Tag Archives: soccer

WC Qualifying: US 2-1 El Salvador

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It was essential for the US to get a win tonight in Salt Lake City, and we came through with a pretty solid performance. Generally speaking, I would say we played well. Our attack was able to create several very good chances, even beyond the goals we scored, and we were able to possess the ball much better than we have in past matches.

Usually, our most dependable aspect of our game, our defense, wasn’t up to the quality of our more recent performances. Part of that is obviously due to the absence of Oguchi Onyewu, who will be back Wednesday after serving a one match suspension for yellow card accumulation during qualifying. Chad Marshall was a serviceable stand in for Onyewu and the injured Demerit, but his lack of experience at the international level showed from time to time.

The most problematic aspect of our defensive game tonight was our ability to clear the ball out of the box. Jonathon Bornstein’s failure to solidly clear the ball led directly to El Salvador’s goal, and the clearance problems continued for others through the rest of the match.

On the subject of Bornstein, I think he’ll be one of the first sent to the bench once other defenders are well enough to play again. One of the most worrying problems with Bornstein is his defensive positioning. Too often there is a significant amount of space for long balls played over the top that outside attackers are able to run on to and cross the ball into the box. Additionally, his offensive abilities are also clearly lacking. Though his lack of crossing ability is concerning, the bigger issue is his penchant for giving the ball away in our own half. He doesn’t appear to have the poise or confidence on the ball to calmly bring it down and find the feet of one of our central midfielders when we’re trying to transition from defense to offense.

In a bit of a departure from the norm, our attack tonight was solid and lively. The combination of Michael Bradley and Benny Feilhaber was a little more attack minded than Bob Bradley usually ops for, but it fit this match and worked well. Dempsey played well and Donovan has clearly found his best position at outside midfield instead of striker.

Donovan has been able to settle into a position at midfield because we have finally found a pair of strikers that are able to both help create and finish goals. Altidore got on to the end of an excellent cross that he put away and simply put, Charlie Davies is the real deal. Its hard for me to single out what I like about Davies right now, because it’s pretty much everything. His physically abilities are obvious, but his intangibles are the source of his success right now. He has exceptional anticipation of where the ball is going to go and he creates chances from that. He also uses every bit of his strength to play bigger than his size and he never gives up on a play. If he continues to improve like he has over the last year, he will fully establish himself as our top offensive threat.

Qualifying continues for the US Wednesday in Trinidad and Tobago. T&T sits in last place in qualifying, but this cycle has already shown that there are no easy road games in CONCACAF, and with the top four teams all within a point of each other every game is a must win.

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Checking In

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Obviously, I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been really busy at work lately and haven’t had a ton of time to write for the blog. By the time I get home from work, I spend a couple of hours relaxing and eating and then I go to bed.

Despite my busy-ness, there are some very exciting things going on right now.

College football is back. I love college football and I’m giddy like a school girl. If you haven’t spent a Saturday in a good college town on game day then you haven’t really lived. And let me be clear, when I say a good college town I mean a SEC or ACC town like Athens, GA, Auburn, AL or Charlottesville, VA. A place where the town is partly built around the school. Okay, I’m going to have to stop talking about it because I don’t live in a town like that anymore and its making me sad.

Second exciting thing going right now is that EPL is back. I think as I’ve been less and less capable of dealing with the rigors of playing soccer, I’ve become more more interested in watching it on TV. This is not something that makes Cris happy. The best part about the new EPL season is that ESPN is playing an EPL game each weekend in high-def. Mmmmmm, soccer in hi-def. And scheduling wise, at least some of the EPL matches will be over before College Gameday starts.

And the biggy of biggies? In exactly two weeks I’ll be married. A year and a half is way too long to be engaged. Planning, at times, has been worse than I thought it would be, but its almost over and it will totally be worth it in the end.

The light at the end of the tunnel, in addition to being married, is a plane from St. Louis, MO to Florence, Italy. What I expect to be almost two of the most glorious weeks ever in Florence, Tuscany, Venice, and the Lake Geneva area of Switzerland. I. Can’t. Wait.

So that’s the news right now. I’m going to try to post more often than I have been lately, but we’ll just have to see how busy everything is.

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Why I Loathe Mexican Soccer

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The below excerpt from this Yahoo article is why I loathe Mexican soccer.

The man with the tri-colored mohawk took a swig of beer, stuck his fingers down his throat and vomited the mixture back into his cup. In the next seat another man, who was wearing a T-shirt with a cartoon drawing of the decapitated heads of Barack Obama and Landon Donovan, poured out what remained of the Corona beer he had been chugging and urinated into his cardboard drinks container.

Then, according to a neutral bystander who witnessed these disgusting acts, the pair stood on their seats, high-fived and hurled their vile concoctions in the direction of Donovan, the United States men’s national team star who was preparing to take a corner kick 15 yards away.

I knew they’re players were dirty hacks who would rather score a goal off a free-kick awarded from a simulated foul than from the run of play, but I didn’t realize their fans were cut from the same or worse cloth.

Late addition: A quote I can’t take credit for.  ”This is why no one takes Mexico seriuosly as a country.”  That made me laugh.

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WC Qualifying: USA 1-2 Mexico

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Expected but still disappointing result.

We didn’t look like the same team that played in the last couple of games of the Confed Cup.  We weren’t terrible, but we definitely weren’t at our best.  Just a couple of quick thoughts on the game.

We lost this game in the midfield.  Our lack of ability to possess the ball in midfield, particularly when transitioning from defense to attack was our downfall.  There were way too many simple giveaways when we passed it straight to them instead of moving the ball methodically down the field.  Too often, we cleared the ball from defense, they reset their attack and came back at us.  If you chase the ball on defense that much for that long of a stretch, you’re going to tire and  defensive breakdowns will happen.  Bradley’s substitutions to bring on Holden and Feilhaber to try to maintain some possession were smart and Holden changed the composure of things in the middle of the park a little, but not enough to invigorate our attack or simply allow us to really hold on to the ball.

We were also missing performances from some players that we had to have if we were going to come away with points.  Dempsey was definitely off his game, Donovan showed flashes but wasn’t consistent throughout, Clark didn’t have a great deal of impact in the middle and Bradley was very quiet until the second half.

I guess the good that I saw was that we didn’t give up a goal early even in a ridiculously hostile environment and we didn’t give up.  We battled for the entire game.  I also have to say that I like Charlie Davies more and more every time I watch him play.  I think its sort of ironic that Freddy Adu and Jozy have gotten so much attention, but I see Charlie Davies as the young striker that’s come in and had the greatest impact on the national team.  His goal looked like a true finisher’s goal and I finally have confidence in someone that if they get through on goal he’s going to put it away a majority of the time.

Our next qualifying test comes against El Salvador in Salt Lake City on Sept. 5.  El Salvador currently sits tied for last in qualifying with five points from six games.  That being said, if yesterdays results from other qualifying matches are any indication noone should be taken lightly; all of the lower placed teams won yesterday.

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Gold Cup: Group Stage Review

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The USMNT just finished the group stages of the Gold Cup last night with a draw against Haiti.  Just coming off a busy schedule with the Confederations Cup, we brought in a batch of players that hadn’t been playing with the full senior team lately.  Given the number of players with little to no experience at the senior level, I decided I wasn’t going to do a review after each game.  I wanted to see how things panned out a little before I formed any real opinions.

Now that the first three games are over, I feel like I’ve seen enough play to form some opinions on how we looked and performances from individual players.  This is what I saw from the first three games.

Freddy Adu has a fair distance to go before I’m convinced he belongs on the field.  He’s obviously rusty from not playing, but this was supposed to be his chance to show that he deserved to be considered for regular time with the full team anyway.  Its understandable that his touch is going to be rusty and hit fitness wouldn’t be great, but he just lost possession of the ball way too easily way too many times.  I’m starting to get the feeling that he was overhyped, or he’s just not reaching his full potential.  Bottom line, right now we have too many other options that are much better than him in the midfield.

Continue reading →

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Confederations Cup: USA 2-3 Brazil

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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.

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Confederations Cup: USA 2-0 Spain

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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.

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Confederations Cup: USA 3-0 Egypt

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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.

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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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Confederations Cup: Italy 3-1 US

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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.

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