Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] 94? sorry, those guys had heart. 98 was bad, 90 gets a pass because they only really got there because Mexico was banned ( let's be honest about this, if Mexico's is in the mix the US wasn't qualifying....unless I am full of it and have my facts wrong, which is possible because soccer is not an important enough subject to study.....but my understanding is that El Tri was banned ) And we still have one of those 90 players in this tournament ( old man Keller )
Wow, lots of hysteria already. Moving past that, I think this game helped determine a few more players that deserve more looks: Guzan, Nguyen, Davies, Pearce, Kljestan; as well as a few that really don't, at least for the time being: Gaven, Beckerman, Califf, Moor.
Mapp still has an upside and potential to grow. one below average tourney at age 23 doesn't mean you're done forever
Geez, half of these posts could have been made w/out even watching the game. And as I missed the first 50 minutes, take this with a grain of salt. We looked decent, but Columbia just seemed content to soak up and counter, so it's hard to comment on the defense. We apparently moved the ball around decently, got a lot restarts that came to nothing. (save a disallowed goal). I didn't see anyone make a glaring mistake (one horrid pass in midfield, and a couple of times when we were pushed forward and a winger got dispossessed w/out getting a cross in, leading to a counter. Nguyen looked a bit better today. Nice hustle to save a goal. And kept possesion well around the box. Hell, even Gaven didn't look that bad at times. Still, I was hardly embarassed by what I saw tonight, or any other night at Copa for that matter. Disappointed, yes. Embarassed, no. Like I said, maybe we got played off the pitch in the first half, but I didn't see it. Valuable lessons learned for the young bunch, and I'm sure BB learned some stuff as well.
Remember, our "A" team played mostly against teams who will rarely punish you for elementary mistakes. If they went to the Copa playing the way they did before the second half of the Mexico game, they would've been toast too.
Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] So every four years in the World Cup, then. So why all the panic and drama?
Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] How long does it take to make a grit don't feel like watching "My cousin Vinny" again to find out. This game was brutal to watch I through my TV out the window.
OK, just for you: OMG! That was so lame!!!!! I'm... like... so embarrassed right now... Wait, someone's texting me... God! I so want an iPhone. Do you like those blue jerseys they wore against Argentina? Damn, I just broke a nail. Oh look, the U20s are playing Brazil. We lead the group. U.S. soccer rocks!!!!!
Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] Confederations Cup. Which was the case as soon as we won the Gold Cup. Anyone with more than a brain stem knew Copa was simply a chance to bleed new players and combos.
That's the only upside to this entire tournament for us, but WHY EXPERIMENT IN A BIG, PRESTIGIOUS TOURNAMENT LIKE THE COPA AMERICA????? Couldn't we have just invented some crappy @ss International Cup Tourney, like the old NIKE CUP, to experiment with a roster????
Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] Gaven has 21 goals and 17 assists thus far in his MLS career playing as a midfielder and is 20 years old. How many other US players have achieved similar attacking numbers in professional soccer by the age of 20?
Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] but we really didn't.. did we? Twellman, EJ, Keller.. just seeing these names listed on a US roster makes me feel hungover.
Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] PLEASE!!! He was anemic out there tonight. He's not even a significant factor for his MLS team. Don't throw stats out because his performance against a bad Colombia team was total horrible.
I think that goes to what qualifies as "professional soccer". MLS success doesn't necessarily translate to this level.
Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] Were the assists passes that led to a goal or were most of those secondary assists that only led to other passes?
Overall, a pathetic performance. I understand that these guys haven't played together, etc, but that means you have to get back down to fundamentals, and we were lacking there. I have no problem with the first two games -- we played well in those until the end. But this one was embarassing. Yeah, I know Bradley was trying to get all the scrubs time, but you HAVE to maintain a strong spine (straight down the middle) and our defender was not strong. At the end of the game, he should have been yelling for us to pump the ball down the field and put shots on goal -- they had a field player as their keeper and we never even tested him!!! Too much passing and no shooting around the box in the last couple of minutes to take away what remote chance we had. No one stepped up.
That was painful, but if the only lesson Bradley learns is that EJ and TT should not play on the MNT again, then I'd say it was worth it. That would be a very positive move in the right direction for US Soccer.