Tag Archives: Jonathan Spector

Confederations Cup: Brazil 3-0 USA

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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.

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WC Qualifying: USA 2-1 Honduras

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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.

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