To begin with full disclosure, I didn’t see a second of the U.S. loss to Paraguay; I haven’t even seen highlights. I have, by now, read three items on the game and, by my reckoning, the several consistent themes on which they agree tell me enough of what I need to know. Before getting into this whole spiel, here are the links:
Maryland Tolik (a reader’s comment, so go to the bottom of the post)
Jen Chang (on ESPN)
Jeff Carlisle (on ESPN)
And, now, to business: I come not to praise the U.S. Men’s National Team (Yanquis), but to bury them...and I mean that in precisely the same way Marc Antony did.
We all know we lost, with much of the blame for that going to the limitations of the American forward. To quote a favorite line (Bull Durham again - sorry) forwards Taylor Twellman and Eddie Johnson sometimes give them impression that they couldn’t hit water if they fell out of a fucking boat. Against opposition higher in quality than a Norwegian B-team, our current first-choice forwards have played with the vision and sharpness of near-sighted klutzes on multiple occasions.
On defense, a former strength when coupled with a “gritty” (read “thuggishly disruptive”) central midfield, we’re still fiddling with the dial in search of the right combination. For example, the consensus view seems to hold that Bradley needs to call off his love affair with Jonathan Bornstein; Oguchi Onyewu no longer looks the savior; judging by the Kansas City’s Wizards’ defensive record, Jimmy Conrad is slipping against Major League Soccer (MLS) forwards; the reality is, recently-fielded combinations of Yanqui defenses labored to contain teams like Guatemala, Panama, and Canada - never mind Argentina.
In midfield, we have mastered work-rate and fundamental technical skills - think competent passing and trapping...you may laugh, but I remember the days when this vital piece was lacking. Once in a blue moon, Benny Feilhaber or Clint Dempsey manages the killer pass, or Justin Mapp darts through seams in the opposing defense, but with nothing like the consistency the international game demands. Moments of inspiration aside, however, we still haven’t grasped tactical fundamentals like possession play and managing the game - and that conceptual failing only returns us to relying on energy and those odd moments where our players’ feet kiss the ball just so.
But for all that, reports from the last two games generally agree that, 1) we played world-power Argentina tolerably well for 60 minutes, and, 2) we essentially went toe-to-toe with Paraguay on every level but finishing and the more refined aspects of the game. On top of that, we not only won the Gold Cup, but now enter our regional tournament - not to mention World Cup qualifying - as an automatic favorite.
If you told me that the above would pertain after France 1998 - hell, after the 1990s, period - I would have wept with joy. And how long ago is 1998? Nine years, people.
Heading into - and out of - the 2006 World Cup so much was written about the elevated expectations under which Yanqui teams now operate. There’s so much talk still about how labored our steps toward world-power status have been, along with prescriptions for what can ease that climb; crowning a rising player as The Anointed One who will provide the vital leg-up comes up all too often...with the advisability - no, the necessity - of sending said player to Europe’s proving grounds rarely far behind. The reality, though, is that it’s going to take more than one player to lift us to the top of the heap - a team of such players is needed - and no matter how many go to Europe and how soon.
The real question is why so many fans expect so much - and so soon. For every advantage we enjoy - a population of 300 million, for instance, against relevant rivals who have only 80 million - a commensurate downside exists: those 80 million live in a country where soccer is the most popular sport, whereas we have at least three sports competing for, and still winning, the scramble for athletes. The hard reality is, we’re in, at best, late adolescence as a soccer-playing country. We are developing - quickly even - but expecting any American squad to beat a big alpha-male team like Argentina at this stage in our development leaps from enthusiasm to delusion. Reasonable as it is to point out that we have beat Argentina further down that developmental curve, that confuses a great day with a great life; it’s not so different, really, from assuming that finding a $100 bill lying on the ground one morning means you’ll find one everyday.
A comment just came in (on that same post as Maryland Tolik’s) by Gareth Sleger, who hopes Bob Bradley won’t use sending a b-squad as an excuse for our Copa performance. While I think he’s correct on that, I also don’t believe we have anything to excuse. We sent the team we sent, they’ve lost, but proudly. More important, we learned a thing or two (e.g. axe Bornstein; send our forwards to the Wizard of Oz, Johnson for some courage and Twellman for that tool he hawks on TV, plus an allotment of several thousand hours to practice with it) and deepened our player pool in the process. That poor finishing looks something like the final hurdle constitutes a hell of a step up in my mind: having 1/3 the way to go beats the hell out of having more.
The key component to improving the Yanqui soccer program is, and always has been the same: time. And trends here are good: we’ve got players entering the national team pool at a younger age and further along in their personal/technical development. Again, tell me we’d be here nine years ago and I would French kiss the nearest available human being regardless of age, gender, and physical beauty (though one can hope the stars line up). Assuming the developmental infrastructure doesn’t collapse and that the numbers generally grow - as they seem to be doing - we’ll get there...even at forward.
Showing posts with label Jonathan Bornstein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jonathan Bornstein. Show all posts
Gold Cup: Eunuchs Lifted into Final
To put my thoughts on last night’s game on a bitter simmer...and, as with all things simmered, this will be long.
The U.S. lost. On every level but the final score, we lost last night. Canada carried about 2/3 of the game and played with greater intelligence and precision. The blown offside call thwarted the Canadian rally in the end, but that may be better understood as a unique and plain symbol of a game in which Fortune, by and large, favored the undeserving.
And before going any further, I want to get in this: Sunday’s final is going to be fucking torture.
Now, where to begin?
As implied above, Canada certainly looked the better team - more certain in their approach and execution. They moved the ball far more effectively and, with the exception of long, crossing passes and wayward passes aside, to places where the receiving player was 90% certain to get it. Apart from the two times we laudably broke through - and on the couple occasions where we nearly did - the Maple Leaf’s defense ably contained the American attack, especially our forwards.
On the American side, we destroyed more ably than we created. The outstanding disturbing element in our game last night, however, came with our passing; I saw so many short, bobbled, indecisive - just flat-out worthless - passes; no less a problem were the series of clumsy attempts to dribble out of trouble in the defensive third, our players stabbed and/or entirely missed clearances, and the general air of panic. When we didn’t botch short passes, we resorted to long balls too often and too soon, especially out of the back; this evidenced some anxiety about playing through the Canadian midfield, particularly in the first half.
We did have some good spells and, not coincidentally, we scored our goals during one of them. Frankie Hejduk did score a peach and he looked at least as shocked to score it as I was to see him do so, but our play in the stretch before it made that, and Donovan’s penalty kick, possible. But Hejduk’s goal was more noteworthy in that it shows our capacity to build from the back and establish possession in the opposition half. The goal did come, if memory serves, from a set-play, but we earned that set-play by making the Canadians chase us in dangerous parts of the field. And that’s the pisser: we can do it. And, when the Canadians had to chase the game a little to start the second half, we did well with that...till our legs gave way to jittering fatigue, that is.
The maddening, and not a little eerie, reality is the fact the game played out precisely as expected, particularly within the context of the 2007 Gold Cup tournament; the game unfolded almost as if scripted. We score - once, twice, it doesn’t matter - and simply cannot maintain and hold things together. It almost begs the question of what scares American players so goddamn much about scoring?
As most attacks before them, the Canadians stretched and scrambled most of the back four - Hejduk, somewhat surprisingly, stood as the exception - the difference being that they could exploit the gaps. Given when the Maple Leaf’s finally managed their actual breakthroughs, I assume fatigue played a role; it’s more likely, however, that fatigue - and rather stupid attrition - hit our midfield by the end, thereby exposing a rickety defense. The inability of our more offensive players to maintain possession and kill the game meant more time spent chasing, hence more fatigue, etc. It’s a grand, knock-on effect in the end and the pieces keep falling till they run into - and, last night, over - a defense that has yet to cohere - and, in terms of the specific personnel, perhaps never will.
Looking back on the tournament as a whole, the U.S. turned in exactly one comprehensive performance - the win over El Salvador. We’re now in the final against the team arguably best equipped to exploit the highly apparent disorganization that has featured in...every...single...game except that one game; then again, in our favor, the Mexicans have hardly lit up defenses poorer than ours. But still....anyone feel like we’re a solid favorite?
The hard reality is, even if we win the final, this tournament leaves me feeling LESS secure about the future of the U.S. Men’s National Team. We have very real problems to sort out, starting with our back line; we need to get that sorted out to alleviate some worry about what happens when the up-field players can’t swing their part.
That's the free-flowing part: time to turn to player rankings and such. For the record, a 5.0 rating denotes a performance that didn’t hurt or appreciably help. Before that, however, let’s dispense with the honors for the game:
Man of the Match: Canada’s Ian Hume. He came onto the field like a one-man shot of adrenaline, not only scoring the Leaf’s goal, but adding vital bite to the Canadian midfield.
The U.S. Man of the Match: Frankie Hejduk, hands down - he’s the inspiration for the title to this post. He played like he had balls on loan from half the team...too many of whom played as if they’d loaned out theirs.
Kasey Keller, 4.0: Damn, did he have issues with decisiveness. And starting him over Tim Howard still has me scratching my head.
Frankie Hejduk, 8.5: If his passing and crossing were better, he’d go higher. But Hejduk shut down the Canadian left, tackled like a demon, stretched the Canadians going forward and he scored a goal. It flat-out sucks he misses the final...even though I’m pretty sure he left his legs on Soldier Field last night.
Carlos Bocanegra, 4.5: Lucky not to have been sent off for the tackle on de Guzman. His interventions on defense connected poorly too often, whether with his body on a player on with his feet to the ball.
Oguchi Onyewu, 4.0: He bumbled when playing out of danger more than once and drifted out of position too often. I’m ready to look elsewhere.
(By way of general comment, Onyewu and Bocanegra are not the central defensive pairing of the future. There’s a palpable lack of organization in general in the back that relies too much on desperate, pack defending that has our players to get in one another’s way.)
Jonathan Bornstein, 2.5: I don’t want to see this guy in a U.S. jersey for a couple years, period; I wouldn’t lose sleep over never either. Last night exposed all my worries about his penchant for getting beat - Bernier ate him alive in the first half - and his, frankly, shitty traps in bad places.
DaMarcus Beasley, 6.0: Add a flash or two on offense - he did well to cause the penalty - to overall sound defensive work and harassing of the Canadian back line and you get a good overall game. Not as good as he can be, but good.
Michael Bradley, 5.5: He would have scored quite a bit higher, but that was about the dumbest goddamn red card I’ve seen this year. Apart from that, however, Bradley was strong and active, one of our better players out there.
Pablo Mastroeni, 6.0: Until Hume came on for Canada, I thought both Mastroeni and Bradley did really well. Pablo tired by the end, but, before that, he played the d-mid role pretty well.
Landon Donovan, 5.5: The odd thing is, Donovan kind of did what people want him to last night: force the game. Trouble is, he didn’t do it all that well; he carried into dead ends too often, didn’t pass early enough, etc. It’s depressingly remarkable that he was still our most dangerous player. His PK technique is weird - and I don’t mean his ritual; it’s the bombing it up the middle thing.
Eddie Johnson, 4.0: Will someone please pull the plug on the EJ Experiment? He lacks confidence and aggressiveness at this level, pure and simple. Did he run at anyone? Not that I recall. Did his passing push the offense? Rarely. Take away the time Donovan played him behind the Canadian defense - a great, alert run that petered out with, yep, a lack of aggression - and his rating goes lower.
Clint Dempsey, 5.0: He may actually be our best passer, but he was a step off last night. The moves he had been making all tournament to keep possession didn’t work last night. He just looked flat. (UPDATE: I finally read a report or two, which reminded me of the good things Demspey did - much of which goes back to the "best passer" line, but which also include his near-miss header - and acknowledge I rated him too low: so revise this to read, Clint Dempsey
Subs:
Benny Feilhaber, 4.5: Needs to orient his brain to a possession game...or cede the job to someone who can. Feilhaber didn’t actually perform badly, but he should have recognized the need to slow down the game instead of pushing it forward.
Taylor Twellman, 6.0: I can’t believe this, but, in the short time Twellman was on the field, he was the only one who seemed to appreciate the need to keep the ball in the Canadian end of the field. He wasn’t always successful, but at least he tried.
Ricardo Clark, 5.0: He barely merits ranking, though I’m tempted to ding him for reaching his foot up to a ball in our penalty area that he needed to control more decisively.
Bob Bradely, 3.5: Yep, the coach gets a number because, in my view, he impacted the game in all the wrong ways. Where were the subs? Clint Dempsey appeared stumbling tired by the 70th minute, if not early, and Donovan looked ready for a breather; Eddie Johnson never started and should have been subbed by the half. Clark should have come on sooner for Mastroeni, he started Keller over Howard for reasons that beg explanation, etc.
OK. I’m done. I can’t think of the last time I’ve been so disappointed with a win. It’s games like this that make qualifying for the World Cup look a lot more complicated today than it did in May 2007.
The U.S. lost. On every level but the final score, we lost last night. Canada carried about 2/3 of the game and played with greater intelligence and precision. The blown offside call thwarted the Canadian rally in the end, but that may be better understood as a unique and plain symbol of a game in which Fortune, by and large, favored the undeserving.
And before going any further, I want to get in this: Sunday’s final is going to be fucking torture.
Now, where to begin?
As implied above, Canada certainly looked the better team - more certain in their approach and execution. They moved the ball far more effectively and, with the exception of long, crossing passes and wayward passes aside, to places where the receiving player was 90% certain to get it. Apart from the two times we laudably broke through - and on the couple occasions where we nearly did - the Maple Leaf’s defense ably contained the American attack, especially our forwards.
On the American side, we destroyed more ably than we created. The outstanding disturbing element in our game last night, however, came with our passing; I saw so many short, bobbled, indecisive - just flat-out worthless - passes; no less a problem were the series of clumsy attempts to dribble out of trouble in the defensive third, our players stabbed and/or entirely missed clearances, and the general air of panic. When we didn’t botch short passes, we resorted to long balls too often and too soon, especially out of the back; this evidenced some anxiety about playing through the Canadian midfield, particularly in the first half.
We did have some good spells and, not coincidentally, we scored our goals during one of them. Frankie Hejduk did score a peach and he looked at least as shocked to score it as I was to see him do so, but our play in the stretch before it made that, and Donovan’s penalty kick, possible. But Hejduk’s goal was more noteworthy in that it shows our capacity to build from the back and establish possession in the opposition half. The goal did come, if memory serves, from a set-play, but we earned that set-play by making the Canadians chase us in dangerous parts of the field. And that’s the pisser: we can do it. And, when the Canadians had to chase the game a little to start the second half, we did well with that...till our legs gave way to jittering fatigue, that is.
The maddening, and not a little eerie, reality is the fact the game played out precisely as expected, particularly within the context of the 2007 Gold Cup tournament; the game unfolded almost as if scripted. We score - once, twice, it doesn’t matter - and simply cannot maintain and hold things together. It almost begs the question of what scares American players so goddamn much about scoring?
As most attacks before them, the Canadians stretched and scrambled most of the back four - Hejduk, somewhat surprisingly, stood as the exception - the difference being that they could exploit the gaps. Given when the Maple Leaf’s finally managed their actual breakthroughs, I assume fatigue played a role; it’s more likely, however, that fatigue - and rather stupid attrition - hit our midfield by the end, thereby exposing a rickety defense. The inability of our more offensive players to maintain possession and kill the game meant more time spent chasing, hence more fatigue, etc. It’s a grand, knock-on effect in the end and the pieces keep falling till they run into - and, last night, over - a defense that has yet to cohere - and, in terms of the specific personnel, perhaps never will.
Looking back on the tournament as a whole, the U.S. turned in exactly one comprehensive performance - the win over El Salvador. We’re now in the final against the team arguably best equipped to exploit the highly apparent disorganization that has featured in...every...single...game except that one game; then again, in our favor, the Mexicans have hardly lit up defenses poorer than ours. But still....anyone feel like we’re a solid favorite?
The hard reality is, even if we win the final, this tournament leaves me feeling LESS secure about the future of the U.S. Men’s National Team. We have very real problems to sort out, starting with our back line; we need to get that sorted out to alleviate some worry about what happens when the up-field players can’t swing their part.
That's the free-flowing part: time to turn to player rankings and such. For the record, a 5.0 rating denotes a performance that didn’t hurt or appreciably help. Before that, however, let’s dispense with the honors for the game:
Man of the Match: Canada’s Ian Hume. He came onto the field like a one-man shot of adrenaline, not only scoring the Leaf’s goal, but adding vital bite to the Canadian midfield.
The U.S. Man of the Match: Frankie Hejduk, hands down - he’s the inspiration for the title to this post. He played like he had balls on loan from half the team...too many of whom played as if they’d loaned out theirs.
Kasey Keller, 4.0: Damn, did he have issues with decisiveness. And starting him over Tim Howard still has me scratching my head.
Frankie Hejduk, 8.5: If his passing and crossing were better, he’d go higher. But Hejduk shut down the Canadian left, tackled like a demon, stretched the Canadians going forward and he scored a goal. It flat-out sucks he misses the final...even though I’m pretty sure he left his legs on Soldier Field last night.
Carlos Bocanegra, 4.5: Lucky not to have been sent off for the tackle on de Guzman. His interventions on defense connected poorly too often, whether with his body on a player on with his feet to the ball.
Oguchi Onyewu, 4.0: He bumbled when playing out of danger more than once and drifted out of position too often. I’m ready to look elsewhere.
(By way of general comment, Onyewu and Bocanegra are not the central defensive pairing of the future. There’s a palpable lack of organization in general in the back that relies too much on desperate, pack defending that has our players to get in one another’s way.)
Jonathan Bornstein, 2.5: I don’t want to see this guy in a U.S. jersey for a couple years, period; I wouldn’t lose sleep over never either. Last night exposed all my worries about his penchant for getting beat - Bernier ate him alive in the first half - and his, frankly, shitty traps in bad places.
DaMarcus Beasley, 6.0: Add a flash or two on offense - he did well to cause the penalty - to overall sound defensive work and harassing of the Canadian back line and you get a good overall game. Not as good as he can be, but good.
Michael Bradley, 5.5: He would have scored quite a bit higher, but that was about the dumbest goddamn red card I’ve seen this year. Apart from that, however, Bradley was strong and active, one of our better players out there.
Pablo Mastroeni, 6.0: Until Hume came on for Canada, I thought both Mastroeni and Bradley did really well. Pablo tired by the end, but, before that, he played the d-mid role pretty well.
Landon Donovan, 5.5: The odd thing is, Donovan kind of did what people want him to last night: force the game. Trouble is, he didn’t do it all that well; he carried into dead ends too often, didn’t pass early enough, etc. It’s depressingly remarkable that he was still our most dangerous player. His PK technique is weird - and I don’t mean his ritual; it’s the bombing it up the middle thing.
Eddie Johnson, 4.0: Will someone please pull the plug on the EJ Experiment? He lacks confidence and aggressiveness at this level, pure and simple. Did he run at anyone? Not that I recall. Did his passing push the offense? Rarely. Take away the time Donovan played him behind the Canadian defense - a great, alert run that petered out with, yep, a lack of aggression - and his rating goes lower.
Clint Dempsey, 5.0: He may actually be our best passer, but he was a step off last night. The moves he had been making all tournament to keep possession didn’t work last night. He just looked flat. (UPDATE: I finally read a report or two, which reminded me of the good things Demspey did - much of which goes back to the "best passer" line, but which also include his near-miss header - and acknowledge I rated him too low: so revise this to read, Clint Dempsey
Subs:
Benny Feilhaber, 4.5: Needs to orient his brain to a possession game...or cede the job to someone who can. Feilhaber didn’t actually perform badly, but he should have recognized the need to slow down the game instead of pushing it forward.
Taylor Twellman, 6.0: I can’t believe this, but, in the short time Twellman was on the field, he was the only one who seemed to appreciate the need to keep the ball in the Canadian end of the field. He wasn’t always successful, but at least he tried.
Ricardo Clark, 5.0: He barely merits ranking, though I’m tempted to ding him for reaching his foot up to a ball in our penalty area that he needed to control more decisively.
Bob Bradely, 3.5: Yep, the coach gets a number because, in my view, he impacted the game in all the wrong ways. Where were the subs? Clint Dempsey appeared stumbling tired by the 70th minute, if not early, and Donovan looked ready for a breather; Eddie Johnson never started and should have been subbed by the half. Clark should have come on sooner for Mastroeni, he started Keller over Howard for reasons that beg explanation, etc.
OK. I’m done. I can’t think of the last time I’ve been so disappointed with a win. It’s games like this that make qualifying for the World Cup look a lot more complicated today than it did in May 2007.
Chivas USA: 2007 Season Preview
Past
MLSnet.com: 2006 Season Wrap
MLSnet.com: Big Questions after '06
My Thoughts on Chivas' '06 (Know my biases)
Present
2006-07 Off-Season Changes
Soccer New England's Ins & Outs for most roster changes
Chivas USA Roster from MLSnet.com (given what they had for Chicago, I'm a bit dubious)
And now, the Future
Key Men
Amado Guevara - Can I call Guevara the “Great Brown Hope” without getting into trouble? In all seriousness, Chivas may have made the smartest “dumb” trade of the off-season with this; he’s not just a proven quantity in the league, but a proven-MVP quantity. The big concern here comes with the possibility of Guevara deciding first-year head coach Preki doesn’t know what he’s doing; at that point, bringing in Guevara could be the dumbest smart trade of the off-season.
Ante Razov - You can’t leave a 14 goal, 8 assist player off a “key men” list of any kind. He all but carried the Chivas offense for some stretches last season. (And, is it just me or does Razov look stoned in his profile picture?)
Jesse Marsch - This guy’s demeanor just screams “leader.” At 34, the young legs might not hold up (don't know for sure), but he keeps things organized with rising stars like Sacha Kljestan - who, by the way, I really, really wanted to add here, but one can have only so many key men.
Orlando Perez - With both Claudio Suarez and Carlos Llamosa being born in the 60s (!), Perez stands as the most mobile of the wise, old heads in the back line. The arrival of Alex Zotinca from Kansas City could help here.
Jonathan Bornstein - As much as I like Bornstein - he’s alert, smart, and skilled, so what’s not to like? - he rates in this group in his capacity as a one-man depth machine. His capacity to plug so many different holes on the field makes him a deeper asset than he’d be on playing ability alone.
Additional Assets (Chicago didn’t have this ‘cause I didn’t think they had any)
Depth at ‘Keep - With Brad Guzan and Preston Burpo, this time doesn’t have a “1-2” in goal so much as a “1-1a.” Both are solid ‘keepers and give Chivas plenty of depth in nets.
Liabilities
Spring/Autumn Defense - In his write-up of the 2006 season, Luis Bueno mentioned a “lack of concentration” as costing Chivas games. How many of those came due to a green-ish defense? On the other side of the age equation are Llamosa and Suarez. Between the lack of foot-speed and the lack of experience, Chivas could again struggle on defense.
Scoring - If last year’s regular-season stretch-run showed anything, it’s how dependent this team was on Razov for scoring. They didn’t add any players of major note in the off-season, but I’ve read a nice(-ish) thing or two about Matt Taylor, then there’s word of Laurent Merlin perhaps joining the team, Maykel Galindo, who played well in the USL Division 1, joining from Seattle, etc. The question is whether those players can make up for the losses of Jesus Morales (tricky, fast), Juan Francisco Palencia, and Juan Pablo Garcia. On paper, though, it’s hard to not be dubious.
Unknowns
Jorge Barrera - Shows in that link as a midfielder, but the roster shows him as a defender. If the latter is the case, maybe he’s the answer to the concerns about the spring/autumn defense. (If you hit the link, by the way, you’ll get bits and pieces about some of the other new players).
New Coach - It could be I’m giving Preki the benefit of the doubt by slipping him down here, but, till a man has a record, it seems more fair to list him in the unknowns. The biggest potential problem, I’ve already mentioned: Guevara. But he’d only offer the most dramatically negative reaction; a lack of faith in the new coach will manifest itself in a dozen little ways. So, for Preki’s sake, let’s hope it doesn’t happen.
Prospects - Using Gambling Analogies
Picture a baseball poker game with some cards showing all around the table; by acquiring Guevara, Chivas is gambling on filling an inside straight; because it’s baseball, there are a fair number of wild cards in play, but it’s a risky maneuver nonetheless. It’s not for nothing that I view acquiring Guevara constitutes one of the highest potential upside gambles since Eddie Johnson left Dallas for Kansas City. Overall, the seeming improvement of a couple Western Conference teams has me wondering whether they'll be able to keep up in 2007. I wouldn't write 'em off, either, but suspect they'll struggle.
TEAM TALK: Bornstein; Wizards Revival?
The most obvious "big news" to break over the weekend (or just before; can't keep track) came with the injury to Chivas USA's Jonathan Bornstein. For my money, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better consideration of the implications - for the player, his club, and country - than you'll find in the analysis by MLS Underground. I couldn't put it better and, therefore, won't try to. Though, at least with regard to country, we'll see something new in the next U.S. friendly.
Over on USSoccerplayers.com the (if-I'm-understanding-this-correctly) new-relocated Bill Urban looks in on the Kansas City Wizards preseason situation/mentality. It's possible I'm alone in thinking this, but the Wizards failure to miss last year's playoffs falls in the top five of "big stories" for 2006. When I look at this team's roster - even the current one - I just can't see how they're not a playoff team. Urban's central point is that, the same digs aside, between the new ownership and the new coaching staff, things feel different in Kansas City. The question of whether it will be enough comes in his conclusion:
Anyone else think Urban correctly divided the haves from the have-nots in the Eastern Conference?
(########)
Over on USSoccerplayers.com the (if-I'm-understanding-this-correctly) new-relocated Bill Urban looks in on the Kansas City Wizards preseason situation/mentality. It's possible I'm alone in thinking this, but the Wizards failure to miss last year's playoffs falls in the top five of "big stories" for 2006. When I look at this team's roster - even the current one - I just can't see how they're not a playoff team. Urban's central point is that, the same digs aside, between the new ownership and the new coaching staff, things feel different in Kansas City. The question of whether it will be enough comes in his conclusion:
"Anyone who witnessed the collective spring in the Wizards players' steps during both training and a couple of scrimmages down here, one might easily argue that the Wizards will finish ahead of Columbus and Toronto in the seven-team Eastern Conference this season. Whether they can finish ahead of New York, D.C., New England or Chicago to qualify for the playoffs will depend on avoiding injuries, crucial bits of luck, and how much production Onalfo can coax from Eddie Johnson."
Anyone else think Urban correctly divided the haves from the have-nots in the Eastern Conference?
(########)
US v. Mexico, First Impressions
Holy shit.
If you've visited this blog in the past two, three days, you've read the thoughts of a man miles down on the U.S. Men's chances. And maybe it's the Pabst, maybe it's a fever borne of low expectation, but, damn, am I optimistic about the future. What comes below should get at why:
The Good
Conrad/Bocanegra: While I don't think this pairing is the future of the American defense, they played well enough together to tell me we've got some depth. Conrad's was the more high-profile performance - a winning goal will do that - but he was also rock-solid at the back. So was Bocanegra. It's undeniable there were a pair of gaffes in there - the two of them contesting the same ball, a move that momentarily hobbled Bocanegra and that big, soft whiff Conrad put on an early cross - but, overall, they held up well against decent competition.
Jonathan Bornstein: I was just blown away by the kid's performance. He looked ragged here and there, but there wasn't enough of it to concern me. He looked good going forward, he looked good defending...I'm not sure what else there is.
Ricardo Clark: Possibly the most encouraging performance of the bunch. It wasn't so much that he was perfect - he wasn't - but, on the few occasions he got beat, he busted ass to get the ball back and, often as not, he did. He looked composed, he looked confident - more to the point, he looked like he belonged out there.
Ball Movement: Until we got to the offensive third, we did pretty well. Yes, there tons of balls out of the back that landed at Mexican feet, especially during the rough patch that followed Conrad's goal. But when we calmed down and played possession, we did all right.
Bob Bradley: The highest compliment we can pay to Bob is that, 10-15 painful minutes aside - those decisive minutes after Conrad's goal - we never looked flustered. That's enough for me for now. He's also got some young players believing they can play at this level; one of them is named Bornstein.
Landon Donovan: He goes here not because he scored a goal, but because he tried the same move that opened up the space for the goal at least one other time. Good to see the former Golden Boy of American Soccer fight to regain the crown.
The Bad
The Offensive Third: The weirdest thing: when Eddie Johnson came on, Clint Dempsey suddenly seemed to pick up his game; while it's true that only wayward passes followed, those were some of our best, general moments on offense. Apart from those flashes, we looked damn near clueless. A total lack of size, of physical muscle may have been the problem; who knows what Taylor Twellman could have brought to the game? But we got seriously dizzy as we approached the Mexican defensive third.
Those Ten, Fifteen Minutes: It seems the Mexicans simply can't score against us - and that's the key thing that salvaged this game. Those several minutes - plus a few plays against the run of play besides - opened up some clear chances for the Mexicans; that they failed to capitalize doesn't excuse the fact that those chances were there and, on occasion, glaring.
Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Overall, I'm just giddy. We exceeded my expectations by country miles. The main thing was the basic organization, how hard we were to break down. Yeah, the Mexicans got their chances, but they were rarely wide-open. Good night, good game...good rum.
(#########)
If you've visited this blog in the past two, three days, you've read the thoughts of a man miles down on the U.S. Men's chances. And maybe it's the Pabst, maybe it's a fever borne of low expectation, but, damn, am I optimistic about the future. What comes below should get at why:
The Good
Conrad/Bocanegra: While I don't think this pairing is the future of the American defense, they played well enough together to tell me we've got some depth. Conrad's was the more high-profile performance - a winning goal will do that - but he was also rock-solid at the back. So was Bocanegra. It's undeniable there were a pair of gaffes in there - the two of them contesting the same ball, a move that momentarily hobbled Bocanegra and that big, soft whiff Conrad put on an early cross - but, overall, they held up well against decent competition.
Jonathan Bornstein: I was just blown away by the kid's performance. He looked ragged here and there, but there wasn't enough of it to concern me. He looked good going forward, he looked good defending...I'm not sure what else there is.
Ricardo Clark: Possibly the most encouraging performance of the bunch. It wasn't so much that he was perfect - he wasn't - but, on the few occasions he got beat, he busted ass to get the ball back and, often as not, he did. He looked composed, he looked confident - more to the point, he looked like he belonged out there.
Ball Movement: Until we got to the offensive third, we did pretty well. Yes, there tons of balls out of the back that landed at Mexican feet, especially during the rough patch that followed Conrad's goal. But when we calmed down and played possession, we did all right.
Bob Bradley: The highest compliment we can pay to Bob is that, 10-15 painful minutes aside - those decisive minutes after Conrad's goal - we never looked flustered. That's enough for me for now. He's also got some young players believing they can play at this level; one of them is named Bornstein.
Landon Donovan: He goes here not because he scored a goal, but because he tried the same move that opened up the space for the goal at least one other time. Good to see the former Golden Boy of American Soccer fight to regain the crown.
The Bad
The Offensive Third: The weirdest thing: when Eddie Johnson came on, Clint Dempsey suddenly seemed to pick up his game; while it's true that only wayward passes followed, those were some of our best, general moments on offense. Apart from those flashes, we looked damn near clueless. A total lack of size, of physical muscle may have been the problem; who knows what Taylor Twellman could have brought to the game? But we got seriously dizzy as we approached the Mexican defensive third.
Those Ten, Fifteen Minutes: It seems the Mexicans simply can't score against us - and that's the key thing that salvaged this game. Those several minutes - plus a few plays against the run of play besides - opened up some clear chances for the Mexicans; that they failed to capitalize doesn't excuse the fact that those chances were there and, on occasion, glaring.
Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Overall, I'm just giddy. We exceeded my expectations by country miles. The main thing was the basic organization, how hard we were to break down. Yeah, the Mexicans got their chances, but they were rarely wide-open. Good night, good game...good rum.
(#########)
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