Canada 2007

Just found the match on telefetura and saw the halftime highlights. Seems to be a fantastic first half. Grzegorz Krychowiak had an amazing free kick goal from 30 yards out to put Poland up 1-0. In the 28th minute Kolz received his second yellow card and was issued his walking orders. At the half it remains 1-0 with Brazil not really testing the Polish defense.
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It is about the 75th minute and Poland is valiantly holding onto their slim lead and this referee has done a fantastic job with the match. He hasn't missed a single call and even spotted the Jo handball in the box in an attempt to get past the Polish keeper. Well done...

 

Polonia, as referred to on Telefetura, has pulled off the upset. Tom will be proud. The was a great evenflow to the match and Brazil had most of the possession, but Poland's counter attack looked dangerous at times even with just 10 men.

As I said earlier a well reffed match...I'll have to look up the name of the official.

Congrats Poland and enjoy the win Tom.

 

1-0 POLAND! Fantastic. A cracking game of football. Howard Webb was simply outstanding. Brazil's dives were laughable. Really looking forward to the rest of the tournament. Watching the US now...

 

ESPNU isn't included in my cable package so any updates from the US match would be appreciated.

 

Ok, will do. BTW, do you do anything? I've never seen someone post this much anywhere.

 

U.S. starting lineup against S. Korea:

Seitz
Ward Sturgis Valentin Beltran
Bradley Adu Szetela
Rogers Altidore Zizzo

 

Initial impressions from the first 10 minutes:

Ward sucks. Is Adu even on the field?

S. Koreans are making it hard for the U.S. and are playing a little better.

 

Wow...Seitz just had a great save. Koreans are taking it to the U.S. but we're up from a nice goal 1-0 U.S.

 

Ward is shite! The Koreans are fast and technical but the final ball is letting them down.

 

The buildup finally pays off for S. Korea and they find the final pass through the suspect defense. 1-1

 

Ohhh a clear chance for Altidore but he couldn't connect.

 

The U.S. officially cannot pass the ball.

 

Well, Poland got the job done today!! 1-0 over what I thought was a very lethargic and overrated Brazil side. Poland scored on a nice freekick from Krychowiak in the 23rd minute.

On the whole, I think Poland deserved at least a draw. They took advantage of their scoring chance. Brazil pushed forward and had more shots than Poland, but Polish keeper Bartosz Bialkowski shunned the Brazilians all day long.

Poland passed well, counter-attacked well and simply outworked the Brazilians in all facets of the game. With my wife being Polish and taking Poland as my second country, I am really proud of the team today. Bobby McMahon had them predicted to finish last in the group and while that still could happen, today was a great start and a great day for Polish football.

I hope they can use this momentum going into the next match. POLSKA!! POLSKA!!! POLSKA!!!

 

U.S. eeks out a 1-1 draw, we got lucky...even though Altidore should have won at least a free kick in the dying minutes.

 

Not the result I wanted to see out of the US youngsters, but at least the captured one point. Improvement all over the side are needed, especially in the build up.

And...please pleas please start to shoot the ball more. 4 shots and only one of which being on goal is pathetic. Strikers have their work cut out for them.

 

Disclaimer: I was 20 feet away from the screen (and it wasn't the big one), so I couldn't identify individual players that well.

Goalie: Did a fine job. The one goal wasn't his fault and he made some class saves. He was only beaten one other time, and that banged off the cross bar (it would have been an amazing strike if it had gone in).

Defense: Not impressed at all. The center backs were poor while the LB and RB were simply bad.

Midfield:
Bradley - played a central defensive mid role. Did good defensively, but his passing was as on&off as it was in the Gold Cup. Still, he had more vision of the field than any other American on the pitch. Very Reyna-esque performance, with the lower quality passing.

Adu - tried to play a Dempsey-esque central attacking mid role, but lacks the vision to handle that role. He did well when he got the ball around the box, but was of not help at all getting it to that position. I did like his free kicks - he had quite a few indirects from the Korean half and, while none of them resulted in goals, they were all dangerous and none of them were wasted efforts.

Forwards
I wasn't really impressed with the wing play - i.e., no one ready to step up to the Senior team. The crosses were generally poor, though admittedly, Korea would put 2 defenders on our wingers as soon as they crossed the 18 yard line.

Altidore - didn't have his coming out party, but showed promise with his positioning and instincts. He didn't have terribly much to work with, as far as delivery, but did come very close on a couple (i.e., stretched and ball missed his foot by inches, etc.). He should have gotten a free kick in extra time, just outside the central penalty box. He looked like he was alone up top much of the game.

Overall:
Korea was FAST, I mean REALLY FAST. I don't think we outpaced them at any position. Still, Bradley held the middle well enough that all of their offense came down the wings, mostly with long balls. Except for the first 20 mins of the 2nd half, the US generally had more of the run of play (overall possession was 50/50, but most of Korea's was in their own half of the field).
The US Team played their "standard" aggressive, pushing style, but were having real problems with the Korean pace. The wing play was getting all but shut down, so they settled for some long ball sometimes. The US goal was off one of the few crosses that made it into the box - Altidore drew 2 defenders and barely missed it off his foot and Szetela headed it off the bounce.

PREDICTIONS: I think we lack the defensive quality to beat Brazil, unless our goalie has a career day. I think Poland, while good defensively, might be more vulnerable to our attacking style since, as bad as our passing was today, it was still better than Brazil's. 2-1 vs. Poland and 1-2 vs Brazil.

 

The US seems to be lacking somebody the skill to beat their defenders. The wingers are rubbish and have no skill at all. They were playing a team full of pace and that is not good when the only skill you have is to try and beat your defender for pace.

 

Well umm I hope they were simply flat out the gate and they have more to offer in the coming games. The fact that we were outplayed yet still came up with the point is good.

I congratulate Tom and Poland on their upset. That said its still Poland, we can do them, I know we can. If we come up with three on in the next match were in good shape, if not then its major trouble.

Btw; did we get screwed on the draw or what! The other groups are absolute crap in comparison. All four teams would likely go through were they in any other group.

 

Seems to be the tale of the U20's and Men's sides...the draws have been brutal. Hoping the US makes it through, but Poland looks solid. They were tenacious tracking down every ball out there today; even with just ten men. It also could just be a case of nipping a goal early and setting everyone behind the ball the rest of the match. Didn't appear to be the latter.