Real quick thoughts before I head out to drink Bloody Mary’s and watch Germany vs England.
Since Wednesday night I had a sinking feeling about the USA’s chances in this match. Ghana is a sneaky great team. They were probably the best team in Group D for the entirety of the three matches. They have great strikers. And they can run.
The USA has never proven it can keep up with teams that run for 90 minutes, nor have we found a way to contain great strikers (Rooney excluded, but it turns out we didn’t so much contain him as much as he forget to show up in South Africa).
When I saw the lineup for yesterday, all feelings I had were made even worse. Ricardo Clark has been a complete disaster this world cup. And the fact that he made it back into the starting 11 once again did not bode well for the USA. It only took Bob Bradley 28 minutes to realize he screwed that one up, but in those 28 minutes Clark was the man responsible for giving up a goal, and he also received a yellow card. I can guarantee you if Maurice Edu had started, Ghana does not score that goal 5 minutes into the match.
Findley should not have started over Gomez or Buddle, both of whom have played great since first catching on with the National Team a few months ago. Adding to the problem up front was Altidore having one of his worst games in a long, long time. All I thought about last night was how things would be different if we had Charlie Davies up front for this World Cup. I like Buddle, and Gomez, but they’re both older, and neither comes close to the talent Davies had. Here’s hoping he continues to recover, because the future of US Soccer depends on him.
It’s a shame we lost, but there were a lot of positives from this World Cup. Landon Donovan, while not absolutely dominant at all times, turned into the leader America thought he would be. Michael Bradley is turning into an absolute star in the midfield, and at only 22 years old, he’s going to continue to shine. Altidore has yet to hit his 21st birthday. Francisco Torres, who played awful against Slovenia but has looked great at times, is also only 22. Edu is young, and he showed this World Cup that he’s capable of handling starting duties for this squad for years to come.
Our biggest questions will be on D, where Bocanegra is getting older. Can Onyewu return to form? Cherundolo and DeMerit both looked great at times, and absolutely atrocious at times. We need a new generation of defenders to show up on the scene for the US.
Time to enjoy the rest of the World Cup. I’ll look back fondly (W vs Algeria) and with heartbreak (yesterday) on this World Cup. But at the end of the day, I’m more optimistic about USA’s future today than I was three weeks ago, and that’s all you can ask for.
I don’t want to come off as a US soccer basher, but I think that’s how this post will read.
The U.S. was lucky to escape the Group Stage. Yes, lucky. You’re kidding yourself if you think the U.S. totally deserved to go to the knockout round.
The goal against England was the luckiest goal by any team in years. Donovan’s goal against Slovenia? The goalkeeper (the only person allowed to use his hands!) got out of the way of the ball without ever putting his hands up. You can talk about disallowed goals or bad calls, but that’s soccer for good and for bad. How many bad/missed calls have been made since the first World Cup in 1930? It’s magnified because it happened to the U.S. One can argue that the U.S. put themselves in those situations.
One can lament the absence of Charlie Davies and lack of form of Onyewu. When those injuries happened, one has to assume that neither of them will be fit enough to play. So the U.S. team had at least 8 months to gameplan around their absences.
Onyewu never should have made the team, that’s the bottom line. He was in the middle of England’s goal and he hurt us against Slovenia. But who else would we have selected? How about someone completely healthy?
Sharkey, you made a comment in a post on here about taking a fully healthy player versus a more skilled player who is at say 70%. Gooch hadn’t played competitively until an International friendly about a month before the WC.
Our defense is what cost us. Our forwards and midfield also came up small. Particularly big bad Jozy Alitdore. Landon Donovan was undeniably the best player for the U.S. and his play warrants a move to Europe. LA Galaxy need to do the right thing and let him go. He deserves it. Clint Dempsey also played extremely well. Tim Howard was also a standout and cemented his place as a top 10-15 ‘keeper in the world.
To be honest, i would have rather the U.S. played better in the Group Stage and NOT made it to the KO stage. I know the saying goes it’s better to be lucky than good, but the U.S. didnt any have ‘good’ to balance with the ‘luck.’
The U.S. just isn’t as good as we think they are. We just don’t have the personnel.
Look for Jurgen Klinsman (spelling?) to become the next coach of the USMNT.
You sound like you’re disagreeing with everything I said, yet you raise a lot of the same points I made.
The defense was horrible. I never endorsed the selection of Onyewu. I was happy he made it, and assumed he would be fully fit. It turns out he wasn’t, and that’s why he didn’t play.
The US has known all along Davies wouldn’t be in the World Cup. I was simply saying I wonder what it would have been like if he hadn’t gotten in that accident. Him & Altidore looked so good up front last year, and I was looking forward to that growing. The problem the US has is there are no good upcoming forwards in our system.
Altidore was fine during the group stage, particularly against Algeria. He was awful against Ghana.
You can say the US should have lost to England, but they should have beaten Slovenia. And not just on that unallowed goal. They were the better team in the 2nd half, and they should have played that way the entire game. It was a wake-up call, and after going down 2-0 they played 150+ minutes of great football.
I don’t know how you could say you’d rather play better in group stage and not advance? That’s just silly. The US played fine in the group stage. Were they great? No. But you can make the argument that they were the better team in all 3 of their matches. They were certainly the best team in Group C. I’m not sure how you could argue that.
They could have played better, but they played well enough to get themselves in a position to make a run in the tournament. They failed against Ghana, but they were just fine up to that point.
The US is just as good as I think they are. Somewhere below the elite of the world, but soundly in the 2nd group; and capable of beating any country on any particular day (ie Spain last year), but also capable of playing awful and still losing to any country on any day (ie Algeria, and all the concacaf teams that gave us a run for our money in 2009).
I guess we are looking at it from different sides. You: glass half full. Me: glass half empty.
Just because the U.S. won the group does not mean they were the best team. They were the best team over the three matches? Now, that’s silly. One could argue that Slovenia, yes Slovenia, was the best team in the group. Yes the U.S. had loads of chances, but quality teams bury those chances. Which goes to the lack of quality forwardrs.
I hope Jozy Alitdore doesn’t go the same route as Freddy Adu. I’ve read articles about JA that say he’s immature and slacks off in training. I understand he’s only 20 years old, but there’s a reason he’s been on 3-4 different clubs in the last 2-3 years. Look at Muller and Ozil from Germany (20 and 21 yrs old), Lukas Podolski from 2006 (best young player of the WC). Quality players are quality players. But then the argument goes, well look who’s feeding them the ball, which goes into quality players, which the U.S. does not have in abundance.
We never tried to outplay anyone until it was too late. You don’t win the World Cup by surrending goals in the first 15 minutes of games. and sooner or later, it’s going to hurt you.
i really think we need a big time coach. Someone with internation/World Cup experience, or big time playing experience.
Slovenia played 1/2 great 1/2 awful against the US, was pretty bad against England, and was good against Algeria.
USA played 1/2 great 1/2 awful against Slovenia, was average against England, and was good against Algeria.
Considering the US should have beaten Slovenia, and really crushed Algeria (in level of play at least), I’d take US over Slovenia in our group.
I have the same fears about Altidore, and the same desire for a bigtime international coach. I’d love Klinsman.
Freddy Adu. I can’t believe how he’s dropped from the national consiousness. He was supposed to be the savior of US soccer.
I know. He got that MLS contract at what, 15/16 years old? He never had the chance to develop into something. The expectations were so high and MLS wanted him to play right away for publicity purposes.
What’s funny is that in my FIFA10 manager mode for 360, i bought both Altidore and Adu and they are studs in my attack.
I bought Altidore in ’09 (he wasn’t good in the game), and he sucked, so I protested against him (in my head) in ’10 and didn’t buy him.
I can’t wait for ’11. Altidore and Ozil are joining Hamsik and Quagliarella on Napoli for me, and I’m going to have the time of my life playing those matches!
Nice one, might come in handy in the near future