A sour end to the year of Zardes: what we learned from USA's World Cup qualifiers

Klinsmann understands the grind more than ever

Jürgen Klinsmann has had a difficult year, and the expectation levels around his team are simultaneously so low that fans despair of ever seeing the attack-minded soccer they were promised when he arrived in the job, and so high that they expect statement wins to appear from nowhere.

Of course, it’s right to say that USA performances have been worryingly negative of late, but it’s also true that by the typical Concacaf World Cup qualifying metric for success, “win your home games, tie your road games” then Klinsmann is absolutely on target results wise. 

And while the manner of the 0-0 tie with Trinidad did nothing to silence his critics, at least the bad habits the USA carried out of the World Cup and into this year (habitual second half collapses, flurries of soft goals conceded in the dying moments of games) were not a factor in determining the outcome. If anything, after a stronger second half showing, the USA looked the more likely to score in the dying moments of the second half.

They didn’t of course, but having been through one qualifying cycle already, Klinsmann may feel he is better able to understand the exact nature of the Concacaf grind this time round, and whatever speculation continues to swirl about his continued suitability for his job, the coach set up his team to do two jobs in two games, and got a version of both jobs done. 

Klinsmann knows that the path to the Hex and beyond is an absolute grind. And after this year’s struggles he’s about to head into nearly four months of no competitive games yet no less popular scrutiny on his methods. If the coach wasn’t sure about the nature of this job before, he is now.

Mixed results from pushing Johnson and Yedlin forward

It’s obvious that there wasn’t a lot to conclude from the collective US performance against St Vincent & Grenadines – the relative statures of the two teams don’t lend themselves to meaningful conclusions. But while there was little to meaningfully see in the overall pattern of the game, there were plenty of individual subplots and mini-experiments whose significance may come to be seen as even greater in hindsight.

For one, there was the “all is forgiven return” of Fabian Johnson being combined with the player being pushed into the more attacking wide role he plays for his club side, and then the couple of early incidents that may have decided DeAndre Yedlin’s immediate future as a USA international.

First there was his failure to track back and support an under pressure Geoff Cameron, that allowed St Vincent & Grenadines to take that early lead. It illustrated the criticism of Yedlin as a gauche defender, even at this modest version of international level. 

But then just a few minutes later, there was the other side of Yedlin, as his speed and verve on the overlap played a key role in the USA’s equalizer. 

And as the USA switched to something like a 3-5-2 we saw some of the credits and debits of both sides of Yedlin’s play, but with the positives very much in favor of seeing him as an offensive weapon. 

That’s where he turned up on Tuesday night, with Michael Orozco having a quiet but effective game behind him at right back, and in front of him, Gyassi Zardes pushed into an attacking role from the familiar wide right position now occupied by Yedlin. 

Ironically, in a night where the USA struggled to make the width of Johnson and Yedlin count against a compressed Trinidad defense, Yedlin in particular was still mostly remarkable for his defensive frailties, even in his advanced position. In one sequence he ended up giving away a free kick on the edge of his own box, having hauled down Joevin Jones in a desperate attempt to get back and make up for his own poor touch up the field having started a Trinidad counter.

Miazga in place to be this cycle’s Omar Gonzalez

The popular clamor for Darlington Nagbe to get his chance in a US shirt rather overshadowed an equally significant debut in St Louis.

Matt Miazga does not occupy a position on the field where he will ever solve the USA’s yearning for an attacking playmaker, but he is a highly rated young center back, he is in form for his club team New York Red Bulls, and he has all the makings of becoming a regular first team starter in at the back when he gets his chance.

He’s also a poster child for Klinsmann’s emphasis on cycling players through the youth teams – in fact his rapid promotion has seen Miazga play for the Under-20s, Under-23s, and now full national team in the space of this calendar year. 

And while it’s possible Miazga’s insertion into the game against St Vincent & Grenadines may have had more to do with making sure he was tied to the USA before being tempted by Poland, for whom he is also eligible, it’s also not hard to see him becoming a key player in the USA defensive set up for the rest of this World Cup campaign.

Ironically Miazga’s ascent has come at a time when one of the breakout stars of the last cycle has seen his fortunes waning badly. Omar Gonzalez, another tall ball-playing center back, has suffered for both club and country this year, and it seems a long time ago now that he and Matt Besler were the automatic starters heading into the World Cup. 

Throughout his time as a USA starter, Gonzalez’s athleticism has often allowed him to make last ditch tackles to get himself out of trouble, but his propensity for silly mistakes has begun to overshadow his qualities, and at club level the arrivals of Steven Gerard and Gio dos Santos has thrown his own long term future at the salary-capped Galaxy into doubt. With the national team and Galaxy in flux, his future looks uncertain right now.

It’s too early to write Gonzalez off as a cautionary tale, just as it’s too early to say whether Miazga will make the next step up. And the current two incumbents in the center back positions, Geoff Cameron and Matt Besler, have experienced ascents of the rather more slow and steady variety, and may prove harder to dislodge while Klinsmann searches for stability. But in Gonzalez, Miazga at least has an aspirational blueprint to (selectively) follow.

Nagbe could be the missing link for Bradley

Add Trinidad & Tobago to the list of USA team performances where – in trying to be all things to all parts of midfield – Michael Bradley was too often none of them. He was too deepas the USA tried to get a toehold in a physical midfield battle in the first half, and was too concerned with what was going on behind him to be able to pick out the killer pass. He’d already be turning back towards his own goal to defend as yet another would-be final ball went astray.

Darlington Nagbe offers an intriguing possibility, especially if Klinsmann feels he can trust his team in a 4-3-3. Nagbe has been liberated by his move inside for the Portland Timbers, and has the skills and movement to cause the distractions and pockets of space Bradley likes to step into to truly find his rhythm as a short-range playmaker. 

Until very recently Nagbe has been something of an enigma for the Timbers – capable of sublime goals and moments of skill, but prone to drifting out of games. Of course, until recently, he was not a US citizen either, so some of this is moot, but it may be Klinsmann’s good fortune that Nagbe has become available right at the moment in his career where he has finally found the potency to consistently do damage. 

There was a truism that turned out to be not exactly true going into the last World Cup, which ran something like, “As goes Michael Bradley, so go the USA”. If Nagbe were to consolidate a place in the US team along the lines his vocal advocates describe for him, we could yet soon be saying, “As goes Darlington Nagbe, so goes Michael Bradley”.

The year of Zardes ends on a sour note

In a disappointing year for the national team program, Gyassi Zardes has been one of the few bright spots. 

It’s not unusual for fringe MLS players to get a look in the January team camps, but far fewer immediately go on to be regular US starters. Yet after coming on as a substitute for his international debut against Chile in January, Zardes has seized his opportunity, reaping the rewards of his growing maturity at club level. 

In LA, Zardes’ movement has got noticeably better over the last 18 months or so – partly due to Robbie Keane’s influence – and it’s a virtue that coupled with Zardes’s fearlessness, has made him a good option for Klinsmann’s building plans. In an attacking three in particular, Zardes’ movement off the ball can relieve the swarm of defensive attention that tends to focus on stifling Jozy Altidore, or stretch defenses wide at key times.

Zardes also got his third international goal on Friday night, in the rout of St Vincent & Grenadines — but he showed his shortcomings against Trinidad & Tobago. For everything he has gained in nous there are still question marks over Zardes’s technical qualities. And those questions will redouble after a second half in Trinidad that saw Zardes repeatedly do the hard work of finding pockets of space among an increasingly compressed T&T defense, and yet consistently waste the opportunities with a poor decision or final touch.

The most obvious example was the header Zardes crashed off the bar early in the second half. He’d drifted off the last defender’s shoulder to make space to meet Jozy Altidore’s perfectly curled cross, but with the goal gaping he went for power at close range and crashed his header off the bar, when a header down into the turf was a near certain goal. By the time Zardes was withdrawn late on, in the wake of several poor touches, it was no real surprise. 

When Yedlin came on, Zardes was pushed forward into partnership with Altidore. Had that header gone in of course, we might have been describing a very different story about that duo, but in truth the eventual outcome was just about a fair reflection of Zardes’s contribution and indeed his general trajectory this year — a lot of intermittent promise and room for growth.