Berhalter says USMNT lacked personality in dismal Japan loss

It was an all-around ugly performance for the USMNT against Japan

Gregg Berhalter has said his U.S. national team side lacked personality in a dismal 2-0 defeat to Japan on Friday.

The USMNT was played off the pitch in Düsseldorf as Japan’s press caused a series of poor giveaways, while Berhalter’s side also failed to manage a single shot on goal all game.

It was a distressing performance as the USMNT enters the home stretch leading into the World Cup. Tuesday’s match against Saudi Arabia will be the team’s final game before it faces Wales on November 21 in Qatar.

Berhalter said post-game on ESPN’s broadcast that the U.S. had too many “silly giveaways,” which was a symptom of the team’s lack of personality in the match.

“I think it was a really competitive match,” Berhalter said. “I think we ended up hurting ourselves a little bit too much in the game with silly giveaways. We want a little more personality.

“Give Japan a lot of credit. Good team, competitive team, they pressed well, but we can do better.”

Asked what he’d like to see different against the Saudis and Berhalter replied: “It’s a more-personality match. For some reason, I didn’t see a lot of personality in our performance tonight.”

One of the only U.S. players to emerge from Friday’s game unscathed was Matt Turner, who made a series of quality saves to keep the scoreline from getting too lopsided.

Turner admitted that he saw his teammates get down on themselves after a series of bad turnovers, with Japan’s second goal a glaring example.

“[There were] some moments all over the field that we wish we had back,” Turner added on ESPN’s post-game broadcast.

“That second goal comes from a lot of frustration with things just not really working for us on the day. We give the ball away and we kind of all just drop our heads and we don’t react. They were having joy on the ball and running freely at us. I think that second goal really summed up pretty much the whole match.”

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