USMNT: The Weston McKennie conundrum

Weston McKennie scored hat-trick in the USMNT’s 7-0 win over Cuba on Friday night. The midfielder poses a unique conundrum: he is a box-to-box midfielder who is best in advanced areas.

Weston McKennie is one of the primary talents in the U.S. Men’s National Team set-up. For some time, the central midfielder has been one of the most touted names of the Gregg Berhalter era. And given his natural ability, ever since he broke through at FC Dallas and moved to Germany as a teenager, there was good reason for it.

What McKennie represents is a very modern midfielder. He has all of the tools that you would want in a present-time central midfielder. Extremely athletic and mobile, highly capable in tight spaces and a calm, composed, accurate and consistent passer.

But there is one problem: he also scores goals.

While goalscoring central midfielders were the talk of the town just a decade ago, nowadays, with the influx of 4-3-3 shapes and inverted wingers where the goals are more completely scored by the front three, it has become more customary for central midfielders to offer control and command, not goals and game-changing moments.

McKennie has the quality to play that role. He is a capable enough player to conduct such control in central zones. But it seems a little foolish to ask him to play in this manner when it might undermine the number of goals that he can score.

After his historic hat-trick in Friday night’s 7-0 victory over Cuba, McKennie spoke about the offensive freedom that he is enjoying under new manager David Wagner at Schalke:

"“He’s more on the attacking side and wants us to play our style. He always says that he gives us ideas, it’s not something we just have to stick to, he understands that we have our own individual qualities that we can apply to the game and he wants us to do that. In a way he has a leash on us, but he lets us free sometimes, too.”"

It is this attacking license that allows McKennie to be so dangerous with his late runs into the box. USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter echoed the same sentiment:

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"“[Wagner] has ideas that they want to get Weston involved, he wants him arriving late in the penalty box, being an attacking midfielder, so there are a lot of similarities.”"

It is a nice problem to have. The unique goalscoring abilities of McKennie are what make him so special. You do not want to take it away from him. But against better teams, his natural offensive make-up could be exploited, his late runs into box turned against them on the counter-attack. In a 4-3-3, the positional balance of the attacking most central midfielder is vital to a well-structured team, and McKennie must prove that he can play with the required nous and guile to proficiently fulfil the responsibilities of a goalscoring, box-to-box role.

For now, it seems as though Berhalter is at peace to let McKennie go. And against opponents Cuba, that is all well and good. But what happens when you play better teams, with more tactically astute midfielders who can contain spaces and release counters? That is when the McKennie conundrum surfaces.

It remains to be seen how Berhalter uses McKennie moving forward. But for now, he is a premier USMNT talent, even if some uncertainties come with his usage.