Is this US team a bunch of frauds?

The US Men’s national soccer team lost 1-0 to Panama in the CONCACAF Nations League semifinal. The loss means the United States will not play in the final Sunday and will see its dominance of the competition — the Americans have won the only three editions of the Nations League — come to an end.

This is the second straight loss the USMNT has had to Panama in a competitive match. They lost to Panama in last summer’s Copa America, which contributed to the team’s group stage exit.

This begs the question; is this USMNT, supposedly in a Golden Generation, a bunch of frauds? Now, we should premise this question with the fact that soccer is a game of extremely fine margins. Fine margins are the difference between a result and not getting a result, and that difference almost always drives how we judge. And one, two, or even three knife edge results do not define a generation of players.

With that being said, this US team has long been talked about as a Golden Generation. And if you look at player quality, we certainly have a Golden Generation. Remember, “Golden Generations” are almost universally defined by level relative to baseline standard of the country.

This is to say that Iceland had their “Golden Generation” in the mid to late 2010s; a team many levels better than any Icelandic team before. But had Brazil had those exact players, that team would obviously be considered the worst Brazilian team of all time.

By baseline US standards, the US is in a Golden Generation of talent. We have more talent in Europe at a younger age than ever before, and it’s not particularly close. While many of our European players have since not had much success, the overall amount of individual success we have is more than any previous generation of US players.

Just a quick overview; we have Christian Pulisic, who now is one of AC Milan’s best players and won a Champions League with Chelsea nearly 4 years ago. We have another AC Milan starter in Yunus Musah, and two regular Juventus starters in Timothy Weah and Weston McKennie.

The US also has one of the best left backs in the Premier League, Fulham’s Antonee Robinson, Crystal Palace starter Chris Richards, Joe Scally, who regularly plays for Bundesliga side Borussia Mönchengladbach, Tyler Adams of Bournemouth, Johnny Cardoso of Real Betis, Folarin Balogin of Monaco, and the PSV Eindhoven trio of Malik Tillman, Sergiño Dest, and Ricardo Pepi, among many others.

We get it, hardly any of these players are elite. In fact, it’s possible none save Pulisic are, and even Pulisic might not be. No one thinks these players allow us to compete with the giants.

But no US team has ever had remotely close to the amount of regular players in top European leagues as this current US team. This could be exaggerated by the fact that many US players who played in MLS might have been able to play in European leagues, but the overall quality of this current team is still head and shoulders above other teams on paper.

Now, some would argue that this is actually not a team of frauds. Not because they contend that this USMNT has performed well, but because they claim that this is not a Golden Generation at all.

One such article claims what I have suggested; that the US lacks top end talent. But again, that is conflating the idea that this USMNT is not particularly good by world standards with the idea that this USMNT isn’t clearly much more talented than previous ones.

Maybe you could argue that Clint Dempsey at his height, when he was scoring quite a few goals every season for Fulham and Tottenham, Tim Howard at Everton, and Landon Donovan, were better than all current USMNT players except, and maybe even including Christian Pulisic. It’s contentious, but the argument could be made.

But even if that argument were granted, the rest of previous US teams cannot compete with the current US team’s overall depth. For the reader who reflexively might bristle and say that most of these USMNT players are squad players on their European clubs, I know this. You just have to understand that compared to previous US teams, they are doing much more.

It could be argued though that this current US team is not well balanced. We have a plethora of good players in the middle of the park, but we are extremely weak at the striker and goalie positions.

And after our starting players, the drop off gets precipitous with our defenders. That alone can make it difficult for our team to succeed, not just against top teams, but against any well organized, semi-decent team.

My theory of one of the major problems for our side, besides being unbalanced, being bereft of talent up top and in goal, and having a lack of strong mentality, which I will touch upon later, is that we are at a level where we are caught in between how to approach games.

By this, I mean that this US team is still not good enough to take it to teams and dominate them like the top sides can, but we are good enough that we don’t want to just let ourselves be dominated and grind out results against most teams.

Previous US teams were so far behind in talent to even second tier powers in the game, that we approached these matches as ones that we would have to grit out and find a result for. And we did.

Even though, player for player, Mexico almost always had a better team than us, we finished top of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying every times from 2006-2014, won the same amount of Gold Cups as Mexico, and had a winning record against (E)L Tri since the start of the 21st century.

We also beat Portugal and Mexico in the 2002 World Cup, before narrowly and controversially losing to Germany in the Quarterfinals, and were unlucky to just get a draw against an Italy side that ended up winning the 2006 World Cup. We beat Spain in the 2009 Confederation’s Cup, ending their 35 match unbeaten streak, right in the middle of Spain’s euro-World Cp-euro three peat from 2008-2012.

As the least talented team on paper in our group in the 2014 World Cup, we finished second in our group, only narrowly losing 1-0 to soon to be World Cup winners Germany, and were a Wondolowski sitter away from beating Belgium and making the 2014 World Cup quarterfinals.

This current USMNT team qualified for the 2022 World Cup and made it out of the group stage, which included tying England in a game that we had the better of the chances. We also had won the last 3 straight CONCACAF Nations Leagues, which is the competition in our confederation where we put out best players in.

But we went out in the group stage of our home Copa America. And honestly, were it not for the slimmest of margins against Iran, we could have gone out in the group. This team has not in any way accomplished more than previous US teams.

But it should be noted that this is sometimes how international soccer goes. In soccer, lesser teams can win, and better teams can lose. And this is compounded in international soccer, where the sample size is so small.

Germany’s 2002 World Cup team might have been their worst ever on paper, but they made the World Cup final, while Germany’s 2018 team was quite good, but went out in the group stage. Portugal’s euro 2016 side was quite ordinary by Portuguese standards, but they became the only Portuguese team to win a major trophy, while their 2000s teams, much better player for player, did not.

It is quite possible that, if we were to do a hypothetical ranking of teams just based on how good they were on, player for player, we would get something like the following; the US teams of old were probably between 30th and 40th best in the world, and this current US team is somewhere between 15th and 30th best in the world now.

In soccer, it is possible for a team that might be on paper the 22nd best in the world to play like a team that is 35th in the world, and a team that could be on paper 39th in the world to play like a team ranked 25th in the world.

Simply put, the US does not have the talent yet to at least at baseline be a contender. If the US had close to the talent that say England, Spain or France have, we could underperform and still be amongst the top 10-15 sides in the world. But right now, if we underperform, we can lose to the likes of Panama. Just like if US teams of the past overperfomed, we could get results against the likes of England, Spain and Italy.

As I referenced earlier, one of the difficulties of assessing soccer is that teams could do well based on talent or based on what pundits say you need to do, but in the end, moments define the results. This isn’t basketball, where if you can get a certain amount of high percentage shots you like, rebounds, fouls, you likely will win. This is a sport where you could play great in every facet but finishing, and could lose because you had one loose pass out the back that your opponent capitalized on.

For these reasons, pundits, both professional and recreational, are led in their assessments by results. One late goal for your team changes the narrative from “we didn’t create enough chances and we shouldn’t have put ourselves in the situation of needing penalties” to “this team knows how to find results.”

The difference between winning and losing the lottery of penalty kicks is the difference between Argentina “finally being able to put the pieces together to get it done” and “always finding a way to see victory in the biggest moments slip away.”

It is important to have this context when assessing this current US team. But that being said, the supposed Golden Generation of the USMNT should be questioned. Yes, they are more talented on paper than previous teams, but they are not that talented.

I think that US Soccer fans are so desperate to be positive, that we overhyped our players. We did have a meteoric rise of quality from the nadir of 2017-2019 to 2021-present. But we certainly overhyped the level we had.

But it’s understandable. From the nadir there seemed to be hope for a real change in the baseline of talent of US Soccer. After so much disappointment, we needed that hope. And as Americans, we have an innate sense that being the best is our birthright. And we couple that with a sense of belief that often borders on naiveté.

US sports (not soccer) pundits were angry with then-head coach Jurgen Klinnsman when he said, before the tournament, that it was not realistic for the US to win the 2014 World Cup. And that was when our talent level was much lower than it is now.

It should be noted that much of the hype was an expectation for continuous improvement in the future. In 2020-2021, we had so many extremely young American players going to Europe, with many more popping up seemingly every month. We probably expected that by the mid 2020s, we’d have a roster full of starting and possible star players in Europe.

But many of our players stalled. In 2021, Tyler Adams was scoring a decisive goal for Leipzig in the Champions League quarterfinal. Nearly 4 years, and multiple injuries later, Adams is still finding his feat at Bournemouth. In early 2020, Gio Reyna was scoring a wonder goal for Dortmund, and in the following season, he was playing regularly for the club.

4-5 years later, and Reyna is still languishing on the bench. Yunus Musah was regularly playing for Valencia at age 18, and 4 years later, while he is playing for Juventus, he isn’t a star. Konrad de la Fuente went from playing for Barcelona to falling off the map. Matthew Hoppe scored a hat trick for then Bundelsiga side Schalke in January 2021 and now is also off the map.

Even Christian Pulisic, who was playing regularly for Dortmund as far back as 2017, had a lot of trouble starting consistently for Chelsea and only recently at Milan has become a star.

It is true that many professionals stagnate. This is a cutthroat, competitive sport, and it is definitely possible to be no better, or possibly a little worse, at age 25 than you were at age 20.

But even understanding that, the lack of progression, which was the only way that our dreams of a truly elite USMNT would be realized, has been disappointing. And even with that lack of progression, this USMNT plays worse than the sum of our parts.

Playing worse than the sum of your parts as a national soccer team is not unique. Ask England in the 2000s. Look to many national teams over the decades. It’s happened before and it will happen again. Unfortunately, it could be happening to this USMNT.

It’s difficult to see at the moment, but there is some silver lining. The World Cup, which we host in 15 months, will be the most important tournament in US Soccer history. We have time to gel, to improve, both in quality and mentally.

And if there is a time to underperform, it’s now, not when we are actually playing in the 2026 World Cup. And maybe these disappointments will be the wake up call we need; our players will be forced to see that this isn’t good enough, and improvements must be made.

And they will be criticized in a manner that will show them that their supposed “talent” means nothing. They have to go out there and get it. They cannot be complacent or arrogant heading into the World Cup. This team has to have the mindset that they have to fight and claw to get though every game.

Maybe all of this is the final low before the amazing high of a home World Cup. Maybe this is exactly what was needed to get the absolute best out of this generation. But of course, this is not a movie or a tv show; this is real life. The USMNT’s disappointments could just as easily be a foreshadowing of lack of quality and character in this team that dooms us to a poor showing next summer.

Is this USMNT, our supposed Golden Generation, a bunch of frauds? It’s complicated, but for now, they are. They should be seen as such until things improve, because they need to know it hasn’t been good enough. And maybe, just maybe, this will kick them into gear and motivate them against all the odds, to do something truly spectacular for US Soccer