Here we go gang! Lets hope for a mistake free game where Bradley and Rico play out of their mind. Donovan and Altidore have the pace to get away on a counter, so a good solid defensive effort will give us a chance. For me, the key is staying solid at the back with Donovan and Dempsey helping defensively along the flanks to protect our out-paced outside backs. BTW -- it will be pretty damn cool to watch Rico Clark and Stuart Holden playing in a world cup final. Two freakin Dynamos! (or ex-Dynamo's). What a tremendous testament to Dominick Kinnear and the environment at the Dynamo. I'll be extremely satisfied with a point. A victory today would be so tremendous I can hardly stand thinking about it -- but I'm pretty realistic about how likely one is. Over there, Over there, Spread the Word, Spread the Word, Over There! The Yanks are coming! They Yanks are coming! The Yanks are coming over there!
I've been practicing yelling "MINE EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY" like Jack Edwards for a few days now. but this: Robbie Findley starts vs. England in the World Cup. Holy sh**. Hesky over Crouch for England. Green in goal for England (not a bad call) One of these guys will have bet on the wrong guys
I don't give a damn what Carl Dukes and that D-Bag filling in for Charlie on 790 say, that was an exciting draw. I was freaking out the entire game.
Remind me again why England is suposse to be a super power in soccer?, Every tiome they go to a WC, I hear how great they are, hw good their players are, and they never play good football, at least not the super power quality, England is a above average team at best and I'm happy they didn't win today, I want to read the newspapers trying to explain how they couldn't win against puny US.
I went to the supermarket to buy some juices and Jell-o for my wife, saw a lot f soccer jerseys, I'm mad that the only one wearing US gear was yours truly, I'm not even a citizen, shame, shame, shame on all those wearing NFL and Longhorns jerseys on the store.
Haha listen to this guy! You didn't watch any qualifying did you? Croatia was dismantled by England. England beat the USA only a few years ago. Give the US credit for defending well and taking advantage of a bad GK.
Uh, uh, England dismantled Croatia, they beat the US a few years ago, England, England, RA RA RA. Well, today they draw against a team the British newspapers considered an easy target, and even tough the 1-1 was because og Green's huge error, the US had the winning goal, live with that ELP guy. England was, is and will be overrated, I weared ymy US gear proudly today, but today wasn't a miracle or a lucky result, this is what England has to offer. England is the Mexico of Europe, always underperforming.
Let the blasphemous unbelievers talk, this was an exciting game, this was my type of game, some like games with virtuosos, some prefer to watch Messi (the guy is pure poetry in motion when he plays with Barcelona), I prefer this type of games, very physical, everyone running, no one giving up. There are boring 1-1 games, there are boring 3-0 games, there are exciting 1-1 games, today was a good game, I don't care if people get it or not, if they don;t get it, it is their loss.
How was I supposed to know that Tony Caig took over Robert Green's body? I did say one of the managers was betting on the wrong guys, and Capello was the one. Not that Findley was great (or even good) but Capello overmanaged and his goalkeeper choice was clearly wrong. Milner was a bad choice too. Gooch Onewyu had a very good game and looked about 10 times better than he has in the warmups. I'll have more thoughts later but I will gladly take a point from this game.
People act like US was lucky that England had a crap goal keeper. Well the GK is part of the team as much as anyone else. They had a garbage keeper and deserved to give up that garbage goal. Either that or England is lucky because Clark and Gooch screwed the pooch on Stevie G's goal. You can't have it both ways.
You are only as strong as your weakest link and the US may not have as many quality players but they don't have as weak a link as Green. US was lucky to tie and England was lucky not to lose with Altidore missing the open header in the first and hitting the post after a good save by Green in the second half. US played good defense and held the ball with some good possession - other than Gerrard, England was not very precise in finishing their shots under pressure. I am sure the next few games the goals will start pouring in then.
The truth is most likely what will happen is England will beat Slovenia and Algeria, and the USA will probably do the same.
Listen to you. Your basing footy analysis off of the British press?? Come on, you know better than that. England controlled the game for the most part and kept the US back on their heels. Then -- bad luck and randomness struck and they drew instead of won. I thought both teams played fine. Great great result for the US. Especially playing with 10 men + Findley. (Did he have one succesful touch the entire game? I'm not sure, but I think I'm going to watch the game again and log his touches just to find out. England looked dangerous and several times had the US defending desperately. The USA created several good set-piece chances and a great counter-attack chance by Altidore. You know -- the USA is not a realistic contender for the final. Yet, the USA is better than 1/3 of the teams, and as good as another 1/3. They are not an easy 3 points. Last year in competitive tournament matches they beat Spain, and took Brasil to the max. Ahem, beat Spain. Four years ago they drew against a Championship winning Italy. England did fine given the situation. If they finished better today, and Green doesn't channel Tony Caig, then England could have won easily 3-0. What more do you expect of England? History shows that Championship caliber teams need to tune-up in the group stages, then turn it up in the knock out stages.
Robert Green is just clearly jinxed. Last World Cup it was blowing out a knee untouched taking a goal kick in a friendly. This World Cup, well, you know. I think England paid for not moving beyond the Calamity James era sooner. Green is inexperienced at this level and I understand the third guy (Hart) is expected to be the best of the bunch, but they were uncomfortable with running him out (or James, for that matter, shudder) so Green was the compromise. They're probably going to be a world cup cycle late on pulling the keeper trigger (not unlike Brazil going one too many cups with Adriano and Ronaldo) and we got a point from it. Most of the smooth combination play of the Confed Cup was gone and replaced by kickball, but it was a good fighting draw, and, unlike Mexico, against the best team in the group. We need to start Buddle, get the ball back on the floor, stay with our men, Ricardo Clark!, grind out some results the next two games, and we've got a solid shot of advancing. Could be worse, Group A looks like a bloodbath to the finish. Part of the reason they beat Spain and held England was both teams got in the bad habit of whacking in crosses against DeMerit and Gooch. Like the Dynamo, if there is one thing they will handle, it is crosses all day. England would have been better off trying some wall passing the defense like what benefitted Gerrard but they got away from it in favor of crosses and longballs. As someone noted -- and they explained on ABC -- each of Capello's subs seemed to be an admission he had erred with his lineup in some manner, starting ill and knacked players, etc. Then again, if the US had given up a late goal I think people would have questioned Bradley's Kinnearesque approach to subbing, ie, leaving the tired and increasingly tested midfield pretty intact and subbing the frontline. Brazil, Italy, and others have taken advantage of Bradley's tendency to sub a beat late, but we lucked out on England.
That is my point exactly, the press, and (in the case of Football) the fans are completely dilusional. Because of the WC in England, the press and fans believe that they are always contenders, that they are a super power, that they should win the cup a few times, that they are in the same league as Germany, Italy and Brazil. The truth is that their WC was the exception, not the rule, they are a good team, but they are not in the same league as the super powers, they are in the same league as Spain and the Netherlands (Spain is hoping they will leave that league this year), the league of the teams that go to the WC thinking this will be their WC and they always go back empty handed. Look at their WCs after their WC in 66, we had 10 WCs (not counting this one) after 66, they failed to qualify for 3, made it to the round of 16 1, made it to the 2nd group phase in Spain (this was a weird WC, they had 2 different group phases), made it to the quarter finals 4, and made it to the semifinals only 1, that's it, afer 66 (we all have heard about the the questionable calls), in 10 different WCs, they have 1 semifinal appearance and they didn't qualify for 3, lots of quarter finals appearances. Not a bad record, not a contender's record. The US can give a hard time to good teams, England is that a good average team.
The English media probably intentionally underrated the US squad so they would be able to hit the panic button after a result like this. The truth is that the Hex stacks up pretty fairly with any European qualifying group. We finished first in the Hex, we would have qualified out of most Euro groups. At the same time they overstate how good their team should be. The English media is pretty similar to the the USA Men forum on big soccer.
They remind me of the Mexican press, the MNT should always do great in their eyes, when they don't, they press the panic button stating that the NT is the worst in the history of MNTs, when they win, they become the best MNT ever and should do great things.
And the reality is that just like we tied our best competition in the group, so did they. It's all downhill from that and I figure England is good for 4-6 more points against Algeria and Slovenia. Depending how the game goes tomorrow, that might be enough. But they'll panic nonetheless.
Video of Ernies on Banks Goal Celebration and then Discovery Green footage http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=7494920