Berhalter as an ideologue
And now let’s go back to point No. 1: Berhalter is an ideologue. His stated goal, from the off, is to "change the way the world views American soccer.” He did a power-point presentation of it for the team a couple of years ago, and he’s got players truly buying in.
To Berhalter, I think that means he wants the world to see the US as a modern, innovative, ball-dominant team that’s at the tactical cutting edge. And that means a commitment to positional play.
Positional play – a rough definition of which is
"a style of play where the football pitch is divided into zones and each player is assigned to a zone" – really works when executed well. It creates pitch balance, natural overloads, lots of triangles and width. Just watch Manchester City when they’re humming if you want the best example of what positional play can look like, and how murderous it is to defend against.
The US are getting better at positional play. The best example of it came a couple of months back in the
2-0 Octagonal win over Mexico, during which the US exerted more control over how and where the game was played, and what tempo it was played at, than any US win over Mexico I can ever recall. They also showed it
last week’s 1-0 win over El Salvador, though it was revealed in that game more as defensive dominance than in a surfeit of high-quality attacking chances (though they should’ve scored more than once).
What doesn’t come naturally via positional play is attacking depth – i.e. stretching the field – and pace. The players have to create that themselves by recognizing when those moments are presented and driving the game forward. Recognizing when positional play has done its job and unbalanced the opponents, and then executing at speed… that’s when the system really starts to work.
That is not happening for the US right now. Time after time after time, the US won the ball in good spots to transition forward. Time after time after time, instead of doing that they played backwards, seemingly more focused on getting into their attacking shape than actually exploiting space. It’s almost like the system has become an end unto itself, rather than a means to create the types of chances that win games like this one.