The top 3 might be becoming clear: USA, Mexico, Canada. It looks like a big drop off in quality to Panama, Costa Rica, and the rest.
Steffen: 3/10 Turner vs Steffen debate died tonight. David Bingham makes the stop that Steffen missed tonight. Cannot do that in WCQs.........absolutely cannot. That was shambolic. You simply cannot defend a keeper that does something like that at this level. You cannot. Dest: 9.5/10. We got Good Dest tonight, and man is it fun to watch when he is on. I felt like he was squaring up that ball for the kill the whole time, and he put it right on the money. Jedi: 5/10: buddy........what was with those crosses tonight? Dear lord, please do better next time Richards: 6/10: Perfect display of some bad and some good. Hes close, but hes not there yet. In the first half, that tackle was either very good or a penalty. I feel a bit lucky because if he got a tap on the ball, it was the most delicate of taps. Would take Zimmermann as starter over him currently, but he showed what there is to be excited about MRob: 5.5/10: Probably his weakest performance in the jersey. He had some bonehead passes today, but made some very clutch tackles today as well. Weston: 5.5/10: Had some good energy, but it was not honed properly. he ran into traffic very often when he should have passed. He missed some open guys. But, he had some good aggressive play to him and won some good contested balls. Musah: 7.5/10: Loved Moose's connective play today. The Costa Rican right side was in full on panic the whole game. He was linking up with Dest and Weah very well. Showed for the ball well, lots of good movement. Much better response than from Panama Adams: 8/10: He truly is the engine. He is the glue that makes this all work. His work ethic in the middle whether its starting up the attack or breaking up theirs has just been phenomenal. If not for Dest, would be my player of the game. Brendan: 7/10: Got gassed towards the end, had some really nice offensive ideas, lots of unlocking passes, but when the responsibility fell to him to take that decisive shot, he looked for the pass instead or got off a weak shot. Still, we needed his creativity today. Weah: 7.5/10: Thats a Weah goal for me, not sure how you can call that an own goal. What a decisive finish there, and he was causing fits for Costa Rica that whole game. Surely he has passed Arriola in the depth chart now.......right........RIGHT?! Pepi: 6/10: His movement was great, he was constantly showing for the ball and even some good hold up play. I feel his team mates should have looked out for him more to get the ball. Maybe they dont completely trust him yet. Subs: Yedlin: 6/10: He was fine. He got up well when he needed to and connected well with his team mates. Zardes: 6/10: Alright, I know, he tries. He tries really, really hard and that is evident. If nothing else, he made the Costa Rican defense uncomfortable. Busio: 7.5/10: Dude was on it today. He was a creator the moment he came on. Constantly asking for the ball and trying to get that ball into dangerous spots. He was exactly what the game needed at the time. Hoppe: 7/10: We gotta find a way to get this guy on the field more often. He is a creative forward/attacker who is a fighter and is not afraid to take guys on. He doesnt switch off and always gives a top notch effort either up top or on defense. Zimmermann: N/R: The right sub at the right time, though.
That's was an easy save, Steffen wasn't moving to the left and if he was, then why? What would he be doing that for? He just has slow reaction, compared to the top keepers, always has, always will.
Agreed. Though we can look pretty damn bad too. If we can secure 7 of our next 9 points, that should put us right on the cusp of qualifying
Steffen's rust showed as he had the reflexes of a dying snail on the Costa Rica goal. Otherwise it wasn't the prettiest, but 3 points is 3 points. Hopefully Pulisic and Reyna are healthy by next window. Two matches next window means GGG doesn't have the rotation excuse. Side note, we now have just as many wins this round as we did all of the 2018 Hex
We had an opportunity to bury Panama and instead we let them become our main competitor. As bad as it is to admit... Canada has been better than us in the first half of WCQ... we’re ahead on points but we play Mexico next... Canada plays a weaken Costa Rica. Furthermore, Canada has already played their two hardest away games... it’s only going to get easier for them. Whereas, we still have our hardest games ahead of us.
Literally the comment I quoted said it was a fluke goal. How is it not a howler to leave an attacker that unmarked crashing into the box?
I am not sure what game some people watched if they thought Miles Robinson was better than Richard’s. It’s not even close. Robinson was pretty bad and he’s been one of our rocks, so he’s allowed a bad game, but he was putrid. This is an indictment on the coaching, 3 different CB pairings in 2 games. Pick a damn pairing and stick with it. With the ball domination, we still can’t figure out how to score in the final 3rd. McKennie had a ton of turnovers but honestly feel like he was trying to do too much and that kind of dribbling that he was doing is best left for Pulisic. For all the MLS fans who said we were better without him and Reyna, watch this past cycle. We don’t create that much. Jedi had a bad offensive game but he gets forward and doesn’t get caught out often. He’s by far the best LB. No more Bello, no more Vines, he’s the starter. Also, LOL at people who wanted Dest benched
Once again, the attacker could have easily made a play on that ball and completely changed what was going on. Every keeper has those situations happen across their careers and all of them end up looking dumb while armchair goons howl about how had they just dived for the initial shot/pass and completely disregarded the other attacking player then everything would have been just fine. The entire play was a bust up. But it wasn't an easy save because it was a difficult situation. Had the CR attacking player not been in the picture then it would have been an easy save Seriously, some of you need to go watch the clip of the goal and tell me that the attacker (who is generally offsides, but once again, the entire play was a nightmare) couldn't have easily made a play on that shot/pass
Panama just beat us, while thoroughly outplaying us. With that said….you are absolutely correct. I think I know why the first thing happened.
Well, I guess we know now, if we had any doubts, why Dest plays for Barcelona! After an absolute cluster******** of a first goal, where we looked in back like 5 guys who had never played together (which I think is correct), we played pretty well. Some really clever interchanges and passing on the wings, I wish we could do it as well in the more congested area in front of goal and we might create some better chances. Glad we were able to come back from the body blow, but we really should've scored more goals in this game. The last pass can be really lacking with this team. Perfect example was the great hustle by Zardes to win a ball with about 4 minutes left, but he totally missed Hoppe with the subsequent pass that 90% of the people on this board could've made easily. I don't think there was any doubts before, but this is our best midfield 3 by far. One possible downside against better teams, is that I really don't have a bunch of confidence in the way we are defending corners and free kicks. It was nice to see Richards break his duck.
was happy to see they didnt bunker but kept playing keep away. they couldve actually done a better job of keeping the balll...but happy not see a traditional bunker with the lead from the us...ggg deserves credit for not letting that happen.
Even many of our midfielders and attackers looked like they hadn’t played together with all of the miscommunications in the final third. They made up for it with assertiveness and talent, but they need a lot of time together to gel.
You do realize that the player who scored the winning goal may not have even been on the field if it had been up to Gregg, right? We (and Berhalter) got extremely lucky that Arriola couldn't play today. Having Arriola in the starting lineup at any point was a terrible coaching decision. I think rotating in Steffen was a mistake, would have been better to stick with Turner. I really do think Turner stops that CR goal because he would have been positioned better and quicker to react. Berhalter made good subs. I applaud him not even having Lleget dress (hopefully Lleget never plays another game for the national team outside of friendlies). C+ grade for Berhalter. Team won despite him again, and Canada lighting up Panama (bad for us on goal differential) is a reminder of how badly Berhalter failed his team in the last game.
Sorry to pick on this one bit from your expansive post, but have you ever heard of Hugo Sanchez, or Alberto Garcia Aspe? Hernan Medford of Costa Rica? Jorge Gonzalez of El Salvador? Musah was good tonight and very promising, but the "perhaps ever" part especially is not in the right solar system when it comes to best players on the ball in CONCACAF history. Sorry.
Yep. That is why Gregg needs to stop tinkering and roll with today's lineup, or some variation, and with Pulisic and Reyna + Brooks back, a few of today's starters as subs.
As we are playing a 4-3-3, this doesn't work for me. You got to have Adams cleaning up the deep midfield in the theoretical best XI.
A reason for optimism... honestly.... besides Jamaica, we are the team with the most chance to improve. We’re very young. And finally all of our young guys... minus Scally and a few others... have played together now. We should be on the same page now. Mexico are old and could run out of steam. Canada are running on all cylinders, but they lack the depth that we do. If they get into an injury or suspension crisis as we have consistently lacked our key players... they could dip. Panama has drastically over-performed... perhaps thanks to Bonehead Berhalter. Costa Rica look like half their players are about dead. I foresee them collapsing... although I’m sure we’ll play down to them at Saprissa. Honduras look like they’re about to hit self destruct. El Salvador should have been a team that we buried. They’re horrible. But they continue to be a pebble in people’s shoes. We really need them to get points against Mexico... but I’m sure that Mexico won’t mess around with them... as Mexico doesn’t seem to choke like we do. Jamaica has life again... and I’m nervous about playing them again when they get Bailey and Antonio back. We need to come at them full speed ahead.
Not pretty, but it’s a win. A wonder strike, a goalkeeping blunder by a backup keeper, and some refereeing karma combining to help us out tonight. I’ll take it.