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KANSAS CITY – United States men’s national team coach Gregg Berhalter is a planner. In the months between USMNT games, when his work is less pressurized and less hands-on, his methodical brain obsesses over details and possibilities. He spent long summer days before the 2022 World Cup analyzing the group stage rivals. He likely spent much of this spring mapping out game plans and scenarios for the 2024 Copa América.
But he couldn’t have prepared for this, a decisive Group C match with complicated scenarios, a suspended star and an injured goalkeeper, plus an opponent whose An influential coach will be missing. and whose motivations are unclear.
The USMNT will take on Uruguay here on Monday at Arrowhead Stadium in a game full of mystery. And he probably (maybe, but not definitely) must win to reach the knockout rounds of the Copa América and avoid an unvarnished failure.
USMNT Copa America venues in Group C
In a simultaneous group stage final, Panama will face Bolivia in Orlando. The simplified version of several dizzying scenarios is that the United States must match Panama’s result.
After Thursday’s self-destructive 2-1 loss to The CanalerosThe United States and Panama are tied with three points entering the third and final day of Group C.
Uruguay has six points, with a goal differential of plus-seven, and will top the group unless they lose to the United States by four goals.
Second, and most importantly, the United States (+1) leads Panama (-1) on goal difference, so the United States will advance if both teams tie or both win by the same margin.
However, if Panama starts scoring goals, the permutations get more complicated. The second tiebreaker is goals scored during the group stage, and there, with each team having three goals, Panama has the advantage. A 3-0 Panama win and a 1-0 U.S. win would send Panama to the quarterfinals and the U.S. out.
An easier way to process those permutations is from the Panamanian perspective: they must improve the US result; and if they both win, their margin of victory must be at least twice as good as the US margin.
Uruguay fires on all cylinders
The superficial view, then, is that the United States is doing pretty well. The problem is, well, everything else.
Panama could very well beat Bolivia, which sent five goals past Uruguay and is clearly the worst team in Group C.
Uruguay, on the other hand, is humming. Marcelo Bielsa, a revered Argentine coach, has restarted The light blue and transformed them into arguably the most impressive team at the 2024 Copa America. They are talented, coordinated and aggressive. They press man-to-man, relentlessly, high up the pitch and bombard opponents immediately after winning the ball.
“We know they will be extremely high intensity and forward-thinking,” U.S. defender Antonee Robinson, who played against Bielsa’s Leeds United in the English Premier League, said Saturday.
“They play a high-risk, high-reward game,” Robinson added, sometimes leaving spaces that the vertical forwards can exploit.
But the USMNT’s most upright forward, Tim Weah, will not be available.
Berhalter’s options after Weah’s sanction
Weah has been suspended two games for his costly red card against Panama; and the USMNT has been struggling to adapt in his absence.
They had just three days to come up with a Plan B and figure out how to replace a player whose skill set is unparalleled in the current player pool.
Weah, when healthy, has started every U.S. A team game over the past two years; he is a fixture on the right wing because his directness on and off the ball adds dimensions to the U.S. attack that it otherwise lacks.
So how will Berhalter reconfigure the USMNT without Weah?
Option No. 1: The closest to a like-for-like replacement would probably be Haji Wright, a forward who often played center in the past but now plays wide for the U.S. and his English club, Coventry City.
Wright is more comfortable and effective on the left flank; Christian Pulisic could move to the right, where he spent most of last season with AC Milan in Italy. However, such a change would require further adjustments down the road.
Option number 2 would be to play Gio Reyna on the wing and place Yunus Musah in Reyna’s place in midfield.
If Reyna is considered pivotal in midfield, the No. 3 option would be another versatile attacker, such as Brenden Aaronson or Malik Tillman, on the wing.
But both options have a well-known flaw: when the United States plays with two extremes that… both Preferring to move inside the box, in spaces between the lines (as Reyna, Aaronson and Tillman do, and as Pulisic often does when playing on the left), the American attack often struggles. Without Weah, in September 2022, for example, they did not score a goal in 180 minutes against Japan and Saudi Arabia.
Last but not necessarily least, option number 4 would be something completely unpredictable: Perhaps a 3-5-2 with Pulisic partnering Folarin Balogun up front? Or a 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield consisting of Adams, Weston McKennie, Musah and Reyna?
In the past, Berhalter preferred consistency. He deployed roughly the same personnel during the 2022 World Cup and the exact same lineup in the USMNT’s first two matches of the 2024 Copa América. But, on occasion, he has been willing and able to modify his system to counter a specific opponent.
Uruguayan mind games?
Leading up to Monday’s game, there were reasonable questions about whether Berhalter knows exactly what he’s going to counter.
Uruguay have not mathematically qualified for the quarter-finals, but with their place almost confirmed, fans and media have speculated that Bielsa could play a second-string team, to rest the regulars for the knockout rounds.
Assistant coach Diego Reyes was asked several times about that possibility on Sunday. He said, after talking about “many variables,” that Monday’s starting lineup has yet to be determined.
Next to Reyes sat backup goalkeeper Franco Israel, an unusual choice for a pre-match press conference, which raised suspicions of lineup rotation. But it was almost too unusual, and perhaps a misleading move. Rumours in Uruguayan football circles suggest Uruguay’s lineup will be virtually unchanged.
“We expect them to play a full-strength team,” Berhalter said Sunday.
Bielsa is also suspended for Monday’s match
They will, however, be without coach Bielsa, who on Sunday received a one-match suspension for Uruguay’s players arriving late for the second half of Thursday’s win over Bolivia.
Bielsa can still prepare his team, of course, but he won’t be in the locker room or on the sidelines on Monday. He will not be allowed to have contact with them once they arrive at Arrowhead. Two of his longtime assistants, Reyes and Pablo Quiroga, will step in and take charge.
The suspension will limit his ability to take advantage of Bielsa’s mid-match wisdom. But it will not limit Uruguay’s ability to play BielsaBall. His brilliance is in his teaching and coaching, not his in-game adjustments. “It’s a well-coached team,” Berhalter said Sunday. “Regardless of who is on the sidelines, it will be a very similar style of play.
And the assistants are in tune with his philosophies. Reyes, since 2007, has followed him from Chile to Athletic Bilbao, from Marseille to Lazio (briefly!), from Lille to Leeds and now to Uruguay. He seemed confident that he and his staff would be able to cope with the task without any problems.
“We have been working with Marcelo for a long time,” Reyes said.
A crucial match for the US and Berhalter
The most important thing is that Uruguay is completely healthy and has all 26 of its players available.
The United States will be without Weah and could be without goalkeeper Matt Turner, who injured his left leg in the first half against Panama and left that game at halftime.
Turner participated in training in a limited capacity on Sunday, Berhalter said. It’s questionable for Monday. Ethan Horvath would start if Turner can’t go.
Neither of these are ideal circumstances heading into a hugely important game, arguably the U.S. national team’s most important since Qatar. A win would be a proof of concept and help the U.S. players advance to the knockout rounds and beyond. A loss could trigger a crisis and cost Berhalter his job.
