The idea that Gooch had a gaffe on the 2nd goal is absurd...you need to just ignore Harkes on that one. Gooch was going away from the ball, his momentum was carrying him past it...the ball took about 1 second to go from foot to goal which means Gooch had about 0.5 seconds to see the ball assess the flight and try to get a foot on a ball behind him with his momentum going forward? Ridiculous expectations. Harkes job is to say stuff and he has slow motion and 30 seconds to fill after the goal. The problem on the 2nd goal is that Howard was shielded by 2 players (Demerit in midfield and Gooch) and Gooch was shielded by one of those AND moving out toward an unmarked Rossi. My real criticism of Gooch from the game was that some of his clearances were weak.
How in the world Howard gets a pass on this goal but Gooch does not is beyond me. Note to US fans -- Howard is not perfect. Gooch is not a clumsy oaf.
I am pretty sure Gooch and Howard both expected to do better there. Gooch needed to use his left foot there. Howard should have taken another step to his left in case Gooch missed the clearance.
Totally agree. Maybe he was in a bad position there, but you can't fault him for not being a hockey goalie and making a brilliant split-second kick save.
"They were well organised and made it quite difficult for us, especially their number five player (Oguchi Onyewu) and 17 (Jozy Altidore), who caused us lots of problem. Yes, we won, but it was not easy." --Marcello Lippi
Yeah, I am a Howard fan as much as the next guy and think he is a really good goalie and one of our strongest players and all that. But that second goal is on him. Yes, it was a decent shot, but it didn't have anywhere near the power it should have needed to score from that distance and angle for a ball along the ground. Gooch shouldn't have to block that. You should be able to rely on your goalie to save shots from an angle 35 yards out skimming along the ground at a medium speed.
I for one am sick of revisionist theories based off of slow motion replays. It's pretty bad on NFL broadcasts, but it's even worse for our USMNT announcers. The ball was hit with a lot of pace. and as was said by an above poster, Gooch was traveling away from the path of the ball. He tried to get a foot to it and failed, it happens a lot. I just love how Harkes, besides being a complete an inept broadcaster, magically believes that Onyewu can magically alter physics and get his left foot to it. Well, I mean, it is easy to alter physics when your mind works at full speed while watching a video at 1/8 the speed of play.
I knew when Harkes said that Gooch was going to get a lot of unwarranted criticism on this board. Bradley and Altidore both "whiffed" on balls 5 yards in front of goal and people are making a bigger deal about Gooch...unbelievable.
I don't think either Gooch or Howard were at fault on the second. Good couldn't get his left foot to it and Howard had his vision shielded by players in front of him. Sometimes it's nobody's fault, other times Benny Feilhaber has an invisible game and doesn't close down De Rossi. Not trying to pile on, but I barely noticed him out there last night. Kljestan should have replaced him earlier.
I don't blame anyone for the second goal. It was a great shot which bounced right in front of the goal. Almost impossible to stop. However, I think both Gooch and Howard could have done better. Gooch was too deep and should have reached with his left foot and Howard could have taken a step sooner. Gooch just looked real clumsy in the reply. Not his first time, nor his last.
When there's a US loss Big Soccer always has the same reaction. We have a "blamestorming" session. We HAVE to blame somebody, whether it's the players, coaches, USSF, etc. Sometimes, you're just beaten by the better team. And that was the case yesterday. And while it was 11 v 11 it was a pretty even match. But once we went down to 10, Italy's superior talent took the game to us. We can blame Benny for his turnover against Rossi, but then Rossi had to score a Golazo. We can blame Spector for getting skinned by Pirlo leading to the second Rossi goal. But that was a hell of a play by Pirlo. We can blame Benny for not closing down De Rossi and Gooch for not geting contact onto the ball for the second goal, but it still had to be a perfect shot in the corner. Sometimes you're just overmatched by the World Champions, when you're down a man for 60 minutes after a questionable call, and your players are exhausted. And I always find these "closing down" arguments funny. People always say this when a player scores a golazo from distance. Well, if player X had closed him down he wouldn't have scored. If Zanetti had scored on one of his long-distance blasts in the first half, then people would have said......"OH, we should have closed him down." Most of the time those shots end up in the 37th row. You can't "close down" every player all the time. There are going to be open guys. De Rossi was 30 yards from goal, for Christ's sake. Feilhaber, I'm sure, wasn't too worried about him shooting a worm-burner at that distance and angle to beat Howard. And I don't blame him.
I can't give Howard a pass on this one. He's not screened much - he's in the middle of the goal but the ball hits the low corner, so he saw the trajectory. Giving him the benefit of the doubt is that he fears a deflection coming off Gooch, and that he sees Gooch has moved centrally. So perhaps he figures the post is covered. But when the ball is outside of Gooch then Howard has to be reacting quicker because there's no danger of the deflection coming on goal. Gooch's action is a bit weird/unlucky, sort of like coming off the post on a corner when the goalie is way out of the net, there's a free header, and you have five yards of net to block. Then the header goes right to where you were on the post and people are angry at you for moving off the post. But you actually made the right play. Looks like Gooch got his angles wrong, and was a bit guilty of playing too much like a goalie (trying to cover a whole side of the net) when he still had Howard behind him.
Or you could say that was one hell of a shot by De Rossi. Howard saved our skins about three other times in that match, or it could have been 5-1.
It was a hell of a shot by De Rossi. Howard saved our skins a couple other times. Howard was good but not great.
Howard shouldn't have had to save that. You should be able to rely on your center back to block shots from an angle 35 yards out skilling along the ground at medium speed. (See how easy it is to shift blame? Six of one, half dozen of the other)
Gooch couldn't use his left like Harkes suggested because he was standing on it at the moment he needed to use it and his right was not already on the ground - he was moving as others suggested. The right foot was in the air and all he had available to reach out with. I would question his positioning - why was he moving outside when De Rossi was coming inside and lining up a shot? I haven't looked at the replay, but I guess someone said he was going to mark Rossi - maybe that was a bad decision.
Marking Rossi? With the way that kid was playing, that seemed like a good idea to me. We can dissect that play until the cows come home (which hopefully is soon.) It was a perfectly placed shot by De Rossi, which by chance caught our centerback on the wrong foot while he partially blocked the view of Howard, who couldn't get over to the corner in time. Sometimes you tip your hat to your opponent and say, "nice shot." If De Rossi tried that shot 20 more times under the same circumstances..........he'd probably make it once or twice more.
Looked to me like Gooch was blocking Howard's view of the shot. If there's any blame to be laid, it's on giving DeRossi enough space to take the shot in the first place, but props to him, it was a damn good shot, one that very few if any on our side could make.
i don't blame either player either. (that sounds funny.) i haven't seen as many replays of the goals as some of you, but i don't think his momentum let him switch to his left like harkes kept preaching about. and howard's vision was just blocked. sometimes, that happens. doesn't matter. someone will still get blamed.
Yes, he and Howard could have done better. Yes, Benny got stripped at midfield. But, for me, the two bigger gaffes were Bradley's whiff and Jozy's inexplicable decision to pass. What striker in their right mind tries to pass there? Worrisome to say the least.
Ding ding ding. Jozy's piddly little dink got a bigger yell-at-the-screen out of me than even Clark's red card. Hope it's not a bad habit he's picking up, I think a year ago he would've buried it.