I wrote about Casey's double against Honduras in 2009 here: https://andthenthehex.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/goal-of-the-week-conor-casey-v-honduras-october-2009/ A few stray thoughts from this goal that didn't really fit the article. : - Casey signed with Borussia Dortmund as a 19 year old, largely on the strength on his performance in the Olympics. Dortmund was a mid-table side that season, but still incredibly impressive that a college sophomore attracted that kind of attention. Wikipedia shows he made four appearances with the club, but it looks like that was while on loan at Hannover 96. - Arena called up Casey a few times in '04 and '05, but the torn ACL against Cuba in 2005 stopped that momentum. Bradley first called him up in Nov '08, and he made the Confed Cup squad while playing for the Rapids. - Ridge Mahoney wrote a great retrospective of Casey's pre-MLS career. The older I get, the more I appreciate the players who persevere through injuries, bad form, whatever. Casey recovered enough to score double-digit goals in 4 MLS seasons. These goals against Honduras might have been the only two US goals from Casey, but it was a hell of a contribution.
Good post, @cpwilson80. For me, that Honduras-USA World Cup qualifier was one of the craziest, most memorable games games we've had in recent memory. I documented my experience watching that match in a latino bar / night club as the only gringo in a packed house of ~200 Honduran fans: http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/share-your-experience-watching-honduras-usa-wcq-r.1199097/ We went down 1-0 and didn't look good in the first half, but Conor Casey of all people turns up and scores what would be the only 2 goals of his US national team career, as we rattle off 3 unanswered goals to seal a 3-2 win. Such an improbable sequence of events and hero / man of the match performance. Landon Donovan was masterful in that match as well. Azteca and Saprissa are difficult places to play, but I'd argue that San Pedro Sula is right up there as well in terms of intimidating atmospheres.
We were also lucky to have the hapless Noel Valladares between the posts for Honduras, as he 'assisted' on a couple of our goals.
Haha, yeah that was classic. People freaking out that he was on the pitch with constant "he sucks" and then he saves the day.
The subject came up on the YA board on the Bobby Vud thread. So, I decided to look up his German stats. http://www.fussballdaten.de/spieler/caseyconor/2009/ No appearances for Dortmund in 2000-2001 season but 10 with 2 goals for Dortmund II. He was then loaned to Hannover96 in BuLi2 for 2001-02, where he scored 7 goals in 19 appearances (pretty darn impressive) but could never establish himself in BuLi1 with the promoted H96. He had his best season with Karlsruhe in 2003-04 with 14 strikes but, once again, couldn't hack it with Mainz05 under Klopp. I have no idea why Bob took him to Honduras (Conor was on the 2009 Confederations Cup roster) but it's one of those things that panned out.
I can try to answer that. Beginning in the Confederations Cup match against Egypt in 2009 once his 4-2-2-2 formation with Landon and Clint on the wings and Jozy and Charlie Davies up top was solidified, Bob become pretty tactically rigid about sticking with it as his starting formation and personnel archetypes. For example: After Davies' horrific car accident, Bob auditioned Jeff Cunningham in the Charlie Davies speedster forward role in the November 2009 friendly against Denmark (here's a thread I started about that: http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads...-jeff-cunningham-charlie-davies-lite.1245329/). In the 2010 World Cup, Bob selected Robbie Findley to the roster out of the blue, and started Findley in 3 of 4 matches as the speedster forward to stretch opposing backlines, in the mold of Davies. As I recall, Brian Ching was either injured or not available for selection in the 2009 WCQ match at Honduras, and Conor Casey was in form and scoring goals in MLS, so Bradley selected him to play the Ching role as the big, burly target forward who could play with his back to goal.
That makes sense. I still content that it was a "lightning out of the blue" scenario (as was Carlos Pavon missing his late PK).
True, and good memory. Though, as I recall, Ching was injured in June 2009 which is why he was left off of the Confederations Cup roster (Casey was selected in his place). You may be right that Bob Bradley saw a matchup he liked with Casey vs. Honduras, or it could be that Casey was Bradley's like-for-like replacement for Ching and thus enabled him to maintain his preferred tactical and formational system when Ching was unavailable.
How good was Casey during the 2000 Olympics that Dortmund went and signed him? Was it shocking at the time? And if you had to define his time with Dortmund or Mainz or just his time in Germany alltogether how would you? I see he had a good scoring rate in the 2 Bundesliga? was he simply not good enough for the top division or were there other factors?
I never understood how Casey made it near the NT.Was not a fan.He had a decent Olympics,but always seemed too slow of thought and foot to be an international forward.
I'm pretty sure this is the one and only Nats game since the mid-90's that I've never seen. Couldn't get to the Honduran dive bar. This was also my first experience with that newish-newfangled thing, Twitter. I figured this is what Twitter is for, breaking real time stuff, right? The tweets on this were slower than Matchtracker . Not a big Twitter fan since.
i'm remembering that landon's father tim was briefly on these board in '99 commiserating on LD's lack of playing time. am i remembering this correctly?
I'd disagree with the "slow of thought" part. He remains a very crafty player, underrated passer, good feet, tough--I think the string of injuries he had prevented him from ever reaching McBride's or even Ching's level with the NT but I don't think it was because of in between the ears