50-11th Thray About Last Night (My Takeaways)

First and foremost, the ball and fouls were NOT falling for us. This was not the only reason we lost, but it happens sometimes…

With that said:

- We need to figure out GK first and foremost. Bring youngsters in that we KNOW are good with their feet, and start from there. That is clearly going to be critical to how we play moving forward, since our back line depth is abysmal.

- Antonee Robinson disappointed the frick out of me all tourney long, but especially last night. Refusal to pass to the inside between defenders, never tried 1-2s, constantly passing backwards, and horrific crosses. He adds pressure, but it isn’t QUALITY pressure.

- Thank you, Ream… but lawd hammercy, enjoy retirement/staff work.

- Freeman was mentally the toughest player we had out there. He had a howler of a “1st quarter”, but I felt like he grew into the role that the game demanded he take. His early mistakes defensively did not really repeat themselves until Richards shot the bed along with him, but the match was gone at that point.

Once he missed bringing down that ball from Adams, the team largely ignored the fact that he had retarded amounts of space out wide and didn’t use him ONCE after the last water break. Which leads me to the next point…

- Our supposed leaders didn’t just disappear, they were never there. There is a reason Ream was captain. Tyler’s body language, and his reaction to Freeman not bringing down that ball in the box, was fricking terrible for someone who everyone thought should be leading this team.

But he isn’t the only one. Pulisic, Dest, Robinson, Tillman (at times), and Adams ALL had fricking terrible body language the entire night. Not a single one of them stepped up and took control of the situation, yet all of them threw hands up, whined/bitched about calls and mistakes, and stopped chasing when they turned over the ball multiple times throughout the night.

I don’t know who the frick they thought they were, but they DEFINITELY aren’t the “leaders” that a “national team” should be represented by.

- Balogun did everything he could. He had ZERO help.

- Players that showed actual resilience and tried to do things / improved as the match went: Freeman (still a bad game for him), Richards, Balogun, Tillman, McKennie, Gio, Berhalter.

And speaking of Berhalter, I fricking love that kid’s attitude toward the game. He is the ONLY one who tried to be a spark plug to the crowd. That near-miss shot and whipping the crowd up down two goals… that was ACTUAL leadership.

This team didn’t quit… it’s supposed “leaders” did. And therein lies the next problem.

- Pulisic is turning into a cancer for this team. He has mentioned mental health struggles lately, but he definitely is soft as frick (which mental issues can definitely be the culprit of).

That’s no excuse, however, at the highest levels of sport. That soft attitude is something you can’t have around when you’re on a team when it is coming from an unquestioned “leader” of the team. It spreads to everyone because everyone is looking to him.

To be fair, I obviously don’t believe he actively wants to hurt the squad’s mentality.

All of that is without getting into tactics (which are hard to criticize because of how poor the performance and mental effort was).

Any non-emotional input on the above, or otherwise that haven’t been beat to death on this board?