Bruce Arena is the answer; we should have given him a lifetime contact…

Also worth noting: the speed they counter at is unreal and left us totally disorganized.

What a great team goal from the Dutch pic.twitter.com/DhsvtGgmuf

— King™️ (@UTDxKing) December 3, 2022

Lots of people want to see Gregg gone which I understand and even agree to but mostly due to the fact that that national teams shouldn't keep a coach for two full cycles (in most cases) not because he obviously underperformed for 4 years.

And lots of people say (insert any "big" European manager here) would be an obvious upgrade etc. etc. But replacing him with just anyone from Europe is highly flawed.

We can argue about how effective he was in deploying the strategy but the type of game and team he tried to build is probably the one you have to build in order for the best chance of becoming elite. There aren't many teams who have historically succeeded exclusively with counter ball. Maybe the closest would be an Italy but I'd hardly say that defensive solidity = counter ball.

Ideally you bring in a better in game manager who can keep the general strategy deployed but do it better. But if my choices are to hire an elite European coach who would completely start over from square 1 or going with Berhalter and see what happens, I hold my nose and go with Berhalter.

This isn't a perfect analogy at all, but I think Ggg = Mike Sherman. And for context, Mike Sherman is my favorite coach of ours since I became an Ag in 1999 (I wasn't an Aggie until I stepped on campus, so I carry zero fondness for RC/Jackie).

Ggg and Sherm took over teams that were in shambles.

Both weren't ready for coaching at a different level of the game and had to learn a lot on the job. Both did learn and got better.

Both built teams that had good chemistry and worked hard for each other.

Both recruited well and made the roster much stronger than when they arrived.

Both did pretty well getting a team prepared for games.

Both lacked the ability to close games out.

Where they differ is that I have a strong feeling that if Sherm hadn't been canned, he would've done due diligence to improve. I'm far less confident that Ggg is willing to bend and address our woes on offense.

I won't be immediately bitter if we're stuck with Ggg, but I do think it's time to move on. And if he stays, I hope I'm wrong about him and he does change his ideas on offense.

USA underwhelming as usual. 3 goals in 4 games is lousy lousy lousy, one of which was a total miracle.

Defense lousy.

Blah.

Defense yesterday was terrible, which is really the only game that matters.

Had an easy draw and barely squeaked through.

A lot of our forwards could probably benefit from a spell in the Eredivisie…a league that demands that you ,and allows you to, unlock that ruthless taste for scoring goals we lack

GoAgs92 said:

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Defense yesterday was terrible, which is really the only game that matters.

Had an easy draw and barely squeaked through.

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Other than the Wales game, we played really well. Could've score more. Should've scored more.

,

As far as qualifying, CONCACAF was pretty awful….and we finished 3rd.

I will say it's nice to compete with Mexico after decades of getting beat.

GoAgs92 said:

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As far as qualifying, CONCACAF was pretty awful….and we finished 3rd.

I will say it's nice to compete with Mexico after decades of getting beat.

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Dos a cero, *****

GoAgs92 said:

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As far as qualifying, CONCACAF was pretty awful….and we finished 3rd.

I will say it's nice to compete with Mexico after decades of getting beat.

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Coached by Tata Martino.
Basically Ggg>Tata

PatAg said:

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I don't even think our defense was terrible on the whole. Just had 3 plays where tired players just sort of switched off
When I think of terrible defense, Im thinking of the defense as a whole getting shredded all game, and that wasn't the case

I don't know that I care what country the next coach is from, I just want him to be tactically adaptable and not treat it like a club team
I don't want a system we force player selection too. Look at our pool of players , and create tactics to employ them to their strengths.
I think Gregg has developed a lot in his time, and will probably get a good job somewhere. Will be interesting to see if he tries his hand in Europe somewhere or sticks with MLS.

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With so few of the players of the full team coming from MLS, it diminishes the need for a manager that 'knows' MLS and American players. That being said, MLS players will likely get time during odd FIFA windows and early rounds of tournaments like the Gold Cup

US didn't beat Mexico for 46 years.

Know your history. We are on equal footing now and it's nice but we got a long way to go.

I do wonder about non English speaking managers, at some point you have to be able to communicate your message.
If we had to qualify, I'd say they would need to demonstrate an understanding of what qualifying in concacadf entails but that won't matter this time

With the expanded field of teams, we'll never not qualify again. It'll take some of the drama and fun out of things, but we'll always qualify. We'll be able to focus even more on building and tinkering with the team for the actual World Cup, instead of focusing on just getting through qualifying. This will benefit us greatly…

PatAg said:

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I do wonder about non English speaking managers, at some point you have to be able to communicate your message.
If we had to qualify, I'd say they would need to demonstrate an understanding of what qualifying in concacadf entails but that won't matter this time

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I think I read it was 15 of the 16 knockout teams had a coach from thier country (S. Korea being the exception).

aggiephoenix02 said:

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GoAgs92 said:

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US didn't beat Mexico for 46 years.

Know your history. We are on equal footing now and it's nice but we got a long way to go.

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We've been on equal footing or better than Mexico since the 90's, bro…

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Mostly because they have gotten worse.

We didn't even make it last time…clearly we are doing great…and are just a few unlucky bounces away…