Post-match: USA v Bolivia -June 23, 2024 - Copa America

Good W early on. Would have liked at least one more goal because goal differential is going to be important.

Pulisic, Reyna, Musuh, all excellent in midfield. Tyler was pretty good too.

Scally, best defender. Slightly damning praise, but he was legit pretty good.

Balo hasn't shown me enough to start again. If not for that goal he had a true nightmare. Attack often died with him. Pepi was slightly better. Slightly. He missed some stunners. Im starting Sarg or Haji next game up top.

The concern? Central defense, oh my lord. Ream wasn't great the whole game, but Richards got the yips in the second half too. That's too shaky. Red teaming it, Bielsa and Uruguay are licking their chops high pressing those guys. This needs to be open comp after the Copa, but Im thinking barring injury, Ream and Richards are our guys.

Well, on to next game.......if Godoy is out, we attack up the gut against Panama.

 

My first impression that I posted in the other threat is "dominating disappointment." We duly dominated a weaker side, we didn't "play down" to their level the way that we often have in the past, but we have to be sharper when the difficulty level ramps up. And Richards had a minus game. He was the only one, but that's troubling.

 

This almost doesn't matter. Expect them to beat Panama and then after that we'll see if this team can beat anyone quality or if it's the same old, same old.

 

The W and 3 points is fine, but I give us. B-. Lots of sloppiness in both halves, lots of poor final balls, we easily could/should have scored 3 more goals.

If we’re anywhere as sloppy as we were today against Uruguay or even just a decent team, we’ll gift a couple of goals.

Hopefully the goal differential thing doesn’t come back to bite us with all the missed chances.

Someone needs to tell the ref that a defender grabbing onto the opposing player as they dribble buy is at least a foul.

Hope we look a lot sharper against Panama.

 

Can't be upset with anything, except for the missed opportunities, but those happen. Not perfect by any means and didn't quite give me confidence that we can go far in this tournament against the better teams, but it's always good when we don't start with a stinker.

 

Good in that the game was never really in doubt and we created lots of chances. Pulisic in particular had an awesome game.

Bad in that we had a lot of bad giveaways that Bolivia wasn’t good enough to punish us for. But Columbia, Uruguay, or Brazil will if we have a repeat. And would have liked to finish more of our chances. Would have liked to get a few more goals and pull Jedi and Pulisic in particular.

Bolivia really isn’t good but they didn’t really bunker like CONCACAF teams do so we made easy work of them. But took care of business like we needed to without much stress. Hopefully we do the same against Panama.

 

Both centerbacks had issues against a poor side. Richards had a number of intercepted passes that would be punished against better teams. Adams looked good but obviously isn't ready to go 90. We're still searching for a #9. Roll the dice and give Sergeant a start? I think bringing Musah off the bench works. He brings the physicality and skills to see out a game. Overall a good but not great win where we were in control start to finish.

 

OK first game.

Pulisic and Jedi were excellent.

Richards and Weston were poor.

 

We played well, but in tournaments you need to beat weak teams by 4 or 5 so that you don't draw France in the round of 16. Putting away weak teams is part of the learning process.

 

The refereeing actually called fouls against Bolivia whenever Bolivian players tried to assault the US team. What a refreshing concept.

 

Really stoked for how well Pulisic looked and is playing. Thought GB got the game plan right outside of starting Adams which seems risky, but might be quibbling a bit.

I agree with the folks in the match thread. Defense could be a problem for us - especially in the center. And though we were a bit lackadaisical in transition starting around the 65th minute.

Ultimately, we were creating chances and the team was looking good in their combinations. It’s unfortunate that we have so many talented CMs because I wish we could get more of them on the field.

 

As others mentioned, we dominated using the usual tactics and style as before. The issue is that it works and looks good against inferior teams, but against teams on our level or above it doesn’t. And if we fool ourselves after beating Panama and coasting/resting against Uruguay, we’re in for a rude awakening in the knockouts.

 

Overall, we accomplished what we needed to accomplish. One by multi goals (although not as much as we’d like) and kept the clean sheet.

But the center backs were exposed as very, very poor against a very weak team.

Turner (6.5) Did everything well. Glad he would just boot it at times instead of scaring us to pretend to be Ederson.

Scally (7) Very solid all around game.

Richards (3.5) Passing was atrocious. Too many mental errors.

Ream (3.5) Passing was atrocious. Too many mental errors.

Jedi (8) Warrior

McKennie (5) Average. Not bad. But not influential.

Adams (7) We need him to be 90 fit soon.

Reyna (7) Very impressed with him on the defensive side of the ball and overall work ethic.

Pulisic (8.5) MOTM. He came to play today.

Weah (6.5) Weah is always good, in my opinion, for us. But there were some moments I wish he was a little cleaner.

Balogun (6) You get at least a 6 for a game winning goal, and he did well on the second goal that was called off. But he has to figure out to be more impactful in the game.

—————-
Pepi (6) He was very active, much more than Balogun, but he forgot his finishing boots today.

Musah (6.5) good game, average rating for him, could have had more of an impact.

De la Torre (5.5) Nothing negative to say, but didn’t help either.

Aaronson (5.5) Nothing negative to say, but didn’t help either.

Cardoso (6.5) Good work ethic and reliable.

Berhalter (6.5) Job done. He needs to sort out the center back situation. Needs to get the team to play cleaner. Not mad that he took the foot off the gas. Again, job done. Move on.

 

"Could have had a couple assists if Pepi fancied it."

--Jedi

 

Overall good. Bolivia is terrible, so hard for me to calibrate the general performance.

CBs were unbelievably poor. Both of them. Between them and anytime Turner is on the ball, I’m very worried about Uruguay.

Also not a fan at all of playing Gio in the Michael Bradley role. Just weird and pointless imo.

 

Some good, some bad. Bolivia is pretty awful, so I think only putting 2 in has to be regarded as a problem. Just not enough high level play in the box.

Glad Flo scored, but he was pretty bad. Pepi botched two chances; one was gold plated.

Richards was unchallenged and still managed to look poor.

Pulisic was good. Weah was mostly good. Adams and Ream were mostly good.

Turners distribution is worth -.25 goals a game I think.

Never a doubt, but this team is like 40 spots below Panama or something. So …

 

They didn't have an opportunity. Had we not scored so early the game would have been totally different.

 

It's a good performance. Not great. CP and Weah were great. Adams had a pretty great half.

Finishing should be better. They had everything they needed to make this a big huge win, and they didn't. A bit unlucky, but also not quite good enough with the final ball. Lots of great moves through midfield and into the box, too few goals scored.

Little sloppy with some of the giveaways, especially when there was very little pressure. That's a talking point, but not the crisis you'd think by looking through the PBP thread.

 

They were playing soccer, which means there's really no justification for rating Balogun the same as Pepi. One did his job and the other did not.

 

Biggest issue for me was the slow and passive play for most of the first half....too many sideways & backwards passes, even on free kicks.

Other than that, biggest actual problem was Ream's give-aways in his own half.....he's still solid positionally, but against better teams, those will get punished.

Would very much like to see Miles Robinson get a chance, since he's much more likely than Ream to actually be the starter at WC 2026.

 

My personal MOTM was Jedi. What a beast down the left wing. Should have had several assists.

Pepi worked great, was in superb position, but cmon man finish the shot.

Richards - already been said .....horrible passing.

Overall a very good start.

 

Generally true but in this case I don’t know that it’s clear if we have a preference. Columbia is in better form but Brazil is Brazil and has a lot more talent.

 

Gee, I was like, worried that the USMNT might not win at home to the 84th ranked Bolivia.

Thank GOD Berhalter made damn sure to have Tim Ream and Christian Pulisic play all 90 minutes in this crucial fixture. Whatever would they have done without them against mighty Bolivia?

Also, great that he made ZERO substitutions at all across the backline. I'm sure they'll all be FINE to play each and every minute the entire tournament.

 

TCB

I thought I saw more attackers in the box, as it should be against a weak opponent.

Not ruthless at all but the intent is good. I wonder why we didn’t press them, I suppose there was no need.

Big goal for Balogun, I was beginning to think he was headed for a benching.

Im sure Panama looks at Ream/Richards and thinks they can take them. Has to get better from here. Panama will lay in wait for those errors, throw Scally in here too, that’s their best hope. Let’s not give them any hope.