We are fortunate to have many options at the 6. Geoff Cameron is one of the more versatile players we have, these days. Actually, Cameron has played the last two matches for Stoke at right back because Andy Wilkinson has been suspended.#mce_temp_url# IMO, he is best utilized in our pool at central defender.
I wonder how good his cross is. He might be a good option at rb. Would have to see him play. Won't happen.
Way to change the goalposts. Notice I didn't say "injuries to our superstars" - I said "injuries to our better players". And one thing I didn't mention is that our region is getting tougher. And to the one who mentioned that we cannot recognize when we are playing like crap, it is certainly possible that the US stinks right now, but the proof is not the A&B game, where everything played to their favor, from he aforementioned injuries, to the field conditions to the rain, to he wind, to playing away. Perhaps lost in there is the tactics, but I actually thought we played fairly well considering. Our possession was off the charts. We played some really nice incisive balls through the midfield. My only fault I would say would be a lack of quality crosses into the box and an over reliance on trying to split the defense instead of going over the top. And when we did do it right, we scored, against a pretty big/strong, somewhat talented AB team.
spare me about the "big/strong, somewhat talent AB team". A&B is awful, we played awful and we should feel awful. Conditions and all. Also most of our possession was BS, we had no buildup with it, a lot of it was pussyfooting in the midfield or in our own half. It wasn't like A&B was putting that effective of pressure on our guys in that front anyways, they essentially conceded 70% of the possession. Our defense was slow and very unreactive to A&B's attack, and we never truly tested the goalkeeper following our first goal until late in the game. Not to keep beating this dead horse, but people should not be making excuses for having to score in stoppage time against a team who hasn't been to this stage in nearly two decades, seeing as we are two years removed from winning a group in the world cup and going to extra time against a talented ghana team. I'm sorry but these reasons people point out we knew about well in advance and had plenty time to prepare for, and we looked completely unprepared and uninspired out there. So in my opinion, our team didn't show up, and we should just chalk it up as a bad game and move on. Let's be satisfied we got 3 points instead of 1 and let's take care of business against guatamala. Honestly i don't really care if we have sluggish games like these from time to time as long as we qualify for the hex and then the world cup.
Well, I will agree with you there - for all reasons people have mentioned, we played an ugly game, yet we still won. I suppose there is something to that. Time to move on and prepare for Tuesday.
We were 30 seconds away from being out. I find it strange (read, biased) that some on here lambaste JK for what almost happened (we almost drew on the road to A&B) but totally deny what almost happened under BB (we were 30 seconds away from being out vs. Algeria). And who was it that saved us against Algeria? I can't seem to remember? Maybe because he was nowhere to be found last night.
We outplayed Slovenia, Algeria, and Ghana. We got very lucky against England with the goal, but played a pretty even game with them. We were unlucky against Ghana (and Slovenia and Algeria).
We absolutely dominated the second half against England....but they dominated the first half, so a draw was fair I think. Our goal was fluky but we had a couple other shots that should've gone in. Etienne, in what definition of English does "superstars" not equal "best players"??
Professional scout? All you need is a pair of eyes. Watch his first 10? or so games with houston this year where he was a CB, then contrast them to what he did the 2 games where he was moved to CM along with what he's done at Stoke since The professional scout at stoke watched him play as a CB ....they purchased him to be a CM/utility player. Nuff said. I dont doubt he could be an awesome CB as he has the same skill-set as George John. But this year at Houston he showed he needs work and he hasn't been practicing/perfecting the position at his club and will never get enough experience with NAT team spot duty only. So long as he's not playing CB with Stoke he shouldn't be our starting CB, its just too risky. Those who watched the Mex game closely (min60-90) recognized this....those that didn't found out the other day. Im so happy we won though...and look forward to seeing George, Omar, Matt, etc, etc, and whoever battle it out for who's got next. Cameron and Goodson will likely also be in that battle but I hope JK gets some sense and tries CAM at Dmid/+utility and that the young cats can relegate Goodson and Boca to ALT status
Yea those CFR members Romney has as foreign policy advisers are WAAAAY different from the CFR members Obama has in his cabinet. Don't believe the hype, its ALL bad and nothing as simple as checking a red or a blue box on a piece of paper is gonna change it. So stop trolling, get right with your God, and watch/play/enjoy soccer as the world burns.
We did not dominate slovenia or ghana or england. Slovenia dominated us in the first half, ghana was an even game and england had the best opportunities. US had very little in that game. the other best chance was jozy from a narrow angle really. We lost 6-1 in our first two confederations cup matches and needed a miracle to get to our spain miracle. people have this imagined dominance we had from 2008-2010. I think the team did some cool things and worked really hard to get those results but at the same time we could have easily had absolutely nothing from that two year period. the USMNT was not standing on the top of the mountain. we were gripping at a ledge appearing to be higher than we actually were. we fell back to normal in 2011 and are slowly trying to find a way back to that ledge but in a way that we can actually stand on it and thats going to be extremely difficult given our talent pool, understanding of the game tactically, and our poor youth development from 2003-2009.
It is very hard to believe that Kreis or Sigi couldn't do as good or better than Klinsmann, with the USMNT.
The Dutch... From their starting WCQ line-ups vs. Turkey, 2-1 win; and @ Hungary 1-4 win: -- Van Rhijn (D, 21), Martins Indi (D, 20), Willems (D, 18), Strootman (M, 22), Clasie (M, 21), Narsingh (F, 21), Lens (F, 24) -- Krul (GK, 24); Janmaat (D, 23), Martins Indi (D, 20), Willems (D, 18); Clasie (M, 21), Strootman (M, 22); Narsingh (F, 21) I still don't see our players being 'too young or inexperienced' to play against teams like Antigua & B, Guatemala, or Jamaica. I clearly remember Cameron (27) and Bocanegra (33) making rookie mistakes last Friday night. Bring on the Okugo's, Pontiuses, and so on. What are we waiting for?
It made sense to move Cameron to CB against Antigua & B -- they are offensively poor, expected to be ultra defensive, and we would have most of the possession. Cameron's about the only 'CB' in Klinsmann's current player pool who can pass the ball out of the back and move into midfield. Why did Cameron make the mistake he did though? Because he was played at LCB and found himself in a situation where he needed to make a tackle with his non-existent left foot. He didn't and the A&B forward walked past him like Cameron wasn't even there.
Regardless of what anyone thinks of JK they need to give credit where credit is due. JK inserted an outcasted "washed up" player (EJ), an unknown (Gordon) and left our best striker off the roster when he is leading the Eredivisie in scoring (Altidore). As a result, EJ scored two goals in a 2-1 win and he has now motivated Jozy when we could all see something was missing when he was playing for the National Team, most notably his attitude and work ethic. Someone explain to me again how this wasn't a masterful and ballsy move? Somehow people have the notion that because we've qualified for every World Cup since 1990 that it has been an easy process, which is an entirely false notion--look at the scorelines for every single World Cup qualifying game in the past to see the proof. Even if we didn't consider the scorelines of the previous World Cup qualifying campaigns, we can look at the statistics for Antigua and Barbuda's home games to see how difficult they have been: 2-1 Loss to us, 1-0 loss to Guatemala on an amazing 35 yard Golazo by Ruiz, and a 0-0 draw against Jamaica. When you tie in the strange field dimensions, the laughable field conditions, the horrible weather, and jet lagged/tired players, you get a formula for what we saw on Friday--that's life in CONCACAF when the majority of your players are European based. Let's not also forget that we went 1-1 with Jamaica, and have only a draw against Guatemala...So I'd say the result was as expected. What makes me really nervous is that people are already saying we've qualified for the hex (knock on wood). The situation we are in now is eerily similar to our Olympic qualification campaign where people were game planning for the Olympics and all we had to do was beat lowly El Salvador...That didn't turn out so hot
if people say lowly blah blah blah about any more concacaf teams.... seriously these players play with wreckless abandon hoping to get a result. in europe san marino and lichtenstein...they have already conceded a loss at the beginning of the match.
I disagree. The game against Italy was a lot closer. We made a few mistakes, but had things gone differently we could have easily beaten Italy in that tourney. We crated chances and held the ball fairly well. Brazil is well, Brazil. We took it Egypt and frankly that game was the miracle. To beat a team like that 3-0 with that kind of pressure was impressive. We played an amazing 45 minutes against Brazil in the final, but couldn't sustain it. We were flying high, not just lucking into things at that point. In the WC we went eye to eye with England, and certainly could have won it. I mean we tied England with Robbie Findley and Roberto Clark. Seriously, if that is not good coaching, I don't know what is. Slovenia first half was a disaster principally because Bradley screwed up on the idea that Torres was going to be useful. But, he made the right changes and we dominated the second half. We pretty dominated Algeria, but couldn't find the net. Ghana was a full tilt even game, where our tiredness and mistakes killed us. Now here is where I agree with you. We probably weren't that great of a team. A better team than in the past, but still not as great as we punched. I give that credit to Bob. He was an amazing coach who knew how to get blood from rocks. JK probably has a much deeper and talented roster right now. He has some players that had Bob had, we probably would have made it into the final 4 at the WC. Seriously, we have such a deep player pool right now, yet JK is getting so little out of them, or isn't even asking anything of them. Clearly we are in a transition phase with some players slowing down and leaving, but JK seems unaware of this and has failed to develop sustainable options... thus the disaster of Boca at LB with Weak Knees Goodson getting pushed all over the place. With all the options we have available and the depth we have, why are we so reliant on Bob Bradley cast offs like Goodson, Beckerman, and Torres?!?! Why has it taken important matches in key moments for JK to learn that these guys aren't good enough, but that the guys sitting at home are? Say what you will about Bob and the previous incarnation of the team. They weren't as good as we remember, but they could score goals and they could win games. It has become obvious that JK's team is not up to the level of Bob's teams. Even the friendly soccer press from Ives to Wahl are beginning to point out that this team is much much worse than we the team we can't even remember from when. Alarm bells are ringing... and not just on BS. I guarantee that Sunil is going to have a heart to heart with JK after the Guate game. Flat out, the team has regressed, while the talent level and depth has increased. Why? JK has to come out and win the Guate game in a major way to put away the serious doubt that the soccer world has about his abilities. Any thing less than a dominate multi-goal victory will mean that he is on the chopping block. And I do believe that if Sunil feels the WC is in question, he will make the move. People are also forgetting that JK may come to the conclusion on his own. That the job is beyond him. He can always resign.
There is a massive difference between WC preliminary CONCACAF qualifying against Antigua and Barbuda and something called the World Cup. Seriously. Apples to footballs. Look at the same place Bob was as to where JK is now on the timeline. Bob qualified us out of the early rounds quickly. Yes, it isn't easy, but qualifying out of the first round hasn't been an issue for us in 12 years. It is still not set for us. Seriously, we were staring down possible elimination until minute 91. The Hex is always harder and not a sure thing for us. There will be more slip ups, but the ramifications are more severe, so you have to limit those slip ups.
The team today is vastly different from the team in 2008. The team in 2008 was mostly comprised of players who had been to 2 world cups already and gone through two qualification processes and were in there third. Of course without landon donovan we drew with T&T. and in the final match guatemala did not play their better players either in 2008. People really need to look back at 2008 with a more discerning eye. yes we did well. I am proud of the team and we had a lot of growth from 2006 for that squad. but since 2006 many of those players are gone and this is a whole new bunch of players. will be interesting to see how the hex goes.
That was half the miracle. We needed a six goal swing in the last game, and Brazil gave us the other half by beating Italy by three. The US and Brazil win by 5 and we're 3 and out. Charlie Davies had a lot to do with the counter attack goals we were getting in general back then. And certainly should have lost it. One of the worst goalkeeper errors you will ever see. Ahahaha. As good as we remember. That's a good one. What I remember is a team that couldn't string 3 passes together, and needed 2 miracles to avoid 3 and out in both the CC and WC. And Freddy Adu to get to the Gold Cup final, which counts as a 3rd miracle. They were only not as ugly as sin during Charlie Davies' brief peak. Just can't see that. Keep dreaming. JK's job is to qualify, and then to bring the team to a peak in June, 2014.