You guys are overreacting. As has been said, this was basically an Americans-only MLS all-star squad playing against a bunker-for-90-minutes Canada squad. These aren't the guys we'll see in WC qualifying. This was searching for depth, nothing more.
Not a good team at all. But since they play in concacaf, all they need to do is be one of the 3 top teams in the final hexagonal. They don't have to qualify first. Just the top half. Then if they were to get 4th they'd play New Zealand most likely. And that's a very winnable home-away series.
It's not just the score of the game. It's looking so meh. Wouldn't you expect every guy on that team to hustle in hopes of making the cut? Instead, we saw DeRo and 19 wooden clothespins. That to me is coaching.
I don't think its coaching as much as its the lack of skill and style in most american players. In MLS its perfectly ok to slow pass, trap, stand still, look up, scratch yer arse then slow pass it back to a defender. Theres not a whole lot of individual skill to make things happen.
Well, that is not what I see with youth games, and I watch a lot of youth games. So kids spend 15 years learning to play quickly and assertively and then they sign on with MLS and forget how to play? We have millions of kids who are into the game. Just from a pure numbers perspective, we should be kicking butt.
I think we've done something similar before. Didn't the US have a game ten years or so ago that was just SJE players plus one other MLS team, in San Jose? I'd have to wrack my brain to figure out who the opponent was. Ah, here it is, from May 2003: US defeats Wales 2-0. Not quite as Quakes-centric as I remembered, with Agoos, Mulrooney, Lagos, Ching, and Donovan playing (plus Lewis, Cannon, and Convey as once-or-future Quakes).
I don't really believe in luck but you are right, they have never been very good. Compared to 20 years ago howver, there is no comparison.
I happy to see no Quake made the US roster for Honduras, but I am a little surprised EJ did (he looked pretty bad to me) and really surprised Evans made it (I thought he was down right awful in the game against Canada). Now our guys can focus on what matters most.
And it is interesting that in a country that celebrates and encourages creativity and individual expression, that we have such rigid, predictable and mechanical players. And it is just not the apparent lacking of individual skill on the ball, but, the lack of players with vision and see the game one step ahead of what is going on.
It probably has something to do with how late America became serious about the sport (and by some standards, their lack of seriousness about it). While entrepreneurship is prized in industry, it isn't prized so much in sports. We're a lot more like the traditional English player in that the guys on the field are all good little soldiers, work hard and are extremely fit, but they are afraid to break out of the mold and play the modern game. It's like they expect a head down attitude and work rate to be the only factors in winning. Brilliance is necessary to win and we just don't have any brilliant players.
Klinsmann loves EJ, I've long acknowledged this and gave up being upset about it. EJ is overrated and clumsy, but that's his guy, just like Jermaine Jones will always be on a JK roster. What we do have to worry about is Bernardez in all of these WC qualifiers... He's going to get worked hard, and absent from our team frequently. I pray he doesn't get injured on top of that... (And I'm not even religious)
I guess it is how you define "late". Soccer had become very popular in this country by the end of the 70's, but, we have gone through several generations of players without producing "brilliant" ones. In many other countries kids use every spare minute playing soccer, where in this country it is just one of many activities kids have, even those that are serious about the sport.
We have excellent players we just have a naive coach who keeps trying to force us to play 4-3-3 ticki-tacka. For the love of all things Wynalda, America is not Barca. We do not have the personnel to play that style. Time and again our offense has looked absolutely impotent trying to do this short passing game. The USMNT has scored LESS under JK than under Bob Bradley. We should be playing 4-4-2 with outside mids bombing down the wings and crossing it into the box.' When JK made the tactical switch in the away game at Antigua to go 4-4-2 and brought alan gordon on, we suddenly looked much more dangerous and turned it around.
I completely understand the desire to maintain possession of the ball. And you certainly can't expect one generation of players who are nearing or past actual development to suddenly be able to play something different than what they learned in youth. It takes time. The US is at an interesting point. It seems as if more and more Americans are reaching the highest levels of the game, which is great. Over another generation that number should be even greater in percentages based on just the sheer size of the overall population. It's definitely frustrating to see the US go backward in terms of results, although I think the progress of development will more than make up for it in the long run. We're just unfortunate to be witnessing one of the major shifting points.