Without reading the thread: An undeserved 1-1 draw for the US, tying it a full 5 minutes into second half injury time. Haiti was much the more energetic and entertaining side.Their team speed neutralized LD, DMB and Convey and pressured the usual suspects who can't keep possession under pressure.The US attack was pathetic with few ideas aside from long ball. Not one of our players looked anything but ordinary, IMO. Haitian teams at all levels are fast and skillful, and this one was no exception.If Clavejo's coaching can overcome their traditional weaknesses of poor tactics, disorganized defense ,and bad goalkeeping, they might be a handful during qualifying. Despite being a hardcore US supporter, the unbridled joy which rocked the Old OB after Haiti scored brought a smile to my face as a soccer fan! Prendergast continues to live down to his reputation. How a ref can give six minutes injury time in the secong half, after not 10 seconds in the first, brings the game into disrepute, but saved the US further embarrassment!
O boy... this was embarrassing... For ppl who think it's just another friendly game, wake up. Look at the faces of our players. they were embarrassed too. I hope this is a wake up call for them. They were totally shock and didn't start playing until Haiti scored. Woly is crap. Most metrofans know it and so does bradley. I'm afraid we'll see him alot more. I rather have Richie William back in US team if we need someone that can't play. I really hope Ricardo Clark can step up as the next defensive midfield. Convey NEEDS someone to open up the for him. Ricardo would be pefect. Just look at U-20 Tourney. Armas? yuk! I love that Sanneh, Pope, Boca and Gibbs back 4. But Bruce? I know you didn't call up Buddle b/c you're afraid he'll get injured but what's the point of playing Pope when you know what kinda player he is. Play Califf. As a metrostars fan, I don't want to see Pope play in a meaningless game. Look at the # of times he went down today. Scary. Give full credit to Clavijo and Haitian team.
Guys who need looks... Clearly, I am not the only one disappointed in some of the guys who are getting looks right now. I would like to see more or less of some of the following players in a game like this... Less: Woly Albright Ralston Armas More: Noonan Buddle Olsen Martino R. Clark Twellman and yes... Cooper, too
"I just get my HDTV today. Unfortunately, cable company could not make it out today to hook up the HD. My question is: Did the broadcast have any sort of static display ( like a game clock) that could cause problems with "burn-in"? It really pisses me off how most stations constantly have their logos on the screen screwing up projection TVs" There is a tiny(one of the benefits of HDTV) score/timer in the right upper corner. I dont know what your set-up(?rptv) but if burn-in is a problem whoa ESPN2. For others considering an HD"TV" purchase consider getting a frontal projector. No burn-in. My total cost $1200. I watched the game on a 5x8 foot screen. Truly awesome. The picture was stunning. The crew does a good job, some different camera angles, although not a lot of replays. In this game that was fortunate. I sent my email to HDNET before the game thanking them. I am a MLS(DC) season ticket holder but may stay home to watch the HDNET broadcasts.
Thanks for the help. Its a rptv Mitsubishi (stunning quality with DVD) I just cannot wait till I get the HDTV. I suppose I could just limit my soccer (sports in general) to just the HDTV broadcasts and watch the rest on regular TV. BTW $1200 for a front projector, I thought they cost a lot more. Do you get a lot of noise from it? I guess I could just keep changing the screen images (eg stretch, expand, zoom etc) to move around the clock every few minutes.
I'm wondering where Richie Williams was? This was the kind of lineup BA usually throws him in on.... seriously, I may be a little bias as a galaxy fan, but I think Victorine should get a look for the nats (at least when we are running low on central mids)... he did great on that olympic team and is a tireless worker and is not as defensive as mulrooney or armas (who, along with razov, needs to disappear and make way for Mastro). I also think Kyle Martino needs to get more looks... he played, like, one game before he got injured and hasn't been looked at since... even though he played fantastic before he got hacked down... and maybe I'm out of some loop, but where is Brian West? He could help us on the right (I thought a few years back he was surely Cobi's replacement)... he has disappeared.... and Olsen? what the heck? I also agree with what somebody said about giving LD and beasley and Convey a break... we need to find depth at the moment... not run up youngster's caps. A lot of people brought up pope's not great play, but I can't remember a game that wasn't a qualifier or a WCF game that he actually played good in... but when those important games come, he usually is a solid choice for MOTM. I didn't get to watch the game... just comments off your comments.
I found out about the score when I saw it scroll across the ESPN bottomline on tv...I couldn't believe it said 1-1. That ticked me off... Now I didn't see the match, so i can't comment on it, but the result seems pretty discouraging.
Both O'Brien and Reyna are fragile... Claudio's getting old. Who's the next creative midfielder? I think it's one of the really young guys, who won't really be ready 'til 2010 (if we're lucky). I have a bad feeling about 2006. We should be able to beat Haiti 4-0 with our C team. Give them credit for playing with heart --- that's the really cool thing about soccer, complacency is punished, spirit rewarded, maybe more than in any other sport. Our guys need to show some fire. I haven't seen anything out of them since Korea. ---Mark
Welllllll..... Let me just first say that I saw the first 5 minutes of this match only, as I have regular (not HDTV) DirecTV Tivo, set it up for PPV and recorded it, got home late tonight, and found out that the full game didn't actually record. WTF???? I thought if you had DirecTV it wouldn't be an issue. Anyone else have this same problem? Sounds like we played like s*** and I 'd rather play like this in a friendly than vs. Shalrie Joseph and some other decent players from Grenada in June. We simply can't bring a fookin' line up like this POS we brought to Miami tonight to ANY WCQ MATCH. No excuses, we just can't do this and expect to book passage to Germany in 2006.
I watched the game from Sommer's outside of DC. For what's it worth, we looked weak. The game was reminiscent of USNat games in the 80's where we looked scared of our opponents and I was pleased if we could throw a couple of passes together. The US definitely needs to start training a few new Reyna/O'Brien type players. There was a lack of unity and any time we touched the ball it was either in the offenseive or defensive third. We need to calm down, work good passes, and use space. Most of all, we need a few mids to orchestrate that kind of play. The main thing that could have helped the US would have been to practice more set plays. As the US team gets taller - we had several 6 foot + players - we should become another Germany, and utilize our abundant corners and free kicks we had tonight. I've got to hand it to Haiti - they wanted it more and ran three steps tonight for every two of ours. I agree with the write who thought MLS should scout Haiti's strikers. Califf's goal was cool. Nothing like a superman dive with arms outstretched leading to a goal off the chest. That was definitely the highlight.
are you some kind of moron? the USA should have scored a bunch of goals. isnt the USA the giant of the concacaf? If so than start acting like it and destroy such little teams! Maybe Mexico is the real giant of concacaf.
Hold on there. The United States had a bad game against a futbol minnow. It happens. The odds of the USMNT qualifying for Germany 2006 is still very good.
I disagree. I guarantee that there was no fear of Haiti....rather it was disinterest or lack of intensity or whatever you want to call it. Fear can give way to confidence, as we saw against Portugal in J/K 2002...but disinterest...that's scary.
John Wolyniec..horrrible...terrrrible Who the heck is John Wolyniec? What did he do to earn 80 minutes of absolutely nothing? His passes were poor, he was very slow on the field and he clogged the middle of the field. All I know is that after he was substituted out, USA had 5 chances on goal and scored. Yes, Hati went completey defensive, but Kirovski made an impact immediately after he went in for Wolyniec. Friendly or not, you have to send a message that your team is a force to reckon. A 1-1 draw to Hati is embarassing. It seems like the US couldn't handle Hati's speed and lacked any spacing when they had the ball. Quite often on the offensive, the US were bunched up in the middle. Arena should have made substitutions earlier when some of the starters showed no heart.
The result is definately pitiful. There isn't much else to say about it. Once again I didn't get to watch the game and once again I think I'm the better off for it! Honestly though, this isn't the first time we've dropped a terd against a team like this and we've done it in much, much, much bigger games. BOTH games against Guatemala in the semi-final round of qualifying for 2002 were these types of games. We laid exactly two terds in the two games against them, but in one case at least managed to win by 1 goal, at home. That, IMO, is no less pathetic than this showing. So, anyway, I'd lOVE to see Arena bench every single one of the midflielders and forwards who played in this game for the match against Poland. It is starting to look like a handful of our key players need a reminding that laying eggs for the national team isn't acceptable. Unfortunately I don't think Arena has ever done this. Has he? I could be wrong, but I don't remember any instances other than the whole Mathis thing. what a pathetic result. I don't think we need to raise the white flag for world cup qualifying as a few crazy heads around here are thinking, but this kind of result doesn't really infuse a great sense of security in the team either so I can understand the sentiment a bit.
no comment on the actual match (for obvious reasons) and i don't know if anyone's mentioned it... but can we freakin' stop using miami as a "home" site? we are forever giving up the crowd advantage in the name of selling tickets - now they don't even show up there... 70 degrees outside and only 8,741 show up? pathetic, simply pathetic screw miami, birmingham would have had about 3 times that many through the gate and with colder weather
That's all that was there? Of those how many were Haitians and how many were pulling for the US about 10?
we have to start taking these games against caribbean islands seriously...with the changes in wcq in concacaf, its not gonna be as easy before to get to the wcfinals...there maybe some david vs. goliath upsets(ala march madness) and lets hope it doesn't happen to us...remember barbados beat costa rica last time around...if haiti beats jamaica(which is a possibility) they will be in our group(in the event we get past joseph and grenada...lol) and we would hurt our chances greatly if we draw against them at home...we know the caribbean teams can play but we've always had a psychological edge over them...if we start giving them confidence,we'll lose this edge and who knows what can happen from game to game...when we play these islands we should send our best(i hope that wasn't) and really beat these guys convincely to erase this "new found hope" they have because of the new set up...jack warner is on a beach smiling from ear to ear because of last night's result...he would love nothing better than to see the u.s. get knocked out of qualifying...and every other island nation gains confidence when crap like this happens...june is just around the corner, let's send a message to these small islands that they don't stand a chance...
i was at the game.. it was embarassing.. the ref was just plain horrible.. nothing to be proud of in that game, haiti deserved it and the refs took it away