The U.S. men’s national team’s final friendly window started off with a stumble, as a woefully flat performance ended with a 2-0 loss to Japan.
The USMNT and Japan are roughly at the same level on paper, and losing 2-0 to a peer is not in and of itself a reason to rend your new, unloved USMNT jersey. The way we got there, though? It was truly rough stuff for anyone with hopes of seeing a USMNT run deep in to the World Cup.
Mentality minnows
The biggest reason for alarm for the USMNT was what Gregg Berhalter described as a lack of “personality.” There are some badly outdated stereotypes that hold that Japan is a technical team with no little cutting edge, but the fact is that Hajime Moriyasu’s side chewed the USMNT up and spat them out. They were the more physical team, the more driven team, the more urgent team. In all the ways you can define aggression in soccer, Japan had the advantage over the USMNT.
That tepid vibe, more than players having a bad day passing and moving, is the big worry from this game. We’re less than 60 days from the World Cup, and several U.S. starters in this one are trying to establish that they should be moved up a level in the team’s hierarchy. Starters should be pushing to become stars, the first few guys off the bench should be trying to become starters, and so on.
A lack of intensity should flat-out not be a problem right now.
Berhalter tried to shake something loose, making four halftime subs and changing systems, but it only stirred the USMNT to a certain degree, and only for about half an hour. Kaoru Mitoma got Japan’s second in the closing minutes, and it wasn’t some lone chance on the counter, either. They were back to bossing the game, primarily through sheer effort.
Will this version of the USMNT show up against Wales? Probably not. They seem good at getting up for the truly big occasions (see: several consecutive matches against Mexico). And England, being so full of elite players, will probably also see a fully motivated USMNT.
It’s that Iran match, though, that people should have qualms about. Iran’s not Japan, they don’t play the same way, but they are the opponent in the group that the USMNT is most likely to overlook. Friday’s loss was a worrisome reminder that this is a team with no room for looking past anyone.
Handing it over
Japan’s press gave the USMNT fits. Some of this was simply a good team executing their plan cohesively and at a high level. Japan knew what it wanted to make the USMNT do — pin them in their own half and make center backs Aaron Long and Walker Zimmerman solve the problem in possession — and did so at an impressive level.
There are two things that should alarm USMNT fans that have nothing to do with how fluently Japan played. First, the obvious: the USMNT was simply abysmal with the ball. Maybe that’s a one-game problem that disappears against Saudi Arabia next week, or maybe the absences of Chris Richards and Cameron Carter-Vickers are a bigger deal than it initially seemed. No matter how you slice it, the number of telegraphed passes, or passes delivered with a laggardly pace, was a major disappointment.
Secondly, as much as Japan did what they set out to do at a really good level, we’re not talking about a complicated plan. Japan pressed out of a very straightforward 4-4-2 shape, something that every USMNT player has seen on a regular basis in recent years. If anything, you’ve been hearing the phrase “nine-ten press” more often over the past two years or so, with teams that on paper play 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 often opting to drop their wingers and move a central midfielder up when they’re out of possession.
And yet, the USMNT on Friday looked bewildered at times, unable to find good angles or make the right movements to open that shape up. Japan used their structure well, but they also weren’t really challenged. The USMNT midfield, who squandered an ostensible three-on-two numerical advantage by being out-fought for 90 minutes, wasn’t opening passing lanes with their movement. If the right run came, it arrived too late and at too slow a speed, and Japan could cut the passing lane off without anything else opening up.
Without Christian Pulisic (who per U.S. Soccer picked up some kind of minor injury in training) and Tim Weah, the front three featured two players that want to go narrow and a No. 9 that pretty notoriously checks back into the midfield. That gave the USMNT no vertical options, allowing Japan to push their line of contention higher. There was no easy outlet, and the USMNT didn’t play well enough to work through things the hard way either.
Now, we haven’t seen the USMNT struggle to this degree very often this year, and missing both Pulisic and Weah made a big difference. Zimmerman and Long have both established that they’re better passers than we saw in this game. Maybe getting the mentality side right fixes all of this, but if it doesn’t, it could undermine the plans of advancing from Group B, much less winning a knockout round game.
Turner time
The USMNT’s best player on the day, by far, was Matt Turner. The goals from Japan were well-taken and not his fault, and he wasn’t the one misplacing simple passes out of the back either.
Historically, the USMNT enters any given World Cup with goalkeeping as a strength, but it’s not entirely clear who Berhalter’s top three are, and who the starter is. There are concerns with every candidate: Zack Steffen has a knee issue and may or may not be first-choice at Middlesbrough. Ethan Horvath has had consistency problems. Sean Johnson’s ceiling might not be as high as the rest of the contenders.
For Turner, the issue has been a more straightforward question of whether he was going to play enough to stay sharp. Turner got a once-in-a-lifetime offer from Arsenal that he had to take, but the concern was that he might be vying for a World Cup spot without being able to show what he can do in games.
Against Japan at least, that issue didn’t appear to be a problem. Turner may have only one appearance since moving to London, but he looked like a full-time starter, showing no signs of rust or a lack of confidence. If not for three particularly good Turner stops, the scoreline would have been worse.
There may be questions at some other vital positions with this team right now, but at the moment Turner seems to be a very strong bet to be the No. 1 when the USMNT takes the field against Wales on November 21.
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