It was a week of reminders that the United States has never been entirely uncomplicated, identity-wise.
Iranian journalists grabbed the mic at a World Cup press conference to point out that their opponents were comfortable explaining why their boys are in the Persian Gulf (to kick ass and change the way the world views American soccer, natch) but not why their naval warships are, and that the United States is proud to stand with Iranian protesters via cryptic World Cup subtweets but may also perhaps have a few human rights issues of its own to work on.
Anyway, against a backdrop like that, it made a cosmic sort of sense that the United States continues to look like two totally different national teams on the pitch, too.
One team is composed, almost debonair, waltzing around the attacking half in practised passing triangles and chivalrously holding a chair for any loose balls to come take a seat beside Tyler Adams. That U.S. shows up in tied games and has a special fondness for first halves.
The other version of this team is a thrash metal festival of pure, self-destructive chaos. Whenever the United States takes a lead, they play like they’ve been infested by those parasitic worms that make zombified host insects jump into water and drown themselves. Attacks are fast and disjointed, defensive transitions are sloppy and the back line looks like it’s never played together (which, against Iran, happened to be true).
You’d never believe this is the same side that starts matches so smoothly. Clinging to a one-goal lead that meant the difference between going through to the knockout rounds or going out to Iran; the U.S. went from dominating the first half to spending the second half getting repeatedly kicked in the … well, let’s just say they left with a “pelvic contusion”.
It wasn’t just this one game. Through the first 10 days of the World Cup, the United States ranks ninth for expected goal difference when the score is level, one spot behind England. During minutes when they have a lead, the U.S. ranks dead last, behind Saudi Arabia.
That’s not quite as bad as it sounds — the U.S. have yet to trail in this World Cup, and part of the reason opponents have had lots of chances to rack up xG is that only the Netherlands have spent more minutes winning — but it’s probably not best practice to close out games by hurling yourself off a cliff and hoping to hit enough branches on the way down to break your fall.
The important question is, which one of these teams is the real United States?
Will the knockout rounds see the cool, suave, Brahms-connoisseur Americans that controlled their group for long stretches or the mosh pit pandemonium from the second half against Wales and Iran? What’s the deal with these guys, anyway?
Maybe we should start with what makes this team work (when it does).
The United States has used more or less the same line-up in all three games so far, but in three different tactical configurations. The wild card each time has been Weston McKennie. Against Wales, the senior midfielder roamed between the lines while Yunus Musah sat deeper on the left. Against England, McKennie played something more like his wide midfield role at Juventus, shuttling up the right sideline and crashing the box.
For the win-or-go-home Iran game, Gregg Berhalter pulled out a surprise: he moved McKennie to the left.
Swapping the midfielders helped balance the team. With McKennie pulling strings underneath him, Christian Pulisic did less dropping to the ball as an unreliable inside playmaker and more of the off-ball runs that he excels at. Meanwhile, Musah’s defensive presence on the right allowed Sergino Dest to climb out of the deep role he’d been stuck in for the first two games and get up the wing to attack.
Those changes worked to improbable perfection on the United States’ goal: McKennie received the ball on the left and hit a diagonal to Dest on the opposite wing (a pass he made sure to look for all…
Read More: The two sides of the United States men’s national team