I was talking about the Confeds Cup team. My reply was to the person saying that Bob had done the right subs and strategy to get to the final there. But one thing is surprising Egypt, Spain and Brazil with an invigorated team that was under-rated before the competition, another thing is going into the WC finals as the subchamp of the Confeds Cup. No one is going to take the USMNT lightly now. And if BB is a one-trick pony, it can be disaster.
Sorry, it is a long thread. England will take us lightly. If we play Spain again, they will take us lightly. They think we got lucky. Maybe we did. I don't think he is a one-trick pony, mainly because he has won too many important rodeos. We have an easy group (World Cup wise), so we will see in enough time what kind of coach Bob is.
Additionally, Slovenia and Algeria won't take us lightly. We are favored against them. They will be tough games, but winnable, like Honduras is San Pedro Sula.
The Arena-era comparison is interesting. 3+ years of Bradley took the US from a staid, defense-first, simple "foosball" team to a team that has lots of unbalanced attacking bravado (though still little tactical understanding) and a defense that can be pulled apart far too easily, be it El Salvador, Slovakia or Honduras. It's easy to say "early red card = nothing to learn." And if the game were only about analyzing the individual players based on the outcome, that has some validity. The part that sickens me though, is that we all watch games day-in/day-out where a team is playing a man down -- Bundesliga, Italy, England, even MLS. They react very different from the US did on Saturday. The US should've contracted the field, taken away space, proven themselves unable to get pulled out of position: 4-4-1 with Findley or Cunningham running his ass of for 73 minutes harrassing their defenders. Point is -- don't give up the second goal for the rest of the game, until the very end. Ugly, but something the US should've instinctively done. In other words, the second goal didn't surprise me, but it should've come at minute 75 when the US, after playing tight-fisted, well-organized defense all game tries to finally open up and look for an equalizer. It's disgusting that it comes so soon after the first goal. And the reason is that the US couldn't re-organize on the fly like every other competent team in the world does. Yeah, it's great that Bornstein played decently as make-shift center D, and a pity that Wynne was getting caught out of position up-field, but that should've been a shift of tactics in the last 20, not an all game phenomenon. Now maybe Bradley is saying "let's not contract because we won't learn anything about how I want the offense to operate," but I am not so confident in him.
I dislike Bob as much as any red-blooded American soccer fan, but I do think Bob intentionally did not go into 10-man bunker ball for the rest of the first half so that he could see what they guys he started could do. I don't really have any problem with that decision, becasue the result was not as important as learning things. Unfortunately, no one did jack. Bornstein jumped way ahead of Pearce because his experience at CB just reminded Bob that he has more options with JB on the field. But that's all this game was worth.
^^^ Yeah, you might be right that it was a slightly more insightful plan, but I am not so certain. Btw, it's not just an anti-Bob reaction, it's also a fact that American soccer players, for deep and fundamental reasons, are tactically naive. This is one way that they are. So from Bradley through the USMNT to MLS players all the way down to kiddie leagues, I think no one instinctively gets it.
This "evaluation is a joke, right? You are just having some fun with us... What a card! How about this: Perkins even with Hartman. Wynne's way behind Hejduk. Pope's way ahead of Goodson (or a minor advantage Goodson). Conrad is probably tied with Conrad. Bornstein is indeed over Dunivant. Zavagnin's is tied with Beckerman. Dempsey's a lot better than Kjestan. Noonan is probably tied with Rogers. Donovan is much better than Feilhaber (Landon wasn't consistent in 2006) Cunnigham is even with Twellman (this match was Twellman's peak, however). Findley weaker than Wolff. I have the team from this weekend even with that Arena squad in 5 positions. Arena's team was superior in 5 players. Arena's team was weaker only in the Bornstein vs Dunivant comparison. Plus Bradley's squad was down to 10 for 70 minutes. Plus, Honduras was motivated for some friendly revenge of their 2 qualifier losses. Wow.
I disagree, but only slightly. The game was definitely worth more than just learning about JB, for my money anyway. 1. Cunningham (the not so good side anyway) showed up to remind Bob to be careful about throwing away a spot just because he's fast and can score in MLS. 2. Jimmy reminded Bob that "veteran" isn't always going to be the better choice. 3. Marvell is roster fodder until his positioning improves and he becomes more consistent. He can either stay in MLS for the rest of his career and rely on his speed to get him out of trouble, or he can find someone willing to take him on as a project and actually try learning to play enough to succeed at a higher level. 4. Sasha, as tantilizing as his play can be from time to time, just isn't up for it this cycle. There are others I could point out. The point of these games, aside from the March match, is to weed out the folks who either don't take it seriously enough or who just don't cut it. Addition by subtraction. I don't believe that Findley hurt his standing with Bob in any way, which means he's worth more time. Bedoya is a player. May not find his way onto this WC roster, however stranger things have happened. I'm thinking he gets more time come Feb. Brad Davis is worth a better look as well. At the very least, he's extremely dangerous on set pieces. He's not a bad player at all and looks to be an option. Extremely happy Bob took this approach. Playing with 10 men, in a friendly, certainly threw his plans to evaluate the 2 to 3 players he was seriously considering into disarray. But, bunkering would have told him even less about his players IMO.
From what I saw, I would take tactical naivety. As someone posted earlier, they looked like the 2009 Red Bulls trying to string together two passes or controlling a ball. This is not Bob, this is the players. They were utter crap, from a technical skill point of view.
Really no different than when in-season MLS players beat Chelsea, West Ham, Everton or Fulham. Those clubs are on the field trying to work out certain aspects of the game. Score be damned.
As much as people want to hate on Bradley, let's not pretend for a second that Bob's too "tactically naive" to know that the orthodox response to losing a centerback to a red card in a 4-4-2 is to sub out one of your forwards to shore up the d-line. I know it. You know it. Trust me, he knows it. So Bob INTENTIONALLY did not make the orthodox adjustment. You may not like or agree with his decision. You may not think his choice was useful or effective, but nobody should be thinking that he doesn't know what coaches usually do or that he froze or something. Let's have reasonable criticism of BB's performance. There's plenty enough to work with there.
Maybe it's too obvious, but the number one lesson from this game is that the "World" still isn't going to hesitate to give the USA a red card. There are two reasons. First, MLS is overly physical and you can get away with a yellow or no-call for a blatant, serious foul. The foul on Youri by Olsen a few years ago is a typical example. Second, is that we are the USA.
At times, yes, as does our starting team (think of how many knee high - chest high hard passes someone like MB makes). At times the passing was somewhat fluid. Of course, a lot of people project the result onto player performances and draw conclusions -- "we lost, we must suck, therefore players 1 - 11 suck to some varying degree." It's not an ideal forum to decipher player performance. But plenty of technically deficient teams can still clog the middle and make the best result possible. I have no doubt that if we're playing Slovenia and are up 1 goal and 1 man, they will be very proficient at defense and look to open it up 10 minutes from time. So... View A - Bradley said "let's play like we have 11 because otherwise I'll never see if Cunningham or Beckerman can play attacking soccer," and maybe he didn't care about the result as long as he could get a sense of those performances in that setting. If that's the case, then we should stop focusing on a 3-1 loss. View B - if it's not the case, if all it proved is that our 10-a-side defense is as fragile as our 11-a-side defense, then it was not just a waste of an opportunity to evaluate, but evidence of woefully inadequate coaching and player tactical understanding and a 3-1 loss is pretty frightening actually.
Well I think the other aspect of this is that we're astoundingly naive, including us on this board. Did Conrad "take down" Palacios? No, he touched Palacios in the box, and Palacios went down. We tend to call that a "dive" and believe it shouldn't be a foul. But everywhere else, they say feel a hand on them in the box and they go down, forcing the ref to either card them for simulation, ignore the potential foul or make the call. The onus is on the ref to now make tough decision. I'm still astounded how US players know that whenever they put hands on someone's back, that the person will throw himself on the ground, and yet still do it. By the same token, when we feel hands on our backs, we stay up unless legitimately pushed. When I've pointed this out in the past, posters have replied that they don't want to be a country that "dives." If that's the case, we'll get tough calls in perpetuity, because that's how the game works.
Agreed. Plus, even this year's Conrad seems to have lost a step/be playing worse for both club and country than Norway Conrad. The talent available this year at Camp Cupcake just isn't quite at the level of the earlier camps. We've had tons of talent shift to Europe, and it's not really surprising or too alarming that MLS hasn't reloaded to the same degree, despite the overall increase in the talent of the US player pool generally. I'd still argue that our overall talent pool is getting better, but the gap has considerably widened between the performance level of our starters in 2010 and the level of the US and Scandinavian based players in 2010. Other things to consider: 1. Number of caps and experience playing with the MNT of the best players on the field for the US. 2. The gulf in quality between our opponents: a domestic-based Norway team traveling across the ocean while the league's on an extended break, vs a pretty strong squad of a World Cup Finalist motivated in front of a "home" crowd and looking for payback after key recent defeats. Again, plenty here to criticize without losing the plot.
C'mon, this is going too far in the other direction. It happens, but not nearly as often as you're making it sound. If it was like this, the sport wouldn't be worth watching.
But that was my point precisely. Bob did not put his players in the positions to succeed. he did not find out anything about either Cunningham or Findley because there was no offense on the part of the US until the very end. If this was about "testing the mettle", a coach has to give his players a fighting chance. But Saturday night was a disaster throughout. I'll make my comments in bold. How about this: Perkins even with Hartman. - Eh, no. Hartman is not a good GK, which is why he only had a cup of coffee with the Nats and never received any interest overseas. Troy actually went to Norway, struggled early, then began to play well, becoming a fan favorite. Wynne's way behind Hejduk. - Hejduk is better defensively but Marvell is superior on the other end. It's not Wynne's fault Bob doesn't know how to use him. Peter Nowak did and Wynne had an excellent run at the Olympics. A fullback is a two-way position, in case you didn't notice from that event. Pope's way ahead of Goodson (or a minor advantage Goodson). - Eddie Pope was tossed around like a rag doll by Grenada's Jason Roberts in the 2004 WCQ. By 2006, Eddie was a pale shadow of his former self and proved it by being the Jeff Agoos of the 2006 World Cup. Goodson was a top ten rated player in Norway. I was being conservative in my rankings. Goodson is really quite superior to Pope on both ends. Conrad is probably tied with Conrad. - A defender should be smarter with age ... should be. Bornstein is indeed over Dunivant. - By a large margin. Cunnigham is even with Twellman (this match was Twellman's peak, however). Findley weaker than Wolff. - Their MLS scoring records are fairly comparable this year - Josh with 11 goals in 2,348 minutes, Robbie 12 in 1,751 but with more PK's - thus a tie for me. Toss-up for me. Yesterday, Inter played man for for about 65 minutes. Did they have problems connecting passes and keep allowing a chance after chance defensively to a very motivated AC Milan? Not close to the goal, it wasn't. I have a View B. By the way, in its last two friendlies, Honduras barely beat Latvia 2:1 and then lost to Peru (A-squads) by the same score. http://eurorivals.net/highlights/honduras_v_peru_20091119.html Latvia was ranked 65th by Elo, Peru 76th. And the US wasn't even competitive.
Excellent points, and I think we fans collectively tend to want answers that are affirmative. But when it comes to this point in the cycle, it's better to have doubts raised now rather than waiting for post WC roster selections to explore issues. As you point out, what we have to hope is that Bradley has a good eye for evaluation and made some conclusions based on what happened against Honduras. Going 10-v-11 for 70+ is an excellent way to challenge players, and they can either show skill, tactical understanding, comfort playing out of position, etc. or they can disappear into the game as they fail to adjust. WC06 against Italy is a solid example of how this can become a reality. Conrad, Kljestan, and Wynne weren't up to the challenge. Bornstein showed me that he is improving and seemed capable in that environment. I wish we had more affirmation for players to offer after this game. Bob no doubt wishes that was true as well, and I'm sure numerous players realize they missed an opportunity. But Bob has a few months before he has to make player selections. If someone decides to use a friendly to cast a huge shadow of doubt over their abilities, that is, in a very real sense, about as much a benefit to the team as someone going out there and winning a role.....
You're overestimating the U.S. here. The B- team that played with 10 men would've been blown away by a 9 man Inter team. I don't understand the point in getting upset about our situation right now. Saturdays game might as well have been the U.S. Paralympic National team playing a charity match. That's how much it means to our goal of making a run in the World Cup. Our full squad, the right squad, is in a great position as long as we get our injured guys back. Everyone is playing incredible over in Europe and little Stuey just inked a contract with Bolton. Can I get an applause for being one of the few optimist?
hm well it looks like most of the players didn't put an inch of effort... as if by just been on the US team your good enough to beat anybody,which as we saw wasn't the case.. I think they only players that deserve credit and desreve to be in the would cup are Jonathan Bornstein Marvell Wynne Dax McCarty as for Jimmy Conrad I think he is an total idiot who never should played or awarded the captians arm band with all of his ex he should know better
One thing I take away from games like this is that our B-team should be made up more of better soccer players and less of better athletes.
Essentially there are three possible choices for Bob.... - Findley played poorly enough that further evaluation isn't needed as he's not going to considered for the WC squad. - Findley needs further evaluation and development based on this camp and performance to determine whether he can be of help in South Africa. - Findley was a shining star in a dismal game and clearly helped himself in his bid to secure a WC roster slot. I've not heard anything suggest #3, but I've a real hard time seeing that game and calling #1 true for Robbie. I'd make that call on Wynne and Kljestan, and think Conrad did enough to let others pass him on the depth chart to the point that he's going to struggle to find another opportunity. Bornstein alone gets #3 in my book. But given injuries to Clint and Davies, I think we have to give Findley further consideration. If Bob wants to eliminate Cunningham from the pool to make that opportunity more feasible, while also letting Ching try to hold off Casey for another reserve striker slot, I'd be OK with that...
How long do we keep saying this about a player until we switch over to "he's hit his ceiling"? For me, this is "ceiling-time" for Wynne. I don't believe he will ever develop the first touch and tactical awareness to help the USMNT. The same goes for Robbie Rogers. He may have alot of the tools but this kid just can't play at the International level. The one or two times he is dangerous per game does not make up for the unforced errors, poor decision-making and lack of danger in the attacking third. Even an Adu who is warming a European bench is a better choice if that is what you are looking for.
What was it that you saw? For me, I saw a player who rarely got the ball in any position that could be considered advantageous, rarely got the ball to his feet, and who I never saw get a ball delivered where he could run in behind the defense (use his speed). I'd also go as far as saying that, even with Cunningham or Casey in the game, RF rarely had a partner with whom to work up top. Like I said, he didn't do anything to hurt his standing. I did not say that he had a very productive night. Now if you believe that Robbie shoul've come back into the defensive side of the field take the ball and dribble through the defense and score, then I believe the three of us saw the same thing.