yea the only problem i had with bradley today was the casey sub, other than that i thought he did well.

that red card seriously hurt us, that stupid fucking ref. i dont see how he could call a straight red on that. i think feilhaber will probably start in bradleys place. he looked good in there, he made a great play on that dempsey goal

6/24/2009 10:24:08 PM

That Feilhaber/Dempsey switch has worked wonders, but I think it's also the fact that we've been using 2 forwards. I credit Bradley for making the switch, but I question what he was doing in the previous games. I don't care how potent the offenses of the teams we are playing are, our midfield isn't good enough to create for one striker.

6/24/2009 10:25:46 PM

I was just reading a quick blurb about Fulham possibly being interested in putting in a bid for Jozy... I don't think that'd be the worst thing in the world for him...

6/24/2009 10:34:46 PM

Quote :

"oh and b4c... THIS is all I wanted to see from the US - heart, effort, strong tactics - all that was missing in the first two games and actually winning was just an added bonus. Sure we had some lucky breaks but with those three things, we have enough talent to win big games and avoid being demolished, regardless of opponent. I'm not expecting us to beat Spain and Brazil every game now or anything but it's proof that we're capable of playing "the big boys" without looking like a pub team. We should be past the "we're not talented enough" excuse from now on and hold our players and coaches accountable. That's all I'm going to say about Bradley from now on as this win has earned him some serious credibility."

This was one of their best games in this tournament, but I really don't think we played bad against Italy. We showed a lot of heart at the beginning and the red card just screwed things up in the end. If Gooch had used his left foot to clear the ball on the second goal then we probably tie at 1-1. The Brazil game was a different story though. They just flat out dominated us from the start. Lucky for us, today the red card came late enough that it didn't matter so much.

6/24/2009 11:35:50 PM

^^i missed the game and the information i could get from ESPN wasn't too great so thanks for those links to Skysports



[Edited on June 24, 2009 at 11:43 PM. Reason : to amac]

6/24/2009 11:42:27 PM

I keep hearing "a lot of heart" blah blah. Okay, maybe they appeared to have hustled harder than in some of the games. However, as I'm watching this game currently, they won this game due to a much more solid and PRESSING defensive effort and very smart counter attacking and possession play. They didn't look desperate once they got the ball, made a lot of smart stretching passes and ultimately held the ball effectively.

No one expects you to beat out Spain in possession time, however, if you use your possession wisely you can at least get quality chances. The switch to a 4-4-2 helped. Davies played great (I said it from the beginning, we need to keep this guy playing, he creates a lot with his positioning and is smart with the ball), Altidore is finally getting some playing time (since he gets none at the club level, please somebody put in an offer from him, or maybe Villareal will give him another chance), it looks like Feilhaber is looking increasingly like a viable option (he's very smart and precise with the ball). I'd definitely like to see the passing get better though. We're still pretty far behind the top class teams as far as that goes.

6/24/2009 11:55:34 PM

^Davies did have a good game, but he needs to pass more. He tried to take a guy on when he had Donovan wide open in the middle at the top of the box. He's done well, so I can't complain too much though.

6/24/2009 11:59:45 PM

^^for lack of brevity

[Edited on June 25, 2009 at 12:07 AM. Reason : big4country is gay]

6/25/2009 12:01:29 AM

yea davies should've passed on that play, but i'm glad to see him taking defenders on. we don't have a lot of players on our team that will do that other than dempsey and his lame attempts and donovan who has done really well in this tournament.

6/25/2009 12:06:57 AM

It seems that some people forget that Donovan is still the closest to a world class player that we have. He's proven he can hang with the best as he has shown with his short stint with Bayern Munich. He's still very versatile, however is definitely better in a distributing role out wide which he's played more of recently. The problem is he can only shine in that role when he has targets that are doing their jobs.

6/25/2009 12:17:54 AM

it was interesting watching two different BBC broadcasts with really knowledgeable analysts, and they were basically talking about how "the americans have good/decent players but they make really basic mistakes".

They were really perplexed about how the US just kept launching the ball down the field instead of trying to run some time off the clock and it basically just gave Espanol tons of chances they should never have had.

We should just hire some mercenary Euro coach for the next few years and see what gives.

6/25/2009 12:31:11 AM

^Spain's spacing was so perfect though. In the end they were just trying to get rid of the clock and keep the ball as far away from the box as possible. You don't want to hold it on the defensive end too long. I though Connor Casey did a good job getting to the corner once to waste some time. It would have helped, if they could have done that a few more times though.

6/25/2009 12:45:42 AM

Connor Casey played for 6 minutes. He played like he was on the field for the entire game. If you get put on with 6 minutes left, you don't jog. You run.

^^I agree completely. We have top notch athleticism, above average skill, yet we make way too many mistakes. I definitely agree that we should try out a European coach next. Milutinovic was great for us in the early 90s and look what he's done with Iraq. Iraq plays a very disciplined game and with much less skill than we have.

6/25/2009 1:00:17 AM

^And they also lost 1-0 to Spain like we did vs Brazil in 1994. I don't think we need a coach who likes the 4-5-1.

6/25/2009 1:16:36 AM

we lost 1-0 to brazil while they were a man down, and we still couldnt create anything.

when bradley's time is up we have to move away from an american coach, unless an american coach has more knowledge about the international game and can approach our team with more european or south american tactics

6/25/2009 1:34:33 AM

^South American style soccer would be nice. They seem to like to attack a little more. Europeans just play defense and fall down a lot.

6/25/2009 1:39:20 AM

^In '94 we were severely less talented, especially in the forward position, than we are now. I think at that point in time a 4-5-1 was more of a necessity than anything. We do not have players with a good enough touch on the ball to play a South American style game.

6/25/2009 1:41:49 AM

^We had Eric Wynalda. Milutinovic just seems to like the defense first and don't attack offense.

6/25/2009 1:46:02 AM

AHHAHAHAHAHa.

Oh, I'm sorry. Were you serious?

6/25/2009 1:49:51 AM

Quote :

" They were really perplexed about how the US just kept launching the ball down the field instead of trying to run some time off the clock and it basically just gave Espanol tons of chances they should never have had. "

Funny you should mention that. Although I generally agree that it would be best to run time off the clock, I don't exactly trust the footwork of Onyewu and some of our other backs to efficiently burn clock without giving a team like Spain a turnover. Also, it should be noted that this form of over-confidence from defenders is exactly what gave us our second goal. Sergio Ramos is one of the best defenders in the world, and that last goal falls 100% on his shoulders. He had the ball off of a poor deflection, and didn't respect Dempsey enough to quickly clear the ball, and instead opted to control it (which is normally easy-peasy for someone with the skill of Ramos) but he completely made a mess of that opportunity.

But, on the whole, I agree with that sentiment. Today was a gutty performance by our defense and some of the best goalkeeping I've ever seen from a US keeper, but there were multiple times where I saw a US defender dive for an awkward header just to clear the ball, often resulting in a Spain offensive reset or a corner.


As for Bob Bradley, well, he just bought himself a whole lot of time. I'll give him credit where credit is due (same goes for Donovan, who I often like to shit on, but played a great role today on the wing). I'm glad the US came out with a "nothing to lose" mentality. I think they controlled the first 25 minutes or so, and I didn't think Spain came out with a full attack until about the 30th or 35th minute. I feel like the US really just needs some maturation. When we fall early to teams, we panic and lose our composure, much like we did against Brazil.

When we get a red card, we tend to fall into "just hang on" mode. These are some of the mental mistakes that separate a confident world class team from a team trying to reach its potential, in my opinion.

And this officiating is really starting to get my goat. I was more upset with the officiating today than I was during the Italy game. The Italy game hurt with the red, but I still feel that we benefited favorably by a bad call that resulted in a PK for Donovan. Today however, was just biased. I try not to point fingers at the refs, because I feel like a team just has to play through that, but a straight red for a tackle that actually made connection with the ball is bogus. There was another play that happened RIGHT IN FRONT of the ref where a US player was MUGGED, and Spain walked away with no penalty, and a goal scoring opportunity. I understand that FIFA wants reckless tackles to go away, (and we do have a problem with poorly timed tackles) but some of these calls are just absurd. I'm starting to wonder if it's FIFA wanting to see a cleaner game for what is essentially a "tune-up" tournament, or if there is some anti-USA sentiment shared by some of these refs. Because I don't want this guy reffing any more US games, if his card distribution is disproportionally in favor of the opposing team.

6/25/2009 2:39:05 AM

Ill watch World Cup Soccer anyday of the week over fucking golf, nascar or Major League Baseball. If you dont understand the strategy of high level soccer then of course you wont 'get it'!

6/25/2009 2:51:30 AM

hello and welcome to last page

6/25/2009 3:04:37 AM

Quote :

" keep hearing "a lot of heart" blah blah. Okay, maybe they appeared to have hustled harder than in some of the games. However, as I'm watching this game currently, they won this game due to a much more solid and PRESSING defensive effort and very smart counter attacking and possession play."

yeah, heart, effort, and tactics

You can't tell me the way that Clark and Demerit were throwing themselves in front of every shot and cross doesn't classify as "showing heart." And how under the incredible pressure of Spain in the 2nd half, they were still incredibly steady and confident... that's heart to me.

If we do those things, the whole "we aren't talented enough" excuse is just flat out wrong, because we are.

[Edited on June 25, 2009 at 7:44 AM. Reason : .]

6/25/2009 7:43:41 AM

Quote :

"some of the best goalkeeping I've ever seen from a US keeper"

agreed. I still miss Keller out there at times, but Howard really stepped up today.

6/25/2009 8:03:54 AM

Quote :

"..."Placido Domingo, General Franco, Julio Iglesias, Manuel from Fawlty Towers, Antonio Banderas, your boys took one hell of a beating." Despite being played off the park for much of the game and finishing with a donkey from Colorado Rapids at center forward, that presumably makes USA favorites for the World Cup?"

hahaha, from the F365 mailbag

http://www.football365.com/mailbox/story/0,17033,8744_5400116,00.html

6/25/2009 8:49:43 AM

Quote :

"Sergio Ramos is one of the best defenders in the world, and that last goal falls 100% on his shoulders."

I disagree, if you go back and watch the replay Pique does this retarded flip of the ball with his heel in front of goal and Ramos looks surprised and somewhat out of position when it comes to him.
I also think Spain did themselves in when they subbed out Cesc midway through the 2nd, since he seemed to me to be their only player who was consistently creating scoring chances.

6/25/2009 9:05:10 AM

didn't get to watch but definitely impressed by the victory. 2 solid performances in a row could it stretch to 3?

6/25/2009 11:04:47 AM

^^ I didn't understand the Fabregas sub either. him, xavi, and david villa have great chemistry moving the ball up front and it seemed like they lost that when fab was subbed out

6/25/2009 12:14:22 PM

Quote :

"As for Bob Bradley, well, he just bought himself a whole lot of time."

Like him, or hate him, he was staying through this entire World Cup cycle. I don't know why everyone was thinking he would get fired. This is the USA and there is really no pressure on the team, or coaches compared to what you see in Brazil and England when it is the end of the world when they lose. If we make it out of the group phase in 2010 at the World Cup and lose a close game to Brazil, Spain, Italy, etc. then he probably keeps his job like Arena did in 2002.

6/25/2009 12:44:07 PM

well to be fair, our 2002 performance was VERY solid.

We defeated a highly favored Portugal in group play and although at the time it was disappointing to take second in our group to Korea, they were on fire that world up: defeating Portugal, Italy, and Spain in back to back games (ie they fielded a strong team that year).

We then beat a favored Mexico 2-0 (who was playing very well, winning their group over Italy) in the first round of the knockout stage, and had a 1-0 loss to Germany that wasnt just close on paper, but a game that we had many chances to win. We looked better against Germany in that 1-0 loss in 2002 than we did against Spain yesterday winning 2-0.

Maybe I read your tone wrong, but there was no reason to think that Arena kept his job on some mediocre performance/doing just enough to keep his job (ie squeak by in a week group and lose our first knockout round game). He kept his job because that was the best World Cup performance a US team has shown ever basically, especially considering we went 0-3 4 years earlier.

[Edited on June 25, 2009 at 1:16 PM. Reason : ]

6/25/2009 1:14:40 PM

^Yes I know he kept his job because we played well and the same thing will happen with Bradley too. If we make it out of the group phase and play good in the second round then he will probably get to stay too. We're going to have to play against someone like Spain, Italy, Brazil, etc in our group and then another good non-seeded European team, or South American team. It's going to be very tough for us to do.

[Edited on June 25, 2009 at 1:47 PM. Reason : .]

6/25/2009 1:46:44 PM

Quote :

"You can't tell me the way that Clark and Demerit were throwing themselves in front of every shot and cross doesn't classify as "showing heart.""

Actually I find that those actions were more an indication that they were in a position to do such. By stepping up to the ball (pressing) rather than waiting for the attack come to them, they were often in position to block a shot. If they're not playing with their all in each game, they shouldn't be representing a national team or even a professional one at that. Maybe there was a greater sense of urgency, however I think a change in tactics are more to 'blame' for the increase in quality of play.


On a completely unrelated note, Spain was without their best player for the entire Confederations Cup. It's amazing how deep that team is, especially at the midfield. I still think their defense is suspect. They don't have a great defensive defender. Ramos likes to roam forward and Puyol is definitely past his prime.


I'm completely impressed with Booth's play for South Africa.

[Edited on June 25, 2009 at 2:59 PM. Reason : .]

6/25/2009 2:37:33 PM

Is anyone else really impressed with the play of Pienaar? I didn't know he was South African but he pretty much kept Everton going late in the season even though they were missing Arteta.

^ Pique is still really young for a defender.

[Edited on June 25, 2009 at 3:16 PM. Reason : ]

6/25/2009 3:14:42 PM

Brazil 0 S. Africa 0 at half

6/25/2009 3:20:15 PM

Wouldn't that be something if the USA played South Africa for the title while the 3rd place game was Brazil vs Spain?

6/25/2009 3:24:14 PM

^^^

Impressed with Pienaar this game, but for the tournament he's been mostly a disappointment. Too many bad decisions. He's been dazzling out there today, so far.

6/25/2009 3:34:37 PM

danni alves with a great strike. looks like a rematch with brazil.

[Edited on June 25, 2009 at 4:19 PM. Reason : i had a feeling he'd hit that. he's been doing it all year with barca.]

6/25/2009 4:18:32 PM

great strike, brought it on themselves though



[Edited on June 25, 2009 at 4:19 PM. Reason : ^ what they said]

6/25/2009 4:18:33 PM

Too bad they shot themselves in the foot. You give Brazil enough chances from set pieces and you will lose. South Africa definitely played better football today.

6/25/2009 4:22:33 PM

impressive showing by SA today, i agree.

6/25/2009 4:28:17 PM

Oh well! I think we can win, but we better play another perfect game to have any chance.

6/25/2009 4:29:24 PM

^again, if we can make it 25+ minutes without brazil putting one in the net, we have a chance (a small chance, but a chance nonetheless). We have to put pressure on brazil early like we did yesterday against spain. if we get caught playing defense early, brazil will pour it on and win big, again.


and for the love of god, we need to handle our corners better this time.

6/25/2009 5:04:53 PM

^Well said. Our back line played their best game of the tournament yesterday. Hopefully they can keep it up.

6/25/2009 5:10:21 PM

what was really impressive about not only watching Brasil, but South Africa as well, today was how fast both teams are. There's a reason we lost to them by 3 goals, and the reasons haven't changed. Hopefully Bradley will pull his head out his arse and go with a quick front line up and whoever's the best defenders. There's no time like the present to play Adu against Brasil, we have nothing to lose.

6/25/2009 5:15:45 PM

Final Scores: Semifinals
Spain (0 : 2) USA
Brazil (1 : 0) South Africa

Match for 3rd Place
6/28 @ 9:00am, Spain v. South Africa
on ESPN2, ESPN2HD, ESPN 360, and ESPN Mobile TV

FINALS
6/28 @ 2:30pm, Brazil v. USA
on ESPN2, ESPN2HD, ESPN 360, and ESPN Mobile TV
(REPLAY) @ 12am on ESPN2/ESPN2HD

6/25/2009 7:15:39 PM

Here's who I would start Sunday:
Howard
Boca, Gooch, DeMerit, Spector
Donovan, Clark, Torres, Dempsey
Davies, Altidore
Bring on Feilhaber, and possibly Adu as subs. Shoot Conor Casey before entering stadium.

6/25/2009 8:03:08 PM

There's no way Torres makes the start... I'm betting it's Feilhaber but I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see Kljestan

6/25/2009 11:02:57 PM

They actually announced that the Final will be on ESPN now. It has been moved up

6/25/2009 11:07:57 PM

^^I agree, this is just the lineup I would like to see. I think Torres should get a second chance, and I liked Feilhaber's play/energy as a sub whereas I thought he struggled as a starter.

6/25/2009 11:13:38 PM

can't wait to watch this on Sunday

6/25/2009 11:33:31 PM