Match 5 | England vs. USA | June 12 | Post-Match Thread [R]

The final score is sound evidence of the high price one pays for fundamental mistakes - one per side - at this level. Is it possible that two of FIFA's highly ranked teams were simply able to neutralize each other's strengths?

The US 4-4-2 looked more like 4-2-2-2. Bradley and Clark were basically jamming up the midfield - just like they did against Spain last year.

The U.S. needs playmaking and possession from the midfield. Solution: Clark out and Torres in. With Onyewu playing better and better, this will work. It needs to if the U.S. is going to score the goals needed to defeat Slovenia and Algeria.

 

Product of three things: #1 Played defensively to hold that 1-1 draw, exhausting to defend for the bulk of a half and just hope for a counter #2 Bradley's tactics consistently lead to our side being exhausted late in games (its why we've tended to give up a lot of second half goals under Bradley when leading or tied), and #3 Bradley consistently waits way too long to make subs, and often makes the wrong ones.

Didnt have to do w/attitude or fitness. It was all Bradley and his decision making (right or wrong, I'll take the 1-1 and be glad when we have a new, wiser, and far more flexible coach).

 

I think had the USA dared a bit more, they would have won it. Altidore schooled Carrick, and Gerrard and Terry would have been no match for Donovan's speed.

 

your guess is as good as mine mate just look how many goals crouch as scored to that donkey HESKEY

 

'02: USA 3 Portugal 2, USA outplaying Germany in 0-1 handball abomination loss

'06: USA 1 ITaly 1

'09: USA 3 Egypt 0, USA 2 Spain 0, USA 2 Brazil 3 (for a while it looked like a shot at history)

'10: USA 1 England 1

In fairness to England, they have a habit of stumbling at times, and they did quite badly 4 years ago against T&T (bs non call on crouch and miracle save from Terry were the only things that kept that game from being 1-0 T&T or at worst 1-1 draw), and Paraguay.

But they've looked far better the past 18 months until oddly the last month. Maybe the injuries stacking up are too blame. How many first choice XI were out or unhealthy? 4? I'd like to say its an abberation and if healthy they'd be back to stomping, but they looked outplayed if not outscored for long stretches against Mexico, not impressive against Japan, and now this. odd. I think they'' destroy Algeria and Slovenia, and at least make a QF run, but they need to wipe the cob webs off and get over whatevers been afflicting them because Germany/Serbia/Ghana is waiting in two weeks.

 

Altidore schooled Carrick ?

Carrick didn't even play.

 

I think he meant to say the Green was still at the Junior Academy.

 

Can someone PLEASE tell me why Joe Cole wasn't playing??

He played well for England whenever I saw him.

 

There are plenty more interesting results that the US has obtained over the years. True, most of the ones I am referring to where in friendlies and friendly tournaments and some of them against under strength opponents. But considering where the US was in soccer in those years, and where it still is to some extent, even those results were notable in my eyes.

Having said that, I still believe the US is the kind of team that you can't rate that easily. They are certainly not a first tier side in football. They have a good claim to have risen to 2nd tier status; the kind that should ordinarily be favored to advance to the round of 16 in the World Cup even from a tougher group than this one. But if they are 2nd tier, they are the kind of 2nd tier side that 3rd and 4th tier sides probably prefer to face as compared to other 2nd tier teams they might face, while they are also the kind that most first tier sides probably hate facing in comparison. And all that to me is because the US is more pesky than talented. The combination of their talent and fighting spirit earns them the place they have in football right now, close to being a 2nd tier side. But on talent alone, they are hardly 3rd tier.

P.S.

When I talk about 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th tiers, I am referring to how the World Cup groups may be seeded in theory. In my categorization, 1st tier would be the top 8 sides that would be seeded on merit; the 2nd tier would be the next 8 sides (8-16); and so forth...

 

It is like world cup qualification competition. Teams do play their best players, but soccer experts knows there is a big difference between these matches and world cup finals. Great teams like Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany, are much better at the big stage.

You will often see these teams struggle in qualification but when they qualified for the world cup they would be the big boys regardless how they played in the qualifications.

 

I agreed that Confed Cup was the most important non-qualifying world tournament of the qualifying period, but that is like saying whatever competition is the most important competition during the NBA or NFL offseason.

 

The Confederation cup is just like the first quarter of the last pre-season game of the NFL season. Teams put in their best players. They might try different tactics as the result is not relevant.

 

Wow, impressive results, but I can easily name another 10 humuliating losses by the USA team in the last 5 years. 20+ teams looks like world class teams when you just look at their best matches.

 

Heskey might have broken Tim Howard's ribs in that collision.

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/37668316/ns/sports-world_cup/

 

Interesting to look at comments on English sites (like guardian.co.uk) - English fans seem to be giving us alot more credit than we do ourselves....

 

I think much of that is due to often understated role that inner confidence and the lack thereof plays in determining results in football. Some of the teams you mentioned may be no better than their results from their qualifying campaign, which they obviously take seriously as well. But in a game like soccer, where the margin of victory or defeat is often decided by one or two mistakes, their superior experience and confidence due to their past record in the World Cup lets them make fewer of those mistakes and sees their opponents make more in comparison. On the other hand, some sides have a good record in qualifying and build on that, even though they don't do as well in the main competition. In fact, I have noticed similar patterns in other confederations as well, where some sides do well in some competitions but not others.

Fans try to explain the difference often by claiming things that are belied by anyone who watches the hotly contested and vigorously fought matches that don't fit the neat pecking orders they have constructed. But the truth is that the result in a game like football is determined by a variety of factors, including the kind of mistakes that a side is just more apt to make if they have inner doubts that past failures can cause. Or by that one right pass or shot that more easily comes to a side that believes in itself merely by virtue of its past successes.

For me, Germany and Italy are prime examples of teams that over-achieve in the World Cup mainly due to their past pedigree in this particular competition. While teams like Spain used to underachieve because of the doubts that had crept into their psyche due to their past failures. The latter, no matter how brilliant their qualifying campaign, were generally assured of not making it past the quarterfinals at best.

Of course, these patterns themselves can be broken by a particularly impressive crop of players or, conversely, by a particularly unimpressive bunch, but other things being equal, the teams that have done well in past competitions in a particular tournament are more apt to repeat their success in that tournament even against sides that might be slightly better than them otherwise.

 

In my opinion a great performance by USA, but now they got to beat Slovenia & Algeria.

 

USA and England will advance from this group both on 7 points imo

 

Slovenia will advance, they're no joke. England is overrated, as I've mentioned before.

 

So you're saying the U.S. is out?

 

Those are good points, but I would say the England gaff was much worse than the US one. I think Green makes that save 99 times out of 100, while I don't see the Gerrard goal as all that unlikely. The US goal was far more flukey. Is it really that surprising to see someone score on a give-and-go? It is not that big of a deal.

The England goal was great play by England, and a mistake by the US. The US goal....Was that really great US play? I don't think so. Was I cheering? Absolutely, I'll take it any day. But the US goal was the result of a blunder of titanic proportions. I would say it was astronomically more lucky than the England goal.

Clark could not stay with one of the best attacking midfielders in the world. That is not what I call a hugely unlikely scenario.