A win is a win, right?
The U.S. 2-1 win over Panama started off as a fairly dreary, boring first half and quickly became a fairly decent match, albeit in the end 120 minutes that will fade into the ether relatively quickly.
It's fairly safe to say, this game fell squarely in the Bob Bradley wheelhouse. Now, this isn't to turn this post into a another pro-or-con Bradley discussion.
Watching the game unfurl, I kept thinking that Bradley must have been pleased. Since it was mostly MLSers out there, he didn't have to worry about big egos to coddle. Since the game was airing on Fox Soccer on a Saturday night, it's not like the crucible of midday Confederations Cup matches on ESPN.
Maybe it felt like a Chivas USA/Colorado Rapids midseason match.
All told, Bradley did a good job with the cards he was dealt. He didn't have a Benny Feilhaber or Charlie Davies to bail out the team after falling behind 1-0 at the half, but got the guys in the lineup to rebound and respond.
On the plus side Bradley did seem to inspire the team at the half, as they came out like a ball on fire, culminating with Kyle Beckerman's first international goal three minutes in. (Sorry, Kyle, for the homeless man's Pablo Mastroeni remark. He's actually playing with a good amount of fire in the tournament and was tireless Saturday.)
Yet Bradley made a pretty baffling decision to pull off Davy Arnaud, who helped set up Beckerman's goal and was all over the place working to influence the U.S. attack. When Kenny Cooper was warming up in the second half, it seemed a logical move to take off Brian Ching, who'd already missed a couple chances. (Not to pick on Ching, who worked his ass off for 120 minutes.)
But the Bradley blinders reared up again, and off was Arnaud and on was Cooper. It just seemed to be a substitution of a like for like, when Arnaud's running and creativity was making things happen.(Of course, at this point maybe it's best to stop even trying to figure out Bradley's in-game logic.)
In the end it all worked out, with Cooper winning and converting a penalty. (Has anyone ever taken a PK from further back than Cooper? And man, that was close. At least he had the stones to step up and take it.)
Sometimes, though, you have to wonder if Bradley thinks well enough on his feet during a match. Granted, this wasn't the game to whine about it, since the bench was thinner than Lindsay Lohan on a two-week coke binge. Believe me, this isn't trying to find something to gripe about toward Bradley. It seemed like a strange sub, unless I'm completely missing the fact that Arnuad could have been gassed.
Whatever, it's a minor quibble on a night the also-ran U.S. team pulled out a pretty gutty result, when they easily could have packed it in after falling behind 1-0. At the half, I'll admit it felt grim, especially with Jimmy Conrad's face looking like hamburger after that collision.
Still, the team, regardless of who was or wasn't there, simply outworked and out-played Panama in the second half and extra time, getting the result and a place in the semifinals. There wasn't that much of anything dynamic. The U.S. did enough and controlled enough of the ball when the Panama legs turned to rubber late in the game to secure the win, even if it came off a penalty.
As much as I've written off the Gold Cup, if this current U.S. squad gets to the final and manages to win it, that's a pretty darn good accomplishment. It might not truly help the U.S. overall depth on the top class international stage, but it still shows the U.S. has enough competent players to win a regional tournament with its best players at home resting or somewhere else around the globe.
It's up to you each and individually to turn your nose up at that or not.
Miscellania
* If you've read this site, then you're well aware I'm not a fan in the least bit about the MLS staging an All-Star game. Don Garber & Co. don't want to follow European trends (such as those p-and-r words), why not throw us a bone and get rid of the match. Does it make that much money?
Saturday's game was essentially an MLS All-Star team for the U.S., anyway. The Gold Cup match proved the fallacy of playing this trumped up exhibition. There's no shortage of soccer during the summer, to boot. So is the All-Star Game, err, Sierra Mist All-Star game a necessity?
And it's not like MLS teams aren't staging lucrative exhibitions with European teams on their own. (More on this later.)
* Let's put it this way, Davy Arnuad is bringing a whole lot more to the table at this point than Connor Casey. (Maybe I should have a soft spot for him since I scored about 30 goals in a season with him in 'FIFA 05' when for some reason I thought it would be a cromulent idea to start my fake managerial career with the Kansas City Wizards.)
* Does Cooper's penalty buy him any more rope with Bradley? Or is he still in the doghouse. I like that he has an eye for goal, but he's got to work on that accuracy. He did whiff on that header just after coming into the game, too.
* Once again, Brian Ching does everything except score.
* And again in the running items department, the state of CONCACAF officiating is about on par with California's economy, though it got better as the match progressed culminating with the penalty against Panama which on different replay angles was justified.
* According to Christopher Sullivan, Logan Pause learned under Chris Armas and Jesse Marsch, therefore Bradley is like a moth to a flame, or the old folks gazing on the 'Kramer' portrait -- they simply cannot look away.
* Poor Jimmy Conrad. Finally back in the U.S. fold he lays he body on the line and take a brutal elbow to the face and walks away looking like an MMA fighter.
* Robbie Rogers with a night to forget, way too many giveaways that killed attacks.
* Heath Pearce played an effective match, yet not sure it was an effective night as a left back since he roamed all over the field. Then again, at least he was one of the few Americans to take initiative in the latter stages of the game.
* Stuart Holden didn't score, though he came close after Beckerman's goal, but his workrate did win the U.S. a lot of balls, so it seemed like another strong performance.
* Sam's Army ... your silly wear red policy doesn't exactly work on nights like tonight, does it?
* The more I listen to him, the more I get the impression Max Bretos shares at himself in the mirror before a broadcast -- "Unique/New York/Unique/New York."
* As much as I kill ESPN for its soccer coverage, one thing the WWL wouldn't do would come back to a match 90 seconds into the second half, like FSC did Saturday night.
Two side notes:
* For all the wasted ink (digital and or physical) about David Beckham's return to MLS this week, Saturday afternoon's Seattle Sounders/Chelsea match offered a pretty good counterweight. Over 65,000 turned out for the match most of them apparently there to support the home team. Hard to say that Beckham had anything to do with the success of that match.
As for Andriy Shevchenko's suddenly flowing gold mane? Too stunned to comment. Maybe he was trying to make himself more noticeable for a future MLS designated player slot.
In any case, for a change an MLS team looked like it belonged on the same field as a world power. Maybe not from a talent standpoint, well obviously not from a talent standpoint, but in terms of presentation it was first class.
* In case you missed it, via the NYT Goal blog, the U.S./Mexico qualifier on Aug. 12 apparently won't be aired on ESPN.
While I'll miss the HD broadcast, it won't be the worst thing in the world to listen to a match without the USSF censors swarming behind the scenes.
That's all for a Saturday night after a long afternoon in the summer sun. Hope one or two of these points made sense.
The U.S. 2-1 win over Panama started off as a fairly dreary, boring first half and quickly became a fairly decent match, albeit in the end 120 minutes that will fade into the ether relatively quickly.
It's fairly safe to say, this game fell squarely in the Bob Bradley wheelhouse. Now, this isn't to turn this post into a another pro-or-con Bradley discussion.
Watching the game unfurl, I kept thinking that Bradley must have been pleased. Since it was mostly MLSers out there, he didn't have to worry about big egos to coddle. Since the game was airing on Fox Soccer on a Saturday night, it's not like the crucible of midday Confederations Cup matches on ESPN.
Maybe it felt like a Chivas USA/Colorado Rapids midseason match.
All told, Bradley did a good job with the cards he was dealt. He didn't have a Benny Feilhaber or Charlie Davies to bail out the team after falling behind 1-0 at the half, but got the guys in the lineup to rebound and respond.
On the plus side Bradley did seem to inspire the team at the half, as they came out like a ball on fire, culminating with Kyle Beckerman's first international goal three minutes in. (Sorry, Kyle, for the homeless man's Pablo Mastroeni remark. He's actually playing with a good amount of fire in the tournament and was tireless Saturday.)
Yet Bradley made a pretty baffling decision to pull off Davy Arnaud, who helped set up Beckerman's goal and was all over the place working to influence the U.S. attack. When Kenny Cooper was warming up in the second half, it seemed a logical move to take off Brian Ching, who'd already missed a couple chances. (Not to pick on Ching, who worked his ass off for 120 minutes.)
But the Bradley blinders reared up again, and off was Arnaud and on was Cooper. It just seemed to be a substitution of a like for like, when Arnaud's running and creativity was making things happen.(Of course, at this point maybe it's best to stop even trying to figure out Bradley's in-game logic.)
In the end it all worked out, with Cooper winning and converting a penalty. (Has anyone ever taken a PK from further back than Cooper? And man, that was close. At least he had the stones to step up and take it.)
Sometimes, though, you have to wonder if Bradley thinks well enough on his feet during a match. Granted, this wasn't the game to whine about it, since the bench was thinner than Lindsay Lohan on a two-week coke binge. Believe me, this isn't trying to find something to gripe about toward Bradley. It seemed like a strange sub, unless I'm completely missing the fact that Arnuad could have been gassed.
Whatever, it's a minor quibble on a night the also-ran U.S. team pulled out a pretty gutty result, when they easily could have packed it in after falling behind 1-0. At the half, I'll admit it felt grim, especially with Jimmy Conrad's face looking like hamburger after that collision.
Still, the team, regardless of who was or wasn't there, simply outworked and out-played Panama in the second half and extra time, getting the result and a place in the semifinals. There wasn't that much of anything dynamic. The U.S. did enough and controlled enough of the ball when the Panama legs turned to rubber late in the game to secure the win, even if it came off a penalty.
As much as I've written off the Gold Cup, if this current U.S. squad gets to the final and manages to win it, that's a pretty darn good accomplishment. It might not truly help the U.S. overall depth on the top class international stage, but it still shows the U.S. has enough competent players to win a regional tournament with its best players at home resting or somewhere else around the globe.
It's up to you each and individually to turn your nose up at that or not.
Miscellania
* If you've read this site, then you're well aware I'm not a fan in the least bit about the MLS staging an All-Star game. Don Garber & Co. don't want to follow European trends (such as those p-and-r words), why not throw us a bone and get rid of the match. Does it make that much money?
Saturday's game was essentially an MLS All-Star team for the U.S., anyway. The Gold Cup match proved the fallacy of playing this trumped up exhibition. There's no shortage of soccer during the summer, to boot. So is the All-Star Game, err, Sierra Mist All-Star game a necessity?
And it's not like MLS teams aren't staging lucrative exhibitions with European teams on their own. (More on this later.)
* Let's put it this way, Davy Arnuad is bringing a whole lot more to the table at this point than Connor Casey. (Maybe I should have a soft spot for him since I scored about 30 goals in a season with him in 'FIFA 05' when for some reason I thought it would be a cromulent idea to start my fake managerial career with the Kansas City Wizards.)
* Does Cooper's penalty buy him any more rope with Bradley? Or is he still in the doghouse. I like that he has an eye for goal, but he's got to work on that accuracy. He did whiff on that header just after coming into the game, too.
* Once again, Brian Ching does everything except score.
* And again in the running items department, the state of CONCACAF officiating is about on par with California's economy, though it got better as the match progressed culminating with the penalty against Panama which on different replay angles was justified.
* According to Christopher Sullivan, Logan Pause learned under Chris Armas and Jesse Marsch, therefore Bradley is like a moth to a flame, or the old folks gazing on the 'Kramer' portrait -- they simply cannot look away.
* Poor Jimmy Conrad. Finally back in the U.S. fold he lays he body on the line and take a brutal elbow to the face and walks away looking like an MMA fighter.
* Robbie Rogers with a night to forget, way too many giveaways that killed attacks.
* Heath Pearce played an effective match, yet not sure it was an effective night as a left back since he roamed all over the field. Then again, at least he was one of the few Americans to take initiative in the latter stages of the game.
* Stuart Holden didn't score, though he came close after Beckerman's goal, but his workrate did win the U.S. a lot of balls, so it seemed like another strong performance.
* Sam's Army ... your silly wear red policy doesn't exactly work on nights like tonight, does it?
* The more I listen to him, the more I get the impression Max Bretos shares at himself in the mirror before a broadcast -- "Unique/New York/Unique/New York."
* As much as I kill ESPN for its soccer coverage, one thing the WWL wouldn't do would come back to a match 90 seconds into the second half, like FSC did Saturday night.
Two side notes:
* For all the wasted ink (digital and or physical) about David Beckham's return to MLS this week, Saturday afternoon's Seattle Sounders/Chelsea match offered a pretty good counterweight. Over 65,000 turned out for the match most of them apparently there to support the home team. Hard to say that Beckham had anything to do with the success of that match.
As for Andriy Shevchenko's suddenly flowing gold mane? Too stunned to comment. Maybe he was trying to make himself more noticeable for a future MLS designated player slot.
In any case, for a change an MLS team looked like it belonged on the same field as a world power. Maybe not from a talent standpoint, well obviously not from a talent standpoint, but in terms of presentation it was first class.
* In case you missed it, via the NYT Goal blog, the U.S./Mexico qualifier on Aug. 12 apparently won't be aired on ESPN.
While I'll miss the HD broadcast, it won't be the worst thing in the world to listen to a match without the USSF censors swarming behind the scenes.
That's all for a Saturday night after a long afternoon in the summer sun. Hope one or two of these points made sense.
I think with Ching wearing the captian's armband, Bradley wasn't going to sub him. In my mind Rogers was a waste of space tonight and the weak link. I'd have subbed him but we didn't need midfield help and I don't know who the depth chart calls for with this roster.
Huge game in my mind for Holden and Beckerman. I've always known Stuart has a solid first touch but Beckerman had Velcro on his cleats tonight. And I really don't like the guy.
How was the challenge that resulted in the penalty not a red card? That looked way worse to me than either of the reds handed to US player in ConFed Cup.
I thought Beckerman has played great throughout the Gold Cup. He has been composed under pressure, distributed the ball well and has great ball control. I would like to see him get some playing time with the big boys. I would also like to see him without the dreadlocks! They look disgusting and I wonder if they hamper performance.
Things that are not brought back by Americans to Gold Cup matches: Dempsey, Donovan and the rest of the first team.
Things that *ARE* brought back by Americans to Gold Cup matches: vuvuzelas.
Who says we don't know the soc-cer?!?
Cardillo, I agree about the MLS All-star game. How does that possibly turn a profit? Does any broadcaster really WANT that game? I guess it is the same as the 'every two years' Gold Cup schedule. The games have no real relevance regarding results or competition - but they must be making money for someone. Right? I just can't tell who.
The problem with US/Mexico isn't so much that it's not airing on ESPN, it's that it's airing on Telemundo and mun2. At least for my Comcast package, we don't pay for the "multicultural" channels, so we don't get either of those. And a lot of people are in the same situation. There's a petition going about to try and get it moved to a station that people actually have: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/usamexicotv/.
I have gone on and on about how the MLS all-star game doesn't seem to serve any purpose. I can't imagine it even makes any money for the league or the broadcasters. It also doesn't raise the profile of MLS much. Sure, the all-stars are playing Everton and Tim Howard - but does that move the Q-meter more that Seattle-Chelsea or Galaxy-Meeelan?
The most clownish part is that the all-star game is the same night as a Concacaf Champions League game. Toronto FC is playing a meaningful (ish) game that very same night so DeRoasrio and the other TFC players are unavail for the all-star game. Ugh.