Re: Gavin for Gomez - horrible sub. Gomez lost every ball that came his way. If he could have held possession for more than 0.3 seconds, EJ and the rest of the team would have looked better. I know mentally he has the proper attitude to be a striker - not afraid to shoot - but the skills ain't there.
Re: Gavin for Gomez - horrible sub. he also won two of the three free kicks near the box in the 1st half that at least gave us opportunities. he also was the one confident enough to step up and take one of the free kicks. i thought his sub was strange...though admittedly for much of the rest of the half Gomez was largely invisible. i could see dropping one of our two d-mids for this game to give Beckerman a chance...but i'd've dropped Clark and kept Feilhaber out there...it's Feilhaber who's been making the most incisive passes to help spark the attack. without him, there was no creativity going forward and not only Beckerman (who I thought played scared most of the game), but Clark too couldn't handle the responsibilities for the most part. i thought Wynne would have been the solution at right back for this game - a bit more athleticism and speed against the rangy Colombians. Moor was simply in over his head for much of the match i thought. i disagree with the poster who said Pearce did nothing in the first half: 3 times he made perfect overlapping runs on the left side but in order - Beckerman and then Mapp (twice) couldn't get him the ball even though on all 3 occasions a simple pass and some competent execution would have sufficed. horrible stuff from Kyle & Justin but the runs from Pearce i thought were intelligent and properly tactical and extremely well-timed. would have been nice to see what he could do if the passes had been there. i do agree in the 2nd half Pearce seemed to tire and was not quite as sharp and played a few lousy passes himself. count me as one who thought in the first two games we played 150 minutes of quality soccer (the last 30 v. the argentines got ugly) but largely got let down by a horrible display of goaltending by Keller in both games, and of course some finishing that is better left unsaid. this game was pretty much an abomination, lending itself to the idea that the whole tourney was pretty much a stinker. maybe so, but i'm a glass 1/2 full kind of guy, and i thought we learned a lot in these games. the results weren't there though and i'm sure in the end it was a bit of a bitter experience for many involved. o well. we knew it wouldn't be easy with these back-to-back tourneys. life will go on. hopefully Bradley got out of it what he needed...though this is becoming increasingly difficult to judge from afar (maybe properly so). to me his one decision to start Keller in game #2 v. Paraguay is enough to question his entire coaching strategy...but i'm probably showing my bias on that one. hopefully lessons learned and not too much harm done in the long run.
Oh no, I think we learned a lot in both tournaments, but only a little in the final CA match. Overall, BB has a pretty good idea about his pool now. We are in excellent shape for the qualifiers. The next step is to evaluate and integrate a few of the U-20s into the national team (Adu, Altidore, Zizzo, Beltran, Szetela, Sturgis, etc.l). At least a couple of those guys could go right into the Senior National Team right now.
Eric Wynalda said it right when he gave a "red card" to Bob Bradley on ESPN last night. "The Copa America is not a try out" - its a prestigious tournament that goes back to 1916. We shamed all American soccer fans by bringing a selection of incapable players with no direction and no strategy. Where were the set plays ? Why not use the overseas players who are not missing from MLS and who need a closer look before they disappear for 7 months ? Charlie Davis and Nyugen got crumbs for playing time and worse, they were taken up by players who have showed oft so little in MLS - Gavin, Gomez et al. Part of this balme has to go to the US federation for accepting an offer so close to the Gold Cup and U-20 World Cup. The remaining blame must be shouldered by Bradley, who showed a complete lack of direction and strategy ... if he had not brought us the Gold Cup trophy, I think the press and fans would be asking for his and Sunil Gulati's head on a platter. If Bradley was just giving some old timers some last opportunities, he might as well have suited up Eric Wynalda ... at least he could try to chase back his goal scoring record from Donovan. Good Grief !
Re: Gavin for Gomez - horrible sub. This was noticeable through-out the match. In this instance, you boot the ball forward and use three very fast attackers (Mapp, Johnson and Gomez) to chase the ball and run at the opponent's goal ... instead, the ball was passed mostly into feet and then a slew of backpasses followed to grind everything to a halt. So the tactics fit neither the talent nor the formation. Again.
Let me turn this around ... even if this sounds overly negative: what we think we may have learned playing at home vs. C-CAF opposition may not be what the real US is actually like when playing tougher opponents away or on a neutral soil. It is a possibility that the "real" US is a lot closer to the Copa America performance than to the Gold Cup, especially after the chaff is eliminated from the pre-Hex rounds. However, one has to allow the late summer/early fall series of away friendlies to unfold to complete the current picture. Then perhaps, the positive aspects of the GC win and the negative ones from the CA will somehow mesh together and provide a more solid analysis. Or he may think he has an idea ... but if his idea includes playing Bornstein a lot, I don't agree with that idea. In the previous WCQ run, Arena totally owerpowered Panama at home but very very lucky to get a result away. The squad depth is superior now than it was then (Cobi Jones, the savior at P-City?) but I wouldn't expect the results to reflect those from the Gold Cup. Uhm ... not sure ... maybe Altidore could ...
Re: Gavin for Gomez - horrible sub. i wonder when will the soccer fans and Gulati realize he made a big mistake signing Bradley. I been saying it for the last two years, why can't people see him for what it is.
Re: Gavin for Gomez - horrible sub. The New York/New Jersey based ex-Metro fans are the ones most familiar and the most negative - as a rule - with regard to Bob. I personally never thought he was a candidate for this post as the prestige and the compensation of the USMNT are far higher than his previous level accomplishments. But he's one of those "in-house" hires.