No offense but I remember in 2011's WWC she gave Brazil that PK and got sent off. In the final she didn't clear the ball in time and caused the first Japanese goal then lost Sawa in that corner.
Beat me to this. Even Rampone has begun to show her years a bit this time, but she is still far and away the standout on the US back line. I think the LePeilbet is the biggest weakness, but there's not much of a gap between Buehler and her. O'Hara has been serviceable, considering she isn't a real left back.
Buehler is not a technically strong defender but she is remarkably adept at sneaky fouls that disrupt the opposing attack or free up US attackers on set pieces and remain undetected by the officials.
I thought we "went away" from Linda Hamilton type defenders in the 90's. If you want to be able to play out of the back, why not give Bev or Becky a try? They're proving that they have the mental ability to play a very quick, team oriented style of play. Unfortunately, the mentality is that we won the gold medal, so why change something that isn't broken. Too bad for the INAC Leonessa girls, I guess.
Reaction time and reflexes but that goes with age. Rampone vs Devanna vs Dunn vs Devanna. It's a 60 meter sprint in any pairing on the pitch but Dunn response faster when Devanna takes off or out the blocks faster as they say, so she cuts Devanna off while Devanna beat Rampone cleanly. This is why Sermanni is testing Dunn. Kreiger and Ohara both can't be on the pitch with Rampone in elimination games in the WC. If Rampone doesn't respond in time, those two get torched against a player like Devanna, Thomis, Marta or Schelin. Dunn starts by 2015 if Rampone stays or goes. They can't afford to put to that kind of speed on the bench when they play high and more or less test forwards to get bahind them. Watch Sermanni's post Brazil game interview. As I always said, he didn't make mistaKE against Devanna in the 1st half because he needed to see how Dunn would close if a fast forward got behind the backline cleanly but people were saying Dunn can't play. A good coach should be thinking months ahead of the game.
newsouth, measuring 60 meter sprints means Barcelona had a defense worse than every MLS team for the last ten years. Wish we'd measure vision, technical ability and execution as much as we measure running, height, and weight?
a lot of people say that barca's defense was bad. and i'm sure mls and a lot of teams around the world measure vision, technical ability and execution as much as they measure running, height, and weight. but when your mids and forwards don't hold the ball for as long as barca does, or recover the ball as quickly as barca does, you'll have to pay more attention to recovery speed than barcelona ever will.
rampone is still better than dunn and they are the same speed. dunn might become better later on but as of right now rampone is the best defender in the world. rampone is able to read the game, its a gift that only few possess, and no matter the amount of time dunn practices and no matter how fast she runs she will make mistake of her positioning that rampone will almost never make.
I'm a rampone fan, was one when people were on her trying to get her to retire and get rid of A-Rod, so you're talking to the wrong guy. But she has been getting beat a bit more often. Speed is still there, but response time and relaxes have gone a bit. Those are always the first to go. She won't deal with Marta as well in 2015 as she did in 2011. I doubt Marta will out run her in a straight line but if it turns 1v1 around the box it might not look nice this time around, but they'll have a younger version of her on the pitch as support. Dunn has plenty of time to read the game, since she is too busy reading books at NC now.
Rampone is not the only one getting older, Marta is getting older too, so they will always be the same speed even 1vs1. She came from surgery so she needs like a month to get back in shape. Dunn is good at attacking but when she attacks she is not defending and when she is not defending we are exposed on the counter attack on her side. i hope she improves at reading the game, because im not impressed with her positioning so far.
Rampone is 40 or so, Marta is 29 by 2015. It's just Marta has been around since 16, so you'd think she is 35 or something. She got exposed because they were testing her against Devanna in a game they had under control. How people can't see that, I will never know? Why did he wait till the 2nd half for adjustments? He would have made them in the first. You play that high, you need to see can Dunn run down fast forwards and cut the angle of their shots in tomato can games, not world cup matches? No, Dunn can't play.