USA 2, Guatemala 0
That was ... fun, I guess. Would have been nice to see it end up in the 4-0 range, but why split hairs on a night Freddy Adu scored his first senior international goal.
And what a nice goal it was. Hopefully that picture perfect free kick from the edge of the penalty area finds its way into ESPN rotation.
Bob Bradley's reaction on the other hand, let's try to forget it. In case you missed it seconds after Adu curled his ball into the upper left netting the cameras cut to Bradley hocking a loogie. Maybe it was bad timing and as we all know catching Bradley smiling is on par with catching Calvin Coolidge cracking one, at least when the former Prez was alive. Wikipedia it if you're not up on presidential trivia.
Or maybe Bradley wasn't too happy because it means he'll have to give Adu more run in next year's final stage of CONCACAF qualification and put either Clint Dempsey or Landon Donovan on the bench. Yeah, this seems counter-productive, but we've seen the rigidness of Bradley and his mild enthusiasm for using Adu to this point.
Bottom line, Adu has easily the most creativity in the attacking-third of any American. From his dead ball abilities, to simply just firing shots from around the penalty area, if the U.S. wants to truly take the next step, Adu has to be a major part of it.
Kenny Cooper on the other hand? The jury is still out. He did indeed score by outrunning the defense and getting a minimal touch to nutmeg the keeper. Cooper did miss some other chances, but the best part of his performance was that he looked confident out there, but maybe a little too deferential to other players.
The wantaway FC Dallas' postgame ESPN interview? Best to be forgotten too and more importantly forced me to keep the title of this post from becoming, "Hanging with Mr. Cooper."
Long story short, going forward lets give Cooper some looks over the Brian Chings of the world. Ching has been a good soldier, but the sun is setting on his international career. In the words of Hetfield, sad but true.
Why not give Cooper the chance to establish himself alongside Jozy Altidore? For once it looked like the U.S. had a true strike team partnership and that would have been true even if Altidore didn't set up Cooper's goal.
Other than the Cooper and Adu scenarios there's not that much to say about this match. Guatemala was pretty dreadful, but at least kept it relatively clean. The Mexican ref was brutal, denying a clear first half penalty for John Thorington. Organizationally the defense looked sharp enough, too.
Sasha's Kljestan's 'stache continues to have a mind of it's own. He might have another career as a Bruce Lee movie extra, well, if he had a 1985 Delorian and some spare plutonium laying around.
Maybe the best part of the match was the lone trumpeter at Dicks Sporting Goods Park, belting out patriotic American standards. John Henry Eden would have been proud.
Did we or Bradley learn very much from Wednesday night's stroll in the park? Overall the roster wasn't chalk full of prospects -- we know what guys Pablo Mastroeni are at this point. Are Clarence Goodson or Michael Parkhurst breaking the central defensive lineup anytime soon? Were Davy Arnaud or Connor Casey there for any other reason than to give them another cap?
For all the unanswered questions, or questions that weren't even asked, we at least saw Adu, Altidore and Cooper show that they'll be factors in 2009. For a game that didn't mean anything, that's at least something.
That was ... fun, I guess. Would have been nice to see it end up in the 4-0 range, but why split hairs on a night Freddy Adu scored his first senior international goal.
And what a nice goal it was. Hopefully that picture perfect free kick from the edge of the penalty area finds its way into ESPN rotation.
Bob Bradley's reaction on the other hand, let's try to forget it. In case you missed it seconds after Adu curled his ball into the upper left netting the cameras cut to Bradley hocking a loogie. Maybe it was bad timing and as we all know catching Bradley smiling is on par with catching Calvin Coolidge cracking one, at least when the former Prez was alive. Wikipedia it if you're not up on presidential trivia.
Or maybe Bradley wasn't too happy because it means he'll have to give Adu more run in next year's final stage of CONCACAF qualification and put either Clint Dempsey or Landon Donovan on the bench. Yeah, this seems counter-productive, but we've seen the rigidness of Bradley and his mild enthusiasm for using Adu to this point.
Bottom line, Adu has easily the most creativity in the attacking-third of any American. From his dead ball abilities, to simply just firing shots from around the penalty area, if the U.S. wants to truly take the next step, Adu has to be a major part of it.
Kenny Cooper on the other hand? The jury is still out. He did indeed score by outrunning the defense and getting a minimal touch to nutmeg the keeper. Cooper did miss some other chances, but the best part of his performance was that he looked confident out there, but maybe a little too deferential to other players.
The wantaway FC Dallas' postgame ESPN interview? Best to be forgotten too and more importantly forced me to keep the title of this post from becoming, "Hanging with Mr. Cooper."
Long story short, going forward lets give Cooper some looks over the Brian Chings of the world. Ching has been a good soldier, but the sun is setting on his international career. In the words of Hetfield, sad but true.
Why not give Cooper the chance to establish himself alongside Jozy Altidore? For once it looked like the U.S. had a true strike team partnership and that would have been true even if Altidore didn't set up Cooper's goal.
Other than the Cooper and Adu scenarios there's not that much to say about this match. Guatemala was pretty dreadful, but at least kept it relatively clean. The Mexican ref was brutal, denying a clear first half penalty for John Thorington. Organizationally the defense looked sharp enough, too.
Sasha's Kljestan's 'stache continues to have a mind of it's own. He might have another career as a Bruce Lee movie extra, well, if he had a 1985 Delorian and some spare plutonium laying around.
Maybe the best part of the match was the lone trumpeter at Dicks Sporting Goods Park, belting out patriotic American standards. John Henry Eden would have been proud.
Did we or Bradley learn very much from Wednesday night's stroll in the park? Overall the roster wasn't chalk full of prospects -- we know what guys Pablo Mastroeni are at this point. Are Clarence Goodson or Michael Parkhurst breaking the central defensive lineup anytime soon? Were Davy Arnaud or Connor Casey there for any other reason than to give them another cap?
For all the unanswered questions, or questions that weren't even asked, we at least saw Adu, Altidore and Cooper show that they'll be factors in 2009. For a game that didn't mean anything, that's at least something.
Labels: bob bradley, fox soccer, Freddy Adu, Jozy Altidore, Soccer, USMNT, world cup qualifying
I would throw in Kljestan's name into the mix for factors of '09. He can be a handful at times, and never really stops motoring towards the goal. He reminds me a little of DMB on a good day, and at least doesn't seem so frail.
If Adu does not get regular playing time going forward then Bradley needs to be removed of coaching duties immediately. I don't care if Adu isn't playing regularly at Monaco. I don't think I've ever seen a US player hit such a perfect free kick.
Cooper and Jozy do deserve the opportunity to play together regularly but that's not going to happen with Bob. I'd be surprised if either of them plays once the games start to matter again. Bob will go right back to the godawful 4-2-3-1 with two holding mids and Ching alone up top. The US will go back to needing Gooch and Boca to score on headers to win 1-0. For every team the US will face in the next round the US should easily be able to play a system that includes Landon, Dempsey, Adu, Jozy and Cooper. We only need one holding mid.
Jared... why do you have to speak the truth and bring me down? Everybody except Bob Bradley can see it. His prefered starters can't get it done against tough opponents. We know what we're getting with Ching/EJ/Twellman even Dempsey up top, and that's a lot of 1 goal games. There's no tinkering left to be done with those guys. They're all hard workers (except for EJ), but they don't have the right mix of creativity, skill, speed, and strength to score consistantly against top flight competition.
Now there's no promise that Cooper, Altidore and Adu can provide the consistant scoring we need, by why not give them a chance? There really aren't any better options right now, if Bradley can't see that he should be thanked for his hard work and asked to leave quietly.
You say Ching's sun is setting, but Jeff Carlisle at ESPN thinks Ching is the man for 2010 in his Guatemala game re-cap. He pours water on Cooper (fine, no biggie) and tells us to cool it on Jozy.
I personally think Ching is a poor-man's Brian McBride, but is Ching seriously going to be our forward for 2010? I don't want some half-ass "target" forward when we should throw some movement and creativity up top.
Anah,
I just read Carlisle's piece and it's incredibly disappointing that a journalist wants a striker to play because he defends from the top. Why the heck do we have to defend from the top against any of the Concacaf opponents? We aren't Stoke City trying to beat Man Utd at Old Trafford.
I can guarantee that if Klinsmann was our coach we would not be defending from the front. Cooper, Altidore, Landon and Adu would all be playing regularly as we attacked the opposition. Bradley is going to set the US back a decade with his fear of the opposition.