I’m an American, so I want to share the American perspective and an American criticism of this. In arguably the most important game in the history of the program, this was one of the most shambolic USMNT performances we’ve seen. Absolutely 0 shape when attacking, defended without considering even the basic fundamentals, and made individual errors like it was nobody’s business. From the jump, it looked like the players were not ready. Part of that is the uncertainty from the things out of their control happening off the field, part of it is the pressure of the big moment. One of the biggest mistakes in modern US footballing history was making Christian Pulisic our leader. He is a player who has shown 0 mentality in the last three years, skipped multiple international call-ups because he “needed rest”, and then proceeded to sit out for two games in the World Cup that was supposed to be his because of a DEAD LEG. For context, Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan had each played for the national team in the past with MAJOR injuries and not just a leg cramp. In 2014, Dempsey played better than Pulisic has in this tournament and Dempsey had a concussion the entire time. A lot of criticism from this will be levied on MLS, and I think parts of that are accurate. Ream and Freese both had a bad game and major blunders. At the same time, guys like Berhalter honestly had better performances than Dest (who was arguably at fault for the first goal) and Pulisic. None of us expect this team to consistently compete with the likes of Belgium, but I’d honestly rather full of ok players who fight like hell than a bunch of stars who need to be pampered 24/7 and even then don’t give 100%.