Official Italy vs U.S.A. PRE Match Thread [R]

disagree.

For japan and iran it's end of worldcup, yet for US, even as hopeless as it might seem there's still things to look for.

czech left alot of room for opponent to poke around today, US simply didn't exploit the opportunities properly (we created some chances with our midfield plays, but couldn't produce). Ghana on other hand has a very fast offensives, eventhou they seemed to lack a finisher at times, it pocesses most serious threat to czech in this group. Losing staring striker certainly isn't helping in that department, as if they find themselves trailing to ghana, they might have a hard time coming back. also to remember is that czech's injury list isn't just koller, it includes rosicky too! the 2 people that scored today... it's amazing to me how czech played so well with 2 supports and 1 striker, perhaps rosicky is better off by himself with a 451? but if they lose this guy too, czech just might end up going home before us. Keep in mind ghana is a very physical team.
italian showed a terrific team today + andrea pirlo and luca toni were on fire. but at the same time, they also exposed their weakness in left AND right back! barzagli and grosso are very offensive outside defenders, they push up quite a bit to help, leaving cannavaro and nesta to bail the team out with their individual skills on quite a few occasions. When against a midfield dominating team such as the czech, this weakness could get further exposed and they might get in trouble.

obviously monumental tasks for US ahead, but certainly not impossible. That's what darkhorses do, and they do it every WC.

 

Does anyone have a statistical breakdown for what needs to happen for the US to advance? By my count there are 81 possible outcomes for the last 4 group matches, not including tiebreakers.

 

What should USA's lineup be vs. ITA?

So we've all had our rants, comments, criticisms about the first game. And we've all got our opinions about who should start, what formation and tactics should be used, etc.

Given the circumstances (ITA now has 3 points under their belts, will this affect their game plan?) and what kind of a game we can expect to face, what should the lineup/formation be to give USA the best chance to win?

 

true true... italy will come flying and trying to win outright. it's important for them to win the group and not get brazil

 

Re: What should USA's lineup be vs. ITA?

my lineup:

-------McBride----------Johnson------
DMB/Convey---Donovan-------Dempsey
----------------Reyna----------------
Lewis----Onyewu------Pope-------Dolo

--------------Keller--------------------



few thoughts:
-as bad as Beasley played (he looked like his boots were full of concrete), you just gotta slap some sense in to him, START him on the left, and just get after it.
-donovan has to step up. he's the fact of the team, he needs to get it done
-EJ has to start. he seemed to be our only life besides reyna.
-lewis can't come up as much. if he does, then go with a flat 3 in the back and mastroeni as a defensive mid.
-the few crosses we got in the first half seemed to be our best chances to score. mcbride is still a world class player, and he just needs chances.
-my prediction is that onyewu picks up another yellow card. which may or may not be a good thing.

 

Re: What should USA's lineup be vs. ITA?

lol, good one

 

Re: What should USA's lineup be vs. ITA?

what they should go with...

-----Keller-------------------
-----Dolo---Pope---Gooch---Boca-----
-------------O'Brien------------------
--Donovan------Reyna-----Convey----
---------Johnson--McBride------------
​

sadly... what I think they will go with...

-----Keller-------------------
-------Dolo---Pope---Gooch----------
-----------------------------Lewis----
---------------Mastro----------------
--Beasley--------------Reyna---------
----------Donovan--------------------
--------------- McBride---------------
​

actually now that I look at those... those are terrible, I'll post em anyways, but to be honest. right now I have no clue what the answer is, I can only hope Arena does.

 

WTF ur kidding right, u left out the only decent defender today

 

I was actually in that position before the game started (back spasms), so once Koller scored I just stayed there...

 

Pope is looking at a broken hand/wrist right now, his last cup may have ended prematurely.

 

This happens a lot in other sports, where a team is said to have been "exposed" based on one result. I remember last year the Steelers were exposed as a one dimensional team with a shaky quarterback on more than one occasion, according to various media types and fans, after a particularly bad game here or there. Once they beat Indy in Indy during the playoffs, the Colts and Peyton Manning were said to have been exposed as soft. Why isn't a bad game just a bad game? Why does it always mean the losing team has been exposed as a fraud? I never understood that mentality...

Whatever, the US may be technically inferior to both CR and Italy, but not by much. The whole point of my post was to point out that there's every reason to believe the US will improve off their last effort while Italy will regress. Will that be enough to close the gap? Who knows? Handicapping is all about making excuses for both good and bad performances and trying to find a reason why those performances will or won't be repeated. In handicapping parlance, the value lies with the Yanks on Saturday. I just wonder if I can get +1.5 somewhere...

 

I don't. But with today's -3 differential, logic says the US must win out to go through. A win and a tie would mean that the win would probably have to be by 4 goals over Italy. Since that's not going to happen, just assume 2 wins will send the US to the round of 16. In that scenario, the only thing that would prevent the US from advancing with 6 points would be if CR beats Ghana and then Italy beats CR and the US loses the GD tiebreaker.

 

Re: What should USA's lineup be vs. ITA?

beasley needs to bring life to the wing. let reyna help out defense, and hopefully onyewu show some strong presence and stand up to luca toni in the air (or we're dead anyway).
convey.... let the blind man bench. we need people that could outmanuver those italian wingers and SERVICE SERVICE SERVICE SERVICE SERVICE.
the two italian center midfielders seemed to have trouble communicating, which is a potential weakness and we need to exploit. get them to pile up and open rooms on the sides to work with.
reyna has to have the determination to move the ball up, to donovan who has to put pressure on nesta and cannavaro because mcbride + johnson isn't enough to trouble the italian backbone.

 

What lineup is Bruce going to throw out there against Italy?

What a fcuking gaffe he made by having too much faith in Beasley. The guy gave us no width at all and didn't do anything offensively. 4-5-1 with Eddie Johnson on the bench. Wow, just wow.

Every team is going to try and counter us now, especially Italy.

 

I think you're right. A draw vs. Italy means the best USA can hope for is 4. Czech is sitting on 3 now; if USA draws Italy, Italy goes to 4, and then plays Czech. If Italy loses to Czech, they stay on 4, Czech wins group and USA probably lose the tiebreaker on GD. If Italy draws Czech, USA is out. If Italy beats Czech, USA only advances if Ghana defeat Czech.

Even if USA beats Italy and Ghana, passage is not assured, given your scenario above.

USA still could win the group with two wins, Czech does not defeat Ghana, and Czech/Italy draw. Not bloody likely. So if USA does rally for two wins and manages to advance, Brazil probably lurks in the Round of 16.

 

Re: What lineup is Bruce going to throw out there against Italy?

It should be:

Chund----Pope----Gooch----Mastro
Dempsey--Donovan--O'Brien--Reyna
Johnson--------------------McBride

More than likely Arena will put out something like:

Chund-----Pope---Gooch-----Lewis
-----------Reyna------------------
Convey--------------------Beasley
----------Donovan----------------
Johnson----------------------Wolfe

 

Not by much? You must be kidding....you jester.

 

I think I posted this in the wrong forum prior...

pardon the mis-spellings...

convoy argh...

my line up would be 3-4-3

the gist being...


keller
pope mastroini gootch (sub allbright)
cherundolo / reyna donavan/beasley (sub o'brien and tuck beasley in with landon)
ching/mcbride/dempsey sub - ej

they need to create space with and for one another more, play with a little bit more energy, want those 50/50's, want it.

- easier said then done.

sorry about only knowing the way their names sound and not the proper spelling. I'm sure that will change after being here a little while.

 

Re: I think I posted this in the wrong forum prior...

I thought beasley played well, scrapper - he wanted it. It seemed like our offense was abandoned with no middle. the long balls just are not working like bruce wanted them too. time to try something else.

 

The biggest error Italy could do is to think that this game will be easy. Each match is a different story and USA will fight hard because a positive result is crucial for them.

 

Germany 2006 a defensive powerhouse?

 

that's true, but Zambrotta will be back in the line-up and that's a major upgrade on the wing over...Barzagli? who's this guy?

 

Not by much? Sorry but that's hilarious. You were so outclassed it was unreal. You had no individual skills, no creativity, no ideas, and worst of all for a side of your stature, slow and below par defenders.

And what on earth makes you think Italy will regress? Seriously, I'm curious.

 

he, you still haven't grasped it.
The technical skills gap is HUGE; Americans could make up for that with tactics, team cohesiveness, motivation and the surprise factor against an underachieving, unprepared opponent, but that's the very best-case scenario, and it does not apply to this World Cup