Ok, Here's What I Think Happened For The USMNT

Not exactly strutting into the summer, are the boys.

Anyone's level of dread over the USMNT getting stuffed in a locker by two actual world powers over the past four days (and there's a decent argument to be had about whether Belgium even qualifies for that label) probably should be gauged on what anyone's level of excitement was over them really taking it to some upper mid-carders in the fall like Uruguay, Japan, and Paraguay. Let's also consider that England, at home, failed to beat either Uruguay or Japan this window, and maybe the whole exercise doesn't have any point.

What we can say is that the USMNT is both of these teams, or any of these teams, and what they were during friendlies where attention to detail and effort can be sporadic, let's say, probably doesn't have much meaning on what will happen this summer. Again, before the last World Cup, the US mailed in two friendlies against Japan and Saudi Arabia, and ended up putting out at least a credible performance in Qatar.

I saw a lot of teeth-gnashing from some about Mauricio Pochettino using the last window before he names the squad to experiment instead of trying to build chemistry. I honestly don't know how much chemistry can be built over two games, each having 11 subs, in a squad that will change come June, with players that are then going to leave and play with a whole different set of teammates and tactics and conditions for the next six weeks. Maybe things carry over, maybe they don't. Poch wanted to see a lot of different stuff, and he did, and I don't think that's wrong.

Now, if the urge is to quibble with the exact experiments, that I'll have more time for. Whatever these friendlies are, they don't need to be a therapy session for Christian Pulisic. Pulisic has been pretty shit for both Milan, and now the national team, for a couple months. It is likely the US can't make serious noise in June and July without an on-song Pulisic. But whether that happens or not isn't going to hinge on one game in March where everyone, at best, is going at 75 percent. And his end to the season isn't going to be boosted by playing out of position in a role that he isn't suited for.

There is a world where playing Pulisic as a straight-up striker could work. Milan have kind of been doing it, with him and Rafael Leao, as split strikers in a 3-5-2. Put in a real creative #10 behind the two, squint real hard, wonder about a world where Gio Reyna could A. move and B. wasn't made of saltines, and maybe that works.

That wasn't this. Pulisic was deployed as a false 9 against Portugal, and he was just short of a disaster. Every attempt to drop into midfield to link play resulted in a touch that looked like his shoes were made of flubber. And it's not really a skill he's been asked to do--play with his back to goal, a defender right up in his colon, and taking a silky touch under that pressure and then quickly linking to someone else.

Clearly it wrecked his already shattered confidence, pissing on the ashes as it were, because when he did get looks, he dry fucked them all. There was one break in the first half that was essentially a 3-on-1 with McKennie and Robinson, and Pulisic managed to over-dribble to the point where the three of them ran into each other.

I don't know what the answer for is Pulisic. Poch just has to hope a few go in for him at Milan between now and the end of the season, the reset of a World Cup does him some good, and deploy him as one half of the dual 10s he's been using ever since he showed up as manager. The answer isn't trying to spoon feed him chances in a position he knows nothing about.

Pulisic, as good as he can be, also isn't bigger than the team. There isn't anyone itching to take his place, yet. But...

-As for the rest of it...sigh. I know Poch has diagnosed a big problem as having too much of the same thing in the midfield. Tyler Adams, Cristian Roldan, Aidan Morris, Johnny Cardoso, Tanner Tessman...they all kind of do the same thing. They're destroyers. shuttlers, rustlers, mugs, pugs, thugs halfwits dimwits...sorry, that's something else.

Poch knows that he can probably play two of them at a time, to be more exact Adams +1, at the World Cup, especially against teams that will have more of the ball than the US. But his team will lack inspiration when he does. The idea of Sebastien Berhalter is a player who can do a lot of the things those DMs listed above do, but with some creative dash thrown in. Problem is, Berhalter just isn't up to this level, as his kid playing with a balloon-like touch under Portuguese pressure last night showed.

Poch tries to get around this by showing off a 3-2-5/3-2-2-3 look with the ball, in whatever variation. Two of those holders in a box behind two more creative players. The issue this past week was those two creative players were a Pulisic in an existential crisis, and McKennie, who is more geared to getting on the end of moves than creating them (though he has gotten better at the latter, to be fair to him).

Poch attempted to cram Malik Tillman into this, by either warping his formation (against Belgium) or pushing Puliic out of that space up top (against Portugal). Neither worked over the match, though flashed occasionally. Poch is probably going to face a pretty tough decision come the opener against Paraguay, which is that only two of McKennie, Tillman, or Pulisic can start. But you hire the guy to make those decisions.

The workaround would be to deploy McKennie deeper, alongside Adams, but that kind of takes him away from what he's been doing best at Juventus. Again, that's why Poch gets the big bucks.

As for the defense...boy I wish I could help you. Maybe every USMNT player is a huge hockey fan, and their solution to defending is to pile into the slot and work their way out from there. Except in soccer, the goal is much bigger (cracking analysis!). The US gave up four or five goals over these two games simply because, off a turnover or set piece, everyone raced back to the six-yard box, deserted the edge of the 18, then looked stunned when world class players could finish from there. That seems an easy fix, and it had better be, because chances are, the US isn't going to stop giving the ball away.

None of that is going to change that Tim Ream is too old. Auston Trusty probably isn't up to it, and Mark McKenzie is too short, Joe Scally can only play in a back three and Poch seems to hate him anyway. Chris Richards has become way too much of a shining beacon.

I said this in the fall, I said this last spring, whatever happens at the World Cup will not hinge on what happened in Atlanta the past few days. People will link them, but it'll be a correlation, not causation. It's just all we have to discuss right now.