USMNT v. T&T

All three goals looked awfully close to offsides to me. Any thoughts?

Gooch was better than flawless.

 

The goals were relatively close to off-sides (as in the line judge had to at least be paying attention), but they were all good. Not to mention the PK that Dempsey earned and wasn't called...

Good job by the boys. Junior generally impressed me (had a few shaky moments, but his passing, especially his long passing, was spot on). I like having Sascha beside him.

 

Nice to see Deuce grab himself another goal. Thought he looked very good.

EJ, on the other hand, didn't do much.

 

Regarding the offsides calls, and other matters, it looked to me that we had some pretty friendly officials. With the exception of the the non-call on the penalty on Dempsey, it seemed that whenever a call could go either way...it went our way.

In the play leading up to Dempsey's goal, I thought Beasely committed a hand ball. I looked at it on the Tivo...the ball deflected off his lower arm. I am a rookie soccer fan, and many of the nuances are still beyond me. But if the ball delfects off of Beasely's lower arm, even unintentionally, is that not a hand ball? Especially when it ended up being very much to our advantage?

 

All in all it was a very good night of soccer in my household as Katie's rec team won and the USMNT was a joy to watch on the DVR. I hope some of you were able to make the chat room and enjoyed watching the well lighted match on a nearly flawless pitch.

I don't want to overhype this win because it was a home match to a CONCACAF opponent and the USMNT was supposed to win this match. Having said that the USMNT did what it was supposed to impressively. This match gave us the type of play that most of us have been longing to see. Short passes with the ball progressing from the back through the midfield then into the attack. The play at times was a little slow but the teams movement off the ball was much better then it has been recently. I was very pleased to see a lot of one-touch passing play with attackers pressing the goal on multiple through ball attempts. Trinidad's defense last night was atrocious but kudos to the US team for fully taking advantage of what they were given.

Players that impressed me

Dempsey & Donovan - Great off the ball movement last night. They were more active off the ball then I have seen in a very long time.

Gooch - Game after game he is a force in the back and last night was no different.

Ching - If he keeps playing like this I will have to shut up about Kenny Cooper.

Bradley & Kljestan as a tandem - They were given way to much space and they made T&T pay for it last night. Many of us have commented the MB looks more comfortable playing along side a creative passing midfielder and last night did nothing to disprove that theory. I think Sacha staked a big claim to the starting role next to Bradley by playing tenacious defense and providing a nice connection from the back four to the front.

Players who were solid

Dolo and Pearce played good defense and both got forward even if the results were not always spectacular. Timmy manned the net nicely but really did not have much to do.

Players who have work to do

I am still in hopes that Beasley is shaking off the injury rust. He was offsides to often and his first touch and shot still are evading him.

Boca made the only two gaff's last night that against a better team could have proved costly. The first was trying to trap a ball near the touchline instead of clearing it out of bounds only to see it roll into open space behind him. The second was a poorly chosen pass to Bradley when he was under pressure that provided T&T with a counter opportunity. Both were mental mistakes that a player of his caliber should not be making.

 

A couple of thoughts from last night. The Chicago crowd was terrific. Gooch was a monster on the back line. He looked like a man among boys against the T&T attack. Timmy provided his usual greatness. Bradley looked far better than I've seen him to date. It's good to see Dempsey back in goal scoring form, he had a strong game as did Landon.

On the other hand, while Ching does a great job winning the 50/50's, he loses more balls in his feet or has them get away after a poor first touch then any forward I can recall seeing. And Eddie looked like Eddie (lazy and ineffective).

I also really liked the addition of Hislop in the booth. I thought he provided a more in depth insight on strategy and setup than what we usually get on US broadcasts. In the Demps interview,he had the only question that seemed to engage Clint and produce a response outside of the standard cliched replies. That was probably a one off appearance for the T&T game, but I'd hope ESPN would have him back again.

 

A convincing result for the US. T&T played far too deep and opened up loads of room in the final third which the US exploited with great efficiency. Overall I don't have much criticism to hand out other than the obvious lack of improvement from EJ. He was hesitant and didn't make wise choices on the ball.

Still a good result and allows Bradley more freedom to play less experienced players.

 

That reminds me, that was an incredible play by Donovan.

Agree with FulhamAg about adding Hislop to the booth mix.

 

They were certainly up for the singing. I don't recall hearing that one song before at USMNT matches (ooohhh, usa, usa, usa). Can't place the original tune they were singing that too either, but it sounded familiar.

And what exactly does "take their colors" mean?

 

speaking of fans singing and chanting...anyone ever heard the Mexican supporters when the opposing goalie takes a goal kick? I could be mistaken, but I swear I heard "Pu - taaaaaaa" every time the Jamaican keeper took a goal kick. Can anyone confirm that?

 

You guys are just plain wrong about Ching on Donovan's cross. While the cross was timed perfectly with Ching's run to beat his defenders, it was right at his family jewels. Any shot had to be a one toucher and I dont know how you can expect him to score with that part of his body. IOW Donovan put the cross at the worst possible height for his forward.

 

Sorry Mo, even though I though Ching had a very good game he should have done better with that cross and for the record it hit him on his lower thigh above the knee but well below the groin. I watched in slo-mo on my DVR several times and it was not as easy as the announcers made it sound but he should have done better.

 

I watched it in slow mo too and no way is that his lower thigh. He stopped the ball's lateral movement by rotating his hip and bending his leg up but that was all. There was nothing he could do with that ball. I'll concede the point when someone tells me exactly what he should've done differently.

 

I love the passion all around on here, good show, folks.

 

Diving header? Thus truly earning the nickname flying Hawaiian

 

I don't know the song either, but we sang it straight for the last 20 minutes of the USA-Argentina game. Heck, I still have the song in my head

 

First, I did defend Ching and said it was not the easy chance the announcers made it out to be. Second, there is no way Ching had a chance for a diving header the ball was never far enough away from his body for him to dive for the ball. Ching had two choices. One was to play it safe and try and trap the ball and the second was to try something out of the norm like letting the ball go past him and attempting a side kick. The only thing about the play that disappointed me in the least was that Ching played it safe. In fact the thing I find most irratating about Ching in genereal is that his first option almost always seems to be to play it safe no matter how close to the goal he is. I will admit that it would have taken an exceptional play by Ching to let the ball go past him and leave the ground to attempt a side-kick. I will also argue that a strikers job is to do the exceptional or at the very least try to do the exceptional. If you want to play it safe learn to be a CB.

Before anybody jumps on me too much about riding Ching go back and look at what I said about him in my opinion on the match. I do think he had a good match but he was not exceptional. In fact the problem the USMNT has had at forward since McBride left is that we haven't had anyone exceptional at that postion.

BTW Mo I would argue that in his prime that McBride would have left his feet and tried the side kick instead of the trap.