So it's clear Bornstein should no longer be a part of this squad. The question remains: who replaces him? Lichaj is clearly at the front of the pack, but I would have liked to see how he handled 90 min at the position against Mexico. That said, there are a number of candidates, starting with: 1) Heath Pearce. Yes, he's playing at centerback. But so what? Bocanegra plays LB at the club level, and Bob had no problem playing him at CB on the international level. Don't know why the same couldn't happen with Pearce. 2) Bobby Convey - He's stated publically he doesn't love the position, but if it brought him back to the National team you'd have to think he'd give it 110 percent. With his attacking abilities, he might be the perfect fit. 3) Zach Lloyd - He's young and raw, but has the physical tools. Did well in the January camp according to reports. 4) DaMarcus Beasley - Yes, I went there. If he gets starts in Mexico, you need to consider him at left-back. Though he's getting up there in age. 5) Jonathan Spector - He's not fast, but he's got to be a better defender than Bornstein. I don't think Spain was a fair test - everybody looks bad against them. Anybody else on the radar?
For now Lichaj IMO I wonder how Tim Ream would do there. He's left-footed at least, he's shown good pace and he's good with the ball. If Bocanegra can play LB I don't see why Ream can't. Beasley would have to seriously resurrect him career for me to want to see him there. I have my doubts about Convey but no idea is too crazy at this point...
Daniel Williams is a German American who plays LB for Freiburg. We need to relentlessly pursue this kid. He has so much potential. He is another Chandler but with a left foot.
Well, I have better positioning and situational awareness on defense than Bornstein does. Should I be given a shot? But seriously, can't we find anyone that can actually, you know, defend from the LB spot? There's not one person in the whole country that can do this???
Fabian Johnson is a left-sided player, correct? If he's starting at Wolfsburg next year, and the Germans have given zero indication that they are interested, then he's ours. We can use him.
Lichaj should still get more looks, he's young and can still improve. He like the rest of the defense had an awful game today, but still willing to give him a chance. I want to see Williams too.
There's no real panic at left back... Lichaj was comfortable there and was gaining confidence throughout the tournament. He just got ********ed over by having to switch sides in the middle of a game. Pre-game, he was preparing to face Mexico's right side... a few minutes into the game "hey Eric, now you have to face Mexico's left side instead"... well, damn. That's going to screw the kid up. He was actually in good position on the 4th Mexico goal. 99% of the players in the world would not have gotten that shot over Lichaj's head. If Daniel Williams comes into our orbit, even better. There would be no conversation about the left back "situation" if Cherundolo hadn't been hurt, or if Chandler had been on the squad.
I haven't seen Convey or Lloyd lately so I can't comment, except to say that I hate the idea of shoehorning a guy who doesn't like the position into a spot as demanding as outside back. No one else on the list is remotely viable at the moment. Spector was an absolute liability for West Ham last year at outside back. Beasley isn't good enough to get a match in his natural position, why would we put him somewhere he's less comfortable? Heath Pearce wasn't good enough 3 years ago and he hasn't gotten any better since. Bocanegra is only passable at the position, and putting him there weakens the middle considerably. Frankly, after Lichaj our best option is a formation that doesn't require a left back.
OP is crazy for mentioning DB... haha anyways, if Edgar Castillo plays well, now that he is back with his original club America, then he deserves a shot at it.
That's a premature conclusion I think. Mexico was exploiting our back line before Cherundulo got hurt. While we can talk about the left back situation, I think that the proper context is to look at the entire back line. It was terrible today from the centers and the wides.
Centers were bad, but not as bad as some are saying. Bornstein was out of position so often that it forced Bocanegra to compensate. That left too much space in the middle. That's how Mexico's 4th goal started, for example, with Bocanegra having to go all the way to the corner flag.
Not a lot of glory to be shared among our defenders but Bradley and Jones offered absolutely no protection to them (Dempsey at mid either).
Before Cherundolo came off, we had a serious problem in the middle. After the injury, that became a critical mismatch on the left flank (Mexico's right). A cold Bornstein just isn't going to have any success at all against one of the tournament's best and most in-form players. But I can't think of what else I would've done (except bring in Chandler in a straight swap if he'd accepted the call-up, of course). That 'Dolo injury just really, really hurt. Mind you, I'd still have given odds that Mexico was going to win or at least draw over the 90 minutes the way things were going, even with the 2 goal margin, unless we somehow managed to hang on to the pressure by a fingernail and weather the storm, then peg a tired Mexico for a goal again in the 2nd half and put the game to bed. We could see early on what we'd been figuring: Mexico's attackers were just too quick for our back 4, but Lichaj in early minutes at least looked at least somewhat comfortable. Yanking him over to the other side kinda effed him up, and of course we got a cold and out-of-form Bornstein againt a red-hot Gio. Recipe for disaster. I had a feeling this would not work out to our liking, but the disastrously bad results are largely due to the Cherundolo injury putting Bob into a situation where he had to make a switch he really did not want to make, one that did nothing but hurt the side badly.
We had our struggles but you can look at that one sub as the turning point. Once Bornstein came in, they attacked him relentlessly. They forgot they had a left side(a very good one too), and kept feeding the ball to Barerra and Dos Santos down the right wing. It was obvious Bornstein was having a nightmare game and Mexico continued to go right at him. Barrera had his struggles last season at West Ham, he is obviously talented though, but Bornstein made him look world class. He should have been subbed, that's how bad it was.
I cant' believe I'm going to say this but I'm going to defend Borsntein tonight. Not his performance (which was awful), but judging him on it. First, we were giving up chances before he came in (blown offside trap (Dempsey); Hernandez flick off the post; Dangerous Guardado shot; a couple of nasty/dangerous runs by Dos Santos). So, although he was at fault a couple times, he certainly wasn't alone. But my bigger point, is of the 8 defenders we had: 1 is a RB playing LB (Lichaj), 1 is a LB who we have playing centrally (Bocanegra); 2 are guys who played basically no defense last year, when they did play, which was sparingly, it was in midfield (Spector, Bornstein), we had another guy who just hasn't been the same after blowing his knee (Onyewu), and one guy who is too green for this level (Ream). Of the two guys playing their "natural" positions, one got hurt (Dolo), and the other (Goodson) doesn't see guys like Hernandez, Dos Santos, Guardado, and Barerra in Denmark, I'll wager. Yes, Bornstein was poor, but so was nearly everyone else. It could have been a LOT worse.
Really? That's the best five you can come up with????????? Oh wait, it pretty much is. Yikes. I can't say I'm comfortable with any of those options. LB has always been a problem spot for the US.
Heath Pearce has been shown repeatedly to be worse than Bornstein. Unless Beasley has gotten a hell of a lot better in the last year or so, he's been shown to be worse than Bornstein. Spector has sucked at defense since the Confederations Cup ended. He doesn't even play there anymore for his club. Don't know about Convey and Lloyd.
Maurice Edu. Way to good to not be on the field, the only negatives are it's not his natural position and he's not left footed, but we have three years for him to develop to the position and we don't have any left footed players that would be as good as him there. He is very athletic, smart defensively, has the ability to get up and down the field very will and is neat and tidy on the ball, especially on the backline where there is a little more time and space.