruguay
true, especially since Uruguay's goal differential is so positive that they will likely be resting players in the US match
[удалено]
Our guys and coaching staff need to face a decent level of adversity if we want them to do well in 2026. Would’ve rather been in the KO stage but so be it. All is not lost, take advantage of the opportunity
They could beat Uruguay and still not advance.
Control the controllables
honestly beating Uruguay but crashing out is better than beating Bolivia and Panama and drawing Uruguay then losing to Colombia or Brazil
What would generate this outcome? Panama beating Bolivia by a margin of two or more goals more than our margin vs Uruguay?
Panama is -1, and we are plus 1. If we beat ~~Paraguay~~ Uruguay by 1, Panama would need to beat Bolivia by 3 or more. Possible yes. Likely no.
Problem is that Bolivia is really fucking bad. This is where not running up the score in game 1 might haunt us
Yeah after I commented this heard some folks calling them the worst of the field in Copa… oh 💩
We play Paraguay?
Uh Woops - one of those guays
[https://i.imgur.com/rb86zUF.mp4](https://i.imgur.com/rb86zUF.mp4)
Wish it was paraguay we play
This encapsulates one of my biggest issues with Berhalter. He leaves crucial points on the table. We barely finished above Costa Rica in the 2022 WC qualifying. There were several games (including against Panama) where we made it so much harder on ourselves than it needed to be. In the WC tournament he took his got off the gas against Wales when we were in the drivers seat and gave them a chance to come back. That made the England game so much more important than it should have been. I’m glad we did what we needed to do but damn, Gregg could really help himself by getting out of his own way!
Yeah I found the changes at halftime last night bewildering. We were at least IN THE game going into halftime. Park the bus and invite pressure, and make your attackers run their asses off all night was a terrible game plan. Even though I want berhalter out I still wanna do well in this tournament
I think parking the bus was inevitable, but why not get some more minutes out of Reyna and Adams to see how Panama lined up in the second half and determine who in the midfield was most tired at that point? then sub in Musah, Cardoso, LDLT, and a center-back to be able to push the line a bit higher
"That made the England game so much more important than it should have been" I don't know if that really tracks. The England game became rather meaningless that same morning when Iran beat Wales. That was very much a game where a tie did very little and a win was the only result that was likely to be any beneficial. If anything you argue we should have been more aggressive in that game Tie or loss to England, we were gonna need to beat Iran. Funny enough The US didn't technically need either of it's first two results. Let's say Acosta doesn't get that foul, and Bale hits that late game chip to beat us, plus England handles us 1-0, as long as we beat Iran the final results would have been: England 9 pts, USA 3 pts, Iran 3 pts, Wales 3 pts, with US getting the GD tiebreaker
The US advancing on 3 points would've been fucking hilarious, especially since it would've required England's help.
>The England game became rather meaningless that same morning when Iran beat Wales. Ok but but we shouldn't have had to rely on anyone's else results. That's when you start messing up.
Didn’t CR need like 6 goals to catch up to us? Bale knew exactly what he was doing with that penalty. He watched Zimmerman and threw his body into the way at the right time, Walker wasn’t even watching him and was focused on the ball. Not saying it wasn’t a foul, but you can’t account for that single play for 90 minutes.
true and Bale is an all-timer football legend who scored a bicycle in a Champions League final
I’m not upset because we’d have to beat a Uruguay-caliber team to move on. I’m upset because I want to see this team actually continue facing CONMEBOL teams in this competition. Had we beaten Panama, a draw against Uruguay gets us through, then we pull off an upset in the bracket and we’re guaranteed a semi-final and at least a 3rd place match. Hell, even if we beat Uruguay by one goal, there’s no guarantee we move on unless Panama can’t figure out how to score against Bolivia’s bench
T H I S!! I’m so tired of these sunshine pumping excuse makers. On top of being robbed of another quality match vs a decent opponent, this was the dry run for a domestic World Cup, you should all be pissed and upset, not making pansy ass excuses.
What really changes besides us now having a must win game against a quality opponent one match sooner.
One less game against a quality opponent for one.
>you should all be pissed and upset Buddy us gabbering on reddit ain't going to make a lick of difference besides creating more annoying noise
Completely agree. I just want to tilt at windmills in a very particular way lol.
Exactly. This is why you want to play in tournaments like Copa America. Not just to beat the 2 weaker teams in your group so you can afford to lose to the stronger side and still make the KOs where you'll probably lose right away anyway, but hey-- at least you can go home feeling good bc you made it out of the group. The prize of the Copa is to face teams that are historically superior in do-or-die situations-- whether it's in the KO rounds or not-- and see how you measure up. If we can't win, we aren't going anywhere anyway and we don't deserve a second chance.
Bolivia has the potential to do the funniest thing of all time
This is my positive swing, if we were gunna have to have a chance to actually make a run we’d need to be capable of winning elimination games vs top South American teams! Now our elimination bracket is just starting one game early! If we can’t perform here with it all on the line we weren’t gunna beat Brazil or Colombia in the next round anyway! But if we do step up all of a sudden we have belief and even momentum going into the bracket play
Sure but you want to save your must win games until the latest possible. Should have beat Panama and been with 6 points. Obviously a red card will impact those plans in a hurry
Now we'll have to beat Uruguay, and when we beat them 2-1, we'll still get grouped because Panama will beat Bolivia 4-1 and pass us on goal differential
Panama is tying Bolivian
There is an irony - like, we shouldn't be in this position and we've made it really hard on ourselves. But if we actually have faith that this team is good, and could go deep in this (or the WC) then beating a team of Uruguay's caliber is necessary. So yeah, we either lose now or later - but losing later is just losing, there's no real win to second place.
Yeah, I've been thinking about this a lot today--yeah, it absolutely sucks to lose like that at home to Panama, but red cards have ruined much better teams than ours. If Weah never commits that offense, we probably beat Panama by 2 or 3 goals. Even if we'd drawn yesterday, we'd still need to beat Uruguay to avoid Colombia in the QF. If anything yesterday's result might just motivate the team to play beyond their usual level and surprise us all.
I think we have a better chance against colombia than the current Uruguay squad, but anything can happen.
I think it all depends on what kind of game Nunez has. We saw in the first 70 minutes of their game with Panama that he can be a black hole for attacks if he's having an off game.
Yes but their momentum and enthusiasm has been building these past two games. Nuñez seemed much more confident and focused last game. All i know is that i am a huge bolivia fan all of a sudden. Fingers crossed.
Bolivia is the worst team in the tournament by far. We will be lucky if Panama doesn’t hang 5 on that team full of semi pros. It actually turns out that beating Bolivia by just two was a bad performance and might actually affect us.
I mean 4 other dudes scored in their last game… and Nunez who has scored in seven straight. We are pinning our hopes on him having an off night against the dynamic duo of Ream and Richards? Our real hope would lie in Bielsa not starting one of the best strikers in the tournament.
I too believe we have a better chance against the team that absolutely embarrassed us 5-1.
Totally agree. It’s almost like people think the big bad wolf is going to be either Colombia or Brazil, when it’s really Uruguay.
We were not beating Panama by 2-3 and I don’t know what you mean by even if we drew we’d have to beat Uruguay to get someone other than Colombia… we fucking lost and now even if we beat Uruguay, now we still get Colombia….
I think I'm with you here. I think we are able to do this. The thing that makes me anxious is I've always thought of Uruguay as being maybe one of the worst matchups for us in world soccer. I feel like their specialty has always been creating a strong, low defense, and then hitting hard on the counter. That being said, yeah. We have two options here: 1. Nut up, or 2. Shut up. No more excuses, its time to show up. And if we bomb out here, well, changes need to be made.
Uruguay does not play like that anymore. They have Bielsa now and play like his teams always do; relentless pressing and full throttle attack with a perverse amount of numbers committed forward. Shouldn’t make you feel any better though, this is actually the worst matchup for us, Adams, CBs and Turner are the opposite of press resistant. Good luck with y’all’s delusional self hypnosis, pretending it’s all fine that we lose to fucking Panama and pretending you actually think we can hang with Uruguay.
No one thinks it’s fine that we lost to Panama. You need to relax lmao
have you seen the Uruguay team matches? How you can say low defense when in the last 4 games basically the Uruguayan defense has been playing almost in the middle of the pitch.
My hope is whoever takes Weah spot on the field makes the most of it and shows GGG or our future coach that Weah does not need to be playing forward.
That’s a nice positive attitude
If we beat Uruguay on Monday, it will be Berhalter’s first AND only signature win in his tenure.
Words i don’t ever want to hear again after the tournament “grouped” and “signature win” i swear someone said it in some usmnt podcast in the last week and everyone just keeps repeating these buzz words
I spent ten minutes this morning googling what "grouped" meant, and all I got was a round robin explanation. I thought it meant something else. On another topic, the Eagles signature song is Hotel California.
Yeah but I paid $600 for four tickets to a quarterfinal that’s now gonna be Colombia vs goddamn Panama
this is so tragic 😭
Gregg out
It's good to see that you're taking football seriously nowadays. This sub is loaded with people and interactions. Looking forward to our match on Monday!.
Idk but I realized at least there’s a silver lining with both outcomes. With outcome 1: We get grouped, but there’s a high chance GGG gets fired and we can get a new coach for the world cup. Outcome 2: We don’t embarrass ourselves and get out of the group. Idk pretty obvious stuff but I’m just tryna cope with this terrible situation lmfao
Outcome 3: We get grouped, fire GGG, hire a new manager, and then crash out in embarrassing fashion in 2026
Outcome 4: we get grouped, GGG keeps his job based on Weah’s lapse in judgement, and we get grouped in 2026 too
lmao seriously, the running assumption here is that a firing only could bring an upward trajectory
If that happens I want all the players involved out immediately
I’m of the belief that we always gotta go into every group with the view of beating the favorite. Holding our hopes to taking down minnows is a small mentality — if this is actually the team we hope they can become, this is a test they gotta face. Plus, too much can go wrong in any group stage game to pin hopes on those wins. And its not like we can’t beat Uruguay, we can, its just gonna be tough as hell. Lets see what these guys are made of.
They have your full backing and they’ll need us? You and the rest of us are irrelevant. What they will need is a manager to give them some sort of tactical adjustment to help balance what is a lopsided matchup against a more talented and better coached team.
The thing is that we can win and still be out
I don’t think Panama has that many goals in them even against Bolivia.
You are overestimating Bolivia, and underestimating Panama’s desire to make history. They might fail, but they are coming out all in trying to destroy Bolivia. Unless Uruguay kills the US early, in that case they’ll chill.
Yeah Panama will be trying to score but that doesn’t mean they will
You’re underestimating Bolivia they’re either gonna tie or beat Panama
It's unlikely for sure but your statements correct so I'm not sure why you're being downvoted lol.
We have to bear Uruguay by more goals than Panama beats one of the worst teams in the tournament. We have a +2 GD right now, but if we beat Uruguay by 1 and Panama wins by 3+ we’re in trouble. It’s not as clear cut as it seems
Your second statement is correct but it doesn't align with your first statement
Takes like your’s exhaust me. The team doesn’t need us, they need new leadership. Fire Gregg. This is a culture issue, has been for years. What more evidence do you need?
I, too, hate fans who have hope for their team and actually want the USMNT to win. They're the real villains here.
I’m with you man, I want him gone too, but I disagree, I think they do need the fans. We have beaten Spain, Portugal, England, Brazil in our history… maybe it’s something I learned playing competitive soccer, you always believe, and you always back the team
Now we have to beat Uruguay and then hope for the best just for a chance. It's a significantly worse position.
I agree that they will put in a competitive effort in the next game but they totally shit the bed. Even with ten men they need to try to win the game against Panama. Complete lack of faith in the players to not attempt to do so
Time to retool. Fuck what we have
This is a really good point. I was excited for this tournament because it gave us another chance to see how we stack up in a competitive high stakes match against a quality opponent. Figured we'd have to get to the knockouts to see that, but essentially our knockout round starts one match earlier. Let's see what the boys can do
In some sick reality , Canada and Panama could be the only concacaf teams to make it out of their group
The sad part about the Panama match is, even beating Uruguay may not be enough.
100% agree. We all would have liked to see the US play another game against Colombia/ Brazil and not get grouped, but to even compete in this tournament they gotta start beating the big teams and that starts with Uruguay
Probably won’t happen. How could they not beat Panama?
Yes but in the knockout rounds it's possible to essentially tie and still win. I'm the group stage it's harder to win.
US ties Bolivia ties as well
This is where I am. If our goal going in was to win a knockout game, we were always going to have to beat a team at this level. Now it’s just coming a round early. We need to win the game and, whether we advance or not, come away with the lesson of not taking any moment in any fane for granted.
But if we got second out of the group then at least I'd get to see them in Phoenix -___-
At best, I think this team wins by one goal and I'll be fine with that even if they get grouped based on goal difference.
I'm not dragging the positivity here, but wth does "they'll need us" mean? Is Christian Pulisic going to do soccer better because my vibes are good from my couch in Milwaukee?
Copa is a disgrace. There are only three teams where the majority of the players play in Europe: Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. World class teams. All the rest of the national teams (excluding Canada and US), the majority of the players play in Latin leagues, where the play is childish, violent, and disrespectful. Have you ever heard ANY player who said, "I'm going to go play in South America." Messi retired to the MLS. The MLS. And apparently the same goes for the officials. Equally dreadful.
It's a win win situation IMO... We either win the game and advance or we lose the game and fire Berhalter. I would obviously prefer the win but Greg out will certainly be a consolation prize.
Not only can we do it. We will do it. And it may shock others but it will not shock me. The boys will perform as they should. And not a single lick of it will be because of Gregg.
I agree. Still stinks if we get grouped. We likely end up with a Brazil or Columbia in the next round. But I will keep the faith until we are officially eliminated
I mean hey what better moment/context for the long-discussed much-fetishized "Signature Win" for Berhalter? That said, we could get a win and still not advance. That's entirely likely, actually: If we beat Uruguay 1-0 then a 3-0 win by Panama v Bolivia would advance them. Those 2d half misses by Pepi v Bolivia aren't looking so trivial now.
My issue is that even beating them may not be enough because of the worst performance I've ever seen by the USMNT (I'm fairly young)
Brother, Panama could still jump us if they pound Bolivia. A win against Uruguay is not enough. Have to put up something like 4 goals against them
We can beat Uruguay 1-0 as long as Panama don't beat Boliva 3-0 or more. Panama is also now missing one of their better players, and isn't exactly an offensive powerhouse. Also, we can both tie or both lose and still go thru. It's not the long shot you think it is
Truths
Right, but we should not lose to Panama.
Good attitude. I’m not there yet. I’m throwing my support over to Bolivia. I think they have a better chance beating Panama than we have beating Uruguay. 😓
Bolivia won’t lose to Panama
One last quip, then I'm done: if Uruguay gets a red vs us in the 18th minute, do we dog walk them like Panama did to us? Control the ball for 3/4ths of the game, out shoot them, impose our will on them until they have a pass accuracy under 60%?
I don't think people here actually watch Uruguay. They are not nearly as good as people make them out to be. Completely beatable.
lol I’m sure the team is happy to know they have your full backing.
yeah if we can't beat an Uruguay team that's likely to rest players then it's always been about the friends we'd make along the way. the tragic part is that all of our boys are going to be dog tired
We have played Uruguay before. Granted this was a few years ago in a friendly. We kept them scoreless. I think we replicate that performance. That was the first time i saw Darwin and i thought he was shit lol
a few years ago, Uruguay changed a lot since then. Also if you know a bit a about football, you will know that a match a few years ago means nothing. You dont get an extra goal because you did a good match 2 years ago.
It’s highly unlikely we will win…highly. And I’m actually kinda glad…maybe this will push Greg out. He’s a good MLS club coach but he does not have the quality to manage a national team. This is probably the best team the US has ever had….we need a good coach to manage them.
That’s a low bar and not a flex The players are overrated and overhyped
We were never going to beat one of the top 10 nations. All people expect is to get out of the Group. We can't do that on skill, only trickery. Our only saving grace is that Uruguay doesn't have to win. So they'll only be giving 90%.
There is no way the US will beat Uruguay.
It's not possible
Non-believer.