USMNT Expose Dope Jesse Marsch For The Dope He Is

I took no little joy from this one.

Under most circumstances, the fourth friendly in an international window binging on creatine would just be an exercise in everyone getting to their flights back to their clubs in the best shape possible. It was clear everyone was just a touch tired, bored, pretty much every experiment had already been tried, and there are pressing issues to get back to at their day jobs.

But this circumstance wasn't most, because it involved Jesse Marsch trying to justify his outsized personality all the while claiming he wasn't trying to justify it, forlornly trying to find a moment to peacock down the sideline that never came that in no way is for the cameras and the cameras only. So instead he was forced to replace it with over-produced and performative complaints to the ref, running up and down the touchline, especially when the ball was on the near-side and he knew his frantic sprinting would be caught on TV. Which were even juicier given how he sent his team out to play the USMNT, which he got shoved right back up his self-important, useless, pasty Wisconsin ass.

I'm going to make some assumptions here because I want to, not because they're totally based in reality. I have no doubts that Canada, and Marsch, scheduled only three friendlies this window instead of the four everyone else played so that his team would have an advantage on the US. I have no doubt that he structured his whole camp about playing, and beating the US. I have no doubts that Marsch had already scripted out his postgame quotes for what he expected to be a Canada victory about how he was in the right job and that Pochettino was a fraud and look at how much better Marsch is doing with lesser pieces, and tore up that script in his office after the game through a torrent of tears. I have no doubts that Marsch looked at the roster Poch called in, full of young kids to be looked at and experimented with, and thought he could kick them all over the field and get them to shrivel. He then watched in horror as those US kids kicked them back, harder, and put that plan in flames. The capper being Gio Reyna, hardly known as some Brian Cage-esque figure, clattering supposed hard-man Stephen Eustaquio into a sniveling pile of rubble. Nathan Saliba spent the last 20 minutes of this match seeing what a real hard-ass, Tyler Adams, looks like, and pissed down his leg.

It is clear that Marsch sent Canada out to muck up the game, fill it with fouls, stoppages, whining, set-pieces, and make sure the game had no rhythm. But it's Canada who struggled to come to terms with it, not the US. Marsch, who fancies himself the unappreciated mastermind who should still be running the roost in Europe, went full CONCACAF underdog. And it blew up in his smug fucking face, though it didn't ruin his perfectly coiffed-hair, don't you worry! He was so desperate to beat the US, all the while claiming he didn't care, he went against pretty much everything he used to believe in. In a fucking friendly.

Yeah, no Alphonso Davies, but a comparison of the players Canada didn't have and the players the US didn't have wouldn't shine favorably on Marsch, either. It's been well established that this US team is always up for a CONCACAF, or even a South American, bout of horseshit and shithousing, and it was Marsch's charges who were caught off-guard by it.

I can't wait for this dipshit to totally blow their Nations League quarterfinal next month, or maybe the Gold Cup next summer (just as he did the last Gold Cup), and Soccer Canada to wonder just what the fuck they're going to do about the extension they just had to give him. It will be my oxygen.

Anyway, US notes:

-Poch loves nothing more than plugging a player we usually think of as a #10 deeper into midfield in the double-pivot. It was Malik Tillman during the World Cup, and it's been Gio Reyna a couple times in this window. Reyna is basically press-proof, so putting him deeper gave the US someone they could give the ball to and he would weave and dance through Canada's pressure, and get the US out on the break. Which kept Tillman higher up to orchestrate the attacks. It didn't work perfectly, but it's at least a solution to the problem of the US not really having any natural #6s that can comfortably play the ball anywhere but backwards.

-A lot of USMNT observers think that Alex Freeman's future will be as a ball-playing centerback, which he sort of was at the World Cup, though in a back-three, kinda (I'm not going through all of that again). I'm not so sure. This window, he's gotten to be the marauding fullback he was at Orlando. Not just the run in a straight line up and down the touch line fullback, either. Freeman has a pretty advanced concept of getting into spaces farther infield, is comfortable combining with his midfielders, can squeeze into half-spaces. He's got nifty attacking instincts, is what I'm saying. If the US never produces another CB to partner Chris Richards, I won't be heartbroken if Freeman dives onto that grenade in the future. But the US would be losing out on something by losing him at fullback.

-If we could just combine Seb Berhalter and Yunus Musah...well, we'd have Declan Rice.

-Neil Pierre is my new project, the new apple of my eye. I thought it was telling that Poch brought him on to see out a one-goal lead against a team that was going to lump crosses and set-pieces into the box. He is 6-7, I suppose. But he also made a couple passes and turns to get out of pressure, and while he misplaced a couple as well, he's still 18. I think there's a lot to work with here, and by the '28 Copa, if the US plays, I'm hoping he's a real part of the scenery.

-So that's it for this window. When the November one rolls around, it's likely Pulisic, Balogun, and McKennie will be back. Will Poch? That depends on Spurs, and possibly the Roberto De Zerbi voodoo doll Poch keeps in his office next to the lemons. As those will be official games in the Nations League against Haiti, whoever is in charge will have to be somewhat serious about it. Which probably means only a couple spots for one of the new hot things. Cavan Sullivan on the right is definitely live. Chris Richards's partner is another spot. But that's about it. Would have liked to have seen Mehmeti grab the spot next to Tyler Adams with both hands, but that didn't happen. Brooklyn Raines is too limited to play next to Adams. It'll be Berhalter, I'm sure. But most everyone made a case for why they should be depth pieces. That's enough for now.