That's what I am thinking. He was a calming influence at the back and he brought a sense of safety for the players in front of them. The guys knew that they could try plays or passes cause they knew Omar would be there to clean it up. The team looks so tense and dysfunctional. I also believe the loss of Greg Berhalter is having a major impact. He was the most senior player, vice captain, and a coach. He has been through it all and was a calming influence in the locker room. Finally, how about that Cooper fella?
I would say Deleon had a pretty solid game. I was surprised by how smooth he was in possession. ... If you watch Donovan with Everton and Donovan with the Galaxy one would would have to believe he takes games off..
like someone else said i think its Kitchen's only spot. hes young so hes still got time. Im not sure his upside is much higher than say Cronin's for instance. That said Cronin is playing well right now, just.....not really nats material.
Cooper with 2 more today, but more importantly they were the types of goals he's been criticized of not finishing in the past. Namely one with his head, and then the other by bringing a ball out of the air with his back to goal, outmuscling his defender and turning to get the shot off. Meara was great again too. One or two questionable decisions, but he made an excellent save early in the first half to keep the one goal lead, and then had 2-3 more point blank saves in the 2nd half.
Would be really interesting if he starts playing himself back into national team discussions. I think we'd all forgotten about him. I've only seen the highlights. Any chance he gets into the discussions? He just doesn't seem fast enough or skilled enough despite his good size.
Well he's got competition. Wondo had two goals tonight Rumor has it Gomez scored three goals last night while sleeping Interesting to see what Klinsmann does. One thing I note is that only one of them has the body to play the #9 role the way Klinsmann wants, but does he have the desire?
I heard the Henry and his French temper has something to do with Cooper's recently increased desire to play as a target forward for RBNY.
I welcome the increased production from a bunch of strikers who are actually in their prime and are NOT fetuses with little pro experience. I think Gomez can't be ignored. Simply can't. Wondo is a specialist and it's never bad to have an in form guy who does a job well on the squad. Cooper? Just got to keep it up. If he does, he'll get a sniff. Then he has to do it at that level. Guy has had a really tough time with injuries and has always been a bit of a tweener. He's playing very VERY well for Red Bull and improvement in his hold up game will be very welcome by Klinsmann. Cooper and Wondo will face off next week. Should be a very entertaining match. Two teams tearing it up right now. Apparently Henry is a terror in training. He wants to win everything. It's just how he's wired. Henry has entered "beast mode". He is playing out of his mind right now.
That's what has always made Cooper so intriguing and infuriating. If he even does 75% of what a center forward should, he's probably an international caliber #9. But he's always thought he was Thierry Henry, better facing the goal and cutting in from the left. It's always been a ridiculous waste of talent, and I definitely wrote him off after last season. But if he's determined to get into the box and do Conor Casey things, then Jozy will have legit competition. You know who'll be pissed when he sees the game tape? John Spencer.
Perhaps the fact that he now HAS a Thierry Henry on his team has made him change his mind as to what he needs to do to help the team win.
I've always had a sneaking suspicion that quite a few DP players come to MLS and have an initial shock at how bad some of their teammates are. I'm not trying to drag MLS through the mud, but compared to European teams where the players across the field are the same caliber, MLS teams are top heavy due to the salary cap. I've felt on more than one occasion that these expensive DPs have gotten frustrated and just given up and gone through the motions of their contracts. I saw it creeping in tonight with Kris Boyd in Portland. There were several times where he just had this look on his face like, "what have I got myself into." I hope you're right about Henry, why? Because if you it will hopefully help Agudelo push himself in training and because..... ......I agree with this. I wrote Cooper off long ago. But Matrim is 100% dead on. He has the talent to be a special player for us, just never had the mental part sorted out. If he suddenly starts playing like a center forward, we might have just gained a big asset.
From what I've seen early this year on the pitch and in the interviews Henry is dialed in. He was good last season, but he is going to be great this year. As for Agudelo it's all up to him. Even Klinsmann told him. If he wants more minutes he has to prove it everyday in training. If he hasn't learned that yet from Henry I don't know who else can convince him. He's now had Ream, Altidore, JK, Backe, and Henry say it to him. I think a lot of people have looked at him for a while and scratched their heads. Hopefully it all comes together for him.
When healthy Cooper had an excellent scoring record at club and international level. Within the context of the US pool he has long been international caliber. It's positive that he's expanded his game by playing more center channel and back-to-goal but pretending some switch has now been flipped is tendentious at best.
So, while right back isn't a position of need for the US, I've been quite impressed with Tony Beltran's performance there this week. He's a very good passer and his defending has gotten much better.
Donovan could score 10 own goals and he wouldn't even be considered to be benched for LA or the USA. It really doesn't matter how he plays. If he is fit, he is going to be starting for the USA and LA.
Simply untrue. His penchant for drifting deeper into the midfield and unwillingness to engage in hold-up play for the team - rather than simply for himself - made him pretty useless against anything better than, say, El Salvador. In general the team would play like shit when he was on the field. There's a reason coaches all over the world couldn't find a use for him, after all.
I'm not sure that's true. The first sentence absolutely isn't. If he's putting that many past his own keeper, I doubt he'd be on the field. No player has the mentality to withstand that kind of thing... or at least no coach would be able to expect that out of a player. If you are doing that much wrong and having that much bad luck (especially as an attacking player), you shouldn't be on the field.
He scored when he was on the field. That's typically how forwards are rated the world over whatever the Robbie Findley connoisseurs out there may think. There's more to position than scoring but you seem to taking this to levels beyond reason. ASFAIK he left europe the first time because his pops was ill. He got the hurt second time.
Klinsmann is starting Beckerman, Edu, and Bradley over Jermaine Jones. I don't think JK would hesitate to sit Donovan if the latter weren't performing.
Yup From what I heard, Henry yelled at him at practice several times to get in the f*cking box Henry made sure Cooper knew that he was supposed to play there and not drop back.
Like I said a few pages back, Henry seems to control the team. Hopefully it works out. If he did yell at him that then awesome.
Henry's post-match comments come across as the pronouncements of a coach. But Cooper was playing more center forward during his stint in Portland than he had been with Dallas really. It's cool he's continuing the trend. SKC looks to be a formidable team from front to back. They don't look to be on the level of a Real Salt Lake however in terms of ball movement and organization. They're also bereft of any crafty scorers among the striker corps.