Coming off the debacle of a game against Spain I have to admit that I was really worried about our chances in the Gold Cup. The team that played last night looked nothing like what we saw last week. I recognize there is a different level of quality between the opponents, but the whole attitude of the US team was completely different. A couple of thoughts from the game. Continue reading
Been away for a little while, but had some thoughts I felt compelled to share after the last two USMNT friendlies with Argentina and Paraguay.
So this post is way way overdue, but I still have the thoughts bouncing around in my head and wanted to share them anyway. Removed from the immediate reaction to the game, it will likely be more abreviated than it originally was going to be.
Generally speaking, a better game against a worse opponent. Yes, we looked much better, but I also think that El Salvador was a better opponent. That being said, we took care of business in the way we should have against a weaker opponent, which is something we haven’t consistently done in the past.
Jozy Altidore had a bit of a coming out party on the night. He’s shown ability every time he’s been on the field for the US, but as they used to say on Sportscenter, he did with “with authority.” The first goal, once again, displayed his instinct to be in the right place at the right time. His second goals showed the composure and guile a striker needs to be consistent at putting the ball in the back of the net, and his third showed his ability to get lucky; another quality strikers will always appreciate on their side. For any that didn’t see it, Altidore’s third goals was more the result of unselfish play from teammates and really poor goalkeeping than clinical finishing.
I liked having Donovan at outside midfield rather than up front. I think he can get more involved in play and have a better impact on the game.
Beasley was servicable at left back, but his lack of playing time with Rangers has noticeably hurt his form. Unless he’s able to prove he is not in fact stagnating in his growth, he could become more familiar with Bob Bradley’s demeanor on the bench during games than he’d like.
Here are the positions I think we need to focus on getting sorted out. Other places on the field aren’t necessarily perfect, but they are a little better off then what I’ve listed here.
The summer looks to be pretty busy for the USMNT starting in June with two more WC qualifiers, followed by the Confederations Cup in South Africa, and then the Gold Cup back here in the states. With all of these games we should learn a great deal more about the first team players, and I would imagine, some of the newer players in the mix and their ability to push for a starting position or solidifying a reserve spot on the bench.
To put it simply, this was an incredibly disappointing performance and result for the USMNT. Going into the match the US was #17 in the FIFA rankings and El Salvador was #106, and while road WC qualifiers anywhere in Central America are going to prove a little more difficult due to the hostile environment, the US was heavily favored to come away with a win and three points. I think they heard that message a few too many times, and then someone forgot to tell them they were actually playing in a game before the second El Salvador goal and 75 minutes into the match.
There was a lot wrong with how the US approached and played this game. I’m not usually all that critical of the decisions that Bob Bradley makes, but I think much of the blame for the poor showing has to fall on his shoulders. US soccer has grown to a point where we should recognize when we’re technically superior to teams and take the game to the opposition. We had no sense of urgency, no sharpness, and we played a generally conservative formation that hasn’t exactly lit up the scoreboard for us in past games. Its Bradley’s responsibility to get the team ready and set them up in a formation that is going to lead to wins and he simply failed to do that in this outing.
I usually go through the squad and point out some of the bad performances and then some of the better performances. I think that’s going to be a little more difficult here since so many of the performances were subpar at best. The most disappointing games from my perspective came from Heath Pearce, Landon Donovan, and Sacha Kjlestan.
Pearce has played some very forgettable games recently and he isn’t looking like he’s the answer at left back, which has been a long standing problem for the USMNT. Many have called for Beasley to be tried at left back, but seeing how easily he was beaten on El Salvador’s second goal and his generally rusty form, likely a result of his lack of playing time at Rangers, I’m not sure he’s the solution right now either.
Sacha Kjlestan has shown some promise as he’s come up through the national team youth squads, with the Olympic team and a few games with the full men’s team, but his last two showings have been lacking the quality that is needed for him to hold a starting place in the team.
I think Donovan’s game was the most disappointing. Its no secret that I’m not the biggest fan of Donovan’s and games like this are the perfect example of why. He’s always noted as the US’s best player and the key to our offense, but he once again showed his tendency to disappear during a game. In a game when he should have been one of the most dominating players on the field, it was hard to remember that he was even playing. Donovan’s place in the team is far from in danger, but playing like that is completely unacceptable if you’re going to be a leader on the team.
Good performances from the game; this won’t take long.
Altidore obviously had a big impact on the game and that goes beyond the goal he scored. He brought a litte bit more energy to the attack and he put a game winning opportunity on a silver platter for Brian Ching in the waning moments. I don’t think he’s ready for a starting role simply because I don’t think he can go 90 minutes yet with the lack of minutes he’s getting for his club side, but I think he should be getting heavy minutes in the second half of any USMNT game. As his time with his club increases, so should his role with with the national team.
This is the part where I’m cautiously optimistic about Jose Francisco Torres. His presence in the midfield changed the tempo, tone, and the impact of our attack. He was confident on the ball and more dynamic than anything else we had during the night. I’m cautious largely because he hasn’t played much at the national level yet, but he should definitely be given serious consideration to take Sacha’s place in Wednesday night’s game.
So we play Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday in Nashville. This is another game that we should win, particularly with us playing at home and having Tim Howard back in goal and Onyewu back in the lineup from his slight knee strain. Conversely, T&T has some proven players that can definitely hurt us if aren’t on top of our game. We dropped two points against El Salvador that we should have walked away with and we can’t afford to let that happen again Wednesday.
Disjointed and disappointing; my view of the US’s performance in a nutshell.
At the most basic level, the result of this game didn’t really matter because the US had already qualified for the next round of qualifying. Despite this fact, you always hope to play your best, get a good result, and you want to come away encouraged by the performance no matter the final score. Unfortunately, I’m not all that encouraged by the display last night, though I’m not as discouraged as one might think.
The greatest impression I take from this game is that we fielded a team full of players that rarely play with each other, and have no history of playing with each other. Typically, the team we put together has a couple of days at a time with each other, but the big difference is that most of them have been playing with each other for at least a couple of years which has given them a fair level of familiarity. The team we put out there yesterday was very green individually in addition to not having hardly any time together as a squad.
Essentially what the coaches did last night was to throw a whole bunch of guys that probably aren’t completely comfortable out there to see what would happened, and they got a result that I think they should have expected. Realistically, if the young guys get introduced into the team, its going to be paired with a squad that is going to be more comfortable and confident with the pace and tone of an international match. Throwing all the young guys on the field together isn’t really going to do anyone any favors. You won’t be able to get an honest assessment of how they would fit in to your team and they really won’t have the opportunity to get a good feel for playing for the US national team. My fear is that a player who would play well and fit in with the full squad won’t get a fair shake because of how they perform in a game where they weren’t really set up to succeed, in my opinion.
All that being said, there were a couple of places that weren’t so dependent on team mechanics that I thought were lacking. For all of the talk about Altidore’s speed and size, I’d like to see him impose them a little more on defenders. I didn’t think he played that strongly with his back to goal and expect to see more out of him in that regard. Also, the PK he gave up is enough to make me pull my hair out.
Last night also showed how far ahead the pairing of Bocanegra and Onyewu are in relation to other central defenders. This is a perfect example where it would have been nice to play one of the two of them with a less experienced center back to help keep the new guy from feeling like he’s drowning. I also don’t think Heath Pearce did himself any favors last night. There were several clearance attempts that were a little scary and he just seemed a little frenetic and unsettled in general.
Brad Guzan didn’t display the kind of confidence and polish that we’ve come to expect from our goalkeepers over the years. There’s really nothing he could have done on the goals and he was very unlucky on the first one, but he didn’t do a very good job of collecting the shots he did stop and his clearance attempt in the first half that almost resulted in T&T’s first goal needs to get up and out.
Finally, as a team we should have numerous training sessions devoted only to crossing the ball into the box. We did a fairly good job of getting ourselves into position to send the ball in from the wings and came up sorely wanting numerous times. I am pleased that we made progress to getting in the crossing position, but it does no good if the final step in the process comes up short.
The US has several weeks off before their next match against Guatemala in Colorado on Nov. 19th. I expect we’ll see a lot of the less experienced players again, but I hope that Bradley decides to bring in a few more of the seasoned veterans to provide some balance to the sqaud.
Another great game for the US that I believes locks up advancement to the next stage of qualifying for us. I’m really glad that I had the chance to get my national team fix in person. The atmosphere for the game was great and the team put on a pretty good display for us, overall. A couple of specific thoughts.
I thought the first half of the game was a bit frustrating and that we didn’t play as well as we could have. We definitely could have been better and we gave up kind of a crappy goal. The shot was as actually a really quality shot, but our defeding leading up to the shot was suspect.
From my perspective from this game, one of our biggest short comings in our offense is that we’re overly patient. I know that sounds really strange, but there were so many times that one of our midfielders got the ball and played it straight back to who played it to them when they had time and space to turn with the ball push the attack forward. I’m not one to promote a lot of dribble on the ball, but without a balance of both passing and dribbling the offense gets predictable making it easier to defend. We need for some of our players to be willing and able to push the ball forward on the dribble instead of passing 100% of the time.
Our defense was completely solid except for the series where they scored. We had a pretty decent shutout streak going and I’m sure Tim Howard was probably pretty pissed about giving up a goal. The thing we have to remember is that we can’t afford to have mental breakdowns like that against better teams. A Spain or Argentina will make us pay for mistakes like that and we won’t always have the ability to score six goals and get the win anyway.
I was glad to see some of the younger guys get in and see some time. Hopefully, having advancement locked we’ll see even more play from them. I’m glad that Kjlestan started to add a more attacking element to the midfield, and Adu and Altidore obviously got in with Altidore putting a goal away for us. I was also glad to see Torres get some time and I thought he handled himself well. He did appear to have a little big of first game jitters, but I also thought he showed some pretty nice promise.
I really hope that Bradely takes the chance to play a lot of the younger guys on Wednesday to see what they can do. One that I hope to see the most is Torres, just to get more of an idea of what he’s capable of. I’d also like to see Adu and Altidore in the game from the start. It would also probably be smart to give more playing time to guys who don’t play as much to further their experience in case they’re need due to injury of a normal starter.He’s one I’m probably most interested in seeing against Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday.
Bob Bradley announced the group of players being called into pre-match camp for the upcoing qualifier against Cuba in Washington, D.C. (a game I’m happy to say I’m going to) I’m doubly interested in seeing this game due some some of the guys that have been called into camp.
The US has already accumulated enough points to where it will be difficult for us to not move on to the next stage of qualifying. Cuba has yet to win a point in qualifying and this game shouldn’t serve as the biggest test for us. It appears as though Bradley has taken the comfortable position we’re in to try out some of the younger guys in the national team pool; some guys I’ve wanted to see a little more with the full team. This is who has been called in to camp:
GOALKEEPERS (3): Brad Guzan (Aston Villa, Tim Howard (Everton FC), Troy Perkins (Valerenga IF).
DEFENDERS (8): Carlos Bocanegra (Rennes), Danny Califf (FC Midtjylland), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover 96), Jay DeMerit (Watford FC), Frankie Hejduk (Columbus Crew), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard de Liege), Michael Orozco (San Luis), Heath Pearce (Hansa Rostock).
MIDFIELDERS (7): Freddy Adu (AS Monaco), DaMarcus Beasley (Glasgow Rangers), Michael Bradley (Borussia Moenchengladbach), Maurice Edu (Glasgow Rangers), Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA), Danny Szetela (Brescia Calcio), José Francisco Torres (Pachuca).
FORWARDS (5): Jozy Altidore (Villarreal C.F.), Brian Ching (Houston Dynamo), Charlie Davies (Hammarby IF), Clint Dempsey (Fulham FC), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy).
I’ve highlighted some of the guys that haven’t played a big part in qualifying to this point. One thing I’ll clarify is that there are 23 guys that have been called into camp, but, if I understand correctly, only 18 will be named to the game day roster. Its quite possible that some of these guys were called in to get a little bit of experience with the national team and see how well they do against other first team competition, not necessarily to play in the game.
I’m doubtful that Troy Perkins is going to get any playing time. Howard is almost certain to start, and if they want to give another keeper some more experience, Guzan is the most likely one b/c he’s been the backup longer and he doesn’t have a great deal of game time with the national team himself. Another in that situation may be Orozco, given all of the experience in the other defenders that were brought in.
The midfield call-ups are a little more interesting. Adu has played before, but most fans and a good bit of the press have wanted to see more of him to see if he can add more potency to our attack. I have to admit that I don’t know anything about Torres, as this is the first time that I’ve heard of him. I initially thought he would be a camp only guy, but we haven’t found anyone reliable to play at left midfield, where Torres plays, when Beasley is hurt or unavailable so he very well could get a run out if he does well in camp.
The two that I hope to see the most would be Charlie Davies and Altidore. As I’ve noted over and over, our defense has been really worrisome and I’m really interested to see what some new blood can do. Altidore hasn’t gotten much playing time for Villareal yet, but I still want to see more of what he’s capable of. From what I’ve heard, Charlie Davies has had a very successful year in Sweden. That being said, I’m doubtful that Davies will get to play in the game just b/c he’s still a little too low on the totum pole to make it to match day.
As I noted before, I’ll be going to this match and I’ll be putting up a post game report next weekend.