US-Mexico: General Postgame Thread(R)

I'm sorry, but expecting people to not use 'the' just because the word "league" is buried in another position in the acronym is far stupider than following the American convention of prepending the word 'the' in front of a league's name when referring to it as a singular noun.

When it comes to common usage, the common people win every time - by definition

The better we play the easier it will be for us to get a seed. The good thing with Klinsmann is getting the chance to play top opposition gives us the opportunity to climb up quickly. Winning the Gold Cup in 2013 and coming first in the Hex could make it interesting.

I agree. A lot of shifting will occur as many teams will play in tournaments and their rankings will drop.

Goes to show how in football the most important guy is the coach.

JK outsmarted Chepo. Even though, on paper, Mexico was closer to a full A-team.

It was a superb example of confounding. The first half the US was keeping it 0-0 and saving energy. They didn't even use the open roads left for them to attack. Everything was about not leaving spaces (not even enough for long shots) and having a perfect offside trap (without the likes of Mike Bradley, Gooch, Boca and Rico Clark, this was a lot easier).

Reminded me of a team I admired: Paraguay under Tata Martino. Same way to not leave open spaces, to frustrate, to man-mark and be annoying, to waste the possibility of attacking until the time is ripe. Horrible to watch, though. You don't want to see the USA playing every game like this.

But JK wanted a win in the Azteca. At whatever cost. And playing ugly was the price to pay. LD was sacrificed in a way: he had a knock, in the end was mainly defending, and from the start I think the plan was not to keep him for the second.

That also allowed for another tactic very much Martino style: never focusing the game on one player. Big mistake by Brazil of late, when playing Mexico: all the magic is expected from Neymar, so the balls sooner of later find him. Which means Mexico knows, beforehand, one of the people who _will_ be involved in the attack.

Make sure to dispossess Neymar, and the attack will always be interrupted. USA in Azteca always played through Donovan. Well, time to change that. You cannot play a team like Mexico while giving them the advantage of knowing one of the steps in nearly all your attacks.

The goal came from the side they didn't expect it. Took them by surprise. USA had been playing dead most of the game, and only came alive to score, basically. Another little Martino-style trick.

Just don't make it habit playing like that. Paraguay always left everybody scratching their heads at the end. It's so ugly, you don't really care about understanding what they did. But it wins games. They did it to the USA too, remember? The psych formula is simple: if the other guy has all the control in the world, but fails to score, little by little he loses it, loses control, goes for the kill.

And then is when they make the mistake.

So they usually scored either very early (Klinsmann also tried that, first five minutes!), and after that it was parking the bus. Or kept the 0-0 until late, with a killing goal near the end. Or (even worse, and fairly often) just went for the penalty shoot-out, where they never lost. Superb tactical stuff, but boring as heck to watch.

Oops, I should have known that. Thanks for the correction.

That does emphasize my other point, though... which is that the rankings are rigged to where it's nearly impossible for the U.S. (or Mexico) to rise high enough, long enough to merit seeding.

It's premature to say even that. It may end up being the case that after the seeds and UEFA are taken into account, no groups work out to produce even pots, and they have to do something special like group AFC and CONCACAF but have a special drawing to put both an AFC and a CONCACAF team into a group.

I'll bet you a lot of money (well, at least what's to me a lot of money) right now that if non-seeded CONCACAF and AFC wind up making 8 all total, we'll be in the same Pot. FIFA will want to smooth out the groups by creating one "weak" Pot, and the best way to do that is to put CONCACAF and AFC together.

I see it slight different, how many usual starters where missing - DOLO, BOCA, GOODSON, MB, DEMPSEY, ALTIDORE. That is 6 of a possible 11 starters, that is more than half the team, and to compound it even more you had a couple of players playing new positions for the Mexico game....EDU (CB) and JOHNSON (RB). You have to give credit to the way our boys pull this off.

Firstly, I do give the team and JK credit for a brave performance and victory. The US was the weaker side compared to Mexico, and at Azteca. A real triumph.

Secondly, Altidore has not been JK's primary starting striker recently, prefering Gomez, who has performed well as a starter in multiple games this year. While I personally favor Altidore over Gomez, my feelings don't override the reality that Gomez has been a Klinsman A-team player recently. And Goodson is purely a rotational starter, not a lock starter.

As I wrote in my post, 6 of the 11 starters were common A-team starters for the US: Howard, Edu, Jones, Johnson, Donovan, and Gomez. Three more players were rotational starters for the US under Klinsman, just like Goodson: Torres, Cameron, and Beckerman. 9 of 11 starters at Azteca have been common starting players for Klinsi. That's not a B or B- team in my book.

Hasn't Danny Williams started pretty much every game he's been available for us since his first cap as well? (His club refused to let him play during his most recent call-up prior to this.)

http://inagist.com/all/236171264748838914/

Outside of Gio, I am trying hard to find out who else was missing from their top team. A U-23 star? Vela and Jon Dos Santos? Marco Fabian wasn't playing. Don't Vela y JDS have a beef with the FMF?

COME AT ME BRO!
Love Boyd's enthusiasm. He just looks so proud to don the US kit.

I won't take that bet, because I agree with you. I was focusing on the case where they don't add up to eight. Depending on exactly how the numbers work out, I wouldn't be surprised to see CONCACAF and AFC grouped even in that instance, with some kind of a special draw to handle the excess team---probably peeling the highest-ranked of the lot off into their own special pot.

Yeah, we definitely have a soldier in Boyd. I love to see this.

Their 3 overage players - Jose Corona, Carlos Salcido and Oribe Peralta. Giovani Dos Santos, of course. And probably 1-2 of their more impressive Gold Olympians who get to jump to the full squad.

While the US was missing 5 starters, as well as several less pivotal players like Goodson.

I think it balanced out.

We missed Bradley and Dempsey for sure, but would the other guys have helped much? Cameron/Edu possibly gave the best combined CB performance since Klinsmann took over. Castillo was adequate on the left and Johnson did really well on the right, which was the more important side for this game. Orozco may not have played with a more full roster. Beckerman did pretty well playing DM in place of Edu. I think Altidore is a better overall player than Boyd, but I don't think he would have made the play that led to the goal.

One thing that was really nice about this win is that it showed we could try some different guys and some of the same old guys in different roles and be successful. This will give us a more options for how we can possibly line up in future games.

Yup.
Or ability to mix n match under Klinnsy is something he as a coach brings to the table. The Bruce was like this. His shifts in line ups often threw opposing coaches for a bit which they didn't see coming from such a younger soccer culture. Klinnsy is so experienced that he moves the pieces around the board with ease. Imho this caught an overconfident el Tri off guard. Combine that with them thinking the stadium and recent gold medal would carry the day...it all worked in the German's favor.
Just get our best technically talented guys out there and let them answer the call to perform.
Bang! A win at the monster.

I'm not so sure on your second point. I believe Jozy was not selected as a starter due to club commitments and then being out of form.

Today Jozy had another brace which makes it 4 goals in 2 games. I guess we will know for sure in the Jamaica game if Herc is the current starter or if is Jozy, I wouldn't be surprise if both start in the near future.

Do ANY of you honestly believe that if a top-tier UEFA or CONMEBOL [or even second tier] team HAD to get by Mexico as a regional rival in their confederation in order to make the WC AND played against them as much as the US did they wouldn't have won at Azteca by now? Brazil? Argentina? Hell, Uruguay? The Netherlands? Germany? Italy? Spain? They would gear their fed to finding the right weapons to beat Mexico and they would do it, REGULARLY [though not always], at Azteca. Way too many of us have a mental block against Mexico- a characteristic I attributed to El Tri fans vis-a-vis the US but had never applied in reverse. They're a good to very good team- but not great, not excellent and not elite [not that we are either but we should be looking to take the next step which would be reaching the level of a second-tier UEFA squad like Sweden]. We're at least as good, if not better than Mexico. Whoopdee-********in' doo! The joy of this accomplishment left me about 10 years ago.

We have trouble scoring more than twice against them? That's. the. ********ing. point! Out of all the good things that Mexico does [keep possession, sound fundamentals]; has an elite defense [like Italy] ever entered into the equation? You point to a past lack of success, then point to the fact that we HAVEN'T improved in these areas and...........somehow arrive at a point where you're OK with this? We should be improving, not merely treading water. And, YES, let me re-iterate, I'd rather keep possession, look dangerous, create chances though our MF, have ideas going forward, stretch their defense, force Ochoa to make some good saves and LOSE 4-3 than eke out an ugly 1-0 win. Were this the Hex I would be more amenable to defensive-minded tactics and be prepared to take the points holding my nose than be concerned about attractive soccer.

Thank YOU!

In pretty much every friendly we play I'd agree that I'd rather go for it and take our chances in a more open game, but against Mexico it's different. With no Dempsey, Bradley, or Altidore and a half fit Donovan we did not have a team able to keep up with Mexico away.

Winning in Azteca is an improvement. Instead of a moral victory we get a monkey off our back and new-found confidence in Cameron.

I agree that JK was smart in how he used his starters and his subs, which frustrated Mexico most of the game and then sucker-punched them late. But keep in mind that the 6-sub strategy won't work in a tournament or qualifier. He took advantage of the looser sub rules in friendlies. His 4th sub broke down the Mexican defender and sent in the key crossing pass. His 5th sub bundled in the only goal. Can't count on moving THOSE 4th and 5th pieces around the board when a match really matters.

Interesting point. Moreover, I think most of the US's best results against Mexico over the years came from a conservative counter-punch style. Let Mexico possess the ball, frustrate them, and then counter with speed and power. The Mexicans would always complain that they "outplayed" the US, but it was mostly impotent possession. The World Cup win is a good example, with 2 terrific quick-counter goals for the USA.

The only game where I can clearly recall the US "outplaying" Mexico, in addition to out-scoring them, was the 2009 home qualifier, where MB played lights out and dominated Pardo. But that was one of the Sven games, where Mexico was trying to play less possession-based and more "Euro" style.

Well we've seen in the past (like, in the friggin' World Cup) that they make a pretty complimentary partnership, with Herc running the channels off of Jozy's flicks and hold-ups.

Azteca opened 46 years ago, Mexico has only lost 10 times there in 46 years. Its not an easy place to play. You can't discredit the home field advantage, there or many other places. It was recently that Argentina got drubbed 6-0 or 6-1 vs. Boliva in La Paz. Boliva is far less talented than Mexico.