Absolutely. Tactically, the team that played Ghana after the Feilhaber substitution is similar to what I have in mind. Imo you want play makers on the outside who can play the ball in front of the backline.
All I m saying is don't compare friendlies to World Cup matches. Teams usually arive a day before the match and experiment during it. For the world cup you camp for an extended period and play with your best. Apples and Oranges
How much success have we against Brazil in friendlies? Players come to play. Friendlies are a great opportunity to evaluate players and tactics. A player's position on a team can rise and fall based on performances in friendlies. Scouts watch friendlies. Friendlies aren't the same as competitive matches but they aren't nothing. Is it relevant that Mexico, a fellow Concacaf power, has had success outside of Azteca against West African teams? Yes it does.
Asamoah Gyan scores a lot of poacher goals. Haven't seen any special skill. All athleticism. Kwado Asamoah (Juve) has more skill on the ball. Clearly left-footed. They are just really direct. Jones playing well and breaking up plays would be huge.
Good post. Circulate the ball well and accurately and observe discipline which is the Mexican way. Eventually, Jozy will let loose with a canon shot from a withdrawn position that is unstoppable, USA 1-0 Ghana The bad news for Ghana is that this is not your father's USMNT.
Because, in particular, their midfielders' strength, speed and quickness stands out to me when I watch clips of their games? I think I know the point you're trying to infer, and it's pretty insulting.
Unfortunately you'll continue to see this up through the World Cup. Athletic = African. Ghana will be continually be referred to as the most athletic team in the group, just like Cameroon is the most athletic team in Group A, etc...In the soccer world, athletic = black.
I don't find Ghana to be any faster than many other teams, and the other two teams in the group are incredibly fast. Cristiano Ronaldo is fast as hell, and strong as hell, and quick as a rabbit. Guess what, no one ever calls him athletic. I'm guessing most people aren't trying to be overtly racist, but athletic is about as subjective a description that you can use for soccer players, most certainly at the World Cup level. There are very few athletes in the world who have the athleticism of a soccer player representing his country in the World Cup. For some reason, incredible athletes like Mesmut Ozil, or Lionel Messi, or Landon Donovan (who is a freak athlete) - to name just a few incredible athletes - or any host of white players are almost never referred to as athletic. Since this group was announced, saying Ghana was the most athletic team of the group was the most predictable commentary to come out since England having an EASY draw last time around.
CR7 is just about the prototype for "athletic". The guy is like chiseled out of stone. If you went into a lab to design the perfect physical player, he'd be it. I get that people tend to use "athletic" as a lazy adjective. Pretty much every single player at the World Cup is really athletic to the point of making most other athletes look like couch potatoes. That isn't what I'm setting out to do in the least, though. One can believe that the other teams are really athletic (go ahead and look up my past posts on the US workrate if you like) and yet still consider Ghana to be overall the most athletic of the 4. I think their midfield is faster than any other midfield in the group. They cover a lot of ground and transition well. Their mids aren't knocked off the ball very easily. This is my own opinion based on the games I've seen of each side. Keep in mind my post was: Note that that doesn't make any reference to technical quality or race.
Well, for years in the soccer world athletic = USMNT, to be fair. So perhaps US = Africa! A continental shift.
'athletic' when applied to the US has meant 'high work-rate'. When foreigners elaborate that is typically what they're referring to, and the US are typically near the top of tourney rankings in distance covered. Michael Bradley had some of the fastest recorded times at one of the tourneys. Jones is very pacey. As are Donovan and Fabian Johnson. There isn't much shake and bake in the Ghanian midfield, but they do bring the power. http://www.us.terra.com/sports/worl...,00-Top+fastest+players+in+the+World+cup.html The ten fastest players at the '10 Cup. Not one Ghanian, but there were two Americans who made the list.
The Japanese short-passing style is often described as "mathematical." Not only by the US-media. Like it or not, racial/ethnic stereotypes are used all over. Sometimes they're right on the money though. The Japanese are indeed very mathematical in their passing, and the Ghanaians fast as heck. The Americans are effective, but our football gets about as much praise for its esthetics as our food does for its sophistication. Basically, zero in both.
Well, the Ghanaians are not just speed, but fast in the two aspects: legs and upstairs. The opposite of Findley, who kept running until the line, but the brain had not formed a plan yet...
Those speed ratings aren't worth much, IMO, because they mean: players who had the opportunity or necessity (or stupidity) to sprint a fairly long distance in a completely straight line. Those are the players who will have the highest recorded speeds. As for the questions that always come up as to why West Africans in particular should have the stereotype of being fast, there's always that little thing about "494 out of the 500 best-ever 100-metre sprint times are held by athletes primarily of West African origin," from the brutally frankly titled book, "Why Whites Run Slower." I would say speed and power together are a pretty universal definition of the general term "athletic." Think Brek Shea. Gyan athletically owned our CBs in that overtime play in 2010, which is why we had to go home.
The current ghanaian GK is a bench warmer in the South African premiership, however it should be noted that they have a relatively young up and coming, half-Norwegian GK, who captained his side , this year, to its Norwegian first premier league title since 1970. He wasn't spectacular during his last match with is NT against Turkey and he's not the starting keeper , but had a excellent performance against the only top -10 team he played against: Brazil (a friendly). He has been tipped to an England move this january (but to be honest, these are only rumours, since his club his qualified for the next UCL) and might be the starting GK against the US which I think will be an improvement from the current one.
Again, circulating the ball well to set up a good probability shot on goal from Jozy - no longer a teenager - or Dempsey with a sterling EPL career and new guy Johannsson will likely see us get the goal(s) we did not get in 2010 against a gk not used to quality shots like that.
Is Kingson that bad? I remember the Nigerian goalkeeper being MOM against Argentina in 2010, and he was playing in the Israeli league.
Nobody has really tried to define athleticism or considered that it has many components and that the importance of individual components vary by position. Some of the components may include: Speed Strength Reaction time Flexibility Peripheral vision Also, what is "mathematical passing"? Sounds like an algebra class passing around a crib note.
Ghanaians are 'fast as heck' yet tend to be employed on the best teams as center mids. I'm against lazy thinking.
Quite a number of the top speed ratings went to forwards and wingers. Henry and Walcott were the fastest players during they respective times at Arsenal. Speed matters. But acceleration matters more. Speed matters but it isn't everything. Soccer isn't 100 meter sprinting, which is why I frequently use the term 'soccer athletics'. The past two Cup champions; Spain and Italy. Not a whole lot melanin there.
How much of a differece does it make that Asamoah, Essien, Muntary, Gyan are four years older? It seems that we've got two teams that aren't hugely different than they were in 2010, but have a core that is four years older. Is our advantage in the new younger players we've added that Ghana doesn't seem to have?