Only because Howard capped off his afternoon of ignoring the near post with flopping around unnecessarily like a fish.
Losing to Panama was obnoxious, but we had a hundred shots on goal that game and if Shouty McHustle hadn't blown a tap in (stop me if you've seen him blow tap-ins in tournaments), we'd have avoided some blushes. Ditto Guadaloupe. That was the game Dempsey hit both posts and the crossbar twice, and flubbed a sitter. But the Jamaica game was good and the Panama rematch was also pretty good. I think in hindsight Panama was a better team than we gave them credit for at the time. And for all the problems we had defensively (and in center midfield) against Mexico that may have been our best attacking performance against them, ever.
No itwasn't. The Panama match was awful, but then again, the Panama team wasn't half bad. They've given Mexico fits over the years, and if weren't for Marc Geiger, should've beat them last year. Canada wasn't great. After these two matches is where Bradley benched Ream and moved Boca from left side (where he is a statue offering zero going forward) back to the middle and brought on Lichaj. Things started to improve. We had a lot of shots in the last group stage match, and play was pretty one-sided, but we only scored one. The big problem then was playing the 3 CM's and Bob's depending on a very rusty MB90. Still though, he did bench LD for Klesjtan. He made the team get better as the tourney went on. Not great, but he did what he could to make them better.
Revisionist history doesn't really change the fact that it was a bad tournament overall. I mean, we outshot Jamaica when we lost to them in the GC last year but people still said the sky was falling(and still do).
Well, if we're going to consider that a "bad" tournament there's something to be said for getting to a final and losing to at the least an equal, as opposed to getting KO'd on home soil by a Jamaica team that we'd essentially owned for a decade. Losing to Panama (better than Jamaica by any objective metric) in a group stage game sucks, but its an order of magnitude more preferable than losing to Jamaica in a knockout game. I think our play in 2011 was a lot better in terms of quality chances created and attacking style than its been in any other tournament since. It does help that both of our generational talents were playing in 2011, though.
Did you catch Bob's comment in the middle about wishing Jurgen luck? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but Bob, Jurgen HAS had 2 jobs outside the US. Maybe Bob is reminding us that in those 2 jobs, Jurgen heroically dragged Germany to the semifinals in a world cup it hosted (basically the same thing that was a complete disgrace for Brazil in 2014, and was celebrated as an unbelieivable triumph by SoKo in 2002) and he got fired from Bayern Munich within a year.
Not really. It's just the way things go sometimes. My point is that excusing one and then propping the other up as some gigantic failure is just silly. I didn't mean you, personally, just in general.
We played one good game, vs Jamaica in DC. We only managed to score one goal vs Guadeloupe in front of a great crowd in KC. Adu saved us against Panama, we didn't score until the 78th minute. It was a crap tournament, I remember these forums burning down the foundation as fast as possible. Keep in mind, I supported BB's re-hire and I wasn't a fan of the axing.
So Bradley is still upset that Klinnsman wanted, and was trying to get, the US job while he was still the coach. And he says this during a press conference of his new job that he interviewed for, and was trying to get, while the old manager was still trying to win games and keep his job. Hypocrite. Perhaps he shouldnt have sucked at his job and given anyone a chance to take it.
Hi folks. I've just deleted 3 posts that were off topic, in that they were about people who support Klinsmann rather than about the news at hand and as such violated the "play the ball, not the man" guideline we try to hold to in News and Analysis. Similar posts will be deleted.
There seems to be some misunderstanding of how the press conference went yesterday and why Bob spoke about Jurgen at one point during the lengthy engagement. Here's the direct quote, including the question he was responding to: Jurgen Klinsmann gave you a glowing reference. Firstly, what did that mean to you; and secondly, do you think he would be a good fit for another job going over here, as England manager? That's the trickiest question I’ve been asked so far. From the day I got fired by the U.S., I have not said one thing publicly about their team, alright? I don't appreciate the way it was done - I think they made a mistake. I'm glad that Jurgen says some nice things now. When he did commentary on the 2010 World Cup, he was already jockeying for the job. So I’ve shut my mouth, and continue to support the team. Because I of course want to see the team do well. Michael’s the captain. So if he has said something in a nice way, I appreciate it. And if at some point he chooses to try to work again outside the U.S., I wish him the best. Hopefully those of you that think he should have been only talking about the Arsenal game next week will now understand this is why he talked about Klinsmann. Also, here's a video link in case you want to watch more and hear BB not talk about Jurgen Klinsmann for the vast majority of the time:
It's still salty and unnecessary.I'd rather he was like,"That's nice,I'm focused on Aresenal ." And I've backed Bob for years on here.
Yeah I don't care for shade comments like this either, regardless of who says it, it creates unnecessary media attention. I'm super happy for BB, I support Arsenal in England, so I can't cheer for Bob just yet... So pumped he's putting NJ and more importantly the USA!!! on the map. This is really a huge deal from a US coaching perspective.
Most people seem to conveinantly forget the specifics of that final. We came out on fire bossing Mexico around with "attacking soccer" including the unlikely/surprise adjustment of starting Adu. After the injury happened we immediately fell apart. At that point in time we simply didn't have the depth to deal with that particular injury. Mexico exploited it.
People complained forever that Bob didn't say enough in pressers. Only vanilla. People complain that JK says TOO much in pressers. To me this was a good answer to a specific question that was asked. He told the press how he really felt without insulting anyone and tried to get them to move their questions away from his "Americanism". If you watch the entire press conference he essentially uses it as a platform to say "I will answer these questions now, even though I don't want to, so long as you understand that I'm not going to talk about this stuff again while I'm here" I though it was honest and smart to get all this crud out of the way now.
I'm a bit surprised at the revisionist history here (though maybe I shouldn't be). At the time, just about everyone here thought the 2011 GC was bad, and I'd say the majority were OK with Bradley being fired for it. Just like pretty much everyone thought the 2015 GC was bad, and the majority would have been OK with Klinsmann being fired for it.