ThePresentTense.net

So I took the holiday today to finally do some editing on some pictures I took while I was in Montana for work a little while back.  Actually, I think it was like two months ago so I’m just about right on schedule for me for getting pics posted.

Keep in mind that this is the first time I really did anything with photos I took in the RAW format and really tried to do any “digital darkroom” work on them.  Hopefully, they didn’t turn out too bad.

Go here to see the pics.

Though it was a huge game with a crazy result, this is going to be a pretty short post.  I honestly think the game can be summed up in pretty short terms and my “analysis” is pretty straightforward.

In our matches against Egypt and Spain we showed that we could come out with energy and force the game to our strengths.  We did it in a team riding high against Egypt and we did it against the best team in the world against Spain to reach the finals against one of the most storied national teams in soccer history.

For the first 45 minutes of the final we did the same thing.  We came out with energy, pressured and absorbed pressure defensively, and pounced on Brazil when they made mistakes finding ourselves up 2-o at the half.  So what happened?

It comes down to two things for me.  We ran out of gas and we didn’t compensate for Kaka.

First, I’ll say that them scoring less than a minute into the second half of the game was a huge blow to our psyche.  The first and last five minutes of each half of any game are critical.  The first five minutes of a game can set the tone.  The last five minutes of a half can determine a huge shift in momentum and team confidence.  The first five of the second half; another chance to set tone.  The final five minutes are often about who wants it more.  My only comment on the goal itself is that Demerit got extremely unlucky.  He was in Fabiano’s face and nine time out of ten he blocks that shot.  This one squeezed through his legs and past Howard.

That first goal took quite a bit of wind out of our sails and I could see the energy level drop.  Its hard enough to maintain the emotional and energetic high we were riding coming off the Spain match.  Instead of continuing to take the game to Brazil we started just trying to hang on.  There’s only so long we could hold on against a team like Brazil.  We got fatigued, started losing our shape, and didn’t maintain the defensive positioning that carried us through the previous two matches.

Our failure to deal with Kaka was likely due in part to fatigue, but we needed to make a strategic adjustment that we didn’t make.  Kaka generally takes up a position in the center of the field, but started wandering to the wings in order to get the ball in space.  This lead to significant overloads on one side of the field, or an open player on the backside to receive crosses.  As a result our center backs started getting stretched and contributed to our lack of shape on defense.

When it comes down to it, they were better in the 45 minutes they won than we were in the 45 minutes we won.  Make no mistake, we handily won the first 45 minutes of that match.    I come away from this game with equally deep feelings of pride for our performance and bitter disappointment in the result.  As they say, experience is one of the best teachers, and this past two weeks has given us some great experiences that we must learn from if we have any dreams of advancing into the deeper stages of the World Cup next summer.

I know I’m a game late on this, but wanted to throw my thoughts out there anyway.  (plus my brother asked why I was slacking off)

Count me as one of those that thought a win against Spain was impossible for the US.  Oh how I enjoyed being proven wrong.

In thinking back over the game, three basic factors lead to the result, as I see it.  One could easily see this wasn’t the sharpest performance from the Spanish,  we figured out a way to force the game to our strengths, and the US players had the right approach to the game.

The Spanish

Bottom line, Spain didn’t play all that well.  I would say, though, that there is considerable room for argument on how much that’s due to them playing pourly and us forcing them to play poorly.  There are a lot of reports that they didn’t take their preparation for the game seriously.  I’m sure they didn’t take us seriously as an opponent despite their lip service prior to the match, but I think the energy and chip-on-the-shoulder attitude we brought to the match had a noticeable impact on the Spanish play.  I thought the pressure by Charlie Davies up front had a significant impact on Spanish trying to start their buildup to attack.

The Gameplan

For all the grief that Bob Bradley got following the first Brazil match for tactical difficienies (some from me) he was a Rembrandt on this game.  Our center backs are tall, strong, and had been playing well.  One of the Spanish strengths is creative play through the middle.  We really clogged the middle, forced the ball out wide and depended on Onyewu and Demerit to win a lot of headers and crosses into the box to help defend.  Between their exceptional play, Howard being on top of his game, and the overall team shape on defense throughout the game, it was going to be extremely difficult for Spain to score.

The Effort

All the effort that finally showed itself in the Egypt game was there in spades against Spain.  We flourish in the underdog role and you don’t get any more underdog than playing the number team in the world as a surprise participant in a major FIFA semi-final.  It doesn’t appear to me that we do well with pressure as the favored team, and a great deal of relaxation comes for us as underdogs allowing us to play our best.

While there will be skeptics and detractors that will say the US was lucky, I think this was a very solid win by the US.  We had a gameplan that we executed exceptionally well and stuck to, and we capitalized on the mistakes that Spain made.  Without question, this is going to go down as one of my favorite USMNT memories.  It gets filed right alongside waking up at three in the morning to watch the 2002 World Cup knockout stage win against Mexico.

Enjoy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/passiveaggressive/3642661392/sizes/o/

So color me shocked.  I’m not really sure what to say about this game.

Obviously, its a great result for the team, but you have to wonder where the kind of energy they showed today was for the first two games of the tournament.  I would also throw out that Egypt isn’t the same kind of team that Brazil or Italy are, but Egypt did beat Italy so we know they’re at least capable of being as good.

Moving on my from confusion, there’s a fair amount of fat to chew on after this one.  Some interesting adjustments to the line-up that I liked.  Charlie Davies got a start up top, Brad Guzan got a rare start with the full men’s team giving Tim Howard a break, and Ricardo Clark was back alongside  Michael Bradley following his one game suspension from the red card against Italy.

I liked the energy that Davies brought to the game, both offensively and defensively.  He seemed to have a good nose for getting in behind the defense with some good diagonal, and his defensive work rate looked to disrupt the Egyptian buildup before it had a chance to get started.  And let’s not forget his contribution with a scrappy goal.  Guzan did well throughout the match showing good control over his box and making the stops he needed to make, though he wasn’t tested a great deal with strong shots on target.  I don’t feel like Clark had as strong an impact on this game as he did against Italy, but he paired well with Bradley in the center of midfield, disrupting the Egyptian midfield.

I was also really impressed with Jay Demerit in this game.  He and Onyewu, who also had another strong showing, seemed to have come to a good understanding on how to work with each other and I felt very confident in our back line.  Demerit’s play in this tournament may give Bradley the confidence to try Bocanegra on the outside left, where he plays for his club side, to try to shore up one of the more unstable position for the team.

The performance I’m most torn on is Dempsey’s.  Just before Altidore came off, I was expecting and hoping the first sub would be Dempsey.  He seemed very lackadaisical and was becoming a defensive liability from lack of tracking back.  I also wasn’t impressed with what he was bringing to the table offensively.  Despite that, he came up with a really incredible goal to help push the Americans into the semi-finals.  I want to see more moments of brilliance like that before I’m going to be convinced that he’s giving the US what he should be.

So we’re on to the semi-finals and we get the cakewalk game of Spain.  I hate to be Debbie Downer, but I think our chances of making it past the Euro 2008 champions are slim to none.  Our best chance is if they underestimate who they’re playing.  They have an unbeaten streak reaching back some 40 games and they’re form earlier in this tournament has been extremely impressive.  They are one of the most talented and deepest teams I’ve seen play in a really long time.  All I ask is that we bring the same fire to that game Wednesday that we showed today against Egypt.

Pure and simple, this game was an embarrasment.

Brazil is traditionally one of the better teams in the world and few people expected us to win, but the way in which we lost was just sad.  We showed no heart and barely any fight throughout the whole thing.  And again, I really have to question Bradley’s line-up and substitutions decision making, again.  I’m starting to feel more and more that Bradley is not the right coach to take us where we want to go.

My early prediction is three games and out in 2010.  My quick thoughts on this debacle:

• Beasley can’t play anymore until he gets his game and confidence back together.  He’s consistently very average, and when he shows flashes of anything but average, its bad more often than good.  He doesn’t bring near enough to the attack to play outside midfield and he just isn’t cut out to play outside back at the international level.
• Our offense sucks.  We don’t have a clue how to build up an attack to save our lives.  We regressed in this game to just trying to knock long balls down the field to a striker that wasn’t able to hold the ball because he had two defenders on him all the time.  Set pieces and PKs are only going to take us so far and its not going to win us games against tough opponents.
• Clint Dempsey is having serious problems translating his form from Fulham to the USMNT.  I saw him play numerous games in the EPL this past season and his impact on the game was almost always much greater there than I’ve seen in the last several national team games.  Some are questioning if he’s burnt out or he’s having trouble feeling comfortable in or knowing what his role for the national team is.  Whatever the problem, we need him to get that sorted out before next year.
• On the positive side, Jay Demerit and Jonathan Spector have proved themselves as quality defenders for us.  They won’t necessarily be considered world class, but they did a very solid job for us and give me a little comfort in the event of injury.  The left side is still a little questionable, though.

Our last match of the Confederations Cup is this weekend and its going to be very interesting to see what Bradley does with his line-up.  Egypt barely lost to Brazil and beat Italy in their first two matches so I honestly don’t expect us to have much of a chance against them.  It would be the perfect chance to give some of the less experienced players a chance, but I honestly don’t hold out much hope of that happening.

Okay, so I’m several days late on this one so I’m going to make it really quick.

First match of the Confederations Cup against Italy was sort of painful to watch.  We started out better than I expected us to play.  My hopes were sort of dashed when Ricardo Clark got a red card.  My hopes were given back when we got a PK and I thought we might be able to steal a point.  Then they were dashed again when we sort of fell apart in the second half, at least partly from exhaustion.

Here’s my quick thoughts:

• Clark’s red card was harsh.  It was a dumb tackle, but it was his first foul of the game.  It completely changed the tone and dynamic of the game.  Not saying we would have won, but the game would have gone differently.
• Jonathan Spector is one of my outside back picks until he screws up bad or someone really good comes along and displaces him.  He may not be the biggest offensive threat, but he positions himself really well on defense and is much stronger there than some of our other options.
• The most disappointing thing about the game is that the first two goals would have been very easy to at least make more difficult.  No one knows for sure if they could have been prevented, but if someone had stepped forward to pressure the goal scorer in both instances, they don’t get a clean look at goal and we have a better chance of shutting them down.
• We still aren’t finishing from the run of play.  Donovan set up two perfect opportunities for goals for us and Bradley and Altidore choked it, pure and simple.  I’m a big fan of both of those players, but we can’t afford for get those chances and not put them away.

We play Brazil tomorrow in our second game of the Confederations Cup.  They had much more trouble with Egypt than anyone expected, but I’m not sure if that means Egypt is better than anyone thought or if Brazil is playing worse than they usually do.

I’m in Great Falls, Montana right now for work, and I wanted to share some quick thoughts on the area.

This might be one of the most picturesque places I’ve ever been to.  It doesn’t top Scotland for amazing, but there is a little bit of the same kind of feel.  I drove out of the city towards some of the mountains when I got in yesterday, and it had that same quiet, serenity to it that the Scottish Highlands did.

The wide open rolling land that runs right up to the mountains in the distance is just amazing.  It also probably helped that there was the perfect level of cloudiness yesterday, which made the landscape all the more beautiful.

One sort of odd thing that struck me was the presence of the Missouri River.  Its not strange that the river is here, but I just thought it was interesting that its the same river that runs through Cris’ home town hundreds of miles away.  I must say that the Missouri here is much more clean and inviting looking here than it is in Missouri.

Switching topics, things are wonderfully rustic here.  The aiport here is decorated with all wood inside, and I may have seen a stuffed game head on the wall.  (I was exhausted when I got here so I’ll have to confirm this when I fly out).  The hotel lobby has a two story, rough rock waterful with stuffed bears and a mountain cat on it.  I’m really getting the urge to go get a shearling coat so I feel like a fit in around here.

I brought my camera with me up here and I’m hoping that I get at least a couple of good shots while I’m here.  Once I get back home either Friday or this weekend, I’ll try to post them up for you guys to see.

Much better result, marginally better performance.

Getting a win in this game gets us a fair amount closer to qualifying for the Cup. The problem comes in that I, along with a few others that watch the soccer world, am starting to have doubts about how well we’re going to do if we do qualify.

We still don’t create many chances from the run of play and we don’t finish them when we do.  There are still too many instances of marking errors that end up in goals for the opposition. And I’m starting to have doubts about Bob Bradley’s ability to take this team beyond where its been.

His personnel decisions from the last two games were a bit befuddling in some instances, which I’ve already talked about. Also, we continue to struggle for results against teams that we are simply more talented than.

Against both Honduras and Costa Rica we came out very slow and paid the price for it by giving up very early goals. Its part of a coach’s job to get his team ready to play, no matter how intimidating the environment, or make sure he selects players that will have themselves ready.

All in all, I’m just not feeling real positive about how thinks are going at the moment.

Okay enough negativity, a few things I liked from the other night.

I’m not typically a knee jerk reactor, but I liked what I saw from Jonathan Spector on the night. He wasn’t perfect, but he looked much more comfortable defensively than the other outside backs that played against Costa Rica.  He’s on the roster for the confederations cup, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he can bring to the table.  Perhaps if he does well, we can move him to left back when Hejduk or Cherundalo is healthy again and really shore things up.

I’ll go ahead and admit some bias on this, but I was glad to see Feilhaber on the field again. I just like the presence that he brings to the game and some of the skill that he’s shown. He’s definitely not ready to be a starter because of the lack of time he’s had on the field due to injury and rumored attitude issues, but if he can get those things straightened out and raise his game to the international level I’d love to see what he’s capable of.  I think having him and Michael Bradley in the center of midfield would be a pretty interesting pairing.

We move on to the Confederations Cup in South Africa now, where we’ll truly understand how far we have or haven’t come.  We get the pleasure of playing Italy, Egypt, and Brazil in group play, which should, you know, make for some easy games.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope that we can have at least a respectable showing.

Tell me this doesn’t scream of corruption or intimidation.