I have just gone back in time to US soccer 1980.To say that we sucked is to give our performance an undeserved honor. There was no passing, no trapping and no offense ( other than to our sensibilities ) If this is the future of soccer, I long for the past. Beckerman, Klajstine, Moor, should consider another sport. I appreciated the hustle of Nguyen who ran all the way back to send for a corner a dangerous ball. I think he is too small to be a forward. Gomez was a wasted plane ticket. Ricardo Clark was nowhere. Eddie Johnson I'm willing to give a chance if we could ever get a good playmaker such as Reyna and Donovan, when he shows up. Bradley should be replaced with someone who has an overall soccer mind, who takes the game and foreign tournaments seriously. The rest of the world is laughing, not with us but at us. Our performance was an embarrasment to the game. If there is one bright side to this. Taylor Twellman will never appear for our side again.
The other thing about Gaven is that he has inflated numbers for his age because he entered the MLS so young. He's one of those stat accumulators. His overall numbers look decent because he's been around longer.
Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] What's with this EJ experiment? He's been a professional for 6 years. He's 23, for cying out loud. He's played in over 25 MNT games with a lot of minutes, and has not created anything for himself or anyone else. His only goals have come on headers or (mostly) on tap ins. Can anyone remember a single goal on the MNT that EJ has created for himself or anyone else? Please, speak up,, because I can't think of ANY. That's my point. He does nothing for us. NOTHING!
you guys are way too critical....the USA has used 50 different players so far this year....50...the missing starters needed a break and BB gave them one. Lighten up.
On the plus side, I doubt we'll be seeing many more stupid "bench Donovan!" posts on BS for the time being.
Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] You are correct. Mexico was banned for using overage players on their youth teams. We lost to Czechoslovakia 5-1. Wynalda was red carded. We lost to Italy 1-0 and to Austria 2-1. The 98 performance was better than it seemed. Against Germany we lost 2-0, a deserved score. Against the Iranians we hit the posts a couple of times in a 2-1 loss, and agaisnt Yugoslavia, Hedjuk hit the post in the first minute. ( We lost 1-0 )
Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] It's become pretty comical how you can predict BigSoccer's manic depressive mood swings.
Well, the short answer is no, at least, there isn't another tourney that would tell us nearly as much about the players we brought as this one did. I think we all would have liked for us to have seen a better roster brought down to Venezuela, but with the number of players we didn't have available, I thought we brought down about as good of a roster as we could. At the end of the day, it was one of two things: don't go to Copa America period, or go and take the best of youngin's and fringe national team players and see who can cut it. We chose the latter, and honestly, I'm glad we did. Ideal situation? Nah, but those rarely happen in real life.
Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] Only thing about this is if Mexico hadn't been banned they would've replaced Costa Rica ,not us.
Looked like a lot of players stuck between wanting to play but not get hurt, and trying to be up for a game that didn't matter. I'm not sure what people were really looking for.
When Arena first became National team coach he tried to win every game that is the main reason why I liked him. That is why we did well in 2002 we went in to win. Then when he prepared for the 2006 world cup he looked at a ton of new players and did not worry about wins as much. How did we do in the 2006 WC? Now Bradley is looking at even more players and he did not give a shite about how we did in this tournament. Take a guess how we will probably do in 2010 under him? Winning has to become a habit he is giving these guys an excuse to lose because we are in preparation for the WC.
"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." In lay terms, that means that the level of play in MLS during the past two weeks was as high as it's ever been.
Because the few guys on the roster that might actually have a future with the real national team would have been better off playing with or training with their clubs.
I can't believe people are even upset about the match tonight. How can anyone say we've gone back to 1990 or 1980 ot whatever. That was our "C" side.
so they could continue their development in our world class league...only to disappoint at a later date?
Ok, I respect that but they got a chance. But a few of the guys have no place in the National Team set up. Davies shouldn't have been there to play just 20/30 minutes.
Re: 7/5 USA vs Columbia Post Match Thread [R] That's very nice, but I think we both know Eddie has no business playing at this level. He has 1 goal this season and 2 assists. That's not good enough for the National Team. He had 4 goals and 4 assists last season. Not good enough. And I don't care what he's done in MLS in the distant past, he's not good enough now. He has no redeeming qualities. None. No skills to speak of. No athletic ability. No poise. No intelligence. Absolutely nothing.