A Missed Opportunity: The USMNT Are Fighting Momentum Ahead Of Qatar

It is genuinely hard to feel optimistic about the US Men’s National Team after their final warm up games ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen this level of ineptitude throughout an entire international window. The US lost 2–0 to Japan and then drew Saudi Arabia 0–0, seeing the US fail to score during an international window for the first time since June 2019. That lack of goalscoring is highlighted by attackers — Jesùs Ferreira, Josh Sargent and Ricardo Pepi — seeing just 5 touches inside the opposing team’s box in 180 minutes of soccer. The attack looked completely disjointed and passes out of the back often seemed poor as well — it was a complete team failure highlighted by the 25 takeaways committed by Japanese defenders.

When a team fails this badly across multiple games, it becomes hard to judge any player too harshly. However, we definitely learned a few things about who our back up options should be if our injured starters can not return in time for Qatar. Joe Scally and DeAndre Yedlin both had impactful outings that displayed their squad justification if Jedi Robinson is still far from full fitness, or even in an emergency situation. Outings juxtaposed by poor performances from Aaron Long, Reggie Cannon and Mark Mackenzie at Center Back that could ultimately torpedo the team’s chances of qualifying out the group stage. It’s a dramatic take, but if Gregg Berhalter truly believes that these are the best options in our player…