No flames, no trolls. This thread is for general post-game discussion and analysis. Feel free to start other threads about specific aspects of play.
I advocate going a goal down in the 1st half on purpose. That's the only time Bradley teams show any semblance of quality.
i am all for Bielsa taking the TD spot... may have some advice for Bob in how not to make it 8 straight years (by 2014) of the same often BS slow starts/formations/tactics/ etc....
Also, can someone ask if Bradley was just experimenting in the 1st half? The 4-5-1 is just a bad fit. Agudelo is a great interview. Lot of poise.
Tail of two halves. No judgement of Agudelo and Chandler (I still want to see more...call me crazy). I would love to see Tim Ream instead of Gooch who did not keep possession ever.
Argentina won the first half. The US won the second. Also there was nothing "friendly" about it. I liked it.
bob bradley got the starting XI wrong again. We saw how good chandler and agudelo are. Altidore do enough to play as a lone striker. Spector is bad, Boca is solid at leftback, but he won't be there in 2014. Onyewu disapointed me, he looked short on confidence
We have three very good central midfielders (four when everyone is healthy). He gave them 45 minutes to work it out against Columbia and 45 minutes against Argentina. It failed miserably and I don't think we'll see it again.
That was fun. We have far less skill and magic than the elite teams in the world, but we can hold our own with organization and "garra". Undefeated in red jerseys.
As a program, we're not far from where we want to be. We're really not. Look at the players we have out there, and look how young we are. Right now, it's just about confidence and not being scared. Once we started gaining some confidence, and once Argentina stopped playing the best soccer in the world (and realy, there was no way they could keep that up), we found our stuff. We have some legit players, and once we find the platform in the midfield to let them show their stuff. It's a toss up.
Agreed. Dolo will definitely start at RB so we gotta decide how to play Agudelo and Chandler. Maybe put Dolo at LB and Boca centrally? We need to play 2 strikers and Agudelo brings in so much energy. I for one still want to see Jozy and Dempsey up top.
As controversial as it might seem, I would agree with BB not starting an 18 and 20 year old, it speaks poorly of your player pool. Although I do recognize the significant difference there was in throwing them in at the start of half 2.
The 2nd half improvement was partially due to going to a more familiar 4-4-2 and partially due to Argentina not pressuring the ball as much. That allowed us to get back in the game, I think they wanted to bring us out of our half so they would have more space to exploit, but we took advantage and the defense held them thanks to Howard.
It's time to bury the 4-5-1... the 4-4-2 works fine with Agudelo and Altidore up top. Once Davies is ready to return, the USA will have something called DEPTH. The midfield worked better once Jones was out, but Bradley/Edu/Dempsey still had problems taking the ball away from the Argies, even when they had 3-on-1s. I don't imagine that our Gold Cup opponents hold on to the ball as well. Onyewu, Bocanegra and DeMerit had some problems.