Berhalter's Dilemma
Why can't the USMNT score more goals?
In the wake of the United States’ Copa America exit on Monday night, I feel compelled to take a look under the hood. A lot of criticism has been leveled at Gregg Berhalter in light of the performances over the last two weeks, and rightfully so. It’s a terrible stat to be the first host nation eliminated at the group stage since the tournament started using this format in 1987.
There has been an outpouring of criticism with fans and media united in the opinion that Berhalter should be sacked as national team coach. I am in agreement that the team can and should be performing better than they are and that a coaching change is the best course of action at this time.
I spent hours analyzing the games against Wales, Iran, Netherlands, and Uruguay so you don’t have to. In the wake of all the criticism being leveled at Berhalter, I wanted to understand why the team has trouble scoring goals against quality opponents. It’s easy to say the coach should be fired because the team lost.
On the other hand, we have coaches saying it’s not his fault and the players simply aren’t good enough to achieve more. So I had to find out for myself, if I really looked deep, what problems would I find?
My thinking evolved rapidly the more hours I poured into this. Every time I thought I had a reasonable handle on the root of the issue and was ready to write this article, I ended up noticing another detail that took me down a slightly different path. By Saturday morning I was afraid I was going in circles and wouldn’t have enough to show for all the time I had invested.
But then it hit me. Instead of trying to make a nice, neat package with a bow on it, I really needed to take you with me. Down the road of seeming answers that made way for new questions. At the end I think you’ll have a different appreciation for what Berhalter is trying to accomplish and why it’s not been as effective as it could be.
Get your coffee and settle in for a bit.
BACKGROUND ON BERHALTER ERA
Before getting into the fine details, let’s look at the context around Berhalter’s hiring back in December of 2018.
Berhalter’s hiring back in 2018 was an underwhelming one. At that point, his only notable coaching achievement was reaching MLS Cup in 2015. It seemed a safe hire and his brother Jay’s role at US Soccer appeared to be a major reason why he was even considered. He came in at a time when the program was at its lowest - failing to reach the World Cup for the first time since 1986. Following such epic failure, it was clear that qualifying for 2022 needed to be achieved at all costs.
Despite his relative lack of coaching success to that point, winning the Nations’ League and Gold Cup brought some joy and gave me confidence that the team was moving in the right direction.
While Berhalter ultimately achieved qualification for 2022, it wasn’t comfortable. In the Hexagonal, away losses to Canada, Costa Rica, and Panama all hurt and the team finished third, narrowly avoiding a do-or-die playoff game against New Zealand thanks to better goal differential than Costa Rica.
The World Cup itself was far from comfortable, with the team needing a win against Iran in the final group stage game to progress to the knockout round. In the round of 16, the US was dismantled, 3-1 by the Netherlands.
A last 16 finish was on par with the 2010 and 2014 tournaments. It felt like we had achieved exactly what was expected. No more, no less. And there was nothing particularly exciting about the team’s play. It was pragmatic. Risk-averse. Given the context it made sense and was acceptable.
In other words, while Berhalter met expectations, there was always a sense of doubt lurking. CONCACAF qualification and the World Cup round of 16 appearance were both accomplished by a razor-thin margin. For a nation with the size and resources of the United States, it did little to inspire confidence for the future.
When a national team coach reaches the end of a four year World Cup cycle, it’s usually best to change coaches. Keeping the same coach for eight years often gets stale and while I don’t have the data in front of me, I would imagine the second cycle isn’t as successful as the first.
So it was relatively surprising that Berhalter was rehired for another term in 2023. But now the stakes are far different. The 2026 World Cup is being held in North America for the first time since 1994. The game has continued to grow in popularity among casual sports fans. I would venture that we are producing more talented players than ever before. This can, nay SHOULD, be one of the biggest events in this country’s sports history.
Within that context, the team must perform well in two years’ time. It’s a golden opportunity for the sport to further cement its status in our culture. I won’t say the dreams of becoming a global powerhouse rest on the 2026 tournament, but a limp showing like in this summer’s Copa America would be like bringing a gallon of lighter fluid but forgetting the matches.
With so much at stake in 2026, we can’t accept mediocre performances and the looming threat of a poor showing. That is why there is rightfully an outpouring of criticism following Monday’s loss to Uruguay.
HYPOTHESES AND RESULTS
I’m going to structure this like a science experiment. First will be my hypothesis followed by what I learned and how it informed my the next step of the journey.
FIRST HYPOTHESIS: Seeing how infrequently the team scores against difficult competition, it made sense to start with the offensive phase. There must be some obvious issues in how the team is organized when they have the ball.
RESULT: To start getting a handle on what Berhalter is trying to do when the team has the ball, first I looked at the overall game organization. Basically, what are the big picture strategic decisions that are made? What are the assumptions about how this group of players can best create goals without being defensively vulnerable?
It’s common for American coaches to start from the perspective of the game system. Since the 2022 World Cup the team hasn’t deviated from a 4-3-3 system. You can see what this looks like and the preferred players in each position in the graphic. I’ve circled the two center mids, Weston McKennie and Yunus Musah as I will reference them in a bit.
However, the game system is not static and this frequently does not give us much of an idea of how the team got about attacking. To paraphrase Attila Ferenczi, there are multiple ways to organize the attack, ranging from fixed positions (English tradition) to a positional game (Spain/Europeans) to a shape build up/break down (Hungarian/Brazilian tradition). This is not to say that one is necessarily better than the other, just that they are different ways to organize the players on the field and coordinate their movements.
Berhalter uses a fixed position system meaning that the players play ‘in their position.’ The emphasis is not on finding ‘positional superiority’, which to simplify means finding players in the gaps in the opponent’s defense, but instead to primarily rely on preplanned movements to attack the defense.
You can identify this by the fact that players move into spaces where they are no longer connected to one another. If you look at the below clip, you can see all three center mids, Weston McKennie, Yunus Musah, and Tyler Adams, move to the ball side of the field. If any of them were to receive the ball at the start of this clip, there is no clear way to continue the attack. The teammates away from the ball are all too far away to receive a short pass. Clearly they have been instructed to stay in their positions and wait for the play to unfold, rather than moving into the open spaces and continuing the attack based upon how they read the situation.
The two center mids, McKennie and Musah, have the most freedom to move around the field to support the play. It’s not uncommon to see both players overloading one side of the field, offering passing options for the ball carrier. This appears primarily to help the team build up (get the ball out of their own half), as seen in the above clip.
SECOND HYPOTHESIS: Ok, so we have a pretty rigid organization and only the center mids have much freedom. We must have problems creating our attacks.
RESULT: After coming to some conclusions about the ‘theory’ behind how the attack is organized, I wanted to look into detail about how the attacks are built.
Are they done through the middle of the field, relying on the center mids? I remember a lot of crosses, do we build attacks down the sides? In terms of passes and player movements, how are we creating shots?
Let’s go back to the offensive organization because everything tactical is going to be a result of that decision. Remember when I said the team is pretty rigid in their positions? There are pros and cons to this way of organizing the team.
The pros are that the players know where their teammates will be. If the left center back has the ball, he knows his right winger is out there on the opposite side of the field waiting for the ball. Further, it helps (but doesn’t guarantee) that players will be in good spots to execute pre planned movements. Called patterns or sometimes automatismos, these are rehearsed plays.
The big benefit is that this allows the coach to dictate who gets the ball and where they get it. Instead of relying on the player intelligence to read the game and make a lot of decisions on where to move or where to pass, the coach does a lot of this thinking ahead of time. There are successful coaches who are known for playing in this way, such as Antonio Conte, so by itself this doesn’t mean anything negative. In fact, it’s a reasonable way to ensure the best players can get the ball in situations in which they can excel.
Other benefits are defensive ones. By keeping players in predetermined positions and using patterns to attack the opponent, the coach maintains more control over where players will be at all parts of the offensive phase. This helps ensure players are in good spaces to protect against counterattacks.
But there are drawbacks too. Because the coach retains so much control over how the team attacks, they have to give the players good solutions to deal with a variety of different defenses. This is a real weakness in this type of attack organization. Opponents may surprise you. For example, in the last game the opponent played a 4-4-2 defense but against you they play a 5-3-2. Suddenly the situations the players face are different. If the coach is caught off guard and hasn’t given the players clear ideas on how to attack that defense, the team will need to improvise during the game. Obviously this will reduce the team’s effectiveness in the attack. Remember this.
Think about a basketball team. They may have some plays that they try to run where, if successful, they can get someone an open shot. But if they run through the play and can’t get a good shot, they fall back to some basic guidelines for keeping the ball until they can try again.
I love this bit from the below article:
Look at any other offensive set in the league — from as something as simple as a high pick-and-roll in a spread offense, or the bread-and-butter “HORNS” sets that have become perhaps the most common formation in the league — and they tend to have only one or two progressions.
Most teams don’t even make it past the first progression or option; once it has been shut down and denied, the possession often stagnates into an isolation contest, where a team’s best shot maker is counted on to self create.
With that established, how does Berhalter have the team attack? Attacks are almost exclusively built on the wide channels of the field. The players involved are the outside back, the winger, and the center mid. In the below graphic, you can see the wide channels shaded in yellow and two black triangles showing the three attackers on each side of the field.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the team has a few different patterns that they use to attack. While the objective appears to be the same every time - get the ball into the corner behind the opponent’s outside back - the way in which they do this varies.
Here we see the team recover the ball and attack down the left side. Pulisic turns and plays a 1-2 with Antonee ‘Jedi’ Robinson while McKennie’s diagonal run to the side helps create a moment of indecision for the Welsh defender. Ultimately Wales is able to get several players around the ball and concede a corner as opposed to any kind of box penetration.
Against Netherlands we see the center back Tim Ream drive past the two Dutch forwards and find outside back Sergiño Dest. As the Netherlands steps forward to press, Dest does well to get away from his man and play a big diagonal to find Christian Pulisic who is now isolated 1v1 against the Dutch outside back. Jedi’s overlapping run creates a chance to penetrate the Dutch defensive line from the wide channel. A last second tackle prevents the US from creating a very dangerous situation.
Against Iran in the World Cup, we see a three player rotation when the ball is circulated back to the left side. McKennie drops into the outside back spot, Jedi goes forward into the winger spot, and Pulisic comes back into the midfield. Finally the ball is circulated back to the right and Musah moves wide to receive beyond Iran’s midfield. Musah chooses the individual option and tries to outrun two Iranian players which leads to a blocked cross and corner.
These are a few examples of how the team typically attacks. The most common patterns I’ve seen are below.
As you can see, all of the attacks are focused on the wide areas and frequently they end with a player crossing under some degree of pressure. Rarely is a clear opportunity created. The inability to manufacture a clear advantage is a major reason why we see so many crosses and corners, both of which are low percentage scoring opportunities.
THIRD HYPOTHESIS: Seems like we’re getting somewhere. While there is variety in the attacks, the fact that the team only attack down the wings is too predictable and doesn’t create enough of an advantage. The team should probably attack through the center more.
RESULT: As stated above, while focusing on the wide areas to build attacks helps avoid losing the ball in dangerous locations, it also becomes very predictable when combined with the rigid player positioning. So I wondered, does the team ever attack through the center?
It turns out that they try to do so at times, but an issue is that the two center mids have so much freedom of movement while everyone else is static that the ball gets stuck on the side. Earlier I showed a clip where all three midfielders are offering a short pass option to the outside back and neither had an opportunity to continue the play forward. This happens a lot.
Here is another example, this time from the Uruguay game. When Adams gets the ball from Pulisic (9:02 on the clock), six Uruguayan players have been drawn to that half of the field. There is a gigantic space where the ref is standing. If Balogun moves into that space, diagonal to the ball, he could easily receive (likely followed by his man). If he wasn’t able to face forward, there are options to play to nearby teammates.
For example, a third man play from Adams-Balogun-Jedi would possibly create a gap in the defensive line for Reyna to make a diagonal run behind the defense and receive the deep pass.
Instead, Balogun stays in his position (what did I tell you?), Musah moves way too late and now when the ball comes back to Pulisic, he is similarly lacking options as Adams a moment earlier. The below requires two movements back to back, but I think it’s a reasonable potential solution to this situation.
Instead, Adams jogs forward and reduces the space Pulisic has to operate. Musah moves away from the play entirely. Balogun stays fixed in place. Instead Pulisic tries to beat his man and drive into the space. He does well to win a free kick in a dangerous location, but the attack was completely stalled. Remember when I said these fixed position attack patterns can become predictable and result in players improvising? I don’t think I need to say anything else…
CONCLUSION: Berhalter has not demonstrated sufficient tactical development during his time in charge to warrant keeping the job.
I really didn’t know exactly where I would end up at the conclusion. At times I felt it was the players, at times I felt it was the coaching, sometimes the margins are razor thin and it’s difficult to blame anything other than variance. What if that pass from Pulisic to Jedi isn’t intercepted in the game vs the Netherlands? What if the goal against Uruguay is called back for offside?
To be fair the margins at the top level of sport are so small. But given a sample size of roughly the last five years, I have no confidence that the team will improve upon the tactical issues that are currently preventing further success.
The team struggles to score and the attacks look the same - go down the side, create a cross or corner. To bring the ball back inside or circulate it in the final third doesn’t happen. Players aren’t instructed where to move or how to do it. This isn’t a lack of player quality, it’s a lack of coaching quality.
The players aren’t without blame. When you see passes played to the wrong foot or played yards behind the intended recipient, those are player quality problems. Picking the right moment to cross. When to take on the defender vs passing to a teammate. Balogun mistiming his run against Uruguay which not only wastes one of the best attacks in the game but results in his being injured as well. These are all player quality issues.
But when the team as a whole demonstrates a lack of collective understanding, such as where players should position themselves at different moments of the attack? That’s a coaching problem.
I want to stay away from any speculation about what happens in the locker room. But when the same players play the same way every single game and it’s not working? That’s a concern. Either the coach doesn’t recognize the problems, can’t correct the problems, or has turned leadership over to the players. None of these are good situations and none should be accepted with the World Cup two years out.
This was a really enjoyable exercise. It gave me a different perspective and respect for Berhalter’s work. That may be an unpopular opinion but from one professional to another, it’s more than deserved no matter the circumstances surrounding his hiring. I had become disillusioned with the national team for a long time, having been a huge fan as a kid. Seeing the team make it back to the World Cup and restore some swagger really made me care about the team again. And it’s this love for the team that makes me want to see them US be the best that WE can be.
If you’d like my opinion on the bare minimum personnel change that may help the team, check this out.
BONUS HYPOTHESIS: Malik Tillman would improve this team
RESULT: ?
WHY: Last season he made 22 starts for PSV, including 5 in the Champions’ League. In terms of minutes he played the equivalent of 24 total games across those two competitions. And in that time he scored 9 goals and gave 11 assists (0g, 1a in Champions’ League).
In comparison, Reyna made 3 starts combined for Dortmund and Nottingham Forest last season. In terms of minutes he played the equivalent of 6 games in league (Bundesliga and Premier League) and Champions’ League (22 minutes total). In that time he gave 1 assist.
Yet between the two friendlies and three Copa America games last month, Reyna played a total of 325 minutes. Tillman played about 30 minutes (as a 2nd half sub for Reyna) against Colombia in the 5-1 friendly loss preceding Copa America and got stoppage time minutes against Uruguay. I shouldn’t have to explain that those don’t really count.
And if you compare Reyna, Tillman, McKennie, and Musah across their entire careers, Tillman stands out among the group for his offensive production. Here are some notable stats (all data from fbref.com):
Goals scored per 90
Tillman - 0.51
Reyna - 0.30
McKennie - 0.09
Musah - 0.03
Assists per 90
Tillman - 0.30
Reyna - 0.23
McKennie - 0.10
Musah - 0.06
Shots per 90
Tillman - 2.22
Reyna - 2.07
McKennie - 1.10
Musah - 0.69
Goals per shot
Tillman - 0.23
Reyna - 0.13
McKennie - 0.08
Musah - 0.04
And to put all of that together…
Goal Creating Actions per 90
Tillman - 0.74
Reyna - 0.55
McKennie - 0.17
Musah - 0.13
*If you want to check the data yourself, here is the link: https://fbref.com/en/stathead/player_comparison.cgi?request=1&sum=0&dom_lg=1&player_id1=7fa4e703&player_id2=a5420709&player_id3=01c3aff5&player_id4=b51b1b9c
This is an imperfect picture particularly as the players play in different leagues and perform different roles within their teams. The fact that Reyna played so little this last season led me to use whole career stats to get a general idea of how each of them contributes to scoring. Another challenge is that Reyna spends time playing as winger, which could impact his numbers since the other three only play in the midfield. But since Reyna is known as a creative type of player and his placement in the national team is almost certainly for his potential offensive production, I think it’s worth comparing his data with the others.
And the data suggests that Tillman would offer more offensive potential to the team than any of the other midfielders (I also later looked at Luca de la Torre who profiled somewhat similarly to Musah) that have played recently. With Reyna being used in the midfield for all of the recent games except Uruguay (due to Weah suspension) and that clearly not being an effective solution to the problem of creating scoring chances, it certainly seems worthwhile to give some opportunities to the guy who looks like he should be better at it on paper.
*Another interesting data point is that while Tillman is the weakest of this group in tackling, he’s actually far superior to all the rest in blocking passes. In tackling + interceptions, he’s very similar to McKennie and noticeably better than the other two. Even with the added creative punch, the data suggests he still contributes defensively as well.
I hope to see more of Tillman in the near future. The tactics would still need to be improved, but adding a creative player into the midfield could help. A front three of Reyna, Balogun, Pulisic backed up by McKennie and Tillman sounds pretty good to me. Swap Weah for Reyna if you feel his running power is more helpful than Reyna’s technical ability. I’m also not a big fan of Adams, but that would be a next step that may be able to improve the team further. At the moment the issue is creating better quality chances in the final third.