The squad we send to play u may look weak on paper but there is still talent there. Our midfied will still be reasonably strong with Davies (Spurs) and Koumas (WBA) playing these are very very creastive players. Mark Hughes gets the best out of the boys regardless of who is playing and the english second division is on par or a better league than the msl. We have obtained results in friendly matches with teams of this standard against better sides than yourselves. i am an admirer of your international team but tenth in the world flatters you a lot whereas 50th for us is a laugh but we will be moving up. Wales will be blooding a few new players especialy Vaughn who is being tracked by Man United and is ment to be an outstanding prospect. Taylor who is playing up front for us i can't remember him having a good game for us and Roberts has just been promoted with Wigan. What you also should take into account that Wales has only got a population of 2.7 million and have resisted countless invasions over history we are the original Britons and we don't give in withought a fight so don't expect us to roll over.
ive been impressed by wales i watched them play croatia in a friendly august 2002 croatia 1-wales 1 i hope you guys make euro2004 beat serbia once more and simon davies will burn the us defence good luck
US is sending a team definately under full strength (most clearly notable along the back 4). It should be interesting.
If it's Reynar your on about then you are better off without him i live in newcastle and the way that sunderland's defence plays you could drive four lanes of traffic through it
Reyna doesn't even play on the back line, and he was out most of the season with an injury, so the defense being crap can't be blamed on him. He was doing rather well in games by all reports before the injury for Sunderland.
If you're a fan of the USMNT you've already learned the hard way never to under estimate any opponent ... (WC 98 IRAN) Ouch!
#1 Reyna won't play #2 Reyna doesn't play along the back 4, he is a central Midfielder #3 He hasn't played for Sunderland for most of the season since he injured his ACL early in the campaign 1st Division is probably a bit better than MLS since they have a few more seasoned players than we do stateside. But Landon Donovan will be the best player on the field, and only Giggs and Bellamy would have been considered better players from a full Wales side. Also, we have Eddie Lewis. He scored the most goals out of the midfield for Preston North End, and had the most assists on the squad. Bobby Convey will probably start for us in the middle. At this time, he isn't as good as Simon Davies, but he definatly has a load of talent. Kirovski can't perform on the National stage, Brian Ching is a fill-in player at best, and the back 4 looks pretty shady. Your right about the rankings. We're not as good as #10 and your not as bad as #50. Its hard to make any guesses at who will win this match.
Nah, I think your harsh on Reyna, but not who Im referring too. Our back line is pretty cobbled together, Im not sure how many will have a shot at making the team again in the future. Definately don thave our current 1st choice center backs and right back. Our keeper situation is a bit unusual for us. We have a player that I like but hasnt got much first team action lately, and another that is just horribly off form. We are talking 5th, 6th or 7th choice keepers here. Actually with how Rimando is playing id say hes more 10th choice right now. At left mid we have a guy that may or may not be first choice, in the central midfield we have a young talent and a solid player who has been a backup mostly. Right mid we have a question mark even if all our players are available, but our choices in this one I dont think our the best options. At forward we have landon donovan, who is a real treat to watch, Jovan Kirovski who is a perenial also ran at that position, and two new players that I dont have a clue how they are going to perform at the international level. This roster was put together basicly from 2 of 10 teams in our domestic league plus a couple that were red carded the week before, and our English based players. Its not horrible, but its certainly less than full strength.
No but he is a holding midfield player. Koumas and Davies are far better than Donovan although he is a good player, the guy that plays for PNE is ment to be good aswell but the mls is not as good as the 1st division not by a long way. Davies is also far from the finished article. Does that donovan play for Lyon or DC United
just to post a quick question re: the name of this thread: who is underestimating wales? I've seen as many predictions on here giving wales the edge as the U.s. i think wales will make for a terrific game. looking forward to getting my bum in those stands and seeing how it goes.
GIOVANNI SAVARESE joined swansea city my team when where in division 2 he is in the top ten all time goalscorers in the mls it was a big move for him and we still got relagated this was only 2 seasons ago and taking this into account no league advances as quickly as you are saying have you ever seen football league games in the uk teams in the lowest division avarage gates for our club is something like 6,000 and we play useless take into account that some teams in divisions 3 and 2 can get gates of 20,000 and avarage 12,000 these people don't go and whatch hit and hope football we europeans are more cultured when it comes to the beutifull game
Wow that sentence was confusing. I don't think anyone here was claiming that Americans are more cultured when it comes to the beautiful game. And I don't know how the attendance at division 2 games in England has anything to do with the level of play on the field. Most US fans are of the opinion that MLS is definitely on par with the English First Division. Attendance has nothing to do with the talent on the field, its just that here in the US we have about 4 other sports that are more popular than soccer, its growing, but slowly. Ask Portugal what happens when you take a team full of MLS players lightly.
i ment that many people don't turn up to watch long ball football. They want to see some skill and the ball being played on the floor. Im not saying that u are useless im just stating that everybody in america belives that because 22 of our original 29 have droped out and been replaced with lower league players that we are going to be some kind of walk over but the mls is only on par with the second division
Super Swans...our roster is pretty much crap. It consists of the 2nd tier of our European players, and MLSers who either are suspended for this week due to cards, or players for the 2 teams that are off this weekend. We had a thread asking if this was the worst US roster we've had since MLS started, and someone posted a worse roster from '97. (And that came when there was a strike by the core Nats.) So this is the 2nd weakest roster we've had in a decade. Both sides are sending B or C sides, apparently.
Agreed. I'm not going to underestimate Wales, and I don't think Bruce Arena will let his players do so, either, even if it is a B or C side out there. Remember, when this gets listed in the USSF media guide or on FIFA's website or wherever, there's not going to be an asterisk saying "So-and-so brought their B side or C side or Z side or whatever." It's going to go in as a win, loss or draw. While it may not hold the same fascination for me as did USA-Portugal, I'm still taping this and watching it as soon as I get home from work that night.
This thread is a joke, which is very fitting because this game is a joke too. A Monday night match in the middle of the Welch night between a whos-got-nothing-else-to-do US side and the Welch B-team. A real game between the two teams would be far more interesting. Wales deserves credit for having such a solid team at the moment for such a small country. I wish you success in qualifying for Euro 2004. The US on the other hand is improving dramatically from not even having a national team 15 years ago to clearly being one of the best 10 teams in the world today. I don't know if we'll beat you Monday night but we'd beat you if the game mattered and in another 15 years we will destroy you.
Yeah, well Columbus has this guy, who's 30 and he scored 4 whole goals last year in MLS, but he did score 2 in the World Cup. So, this fellow went on loan to Everton and scored 4 goals in 8 games, helping them win a Euro birth and then turned down a transfer to Premier League side because he wanted to play here. Brian McBride. Giovanni Savarese tried out with the Metros in preseaon this year, pal. He got cut. He was good back in 1996, but he can't cut it in the MLS these days. Did you see the Capital Cup? Tottenham 0 - DC United 1 Oh yeah, isn't the EPL Keeper of the Year a former MLS player? Damn, he is...
I've never seen Koumas play so I will withold judgement on him. Why is Simon Davies so much better than Landon Donovan? I can honestly say that the only player I've seen play that is "far better" the Donovan is Zidane. Who is a league all by himself. LD has about 1 weakness in his game. And thats the fact that once in while he'll get muscled on the ball. Oh and that he would rather set up his teamates rather than shoot.