I'm with you on much of what you said, but I don't think Donovan was great last night - merely good. In particular, he seemed pretty shaky on a number of corners. Granted, he did have a few good ones (including one that led to a goal), but a lot of them were pretty bad too. Perhaps it was because he was getting tired from taking so many of them With regards to the rest, I thought Klein looked pretty bad with some really poor crossing. I think that I have seen enough from Klein at this point. The subs were average at best. Clint played a nice game drawing fouls all over the place and had some nice combo play with Twellman and Wolff for his goal. Twellman looked really good again. In addition to things mentioned by other posters, I like that he tracks back on defense to help out and wasn't offsides other than maybe once that I remember. Dunivant looked dangerous coming forward with some nice crosses, but I was a little concerned that the attack late in the game started coming mostly down his side. Finally, Pope looked pretty good as well getting up in the attack a number of times as well as some good play on defense. He was guilty of letting a ball almost hit the ground on a corner which led to Japan's last goal, I think. Overall, a really nice game - especially from min 5 to min 30 where our possession was unbelievable. Clint MAY be the answer to our right mid problem and Twellman is looking like our third foward behind BMB and EJ (if he regains form). The problem for Twellman is that he really isn't an option to play with BMB. I'm not sure about Dunivant for LB yet - it looks like he MIGHT be able to do it, but as I mentioned earlier, I was a little concerned that Japan's attack late in the game came down his side. I'm looking forward to a camp with all the Euro-based guys in to see how they stack up against the MLS guys in Bruce's mind. We really need to know if Reyna and JOB are going to be fit, in form, and available for the World Cup.
Chris Albright and he's hurt. It, like LB, is not a deep position in MLS. After Albright and Frankie, you're looking at Chris Wingert, Jay Heaps, Chris Leitch, Brian Namoff, Craig Waibel, Bobby Rhine, Tony Sanneh (at 36)... You see the problem. After that you start talking about CBs playing there out of position: Ugo Ihemelu, Nick Garcia, Chad Marshall (also hurt), etc.. I thought Olsen looked ok-ish there for his brief time there. Klein was poor, there's just no way around it.
Agreed, but in fairness, Bruce didn't make the same substitutions or tactical decisions he would have if we had a 3-0 lead in a WC match. We were throwing players onto the field that we wanted to see how they would perform.
I forgot about that until you mentioned it. That was a really nice shot. Near-perfect placement. The only way to have made it better was to have hit it higher or lower (ground level or 6' high). It looked like it was within 6 inches of the post. A fabulous save by the keeper.
gotta hand it to Arena, he has those guys playing their hearts out, 100% all the time... Pope looked good. Donovan, work on some corners. Twellman continues to impress. Clint is a bad dancer
Dunivant stock went way up last night, he doesn't necessarily do anything spectacular but he makes good decisions and doesn't lose the ball. I'll like to see him get tested more defensively to see how he holds up but he definitely plays well under pressure with the ball at his feet. Klein on the other hand may have played his way off the team, for all the props he gets for his offensive abilities all his crosses were terribly overhit and he played poorly defensively. Along with Ching they were the worst players on the field, hopefully Bruce ends testing both players since they've continually showed nothing.
Got to see the game tonight as ESPN International had it on a same-day tape-delay here in Australia, and seeing that it was the first time in a while that I actually got to see the USA play a full match, I was very impressed with what I saw. And in a lot of cases, with as many players (knowing that with the exception of Heath Pearce, this was an all-MLS squad) that put together quality performances, it suggests how deep we really are, and what a shame it's going to be for a few players to miss out on making the 2006 squad. Some thoughts from the match: Eddie Pope -- he and Jimmy Conrad combined very well at both ends of the pitch. And as much maligned as he has been in recent months, he's booked himself a place on the squad for Germany. True, there may be younger, quicker, stronger defenders, but I cannot see anyone who is as sublime and as experienced together. Taylor Twellman -- enjoying a great run, but it's a damned shame for his sake that he plays the same target forward position as Brian McBride. Having said that, however, should Macca suffer a freak injury (which admittedly hasn't happened in a while), TT's there waiting in the wings, and ready to give a capable performance. Clint Dempsey -- just keeps getting better and better. Just about on the squad, barring injury. A fantastic finish on that second goal... but what the hell was that, ummm, dance? Speaking of Dempsey's goal, that passing sequence was about as pretty as one will ever see. Very efficient use of making the ball do the work with quick touches, and a clinical finish from Dempsey. On that note, a great display of passing and possession from the USA, particularly over the first hour of the match. An absolute must as a gameplan element for the games in Germany, this cannot be emphasized enough. Eddie Johnson -- wish he had more touches, but the touch and the quickness he displayed suggests that he can come back into form pretty quickly. And that stepover move... pure goosebumps on the back of my neck. Josh Wolff -- got himself into some good positions, but way too often, his first touch let him down, and cost him possible opportunities to get the ball on goal. Todd Dunivant -- sure, a "bubble" player at the moment. However, the more Jonathan Spector gets a lack of playing time at Charlton Athletic, Dunivant can be opportunistic enough to take advantage of that with more performances like these. Dunivant was highly impressive tonight. Chris Klein -- On the outside looking inward, with the right back experiment not working as well as Bruce Arena had hoped. Either he makes it on the right side of midfield, or not at all. Ben Olsen and Brian Ching -- both not likely to make it, due to a numbers game at their respective positions.
I'll buy that, no question. However, in Ching's case, the writing was on the wall the moment Twellman notched his hat-trick against Norway.
Haven't seen the match yet, but great to hear we're seeing players step up at all the positions that are actually OPEN. Forward, RM, LB Voros, do I remember reading something you wrote awhile back about the fouls a player suffers indicating...well..something good?
which was worse? a. klein's crosses b. donovan's corners c. dempsey's "bust-a-move" other than that-keep on pluggin', nats.
First and foremost, Zico needs to STFU. We dominated that game until the subs came on and we took our foot of the gas. Another very good game from Twellman. The layoff for Pope's goal was phenomenal and he had the last pass in that great buildup for Dempsey's goal. Real test is when he goes to Poland but as disappointed as I was with him at the start of his international career, that's how impressed I've been in the last couple of matches. Eddie Pope when healthy continues to be one of the best players ever to wear the National team jersey. He has never gotten his due from the majority of posters on this website and he's showing, that, if he can stay healthy, he remains an intregal part of the team. Solid job by Conrad last night as well. Our midfield won this game for us, though. LD, Clint, Noonan and Zavag who I've always been impressed with in the defensive midfield role were outstanding tonight. Dempsey seems to have gotten a grasp on the speed and physicality of international football and he's becoming a factor. LD was LD and Noonan was pretty solid as well. Of the forwards, no one outside of TT really distinguised themselves. I though Wolff had a stunningly average game and Ching didn't do much upon entering. As for EJ, I think he's starting to get his confidence back when running at defenders but he still doesn't seem to be going at top speed. But his touch and composure on the ball were there and I figure the by the time the rosters are announced he will have started well in MLS and solidified a roster spot. Well done USA.
Ono is still coming off injury so he's not 100 percent......Kubo is in the same boat........I don't understand the choice of keepers for either squad, Kawaguchi is a lock so they should've gone to Tsuboi for this one. Zico is Japan's version of Steve Sampson
ouch. It was a good game, though, and you can take some comfort in that. The times (time?) I've missed one like that, and then find out they played poorly, I'm tempted to be more upset, as if they would have played better if I'd been watching...but this time, they did fine!
I really lucked out.The Torino OC was boring me so much that I went surfing and heard espn2 say the match was coming up.Tired as hell today though.
Nice to see the reappearance of BigSoccer in uniform. The best quality was the confident ball possession game played by the US. I suspect that totally blew away the Japan expectations. Extremely well controlled, quick passing in tight situations really blew them out. That is such an enormous change in the team performance since 1998. Unbelievable. Pope/Conrad - outstanding at both ends. Donovan - outstanding leadership. His center of the field performance led the penetrations and turned the Japan defense into a sieve. Wolff - outstanding runs off the ball. He worked really well as a complement to both Donovan and Twellman. Twellman- Proving he has what it takes. That game showed a minimal difference between him and McBride. Dempsey - the guy is maturing really rapidly. Of course, I wish he would not get knocked down so much. He is copying DMB. Noonan - great assessment by the commentators- he always brings something to the table. Subtle, subtle, subtle. Dunivant - proving himself on offense; when pressed on defense late in the game, I was not impressed. Klein - unfortunate in contrast to the others. His crosses were particularly poor, even for him. I still see him in the mix, but the growth curve has to be good for anything more to happen. Olsen - ridiculous Johnson - glimmers, but not enough (yet, he says hopefully?) Carroll - poor Ching - not quite up to it
Well actually it was in MLS. Nutmeg first pointed it out and I checked it and there seemed to be a minor correlation between drawing lots of fouls in MLS and receiving callups to the national team. It's likely a "third variable" issue as you saw last night. One way to get fouled alot is to show skill on the ball like Dempsey did. So there seems to be a relationship between drawing fouls and skill on the ball and quite obviously there's a relationship between skill on the ball and getting called up. Fouls suffered leaders by team in 2005: Chicago - Justin Mapp Chivas USA - Ramon Ramirez Columbus - Kyle Martino Colorado - Jeff Cunningham Dallas - Carlos Ruiz and Ronnie O'Brien DC United - Freddy Adu and Jaime Moreno Kansas City - Davy Arnaud Los Angeles - Herculez Gomez Metrostars - Eddie Gaven New England - Clint Dempsey Salt Lake - Andy Williams San Jose - Alejandro Moreno While not perfect, you can still see the clear relationship between skill on the ball and the fouls suffered stat.
hence the 3-6-1. still, sampson would have waited until Germany to break that out . . . I actually thought the Japanese keeper was the best player on the ptich last night.
I did leave off EJ but I was giving him a coming back from injury pass. His touch was a lttle loose and he clearly was sitting out the defensive part of the game, I bet Bruce told him to do this because he isn't fit. That being said if that chipped ball across the box was a foot lower he gets his name on the scorer's sheet.
Okay, that dance was from a new rap group name D4L in their new video *Betcha Can't Do It Like me". What Deuce was doing was snapping his fingers and jerking his shoulders to the side. And he actually did it ok if you ever saw this video on MTV or BET. D4L also has the unintelligent but addicting song called "Laffy Taffy"