Mathis/Donovan As long as I'm imposing random detours on this thread... I think if we had to play the World Cup tomorrow we'd have a very nice dynamic working on our behalf. Mathis and Donovan are smart, talented and versatile enough to exchange roles throughout the game. They're both great attacking midfielders and they're both great forwards. The fact that they can fluidly mix it up makes their pairing all the more special.
I'm not sure if Tewllman will be a first choice striker or not. I think Donovan and Mathis need to be paired together. Twellman is a JMM that can finish. I think that he will be a valuable asset to this team throughout qualifying but not necessarily as a starter. He can come off the bench and run a tired defense ragged...provided he gets and service from our mids.
When healthy and in form Wolff will get the call over TT. I therefore put Wolff, Mathis, and Donovan all ahead of TT. However, given the number of injurries to players during qualifying the Nats are going to need a bunch of forwards. This includes McBride, Cunningham, and possibly Quaranta, Johnson, and Razov. I rank TT in the middle to lower half of the group of forwards.
Cweed, I think what I'm getting at is that when someone just hammers Twellman he bounces up QUICK and tends to crack a smile and seemingly try harder. McBride too often gets hammered and stays on the ground making some sorta "Where's the call?" gesture at the ref...over and over. He seems to do it more when we are losing than when we are winning though. Am I the only person who gets that idea from McBride? I'm not saying he doesn't go in tough, put himself in positions to get hurt, or anything like that. McBride does. But he doesn't have that bounce back up and get more determined that Twellman has.
I will go as far to say that Twellman had a great game given the conditions. #1 Twellman was well marked the whole game. #2 The conditions were terrible. #3 This was his 1st call up. Did he ever play for the U.S. as a youth? I don't think so. No international experience. (I could be wrong here) #4 He recieved little service, due mostly to #1. With all the reasons against him above, Taylor opened up space well for others on the wings and behind him centrally. He did show for the ball well, rode off tackles, and distributed to players in the attack. He made defenders and the goalie know he was there and willing to make them pay for head balls. What didn't he do? Well he didn't score in his first call up on a rain drenched field. Give the guys some chances. He is everthing good in Joe-Max and Razov with some heading and holding abilities of McBride. He is not a speedster like Wolf however.
You may be right but I am less certain. I know Wolff has had some good performances for the national team in the past as well as some fine Fire performances, but has Wolff ever come close to reaching the level Twellman did last year in MLS? I have witnessed some good and poor Wolff performances but have yet to make any solid judgements for or against his role with the national team. Arena seems to not consider him a solid starter if you consider Wolff's lack of minutes throughout the WC. As for Twellman, it was the first game for him with the national team in bad conditions. 5 or 6 national team games from now he may have netted 4 goals or so and we'll all be wondering who is going to start up top with him in 2006. Or he may go the way of Kreis... The point is that it's waaayyyy too early to make any objective conclusions. Furthermore, I wouldn't put anything past Arena.
Yes, he did play for some of the youth teams in the past. Here is a bio page I found that seems to have a lot of info about Taylor's soccer career so far. http://www.nhsoccer.com/rev/roster/twellman.htm
Originally posted by USA4Life When healthy and in form Wolff will get the call over TT. ******************************* Never happen. Wolff is a classic choker, TnT is not and besides, when is Wolff healthy? TnT is under too much pressure to produce immediately or be dropped. We had a horrible, wet field, new teammates, and no service and yet many expect miracles. Mathis didn't score either and Donovan was invisible for most of the game but nobody is knocking their effort. You doubters should be asking yourself this.... Without TnT runs and hard work, would we have scored at all? and Would Mathis have had the open space he had all day? P.S. - I'm not so sure that the cross to Olsen wasn't just thrown out there and ended up on his head. TnT was also wide open but the ball sailed by him
I don't think anyone is advocating dropping Twellman. Some are advocating that he isn't at the top of the depth chart yet; and he shouldn't be, with one cap and one first division season under his belt, other top forwards healthy, and with Bruce still eager to get Mathis and Donovan more time to grow into national team leaders. Taylor will get plenty of shots, and did nothing to deny himself future chances. I think the fact that Arena wanted to try the Mathis/Twellman combo speaks volumes. Twellman appears to have already vaulted Cunningham on the depth chart.
i couldnt agree more. I still remember that egg he got on his eye. he then continued to play until he couldnt see. . . i also remember his quote from an MLS ad - "Growing up playing soccer as a kid in Illinois, soccer was called 'soft'. If you want soft, go play golf. I am Brian McBride, and i believe in major league soccer." that pretty much describes him well.
Right now, I would take a slightly injured Wolff over deadweight Twellman. If McBride, Donovan or even Wolff were playing up front, the US would have scored FIVE against this weak El Salvador team. Watching Donovan run around so far away from goal and seeing Twellman clog up the US attack is pure torture. We've waited so long for guys like Donovan and Mathis to come along, I hope Arena won't waste their attacking skills by giving guys like Twellman one too many "chances" to play up front in the future. Quaranta and the other young guys should be given more chances.
I guess we're to talented up front and just way to loaded with quality forwards to even bother getting Twellman aclimated. Get real, we have plenty of time and plenty of games to let Twellman develope. For all we know he might have had an offday or a case of the jitters. It was his first start after all.
He was responsible for pulling some defenders away from Olsen on one of the goals. He didn't have any clear chances that he blew, and he hustled on defense. Comparing him to Kreis, who blew a few chances in his first game, or Wolff is stupid. Wolff is a completely different type of player. We should be comparing him to McBride, that's who he's going to be battling for a position.