My context for now is the qualifying campaign. Although even during the WC we suffered from great plays (in my opinion) from our opponent. Claudio got caught with the ball in a bad place vs Ghana. Gooch failed to close down his man vs the Czechs. Great players made great plays. Nothing like what Bornstein, Beckerman, and Bradly junior did tonight.
Pretty spot on. While I loath the way Dempsey plays 88/90 minutes, I'd bump him and Altidore up b/c really (BS call aside) Altidore scored 2 goals, and Dempsey had a goal and an assist.
El Salvador results in the Hex: Home: 2-2 draw against Trinidad Home: 2-2 draw against USA Away: 1-0 loss against Costa Rica Home: 2-1 win against Mexico Away: 1-0 loss against Honduras Away: 1-0 loss against Trinidad Away: 2-1 loss against USA These guys have not been terrible. Not by a long shot. The Hex is much, much tougher this time around. Honduras are far better than Guatemala and El Salvador are light years ahead of Panama.
I agree....people need to chill a bit on Dempsey. I know he can be worthless at times, but he scores goals
Which qualifying campaign? Was it the 2006 campaign with the dreadfully easy hex, with no Honduras involved and a Panama team that didn't win a game? Or perhaps the 2002 campaign, where the US at one point lost three straight games, including a 2-3 home loss to Honduras, and needed a late penalty to beat Jamaica 2-1 on matchday #9 to qualify?
2006. We also had significantly less talent eventhough the hex was not as tough so trying to compare is difficult. I only ever remember us having a bad defensive game away at CR.
Ironically, ES needed three goals in the final 20 mins, including a nasty game-winning deflection, just to get past Panama in the pre-semi round.
I'd bump Feilhaber down to average and Marshall down to poor. I'd bump Howard up to average (it's a poor game by his standards, but he let in a goal that many keepers would stop and stopped a goal that most keepers would let in). Spector is average only because of his offensive contributions. Based on defense alone, he, Marshall, Feilhaber, and Bradley were all poor, and yes, Bornstein was dreadful (Beckerman wasn't in there long enough to judge). What this games shows is 1. We're really reliant on Gooch & DeMerit; take those 2 away, and we have no chance of upsetting a top 5 team. 2. We need to play with a D-Mid, so all those folks who kept calling for a MB+Feilhaber central pairing need to shut up and sit down. Those 2 let El Salvador walk through the middle of the midfield, so imagine how they'd fare against a World Cup team.
On the "whew!!" side, we were one good save from Howard away from tying the game and ending up the night in 4th place. A tie would have taken us from 10 to 11 points, behind Mexico and Costa Rica's 12 and Honduras' 13. What is really positive is the solid attack that has emerged in Jozy and the Three D's (Donovan, Dempsey and Davies). We have 4 players attacking who can change the game and get a goal scored at any time. We have starting players from 4 Premier League teams (Jozy, Demsey, Howard and Spector). Between the solid attack, learning to play better with each other as each game goes by, and world class Howard in goal, not to mention a midfield with unprecedented depth and solid center backs=there is much to be happy about. We will be in 1st place Wednesday night!! Go USA!!
My thoughts exactly. I thought it was a good win for us, and we've got a good chance at a win or tie in T&T. Nothing is settled (duh), but we are on track to qualify for the WC.
The talent issue is debatable. A fit an in form DaMarcus Beasley was a key component of the 2005 squad. He was really quite good in that stretch. The backline was basically the same, save with Berhalter in place of Demerit. Nobody on our current roster serves as good of a ball as Eddie Lewis was serving that year. And of course, Brian McBride was still around. And the ultimate irony: Belligerent Big Soccer posters, perhaps the same ones that now clamor for a "possession style," used to ridicule Claudio Reyna with names like "SpongeBob Square pass." The 2005 team was superb. The hex was weaker. They qualified easily. Then things fell apart in 2006.
A couple of thoughts and I'll do it in honor of a great western movie. The good the bad and the ugly... The Good - Davies, Altidore, Donavan and Benny. I really really really really hope and pray the BB will continue to give Benny more time. Oh and Charile Davies is the best offensive player on this team not named Donavan. He's getting better every game I see him. The Bad - Clint Dempsey. When Harkes said it was harder to miss then it was to score on the horrific miss on the header in the first half, I rewinded it and realized he was spot on. Pathetic... And that breakaway shot at the end? WTF was that? sooo weak. only his goal saves him from being Mr. Ugly tonight. Speaking of which... The Ugly - Mr. Bornstein you were god fockin awful tonight. El Salvador kindly thanks you for the sweet set up on their goal. -VP
I'm not one to complain about refs (all that often), but that guy was shockingly terrible. I can somewhat live with Mexico getting the home-town, wink-wink CONCACAF freebie calls in the Azteca, but why does that not balance out when we host a game? I thought the yellow on the guy that fouled Donovan was weak sauce, but we still lost more calls than we got, and if CONCACAF is going to be corrupt (like how I used "IF" right there, ha), at least be evenly corrupt for all of us. That said, a win is a win, you can't freak out about it too much. Had Jozy's second goal gone in, we win 3-1 and sleep a lot better tonight. Ditto Torres' screaming header, as 4-1 would have looked like a laugher, even if it wasn't. As it is, 2-1 isn't a terrible result, but we really missed a chance to do our job and put it away in the second half. Davies didn't see nearly enough of the ball tonight, and I was disappointed in the amount of needless turnovers we had on poor passing in the midfield when not under significant pressure (thought I was watching a Red Bulls game there for a minute).
Ok this may be out of line, but maybe just maybe the reason that we don't really get the benefit of the calls from CONCACAF referees, is that when they do a game in the US they never have to fear that there would be any serious repercussions in the guys life. You screw up calls in Azteca, or fail to give El Tri the benefit and the whole country hates you with a passion. You mess up a few calls in Utah and no one even remembers your name. I'm not saying that we should all the sudden intimidate refs, but this just seems like common sense to me. There is much less pressure on the refs in the US than there would be in Central America.
The starting lineup Bradley chose was excellent, but his choice of subs was disappointing. I guess the idea was to have Dempsey and/or Donovan play up top once Altidore left, but neither really did. Dempsey was out of gas at that point and Donovan wasn't able to get the ball in any advanced positions. It was heartening to see another come from behind win after giving up the first goal, but the substitutions practically forced the team into a bunker which almost cost them 2 points. Dempsey had a pretty bad game. The frustrating thing about him is that he plays poorly and still scores and assists on a goal that gets called back for a phantom foul, so it's hard to call him on a bad game. He basically did the same thing at the Confederations Cup and was awarded the Bronze Ball. Tonight, he missed 2 chances that he should easily have finished and gave the ball away far too often. But . . . he scored the tying goal and played that great ball through to Altidore, so you just can't write him off. Donovan and especially Davies were excellent. Donovan was his usual self, and Davies played one of his best games in a US jersey. That stepover-sprint-cross he had in the first half was far more effective and impressive than most of the flashy things Dempsey tries. Howard surprised me by being partially responsible for the El Salvador goal. Why was he so far off his line? Other than that, it was a pretty solid game for him. Oh, and Bornstein must be stopped.
I'm in the cup half empty crowd here. Yes, we got the three points, but we were crap. On the positive side, I will say this. I no longer dread going down the first goal. In the good ole days, that was the kiss of death for a US team. Today, when ES scored first, my first thought was: that should like a fire under their arse! And it did (after a few shaky minutes). One did get the feeling that even if ES managed to tie it up again, that the US could undo the bunker and get back another goal....as long as they didn't give up that goal too late. So we have made progress. The main problem I saw was the staggering amount of give-aways in dangerous parts of the field. If Dempsey tries a trick that fails 10 yards outside the opponents box, nothing bad happens. When Bradley made a bad decision with the ball in our own end, ES was in on the back four in a second. We were lucky that they didn't capitalize more than once. A strong team would punish that mercilessly.
Ok, quiz time: BB genius tactic, Dempsey creativity, or lucky goal? On Dempsey's goal. This morning Ives posted the highlights from the US-ES game in ES earlier this Hex. http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_by_ives/2009/09/a-look-back-at-usael-salvador-i.html#more At minute 1:20 in the video, you see the US put the ball in the net on a free kick header, but ES pull the offside trap and the goal was negated. Now, fast forward to Dempsey's goal today. Unlike all the other US players, Dempsey delayed his run until the ES defense was pulling forward, thus beating the attempted trap. So, was this pure luck? Was it Dempsey's individual creativity? Or did BB or staff see that in the pregame prep and devise a counter-trap? I'm voting pure luck...
I think the concern is that the established goal for the U.S. is improvement. And it's really an open ended question as to how much better we've gotten. That's certainly not anything you can lay solely at the feet of Bob Bradley for sure. On the other hand it doesn't seem like he's contributed a whole lot to an advancement of our team either. I think 2002 was a bit of a false dawn, and it's my observation that U.S. Soccer tends to respond better to failure than they do success. Sort of the flipside of the New England Patriots. There were glaring problems in our program that needed to be addressed, despite our big run in 2002, and we have been quite slow in addressing them.
That may very well have been the worst call I have ever seen in 30 years of watching soccer. Un-f*cking-believeable incompetence.
Well, it's a win. I think all of the second tier CONCACAF teams have improved, and results seem to bear that out. The only exception seems to be T and T, who happen to be our next opponent. I'd expect the second leg of any two-game set to be better, so here's hoping that's true. Anyway, our outside backs are pretty poor. Both of them managed to look awful on the El Salvador goal. Dempsey scores again in a game where he was otherwise crappy. Altidore and Davies look to have the makings of the best front pairing we've ever had. Donovan is still by far our best player. Not as bad as many want to see it, but still needs to get much better.
I read that Edgar Castillo's paperwork was approved by FIFA. Bob needs to call him up because there is no way he can be worse than Bornstein.
Word was that it was aproved, but not yet 'finished', so we have to wait until FIFA completes the process. I think were he wholly eligible, he'd have been there.
ummmmm, what am I missing? I thought Dempsey played decent. I saw 2 giveaways by him. Thats it and I don't think he should get torched for it. He played some extremely dangerous through balls and then those two chances at the end that he created by himself with extremely strong play...the only negative I saw from his game is that he could've gotten a few stronger tackles in. He hussled his butt of though...I was there....and watched him the whole game. He's one of the only players that understand what moving off the ball means.