I haven’t read a single commentary - online, dead-tree, professional, amateur or otherwise - about Saturday’s game when the United States’ b-team beat a Danish b-team by a score of 3-1. I wanted to work from memory as much as I could. And here’s what stuck:
The Good
1) Justin Mapp meets Jonathan Bornstein. Mapp’s run down the Danish left stuck with me longer than anything. It was great to see him live up to expectation, better still to see him do it with hair on loan from Peter Tork. And Bornstein’s goal was a nice, sneaky-shit kind of goal. Very good.
2) ‘Twas Good to see us come from behind. I was very happy that we neither spazzed nor folded after giving up a goal on some sloppy defending.
3) Cooper’s Goal. Agonizing as it was to watch him lumber up the middle, Cooper took his goal very well - even if I wonder why the Danish ‘keeper didn’t do more to cut down the angle with Cooper coming in all alone.
4) Honorable mentions: Clark’s tenacity was the tonic the team needed - even if the PK call was dubious; the near-miss on that penalty aside, Donovan had a solid all-round effort, especially in the first half when it seemed he was all we had on offense; Mastroeni held the middle pretty well.
The Bad
1) The Danish goal. No matter how short a time the team had to find their feet, the disarray in our back line, particularly in the first half, just shouldn’t occur among professionals.
2) Missing Claudio. This may be something of a long-term project, but we need to manage the ball better. While this no doubt aggravated the problems on defense, our difficulty in keeping the ball and pacing the game will keep us out of the world elite till we get it figured out. As generally implied by the above, we improved during the second half - either that, or the Danes got pooped - but it wouldn’t have cut it against stronger opposition. And that includes a Danish first team.
3) Attendance. Hello.....echo.... Seriously, I thought we’d do better than that. Nice that some Danish fans showed up though.
For all that, it wasn’t a bad debut for Bradley and a number of the new players. Bornstein, Mapp, Cooper all looked quite comfortable; the fact I stopped noticing Bobby Boswell after about the 20th minute suggests he probably did well enough. But the defensive positioning on the Danish goal remains a sore point - and also a worrying sign for the upcoming (February 7) game against Mexico.
In any case, I very much doubt this is all I'll have to say on the game; someone out there will knock something else loose, no doubt.
(#########)
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