Bradley needs to go the way of his dad. He's increasingly poor at his position (and I mean over the past 5 years). He has exactly three moves that he uses equally...good pass, incredibly poor pass, and a quick pass back to whomever just sent the ball to him, usually because that person was under extreme pressure from a defender. Guzan played 50/50, he was absolutely flat footed too many times. Does he depend on the back line to shield him too much, or was Argentina just that good that he couldn't keep track of the ball? Wondo...Beckerman...wasted spaces. Brooks looked like he might have hit his limit for one tournament, he looked gassed and sloppy, unlike the last few games. Dempsey. Wait, did he even suit up? Did he even touch the ball once? Did the entire front line seem like they had no interest in running last night? No hustle, very little chasing down loose balls, they were acting like the first line of defense instead of the last line of offense. I liked Pulisic, Yedlin and mostly Cameron. Would things have been different with Woods and/or Jones? Woods could ahve broken their defence, but there was never any effort to put the ball forward enough for him to play it. Jones would have been 1000% better than Beckerman, but I'm not sure if he is fast enough at his age and pain level to keep up. That free kick was otherworldly, no way about it. It even looked like it deflected slightly from the top cross bar, which makes it basically un-defendable.
So basically, you're saying that the Dash/WoSo fanbase is like that lady in the neighborhood that knows everyone's business.
i was there and glad i went. i paid through the nose, but i don't normally spend that type of money so the return was worth it. that free kick and those assists will forever be branded in my mind. the greatest player ever didn't disappoint. Arg is clearly miles better than us, and when they are in the mood, only a few teams on earth can compete with them right now. However, our lack of awareness (being caught sleeping on the scoring corner), our lack of aggression (almost no pressing on opposing player with ball), stupid line up (this is on Wood and Jones as much as JK), lack of chemistry from not playing together (all on JK), inability to have a first touch that resembled a professional (this country's fetish for athleticism over skill), and general deer in the head lights performance during a big game (i blame everyone) allowed us no chance last night. PS zero shots. not "zero shots on goal"-----there were zero shots taken at all by us!!
Thought once Dempsey was dropped into the midfield in the second half, he became more useful. Began to see more of the ball and had positive touches, unlike most of the team. Then after about 5-10 minutes of that he got subbed off. While he as a forward, though, he saw none of the ball (which, in fairness, is more a function of how poor the passing was out of the midfield and the back).
Yeah, kind of. A lot of women's soccer fans are obsessed on a level that is unhealthy with players. That's part of the reason I don't really like going to USWNT games. The hero worship is at a level that kind of makes your skin crawl. It's like a teeny bopper rock concert.
I think the game would've been better if Bradley was on the bench starting. He has been a turnover machine ever since he came to MLS. Birnbaum is not a big tournament player. Hindsight is 20/20 but now we can look back at the game and see that Cameron should've started at DM, though I think Birnbaum/Brooks is not good. Pulisic proved that he was up for the task despite his age. The quicker the USMNT ends the cycle of Pay to Play, then college, then draft, the better the sport will be here. The good old boy network needs to be broken up, and real players need to be brought in with real skills. We need to get past the whole big kid gets picked first mentality, and find those young players that have true skill, even if they are poor street kids.
I sat there last night marveling at some of the skill on the ball of the Argentina players (not named Messi) and wondered whether we will ever have a player with those kind of skills. Then I realized we already do, but they are all playing street soccer. I've played against the Nike street soccer team, those kids have incredible skills with the ball at their feet. It's a different game, however. We need to be getting these types of kids into the system, but like you say, the whole Pay to Play thing is a major barrier. This is what the Brazil's and Argentina's of the world are able to do, though. These kids grow up playing street soccer but get identified early and funneled into the system. With futsal and what not, we now have similar avenues of development but we aren't taking the next step.
I agree, moving him back to mid and moving Cameron forward to mid might have been a game changer if they had done it in...oh, say, the zeroth minute of the game. However, when he was in front, he was just as responsible as the rest of the front line (Wondo and Zardes) for watching the Argentine back like toss the ball back and forth, back and forth, back and forth along 20 YARDS of open field, just to show they could.
Based on the empty seats on Sunday at the Dash game, they must not be interested enough to buy tickets.
Yup! Chile never let up on Mexico for the 90 minutes and scored 7. Embarrassing for Mexico. Argentina started toying with US after the 3rd goal and even lowered their game speed. Equally as embarrassing for the US. If Argentina would've kept going like Chile did they could've scored 14 last night.
Westside, the entire world knows that Mexico is much better than the USA so the 14-0 thing makes sense. Hahahahaha! (Somebody's rrreeeaaallyy upset about that 7-0!!!!)
Once Wondo was asked to play, Dempsey's night was done. Argentina just smothered Dempsey. How the hell JK thought Wondo was going to fill Wood's shoes is beyond me.
I'll tell you what's embarrassing, not registering a F'ing shot AT the goal. We had ZERO shots last night...that's just sad.
I expected y'all keepernotws bloggers to attack In packs or defend each other, so not surprised for your "me too" response!
Brad Friedel and his fake British accent and vernacular is worse than when John Harkes did it - at least Harkes' father came over from Scotland or something
The US performance was embarassing. The midfield was nowhere to be found. We weren't going to win that game, but when I paid money I expected us to play in it.
I'm with you on both being equally embarrassing. But I call BS on this "if Argentina had kept going like chile they'd a scored 14." What a crock. Just like anyone saying it was not as bad as 0-7. That is a crock too. Both teams got their butts beat by much better teams. Comparing who lost better is fkn loser crap and is meaningless delusional nonsense.
Monday, 4pm, a freakin Cold hit me like a ton-o-bricks. By 9pm I had a 102 fever, my head was splitting, I was dizzy, and every muscle and joint ached. Thank the Gods I had a accupuncture appointment already scheduled for 6pm Monday night. My pin-pusher poked pores to move my Chi in a cold curing way -- and gave me a bottle of herb pills to attack the evil bug that had beset me along with advice to turn up the thermostat, drink ginger, and sweat the thing out if I want to drive to houston in 18 hours. I did it. It worked. By time to drive I felt bad but ok enough to drive. By the time I arrived at the stadium I felt fine and was ready for Tequila. Bottom line? Stay close to your acupuncturist. JuegoView: - high press against ARG? WTF was Klinsy thinking? - Log USMNT control of the ball. Dempsey Kickoff to Beckerman who boots it up and out of bounds. Three minutes later pick it out of your net. No controlling touches between, but things like Johnson toe-poking to Messi. - Team looked tentative, unsure of themselves from the start. Like they had not been given a game plan they believed could work. - Of course who would? They were asked to go out and high press with three. That leaves three in MF against four or five from ARG. First time ARG looked up and saw the White shirts roaming fourty yards in front of our defensive line they laughed and hit one ball to Higuian who flicked it over to Messi who drove into the box. I mean -- the Argies must have been amazed that we would make it easy for them. [If Mexico was coached by Klinsman they would have lost to Chile 0-14!] <<-- Stupid rediculous statement! - US tried to fight back into it but Wondo was having a nightmare. One of his turnovers led to the wonderstrike by the boy wonder. - Yes, the passing sucked. I had front row seats on level 5, midfield. Great seats to watch the tactics. The passing sucked because the running off the ball sucked because Argentina pressed and took away all the passing options and the US players didn't know how to move. US players rarely had good passing options. In that situation you need to have dangerous options deep over the opponents line. Neither Wondo nor Dempsey are that. [If Messi played for Chile then Chile would have beaten Mexico 10-0!] << Another stupid rediculous statement! - Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting better tactics would have resulted in a different score. No way to know. But I can't seem to fathom how the tactics employed could succeed and it looked like our players felt the same way. - US players, every time they looked up, found blue shirts all over em. No white shirts to pass to. No time. No space. Yeah Birmbaum made a howler after Bradley played him a hospital ball after Bradley looked up and got no help, no runs, no options .... I got nothing out of seeing Messi go Harlem globetrotters on my team. I don't care how incredible his strike was, or his passing, or whatever. I got Youtube for watching Messi highlights. I wanted to see him frustrated and stifled like Iniesta was 7 years ago. Oh well -- I was damn glad I was there and excited just to have the opportunity for our boys, my team, to line up against him and his beast of a team. [If Mexico had played with the heart the USA played with they'd of lost only 0-5!] <<-- Another stupid ridiculous statement.