USA v. England IN-GAME thread [R]

Really poor.

List of players who looked like they belonged:

1) Howard
2) Beasley
3) Adu


List of players who looked really poor (in order of suckitiude):

1) Clark
2) Wolff
3) Boca
4) Edu
5) Bradley
6) EJ
7) Gooch
8) Dempsey

List of players who might be ok, but really just didn't suck as hard as we know they can (in order of suck):

1) Cher
2) Pearce
3) Lewis
4) Jacqua
5) Guzan

List of coaches who are lost and have no idea where to go:

1) Bob Bradley

 

Two Gulf Wars and No World Cups, doo dah...

 

My problem with this whole deal is we're supposed to be playing these 3 friendlies against truly formidable opponents so we can see how we stack up and prepare for the near future, WC qualifying and the WC itself. So why throw in questionable players who have already proved time and again in the past that they don't have world class abilities?

 

I don't understand how Bob was experimenting. If he needed to watch Josh Wolff against England to judge him, we are in trouble. I really would like to hear from Bob why he started Wolff. Sure it is a big blow when your #1 striker gets injured before the match, but thats no reason for starting and playing Wolff for 65 minutes. Maybe I am being hard on Wolff because a number of US players played below average.

I think we will learn a lot from Bob from these next two matchs. He is playing teams that are a lot better. Does Bob stick to a team that won't get blown away and play conservative? Or will he give some new attacking players major time on the field?

 

Damn, that was painful.


And I was surprised that the MLS contingent was under-represented - it's not like the European-based players are covered in glory, with performances like that.


At least if there were more MLS players there, I would sort of understand the way it seemed the players were simply overawed by the presence of their counterparts in the England squad, and the match being in a place like Wembley (with 70k+ in attendance, too) - but the players in Premiership teams, at least, have no excuse.


And it wasn't fun seeing the complete arrogance (and ignorance) shown by the MOTD guys tonight - going for the cheap shot with that Beckham goal against the Wizards, not even mentioning what teams the MLS (or former MLS) players were on (they made the point of talking about Freddy Adu's past, but never once said which team he had played for) and... well...


Ugh.


And it was ironic that a Canadian in an England jersey mananged to beat an American who plays for a Canadian team...

 

I think EJ had a decent game, won a couple of headers and had some nice touches. Josh Wolff was invisible, how has this guy manage to fool everyone into thinking he knows how to play soccer?

 

Huh? If they did well, then we obviously could compete. I never understood it when people would say things like, "they're too young to know they're not good enough to win," right after they win a big game. Well, then they were good enough, weren't it.

I think players can talk themselves out of being competitive ("we're not good enough") just as easily.

 

IMO Wolff was his mistake. He's a known commodity and on top of that, is an aging forward that struggled through fitness with... Munich. I was surprised to see him start. Especially over someone like Adu who, despite getting limited time, is so hungry and eager to prove himself capable.

I would imagine it's lesson learned, and against Spain, you'll see a much different lineup maybe even with Donovan, should he be ok to play. I'd think that as long as the lessons are learned now, when points are not at stake, and the team's tweaked to cruise through qualifying (or as close as possible to cruising), then it'd be worth it.

 

Everyone needs to chill. We lost to England at Wembley...did you see their first half lineup???? C'mon. Sorry if Rico Clark and Michael Bradley were no match for Lampard and Gerard. The problem wasn't the forwards, as some have suggested, it was the complete lack of service and support (something BTW Wolff provided none of for EJ - I hope we've seen the last of him for some time). For all the EJ bashing here, I thought he was one of our best players.

IMO, what was most frustrating was our lack of composure on the ball, our lack of overlapping runs and crisp one touch passing. There was no imagination whatsoever. Though I thought things improved a bit when Frankie came in - how can you not love the guy?!? And we have to get Adu on the field, I don't care if he's not getting a run at Benfica. SGE used to give Peter Crouch a ton of time when he was riding the pine for L'pool and he played just fine for England.

 

For all the bitching about the line up I fail to see many suggestions of who should have played or been called up that wasn't?

The sad fact is that we're facing a team (and will again in Spain and Argentina) where the other team is stronger then us at every single position.

It's hard to play well with that circumstance.

I wish that Altidore and Donovan had started up top but other then that, I don't think we had any other players that would have made much of a difference to what was out there today. Maybe Sacha K.

 

It's not a theory, I've never seen a MLS game so I can only speculate as to its quality in relation to the national team (which I've just seen).

For the record, the English team is an embarrasment, and I don't believe the Premiership is the best league in the world either.

 

So in other words, keep the bad coach (otherwise known as "the thing we can actually easily change").

I just despise this attitude. DESPISE it. I mean no one thinks that hiring Alex Ferguson wins us a World Cup, but that's just about the dumbest reason in the world to therefore settle with third rate American coaches with no playing experience, and low level coaching experience.

Why not hire better coaches as the starting point to a plan that improves the program across the board? Waiting until we get better players to improve our coaching is the prototypical "cart before the horse" argument.

 

I think there's good and bad from both. In Europe the Yanks train with better players overall [in the higher level leagues] but also probably lose any self-percieved invincibility because its a constant recognition that they're mediocre in the grand scheme of things [compared to the Gerrards and Renaldos and Messis of the world]. Playing in MLS they might become lazy and arrogant being the best players in a midlevel league. But at the end of the day I think it comes down to the individual players. There personality and the way they react to competition should dictate where they play. If they can push themselves and play in America then go for it. If they're realistic enough to go to Europe, make a few bucks, and become better than there former selves [and be humble enough to not think they're going to show up and score 20 goals in the EPL] then they should go for Europe. It depends on the player.

 

I smiled.

 

To be fair, against England U.S. probably has the advantage in terms of streaker fan-chicks.

 

What about the 2002 World Cup? We beat Portugal, had a draw on the road against future semifinalist South Korea and made it to the quarterfinals, the top eight in the world. And played right with Germany in the quarters. If that's not elite, I don't know what is.

 

Sadly the best American Forward remains Brian McBride despite being nearly 40.

 

USA had a fantastic 2002 run. But IMO the 'elite' of teams make it that far more consistently or at least make the second round a bit more consistently. One stat about the 2002 Cup that also stands out a little... I believe the USA team was the first one ever to qualify for the second round with a negative goal difference.

 

Take it easy on the old guy, he's only 36, almost.

 

Well, before I will leave you guys to BS implode:

Positives:
Adu, Haydude, Elew, Pearce

Decents
Clark, Bradley (they both ran waaaay too much and it showed with touch), Gooch, Boca

Below aves:
Dempsey, Cherundolo, Edu (why did he get the call -- he isn't even playing well with Toronto)

Horrid:
EJ, Wolff

We had way too many turnovers and the boot ball was horrid the first half.

Not really a good game, but England team was strong. We still gave them way too much respect. Some good fellas on the England team, but c'mon.

We need to start getting guys on the team in FORM. Wolff was obviously NOT and has not been in 12 years. Beasley should not have started. EJ is NOT in form and hasn't been in 4 years. jaqua is outta contract. Rico really hasn't played awesome with Houston this year. Edu really hasn't either. Feilhaber should not have been called. Not saying they shouldn't have gotten a call, but need to focus more on players that are playing for a team and playing fairly well.

Nonetheless, seems MLS probably didn't want to release a bunch of players: Rogers, Coop, Ching (not really in form), Colin Clark (I think he should get some looks), etc. Barrett has been playing well and would have been a step WAY above wolff man.

All you guys can continue whining now and hating.....

 

HEY, DUMBASS...YOU"RE MAKING TOO MUCH FREAKIN' SENSE! don't you know BS is an arena to spout silliness.

 

EJ wasn't as bad, why is everyone knocking him? I thought he had a decent game. Heck he even had the best scoring chance.

 

Not really buddy..American player underrated, bad game today...Yeah we aren't worldclass -- wow what a revelation...

I am leaving now....really...again

 

True, I would say that our stay at the "'elite" level wasn't very long - I just didn't agree with the "we've never been elite" statement. But if "elite" is being defined as staying at the top level for at least two World Cups in a row, then no, we have never been elite.