Good Reads: Landon Donovan Joins Us to Talk Panama-USMNT and Look Ahead to USMNT-Costa Rica
USMNT legend Landon Donovan will join me and Chris Wittyngham for podcast episodes after every USMNT World Cup qualifier to break down the game and share insights from his vast experience. Those podcasts, in partnership with Meadowlark and Le Batard and Friends, will post on the night of or the day after every qualifier. Every audio episode of Fútbol with Grant Wahl is available for free in the archives on my Substack site, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and elsewhere.
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Grant Wahl:
Hey there, welcome to Fútbol with Grant Wahl. Thanks so much for joining me. We've got a special episode today in partnership with Meadowlark and Le Batard and Friends with reaction from Landon Donovan, Chris Wittyngham and me to the U.S. men's national team’s 1-0 loss to Panama in World Cup qualifying game five. Landon is in San Diego, where he coaches San Diego Loyal, Chris is in South Florida and I am in Panama City, Panama, where I am writing my Substack newsletter which you should subscribe to, free or paid, at grantwahl.com. Guys, it's good to see you. How are you?
Chris Wittyngham:
Reeling a bit after last night's defeat at the hands of Panama. Looking like every game that's ever been played in Panama by the United States. Sometimes they win, sometimes they draw. For the first time ever, they lost.
Landon Donovan:
Yeah. I'm a little under the weather. So pardon my even more than normal monotone and drab voice. It was, I hate to say, but pretty much what I expected from the game. And then Panama made the play to win it, so it’s tough to lose that way. But now no time to be down about it. You got another one in two days, so they’ve got to get moving.
“When Panama scored the goal, I was watching the players and their reaction was that they had won the game. And there were still 40 minutes to go. And I could see them going into the game saying "if we score a goal, we will win the game." They did not fear the U.S. team scoring … They knew it was lights out and the game was over, and that's not a good sign when opponents feel that way. And that was very telling to me. So the U.S. need to absolutely pour on the pressure against Costa Rica, and teams need to fear the U.S. again.” — Landon Donovan
Grant Wahl:
Just being down here in Panama, really excited fans here obviously in that stadium yesterday. First time that Panama had ever beaten the U.S. in nine tries in World Cup qualifying. And October 10th, it's really a kind of a cursed date at this point for the U.S. men's national team. October 10th four years ago was the day the U.S. lost in Trinidad, failed to qualify for the World Cup. October 10th this year, maybe the worst day since for the U.S. men's national team.
And we can put it in perspective, right? The U.S. hasn't failed to qualify for a World Cup, but it is the first U.S. loss in the five games they've had so far in this cycle of World Cup qualifying. Landon, you say “as expected” to you and I'm wondering in what way was this expected to you?
Landon Donovan:
Not the result, Grant, the game went as expected. I don't know, you can tell me better. I thought the field played fantastic. It looked like -
Grant Wahl:
Yeah.
Landon Donovan:
... the ball moved well. The grass was decent. Looked like it was maybe wet. So from that standpoint I thought it was ideal conditions. I can't tell what the humidity and heat and all that is like.
Grant Wahl:
It was there.
Landon Donovan:
But it looked like a game where whoever made the play was going to win the game, and the U.S. just never looked dangerous on the night. For whatever reason. There were just a lack of chances overall in the game. And then you can hear our buddy Alexi Lalas just screaming "set pieces, set pieces, set pieces!" And that ended up being the dagger and the difference between the points.
Chris Wittyngham:
You mentioned the utter lack of chances, there isn't a single shot on target. The expected goals figure is by far the lowest of the Berhalter era. Paul Carr had that last night. And that was just kind of indicative of a performance... I actually thought there were a couple times where the playing surface did kind of come into play. I thought there was one moment where Yunus Musah is just carrying the ball through midfield and the ball just kind of gets stuck. It almost like it bounced up on a hill oddly enough. And then he just gives it away.
I think Yunus Musah in particular struggled to get acclimatized to the conditions over the course of the first 15, 20 minutes. I thought he was okay towards the latter half of the first half and then got subbed off at halftime. You look at this team and the starting lineup, and obviously the lineup choices were a big part of the conversation before and after the game given that they lost.
There were just a bunch of complimentary pieces out there. There wasn't anyone that was going to grab the game and do something with it. And so even towards the end of the game, Cristian Roldan came on and look, it's a difficult spot, but we just kept punting long balls that went nowhere. There were a bunch of players that I think fit really well into a team. But there was no star man out there that was going to take the game by the scruff of the neck and create chances. It's a very old expression, but there wasn't anyone out there who was going to create anything. There weren't creators on the field. Brenden Aaronson did his best. Ricardo Pepi did his best, but there just wasn't enough in the buildup going forward.
Grant Wahl:
I will say, Chris, right near where the sprinklers were on the field, there were a couple of spots, including the one you referred to with Yunus Musah, where it was wet just around the sprinkler area. Where you could actually see a bit of a trail of water when the ball went through those spots. Otherwise the field was in good shape. It's a sand-based field. They're used to dealing with stuff here. It's a much better surface, actually, than the one in El Salvador.
I do think on your point with Yunus Musah as well this was his first game away in World Cup qualifying ever. And so when one of these guys who plays in the manicured fields and in the conditions that they have in Spain, in La liga, it's kind of like what happened with Sergiño Dest when he played his first qualifier in El Salvador and he had this look on his face of what is this?
I think Yunus Musah dealt with that to some extent against Panama. Seven changes from Gregg Berhalter in this game. And my feeling is you obviously needed to make some changes to the starting lineup. I don't think you needed to make seven. And I don't think Tyler Adams needed to sit. This is a player who plays for Leipzig, which is one of the fittest teams in the world.
He's a guy who played all three games for 90 minutes last month. And my opinion is he's the most indispensable U.S. player. We saw what happened when Tyler Adams was not in the central midfield in Honduras. And the U.S. really struggled when he was at right back. Got moved centrally eventually and had a big impact on that game. And the U.S.'s central midfield with Musah, [Kellyn] Acosta and Sebastian Lletget, that was one of the poorest U.S. central midfield performances I've seen in a long time.
Chris Wittyngham:
I saw a stat this morning that they only completed 11 passes amongst each other in the first half of that game, which is startling. And I actually do slightly want to push back on this overall narrative about the squad rotation, including Tyler Adams. Because Tyler Adams did play all three games in the window and then got hurt at Leipzig. And it was kind of touch and go whether or not he was going to be available for this window.
And so I do think that you do need to rotate the squad. And sometimes seven changes are required and we've talked so much about the Gold Cup during the summer was about trying to find pieces that could potentially fill in in these kind of moments. And the pool of players is deeper than it's ever been. And so I do think you have to trust the pool, and still in theory the talent level is better than Panama's.
It just is. And so in theory, those guys should be able to play together. And yet Sebastian Lletget did nothing in terms of creating going forward. That front three is a bunch of tryhard, but not really a ton of end product. I thought Tim Weah is still coming along as a player. He wasn't ready to be the anchor of an attack.
[Paul] Arriola and [Gyasi] Zardes work hard. Their movement is good, but just don't have the composure to really help the team and build up. I just thought that in theory, Gregg Berhalter should be able to trust his squad. And it was the first time that he’s tried it so far in a World Cup qualifying game. All right, I'm going to trust the full depth of my squad, and they let them down. I think it's more about those players and not necessarily the decision.
Landon Donovan:
Yeah. Chris, You used the key phrase, though. You said they should be able to play together. And the problem is, and this is what we're finding out now with these three-game weeks and being exposed a little bit with what the hardest part about the national team job is for Berhalter is you just don't have time to build continuity with players. So you can sprinkle in some changes. But the reality is, I don't know this a hundred percent, but my guess is that Acosta, Musah and Lletget have never played together, right? Those three.
Grant Wahl:
Right.
Landon Donovan:
And there's so many different combinations you can play. But they've not played together. And so to do it for the first time in Panama against a team that maybe is inferior talent wise but a team that basically the same players always play, and you see the difference. And that's what we're learning about these three-game weeks. And it's hard. It is hard to manage. And as we go through qualifying, we'll see probably adjustments from all the different coaches, Gregg included, about how you handle these.
Maybe when the team comes in... I remember Bruce did this one year where we had a three-game week for something. And he literally had one team together the whole week and the other team together the whole week. So that they were just working together and getting reps together. And he just made 11 changes. He just changed everybody. So they at least are playing together and get used to each other. It's hard when you sprinkle in a few different new guys, and you see the results of that. There's just no continuity.
Grant Wahl:
That's exactly what Arena did four years ago, remember, when they had Trinidad and Tobago at home and then at Mexico. And he told guys the second they arrived you're going to be playing in this game. You're going to be starting this game, and we're going to make major rotations. I do think Gregg Berhalter is going to have a harder time trusting his depth moving forward after what happened last night.
Landon Donovan:
Yeah, I think that's fair. But again I'm coming at it from a coach's angle now. It's hard to judge them accurately in that situation. Because if you sprinkle one or two guys in with the same group who played on Thursday against Jamaica, if you sprinkle one or two guys in, it's a lot easier for them to show well. When you make seven changes it makes it really tricky. So it's a challenging proposition. But also there's just physical reasons you can't play. Obviously Weston [McKennie for muscle soreness] had to stay back. It just makes it tricky. And this is the challenge of these three-game weeks. And we're seeing it up close in person now.
Chris Wittyngham:
Is the solution kind of what Gregg did yesterday? Once it went wrong in the first staff, he made two changes at halftime and three changes on 65 minutes, is almost that the way to freshen up a team? Is you keep picking the same starting 11, that plays for an hour. But the way that you keep it rotated is by making wholesale changes pretty early in second halves rather than kind of holding your subs until late. And that's how you keep a squad fresh with minutes.
Grant Wahl:
One thing Greg Berhalter did tell us in the post game was how he approached his subs. And he said "because you have five subs available, you can do more planning of subs." Which is how they approached it. They wanted to get 45 minutes for Aaronson, 45 minutes for Arriola, 45 minutes for Tyler Adams. And so they were able to plan those out.
Landon Donovan:
Yeah, I was just going to say the same thing. One thing we did, and I want to make a clear distinction that we're not playing in World Cup qualifiers. But a couple weeks ago we had a three-game week, and we were able to just split a couple guys 45 minutes, and you can plan that ahead of time. So at halftime even though you might not want to take a guy off the field, you do it because you know you need them for all three games during the weekend. And it sounds like that's what Greg did.
Grant Wahl:
I look at this game as well. And once again, the U.S.'s first-half performance was pretty poor. And this seems like a trend. When was the last time we saw a good first-half performance from the U.S., and what's causing that?
Chris Wittyngham:
They haven't scored in a first half in eight games. And so that's not your eyes lying to you. That is what's happening. And I do think that it has something to do with what we've talked about, which is a lack of continuity. A lack of several game-on-game reps. And it seems like the coaches and the players are figuring out solutions as the game goes along. Which you can say is a criticism of the manager, but it is also just part of the reality of the situation. They do take 55, 60 minutes to get in gear under this coach. You go back to the Gold Cup and that feels the same as well.
It's going back to those group-stage games where the U.S. scored goals in first halves, including I think a first-minute goal against Canada was probably their last first-half goal. But it has been a real struggle just in terms of coming out of the gates and the team looking like they're buzzing around and playing with verve and confidence. Even against Jamaica, there were moments where Jamaica put them under pressure, where Jamaica didn't allow them to play very much, and was like it's full 10-minute stretches that get away from you. That feels like it happens a lot with the U.S. where it's like 10 minutes went by and nothing happened. And that's a real source of frustration in watching the games is why doesn't it look like the U.S. from the off are ready to play?
Landon Donovan:
I would make the point it's what I mentioned a few weeks ago with you guys is in these games you just have to pile on pressure over time. And it seems like for whatever reason the U.S. don't do that from the beginning. They're content to sort of play a little bit of a chess match and see what's going to happen. But every minute that gets away is valuable. And you see that a little bit last night. You saw it in El Salvador. You have to have the ability to pile on pressure from the beginning. Especially when you're playing at home. It just has to be 90 minutes of relentless pressure until the teams crack. And if they crack in the first minute, great. They crack in the 80th minute, great. But it seems like there's a little bit of hesitancy to really go out and get after teams from the first minute.
And that's part of Gregg a little bit is he is a little more, I don't want to use the word tactical in that way, but he's a little more observant probably in the early parts of the games and seeing what kind of adjustments he's going to make. But I think Costa Rica's a great example on Wednesday. They just need to be under pressure from the first minute. They are coming off two hard games, and they need to be put under pressure from the first minute if you're going to score goals.
Grant Wahl:
I want to ask about set pieces. You've alluded to it briefly earlier, Landon. Usually set pieces both at the attacking end and the defensive end the U.S. has the advantage over its opponents. And that really wasn't the case against Panama. Really poor deliveries at the attacking end. Mostly from Kellyn Acosta I thought. Who admitted after the game, he sort of fronted up and said "I was poor today," which I admired that, at least he came and spoke to the media.
But at the defensive end as well, and this includes on the goal, not as good as we're used to seeing from the U.S. And I don't know... I always have an issue when people just go off on zonal marking on set pieces because the problem is not zonal marking to me. The problem is bad marking whether you're doing it zonally or man-to-man. but where do you guys stand on this U.S. set piece performance at both ends?
Landon Donovan:
Well there's no such thing as zonal marking. There's zonal defending, but there's no such thing as zonal marking. So the issue with zonal is that you're not marking anyone, right? And that's what you saw last night. And I could tell by the Panamanian reaction, all of them, that that was something they were very, very aware of. And that was planned and worked on over and over. And it came to fruition for them. I'm not personally a fan of it. We don't do it with our team.
It lets guys off the hook as far as dealing with just a moment where you have to just man to man deal with someone and mark them. It's just an individual dual. And then it was also a challenge because the zone also didn't adjust to where Panama ended up lining up. So I think Gyasi is at the near post and moving the zone forward a little bit and then a little deeper to the goal. Because there were guys just standing there unmarked. And against top teams or teams that practice that or have good delivery you can get absolutely crushed for that. And it ended up being the difference between one point, three points or in this case zero points.
Chris Wittyngham:
And I think the argument against it is Sebastian Lletget's role in that play. He's the first man in the zone. Aníbal Godoy goes behind him, and Lletget barely reacts because he's looking at the ball. He's kind of recognizing what's going on. He's like, all right, there's nothing here. I don't need to attack this ball. And what Landon is saying is if you're man-marking and that's your man, you go attack the ball because that's your man.
There has to be a reason. I know that Michael Cox of The Athletic has done a lot of studies into that. He goes by ZonalMarking on Twitter. And there has to be a reason why all the best managers in the world prefer this system. But I think it does abdicate some responsibility. And in that moment, it just looked like the U.S. was weaker on set pieces, and that's never a characteristic that we've ever seen from them before. It's that Zardes and Lletget kind of looked helpless to stop it. And that's a bad spot to be in for those guys in particular.
Landon Donovan:
But the problem is, Chris, when you're in a zonal defending ... it didn't seem in this case that there was autonomy to make a decision needed in the moment to put out the fire. And you need the autonomy somewhere on the field to say okay, this is not a good situation. These are high-level pros with hundreds of games of experience to say, this is dangerous. We need to adjust this in the moment.
And the problem when you get stuck into a zonal defending concept is you don't have those adjustments and you can't make those adjustments. And I would still say on the field if Sebastian sees that, even though they're not supposed to do X, Y, and Z. You’ve got to say okay, this is dangerous, I need to change something here.
Chris Wittyngham:
And that would actually be my biggest criticism of Gregg Berhalter as a manager is I think because he is so detail-oriented, he digs into coaching and tactics so much, I do kind of wonder if at times it's paralysis by analysis. And I think that he sets his team out with instructions. And I don't think gives that team the latitude to adjust right. Or the latitude to, hey I'm in the game, I'm recognizing that. It just seems like we're sticking to Greg Berhalter's plan. And when it doesn't go well, you kind of see a group of players without personality and without the ability to go on the road in Panama and really attack their opposition. That would be my biggest criticism with a lot of these kinds of managers is they are so wed to their ideas that there isn't a lot of room for improvising by the players on the field.
Grant Wahl:
I do think it's an interesting criticism because I think we heard it more earlier in Gregg Berhalter's tenure, even from Bruce Arena. I don't know if you guys remember when Arena said that Berhalter was trying to coach the U.S. national team like a club team and filling them with too much information. Which surprised me a little bit that he said that publicly. There's a famous picture of Berhalter at a whiteboard early in his tenure with these U.S. players, showing them all these things. And there's some looks of confusion on the U.S. players' faces.
I'm also writing an email right now to Michael Cox, the terrific tactics writer Chris mentioned at The Athletic. Telling him that his whole brand name Zonal Marking needs to be changed according to Landon Donovan. Let's look ahead guys. Wednesday night, Columbus, Ohio, no longer the home of USA-Mexico. It's the home of USA-Costa Rica. New stadium. And what is the most important thing in your mind for the U.S. to be thinking about approaching this game where three points is really important? And this was the home fixture again, Costa Rica last time that resulted in a loss in what my opinion was the biggest decisive factor in the U.S. not qualifying last time.
Landon Donovan:
So I was trying to do some math last night, even though I didn't graduate high school [laughs]. I was trying to figure out that I think about 23 points or so qualifies you just based on where we are so far. Now it's not perfect because you haven't played every team. But I was going through all the games, and in qualifying now that it's this long, you can probably slip twice on the road, maybe even three times, and still get there. But you can't slip at home more than once or twice, that's the problem. And the Canada game you could say was a slip-up a little bit. You can live with one point, but they don't really have the luxury now of losing any more points.
You can't guarantee that Mexico at home is going to be three points. So this game becomes crucial, and not only in the points, but in how they approach the game. And I think the mentality from the beginning of the game... I mean not scoring a first half goal in eight games, that starts to wear on you a little bit emotionally as a team. And if Costa Rica somehow sneak a goal in the first half, it could get really, really challenging in the second half. So I think the energy and mentality after not bringing it great against Panama is really crucial. And then as far as the table goes, this is a really important three points to get.
Chris Wittyngham:
Four points from three away from home is not a bad return in CONCACAF World Cup qualifying. So I do think like, you do have to have that perspective, but Gregg Berhalter by making seven changes ahead of this one against Panama is putting a lot of pressure on himself and the team for this Costa Rica game. Basically saying we're putting all of our chips and all of our best players in on these two home games. We want to win the two home games, and there is a lot of pressure. And I actually think that despite how bad this performance was in Panama that the U.S. will be okay. I think they're okay at home. The Canada game was frustrating. The Jamaica game was decent.
I actually think that this team is pretty well suited to play at home. My frustration, even despite the decent results in terms of sheer number of points won away from home, is I do get really annoyed that the U.S. goes away from home and they seem like they have forgotten everything that they know about soccer. And simple first touches are terrible. It's so frustrating.
It's like why are you punting the ball 30 yards ahead of its intended target? Why does it seem like the U.S. struggles to play so much away from home? Again, I think they'll be okay in this game against Costa Rica. I think they'll probably win. They'll look much better than they did on Sunday. But I still have questions about just how bad they are away from home. Just how listless that performance was against Panama.
Grant Wahl:
I think it's also worth pointing out just being in the stadium yesterday that's not the most threatening environment ever here in Panama. There's a track around the field. The people are actually pretty welcoming, and it's not like playing at Azteca. And so if guys on this U.S. team were struggling because of the atmosphere, that doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense to me. But yeah, it's a big game coming up here.
I don't know if we actually mentioned yet. The U.S. is still in second place in the tournament behind Mexico. Three points behind Mexico now, tied on points with Panama, but ahead on goal difference. Canada one point behind after their tie with Jamaica. Before we sign off, should we be looking in any different ways now at the U.S.’s 2-0 win over Jamaica? Is there any sort of revisionist history based on what happened in Panama where you're like, oh wait, that Jamaica game was probably the easiest fixture of the 14 in this tournament: at home against the last-place team. And the U.S. kind of struggled in the first half. Or are you still feeling the same way about the Jamaica win as you did before?
Landon Donovan:
I'll say what I said against El Salvador away. When teams still have hope, it's much more challenging. So Jamaica, a lot of the Jamaican players have played against our U.S. players that were on the field that day. Kemar Lawrence has played against almost every one of those guys. So they didn't fear it for sure. In the end the U.S. were the better team and showed it. But Jamaica still had and still has hope for a little bit. As we get to the end of the cycle, Panama looks like they're moving pretty well right now. But it could be that a few teams, El Salvador, Jamaica, they will be buried probably eight or nine games in when the U.S. might see them again.
So you'll see a different look, a different performance, different energy from the teams we play against. But at this point this is everything for a lot of these teams. Everything. This is their World Cup final, everything. You saw the reaction last night from Panama. This is their World Cup final. Beating the U.S., there's no bigger scalp they can get. And it means those players have an opportunity maybe to play in MLS. And now they have maybe an opportunity to go to a World Cup. So you have to take that into account. Always, always, always. It's just part of the puzzle.
Chris Wittyngham:
There were actually a couple players. I was really impressed with for Panama last night. And I would also very briefly,...I don't know how big our audience is in Panama, but I do think we should still give them a modicum of credit for the performance that they put in yesterday. We even -
Landon Donovan:
Absolutley.
Grant Wahl:
... been entirely focused on what the U.S. didn't do. But what Panama did do is play with an intense amount of energy. There were guys out there who were not awed by their opposition. Cristian Martínez, a central midfield player who is himself a substitute for an injured central midfield player, [Adalberto] Carrasquilla for Panama, put in a great performance, the number eight for Panama. The wide player [Freddy] Góndola, number 17, was great as well. There were a couple of really good individual performances in that Panama side. Their manager, Thomas Christiansen, has some European pedigree, and it was a real coup when Panama got him.
And as you can tell... Like he said before the game, we want to be aggressive. We want to go for it and create chances. This is our game. We have to take it to them, and they did. And so you do have to credit them. I haven't seen Costa Rica a ton in this World Cup qualifying window, but their results have not been very good. They did come from behind to beat El Salvador. But in terms of looking back on the Jamaica performance, I do think you have to see the warning signs when they're there. And just because they win, ignore them, right?
You do have to see, first half didn't look great. I'm always someone who judges performances rather than results. And I think the Jamaica performance is kind of like a five and a half out of 10. And you have to see the warning signs that are there before the next game and say "oh hey they played really well. So they’ll go win in Panama." That's not how that works.
Landon Donovan:
One thing that I would say worried me last night: When Panama scored the goal, I was watching the players and their reaction was that they had won the game. And there were still 40 minutes to go. And I could see them going into the game saying "if we score a goal, we will win the game." They did not fear the U.S. team scoring. They did not. I could just see it in the way they reacted when they scored the goal.
And they knew it was lights out and the game was over, and that's not a good sign when opponents feel that way. And that was very telling to me. So the U.S. need to absolutely pour on the pressure against Costa Rica, and teams need to fear the U.S. again. That is a big piece of what the U.S. has psychologically over a lot of these teams. And I saw in Panama's eyes last night that they thought we won the game after they scored the goal.
Chris Wittyngham:
As long as we're doing one last observation, what is it with CONCACAF's relationship with stoppage time? Seven minutes get shown on the board. Twice the referee points to his watch. There were two pitch invaders, and the whistle sounded on 97:01. And I don't understand why there is no latitude for added-on time and added on time. I don't get it.
Grant Wahl:
Some of the best CONCACAFing I've ever seen toward the end of that game last night, with pitch invaders, with ballboys kicking balls away under the stands late in the game, multiple balls coming onto the fields late in the game during a break. And you know -
Chris Wittyngham:
One of them nearly snuffed out a second Panama goal!
Landon Donovan:
Right.
Grant Wahl:
It is something to behold in Panama, and I think Panama might be toward the top of the list of the dark arts masters of CONCACAF. On that note guys, let's do this again after Wednesday's game against Costa Rica. Thanks so much for joining me.
Chris Wittyngham:
Thanks Grant.
Landon Donovan:
All right. We need a bounce back Wednesday. Let's go.