BRAD FRIEDEL: Gregg Berhalter should stay as US coach, but his team will be shocked by Holland’s loss

 

I think the US team woke up on Sunday morning a little shocked that they are out of the World Cup.

I think they really thought they had a chance going into the game and they thought they could have beaten the Netherlands. I said myself that I liked our chances, in my last column.

The reason I say shocked is not because the Netherlands didn’t deserve to win, or that the game didn’t reflect a 3-1 tie. I say shocked because I think the American players will have realized how good some of these European teams and players are at managing games.

What I thought was really clever about Holland coach Louis van Gaal was that he let our centre-backs, Tim Ream and Walker Zimmerman, have the ball. Holland controlled the game without the ball and dictated who we passed to.

Brad Friedel believes the US loss to the Netherlands will be a building block for the team’s growth

USA lost 3-1 to the Netherlands on Saturday and crashed in the tournament in the round of 16 in Qatar

It was a hard lesson for the US – they had reasons to be optimistic ahead of the game

Ream and Zimerman were allowed to take the ball to midfield and as long as they didn’t go to Weston McKennie, Yunus Musah or Christian Pulisic they could pass to whoever they wanted. Holland marked those players and was physical with Christian, seeing how he was doing after his injury. You call it brutal tactics or clever tactics, depending on which camp you’re in.

I think for the US it would also have been a realization that athleticism alone is not enough. Yes, we are good, we can compete, but we have to get better. How do we do that? At least I would think so.

I never felt like we had the upper hand in the game. I also never felt like we were battered by our imagination and we had chances to get it back 2-2, but I never felt like we were going to win.

The US has a young team and the core group will stick together most of this US team still has a World Cup in them except maybe Ream who is 35 so this is a really good building block towards 2026 where the US has a home field advantage.

And it is my opinion that this group should stay together with coach Gregg Berhalter. People start to wonder if he stays or goes, it happens after an international tournament.

As a fan of the US and someone who wants the program to do well, I’m glad he’s staying. I’m a big fan of continuity and I thought we performed well overall at the World Cup. I see no reason to change. We never know what could happen, maybe he gets a great offer somewhere else and goes away or the federation might have other ideas but I think we should keep him.

And if Gregg stays in his post, he has two questions for the next two years: which of his core group does he want to keep and where can he make additions? There are always people who develop and people where the form falls away.

It felt like Gregg and his staff for the Holland game saw something in the Dutch side where a high pressure game – and I normally like high pressure – would be where they thought they would succeed and limit service to Gakpo and Depay. But in humid conditions it’s hard to do that all the time.

Then again, things could have been so different in the first few minutes alone.

Christian Pulisic missed a big chance in the first minutes to give the USA the lead against the Netherlands

The Dutch team eliminated several key USA-players with a solid outing

Louis van Gaal (right), the Holland coach, got his tactical set-up for the showdown with the US

If Holland goalkeeper Andries Noppert doesn’t save from Pulisic, we could say ‘the tactics are brilliant, what a start’. But the first Holland goal was over 20 passes and we were widely spread across the field. You could just see the legs, the energy splashed out.

But look, as everyone at this tournament has seen, the US team is a young squad that will grow significantly leading up to the 2026 tournament. This is a really good building block going into 2026.

In just under four years these players will have played a lot more high level football in Europe and the MLS is getting better and better every year. We need to find a number 9 to really get rid of some games for us and score goals. You can’t always count on midfielders or wingers for the goals.

But the future of the US looks bright. I want to wrap up my last column here by paying tribute to the work of Tab Ramos, who I don’t think gets enough credit for all these guys coming through.

Friedel backs Berhalter to stay on as USA coach, says continuity is key to team growth

Almost all of these players are Tab Ramos players – he was the U20 youth coach and technical director for many years. I worked with him as an assistant on that team.

They all went through its stages of development and when we as coaching staff participated in U20 tournaments, we beat good teams and lost to good teams. These kids have been playing together for a long time and I think continuity is important.

There are more exciting chapters to come from this group.

Source: Dailymail

The post BRAD FRIEDEL: Gregg Berhalter should stay as US coach, but his team will be shocked by Holland’s loss first appeared on Elrisala.

 

​ I think the US team woke up on Sunday morning a little shocked that they are out of the World Cup. I think they really thought they had a chance going into the game and they thought they could have beaten the Netherlands. I said myself that I liked our chances, in my last column. …
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