Just got back from the game. Beautiful day at the ball park. Next game is in 10 days and will be $1.00 beer night on a Wednesday – Hmm. I can’t think of anything to report that probably wasn’t on the TV broadcast. Did you see Fred Jackson of the Bills do the ceremonial kickoff to McCall? He kicked to her, she flipped up to her hands, Jackson jogged past McCall and she flubbed the handoff to him – FUMBLE! It would have been cute if it had worked. When I saw who the ref was, I thought there may be trouble. She is not very good. Sky Blue got beat up badly, but I don’t think there was dirty play. I hope Devanna and Foord come back quickly. B.Bock hammered Abby at least once that drew growls from the crowd. I loved it. She got the biggest hand during introductions of all the Sky Blue. Flash: 4 games in 10 days on the road, then a week before a game at home, then 10 days beforea game at home. Wacky.
USA-2 SLV- 0. It's been end to end action with USA having several more chances. Nick Rimando comes up big with key saves. I'm watching it on Univision regular antenna TV in Spanish.
No it isn't, El Salvador isn't even giving US a game. I already know who the winner is so what's the point? EDIT: apparently El Salvador got a PK so I guess they are back in the game now.... at least for now..........until the US score again I would rather watch the Portland Thorns game if only it wasn't $5 to watch it.
Yup they have had Schmidt playing at top which is why the Skyblue midfield hasn't been playing well. They can't seem to organize either on offense or defense. Whatever Taylor Lytle brings to Skyblue, they NEED Schmidt in the midfield to boss it around. Move Lytle up top if they want to keep her on the pitch but Schmidt is absolutely needed in the Skyblue midfield. She does everything for Skyblue, a box to box midfielder that ball wins, defends and play makes. She is almost invisible when she is at top because the midfield can't service her.
I know this is the NSL thread but this is what I like about the USA men other then Landon Donavan, these are mostly new faces on this team. All young players while our women have the same players for every women's game, friendly or not since 3 World Cups ago.
Oh! I didn't know it was antenna! *switches over from celebrity golf in a heartbeat* ...I wish the Breakers didn't charge for their games...
LOL wow really? It's the US men's friggin B TEAM for goodness sakes! Come World Cup you're going to see more veterans back like Dempsey
Tony was right, Schmidt missed De Vanna. The English speaking Internationals help make each other better and when one or more are out, the play of the rest than falls off. The bulk of Ocampo's playing time has been as a sub or starting only when the other Int'ls have been out, but this allocation thing is really helping her. She has 5 goals to Adams' 3 but in less than half the playing time.
Well, it's 2-1 now, (SLV scored apparently just before I turned it on,) so it's definitely a game now. I wish the people whose thumbs were on BOS & POR's Twitter accounts had faster thumbs, I want to hear more of those, too, since that sounds like a tight game as well.
Of course it's the B team. I know that. But when did the USWNT play their "B" team instead of Abby, Rampone, Boxx, etc, etc,. Never. Even against crap teams in friendlies. When did the USWNT coaches in a meaningless game put in a lineup of Hagen, Henderson ...........(insert other non-regular USWNT players), never. And I'm talking a full line-up of non-regulars. Not just inserting Press or Mewis. Of course Abby has a ton of goals in her career. Except for when she was injured she's played against every crap team the US has played.
Great game today by WaumBACK. The Sky Blue Matildas played like total dog fur. Today, Sky Blue FC was .... Dry Poo FC
Yup have to give you full marks for this. Its been my huge complaint about the USWNT under Pia Sundhage. She was never willing to use her younger players, she put her veterans in against friendlies and yeah one reason why Abby has so many goals is because she played against bad teams. 4 goals against South Korea? Couldn't they brought in Melissa Henderson and Sarah Hagen and see what both these girls can do against a weak team like Korea? The reason why you play friendlies is duh, cap and develop your young players. Get them experience. Against good teams, play your veterans, what is the point of playing your veterans against weak teams? They are not learning anything from those tests.
Last I heard, Pia Sundhage is now the coach for the Sweden team and is doing a heck of a job getting them to the Semi-Finals. I think Sermanni has been doing pretty good developing the young talent. I think it's unfair to compare the women's team to the men's team. In home game friendlies, you can play completely unheard of players in the men's games and you'll get tens of thousands of fans at the games regardless. You do that for a women's home game friendly, and hardly anybody would show up if Wambach, Morgan, Solo and Rapinoe didn't suit up. Unfortunately, a large part of woman's game fandom is not their amazing technical ability(enter sarcasm) but the star power.
This is a baseball country, "American's past-time" (referred to baseball here, & not any other sport). In baseball, records are more important than championships. Therefore, in the good old U.S. of A, we believe in records, and getting players to shatter records. It's in our "past-time". We're more proud that Abby has the scoring record, more so than if she were to win the WWC.
I knew someone would lay the blame on Adams. Same thing on Twitter. I don't get it. At same time saying O'Hara up top would make this team click. The criticisms of Adams compared to O'Hara is so disproportionate to be, quite frankly, shocking. Sky Blue is, contrary to most expectations #1 team, and has looked good for most part with a very fluid offense, good ball movement. DeVAnna and Schmidt are of course their two best attacking players but Adams' one-touch passing and little freeing movements have been very important. DeVanna, Schmidt, Adams, Freels, Foord and O'Hara have formed a nicely balanced core of ball movement players so I don't get why Adams gets singled out for criticism (except for the abysmal shooting by O"hara) and no one sees what she contributes. Gabarra has been doing God-knows-what with Schmidt's position in the formation; Foord has missed time while with her national team; (DeVanna too); now Gabarra has replaced Freels with Bock (who I love but, hey, Sky Blue did well in her absence), but everyone just targets Adams. Hey I didn't see today's match so maybe she stunk it up but I've seen other games where people totally miss what she contributes to the ball movement.
Im pulling for Sweden to win Euros for a few reasons but nothing Sundhage does will make me forget she mucked up WWC.
On that, you are right unfortunately. For the women, the little girls have to have someone to scream over and "clueless" soccer dads have to have a reason to buy a ticket other then soccer. But I would still like to see whole line-ups of fresh faces. OMG, Eddie Johnson comes in and in seconds scores for the USA.