6/9, USA v T&T -- the attack {R}

[babytiger2001]

The two starting forwards -- Ching and Johnson -- scored the USA's two goals in the 2-0 win over Trinidad & Tobago that sealed a second-round berth.

But your thoughts and analysis on the play of the USA's strikers?

[Nutmeg]

Ching: Smartly played a difficult ball for the goal. Fought hard and won a lot of balls, and his pass to Donovan on the second goal was perfect.

Johnson: Great timing on his runs, including his delayed run to get the second goal. Seemed to fade badly, perhaps injury related.

Twellman: Horrible in the air and outmatched physically. Partnered well with Donovan.

Donovan: Didn't finish a couple of difficult chances, but showed today why he's the US' best field player ever.

[GooolGolGool]

Much more like it. We're going to get better with more games as the tournament moves on.

We did enough to win the game. Nothing more nothing less. At the knockout stage against tough opponents I hope then we're running on all cylinders.

Early on the game Johnson has couple of good run and a pass called offside by that c*nt cuban referee.

Ching, played well. Fought hard. Great positioning on the first goal.

Mapp, I love his game. Keep on attacking son.

[DCFAN96]

EJ didn't look that bad, he showed a bit more movement off the ball, which was rewarded, and had a couple nice combo plays with other attacking players. Could show a bit more hustle but still caused T&T problems.

Ching scored but man was the guy terrible, easily should've had a hattrick. That said he at least did setup Donovan. Still did't do a good job of posting up on T&T defenders to hold the ball, had some really poor giveaways, and actually almost missed the tap in. I just don't see what he has that Cooper doesn't.

[golazo68]

Ching: Smartly played a difficult ball for the goal. Fought hard and won a lot of balls, and his pass to Donovan on the second goal was perfect.

Johnson: Great timing on his runs, including his delayed run to get the second goal. Seemed to fade badly, perhaps injury related.

Twellman: Horrible in the air and outmatched physically. Partnered well with Donovan.

Donovan: Didn't finish a couple of difficult chances, but showed today why he's the US' best field player ever.

Johnson plays great 20%-30% of the time. He seems too mentally lazy and unwilling the rest of the time to do even basic positioning (to stay onsides) to stick in a league like the Prem.

He's got the potential, but not the brain for it- it seems.

But he can excel in an MLS and this region environement.

[ulyssesr]

The two starting forwards -- Ching and Johnson -- scored the USA's two goals in the 2-0 win over Trinidad & Tobago that sealed a second-round berth.

But your thoughts and analysis on the play of the USA's strikers?

missed opportunities.

[superdave]

Overall I'm pretty happy, but Ching has got to do better on 1v1s if he wants to get playing time starting next spring.

Ching has some things he does better than Cooper, but I'll tell ya, Kenny would have had 2 if not 3 goals today.

[S.J. Jim]

I thought Ching was solid if unspectacular in the first half. Good positioning, good passing, got himself into position for that first goal. In the second half, I loved that play where we got the second goal. You could just see it coming... Donovan and Ching, Ching and Donovan... they read each other so well. A thing of beauty if you ask me. Eddie gets credit for actually scoring it, but it was all Donovan and Ching. I was kind of bothered that the announcers didn't give Ching much (if any) credit for helping to set that up; AND, when they showed the frigging replay, they never showed the great play and the long run by Landon that set it up.

As far as EJ is concerned, I watched him closely today. He was a little bit better than he was against Guatemala, but he still looks to me like a primadonna a lot of the time, expecting others to do the work for him. Right at the end of the first half, we had a shot from the right side of the box (I want to say it was Mapp, but I'm unsure since Mapp played on the left). It was a good hard shot that the keeper couldn't hold, and it rebounded out into the middle of the area, toward the left side where Johnson was. He was flat-footed, standing there with his hands up, as if saying "Why didn't you cross the ball to me?". If he'd been hustling, he might have had a chance for an easy put-away. On a few occasions he still elected to play the ball backward when there was an opportunity to service a teammate going forward. There were a number of high balls (just as in the Guatemala match) where he didn't challenge for the ball. I know there's been some talk about his condition, but to me he is looking lazy. I don't know how limited he was physically before going out on the stretcher today, but he just didn't do anything very impressive today, the goal notwithstanding.

Twellman didn't have much time to accomplish anything, but he looked okay.

Donovan had that look in his eye today, and it may have something to do with the fact that Ching was on the pitch. I continue to think that it's a special chemistry there.

Great support for the attack from just about everybody today... nice first touches, nice reading of other people's runs, nice weight on the passses for the most part, and nice support from Simek in particular out of the back. Fun to watch, even with the incompetent bullshit from the linesmen.

[Dr.Phil]

Good to see our strikers score

[Revs-West]

I thought they were mediocre at best. Ching was inefficient and GAM was lazy. We'll all be chopping them down if they play the exact same way against a quality opponent.
2 sitters against a totally fatigued TnT. BFD.
Somebody up front needs to step up and claim the spot.

[Dr.Phil]

The thing is no striker is making a push to become a fixture in the lineup.

Dempsey and Donovan seem to be the most offensive. And you can argue they are not strikers

[rtung]

Johnson plays great 20%-30% of the time. He seems too mentally lazy and unwilling the rest of the time to do even basic positioning (to stay onsides) to stick in a league like the Prem.

He's got the potential, but not the brain for it- it seems.

But he can excel in an MLS and this region environement.

He was onside the whole game today. Not his fault if the linesman sucks.

[Deuteriumoxide]

Ching makes two or three great passes a game where you can see he has vision but then every other time his shoes turn to bricks and he turns a simple square pass into something his team mate, who is six yards away, has to bring down with his chest or head. This KILLS developing moves.

Is it to late in his career to work on his touch?

[olephill2]

Eddie Johnson did not impress me for the most part. He was better than he was two days ago, but as others said, is just mentally lazy. His head didn't seem in the game to me. Both Ching & Twellman seem much smarter to me in terms of knowing where to position themselves during a buildup. I also was really frustrated by Johnson not running to meet the ball when it comes to him. He does get credit though for following through on Ching & Donovan's play and getting the 2nd goal. An OK game for him overall, but this effort won't cut it on a bigger stage.

Brian Ching looked ok, nothing better. Great work on the 2nd goal, setting up Donovan, but he missed several chances in the 1st half. Didn't really do much in the 2nd half, but one thing I need to commend Ching on is his strength. He is able to stay on his feet even with a defender riding his back, and that is a very valuable trait for a target striker to possess.

Taylor Twellman didn't have enough time out there to put his stamp on the game, especially since most of the team stepped off the gas pedal after we got the 2nd goal. But I was impressed with Taylor's link-up play with Donovan. Twellman nearly had 2 assists that Donovan could've finished with a little more luck. It's nice to see Twellman linking up so well with Donovan, because that is a mandate if you want to see first team action in qualifying (where you know Donovan will be up front).


I would like to see Johnson & Twellman up top against El Salvador, just to see how the two of them operate together. Twellman certainly benefits from having a speedy player to work off of, and if healthy, I want to see Johnson one more time to see if he gives a better effort. Ching deserves another look as well, but it's a bad idea to put him and Twellman up top together (they're both target strikers without enough pace, creativity).

[bobo81]

The thing is no striker is making a push to become a fixture in the lineup.

Dempsey and Donovan seem to be the most offensive. And you can argue they are not strikers

I'm sayin...Do we have anyone..ANYONE who pushes the ball and attacks? The closest we have comes in the form of Deuce, LD, DMB and perhaps EJ at times. I seriously am giving up on my hope for a real striker who can dribble and get some shots off. All of our boys seem to want to score off of breakways and set pieces. This cannot work always though.

[Ringo]

ching missed some easy opportunities, but the man was working his ass off. nice to see since EJ wasn't too interested. Again.
Gimmie ching any day. at least he cares.

[beergod]

Ching makes two or three great passes a game where you can see he has vision but then every other time his shoes turn to bricks and he turns a simple square pass into something his team mate, who is six yards away, has to bring down with his chest or head. This KILLS developing moves.

Is it to late in his career to work on his touch?

Ching is 29, too late for significant improvement. His lack of touch is extremely frustrating because he does a good job getting into good positions.

[URS on the Warpath redded]

Ching is 29, too late for significant improvement.

Yeah, I said the same thing about Brian McBride.

[dredgfan]

GAM sits the next game. He just needs to, hat tricks recently or not. The injury helps this idea of mine but really the guys either frustrated or uninterested. That cuban AR didn't help but if he let's those plays continue we are all probably talking about EJ in a different way.

[S.J. Jim]

Not to argue, but can someone remind me what "easy opportunities" Ching missed? I think I recall one play where he apparently missed a chance, but I made the mistake of watching the match on FSC again, and I actually DIDN'T GET TO SEE THE GODDAMNED PLAY. (sorry... between FSC and that stupid prick of a linesman, I'm still a little wound up :)).

I haven't reviewed the tape yet, but I thought Brian had a very nice game overall.

For what it's worth, I think our current attacking style is fine. It would be nice if we had a Thierry Henry to run at people and score, but maybe in time we will. For now, it's hard for me to criticize the way we're attacking. We could always stand to improve our finishing, but we're creating a lot more chances than we did in the past (I've been following the NAT's since Italia '90). To me, one of the most beautiful things about the game is the slow build-up, teamwork and precise passing and intelligent runs off the ball. I think we did very well in that respect today. We can do it even better, but I'm not sure we need to bemoan the lack of a one-v-one dribbler in the forward spot (Justin Mapp handles that aspect of the game pretty well, as a setup player! http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/images/icons/icon14.gif