KANSAS CITY, Mo. – U.S. national team coach Gregg Berhalter is a planner. In the months between USMNT games, when his work is less pressured and less hands-on, his methodical mind obsesses over details and possibilities. He spent long summer days before the 2022 World Cup analyzing group-stage opponents. He likely spent some of his time this spring mapping out Copa América plans for 2024.
But he could not have prepared for this: a decisive match in Group C with confusing scenarios, a suspended talent and an injured goalkeeper, plus an opponent whose influential coach will be absent and whose motives are unclear.
The USMNT meets Uruguay here Monday at Arrowhead Stadium in a game shrouded in mystery. And it probably — maybe, but not definitively — needs to win to reach the knockout rounds of the Copa América and avoid unmitigated failure.
Scenarios for the US National Team’s Copa América in Group C
In a simultaneous group stage final, Panama will play Bolivia in Orlando. The simplified version of several dizzying scenarios is that the US must match Panama’s result.
After Thursday’s self-destructive 2-1 defeat against The Canalsthe US and Panama are tied on three points going into the third and final matchday of Group C.
Uruguay are on six points and have a goal difference of plus-7 and will top the group unless they lose by four goals to the USA.
In second place – the most important place – the US is (+1) ahead of Panama (-1) on goal difference; so USA advances if both teams draw or if both teams win by the same margin.
However, when Panama starts pumping out targets, the permutations become complicated. The second tiebreaker consists of goals scored during the group stage – and there, with each team on three goals, Panama has an advantage. A 3-0 win in Panama and a 1-0 win in the US would send Panama into the quarterfinals and the US out.
An easier way to process these permutations is from the Panamanian perspective: they must improve on the U.S. result; and if they both win, their margin of victory must be at least twice that of the U.S..
Uruguay is firing on all cylinders
So the superficial view is that the US is in reasonably good shape. The problem is, well, everything else.
Panama could well beat Bolivia, who shipped five goals to Uruguay and are clearly the worst team in Group C.
Uruguay, on the other hand, is buzzing. Marcelo Bielsa, a respected Argentine manager, has made a restart La Celeste and transformed into perhaps the most impressive team of the 2024 Copa América. They are talented, coordinated and aggressive. They press man-to-man, relentlessly, high up the pitch and blitz opponents immediately after winning the ball.
“We know they’re going to be extremely intense and progressive,” said American defender Antonee Robinson, who played against Bielsa’s Leeds United in the English Premier League on Saturday.
“How they maintain the intensity throughout the game varies by level,” Berhalter added on Sunday.
“They play a pretty high-risk, high-reward game,” Robinson noted, sometimes leaving space for vertical attackers to exploit.
But the USMNT’s most vertical attacker, Tim Weah, will be unavailable.
Berhalter’s options after Weah’s suspension
Weah is suspended for two matches for his costly red card against Panama; and the USMNT has struggled 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 skills no longer paralleled in the current player pool.
Weah has started every U.S. A-team game for the past two years when fit. He is a regular on the right flank, as his directness, both on and off the ball, gives the U.S. attack a dimension it otherwise lacks.
How will Berhalter reconfigure the USMNT without Weah?
Option #1: The closest thing to a like-for-like replacement would probably be Haji Wright, a forward who has often played centrally in the past but now plays wide for the US and his English club Coventry City.
Wright is more comfortable and effective on the left wing; Christian Pulisic could move to the right, where he spent most of last season for AC Milan in Italy. However, such a shift would require other adjustments further down the field.
Option #2 would be to play Gio Reyna out wide and move Yunus Musah into Reyna’s midfield.
If Reyna is viewed as an integral part in midfield, Option No. 3 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 US plays with two wingers that both prefers to drift infield, into spaces between the lines — as Reyna, Aaronson and Tillman all do, and as Pulisic often does when playing on the left — the U.S. offense often struggles. Without Weah, for example, they scored zero goals in 180 minutes against Japan and Saudi Arabia in September 2022.
Last but not least, option No. 4 would be something completely unpredictable: Maybe a 3-5-2 with Pulisic and Folarin Balogun up front? Or a 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield of Adams, Weston McKennie, Musah and Reyna?
In the past, Berhalter has favored consistency, deploying roughly the same personnel for the 2022 World Cup and the exact same lineup for the USMNT’s first two Copa América games in 2024. But he has at times been willing and able to adapt his system to meet a specific opponent.
Uruguayan mind games?
In the run-up to Monday’s match, legitimate questions have been asked whether Berhalter knows exactly what he is going to counter.
Uruguay have not yet qualified for the quarter-finals, but with a place all but assured, fans and media are speculating that Bielsa could play as a second team, allowing regular players to rest for the knockout rounds.
Assistant coach Diego Reyes was asked about that possibility several times on Sunday, and after talking about “many variables,” he said Monday’s starting lineup had not yet been determined.
Sitting next to Reyes was reserve goalkeeper Franco Israel, an unusual choice for a pre-match press conference, one that raised suspicions of a lineup change. But it was almost too unusual – and perhaps the wrong trick. Rumors in Uruguayan football circles suggest that Uruguay’s lineup will remain largely unchanged.
“I think they’re going to play their strongest team,” Berhalter said Sunday.
And they don’t expect their quarter-final spot to be secured. “We are focused on tomorrow’s game as if it is our last,” Reyes said.
Bielsa also suspended for Monday’s match
However, they will have to do without their coach Bielsa, who was handed a one-match suspension on Sunday after Uruguayan players arrived late for the second half of Thursday’s win over Bolivia.
Bielsa can of course still prepare his team, but will not be in the dressing room or on the sidelines on Monday. Once they arrive in Arrowhead, he is banned from contacting them. Two of his old assistants, Reyes and Pablo Quiroga, will step in and take charge.
The suspension will limit their ability to tap into Bielsa’s mid-game wisdom. But it won’t limit Uruguay’s ability to play BielsaBall. His genius is in his teaching and his training, not in his mid-game adjustments. “It’s a well-trained team,” Berhalter said Sunday. “No matter who’s on the sidelines, it’s going to be a very similar style of play.”
And the assistants agree with his philosophies. Reyes followed him from Chile to Athletic Bilbao from 2007, from Marseille to Lazio (briefly!), from Lille to Leeds and now Uruguay. He sounded confident that he and the staff would be able to handle the assignment well.
“We have been working with Marcelo for a long time,” Reyes said.
A crucial match for US and Berhalter
More importantly, Uruguay is fully healthy, with all 26 players available.
The U.S. will be without Weah and possibly goalkeeper Matt Turner, who injured his left leg in the first half against Panama and was forced to leave the game at halftime.
Turner had “limited” training sessions on Saturday and Sunday, Berhalter said. He’s questionable for Monday. Ethan Horvath would start if Turner can’t go.
None of these conditions are ideal for a game of enormous consequence, easily the most consequential game the USMNT has seen since Qatar. A win would provide a proof of concept and propel the American players into the knockout rounds and beyond. A loss could precipitate a crisis and cost Berhalter his job.
