With the line up GB choose against a savvy physical quality team, it was better than I expected.

He did need to stablilize the middle, we were getting overrun with numbers. It was a solid tactical move at the international level...GB makes really solid adjustments...he manages the game well...He's light years away from Arena or any other nats coach.

We played Chile with an A/B, mostly B team line up and held up.

Tough to compare individual performances in the two games...polar opposite games for the D to deal with.

I would have liked to have seen Lletget in the Roldan role instead of outside...he struggled connecting...looked way better when he was inside.

Chile was finding space between our mids and CBs...was hoping our CBs would recognize and step up, but we sagged off. Omar is still down the depth chart. Miazga was pretty solid...still right in the mix....huge difference if he partners with Brooks vs Omar.

Distribution out of the back was poor...its a fundamental building block for GB's system
real tough for Yedlin, Omar and Miazga.

GB deliberately played more back up players for this game. I think we have a great chance to beat Chile with a healthier stronger line up...needed more individual quality in the attack.

It is interesting how GB see's his 6...definitely wants to reduce defensive responsibilities to allow distribution...he's trying to set up MB or Trapp in a Pirlo style role...but there were times where MB was beaten badly off the dribble by high quality attackers. Which I think we all know is the main problem with MB or Trapp at the 6 against top level teams. It won't really work unless we have a Gattuso or similar pitbull to do the hard defensive work for MB/Trapp. The ball MB played to Baird was as good as it gets...There aren't too many guys who can hit that pass for the nats...should have been a game winning assist. It remains to be seen if we have the defensive luxury to play a maestro role that close to the back line.

Overall, not bad. This team will gradually play better and better...I think we're heading towards playing real ball.

The indicator is that the three "future" stars (McKennie, Adams, and Pulisic) make a very measurable difference in our quality of play. We were able to maintain the standard of past performances without them, which is at the very least a little comforting, if annoying. I'm more optimistic after these last two games than I have been in a long time, but of course there is still a lot of work to do.

While our defensive concerns are apparent, Weah, Sargent, and Wood finding some sort of consistent form will really improve this team. Still think Mihailovic should be in another roster soon.

But "holding on" is all we did and all we've done, for the most part, when playing better teams. I honestly didn't see anything in either game that moved the meter. We couldn't create chances against a bunkered Ecuador. We couldn't possess the ball or play the ball out of the back well against a pressing Chile squad (and only steadied ourselves when we decided to play for a tie with 35 minutes to go). Same old, same old.

Haha. "Only" 3 guys he says. While those 3 guys are unarguably the 3 most important players on the team.

4 actually, since Pulisic didn't play for most of the game.

Imo, half to 2/3 of the Chile line up are not part of his preferred starting 11 for any game of consequence.

He wanted to see how a handful of players would respond to significant pressure...and he got some good info going forward.

Actually outside of Brooks, Adams, Mckennie, CP, we can't say who is in Greg's preferred 11.

Also, I don't think we learned anything new in this game.
What did you learn?

Furthermore, I wouldn't consider a side a B team without a full 11 turnover