"There's nothing good about this Ronnie" -- Dennis, from the criminally underrated 'Observe and Report'
Well ... that just happened.
And on that note, who knew that Robbie Keane played right back for the U.S.?
Really, when you get beat 5-0 in a Gold Cup final by Mexico, there's nothing better to do than laugh, right? There's nothing positive here to discuss.
As I said the other day, this would have been a nice cherry on top of a pretty good summer for the U.S., but for Mexico it meant a hell of a lot more. You could sense the pressure and then relief from the El Tri players when it was mercifully over.
Is that an excuse? Perhaps.
To me, is it all that worth getting wrapped up in a loss with the U.S. 'B' team, or more specifically ten brutal minutes when the wheels completely fell off?
If there is any cause for concern it probably falls in three categories.
First, just like the Confederations Cup final when the game was in doubt in the second half, the U.S. had nobody truly viable to bring on while its opponent did. Sunday it was pretty simple for Mexico, El Kabong Aguirre was able to swap out the ineffective Alberto Medina for dangerous Arsenal youngster Carlos Vela.
It's hard to hammer Bob Bradley this time around, since the entire run of the Gold Cup featured an in-and-out U.S. lineup. There wasn't that much to put on for the starting XI, so the fact there wasn't anything on the bench in this specific case isn't a huge deal, but it's a red flag down the road.
The next issue, probably the biggest, is that in the first half for long stretches the U.S. dominated the run of the play and won a ton of set pieces -- but couldn't convert. Honestly I hate to type the following two words, but it has to be said -- Brian Ching.
We know Bradley has a love affair with Ching and that barring injury, there's a 99 percent chance he'll be in the starting lineup when it matters on Aug. 12 at Azteca for the World Cup qualifier. Ching does a lot of things well -- holds the ball, provides a physical presences, hustles etc. Yet he also isn't a natural goal scorer in the final third of the field. You can get away with this when Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey are in the lineup, when it's the 'B' team, not as much.
Again, I hate to single out one player but I just worry about how much Bradley is going to rely on Ching on Aug. 12 and down the road.
Lastly, the defense fell apart in the second half. Other than Heath Pearce this isn't an issue since the rest of the lineup won't be around in 2010. Pearce is a weird player, sometimes he looks good and brings something to the attack, but seems to be a defensive liability.
If anything, time to ditch the would-be offside trap.
Overall, yes, it absolutely sucks to lose to Mexico regardless of who was or wasn't there. And by a 5-0 scoreline? Ugh.
Does this offset the last 10 years of American dominance? Nope.
Does it sully the Dos a Cero refrain? Not just yet.
Does it give Mexico a little confidence against the U.S going forward? Probably.
If you want to take an extremely cynical take, maybe a loss like this puts everything back into perspective for the U.S., even if the main roster wasn't involved. And in that vein, it fires up the core players for a historic win next month when it matters.
No matter how you slice it, there's nothing good from today's game, except that it ended.
Other stuff:
* Minor weird, nit pick of the match: Down 1-0 the U.S. won a free kick at midfield and they played it quickly, instead of letting the subs come in. Quickly Mexico went up 2-0 thanks to a quick turnover and counter attack.
* Since it finished 5-0 it's hard to get wrapped up in a penalty kick, but the Jay Heaps/Gio Dos Santos entanglement could have gone either way. Heaps did get his shirt, but then then the Spurs-man seemed to iniatie the tumble with the Revs defender
* Maybe it was a different match if Robbie Rogers' half-volley right at the start of the second half is a hair lower and beats Ochoa its a different game. That about sums up Rogers' overall game, just a tad bit lacking.
* Not to overstate it, but as good as Stuart Holden was during the Gold Cup, he wasn't on the level of Vela or Dos Santos.
* Even with all the mitigating factors, there's no excuse for 5-0. None. 5-0 also means no positive spin for reaching the final with a 'B' team. 5-0 is 5-0 and the mainstream media will take notice of that scoreline.
* Edgar Castillo, you still want to get in the U.S. camp?
* Any chance we can move the Gold Cup to every four years?
* Guess you have to feel sorry for Jay Heaps. At 32 he gets an international chance, only to get exposed vs. Haiti, called for a penalty vs. Mexico and then finally sent off for his second red. Suffice to say, he's not in the mix going forward.
* If it's possible for a goalie to play well in a 5-0 loss, Troy Perkins may have. He made four saves to keep it close, but the fifth wasn't there and the rout was on.
* It's a safe bet we look at this tournament completely differently if Freddy Adu, Charlie Davies, Benny Feilhaber, etc. stuck around.
* Sam's Army, you can run all the ads you want on FSC, it's not changing the U.S./Mexico tide any time soon on American soil. Sad but true.
* Begrudgingly, I'll hand it to Mexico. They made the U.S. drink the chumpatize juice today.
Final thought:
I've been on a major 'Mad Men' kick lately. Maybe the best way to go about this is taking some advice Don Draper gave to Peggy Olson, as in, forget about it. It never happened.
Give it a good old memory wipe.
(Apologies, if this was hasty, I had to work Sunday night and cranked this out quickly. Maybe some more perspective on Monday time allowing.)
Well ... that just happened.
And on that note, who knew that Robbie Keane played right back for the U.S.?
Really, when you get beat 5-0 in a Gold Cup final by Mexico, there's nothing better to do than laugh, right? There's nothing positive here to discuss.
As I said the other day, this would have been a nice cherry on top of a pretty good summer for the U.S., but for Mexico it meant a hell of a lot more. You could sense the pressure and then relief from the El Tri players when it was mercifully over.
Is that an excuse? Perhaps.
To me, is it all that worth getting wrapped up in a loss with the U.S. 'B' team, or more specifically ten brutal minutes when the wheels completely fell off?
If there is any cause for concern it probably falls in three categories.
First, just like the Confederations Cup final when the game was in doubt in the second half, the U.S. had nobody truly viable to bring on while its opponent did. Sunday it was pretty simple for Mexico, El Kabong Aguirre was able to swap out the ineffective Alberto Medina for dangerous Arsenal youngster Carlos Vela.
It's hard to hammer Bob Bradley this time around, since the entire run of the Gold Cup featured an in-and-out U.S. lineup. There wasn't that much to put on for the starting XI, so the fact there wasn't anything on the bench in this specific case isn't a huge deal, but it's a red flag down the road.
The next issue, probably the biggest, is that in the first half for long stretches the U.S. dominated the run of the play and won a ton of set pieces -- but couldn't convert. Honestly I hate to type the following two words, but it has to be said -- Brian Ching.
We know Bradley has a love affair with Ching and that barring injury, there's a 99 percent chance he'll be in the starting lineup when it matters on Aug. 12 at Azteca for the World Cup qualifier. Ching does a lot of things well -- holds the ball, provides a physical presences, hustles etc. Yet he also isn't a natural goal scorer in the final third of the field. You can get away with this when Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey are in the lineup, when it's the 'B' team, not as much.
Again, I hate to single out one player but I just worry about how much Bradley is going to rely on Ching on Aug. 12 and down the road.
Lastly, the defense fell apart in the second half. Other than Heath Pearce this isn't an issue since the rest of the lineup won't be around in 2010. Pearce is a weird player, sometimes he looks good and brings something to the attack, but seems to be a defensive liability.
If anything, time to ditch the would-be offside trap.
Overall, yes, it absolutely sucks to lose to Mexico regardless of who was or wasn't there. And by a 5-0 scoreline? Ugh.
Does this offset the last 10 years of American dominance? Nope.
Does it sully the Dos a Cero refrain? Not just yet.
Does it give Mexico a little confidence against the U.S going forward? Probably.
If you want to take an extremely cynical take, maybe a loss like this puts everything back into perspective for the U.S., even if the main roster wasn't involved. And in that vein, it fires up the core players for a historic win next month when it matters.
No matter how you slice it, there's nothing good from today's game, except that it ended.
Other stuff:
* Minor weird, nit pick of the match: Down 1-0 the U.S. won a free kick at midfield and they played it quickly, instead of letting the subs come in. Quickly Mexico went up 2-0 thanks to a quick turnover and counter attack.
* Since it finished 5-0 it's hard to get wrapped up in a penalty kick, but the Jay Heaps/Gio Dos Santos entanglement could have gone either way. Heaps did get his shirt, but then then the Spurs-man seemed to iniatie the tumble with the Revs defender
* Maybe it was a different match if Robbie Rogers' half-volley right at the start of the second half is a hair lower and beats Ochoa its a different game. That about sums up Rogers' overall game, just a tad bit lacking.
* Not to overstate it, but as good as Stuart Holden was during the Gold Cup, he wasn't on the level of Vela or Dos Santos.
* Even with all the mitigating factors, there's no excuse for 5-0. None. 5-0 also means no positive spin for reaching the final with a 'B' team. 5-0 is 5-0 and the mainstream media will take notice of that scoreline.
* Edgar Castillo, you still want to get in the U.S. camp?
* Any chance we can move the Gold Cup to every four years?
* Guess you have to feel sorry for Jay Heaps. At 32 he gets an international chance, only to get exposed vs. Haiti, called for a penalty vs. Mexico and then finally sent off for his second red. Suffice to say, he's not in the mix going forward.
* If it's possible for a goalie to play well in a 5-0 loss, Troy Perkins may have. He made four saves to keep it close, but the fifth wasn't there and the rout was on.
* It's a safe bet we look at this tournament completely differently if Freddy Adu, Charlie Davies, Benny Feilhaber, etc. stuck around.
* Sam's Army, you can run all the ads you want on FSC, it's not changing the U.S./Mexico tide any time soon on American soil. Sad but true.
* Begrudgingly, I'll hand it to Mexico. They made the U.S. drink the chumpatize juice today.
Final thought:
I've been on a major 'Mad Men' kick lately. Maybe the best way to go about this is taking some advice Don Draper gave to Peggy Olson, as in, forget about it. It never happened.
Give it a good old memory wipe.
(Apologies, if this was hasty, I had to work Sunday night and cranked this out quickly. Maybe some more perspective on Monday time allowing.)
Labels: concacaf, fox soccer, Gold Cup, Soccer, USMNT
The U.S. needs pace upfront. When we rely on players like Ching and Arnoud who can't stretch the defense, everything gets compacted and our technical weakness gets exposed. We will never be able compete with any one of if the field is so compacted. We have an athletic advantage, and we piss it away at the thought, because they don't really exist, of tactics and the fortunate set-piece/whatever. Brian Ching is the epitome of this mindset. This is especially dangerous when fielding two central mids who offer nothing but tackling, Beckerman's strike against Panama has been revealed as fortunate. Heath Pearce deserves his nickname of Hollywood for his outrageously hopeful hoofing, Stuart Holden should be on the wc roster, Rogers needs to sharpen up his thought which leads to his dreadful end product, awaful display
MEX Bretos was abhorrent. You know, I'm really not sure this game casts any doubt on the US's chances at qualifying for 2010, Max. Good points about how it's such a historic win for Mexico, though.
Favorite camera shot was when the Mexican player (we'll call him "Tommy Morrison") got blood on his shorts and had to go off despite his protests. Full on crotch shot of Tommy while they sprayed down his upper thigh. Perhaps the calls for FSC in HD were premature. Bretos did seem to go silent there, wonder what that was about...
Hm, perhaps?
First penalty was soft. Dos Santos posted up Heaps, threw an arm at his face, and backed over him. Pretty sure Heaps was outside the charge cup. At least the ref overlooked an obvious penalty when Rogers bundled Dos Santos down after it was 3 or 4-0.
Couldn't tell if the second goal should have been offsides or not. Probably not, but the first goal was a gift. That would have been a better makeup call than the waved-off penalty late.
Third goal Goodson (I think) was ballwatching and played the runner on. Might have been onside anyways, though.
I think some of our guys probably quit to some extent after the second or third goals. Maybe that's understandable, but you've got to think it's the only opportunity for most of these guys - maybe a friendly here and there. Doubt the Copa America invites us back anytime soon, so maybe 4 years from now is the next potentially busy summer?
Another thing was the famed "fitness level" of our guys. We have access to a bigger pool because of the Confed Cup, and none of these guys played in the Confed Cup, yet our team was looking pretty worn down with the 8 or 9 consecutive offside traps that failed and put Mexico through.
Win or lose, I don't think this game was ever going to say much about US Soccer as a whole. Depth of the program, sure. Perhaps it would have been more of a statement about Mexico and/or CONCACAF in general had we won. For me it's definitely more of a nothing ventured, nothing gained.
@drew
My dad called me up screaming about Bretos, too.
I kind of tuned him out. Not his best showing, for sure.
not that it matters a lick in the scheme of things, but it was Sam Cronin (young and semi-promising), not Steve
Good catch, didn't see that in my haste. I meant Jay Heaps, anyway. Good eyes.
Yeah, it was 5-0. But that first pen was garbage. Even more garbage was seeing Dos Santos grinning like a giddy schoolgirl with his teammates after he drew the pen. Ugh. Thanks, Mexico for giving us new guys to hate.
I don't blame Mexico for running up the score -- they had the chances and finished them. We had plenty of opps in that first half, and we couldn't close 'em. Agreed that Perkins played out of his gourd, and his backline let him down. Thank Jeebus it'll be Boca-Gooch-Spector-DeMerit when the big-boys play.
Also -- interesting post-game interview with Brian Ching. He was defn'tly classy in the he didn't throw his 'mates under the bus. I could see him parsing the words correcly, but if he were to take the filter off, it seemed like he was disappointed how the guys fell apart after the first goal.
The PK was a big hit to the U.S. side, those chances in the first half, they've got to finish them.
Holden should start for the national team, no doubt. Not only does he score and create chances but he actually plays defense and slid and won the ball a number of times.
After this, the match in Mexico City is all the more interesting. Can't wait.
I agree that the big Hawaiian looms large in Bradley's plans for the US Mens National Ching, err, I mean Team.
While watching the Chelsea-CA game and they did the crawl of the Gold Cup score, they followed it up with a 'no player from last month's Confed Cup played/started in the game.' It was like espn was trying to ease the hurt. Is that to keep interest high for Aug 12th, or does someone in Bristol actually understand what is going on?
Gold Cup has no business being every two years. We would care more if it showed up less often.
Bretos is an abomination. As much as I am critical of espn, they instill me with more confidence for big events (like next season's Champions League) that Fox Soccer does. It still seems kind of cable access-y amateur hour on FSC.
The first goal PK was weak, but that's what having the best player on the field by a large margins gets you - the calls. Gio sure looked dangerous every time he touched the ball and not surprised he got that call. Oh, well.
No US player really impressed me that much as a prospect for the big boy team. Holden looked like the sharpest tool, but that was a very small shed. Seriously, who from the Confed Cup side do you bench to play Holden? I can't think of anyone.
Even agreeing on the fact that the PK was bogus, I was surprised about the US falling apart so hard, so fast.
You should have heard the Mexican announcers. They sounded as if we had re-annexed Texas and California. Second half was a non-stop barrage of "historic humiliation", "return to dominance" and bad spanglish puns.
Curious to hear the reactions of the bandwagon jumpers the next time El Tri falls against a Concacaf team, though.
Some reasons for Gold Cup-
Sure this years USMNT or its fans didnt need a Gold Cup the year before a World Cup... but here are a couple reasons the Gold Cup is important...
1) Anytime the US can get 60K and 70K Mexicans fans in a stadium (Soldier Field and the Meadowlands) its a reason to have a tourny. Plus, univision and telefutra make out pretty well. $$$$$$$$$$$
2) Let's say Benny Feilhaber doesnt strike a volley from the heavans in Chicago 07, wouldnt this years Gold Cup be the summer tourney for the USMNT A team? I think even Bradley would tell Gooch, Howard, Jozy....ect that they couldnt join their club teams til after the final.
The only problem i saw from the thrashing that took place today is the US media really didn't know how to report it. ESPN2 had a pregame show, Alexi had interviews every 20 mins on ESPN networks today...local sportscasters were talking about it on the nightly news. Some commentators got it right and stated it was the USMNT B team while others made the statement now the US has to gain back the mental edge.
Final Note - This was a great week for soccer awareness in the US... ESPN put on the Chelsea/Milans/Club America games... I saw one of the best played and greatest atmosphere MLS games... Chicago(top road) vs Seatlle(top home) 32K fans, Becks was on TV, and the gold cup.
During Chelsea-CA game I noticed ESPN had a small pop-up for a Sportscenter special live from Mexico City 3:30 est on 8/12. Strange that they do that for a game they aren't going to show on their network.
@HBO -
You make some good points, but just to play devil's advocate ...
If Mexico or US does NOT advance to the final - and there were ample opportunities for that to have happened - then the final is not a money making proposition.
You are correct that if the US had not been in the Confed Cup, this tourney would have been our 'big' summer event. So why not have the Gold Cup every summer, then - to give the US (mexico?) a back-up plan? Why does Europe not have theirs every two years? (my answer: because it makes the tourney legitimate)
On to Azteca. From Grant Wahl's Twitter "US lineup vs Mex 8/12 shouldn't be mystery: Howard, Spector, Onyewu, DeMerit, Bocanegra, Dempsey, Bradley, Clark, Donovan, Altidore, Davies"
Wahl has obviously left out Chingenstein. There is no way Bradley the Elder does the same - though I would rather not see Ching in the starting 11. But other than that, Wahl's guess seems accurate. Outside of Ching - who from the Gold Cup second-and-a-half team makes it into that starting line-up?
The more I think about it, the more CDavies = Adu kryptonite.
If Wahl is right, I guess that means the newest American via Germany is not going to make it for this game. Intresting on how all that talk has calmed down, or did I miss the news item where he is not coming to play for us?
Old saying from Hawaii: "its very tough to win, when you play Brian Ching".
I think one thing lost in this is $$$ for American players. While the media and bloggers have been making the case that this tournament gives looks to guys who normally cant get a run, lets be honest, Jay Heaps is NEVER going to be in consideration for a USMNT spot for a big tournament/game. They would move Altidore to right back before calling on Heaps.
One thing that has got to frustrate those at ESPN and US Soccer is how few MLS guys are on the "A" team. Hard to drive MLS ratings when your best players are elsewhere. So this tournament gave a chance to throw alot of those MLS guys into the spotlight, new names, and maybe you get a Holden out of the deal. For guys like Heaps, its a nice payday/thank you for being a pretty good MLS guy all these years. Remember, these guys get PAID to be on the USMNT. Spreading the wealth a bit to guys who cant play overseas, but have been better then average MLS players is a nice Thank You from US Soccer.
I think Jermaine Jones has got a hamstring or something. Still a month or two left until he's training.