Horvath isn't the answer at GK right now...but it would be harsh to write off his career. Hopefully he can get his confidence back and grow from the experience. After all, that's what this friendly is all about.
Think that's being quite overstated. He's a 22 yr old low on confidence at the moment. With Brugge I've seen some real quality games from him though. He has some real high end potential despite what we're seeing now. I'd agree Steffen should get a look though.
Hamid looks like the most reliable near-term option and Steffen for the long-term. He's shown great leadership, poise, anticipation, and athletic potential in the MLS playoffs.
What I like about this midfield combo (at the moment, only seen 40 minutes) is that they are all-around players. Good defense, good coverage, good dribble, good passing, good concentration. Rarely great but certainly mostly good. Heck, even good shooting. This is a lot more like the Reyna/JOB/Stewart years. One of our problems have been having so many midfielders that were really good at one thing and really bad at another.
It's going to be interesting to see what Arena says at half time. "So, this group has played Portugal at least even on the road. Your last roster couldn't get a draw against a T&T B team. What do you think about that?"
I have seen him too, at Brugge and his previous club ... and he has been generally overrated by quite a margin here. It isnt just this performance. He lost his job at Brugge for a reason and the national team is not the place to find your mojo. We have several other better keepers than him who should be playing until and unless he raises his game at some point in the future.
He doesn't produce howlers anything close to that. Occasionally he'll push a rebound in front of him unnecessarily, the ball will go underneath him on a dive, or he won't come out of his net at the right time. Those are things you see from starting keepers for the U.S. or even at a high level throughout the globe. It would be more about frequency and if there are enough spectacular saves to offset. And that's something we could have got info about in the Gold Cup. He should have gotten 5 games there, instead of 1, with Guzan in net for the others iirc.
Ricardo Ferreira is the guy who got turned inside the box while moving like a mule, not Danilo. This is Ferreira's first call up and cap, and now we know why.
Solid first half outside the colossal blunder in goal. Midfield doesn't look particularly creative, but they all cover a lot of ground and work hard. Defense holding up decently, central guys looking good. Still waiting for Sapong to get some service up front before anything can be said there.
Brooks and McKennie were our best two. Appreciate the work rate of Sapong, Adams, and Yedlin as always.
"I would have brought Miazga, Williams, McKennie, Adams and Sapong to Russia". -Arena, probably in a couple mins
I don't disagree with that; I don't think we spread out game time enough looking at GKs and definitely shouldn't have spent any time on Howard this cycle.
Yes this is a friendly against a “stronger” opponent who isn’t going to sit back like teams in CONCACAF, but I won’t believe that the US wouldn’t have qualified if we played this group instead of the old guard those last four games.