It was funny. Before Donovan was about to take it I was telling my friend Donovan can't take freekicks, and I was saying Jon O'brien should give it a shot. Then low and behold Donovan puts it in. Nicely placed as well.
yeah, thats exactly what i was thinking too, but it was a nice free kick. No matter, I'm still gonna boo on Aug 27th
I respect LGF's opinion, but there is no way I'd call that a lucky win. The worst US player last night was Bruce Arena, who put out a lineup, tactically, that made no sense, and hence the players played like a bunch of guys who were out of position and didn't know what to do. And Clint Dempsey missed, what, 50 sitters? And let's face it, once LD came in, it was lights out. He was amazing last night. Brad Davis played well (so I'm biased). He passed well, put in some good crosses. Generally looked like he belonged out there. LGF is right, there were some give-aways, but he got better as the game progressed. Nor did he take any, umm, guff from the Cuban players. At one point the replays showed a Cuban player pushing him and you didn't have to be a skilled lip reader to understand Davis' reply. Tony
I wasn't able to watch the game, but the report on ussoccer.com was very good in terms of Brad's performance: From this report, it sounds like Brad had a heck of a game (and, the goal notwithstanding, Dempsey didn't) but y'all are saying it wasn't that strong of a performance. Is the report not accurate or are y'all being rough on him because you've seen him have better games with the Quakes?
I think they're being rough on him. I think he had a great game. It was the idiots who couldn't get there or finish (frickin' Dempsey!) who made him look bad. I was pissed when Brad was taken out.
He played well for periods of the game and disappeared for others. The passes were there but he looked much more tentative on the pitch compared to Quakes games. Not a bad debut but it seems some supporters were expecting more. We are being pretty generous with the praise, go to the post game thread and you get a whole different POV. Some were not at all impressed, others think he should get another shot. I wasn't all that disappointed but would have liked him to get an assist on a Dempsey goal. It's not easy to miss a shot over the bar from 2 feet in front of the net.
Actually I respectfully disagree quite a bit with losgatosfan. I thought Davis played wonderfully especially with respect to his connecting with teammates in short passing combinations and in his service to the forwards. I watched the match twice. Other than the inspired play from Donovan who basically exploited a gassed Cuban defense I thought BD was right with Dempsey as the US of A's best players last night. Davis worked extremely well with Dempsey and I counted more than 8 dangerous crosses from Brad of which two could have or should have been finished by Dempsey. I didn't see Davis give up position of the ball more than once or twice during the run of play. Clearly BD connected on more successful passes than any other US player while he was on the field. BD also had the unfortunate circumstance of Tony Sanneh playing behind him and Sanneh had an absolute nightmare of a match. Davis by the way was subbed out at the 77th minute of the match for John O'Brien who was virtually invisible during his 15 + minutes on the pitch.
Well consider the source of your link. The US Mens News and Analysis Forum is populated by one of the largest collections of knucklehead's asshat's and dipweed's in the history of forever!
OK...I've laughed now four different times when reading this paragraph... "The US Mens News and Analysis Forum is populated by one of the largest collections of knucklehead's asshat's and dipweed's in the history of forever!" (soccertom) Bravo...damn funny. "...history of forever," he said...ha! GO QUAKES!!! Battch
How come some folks didn't get to see the game? It was broadcast over the air in the bay area (UHF channel 66, KFSF) and was on Comcast channel 20. In Spanish, but you can still see the action even if you don't understand the announcers...
I said different POV, not correct, but definitely different. I do agree with the assessment of the population though.
Here in the middle of Ohio there isn't much demand yet for Spanish programming (although it is growing) so, as far as I can tell anyway, I don't get Telefutura. I plan to check again for tomorrow night, but I'm not holding out any great hope.
Thanks for the suggestion... Just tried it and still bupkis. But the channel lineup they had for my cable company wasn't correct for what I actually get, so I think I am going to go through my on-screen guide tonight and see if I find anything.
If I understood the promotions properly during the match...the Gold Cup matches are rotating between Telefutura and Galavision and Univision (of course, the Mexico matches are Univision). So it appears to be a mix of cable and broadcast.