guys: 1. it was a friendly!!!!!!!! the idea was to get a runout without (hopefully) anyone getting injured. the uswnt dominated the run of play yesterday, set up excellent scoring chances, and won the game. if you have not yet seen many games in which one side dominated position, set up the most scoring chances but tied or lost the game, you need to look at more soccer. it happens not once or twice, not rarely, but a lot!!! that's soccer. 2. which brings me to j&b. it's just the lowest form of fandom and humanity in fact to wish an injury on someone. mods, that's something i would give a red card for. 3. the poster who thought that luckenbill might be upset with her defenders who just stood around on that one save needs to understand that when defenders stand and block out and the goalie comes out its because the goalie has called for the ball. the defenders are supposed to block out and leave the space to her. she would in fact be upset with them if they try to go for the ball when she has called for it. 4. we don't have a forward? check abby's scoring rate this year. it is approx. a goal per game. that is an excellent scoring rate. in fact it is above par for just about any forward over an extended period of time. 5. hucles and wagner slow? wagner you mean. wagner was slow in college, slow in the wusa, and is slow for the uswnt. she will always be slow. she just is not blessed with quickness or speed. i have said before that she should not be on this team. she slows down an already aging team even more. hucles, on the other hand, you need to look at any game she plays extended minutes in and see her run down players on defense and run by players on offense (things wagner rarely or never does), and if you're honest you'll have to change your opinion. 6. back to abby. here are her advantages over parlow. a)she is faster b)she jumps higher c)she combines better with mia d)she has lethal right and excellent left foot e)if she does not score in the run of play, it's because the defenders are fouling or kicking the ball to safety sometimes over the end line, causing a set play from which she is a deadly scorer. 7. the defense we used yesterday is not the defense we will use in greece. for a defense that has not played a lot with each other in those positions and with a different than the customary gk, they did quite well. 8. finally, canada had one practice, but they are a very good team that has height, skill, and toughness, and they and their coach know our players like the backs of their hands. so they played the counterattacking game, put as many as 5, 6, or sometimes 7 in the box when we were attacking during the run of play, and their goalie made some excellent saves. 9. it was a freaking friendly!!!!!! yea, yea, yea, i know i said it before.
i kinda agree w/ luvdagame on point 1 (eventhough he/she said that i'm an inhuman but, i still respect on his opinion), if you watch the Euro tournament recently, there're alot of examples on what lavdagame said.
But, there's Parlow before Abby, she plays more games, more WC, more Olympic, scores more goals than Abby does...........
the competition is definitely tougher now, and abby is just an allround better soccer player. that's what i see. but more importantly, that's what the coaching staff sees as well!
Abby?? All around better soccer player? LOL! Abby's style of play suits what the US scheme wants. It has always been built around and "Akers" and that is the role Abby fills. Score on set pieces, rely on the big brutish girl to score the goals, etc. Its like the USWNT pre-96. The thing that Parlow brings to the game is her ability to dribble, at match speed, and deliver a ball. Whether to the net, or to a player. Abby simply cannot do this yet. This is not to say that Abby is not valuable, or even that she is not the best scoring option for the US. But she has a singular talent and the rest if genetic. Parlow is far more well rounded as a player, but lacks the genetics of Wambach. If you want to say Abby has more genetic gifts than Parlow, then I will concede that, but you'll never convince me that she is the more skilled player.
Well, I did not really get any impresson from her play one way or the other. I did not take any notes and I do not remember her at all. That can be a good thing for a player as recently the most memorial moments are when someone, or several someones, screws up. Mac and Hucles are VERY different players and they should never be compaired to one another. I know, I know ... Based on recent play I would not want either on the field if I needed to get a goal or protect a one goal advantage neither have shown the solid play needed in situations where the game is on the line and both have made several glaring errors in recent games. You don't suppose we could get a fake birth cirt and somehow sneak Sinclair onto the US team, do you. Then we might have one true striker. Maybe we could bleach her hair blond and call her Mitts? No one would really notice; Would they?
Bingo. Canada had a very strong defense at one time. This wasn't it. Nonen, Boyd and Chapman all missing, a 16 year old rookie on the back line and still no US goals in the run of play. April really needs to work on turning possession into goals. A small improvement there would go a long way. Given Canada's problems in the back and zero preparation time they put up a better fight than I expected. Canada's forwards need midfield support. The mid's won't be able to push up until the back line gets sorted out. Even with little/no support the Canadian strikers are always dangerous. They're masters at turning small opportunities into big goals. Sinclair's strike on net deflected by Boxx was so close. Another few inches over or a handball call on Boxx and this one could have easily been a 1-1 tie.
should we ignore genetic gifts when discussing and analyzing a player's ability? that's impossible!! i refer you to my above list. that's what i see. that's what the coaching staff probably sees. i do not deny cp's dribbling skills, but there are many players with sublime dribbling skills all over the world who cannot even make club teams because of the pace of their play. cp has dribbling skills but lacks pace. and the womens game is getting faster and she is not!! abby has good dribbling skills too. not as good as cp, but she is faster than cp and is a better allround player. if cp were a better allround player she would be starting. her dribbling skills and pace work better when she is brought in as a sub after the defenders are tired and slower. she is being used perfectly by the coaching staff. i've said this before: some people don't like to acknowledge it, but size and speed (with the right amount of skill) are a huge part of what makes good international soccer teams good. that's what abby has. you can call it brutish if you want, but these are the ingredients that all the top mens and womens teams have. the lower level teams can harp on the fact that they have players who work hard, dribble well, and have all kinds of skill. but they are still losing because that ability is not coupled with the right amount of size and speed (you say brutishness). you and i may not like it, but it's the name of the game. it's reality.
Well then, why did we even bother to play? If that's all that is needed, we could have had an intersquad scrimmage. You know, an event where the USWNT plays Globetrotters to some soccer equivalent of the Washington Generals. They could throw buckets of confetti at the screaming little girls and play all the other Globetrotter tricks. Everyone would have a good time and go home thinking good thoughts. But, for some reason, we wanted to play a match against a real honest to god, world class opponent. Well, if that's the case, winning doesn't matter, but quality of play does. We dominated some meaningless statistics. This is cause for some alarm b/c we've had the same problem in a significant number of matches recently. We needed a good performance in terms of organization, communication, and quality of play; and it just didn't happen. so damn right I'm concerned! I should have been clearer. When I played Goalkeeper ( not Goalie or Net Minder ) during the last century, I expected some protection from my backs. First, no forward should EVER get a direct run at the GK. It is the back's responsibility to take away the direct path bu running in it themselves. Further, instead of lollygagging around at the penalty line, the defenders should have been BEHIND the GK to cover just in case she didn't make the play. If I'd been playing, I would have been more than just upset with the lackadaisical performance of my backs. This has caused us to give up too many unnecessary goals. Champions always play quality defense. The US have not been champions much recently b/c they do not pay attention to the details. Thank God! But the regular defense isn't all that either. I watched the entire match, and I didn't see it that way. Also, did you notice how often the Canadians matched numbers with us on their offensive end? That's hard to do out of a bunker. But to be honest, I really didn't see much evidence of bunkering down either. The hard truth is that Canada came to town minus 3/4 of her normal defense and short on training, fitness, and substitutes. None the less they gave as good as they got until they ran out of steam late in the match. Despite these advantages, the USWNT demonstrated all the tactical and technical problems that have plauged the program since DiCicco left. Was this a meaningless friendly - for all the heart the US put into it, yes.
Re: Achilles heels! I am sorry. but you make's no sense about Abby falling on her ass as you have said. what about Parlow? I don't even have to mention all those great passes she made to Mia which contribute to her goal tally. I gotta go because you bore me.
Sock puppet. I'm sorry that you are upset by my criticism of your daughter, Mrs. Wambach. However, in addition to getting knocked down a lot, she also falls a lot while she is cutting and, worse, she makes a lot of inappropriate sliding tackles during passing attempts. These lapses have the effect of taking her out of the play - especially since she lounges around once she hits the ground. Since there are fewer finishers up top in a 4-4-2, taking herself out of the play has the effect of making her team short handed and contributes to the US scoring difficulties. Perhaps you will be less bored if I use smaller words that you can understand.
That's a good question. I know Aly, for one, has lost a lot of confidence since being coached by April, and it shows. I also know of other players who have questioned Ape's coaching methods, and they basically end up in her dogouse when they question her. Only a couple days practice, and a lot of new players to their senior squad. I chalk that up to no Joy and/or Brandi in there to organize it. IMO, no one can organize a defense like Joy can, and it's rather telling when she's not there. Also, Lucks in goal may have contributed to that, as well as Mitts in there playing out of position a lot.
Wagner's serves in college were so precise, it was a thing of beauty. Somewhere along the line, she's lost that. See my last post about her waning confidence. I think that has a lot to do with it. I'm hoping if the US gets a new coach after the Olympics, that person can instill that cinfidence in Wagner again, because she is quite talented. I watched her for four years at Santa Clara (as well as worked with her in ODP camps 4-years ago), and this is just not the same player. I'm not sold on Hucles being ready for the bigtime yet, but apparently April is. I honestly think that goes back to having coached her in college. As enamored as April is with speed, it's still surprising because Hucles isn't all that speedy from what I've seen.
How can this classify as a 'meaningless friendly' with three matches and a little over a month to go before a big tournament? Given the recent shortcomings of the team, this is hardly a time to consider this as some sort of exhibition. It's the coach, it's the coach, it's the coach, .................. We can argue this player over that player, that this player isn't what she used to be, that other teams have caught-up. But at the end of the day, it's the coach's responsibility, and her job, to make the team play up to it's potential. We all know that is not happening. How many other coaches - in any sport - have squandered (sp?) a world championship team over such a short time and were still around to tell about it? I'm sure there are few but it's irresponsible nonetheless. With the talent that is coming out of college, even High School, any rebuilding program should have been relatively seemless. It has not been. Take Wagner for instance. I don't watch/analyze this team as much as many. But I did watch a match a few years ago and commented afterwards that she wore the '10' proudly. I haven't been able to say that since. This situation has all the symptoms of poor leadership. The players - young or old - are not playing to their potential. When that happens, the first move to make is a leadership change. We are in a no win situation here - win the Olympics and we're stuck with the same leadership - lose the Olympics, and, well, not just lose the Olympics, but witness the potentially best team in the world not live up to their potential.....again.
Tom T, Your words ring hollow to me. As someone entrusted with teams every year, I'll try to explain myself a bit, and I hope you'll indulge me here... First, I will say that I do not feel that April has been the correct coach to lead this team for the period she has or into the future. Nor did she want to be. She declined the job when first offered. So lets look at the poltics of the situation. We have a fairly successful youth coach who is doing well. We have a federation that is displeased with the current national coaching staff for their part in developing a league for the players outside of USSF jurisdiction. Threats are made back and forth, players threaten to walk out. The USSF sends an alternate team to an international competition. It's a tense time. The USSF needs a new coach, in a hurry. Someone who won't make waves, and someone who will follow the party line. So they call up April. She declines knowing that taking the job will be career suicide. She knows she is now on thin ice with the federation for refusing to help them out of a bad situation. They look at their options. Clive is too sick, Gregg is with Tony on the league, other coaches are sticking to their college jobs and the USSF can't easily exert pressure on them. So the pendulum swings back to April. She knows if she refuses a second time, she'll probably lose her position with the team she has. A tough spot to be in. April comes into the job with a disgruntled group of women who are pretty disinterested in whatever the USSF is pushing. April can't clean house because that would not only damn the WUSA, it would mean political suicide for her being the coach that had to cut Mia Hamm et. al. So she has to keep the popular players, and she must quickly find young players to try to merge into this group. She tries a dozen or more young players but quickly realizes there are no quick fixes. She must take her lumps, let the team look disorganized until she can find a reasonable mesh of young and old. This appears not to be one of her strong points and so she struggles in front of the world. The USSF dutifully backs her up amidst growing discontent from the young fans. Meanwhile, the league starts up nicely, and then falls flat on it's face. Now she has to nurse the older players through a league restart, and has to take them to WC03 for them to remain in the public eye long enough to try to revive the league. That goes quite poorly, and they lose a heartbreaker to Germany. The players recognize that their desire to hang on past their due has destroyed the team, but vow to walk away in a group after the Olys of '04 so that the team can rebuild properly, and the 10+ year legacy of an intact national team can mercifully come to an end. April will have to walk away with it. With a magnificent winning percentage, and little respect from the soccer world. Her record will be better than Ansons, but she'll have none of his respect. And she'll have people ridicule her for her failure to win "the big one". In your post, you noted that the US had fallen off so fast after April took over. But lets look at the facts. In 1999, the US fell to China in penalty kicks. So by all reason, the US and China were even. What did China do in WC03? Using that as a measure, I'd say the US did quite well. Joy Fawcett is 36 years old, and is still a STARTER on this team. Foudy, Chastain, and Mia, aren't far behind. Shannon Mac is 30. Scurry is about 34. If this was a men's team, they'd be laughed off the pitch. People would be offering canes and wheelchairs to them. Yet, we put them on the field and expect them to run with girls just over half their age, and then wonder why we can't win. The fans demand these older players although every coach in the world worth his or her salt knows how to go after them and defeat them. And yet we ridicule the coach. Do you think we'd send Bruce Arena to the world cup without him having full control of his roster? Would any other free country in the world do this? But yet, it is what we make April do. And when she wins close games it's not good enough, and when she loses to the best teams in the world, we point and mock. So again, I say, April is not the solution to the problem. She never sought to be. And I am not here to champion her cause. I am merely trying to place blame where it belongs. And there are a lot of places for pieces of it to land. Thanks for listening.
from tom t: "How can this classify as a 'meaningless friendly' with three matches and a little over a month to go before a big tournament?" it's not meaningless. you need to try players out in different positions, and try a few new plays without showing all your bag of tricks to your olympic opponents and (hopefully) without anyone getting injured. from elroy: "If that's all that is needed, we could have had an intersquad scrimmage." when teams practice against each other for a certain length of time they lose their edge. they don't tackle their friends as hard. friendlies solve that problem but it's still a friendly. from rbatc: "Wagner's serves in college were so precise, it was a thing of beauty. Somewhere along the line, she's lost that." nope. she still has it. if she went back to college her passes would still be a thing of beauty. but in the wusa and now with the uswnt she can't do it because the game moves much faster than in college, and she still moves like molasses. she's just not blessed with quickness. i still say there is too much hand wringing.
Thanks SCoach for the insightful post. I also believe that a combination of factors have put the team in this postion. You would think that after 10 years and thousands more women playing the sport... the USSF could develop a few more players who are not Carolina Alumni.
Coaching difficulties I also appreciate your post although I don't agree completly. If I understand your beginning, politics and control are the problems. Both the Fed and the "Eternals" want to run things and I agree with that analysis. Hell, most of the Eternals have coaching ambitions and some are even coaching now. The Fed has been transparent concerning their contempt for the program. It is a coach's nightmare. Except...a coach with the requisite courage could have taken the job and called everyone's bluff. The coach would have required more roster control as prerequisite to taking the job. The coach should have discussed potential roster problems and required that the Fed back her. She also should have met with the Eternals and hammered out a workable agreement concerning their role on the team. If April was all they had, she should have realized this and strengthened her hand rather than just slinking into the job. The part I disagree with is concerning April. No one held a gun to her head, she should have stood up. She's held the job for years now and has not yet made the technical, tactical, or player changes necessary to the success of the program. There is no evidence that she even sees the problem. If you are right concerning the negative influence of the Eternals, and I believe that you are, she should have confronted it before now. If a significant number of them refuse to retire after Greece, then April must go and a ball breaker brought in. That's if what you say is true. Eric Wynalda said it and look at the political firestorm he ignighted. I think that you are right. If we do poorly enough in Greece, maybe others will as well.
Re: Coaching difficulties Elroy, being a national team coach is much like being a politician. If you want to keep in the good graces with the people who have the power, you don't step in and make waves right away. Consider a few of the things that happened when April stepped in. First thing she did was she made a public announcement that "no one's job is secure." She tried to step in an take a firm grip of the team. Players who'd been comfortable for years were now on the outs. The backlash was incredible. And she learned quickly that unlike the youth team she had before, she could not simply run the roster the way she saw fit. Look closely at the roster you see now. Look at the new faces that weren't there in 1999. In five years, she's changed the face of the team completely amid the firestorm. Yes, the Eternals still are running the show to a degree, but April has broght in reasonable talent in every position for when they leave. She bowed to pressure and took Shannon Mac to the WWC03. Politically it was the right thing to do, but she was blasted for it, not by the young fans, but by the people who knew better. She did things differently this time. You said that a coach with courage could have stepped in and called people's bluff. Mentioning that if April was all they had (the USSF) she could have done so. Well, April was not all they had, she was the best they had. And there is a difference. There are dozens of coaches who want that position. But the USSF likes to promote within. Stir the pot too much, and you're career in coaching the USSF teams is over. It's a delicate line to walk. No different than in any pro men's sport. You don't just walk into the Knicks or the Lakers and gut the team and not expect problems, I don't care WHO you are. I don't think we have the team to win gold at Athens. I think our stars are to old, and our youth to inexperienced. But although I love what Tony D. was able to do with this team, much of the blame falls at his feet. In a time when he could have been ensuring the future success of this team, he took the easy road, held the team essentially intact, and won everything then walked away knowing they had a long rebuilding process behind. The USSF shares the blame because they knew it was happening. April takes part of the blame for not biting the bullet and just beginning to drop some of the players and replacing them early so we would have had a strong shot to win the WC last year and the Olys this year. And the players take some of the blame for playing far too long. As fans of the MNT, we look at a player like Agoos, and wonder why he is still out there though it's clear he gets roasted by younger players all the time. The Germany v US game a prime example. Yet on the women's side we have 6 Agoos's starting. Four years ago, it was still almost good enough. Now, talented teams like Japan and Canada can cause us fits with their speed. Players like Tarpley, O' Reily, Reddick, etc., will carry us for the next 5-10 years. They'll have old hats like Parlow, likely Shannon Mac, and Mullinex, to help them along. But it will take some years before they become the US of old. When the US was coming to prominence, it was Italy, Norway, Sweden, and China that were the perennial powerhouses. They had women's pro leagues before anyone else (include Japan in there too). And we struggled to beat them. Eventually as their players aged, we started to win. Everyone else was too young and inexperienced to challenge us, and those teams were too old and facing rebuilding. WC03 was a prime example. China looked terribly old and slow and had not rebuilt as much as we had. Norway did little. Sweden looked good, but had began their rebuilding back before WC99 and it's startingto pay. Canada used to be nothing, now they train in college with our best players, and it's beginning to show. Mexico is much the same. Germany is facing rebuilding after the Olys as they are now in the position the US was in back in 96/99. They stand poised to be WC and Oly champions. I have not seen a single other team in the world, rebuild through a patient process like we have, and still remain ranked in the top 5. When this group of players walks away, will we be able to contune that? I hope so, but I won't blame April if we don't. I think she's probably done as well as she could considering her talent, her political edicts, and her abilities as a coach.
SCoach, interesting post. I've never heard this perspective before. I don't know if things were as you say, but it puts a different slant on things. I think you're right to point out that we were essentially even with China in '99. We were never the overwhelming power that many think we were. And China has slid down the rankings since then. When they were sent home during th 2000 Olys, didn't they still have the same coach?
Yes, we were even with China. Pks in WC99. And yes, they have the same coach (even in WC03), and mostly the same players. But I suggest people go back a few years and look at the results of some of those vaunted teams' games from 99. China 2 Russia 0 (when's the last time you heard from Russia?) USA 3 Germany 2 (tight game, we were lucky to come from behind to win) Brazil 0 Norway 0 US 2 Brazil 0 (second goal scored about the 80th minute) Germany 3 Brazil 3 (Was Brazil even RANKED in th top 10?) Japan 1 Canada 1 (So even....) Norway 7 Canada 1 (Wow, now look) Russia 5 Japan 0 (again, Wow... now look) ...Only 4 years later, those results were quite different Germany 3 Japan 0 (Talk about closing the gap!) Canada 3 Japan 1 (So Japan had made up about 4 goals on Germany but still get bested by Canada) China 1 Russia 0 (still a tight race) China 1 Australia 1 (what? if the US had been tied by the Aussies...) China 0 Canada 1 (so Canada beats a team we beat on PKs 4 years earlier) Germany 7 Russia 1 (And there is the new world order) Our former rivals other than Germany, have slid off the face of the international game. The upstarts in WC99 have really started to push near the top. And we still sit near the top of the perch. We played some tight games in that world cup, and sat on top for our small time. Then it was Germany's turn. I predict Brazil will be next. They've done it patiently. But through all that, the US has stayed in the top 3, unlike all of our rivals. And still we complain. Looking at these WC results tells me a few things. First, Canada is legit. They've proven that they can play with the top 3 teams anytime or anywhere and we still take them lightly. What makes it MORE remarkable is that they are doing it wil players that are in general, 10-15 years younger than our players. At the U19 level, US v Canada is dead even. The results also tell me that Brazil stands poised to break through. It tells me that Swedens investment in youth players will see them in the top 5 for some time to come. And it tells me that Japan will find itself in the top 5 in the next 2 years. Again, this is just my fool way of looking at things, but I don't think we've done all that bad as a country over the past 5 years. Better than all but Germany, who are younger than us, ever so slightly.
Re: Sock puppet. You are so silly calling Abby my daughter? so Abby realy never make any meaningful passes. I wonder if you are on crack. beside what about Parlow, she does't hit the deck at all to your memory. only Abby does. fine with you if you only want to see what you want's to see dueing any game in which either get some time. only watch Abby. don't look for Parlow, only for Abby. I leave it to you to figure out any thing else about Abby. and forget about Parlow she could do no wrong?
Selling out. SCoach, You have said a lot of things that I agree with, but I can't go with you on this one. If April was the right coach, she would have survived the backlash or resigned. The Fed doesn't like Bruce Arena either, but he has much more control. Yes, their situations are not exactly alike, but a stronger coach would not compromise their principles just to keep a job. Unfortunately, April was not the right coach technically or tactically. It does not appear that she has the respect of her players, nor do they show any special understanding of the game when on the field. I watched an MLS match just prior to the USWNT. The MLS is painfully slow for affectianados of international soccer, yet they still played at a speed that was light years faster than the nats. Speed of play has nothing to do with gender. Women are as smart as men. They should be able to recognize tactical situations and opportunities at the speed a male player would. Yet, it wasn't even close. A big part of the problem is the Fed. They want to micromanage and play politics. They limited their choices to coaches who were already coaching women, that left April as the best of what they had ( your words ). I know that money and fan base are important, but they've let a very small group of players hog the greatest proportion of resources for more than a decade. No other successful program in the world has done this. Look at the caps! Of course things aren't as simple as I've painted them, but I believe that they are close. We need to have the coach in charge.