3-point Thursday, expected cuteness & MMA for ~270 please
A blockbuster gameday newsletter. Carve out a few minutes for it.
Welcome to the Scuffed Newsletter, a weekly email guide to the U.S. men's national soccer team. Sign up free to get it in your inbox every Friday. This week we get into Christian Pulisic’s disinterest in discussing the weather, a lot on the glorious arrival of a full-power MMA midfield, and a breakdown of the “cute” possibilities at Berhalter’s disposal, among other things.
Three Point Thursday
By Belz
The engine room is of course the key.
“I think when the three of us are out on the field, we feel like we have a strong chemistry and we're able to dominate games and that's important,” Tyler Adams said Tuesday, referring to himself, Weston McKennie and Yunus Musah.
Yes, it’s important. The presence of all three on the field appears to be the most important thing of all for this team, and this dynamic trio looks like it’s ready to rain terror on the center of the park for the next week.
After losing his starting spot for two matches under new manager Domenico Tedesco, Tyler Adams has now started four straight and RB Leipzig have won three straight. He is healthy and in form. Yunus Musah’s ups and downs for club have not yet seemed to affect his (consistently excellent) national team form, but even on that front there’s good news. He’s started five straight games for Valencia and scored a lovely goal over the weekend at Atletico Madrid. Weston McKennie has become “untouchable” on Juventus’s books, according to Fabrizio Romano. Enough said.
Everyone in camp is sticking to the “one game at a time” mantra, which is wise and healthy. But I’m surely not the only one who sees the arrival of a full-power MMA midfield as the key piece among several coalescing into what can and really should be, at minimum, a 7-point week. Tim Weah was scintillating on the weekend in his first start for Lille since December. Berhalter noticed. “Timmy looks great,” he said. Weah, about whom Brian Straus just dropped a good feature, has the eye of the tiger in every image US Soccer has released in the past few days. Christian Pulisic spoke Wednesday too, and he came across relaxed, hungry and humble, a sadder-but-wiser man for all his experience of the Big Club circus. Speaking of which, Sergiño Dest may not be back in favor under Xavi at Barcelona, but he did play 90 minutes over the weekend in a 1-0 win. Rugged left back Antonee Robinson is 5 points clear atop the Championship with Fulham. Chris Richards is winning duels with Erling Haaland.
Those of us who aren’t bound by wisdom and prudence in our pronouncements want 9 points. I hope we get to sing that song in St. Paul. But for now, I’ll focus on El Salvador. Check out my conversation with Jon Arnold if you’re interested in a look at these upcoming games from the point of view of the opponents.
I’ll leave it at that. For very good takes on what will happen in this window, scroll down in this newsletter and read the sections by Coach Beard and Matt Mitchell. They both went hard this week, diving into potential lineup cuteness and three questions for Gregg Berhalter for these three games.
Mailbag: Stop asking Pulisic about the weather
By Watke
Sean from New York asks: Were any of the players asked about the cold weather at the press conferences? What did they say? Please answer in detail.
Yes, they were. Walker Zimmerman led off and was by far the most effusive: “I, for one, am really excited.” He had told his wife over the break that he wanted it to be freezing and he wanted it to snow because he wants to be part of something iconic. He had a big smile the whole time. Tyler Adams allowed that it’s cold, and then told about how he grew up in New York where he played academy games on turf fields in the winter. Despite not having grown up in North America, Antonee Robinson is still familiar with cold and even snow. One Boxing Day when he was a kid he played in a “Dads versus Lads” game and he specifically remembers there was a bunch of snow and how much fun he had. He considers it some of the “happiest football he’s ever played”.
Brenden Aaronson talked about how it was just snowing where he came from so it’s going to be fine. He did allow that it’s really cold and even admitted to his feet feeling cold. He was the only one to disclose as much. That’s because he didn’t think there was any way of getting around it. It’s going to be cold, and so he thinks it’s about coming to terms with it. He mentioned there are little things you can do, though, like using hand warmers or wearing double socks.
Christian Pulisic was the least expressive and least cooperative of all the players when it came to questions about the cold. He said yes it would be cold, and that they were ready for it, then stopped talking and waited for the next question. The reporters were not satisfied, so the next question was again about the cold. Pulisic dropped into his deepest monotone: “We’ve all played in cold weather, and we’ll be well prepared for the game." Then silence, and the reporters waited for a specific example of a time he had played in the cold. He gave them only a leaden face. They did not ask him about the cold again.
January’s Expected Cuteness
By Coach Beard
The term “cute” was a Greg Velasquez innovation used to describe too-smart-by-half lineup and tactical choices. Like many other Velasquez coinages, it was quickly adopted by a large swath of the USMNT fan and pundit ecosystem.
And for good reason: “cute” personnel choices, instead of the seemingly straightforward options available in an increasingly deep and talented pool, migrated from the lower stakes friendlies and regional competitions to World Cup qualifiers. It started in El Salvador with the deployment of Brendan Aaronson in midfield and Sergiño Dest at left back. At Honduras is the most glaring example; a 3-4-3 with Tyler Adams at RWB, a midfield two of James Sands and Kellyn Acosta, and target right forward Josh Sargent. Most recently, it took a Paul Arriola late scratch for Tim Weah to finally crack into the starting lineup and involve himself in the last five USMNT goals.
So here’s a list of the cute moves Greg might have up his sleeve for the upcoming window with a very scientific valuation system for their likelihood of occurring and potential impact on our chances to win.
xCute = (Probability of Cute Choice) x (Negative Impact of Cute Choice)
1. Paul Arriola starting or playing more than 70 minutes
xCute = 0.425 = (Probability 0.5) x (negative impact 0.85)
There are 540 minutes available to half space merchants, and three players easily clear of Paul Arriola. Christian Pulisic is Christian Pulisic. Brenden Aaronson is out there having twenty million pound Premier League offers rejected for his services. And Tim Weah is back at Lille doing all the pressing and defensive work you could ask for, plus creating four chances in 67 minutes in his weekend start at Brest. Is Tim coming back from injury? Sure! But he played 90+ minutes across two competitive matches in the last week. Paul hasn’t played a competitive match in months. You could make the injury argument, but it’s a cute one.
The not cute rotation would look something like; Christian/Timmy vs. ES, Christian/BA @ CAN, Christian/Timmy vs. HON with Paul/JMo going 10/30/15.
2. Luca De La Torre playing fewer minutes than Sebastian Lletget (or Cristian Roldan at the 8)
xCute = 0.375 = (Probability 0.75) * (negative impact 0.5)
LDLT put up another excellent Eredivisie performance against the Go Ahead Eagles and has played 90 minutes seven times since December 1st. He covers a ton of ground, is absolutely silky on the half-turn, and creates danger with his progressive passing and dribbling. Sebastian Lletget used to do some of that stuff, but last played competitive soccer against Minnesota United on November 7th, culminating a down year in MLS and with the national team. If and when the M&Ms of the MMA need a sub or some rotation, the choice seems pretty clear. And yet, rumors are that LDLT is only in camp because Gianluca Busio tested positive for covid. Here’s to hoping LDLT slides into Busio’s minutes and shows his value in the midfield depth chart.
3. Anyone but Antonee at left back for non-garbage minutes
xCute = 0.28 = (Probability 0.4) * (negative impact 0.7)
Having one left back on the roster is a choice. Belz & Greg covered this exceptionally in their roster reaction pod: versatile positional cover is potentially optimal for limited rosters and downright cute for unrestrained ones. The best non-Jedi option is probably Sergiño, but we saw in El Salvador what it looks like when two right-footers are trying to do the same moves in the same spaces on the left side and it wasn’t great. The other options are even worse. Gregg is either relying on the exceptionally durable lad from Milton Keynes or planning something cute.
P.S. Remember Daniel Lovitz?
4. Zero Chris Richards Starts
xCute = 0.25 = (Probability 0.5) * (negative impact 0.5)
It’s hard to judge the negative impact of Walker Zimmerman and Miles Robinson getting all three starts together this window. On one hand, the pair have been extremely solid defensively for the USMNT this cycle, and well deserving of their minutes thus far. On the other hand, they are not in season, and Chris Richards is a starting center back for a Bundesliga club fighting for a champions league spot. Lastly, these home games might require some offensive contributions from our center backs - and since John Brooks is staying in Germany (xCuteness = Cuteness = 1), the best remaining option for instigating chances from the back is Chris. We will need to score goals to win, after all.
3 games, 3 questions for Gregg Berhalter
By Matt Mitchell (@MJM-borne69)
From the moment the USMNT’s World Cup qualifying schedule was locked in, this window was identified as the one where our boys had a decent shot at going home with nine points out of nine. As the qualifying process unfolded, we’ve seen a core group of players emerge who, when healthy, are locked-in starters, and when they are on the field together, are capable of dominating games. The last twenty minutes of Dos A Cero, and long stretches of our Costa Rica home match come to mind as examples of what can happen when Gregg Berhalter gets the personnel right and the chemistry gets it done.
With the exception of Gio Reyna and arguably John Brooks, that core is healthy, is here, and is going to play a lot of minutes in this window. Anyone who reads this newsletter knows that core already. Pulisic. McKennie. Musah. Adams. Weah. Jedi. They’ll be surrounded by a raft of players who aren’t quite carved in stone on the starting XI, but are certainly written in at least dry-erase markers and have made strong contributions in qualifying. Aaronson. Dest. Turner. Pepi. And yes, even Paul Arriola — real ones remember him running Jamaica into the ground in Austin.
Finally, the first two 3-game windows of the qualifying cycle and to a lesser extent our away match in Kingston have given Gregg Berhalter plenty of evidence that heavy rotation is a high-risk, low-reward proposition (even if he declines to admit noticing the evidence). Dropping 3 points in Panama in a limp performance was a massive missed opportunity that was made possible in part by a disjointed performance from a heavily-rotated side.
Berhalter has proven to be the kind of coach who needs to see risky ideas fail on the field before adapting. If there is one thing that I’m looking to see in this window, it’s whether or not Berhalter looks at all this evidence and chooses to, in Scuffed parlance, double down on the cute, or lean in to the things that worked on the field and scale back on things that did not.
Here are some of the choices Berhalter has before him that will demonstrate whether he chooses continued tinkering, ruthless practicality in pursuit of nine points, or tries to be a little bit pregnant in either direction:
MMA — How many minutes do we see them together?
Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Yunus Musah look like the midfield of the next 10 years when they are able to play together. And recently, McKennie is playing out of his mind at Juventus while Musah keeps earning more and more minutes at Valencia. And they are all workhorses who, if asked, can and will play 270 minutes in this window if we need them.
If Gregg is willing to reject the urge to cute, he will ask these boys to start all 3 games and be able to play 270 minutes. If MMA is not on the field together, it should only be because a) we’ve so thoroughly whipped an opposing team that we can bring them off in garbage time, or b) we’ve lost someone like Tyler Adams to yellow card accumulation, or c) sudden injury.
If he must tinker with what works in the midfield, he at least has competent options. Kellyn Acosta would surely step in at the 6 if Adams is felled by suspension or fatigue. Luca De La Torre, Sebastian Lletget, Cristian Roldan and even Brenden Aaronson can spell Musah and McKennie in the dual 8 slots. But the results of our last two windows are emphatic — MMA works. Giving significant minutes given to any other midfield iteration will need to yield a surprise payoff or there’ll be hell to pay.
The New Guys — How will Gregg use them?
For all of the (deserved) praise Gregg gets for his handling of young players and integration of them into national team, there have been a number of cases where Gregg has put younger players into high-stakes situations where they were not set up to succeed. Examples include George Bello and James Sands in San Pedro Sula, plus Bello in Panama. Gregg has brought in less-tested faces to this camp again, particularly Luca De La Torre and Brooks Lennon. How Gregg uses (or doesn’t use) them may not amount to a lot of minutes played, but could still make the difference between nine points and seven, or God forbid, six.
If De La Torre makes the field, will he be able to give the USMNT the same difference-making passing and ball-carrying impact that have made him essential to Heracles Almelo? Will Brooks Lennon be given minutes in a well-managed game, or is he going to be brought in when we’re chasing goals for a win or draw? Gregg has a far from perfect record on calls like these, and this is a window where we need him to make the right ones.
“The Group” — Can they change the game when they’re on the field?
Every manager at every level of soccer has “their guys.” And Gregg has his guys, guys who could well be asked to take care of business in this window. The guys I’m thinking of include Kellyn Acosta, Paul Arriola, Sebastian Lletget and Cristian Roldan, who inexplicably gets more copy written about him in the Scuffed Discord than Ronaldo gets in the biggest Man United Discord in the world. They’re all great guys and fine soccer players. Berhalter has seen them all as ride-or-die players through his entire tenure. But of everyone who’s earned caps in World Cup qualifying, these men just have not delivered many match-changing moments.
The challenge for Berhalter in this window will be whether or not he can trust the men of “the group” to raise their game. If he does trust them, when does he play them and where? If not, who steps into the breach to take their minutes?
If he chooses to play them, he will expect a lot of heat from a very online fanbase and could well hear it from the fans in Columbus and St. Paul too — if nothing else because spectators will need to keep warm and rage is great for the metabolism. We can only hope that whatever approach he takes with “his guys,” the players who do make it on the field will make the most of the time that they are given. Their contributions — good or bad — will make the difference between a glide path to qualification and unneeded stress in our final three games in March.
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