Post-match: Post Mortem USA- EL Salvador

But he was also 2nd in MLS Rookie of the Year voting.

Let's not forget that he JUST turned 20, and isn't considered at his best as a central defender.

In a perfect U23 world Porter would have had a group of more physically mature & experienced 22 year old central defenders from which to choose from. But we didn't have that. We had the oft-injured question mark in Ike Opara, a young defensive midfielder in Perry Kitchen. And Valentin, a guy I think is much better at fullback.

I had a friend tell me last night that perhaps Gale was the answer to our centerback problems. Really? A 19 year old NASL player was the solution? Ethan White ain't really better than what we had either. Maybe the young German-American Brooks could have been superior, but none of us have really seen him play. That's just speculation.

We've had discussions on US forums for a long time about how almost all of our USMNT centerbacks are late bloomers. George John, Tim Ream, Geoff Cameron, etc. weren't US youth national team players. Omar Gonzalez only had 3 appearances for the U20's, and didn't make the U20 World Cup squad. At the last Olympics we had to use Maurice Edu and overage selection Michael Parkhurst in the back. Why can't we have strong U23 and U20 level centerbacks for these competitions?

 

THIS.

Even when it was 3-2, I was thinking we need to add some steel to the defense. And the goalkeeping was really, really bad. .

 

That's not normal in a soccer game. Biting and punching is NOT normal and its too bad El Salvador got away with it. Pushing, diving, shoving etc... is all part of the game, but not that kind of crap.

They seem to have done in to Canada too.
I'd be ashamed if I were their coach and I knew this was going on.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/spor... RSS/Atom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2380621

The guy who punched Boyd should absolutely be suspended. It was far from the play so the ref didn't see it, but on the feed you could clearly see it on the replay. I don't expect anything to be done, but something should be.

 

As I said before, most of our HGs seem to be attacking guys, which means you're looking at fairly late blooming college players for center backs. That's not all bad, it gets you Tim Ream and George John occasionally, but it also means that they don't make the U-23 cut a good part of the time.

Hell, I don't think anyone even drafted a good defender in the recent Combine, Wenger's being used as a forward. I suspect the latest crop of rookies are going to be attacking guys, and that we'll be relying on defenders from last year and next year to fill that slack.

 

It was only a friendly, so yes he could switch. It doesn't sound like he's thinking about it based on his tweets though.

 

Did anyone else feel that Jorge Villafana had a pretty good game last night?

 

Several huge problems:

1. Our formation left us exposed up the middle. Over and over again, I saw our backline and Okugo facing six or seven Sallies. I kept waiting for our other midfielders to recover and appear on the screen, but they never came. Apparently, our plan was to have five dedicated attackers and five dedicated defenders, and pretty much no one in between. Mixx and Corona provided almost no recovery defense. I would describe our formation as a 5-5. That's not my understanding of how a 4-3-3 is supposed to work. At least one other midfielder needs to have significant defensive responsibilities.

2. Our players were exhausted. Shea, Mixx, Adu and Corona could barely run and were huffing and puffing all game. Too many minutes. Why weren't three of them subbed out at halftime in the Cuba game? That makes no sense to me.

3. Villafana was beaten for speed repeatedly. I don't know much about Jorge Villafana. I don't really recall having seen him play prior to this tournament. I feel badly for the kid, but he was simply abused in the first half. I see a lot of other posts lambasting Kitchen, Opara and Sarkodie, but Villafana was by far our worst defender to my eyes. He had a respectable second half, but that first half performance was abysmal.

4. I'm completely ashamed of our time wasting. Why didn't we attempt to score in the closing minutes? We had some free kicks around the 18 that we totally wasted. Is it really better to run 10 seconds off the clock than to attempt to score on a 20 yard free kick? That was embarassing. Cringe worthy, in fact. I have no respect for that kind of soccer. None. Completely shameful. You deserve to lose when you play scared, brainless soccer.

5. The HOWLER. Holy cow, how do you let that last goal in? That was pathetic. I feel terribly for Sean Johnson, but that was just plain ridiculous. No way that shot should have gone in. Just no way!

All in all, we really didn't deserve to advance. We were the third best team in our group.

 

Decent second half. But he was the worst player on the field in the first half. Kid got skinned for 45 minutes. Skinned.

 

That's funny, I asked that question at the same time you posted about how bad he was. Seems like he has potential tho. He displayed some interesting technicality here and there.

 

I assume Porter has started some kind of appeal process? Or perhaps there is a fair play path to the Olympics that I didn't know about?

I mean he did tell everyone that this team would be in London, right?

Maybe he is just arranging a tour.

Or maybe he's just an idiot.

 

I don't disagree. He looks composed on the ball and seems to have pretty sound technique. His problem was speed. His man just kept blowing past him in the first half. The guy would blow by him and Villafana was unable to close the gap at all. A man running without a ball should be a lot faster than a man running with a ball. But he was slower. Is he that slow or was the Sallie's right wing just that fast? I'm not familiar with the Sallies, so maybe that kid was just an out-and-out burner.

 

I think they really missed Morales or D. Williams out there pulling the strings in the middle.

 

Most of the blame for this debacle has to go to Caleb Porter and to a large extent to those who agreed to hire him...Klinsi, Sunil. Porter was out of his league and it showed.

1. 3 games in 5 days, yet Porter makes very few changes in those games leading to player exhaustion.

2. Why was Adu made captain of this team? Against Canada he was totally invisible. Against El Salvador he only brought his game once the US was down. His defense is very suspect. And why does he refuse to use his right foot? He is a freakin professional! Porter should have considered other options since Adu was not getting the job done.

3. The defense was absolutely awful. Does anyone here but me question why several of the starting defenders were former U of Akron players? Not saying that he is playing favorites. He is probably more comfortable working with these players and knows what they bring to the table, but c'mon.

4. The game management, espcially the last game was poor. The last 10 minutes of the game pull out guys who are suspect on defense like Adu or Disk or an obviously wasted Shea and put in a more defensive oriented guy in a holding midfield position to track down balls, close down dangerous attacks, and play balls out? Also, did you guys not think the formation still stayed a 4-3-3 towards the end of the game? Should have reverted to a 4-5-1 the last few minutes.

5. Players are obviously gassed and I am yelling at my TV screen when the US goes up 3-2 that a sub needs to be made...yet none is made until very late in the game. UGH.

Overall, this was a complete disaster and I think US Soccer rightly deserves a black eye in the short term. Also, Caleb Porter will end up spending a few more years at Akron than he would have liked. Not to advance out of the group stages at home has given him a black eye.

 

Diskerud played like crap yesterday but man, he had to be tired as ********.

 

No. Fell asleep on the second goal and was consistently getting toasted by their RW.

 

El Salvador reached the semifinals, putting it a win away from its first Olympic berth since 1968. Canada, which tied Cuba 1-1 earlier, finished second. Lester Blanco and Andres Flores also scored for El Salvador, a team coach Mauricio Alfaro pointed out had less than two weeks to prepare for this tournament and didn't have the whole roster together until late.

 

Oh man that is twisting the knife.

 

How many of the ES players do you think have Tweety accounts and "followers"? Part and parcel of the enabled, priviledged, think they've already arrived youth athletes the US works so hard to produce.

 

Porter was out-coached. Not ready for this level.

Adu was the bright spot.

 

adu was and should have been the captain of this team. If there was anything caleb porter did right (which wasn't much) about this olympic team, that was it

 

I don't have much worry about goalkeeping in the USA. Sure we had a major gaff at the cost of a rookie mistake, but all we can do now is take it as growing pains.

I'm sure Johnson will bounce back from this, and prove his worth no doubt, but right now, you just gotta feel for that kid.

 

Which foot did Freddy use to assist what should have been the game winning goal?

 

After the 9,452nd time he passed back into the crowded short side of the field instead of switching it to the far, uncrowded, open side, I wanted to to die.

 

I feel that some players that would be U23 for the next cycle such as Packwood could have mad a difference.

Did they even try to get Potts and/or Henley just for the tournament.

These games were played 2 and half hours away from Henley's place of birth.

Of course, their clubs may not have let them go anyway.

 

Its like getting punched and bitten as a team ties you.