75' 4-2 Masuya(?) backpass from 5m wide left to Sakaguchi trailing at 25m wide left. Sakaguchi fakes centerward, drives down wide left, then cuts inside to box top left. Right instep shross toward right side netting, Naeher dives up-and-out rightward but left hand reaches not. Darn that shot pattern, we should totally steal that and do it ourselves 81' 4-2 S.Mewis makes a storming run through a gassed pocket of 4, momentarily surrounded at arc top mid-right but she motors right through/past them and they cannot go with her. Mewis gets to 7m box right, taps outward to Heath alone at 5m wide right. Heath swings for a one-touch cross, foul-tips it sidespinning into endboard. That's the tennis forehand that catches all wood on the rim. 83' 4-2 Sakaguchi chases back down her own left touch, backshields Heath off ball. Heath runs into near touch, overtakes Sakaguchi on the right, pokes ball away and takes it past her. Alas, Heath underhits a square ground cross, intercepted.
Much as expected. Japan is not, at this point, quiet as good as the US and they need either a few more pieces or a good deal of luck to prevail against the US. BTW: The field was still horrible and both teams deserved better.
Heath taken to school, falls over, and Japan scores a fantastic goal. Bummer! I was thinking, "poor Semblance17." LOL!
Over 18,400 in attendance tonight. There were some a few weeks ago who were advocating not giving the game to Kansas City because they lost the NWSL team to low attendance. And as I said, support for the USWNT has nothing to do with support for the NWSL even though the same players play for both. Crazy phenomenon
A little hyperbolic, don't you think? I don't need your pity; I was disappointed but not crushed. Even if you were to put the blame for conceding that goal squarely and solely on Heath's shoulders, by the same logic she still broke even on the night. And I did appreciate @Gilmoy [intentionally or otherwise] not even mentioning whom Sakaguchi faked in the leadup to that goal. It was an impressive bit of play, and I like to think that not many defenders in Heath's position wouldn't have taken the bait. Just a flavor. I prefer to see it as Sakaguchi seeking out a little vengeance for her teammate by making Heath look bad en route to a goal, and to her credit succeeding masterfully. Even the most skilled players get outskilled every now and then. To quote that Liberty Mutual commercial, "News Flash: Nobody's perfect."
Honestly I found this part more painful to watch than Heath getting beat by Sakaguchi, because it cut short the development of a promising play and in this case it was self-inflicted. You could see how upset she got with herself right away. Oddly enough reading that analogy took some of the sting out of it retroactively.
Sorry, didn't mean to strike a nerve, I was totally joking around. Heath is one of my favorite players. It was funny at the time because of the posts on here.
I liked that the US showed patience both in handling the press and in attack once they broke it. Baby steps but thats something. Defense is still way too much of an adventure. If ur gonna play Dunn as essentially a wing back then Sonnett makes sense as the third CB than an actual right back would.
Agree. I think Dunn may be ok at left back, but she did step in and miss the ball a couple of times, leaving her attacking player with space to get into a dangerous position. I saw other US players do that, too. It's a concern. I was taught that if you're a defender, if you're going to step in to take or block the ball, you have to succeed or you'll put your team in trouble.
Alex Morgan is the most talented and dangerous goal scorer in USWNT history. Carli Lloyd was the most clutch. Wambach had more goals (Morgan actually scores more goals per minute ratio). But when you factor in Morgan's speed and athleticism (which Abby didn't have) .... She is more dangerous. She can score against anyone at any moment of any match.
No full match video on youtube as of yet. Maybe in another day or two. In the meantime, I did find this: Welcome to BigSoccer, by the way. I have to say: I love your choice of profile picture.
We had too many holes in the defense for my liking. We made the most of our opportunities against a not full strength Japan side but I'm worried a better team will exploit the gaps that Japan exposed.
You have to remember that we were not at full strength either. Yes we had defensive mistakes but so did Japan. The fact is if you are going to press on attack and you do not have near perfect midfielders that can hold the ball at all times against pressure (which we don't) you are going to give up some one v one or two v three or even unbalanced chances. That is not really a problem for the US particularly as we were short a few natural defenders. In fact, as I said in another post, our real weakness is the inability to open up locked down defenses and I do not see anyone in our current group of players that can and will do that.
I think some of that was the field. There were a lot of slide type tackles in both matches where players players either over slid or came up a little short because they couldn't figure where the grass ended and the cow pasture began. I agree that the US players took chances that when missed left them open to a more dangerous attack than if they had simply defended the player.
[QUOTE="FanOfFutbol, post: 36948300, member: 21492".our real weakness is the inability to open up locked down defenses and I do not see anyone in our current group of players that can and will do that.[/QUOTE] heath? pinoe? dunn? mewis when she's healthy and playing regularly? btw, this has been ellis' singular goal since the olympic debacle. If she can't get it right, someone else will be rightlfully given the job going forward. our real problem is simple (some would say difficult). we need quicker/faster playing forward (or accurate shooting to pull the bunkered players out) AND defending out of the midfield. i'd like to see our midfield play-interruption/intervention & forward passing stats. we seem to be especially poor in that area. ... or maybe i'm just overreacting because we just played japan (seems the same when we play france). i'll be keeping a close eye on this particular problem area today.
I was a little surprised at the way Japan bossed the ball on us in the first half. I mean, Japan can do that--but we were on the back foot for most of the first half. The U.S. didn't have many chances in 1H but converted two of them and so took the lead against the run of play...our midfield play was fairly meh in the first half, IMO, which is usually try when you spend a lot of time chasing the ball. It's hard for /everybody/ to score against teams that park the bus. Fortunately, most teams like to play and there really aren't many teams like Sweden who can hunker down behind the ball and yet have the size and athleticism to make a defensive game work for them.