Much more fight in midfield and may have been Lletget’s best match for USMNT. Dest did very well against Davies and that is no small feat at all.
Also, Long and Brooks were terrific. They made David invisible.
They basically played the Bob Bradley counter-attack system with direct play. No building out of the back. No Ream shifting over to be a third central defender. When Greggg's back was to the wall, he went back to "what works". That's part of what allowed Zardes to have what I have to admit was a decent game. That's why the midfield was not overpowered.
Now, the big question, when we play Cuba, will Berhalter re-install his stupid system so that when he beats up on little old Cuba, he'll say "see, the system works" or is this stupid impossible experiment in building from the back Man U style over?
He should have abandoned it since Canada continued to press high. And yeah, I expect them to build up against Cuba like they did before. Predictably.
The big difference I saw, though, was the winning of way more 50-50s and second balls.
Also, Canada misused Davies horribly. Either play him at fullback and let him fully cover defensively (not that Arreola made him work much, but Dest did) or play him at wing. He got caught out a lot.
against Mexico. Twice. And he didn't.
Is he being flexible? Has he been told "hey, the peasants are getting their pitchforks sharpened and we can't keep making excuses"? Will he keep adjusting?
If he continues to insist on this "style", then really, he's saying the style only works against teams that are absolute garbage because Canada is not even top half CONCACAF.
We can't build from the back against Mexico, Honduras, Cost Rica, Panama, Canada, Jamaica, or Aruba. But hell, when we get Belize and Antigua, we will kick some build out of the back butt.
Stop with the 'play with the players you got' craziness, mister.
Who played in place of Pulisic and Bradley?
Did Dest start?
Arreola was okay, but Yueill did very well back there. Surprised me, but I haven’t watched much of him in MLS.
Dest started and didn’t come off until very late. Did well considering he had to deal with Davies coming up a lot from LB. Pulled an elastico off next to Davies, too, that was impressive.
Only weak link at the back has been Ream so far. And Zardes....showed up?