actually not a bad idea to get the u23's a tune up. They should not have a problem beating a team like Barbados. Maybe mix in a few guys that don't play that much from the mens team
A few other first team guys would be good too. I've got no problem with that. Or we could decide not to take any MLSers away from their teams. There will be enough of that later this summer. Or at the very least take away guys you didn't this weekend... like Cooper, Moor, Parkhurst, Conrad etc. I'm still a big fan of the Olympic team idea. I wasn't if we were only up 3-0 or so going in, but with an 8-0 cushion the chance of losing 9-0 is about 1 in 1,000 or even lower. What about the Olympic team with McBride. I'm sure he's not in form so that's a joke, but maybe the Olympic team with Guzan or something?
Guess I could nitpick if I wanted: -Too many giveaways, especially in the first half -A bit more possession -A bit tighter in the back But, all things considered, it was a SOLID performance!! The thing I LOVED was that we kept attacking, all the way to the end!! I was SHOCKED that Howard didn't start...and then heard about a slight back injury...but it wasn't like we needed him, LOL, and I was disappointed that Freddy didn't start, though he came on early because of Mastroeni's injury!! Even with 2 d-mids...Bradley & Mastroeni...it didn't stop us from attacking & Bradley played well!! Actually, nobody had a bad or poor game IMO...hell, even EJ scored!! I know it was Barbados & it was pretty warm but I was very disappointed with the crowd size...11K...and have to wonder if US soccer will bring more WCQs to So Cal?!! Guess, if it's the "right" opponent?!! Good start to South Africa 2010 and let's keep up the "attacking mentality" in the second leg!!
Why mess around with it? Why take any sort of chance, no matter how small, with WCQ? The only reason there is a USSF national team program at all is to qualify for the WC, so just remain business-like and do it. If the Oly team needs more experience, get that for them another way. I know 8-0 is essentially un-give upable, but job 1 is not done yet.
8-0 was an all-time record victory for the US and it flatters the opponent? The US dominated, and the Barbadians looked unlikely to score in 4 games, but still, putting 8 past them involved a combination of factors that just worked out well for the US.
I would have started Ching for the reasons given if you'd asked me before the three game friendly series. But he got no time in those matches, and EJ (of whom I am no fan -- meaning you must take any praise I give him as earned) played better than he has in a while. As a result, I was ultimately surprised to see Ching start over EJ, and figured he must have done really well in camp. He looked pretty average, so I doubted that he'd blown the doors off in camp and chalked it up to another BB enigma.
How would you suggest it? A friendly with Honduras or El Salvador U-23? At least this would be a nominally meaningful match. Its also a match during which we can force teams to release players. Maybe we don't want to get into that with MLS, but why not send them. If you seriously believe the U-23 team will lose by 9 goals to Barbados... well I don't know what to say to that.
Funny, at one point in the 2nd half I was hoping the US would use the situation to basically do a 30 minute possession drill. Just getting some full team practice on how to move away from the ball to maintain possession. Speaking of movement away from the ball, one reason that the team staggered when Adu came in is because he and Dempsey were both trying to play the "lazy man in the hole" role. Neither of them were moving. Adu dropped back in the second half and the offense opened up again.
If he had Ching in there, he should have had Lewis starting. And Ching wasn't any good - despite the alleged hat-trick - and Johnson scored immediately after entering, off Lewis's cross. So, the idea behind playing Ching was not dumb per se but that's not how Bradley had arranged the "complimentary" tactics. And the deluge of goals from crosses came in late in the game. In the first half - you had a BRB defender missing an innocuous high ball from Boca, a goal off a scramble and a deflection that could have been an offside. That's a rotten team (Barbados) having rotten luck. The second half had an own goal and a varsity level free kick. Which was more rotten luck for a rotten team. Then the rotten team gave up. And the US replacements (Lewis, Johnson) proved more suitable than starters and pumped in or helped set up a few more goals for the final margin. The starters, however, were far less impressive. And the first half tactics bordered on the absurd.
put in the best side you can field without pissing off club coaches. Win the game. Go home. If the Olympic team needs a tune-up, schedule one. This is not highschool where your buddy is going skiing and you want to see your old girlfriend and she's kind of on the way and maybe he can drop you at the exit. Play bubble guys that don't have club commitments, yes. Bring in some other team for "practice" - as if Barbados is a friendly you'd schedule to tune-up for the olympics is silly. We're better off putting another 8 by them if that's how lopsided the matchup is and making concalaugh face the reality of their system.
One, you assume that Ching's sole purpose is to head in crosses. No. He holds the ball better than EJ with a CB and a DM converging on him and manages to involve the AMs as opposed to dumping it (and at this point it's not even close). Ching's a bit calmer on the ball than EJ, and this sort of game is going to see a lot of errant balls. Better bunker-busting strategy IMO. I would've done the same, honestly. EJ's speed would do no good in that match at all, and that's the only area where EJ has Ching clearly beaten in terms of getting a result in that match (because that match had to be ALL about getting the best result possible... mission accomplished, though I don't really care where you choose to apportion the credit/blame for that). Two, I don't disagree that the "hattrick" doesn't deserve a big asterisk (or two, precisely). But you really can't call him bad in this match. There's really very little to objectively evaluate. I don't doubt EJ would've racked up a hattrick, either, with or without an asterisk. Three, the deluge in the end is what you expect when a team has to chase defensively all day. Eventually the legs tire and the team that's controlling things will get a ton of chances. We've been on the receiving end of it as well, as we can all remember in a few (relatively) recent outings with Argentina and Germany. Four, for the obvious. It didn't frickin' matter. In the slightest. (Yes, the defending was amateurish all day. Credit to Dempsey for taking the first opportunity--that never should've been an opportunity--of the day and basically putting an end to their hopes of frustrating us for 90 minutes. These things get weird when you have the chance to do that, you miss, and then frustration starts to kick in as the other team starts to believe. How many routs in military history were the result of one army totally kicking the other army's butt basically to a man and how many were the result of one army getting the somewhat the better of another but gaining a key advantage in the process, taking their opponents' morale and sense of hope out of it, and then when some guys start to run the whole thing dominoes? Without being a military historian, I'd wager on the latter. That's how it works. If you want to talk about how much Bob will cost us our chance in qualifying, this ain't the game to talk about it. In either direction, really. There's just not a whole lot to analyze in this one. "This may all work in practice but it'll never work in theory."
Hey, look at Brazil, the Croatians of South America. Dunga used his idiotic 4-5-1 against a number of teams in the friendlies and received mixed results, even when playing his top stars. Then, quite reasonably, when his top stars were missing, his results became even worse. Would you still say that one couldn't learn anything from the "meaningless" friendlies? I learned that Dunga was a horrible, horrible coach. And I had posted this right here. The Brazilian press is catching up to this. http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=reu-worldbrazil&prov=reuters&type=lgns
K. It might surprise you that I ain't trying to win an argument with you. I'm stating my opinion, and I'm letting you and everybody else know where mine differs from yours. Maybe we all get a little bit of a different, more considered perspective. Or not. (BTW, my dad's side of the family is Croatian, and I lived there for a bit. My mother's side is all Russian, but from Siberia, not Europe. Russian was my first language, but I mostly lost it once I went to school. I'd love to have nationalistic sentiments about Russia, except that I've learned through experience that I generally haven't liked or trusted too many Russians that I've known that weren't models. My nationalistic sentiments about Croatia only go so far.)
I'm sure this has all been mentioned before, but I can't wade through 22 pages to make sure... A bit of perspective... Brazil and Argentina both lost their qualifiers yesterday (Argentina at home) and they play each other next...someone is in for a really bad week, or both are in for a mediocre one. It took Mexico over an hour to crack Belize's bunker. It took us 53 seconds to crack Barbados. Trinidad and Tobago is 90 minutes away from having their World Cup campaign come crashing down around their ankles. And while the Polo Grounds in Bermuda isn't exactly a frothing cauldron, having to win on the road to survive is no easy task. Bermuda may put all 11 men in the six yard box for 90 minutes. (As an aside, I wonder what a T&T flameout would do to Jack Warner. As much as I like the Soca Warriors, it might be worth their crash and burn if Warner was gone as a result. Food for thought) We played better than we did eight years ago against these guys - remember that for the entire second half, they played with 9. We sure as heck played better than we played 4 years ago against Grenada at home.
I don't remember that for the second half, they played with 9 -- that would be the home game, you mean then? Because I don't think in the road game that was the case. But I agree with you. They were awful, but we did what we should against awful teams. This isn't the match that I will whine about.
Good points, Bluecat82!! However, Argentina didn't lose...they tied with Ecuador, 1-1!! Still, a SHOCKING result!! Makes me wonder if our performance against them, last weekend, had something to do with their result, LOL?? I liked Dempsey's quote & think it sums up everything best: "We're not going to come out & say we're going to win the World Cup after playing Barbados. They came out & tried hard but we're supposed to win these types of games decisively. So we're not going to get a false sense of hope. We know we have a long ways to go." How's that for putting yesterday's result in perspective!!
I don't have warm sentiments for Russia in general, except for some culture - a bunch of old songs (mostly pre-1980) and old movies that I used to like and now have rediscovered thanks to the YouTube and kind folks willing to copy thousands of old videos for the others' enjoyment. It gives me a delightful nostalgic trip into the country that only existed on the movie/TV screen. Then again, I get the same way watching the old Gerd Müller goals too. PS. Don't trust the Russian models either.
I hope I was pretty plain in my posts that I would certainly not expect the Olys to give up that big a lead. I think you put the odds at 1 in 1000, and even accepting that, my point was I would not take even those odds just to get experience for Nowak's team. I won't pretend to know how hard it is to line up some other opportunity for them, but even if nothing else coudl be found, I would still not send the Olympic team to a WCQ match. Note that with Adu, Bradley, Edu, Rogers, Guzan and Orozco, you could field a goodly portion of a likely Olympic squad.