Huge win last night for the US Men’s National Team over Mexico in Columbus.  It wasn’t the prettiest of wins, mind you, but ill take an ugly win over a pretty draw or loss any day.  I just thought that I’d share a few thoughts on the game and the performance of some of the players last night.

Generally speaking the team played okay.  It wasn’t flashy and it was a little scrappy at times but we did what we needed to do to win.

The defense looked pretty solid as we’re coming to expect from the pairing of Bocanegra and Onyewu in the center.  I continue to be surprised by Frankie Hejduk and his ability to play solidly for the US as a near senior citizen in soccer terms.  You’re never going to get a ton of exciting offense from him, but his defensive ability is something you can continue to rely on.  As has been the case for a long time, left back is still the position of greatest concern for the US.  Heath Pearce is alright in that position but I think its pretty clear that he’s not a renowned crosser of the ball and his defenses work could be improved.

Our midfield played a respectable game with Michael Bradley being a bright spot.  Kjlestan didn’t have the impact on the game people were hoping for following his hat trick against Sweden.  Beasley was pretty active throughout and worked to get into the mix, but I fealt his impact on the game was spotty. Dempsey had a pretty solid game and looked very comfortable on the ball.

Including Donovan with Ching in discussing the attack, we didn’t get enough from them. Donovan was pretty active getting and giving the ball, but we need him to have a greater positive impact on the attack than what we got last night.  Ching didn’t have his typical blue collar performance of holding up the ball and laying it off to the midfielders to then go forward.   He just wasn’t as involved as we’re used to seeing.

For me, Bradley was the man of the match.  In addition to his two goals, he played very solid defensively from box to box and he did it without getting a card.  He has had a tendency to be a little wreckless in his challenges in the past but last night he displayed a great deal of composure in the timing of his tackles and choosing when to go to ground for a slide tackle.  Another thing I really liked to see from him was a willingness to strike the ball from range. Too often as a team we try to find the perfect shot from inside the box and we’ve needed somoeone to take a chance and hit one from distance.  If his confidence and willingness continues to increase along with his ability to hit those shots on frame it could definitely pay dividends in the future.

We came away with a win, but there are a few things that we will need to do better to keep winning games.  When Mexico went down to ten men we should have pressed forward a little more and gone for the jugular.  They just lost their best defender and captain and we didn’t seem to put anymore pressure on them then we were before his dismissal.

Also, we didn’t manage the end of the game well enough.  We were up a man with about ten minutes to play and we started bunkering back just trying to hold onto the lead.  We arguably controlled the midfield through most of the game and should have continued to do so.  Instead we started dropping deeper into our own end and didn’t put enough pressure on their back four or midfield.  That’s something that our strikers, particularly Altidore, who had fresh legs should have been doing.

All in all, a result we should be happy with.  Our record against the Mexicans at home raises to 9-0-2 with this win, and possibly ends Sven Gorin Eriksson’s run as the Mexican national team head coach.  This also puts us in the driver seat for qualification for the WC next summer, which many feel is a foregone conclusions.  Our next qualifier comes next month away to El Salvador.

Oh, and in case anyone hadn’t figured it out before last night, Rafa Marquez is a dirty hack.