Bingo!! Subs are supposed to enter a game and bring spark, have an effect (kind of like Brazil's subs did) and our subs decidedly didn't do that.
Well I'm sitting here and thinking about how I feel about Arena's calls last night. I firmly disagree with the Beasely substitution. It was clear that his ankle was still preventing him from playing effective soccer. The only choice here would have been ralston. considering what happened with bocanegra not being substitutable, using our final sub on someone who wasnt set to go really hurt. though im not sure if we took out boca later for vanney if it wouldnt have been as ugly. arena asserted that he wasnted to use him for the last 10 mins to provide fresh legs which id say ok to but clearly his legs werent fresh enough: Bad call. Starting convey at left back. Convey wasnt *fantastic*. Offensively he was his usual inconsistent self ... great pass/great run followed by completely missing a trap and watching it roll out. However, he had the speed to not get beaten often and his hustle led to at least one really good defensive play that I recall. The only other option (califf was unavailable with yellow accum so gibbs outside with califf in the middle isnt valid) would have been vanney. Vanney would have been torched... endlessly. Good call. Mulrooney in for Reyna. From what I have read, there were no circumstances under which reyna was going for longer than an hour. So the question clearly becomes who do you bring in. I confess I cringed when i saw mulrooney. lets face it... he isnt an awful player... but all he was gonna provide was some marking and some give aways once he got the ball. Beasely clearly wasnt an option based on his time in there. Mathis was already in (and I have to thikn he was the original plan). Ralston and move stewart to the middle? Quite frankly with as useless as stewart is I dont think thats much better. I just think given the roster he had to play with that there wasnt much to do. Maybe the best choice would have been to bring vanney in on the left and move convey up a bit. Not a great call but given the circumstances im not sure what the options were. Mathis for mcbride apparently was a non issue as mcbride needed stitches. he was our only other forward option unfortunately. im not saying it makes that much of a difference as he shows little motivation these days... but we need to stop using mathis as a target. it isnt what he is. he is an attacking mid/withdrawn forward. thats all. if we are going to play the long ball, long cross strategy mathis and donovan play the same position. my only final comment about arena was giving stewart the start. the guy is as done as agoos was a year ago. let him go. stop playing him. please. fine if you are up 1 and need a smartish guy who wont do anything great but wont make any mistakes to give you some fresh legs for the final 10 minutes. otherwise just stop calling him up. basically i think a lot of what arena did last night was dictated by what he had available. mulrooney for reyna pretty much dictated when we were forced to bunker. if we had had another holding player available we may have done a lot better. it was definitely not bruce's best match. the stewart start and the beasely sub were pretty bad. mostly i just wish we hadnt taken mathis or stewart with us, beasely and boca hadnt gotten hurt and reyna was more fit.
Re: The defense was not our problem Taking wave after wave of Brazilian attack is a recipe for disaster, I agree with you there. But I'm not sure if it was a tactic in the sense that it was a planned coaching response. Rather I think it was more of a psychological response (the team who's down a goal turns it up a notch and the team who is ahead begins to think preservation). I think the U.S. needs to play the pschological game better. When these waves begin, they need to find a response to them that is built around possession and calmness. We need to put some passes together, it doesn't need to be fancy but we need this in order to break up the the other teams rythym and establish one of our own. We have players who can hold possession like Reyna and Donovan among others. It certainly hurt to have Reyna subbed out after the goal but that wasn't a tactical decision but one of necessity as Reyna was spent. I'd like to see Donovan step up and make his presence felt more in situations like we had at the end of the game. I know he was playing up top but we need someone to provide the calming affect that Reyna does and I think Donovan has the skill to do this. In situations like last night when we're under heavy pressure, I question whether it's a good idea to always have our keeper kick the ball 60 yards down the field. In most cases we're not winning the 50/50 ball and so we throw away an opportunity to establish some possession of our own.
Keller- 7 What can I say? Convey- 6 I thought he had an ok game. Boca- 8 Really good game until the injury. Gibbs- 7 Solid. (These two are the Centre backs of the future.) Hejduk-6 Again, ok game, not spectacular. Lewis- 6 I did not see many crosses this game, which is his strength, but he did not play bad. Sort of invisible. Reyna- 5 Not dogging Reyna, he still needs to get fit, but there where a lot of wayward passes as he got tired. (On second thought, I will give him a 6 because of that excellent free kick.) Mastro- 7 Would have gotten an 8, but for 1 lousy back pass that got intercepted. Otherwise, he played an excellent game. Tenacious on Defense, and had some very outstanding plays (where he executed a perfect slide tackle, got up and played a perfect through ball). If he would keep his head in the game for a full 90, without a doubt he is one of our better players on the field. Stewart- 6 Some really lousy first touches and passes that should have been much more dangerous in front of the goal. McBride- ? Wasnt really out there all that long. I was really reminded of Columbus WCQ, and hoping Mathis could have pulled the same tricks out of his bag, but alas, we have a broken down player on our hands. (Time for some new blood at forward?) Mathis- 4 Pathetic performance. Maybe one dangerous pass all game. Donovan- 6 Some good thoughtful passes, but lacked any support. This is where a world class calibre player would step up, and he didnt. Any other player would have gotten a 7, but I certainly expect more out of him. Bruce- 6 Our players were really tired out there, bunkering up was not the answer, play for posession in the last 5 min of the game and we win. Players would get the ball (Beasley) and make a nice run, but no one was there to support and provide an outlet. Stupid team mistakes that should be corrected for an important game. Lets go Costa Rica, beat Mexico so we can get a chance to beat them again. (And by the way, with Donovan, I agree that he is one of the best counterattacking players in the world. He has skill, incredible pace, and 'guile and trickery'. I had a thread in the past that basically said Donovan should be in Italy. That is where he will have the most success and a tactical mindset that suits his game well.)
Am I the only one who thinks Keller didn't play very well? He made a lot of poor decisions on when to come out to snag crosses, and coughed up the ball for the equalizer. I can really see the difference in quality between Keller and Friedel. I don't buy into the argument that they are interchangable. Friedel is much better.
Re: The defense was not our problem Nutmeg humbly titled his post "The defense was not our problem" instead of more accurately calling it "The Truth." Bunker ball is not the answer for the US, and come to think of it, part of the reason Brazil is so succesful is that they always get to set the agenda. Only a few teams, like the Netherlands, go at them. But deep into the second half of last night's game, I don't think the US could've just "carried on." Reyna, for example, had to come off. The US was getting spread, and running on adrenaline fumes from going toe-to toe with some of the world's greatest athletes. Something had to change, and Bruce tried to protect that one goal. Hopefully he's learning a middle way, whereby we can be committed to defense but keep playing. Mexico might shake its head in wonder at our counter-attack but Brazil does not. Bruce probably thought he'd get from Beasely solid defense, and legs that can stretch a defense and maybe create that counter-attack goal. We know how that went. To be fair, Arena's game plan was obviously upset by the loss of McBride. He didn't get what he hoped out of Bease and who knows, he may originally have planned to bring on Ralston to tie up Brazil's left flank a bit. I have to give Bruce two grades. His management of the game probably earned him a C. But coaching is mostly about preparation, and his team was wonderfully prepared - They were full of fight and confidence and until they got the goal, they played ball. They may have come out second best, but no one could watch that game and fairly say the US was not competitive with Brazil.
Ralston should have started this game. Once again Bruce went with his favorite (Stewart). Ernie is way past it and just based on MLS form alone has not done anything to warrent a call up. If you're not getting the job done at the MLS level, how the hell can you be expected to do it at the international level?
You're Crazy. But I'll go against the grain myself and defend Mathis. He's not the Mathis of 2001, or maybe even of last summer. That is sad. But he's our greatest goalscoring threat and a great player to combine with. We simply had no attacking combination down the middle, and that's only partly Clint's fault. He was truly playing up top, and anyone playing there needs support and service. And I don't blame Clint for the offside. Landon should have played that ball through a second quicker, and seeing how Landon lives, plays and thinks in hummingbird time, I don't see why he didn't. But in some alternate universe right next door, Landon plays that ball on time, Mathis is the assassin hero and the US takes a big scalp, prompting a call from President Gore.
Crazy Yank -- all the reports say that Ralston was hurt in practice and couldn't play. I thought Stewart and Mathis both were awful too, but I'm not sure who should have played in their stead. Perhaps we should have had more depth in different places on our roster (e.g. more than 3 forwards), but given who we had, I think starting Stewart and bringing in Mathis for McBride were about the only choices (given beasley's injury, I think I would have prefered to see a defender inserted instead of him and seen Hejduk play a very very defensive right wing position -- but it's a hard call)...
Excuse me? Working? If Carlos Bocanegra with Eddie Pope isn't the central defense in our first XI right now, I will officially be calling for Bruce's head and will be justified. I like Cory Gibbs a lot especially after last night where the Brazillian forwards gave him a bunch of trouble, beat him for a goal and he went down fighting to the end anyway (excellent play swatting that ball off the line, give Keller a chance). But Carlos is a fair distance ahead of him right now. That we have a very good chance to have Bocanegra with us at the _2010_ World Cup is absolute music to my ears. I'm a little disappointed we didn't have him at the 2002 World Cup.
Scattered thoughts: With Boca and Gibbs we have two starting central defenders. If Pope can come back, we will even have depth there. That's a great and recent development since central defender looked like a glaring weakness a couple months ago. The two biggest holes on the team are left back and right midfield. Ralston has played well at RM lately, but I doubt he'll be the answer in 2006, or maybe even 2005, given his age. If we're trying to find ways to keep Lewis, DMB, and Convey, all on the field -- and we should be -- it would really help if one of the last two could learn to run on the right side. McBride's the best target forward we've ever had, but the Brazilians were shutting him down before he got hurt. Thanks for the memories, Earnie. But don't stay at the party past curfew. I disagree with criticizing Keller for coughing up rebounds. On the two goals, he had to save one ball with his knees. It's kinda tough to control the rebound that way. On the othergoal, he, the ball, and two attackers arrived at the same point at the same time. It would have been a tremendous play to hold the ball in those circumstances. I agree that Keller was strangely hesistant to come out on corners and crosses last night, but that did not end up costing us a goal.
Most of the ratings here are pretty consistant, and I agree with them except for the Gibbs worship. He is probably level with Berhalter and Califf and ... holy *************** that's all folks... but I thought he was exposed by the attacking Brazialians. I will give you that Kaka and Diego aren't exactly BL3 like Cory is used to, but damn. The good thing is he still has time to improve, and maybe Califf can improve too, but if those two are #3 and #4 on the depth chart, #'s 1 and 2 better get healthy.
thought Gibbs had a great first half; then got worn down in the 2nd. he's used to B1 and B2; only this year will he be in B3...which by the way is a problem, he needs better competiition than that.
dlokteff- You are missing a few points to the Gibbs argument... 1st- Even if you think Berthalter is "as good", Greg is also (almost) 30, and not likely to get better (likely worse). Gibbs is 6-7 years younger, and is likely going to get better. You've got to project the "growth curve" out, and see Gibbs is the smarter play here and now, and going forward (if he gets club situation figured out, keeps form, etc.) 2nd- I disagree that Califf is as good. Califf has been pretty poor, at best at MLS level the last many games. 3rd- No one- not even Eddie Pope- would have stopped the Brazilian moves. In the 1st half, Gibbs did a great job slowing down the Brazilian attacker (either Kaka or Diego), who basically had Gibbs 1v1 for much of the offensive 1/3, Gibbs got the guy to go sideways at the top of the box, and then the Brazilian attacker released a magnificant "quick release" (of a half step) that I guarantee you very few defenders in world coulda stopped. He hit a perfect shot (rest of goal was blocked by Gibbs/Keller) and he hit the post. In 2nd half, there was really only one move (the one where Boca saved the day) that I think you could argue he coulda done much better. But if you really watched the game, not one U.S. player could stop 2 or 3 of the Brazilian even 1 v 2. The Brazilian were that good, that skillful. We don't live in a perfect soccer world, and Gibbs is the best partnership (with Boca) until Pope gets healthy and even then, it is worth exploring different ways (including formation) to get a young guy who is only going to get better on the field (especially given Pope's age and often-injury)... Unfortunately or not, US does not have a lot of sensible other options besides Cory back there...(we all will have to wait for Gooch, Whitbread, etc...at least another year or more..to see if they pan out)...I can't think of anyone in MLS who looks like they are at Gibbs/Boca's level right now...
Sorry, but in your alternate universe, I do't see Mathis automatically taking that shot. He had opportunity earlier in the game, in the box; Donovan had fended off a couple of defenders, lays a perfect pass for Mathis, just inside the box, the opening is there... and Mathis hesitates, doesn't take the shot. Maybe Donovan did hold the ball too long (which is a complete rarity; sometimes I wish he'd hold it longer), but I don't see Mathis automatically taking the shot when he gets the ball.
I think you could fault Clint for coming into the game cold, but don't try to tell me what's going on in my fictional alternate universe.
No, I think my hyperbole maybe made you miss my point. Which was, if we think Gibbs performance was worthy of 8 ratings, we are setting the bar awfully low for our #3 CB. I know (and stated) that Gibbs has youth on his side and the Brazilians were world class. But your last paragraph is pretty much a more calmly stated reiteration of my point... i.e. "Unfortunately or not, US does not have a lot of sensible other options besides Cory back there." That's what scares me.
First off, I agree, Gibbs probably had the worst performance of the backs (Boca saved his hide with that slide when the Brazilian was through on Keller), but thats not what this post is going to be about.... For now, our 4 man CB rotation consists of Pope, Bocanegra, Gibbs, and the MLS flavor of the week. That is plenty good to get us through WC qualifying, especially the early part, Boca has improved markably the past three years (which is as much time as we have until the next WC) and perhaps someone like Califf (who I think sucks), Curtin (who I think is too slow), Garcia (who also sucks), or another MLSer can pick up their game to Boca like levels. But the reason for optimism is abroad, both Spector and Yi (who apparently is now starting for Antwerp) are our future at the back when Pope retire and Gibbs and Boca are veterans....
At this point, please explain to me who those other sensible options are? (than Gibbs)...I'd love to know... Also, did you go to the game? I did, and saw (at end) waves of Brazilians coming thru midfield....especially towards end....mostly unmarked....they ran by us on the offensive end, and got back behind the ball on defense too...on other 5 v 5 occasions, their movement opened up gaps you could drive a truck thru (and the center backs were left to "guess" since there were no good alternatives). I repeat, there are currently no American defenders who could have done any better.....and there is no way that there is a younger candidate in the pipeline who- within the next year- could have repelled them either... Actually, only Lalas/Balboa early in '94 Cup coulda stopped the goal- maybe......I kid you not..
My two cents... Hejduk and Donovan were the only players who had energy left after the game If posters here think an "F" doesn't do it for Clint, then maybe take after Hamilton College and give him an "FF"- their sign for severe failure...
That's just it, we don't have another one except for JOB and he doesn't hold as well as reyna. Once this sub was made the floodgates down the middle opened and the defence buckled from fatigue. And as another poster said their wasn't many choices.