KANSAS CITY, Mo. — U.S. males’s nationwide workforce coach Gregg Berhalter is a planner. In months between USMNT video games, when his job is much less pressurized and hands-on, his methodical mind obsesses over particulars and prospects. He spent lengthy summer time days earlier than the 2022 World Cup analyzing group-stage opponents. He doubtless spent chunks of this spring mapping out 2024 Copa América gameplans.
However he couldn’t have ready for this, a decisive Group C recreation with messy eventualities, a suspended star and an injured goalkeeper, plus an opponent whose influential coach will likely be lacking and whose motivations are unclear.
The USMNT will meet Uruguay right here on Monday at Arrowhead Stadium in a match filled with thriller. And it in all probability — perhaps, however not undoubtedly — should win to succeed in the Copa América knockout rounds and keep away from unvarnished failure.
USMNT’s Copa América eventualities in Group C
In a simultaneous group-stage finale, Panama will play Bolivia in Orlando. The simplified model of a number of dizzying eventualities is that the U.S. should equal Panama’s outcome.
After Thursday’s self-destructive 2-1 loss to Los Canaleros, the U.S. and Panama are stage on three factors coming into Group C’s third and closing matchday.
Uruguay is on six factors, with a plus-7 purpose differential, and can high the group except it loses to the U.S. by 4 objectives.
In second place — essentially the most important place — the U.S. (+1) leads Panama (-1) on purpose differential; so the U.S. will advance if each draw or each win by the identical margin.
If Panama begins pumping objectives, although, permutations get sophisticated. The second tiebreaker is objectives scored all through the group stage — and there, with every workforce on three objectives, Panama has a bonus. A 3-0 Panama win and a 1-0 U.S. win would ship Panama by means of to the quarterfinals and the U.S. out.
A better method to course of these permutations is from the Panamanian perspective: They need to higher the U.S. outcome; and if each win, their margin of victory have to be not less than two higher than the U.S. margin.
Uruguay firing on all cylinders
The superficial view, then, is that the U.S. is sitting considerably fairly. The issue is, effectively, all the pieces else.
Panama very effectively may pound Bolivia, which shipped 5 objectives to Uruguay and is fairly clearly the worst workforce in Group C.
Uruguay, alternatively, is buzzing. Marcelo Bielsa, a revered Argentine supervisor, has rebooted La Celeste and remodeled them into arguably the 2024 Copa América’s most spectacular workforce. They’re gifted, coordinated and aggressive. They press man-to-man, relentlessly, excessive up the sector, and blitz opponents instantly after successful the ball.
“We all know that they are gonna be extraordinarily high-intensity, actually forward-thinking,” U.S. defender Antonee Robinson, who performed towards Bielsa’s Leeds United within the English Premier League, stated Saturday.
“How they keep the depth all through the sport is completely different stage,” Berhalter added Sunday.
“They play fairly a high-risk, high-reward recreation,” Robinson famous, typically leaving area that vertical forwards can exploit.
However the USMNT’s most vertical ahead, Tim Weah, received’t be obtainable.
Berhalter’s choices after Weah’s suspension
Weah has been suspended two video games for his pricey purple card towards Panama; and the USMNT has been scrambling to regulate in his absence.
That they had solely three days to concoct a Plan B, and to determine the right way to exchange a participant whose talent set has no parallel within the present participant pool.
Weah, when wholesome, has began each A-team U.S. recreation over the previous two-plus years; he’s a fixture on the precise wing, as a result of his on- and off-ball directness add dimensions to the U.S. assault, dimensions that it in any other case lacks.
So, how will Berhalter reconfigure the USMNT with out Weah?
Choice No. 1: The closest factor to a like-for-like alternative would in all probability be Haji Wright, a ahead who usually performed centrally previously, however now performs broad for the U.S. and for his English membership, Coventry Metropolis.
Wright is extra snug and efficient on the left wing; Christian Pulisic may shift to the precise, the place he spent most of this previous season for AC Milan in Italy. Such a shift, although, would require different changes additional down the sector.
Choice No. 2 can be to play Gio Reyna broad, and produce Yunus Musah into Reyna’s midfield place.
If Reyna is deemed integral in midfield, Choice No. 3 can be one other versatile attacker, resembling Brenden Aaronson or Malik Tillman, on the wing.
However each of these choices have a well-known flaw: When the U.S. performs with two wingers who each choose to float infield, into pockets of area between strains — as Reyna, Aaronson and Tillman all do, and as Pulisic usually does when he performs on the left — the American assault usually struggles. With out Weah in September 2022, for instance, they scored zero objectives in 180 minutes towards Japan and Saudi Arabia.
Final however not essentially least, Choice No. 4 can be one thing utterly unpredictable: Maybe a 3-5-2 with Pulisic partnering Folarin Balogun up entrance? Or a 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield of Adams, Weston McKennie, Musah and Reyna?
Previously, Berhalter has most well-liked consistency. He rolled out roughly the identical personnel all through the 2022 World Cup, and the very same lineup within the USMNT’s first two 2024 Copa América video games. However he has, at occasions, been prepared and in a position to tweak his system to counter a particular opponent.
Uruguayan thoughts video games?
Within the buildup to Monday’s match, there have been cheap questions on whether or not Berhalter even is aware of precisely what he’ll be countering.
Uruguay hasn’t mathematically certified for the quarters, however with its place all however confirmed, followers and media have speculated that Bielsa may play one thing of a second-string workforce, to relaxation regulars for the knockout rounds.
Assistant coach Diego Reyes was requested a number of occasions about that chance Sunday. He stated, after talking about “many variables,” that Monday’s beginning lineup had not but been decided.
Seated subsequent to Reyes was reserve goalkeeper Franco Israel, an uncommon alternative for a pre-match information convention, one which raised suspicions of lineup rotation. Nevertheless it was nearly too uncommon — and perhaps a misdirectional ploy. Rumors in Uruguayan soccer circles recommend that Uruguay’s lineup will likely be largely unchanged.
”My guess is that they’re gonna play their strongest workforce,” Berhalter stated Sunday.
They usually will not assume that their quarterfinal place is secured. “We’re targeted on tomorrow’s recreation as if it have been our final one,” Reyes stated.
Bielsa additionally suspended for Monday’s match
They may, although, be with out their coach, Bielsa, who on Sunday obtained a one-match suspension as a result of Uruguayan gamers arrived late for the second half of Thursday’s win over Bolivia.
Bielsa can nonetheless put together his workforce, after all, however received’t be of their locker room or on their sideline Monday. He received’t be allowed involved with them as soon as they arrive at Arrowhead. Two of his longtime assistants, Reyes and Pablo Quiroga, will step in and take cost.
The suspension will restrict their capacity to faucet into Bielsa’s knowledge mid-game. Nevertheless it received’t restrict Uruguay’s capacity to play BielsaBall. His brilliance is in his instructing and his coaching, not his in-game changes. “It is a well-drilled workforce,” Berhalter stated Sunday. “No matter who’s on the sideline, it is gonna be a really related taking part in model.”
And the assistants are in tune together with his philosophies. Reyes, starting in 2007, has adopted him from Chile to Athletic Bilbao, from Marseille to Lazio (briefly!), from Lille to Leeds and now Uruguay. He sounded assured that he and the employees would have the ability to address the task simply effective.
“We’ve been working with Marcelo for a really very long time,” Reyes stated.
An important match for U.S. and Berhalter
Uruguay, extra importantly, is wholly wholesome, with all 26 gamers obtainable.
The U.S. will likely be with out Weah, and might be with out goalkeeper Matt Turner, who injured his left leg within the first half towards Panama and departed that recreation at halftime.
Turner acquired by means of “restricted” coaching classes Saturday and Sunday, Berhalter stated. He’s questionable for Monday. Ethan Horvath would begin if Turner can’t go.
None of those are supreme circumstances coming into a massively consequential recreation, simply the USMNT’s most consequential since Qatar. A win would offer proof of idea, and buoy U.S. gamers into the knockout rounds and past. A loss may kick-start a disaster and value Berhalter his job.