I'm not holding out much hope based on how this team has played so far. We make the elimination round with 1 win and two losses. Talking about backing into the next round.
USA have a very difficult road to the finals. Well if by some diving grace we manage to beat the Germans, we will face (most likely) England in the Quarterfinals, then either Nigeria or Argayntina in the semis. Wow.
Anyone know of a place this might be re-broadcasted or re-streamed? I couldn't stay up. Thanks darrin
Irony is sometimes a harsh mistress, so tell me, please, which of these was intentional. Also didn't the US play Germany on July 20.
my 2 cents: Jeffrey is the black hole in the middle.. I would move Nimo to the middle behind the two "strikers" and keep Jeffrey and Dominguez on the bench.. Eillis and Schuler are average in every way.. I can't imagine that there aren't better strikers, at least some with better qualities (speed, shooting, etc.) in this age group. Haven't seen much of Urso. Ibrahim has potential but is lacking aggressiveness, but i would start him up top over these two. Didn't this team smoke the Germans in a warm-up? I don't see how, they have looked very average all tournament..
the U.S was drawn into an easy group and they advanced by the skin of the their of teeth. While Tunisia ran through group e on cruise control. The U.S should have won that group like Tunisia. Im still concerned about the poor performance in the first round. Unless the U.S make it to the semis or win the whole thing Hackworth should still be fired.
The difficulty of trying to glean lessons from a handful of matches, as Ellis was according to most among the best U.S. players entering this tournament. Jeffrey was widely derided after Match 1, and then said to be the best U.S. player in Match 2.
I saw match2 and he wasn't.. Dominguez was worse, but that's not saying much. Jeffrey cannot distribute or control the ball. I think they have 3 goals from corners and 1 Pk.. This team only comes to life when Nimo slides into the middle.. Wake-up Hackworth, you effing joke..
I haven't seen this team before this tournament. I'm sure Ellis and Schuler are good against Concacaf and other sub-par teams but at this level you need something special to separate you ( speed, height, etc. ) They don't have great shooting skills from outside, they can't break-down a defender consistently, they don't have the speed, and they aren't great in the air..
Sounds like they need to let Nimo play the Freddy Adu role...mostly central, but let him improvize. Don't worry too much about playing defense, but be dynamic and push the play offensively. Take on guys if you must even in the middle of the field (but never too too much there ). Its not like he can tweak the lineup and make a run deep in this thing. Hackworth should see what he needs to do with Nimo, or he sucks as a coach. I think Nimo's speed is ok, but he has some of the cleanest technique you'll see in killing a ball in most situations (even better than Adu mostly), and his turn is also cleaner, quicker. Again, I don't think he has the greatest explosion, but its good enough.
BTW and maybe unfortunately, Germany saw us/played us 6 weeks ago and we trounched them. Their coach went on and on about Nimo. I wouldn't be surprised to see the very first tactic Germany puts forth is stopping and finding Nimo at every turn, and forcing the other guys to step up. Their coach was literally 'astounded' by Nimo's ability... All the more reason why Hackworth needs to design a more free-ranging role for Nimo, so he can have the space to shake free vs. a dedicated defender or 2 all over the pitch
I'll admit it I haven't been watching the tournament. Ironically I just got back last night from visiting my gf's parents in Samarkand, in the southern part of Uzbekistan - only about a hundred kms from the Tajikistan border. And the majority of the people in this region are actually Tajik. Came back to find out the US just lost to Tajikstan - pretty humiliating they were surprise qualifiers out of Asia. Glad to see the USA advance, as to keep up the tradition of strong first round performances of US youth teams. I'm hoping for a little bit of reverse-fortune here... the US tends to kick ass in the group stages of these tournaments.. if I'm not mistken Brazil, Italy, Argentina and Germany have all fallen - in the last couple of years to the US in youth football + Turkey and Poland have been handed 6 goal thrashing in recent history...... only to throw it away in the knockout stages. Well this time, we've sucked in the group stages, but maybe we'ss start to play some football in knockout stages?
I attended the match, and recorded it from about 38' on. I'll try to upload some clips later this week. Notes: - 90 minutes doesn't fit onto a DVD-60. I solved that by arriving 30 minutes late - There are two stadia in Cheonan. Some FIFA reports had it at Oryong Civil Stadium, so I went there first. Unmaintained, water on field, deserted, front door's open, I strolled in. Obviously not here. - It's actually at Cheonan Sports Complex, a much more modern multi-sport facility: tennis, indoor swimming, practice field. Floodlights were on -- a good sign. Ticket was $3. On the promenade outside the stadium proper, they were setting up for a post-match free rock concert. - It started to rain, but here in summertime, that's not a bad thing. I cared more about the endzone view than about staying dry. Then I wandered over to the farside US fan clump -- right behind the two (hired local boys) US flag-wavers. - Belgium had better technique, but not much came of it -- they weren't any better at advancing the ball than we were. They had one trick: each guy holds the ball just until pressure comes, short pass directly to another guy's feet, passer immediately sprints into space, receiver repeats. They could reliably do that about 2.5 times in a row in midfield, but it always petered out faster than the field did. They didn't look for diagonal through balls, either. - USA's on-ball skills looked a bit ragged. Nimo had some excellent solo runs and near-goals, but mostly we hoofed and hoped. USA's big stick was the long crossfield pass to the wide-open guy lurking way forward on the far wing -- we did this about 20 times, and it always gained about 20-30m of field position for almost no effort. Belgium was very disruptive in intercepting our short passes (their skill/bunker vs. our not-so-great passing), but they never covered the outlet guy. Maybe it's a flaw in their system. - In Belgium's 1/3, we rarely looked for the inside-out diagonal ball. About 10 times, we passed left-toward-middle, all of the Belgian defenders turned their backs to the sideline, and our left forward guy (or whoever overlapped to that position) made a run into space up the sideline. Our middlish-guy could have dumped a diagonal ball into the corner (even no-look) for lots of free endline crosses, but that guy never played back to the sideline. About 10 times after that, our sideline guy didn't even bother to run. - Our first goal was some karmic reward for all of the long ball/mini-lobs we'd been trying. IIRC, off a clearance to about 25m, we dumped a lob to Urso at the corner of the 6m box, magical first touch completely settled the ball, and he fired into the keeper's hand. From my angle (almost directly behind the shot), we couldn't see the ball's goalward motion after the deflection -- until the net bulged. - Bates' header for the second goal was unmistakeable -- we saw him make his run from deep. Why take a short corner to 1m away from the corner flag, and then cross from there? That's a lot of moving parts for basically no change in the trajectory. Just to mess up the defenders' timing? - At halftime, 5-6 Korean volunteers carried a Big Ass USA Flag to one endzone, and unfurled it. Attendance was sparse (~3000?), so there was nobody under it to flap it around. - After the match, the USA players came over to us at the far sideline, lined up, and saluted us in unison. - On the subway home, a cute babe fell asleep next to me and leaned against my shoulder, for about a stop and a half. My lower back stiffened up, but I felt honor-bound to hold my position
I seriouslly don't appreciate the poll US soccer put up on their website! Just because they caught a break by scoring two goals against a 10 man side and then we heavily relied on the other game in our group to turn out like it did. It still doesn't mean this team is all that good. I hope the best against Germany, but not only is it hard to beat the same team twice, we still haven't showed we belong in the knockout phase!
That's how it looked on TV too. That's some coaching by Hackworth. One could have met those kids 15 minutes before the match and accomplished the same thing.
Stayed up to watch last night (1:00 AM local time out here). A few comments: - Definitely an improved performance, and other than a few individually skilled players from Belgium (#10 Hazard is a player), felt we were in control most of the match (both before and after the red card) - Better composure on the ball from our boys this time, but still a lack of ideas in the offensive third, except for that one great ball played through to Nimo (couldn't tell from who) right after the first goal. Those are the kind of runs / balls we consistently lack - Nimo needs to play centrally and we need to build the attack through him (play either Urso or Jeffries behind him, Garza (really like him) on the left and maybe Ibrahim on the right) - Still looking for a left back, Zimmerman made me a bit nervous (really like Williams, though, think he might be a factor at the next levels) - Schuler is out next game, so it will be McCloughlin + ??? (either Cruz, Ibrahim, or maybe Nimo) - Lambo in goal was a nice addition, so was Urso, not so much Zimmerman
Anyone have highlights from the match? For some reason fifa's don't work for me. Also, how was our defense? Who impressed back there?
Gilmoy- you one of the military guys that were at the game? As far as nimo goes, what you don't understand is he lacks vision and has no air game. He is a 1v1 player and a subpar defender, ie not a two way player. This was his only good game so far and in the first half he was fairly anonymous. The other two games he was not good. Nimo cannot play in the middle. If the us won 2 games, they would have been in the same position, 2nd place. Instead of bitching about what you feel they can't do, why not applaud them for what they did? Under pressure and against a team that only needs a tie (who has bunkered no less) the boys fought, scraped and won the game. Many many other teams would have shown up ready for the flight back to their own country.
I wish we had been a little more deliberate in our attacking, but just bringing the energy and dominating possession this game was a big improvement over the previous games. In fairness, we did have several good moves in the final third, but the finishing wasn't there. For the Germany match, how about playing Bates at left back, Meyer and Wenzel at center back? We've tried Sarkodie, Klute and Zimmerman at lb, Meyer and Wenzel have looked decent at cb, and there aren't really any more options at lb. Lambo Williams ------Meyer ------- Wenzel------Bates -------Urso-----------Jeffrey-----------Garza (or Cruz) --------------------Nimo ---------------Ibrahim -------------McLoughlin
Yeah I agree where do they get off telling their fans and supporters to "go back to school and study your mathematics". When a team gives up 4 goals to friggin Tajikstan how could anyone "keep the faith"... give us a reason to have faith in the first place
Just finished watching the game on TiVo. (No way was I staying up, or getting up early, to see this team after the way they played the first two games and I didn't have any quiet time till my kids went down for naps.) Anyway, at halftime I turned to my wife and said "no matter how this game ends, this is a much better performance from the US because they are passing so well." If the US had passed like this, and moved like this off the ball, in the first two games I doubt they'd have had their backs up against the wall. While the finishing was still atrocious today, this was the kind of performance that I expected from the jump in that it seemed to reflect a level of familiarity that one should see from two years of residency. Shame it took two bitch-slappings for the US to get to that performance but better late than never. I hadn't expected a good result so i didn't bother to learn what needed to happen for the US to advance so when I heard about the late Tunisia goal, I was pretty stunned to hear the US was going through. Yeah, it took some luck with what happened in the other game, but still, congrats to the boys and even to Hackworth and his coaches for having the team ready, finally, to play a game where they very easily could have hung their heads and mailed it in. Individually, I thought Nimo, obviously, was the best US player and I think Hack needs to abandon the notion of playing him on the flanks and just put him in a position to touch the ball as much as possible. Lambo seemed to be an upgrade in goal and Williams and Bates continue to be studs in the back. While I was glad to see Hack give Zimmerman a shot I have to say that Left Back Roulette will continue. Maybe it's time to bail on a four-back set since all our LB's blow and go with a 3-5-2. Just a thought. Disapointed not to see Cruz after what he flashed the other day but I can't really criticized the subs when A) one of them scored and B) the US wins 2-0.
I really hope Jeffrey is not starting at the expense of Urso. I am sure he is a really nice kid but he has seen the most possession of any USA players in the group stage and has done the least with it. Urso was more dangerous in his 45 minutes than Jeffrey was in his 270. I know you have Urso in your starting lineup. I just hope that he finds a way into it.