US vs. Turkey

The Turks appear to be capable of presenting a far sterner test than Azerbaijan did. They've played three friendlies this month and won them all, at Kosovo, at Ireland and against Honduras at RFK Thursday. Aside from three guys in the Bundesliga and one each in La Liga and Ligue 1, they all play their club football in their homeland. They also appear to have a young-ish side with siginificant international experience. Their captain, midfielder Arda Turan, looked good in the CL final against Real until he and they collectively ran out of gas. They have a good team, and we'll be hard pressed to beat them, even on home soil.

 

Is former Fulham player Kerim Frei is on the Turkish roster? If he is, we ALL know the scouting report; he won't use his opposite foot! Exciting young player, who got lost under Jol. I know he is on the same club team has Jermaine Jones, but not sure if he has been playing regularly or not.

 

Better. Still obvious defense issues, but I was impressed with the speed and athleticism of some of the new guys in the back. Brooks especially moves well for a big man. Chandler needs to stay on the bench. Sweet give and go between Bradley and Fabian. A great pass and possibly even better shot .
It seems obvious that the players we can least afford to lose are Bradley and Dempsey. Brad is certainly capable of replacing Howard if he gets hurt or red carded or gets too many yellows. Everybody else is covered as well. Does the defense need work? Of course. But there's still time to work on it, so I'm not going to panic...yet. Getting excited, though, it's almost here. It's going to be an interesting tournament, no matter what happens to our lads. And no damn VUVUZELAS!
COYY!

 

Bradley and Fabian's connection for the goal was, at a minimum, inspirational. That was a fantastic strike and made me smile about possibilities.

It's all still a bit disjoined, but with two weeks to go, all I hope for is a coherent squad that can defeat Ghana. Oh, how I want the US to beat that country...

 

Oh what a goal! A very nice scoop by Msr. Bradley and an outstanding weak foot strike by Msr. Johnson. I also enjoyed Dempsey's first half nutmeg that unfortunately led to nothing except a smile on my face.

Three guys who stepped up in a competitive match

Fabian Johnson was good defensively and provided the kind of offensive runs Steve Cherundolo would have been proud of.

Geoff Cameron turned in another very good performance.

I complained about Brooks inclustion in the final 23 man squad but after a slightly shaky start he put in what I will call a strong 43 minutes and looked every bit like he belonged on the pitch.

Three guys wern't bad but will need to reach higher

Jermain Jones was nicely active defensively in a midfield wthere he was outnumbered 2 to 1 but his passing was pretty atrocious.

I am concerned that Matt Besler is not gelling with Cameron. Are their playing styles to similar?

Bradley had some very bright moments including the ball the Johnson but he was also quite loose with his passing throughout the night.

Three guys who didn't help themselves

It's not Julian Green's fault that Klinsmann picked him but he looked overmatched against Turkey.

Chandler looked adequate for most of the match but was caught ball watching a couple of times and made two huge mistakes on Cameron's unfortunate hand ball. First the turnover was terrible but to not attack the ball after giving it away was unthinkable to me. Kudos to Guzan for delaying the goal but if Chandler had tried to recover the ball Guzan's work might not have gone for naught.

Since everyone else was at least adequate on the evening spot three remains vacant.

 

Entertaining for the fans in the stands and those watching on TV.

• Fabian Johnson: Can we please stop w/the 'we have better RBs who weren't even invited to camp' nonsense, because it's just that, complete and utter nonsense. This guy is a fantastic talent.

• Graham Zusi: I like him, and he'll pop up and make something happen, BUT he simply is invisible far too much. If anyone could use going overseas and improve it's him. France would be a good landing spot.

• Timothy Chandler: He is NOT a leftback, so at some point in the tourney if he plays, it better not be there.

• Besler: I would think he would compliment Cameron perfectly Barry, so hopefully they gel better going forward.

• Jozy: Tim Howard said it best when he called him our 'moneymaker', he built off of the 2nd half of the Azer-whosawhatsit match and really played well. I guess it was a foul on the GK in the first half, but the GK acted so poorly the ref could've of given the goal.

• Backline: Beas will be the starter v Ghana. I like the Turkish player who said after the match about the US' defense 'when a team plays attacking football like the US tried to do, there will be opportunities for the opposing team'. I just can't see that we will try that style against Portugal and Germany.

 

All I could think of after the Dempsey goal was how badly Fulham needed a couple like that this past season.

I've seen a lot of discussion about how much the defense needs work. I can think of a couple of easy shots by Turkey, but don't feel that they had an overabundance of scoring chances. Aside from Chandler's brain fart, we kept a clean sheet against a tough European opponent. I still realize that these last two matches won't be indicative of the group matches in Brazil, but I'm getting a bit more confident. Now if we could only get Jozy rolling...