[TWR]

Can someone who saw both the Mexico/Argentina and USA/Argentina matches please compare the two performances. Which team, minus Euro players, looked stronger and permormed better?

[fdp]

Mexico

[efernandez9]

minus euro players? do you mean 2 missed players?

the keeper for USA and Brian M...


for mex: rafa marquez and torrado?, vs colombia 2 new names, rafa plus jared.

to answer TWR question, mexico needs more work as a team (normal after 2.5 weeks together)

Usa....Ummmmmm, It Looked to mee that they hope to get the breaks every team deserves in a futbol game from the Referee....
see actions from landon, oslen, bocanegra
Kuddos to defensive/ofensive job by skinny Beasley

I hope they use the same grp vs. jamaica, to judge thing out better, the black guy from the crew has no place on the Nats...IMHO

[LMvCP]

bottom line... both teams lost. Both goals came off keeper mistakes. Sanchez (Mex) hesitated on punching the ball out and Thorton (USA) was out infront of the line.

Whether or not PKs should have been called in our favor (Concacaf) it is irrelevant because we failed to capitalize on open shots. Granted, the officiating was horrible, but there is no excuse for blowing open shots.

Even if either team would have won or tied, they are far from where they want to be. I know that is the case for Mexico.

USA
same coach, same jerseys, and a couple new faces.
I didnt notice alot of change in Arena's tactics. THe US can counter as it was down the field real quick after an Argentine shot on goal. When it came down to creating on thier own, they were lost. I dont know if it is what Arena wants, but it seems that the US didnt want ball control or didnt know how to posess the ball for longer periods of time.


Mexico
New coach, new jersey, new faces and new tactics. Lavolpe (Mexico's new coach) wasnt lying about changing the look. Lavolpe has always been known to have a very offensive team and it seems he tried to implement that. As a club coach, Lavolpe wanted each player to be 2 dimensional, (on attack and on defense) with the excpetion of his 2 center backs and goalie. Lavolpe did say before the game that he felt comfortable from the midfield on up, than from the midfield on down and he wasnt lying. The three defenders at times were lost. They had trouble pushing the ball up onto to the midfielders. I think this had to do with Lavolpe's tactics. He does tend to isolate his defenders and expects them to sweep up the mess and push up on there own and the Argentine forwards started to notice that and started pressing causng confusion. Once the ball was in the midfield, Mexico kept possesion and won the looseballs, but were not agressive in attacking. At times they were hesitant passing it to the marked man and instead passed it to the open man who was in no postion to make a real threat. The times they did threaten the Argentine goal it came from the marked man who was doubled team and as a result an open man would be in position to threaten the goal. I seriously think that if Mexico could have done that more, they could have won the game.

[Crazy_Yank]

Originally posted by rdl674
bottom line... both teams lost. Both goals came off keeper mistakes. Sanchez (Mex) hesitated on punching the ball out and Thorton (USA) was out infront of the line.

Whether or not PKs should have been called in our favor (Concacaf) it is irrelevant because we failed to capitalize on open shots. Granted, the officiating was horrible, but there is no excuse for blowing open shots.

Even if either team would have won or tied, they are far from where they want to be. I know that is the case for Mexico.

USA
same coach, same jerseys, and a couple new faces.
I didnt notice alot of change in Arena's tactics. THe US can counter as it was down the field real quick after an Argentine shot on goal. When it came down to creating on thier own, they were lost. I dont know if it is what Arena wants, but it seems that the US didnt want ball control or didnt know how to posess the ball for longer periods of time.


Mexico
New coach, new jersey, new faces and new tactics. Lavolpe (Mexico's new coach) wasnt lying about changing the look. Lavolpe has always been known to have a very offensive team and it seems he tried to implement that. As a club coach, Lavolpe wanted each player to be 2 dimensional, (on attack and on defense) with the excpetion of his 2 center backs and goalie. Lavolpe did say before the game that he felt comfortable from the midfield on up, than from the midfield on down and he wasnt lying. The three defenders at times were lost. They had trouble pushing the ball up onto to the midfielders. I think this had to do with Lavolpe's tactics. He does tend to isolate his defenders and expects them to sweep up the mess and push up on there own and the Argentine forwards started to notice that and started pressing causng confusion. Once the ball was in the midfield, Mexico kept possesion and won the looseballs, but were not agressive in attacking. At times they were hesitant passing it to the marked man and instead passed it to the open man who was in no postion to make a real threat. The times they did threaten the Argentine goal it came from the marked man who was doubled team and as a result an open man would be in position to threaten the goal. I seriously think that if Mexico could have done that more, they could have won the game.

I agree with all your points rdl. I would like to add that both teams got what they wanted out of the friendlies despite the dissappointing results. Young players got experience playing against top level competition. They also walk away with the knowledge the result could have gone their way. I think it shows the respective strength of the 2 best concacaf leagues as well. True we're not where we want to be, but it's to be expected. We're at the very beginning of a new cycle, and a new generation of players.

[art]

Originally posted by rdl674
USA
same coach, same jerseys, and a couple new faces.
I didnt notice alot of change in Arena's tactics. THe US can counter as it was down the field real quick after an Argentine shot on goal. When it came down to creating on thier own, they were lost. I dont know if it is what Arena wants, but it seems that the US didnt want ball control or didnt know how to posess the ball for longer periods of time.

? There were a ton of new faces (our most capped player was Landon Donovan, who's fricking 20 years old), and what Arena wanted was offensive play out of the back, especially from the wing backs, which did happen. Not terribly effectively at times, but it happened. Ball posession is quickly becoming not the US's game, it doesen't need to be. 90 minutes of passing the ball back and forth and nutmegging the entire midfield of the opposing team, only to be stripped of the ball 20 yards from goal without creating a chance, is a Mexican thing.

[Asprilla9]

Originally posted by efernandez9
minus euro players? do you mean 2 missed players?

the keeper for USA and Brian M...

hey, efe, don't lie just to make your own point. you're saying the U.S. was only missing 2 players?? by my count the U.S. was missing at least 10 players.

keller/friedel
brian mcbride
john o'brien
eddie lewis
chris armas
earnie stewart
eddie pope
steven cherundolo
tony sanneh
josh wolff

now, i'm not very good at math , but that looks like it's more than 2. sorry to let facts get in the way of you ripping the US team. continue...

Originally posted by efernandez9
the black guy from the crew has no place on the Nats...IMHO

i actually agree with you on this one. i'm sure a guy Bruce Arena would rather have played is Conor Casey...but he's in Germany. another European player? oops, I guess that makes 11.

[boydreilly]

Originally posted by rdl674
same coach, same jerseys, and a couple new faces.

That is funny. You got one out three correct. There were 7 starters there who weren't at the WC.

Maybe you've watched so many MLS games they just don't seem to appear as "new faces."

[Levante]

Originally posted by TWR
Can someone who saw both the Mexico/Argentina and USA/Argentina matches please compare the two performances. Which team, minus Euro players, looked stronger and permormed better?

Both teams showed flashes of what they're going to try to do in the future, but I think that it is useless to compare the two teams at this time. Instead, here's my two cents of what happened.

Mexico...

Forwards
Is still reliant on the playmaking skills of Cuauhtemoc Blanco. Another playmaker needs to emerge uprfront or maybe even two need to emerge for the next world Cup. Olalde has no place on this team. There is still, however, some young talent in Mexico that hasn't been capped.

Midfield.....
Juan Pablo Rodriguez is probably getting his last chances here. He hasn't been able to control a game with the national team since his youth team days....enter Luis Perez. This guy is going to be the future motor of the team. He can penetrate, he can distribute, and he can score. The only bad thing he does however is that he does accumulate yellow cards. The inner midfield seems secure for el Tri with him and Torrado at the helm.
There are still a few more players that need to emerge in the wings. Rergis will be given a shot, but it looks like Morales and probably still el Cabrito will have these positions held down.

Defense....
Man this looked shoddy. Diego Gutierrez got his first cap in this game and he was very nervous and really, it was his play that conceded the goal (along with Sanchez coming out to late) Davino played well, but Marquez hold this position down in the future. Carmona played well but did lose one ball and also lost his temper when he punched D'Alessandro. He should have been red carded here. The future of el Tri here belongs to Melvin Brown of Cruz Azul, Marquez, and probably the best young defender in the Mexican league right now, Castro of America. This kid is going to be good..he can defend and push up the flanks.

Coaching...
I like Lavolpe's new look. I like the offensive game and I think that Mexico will have the players that will be able to run it.


USA

Forwards....
Donovan is a great player, but he needs someone else up front. Twellman is still very green and he looked nervous in the game. Mathis is the motor of the team offensively. It looked as if he was the only one that could put a pause into the game when he needed to and also push the ball into Argentina's 1/3 of the field. Cunningham sucks.

Midfield... John O'Brien was missing and he is a great player for the US. What will the US do without Reyna in the future? I don't think that Mastroeni is the answer here in the long term. Also, Joe Max Moore failed to move the team into offense. I think that DeMarcus Beasly was off his game the other day, he'll come around.

Defense...Bobby Convey should play midfield...period. Tim Howard impressed on that save right on his line.

Coaching...Bruce Arena needs to start grooming A Claudio Reyna now. I've never been a fan of the counterattack but it's only effective if you have speedy forwards (which the US has) and also a distributor at the midfield position. I didn't see that against Argentina.

[boydreilly]

Originally posted by Levante
Also, Joe Max Moore failed to move the team into offense.

Of course he failed. He wasn't there.