Quote Originally Posted by dawg80 View Post
The US side can ill-afford injuries, especially season-ending ones.

Possession... Chile is a good team, but not world-beaters, yet they out-classed us for 90 mins. We mostly chased the ball. Until the US consistently has opponents chasing the ball we'll always be chasing that Final Four appearance in the WC Finals.

Defense... MARK UP! Goal side! And that doesn't mean staying 5 yards away.
The MNT has never been good at playing possession soccer. Our best WC years were playing with Donovan in a dual role making runs and defense. I’ve seen arguments that US soccer should be based/built in a rock solid defense and set pieces.

But from what I’ve seen now we don’t have a single decent holding midfielder. Bradley is a turnover machine and Pulisic can’t handle the double team that he will regularly face right now. I just don’t know how to solve the development piece where the us clearly has money and resources but cannot make it happen.