Well, yeah, but I was getting to that... Almost all of them (the good ones), really. England, Portugal, Spain, Japan, Germany, Argentina? (how are Messi and Di Maria with FKs?), Uruguay, Netherlands, even Scotland all have good players who also are deadly in dead ball situations and those are just the national teams that I actually know the players from. It is that sort of sharpness that we lack.
Re: USA vs. Costa Rica 9/3 Post-Mortem [R] I agree with the Castillo comment for the most part. I think Rogers would be a great sub, but not sure about a starter. He wasn't a great play maker tonight. I really want to see ADU play lol.....but good things are worth the wait right? Yeah there were many offside calls tonight... Really killed our momentum.
These folks seem to rate Donovan pretty highly as a FK taker: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...ck-takers-still-on-the-transfer-market/page/8
A) That is BleacherReport, pure wank. B) They have Kaka rated as one of the top free kick takers. He isn't. At all. In any list.
I'll keep it simple. Torres was good. Shea, Agudelo, and Altidore had their moments. Castillo is terrible. Orozco didn't look much better. Landon was awful. We're still toothless. No creativity. No one who can create goals out of thin air. No one who can make a deep shot. Need to try some different combinations in the attack. Torres. Adu. Altidore. Agudelo. Dempsey. Shea. Maybe see where Gyau and Gatt are. Need to find players who can combine well.
I can't believe I read through this whole thread. Pretty sure JK is just evaluating some guys right now. Especially through training. Much over reacting here.
You can count them with the fingers of one hand: England, Portugal, Japan, Netherlands and Uruguay. Brazil has Juninho Pernambucano, who's not good enough to start or even be on the bench. Scotland got Adam, who's been a regular only in the last couple of years, and is often subbed out for the second half. Scotland also got a second alternative: Snodgrass, perhaps an even better FK taker than Adam. But he only has 3 caps so far, to Adam 12. Messi has never been special with his FKs, at least not for Argentina when playing South American opposition (CONMEBOL keepers tend to make no stupid mistakes in FKs). Same for Angel, who has never scored a FK in an important game with Argentina. Germany, no, I don't think Schweini is that great a FK taker. Pirlo is not taking them that often for Italy any more --and he's nearing retirement. The last time he scored a FK goal with L'Azzurra was against the Faroe Islands, and it was entirely their keeper's fault. Spain, neither Villa nor Xavi are consistently good free kick takers. I've seen Villa shoot to the barrier four times for each time he actually sent the ball to the goal, and Xavi tends to over-curl when taking FKs. Not impressed with either.
We showed today that we can play a good brand of football. The problem was that the team didn't take their chances and they just got tired after 30 minutes. Were there too many fitness drills? The problem for me is that Landon did not play his role as 3rd CM very well on the defensive side of the ball so he often left Torres or Edu marooned. I think the issues here are more about the balance in the side and how each player needs to perform their role. As a collective the pressure off the ball was not good enough. if we get that right we'll be in better shape. This a good lesson for this team. It shows they can play good football and it also shows them that they still have a ways to go in solidifying their play for 90 minutes. We've shown now that we can play well for 30 minutes.
And yet they are still good by any stretch of the imagination. Just because Xavi cannot curl one in every time against Van Der Sar doesn't mean he is a shit free kick taker. You seem to forget that European keepers are by and large MUCH better than CCF crop. Donovan can barely trouble pop warner level keepers and defenses with his kick taking, you really think Xavi or Schweinsteiger couldn't slice up these defenses?
The bottom line, so far, is this: the USMNT under Klinsmann, at this point, is still the same as under Bob. If LD plays well, USA wins. If he doesn't, or is not playing, the USA loses. Unless the rival is of Haiti quality or below. Same old. Will it change? Time will tell.
Castillo shows his true self; no surprise to me Donovan has always been spotty with FK's Torres was bueno Jozy did pretty well; good runs, but still needs a strike partner Edu is overrated because people hate Michael Team collapsed in the 2nd Costa Rica disrupted the rhythm by fouling overall: it's a friendly, criticism is fine but don't freak out
Another thing that this game has revealed is that our team isn't quite ready for the possession game yet? They had a good 40 minutes of good football after that most of them were gased out. Its easy to sit back and counter a team, all you need is one or two good breakaways from your opponent combine with some good executions on the final third, you can score a goal or two. With the possession game however, your whole team is constantly moving and switching, attacking non-stop, this requires great mentality from the players to keep them going when things keep failing in the final third and the game rhythm start to change. Guys like Brek Shea and Rogers were out of it by the second half, Donovan went to his house for snacks. More than physical ability, to be able to play possession game at the highest level, it requires high level of concentration and focus; That's how the big teams are able to break bunkering lower level teams defense, not only because of technique but also of will power.. I think we have enough talent our team to play JK system, but the players need to improve their mental game, guys like Donovan can't keep disappearing in matches like he did today, long period of mental lapses have got to be eliminated from the US team game. The team is mentally weak.
You're right. Concentration & patience went missing after a while. Also, the positioning was a bit off, stretch the field and use the width you have available when having the ball. Usually when you're playing the possession game you tire the opponent down ( instead of yourselves which happened yesterday ) by chasing around while you just let the ball do the work for the most part (positioning, one touch passing, dont run with the ball too much). But you got tired just before the break. Many times you see teams that play possession being patient, looking for that one pass to split it all up. But they just know that after an hour or so the opponent WILL get tired. That's the time most of the possession teams break down bunkering teams. It's so much easier to play counter style. Give it time, when you change the way you play this drastically things don't just fall into place overnight. The first 30 mins was very nice to watch compared to what I was used to. And...... It was a friendly Good luck against Belgium.
Good thing this game was just for a learning experience and not a game we had to win. Otherwise people might have a really negative reaction and start making completely overblown statements about how the US sucks and this is the wrong tactics and we're better of not even trying to really play soccer but to just keep on our course of punting it around and hoping for set-piece goals, and how three and out each world cup isn't really that bad. I don't know why I worry about such a thing happening, it's just a friendly for experience and learning. That would never happen.
Rogers was weak. I just don't think Castillo is good enough or strong enough to play LB for us. Donovan did not play well at all - Jurgen should not be afraid to yank him to fire him up. Brek got predictable. They played well when one or two touch passing, but their wall passing was often returned too early and sometimes they needed to dummy off of it. Costa Rica always plays like a bunch of hacks trying to injure. We have to be conditioned to play better for longer stretches. I loved the US trying to regain possession whenever they lost it. Jose switches the field well but Chandler does not. Bench Altidore and start Agudelo with Dempsey.
We may be working hard on fitness but Donovan was tired late in the game and he was mentally dull the whole match. As a squad we must be mentally sharper. It is a process and it takes time.
Ha ha .... So we lose Najar and Wallace- or we did not lose them but simply they chose their homelands. Either way it is a little painful but reflects well on MLS.
I really think LD is good but will never be a great player. Great players strive to for the absolute peak professionally and for country. But this is his choice and that is fine. What matters is that JK identifies that and mitigates the risk by identifying the next generation of outstanding US players and helps to mentor them. It is a numbers game.
Re: USA vs. Costa Rica 9/3 Post-Mortem [R] uhm, slightly incorrect...... MOST of the A side in the 1st half (backline was missing Baloy, Machado & Henriquez...and Mejia started @ GK instead of Penedo...)... and mostly u23's played in the 2nd half (due to the fact we have no friendlies scheduled for the U23's , and there's a tournament in 2 weeks)
Re: USA vs. Costa Rica 9/3 Post-Mortem [R] My only solace from this match is that, as poorly as we played in the second half, we still played better than the referee reffed.