US v Wales

8+ years of waiting is almost over. 90 minutes on Monday and we’ll know if the youngest team in the WC has a chance to advance. A loss and it’s curtains. A draw isn’t a disaster, but a win and the confidence of the team would get the much needed boost they desperately need. I will give GB a little credit, picking Ream and Morris played to the room, and Haji is popular as he grew up in the baby Nats team w/Puli, Weston etc..

 

One thing is certain: Wales will be jacked up. This is only their second World Cup finals appearance. The other was in 1958. The Welsh are the third oldest national team on the planet, having begun with a 4-nil defeat to Scotland in March of 1876 in Glasgow. We know firsthand of their quality, currently employing Harry and Dan James, and Neco Williams last season. Wayne Hennessy has seemingly been around since dirt (probably because he has). We faced him plenty during his long stints with Wolves and Palace. Despite being a 35 year old backup to Dean Henderson at Forest, he’s currently slated to start in the net over Leicester’s Danny Ward, who is starting after Kasper Schmeichel’s departure.
Chris Mepham, Connor Roberts, Ben Davies, Joe Rodon, Joe Allen, Aaron Ramsey and Brennan Johnson are known quantities to Fulhamerican fans.
And then there’s Gareth Bale.
Is he really fully fit? (He says he is).
Will he start? (Probably).
Will he play all 90+ minutes in the group stage? (Maybe).
The guy’s talent is obscene. But he’s invisible for long stretches of matches he starts. He’s one of those maddening athletes that can be MIA 99.999% of a game, then produce one, sometimes two, unfathomably improbable brilliant play to either draw, extend, or win the bloody thing for his side. The MLS final was merely the most recent. World Cup matches, especially in the group stage, tend to be managed very close to the vest, with only obvious mismatches resulting in mega goalfests. That’s the likeliest scenario in our group, with the relative talent level somewhat even. That’s the perfect Petri dish potpourri of cultures that increases the odds of one man making one extraordinary play that skews the result.
And there’s little, if anything, you can do about it, save praying his teammates fail to control the ball adequately to provide him a chance within range of your goal.
But……
We have undaunted, brash, talented, confident, self-aware youngsters (and Deandre and Tim).
I think we’ll win, AND keep Bale in check….because we can.

 

Daniel James thinks he can outrun Robinson. I wonder if they’ve ever wagered a race at Motspur Park.

https://www.90min.com/posts/daniel-james-admits-usmnt-have-incredible-squad-world-cup-wales

 

H

I’d bet on Jedi in a straight up foot race. Dan might win a full speed dribbling race.

 

I’m cautiously optimistic. I think, on the balance, we’re the better team. But, as jump pointed out, Bale is the x-factor. All it takes is one slip up, one mistake, and he will torch us. 2-1 Yanks, I say.

 

We’re now mere single digit hours away from the end of eight years of Yank footy misery. That’s a long time.
One wants to keep things in the proper perspective: it’s only just a game, it’s not life and death, there are more important things in life, blah, blah, blah.
This feels different. Sometimes we get smug and complacent about life in America. Despite our issues, there’s no doubt whatsoever that we still live in the greatest, most free, most prosperous country in human history. There are lots of nations, leaders and people groups that love, hate, envy, and terrorize us. They all take some comfort in the fact that one thing we do not dominate is the most popular sport on the planet. At least, they reason, there’s one thing the big, bad bullies don’t own that we still have a piece of.
It’s time to change that.
Jimmy Carter said the best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our demoncratic system is worthy of emulation. Winston Churchill opined “Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have ever been tried from time to time.”
If we can do well here, in a sport that isn’t our most popular, yet commands the planet’s attention every four years, it will enhance the idea and appeal of freedom and democracy.
Yeah, it will have the opposite effect on many friends and foes, but it will still demonstrate the superiority of allowing humans the rights of freedom and self government.
Sadly, I believe that the rest of FIFA would conspire to ensure our defeat if we ever made it to a first World Cup final. But subsequent such scenarios? Probably less so.
We’ll find out in a few hours if we’re any closer to that dream.
COME ON YOU YANKS!

 

Four Fulham players on the pitch to start the match. Has to be a record!

 

Very excited for this as both a USA and a Fulham fan.

 

I like starting Sargeant up top. He’s an in form striker, and nearly scored on a nifty cross by (I think) Weah. Weah’s causing Neco and that side of the Welsh back line heartburn.

 

BYOO-DEE-FULL!!! Well played, well deserved, well taken! What a pass by Pulisic!
Maybe an even better finish by Weah. Easy to miss wide with a closing keeper on top of you.
Perfect technique from #21.

 

The momentum has switched in the second half. They’re more aggressive; we’re more passive.
I smell a draw.

 

Somehow I failed to mention in any of my previous missives on Gareth Bale that he is a known flopper. Sometimes he sells it, sometimes he gets booked for simulation. The Zimmerman foul wasn’t a hard sell.

 

It felt like the US squad thought that one goal would be enough, but with Wales having so many attacking threats they should have pushed harder for a second. Tim Ream did an excellent job with Bale most of the day so it was really unfortunate Zimmerman undid all that work with a very sloppy challenge.

Looking ahead, I'm not feeling good about the US's chances. They must get a draw against England because Wales is going to run up the score on Iran and I doubt the US would be able overcome that goal differential if Wales and the US ended up tied on 4 points. If the US loses to England and Wales beats Iran, then England and Wales go into their match knowing that a draw gets them both through to the next round. But they play the games for a reason, so maybe I'll be surprised.

 

I was a bad American and bet Wales to win or draw. I questioned where the USA offense would come from and they proved me right. One shot on target.

I would gladly have lost that 15 bucks for a USA win.

 

I haven't seen or listened to any of the post match comments, but it sure did look like we tried to park the bus in the entire second half. Even if that wasn't really the plan, we certainly did back off the high press that worked very well in the first half, and they put one on. The whole tenor of the match, and big mo (momentum) switched in the second half. You cannot allow a decent team at this level to dictate play for an entire half with a one goal lead. As has been noted ad nauseum, a fit Gareth Bale makes them better than decent. Sitting back and allowing them to control possession in our half for a half means increasing the odds exponentially that something bad is going to happen. And lo and behold, it did. And it was Bale who made it happen. Zimmerman can wag his finger at the ref all he wants to, but that challenge in that spot on the pitch is going to be a penalty 999,999 times out of a million. I don't know what we should have done differently to counter their halftime adjustments, but the adjustments we made played right into their hands. What should have been three points was only one and, given what England did to Iran today, nobody on the planet expects us to get a result against them. And, as the right honourable gentleman stated previous, now the goal difference becomes a factor. Iran will do whatever they can to prevent surrendering six goals again. A missed opportunity.

 

So close...yet so far away.

 

Jordan Morris was brought in because of ‘speed and power’…uh he’s had neither since his horrible knee injury at Swansea.

Wales has to be the tallest team in the WC, so instead of running at them like we did in the first half, we stupidly went wide time and again with ZERO chance for a cross to work..

McKennie’s worst performance in a US jersey in a long time..maybe because he’s no where close to 100%.

Aaronson for 30 min and No Reyna…DOO DOO Indeed!!!