Within 20 minutes, the harsh reality the United States men’s national team has faced throughout 2018 reared its head yet again.
But this time, there was no glimmer of hope to take out of the 3-0 loss to England at Wembley Stadium.
Unlike the beacon of positivity glimmering from the English program with a new head coach in place, the young USMNT struggled to find an identity once again with interim manager Dave Sarachan in the unenviable position of guiding the collection of bright talent.
Entering the contest, there was hope the midfield trio of Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Christian Pulisic would get a rare opportunity to showcase their talents together, but the USMNT staff in its wisest decision of the night, decided to keep Adams out of the starting XI after a high volume of production Sunday for the New York Red Bulls.
Pulisic, who was playing in his first international game since May and second of the calendar year produced a few moments of individual brilliance, but since he was slotted out on the wing by Sarachan, he wasn’t able to make as large of an impact as he should’ve on the USMNT attack.
Sarachan allowed Pulisic to play on the wing because that’s where he plays for Borussia Dortmund, but most would argue the 20-year-old is best suited as a No. 10.
“We need to get better as a team,” Pulisic said. “We talk about continuing to gain experience, but that’s not why we’re here. We want to win now. We want to win these games. It wasn’t good enough.”
But at this stage in the process of rebuilding after the World Cup. Sarachan can’t be the main person to blame for the alignment of the squad.
The former LA Galaxy assistant is doing the best he can in a position no one thought he’d occupy for more than a year.
U.S. Soccer has yet to hire a permanent head coach despite general manager Earnie Stewart being in the position for three months.
The federation is continuing to do its fans and players a disservice by prolonging the coaching search, even with Columbus Crew manager Gregg Berhalter being the primary candidate mentioned in the conversation for the job.
Even Pulisic mentioned after the game that Sarachan is a tough position because the USMNT lacks a true identity.
“Dave’s doing what he can,” Pulisic said. “He wants to win these games too, just like we do. It’s going to help a lot when we get a permanent coach moving forward, a guy who has a real plan and a style of how we want to play.”
It’s only going to get worse before it gets better, which is something that is hard to hear about a program that’s been on a spiral since the October 2017 bottoming out in Trinidad and Tobago.
The future isn’t bleak given the amount of talented players already appearing in valuable minutes for the USMNT, but until the direction is firmly set in place, there’s little reason to believe in the promise this team presents.
Whoever the new manager is will have a January camp with MLS and Scandinavian-based players to start instituting his style of play, but the first international break with a full complement of players won’t come until March.
That’s four months before the 2019 Concacaf Gold Cup, and many months too late for the USMNT to kick the wheels in motion on rebuilding toward 2022.