USSoccer

Is it me, or is he throwing across his body again?

I would absolutely buy this if it really happened.

AHAHHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA THIS IS WHY WE SHOULD SING

Hargreaves came on for Scholes with about 20 minutes left. He should've come on for Carrick at halftime when Carrick couldn't continue. Instead Giggs came on, leaving Scholes and Giggs in the midfield and they are too old. Scholes can still have a good game but Giggs has really gone downhill - he gives the ball away far too often and his rainbow crosses and corners are never effective. I'm disappointed that Jozy won't be playing Wednesday, I don't follow the US MNT too closely but from all the talk on here I was looking forward to seeing him at Old Trafford. Ronaldo being as good as he is frees everyone up and masks the deficiencies of the other mids.

ESPN sucks.

The Stoke/Everton game was way more entertaining that I thought it would be. Stoke kind of sucks talent wise, but they were all over the pitch with effort, and really deserved a draw. Tim Cahill, for a short guy, is class on set pieces. BTW, too bad Jozy didn't make the CL roster for Wednesday's tie at Old Trafford. Apparently UEFA has some sort of "homegrown player" rule that he may have fallen victim to. Which is too bad, because seeing him play on a European night in Manchester would really have helped him prepare for being away in a real presure enviroment like Trinidad. Bob Bradley sucks.

This shouldn't be a revelation, but without C.Ronaldo, United aren't really that special.

Nice vid... too bad they got to the next image just when he was about to lose the ball. A cool move is nice, but if you don't pass enough, you're bound to lose the ball. Players that only play for themselves (like this boy does) rarely get anywhere. Luckily, this boy's only 8 years old, so he has lots of time to practice on teamwork. Bob Bradley? Is that you? But is this kid a good person?

Don't worry. ODP will have all that individual skill and creativity coached out of him in no time.

Everything you said is true, however, as sad as it is, it's nice that we're at least making incremental progress in terms of formation.

First off, SOOOOOOOOOO pissed I couldn't make it, but my daughter was sick. The Good: -Formation. We played the "Y" again, and created pretty well off of it. The freedom it gives Beasley, Donovan and Dempsey to move and create has made a difference in the attacking 3rd. -Bradley/Sascha. This was better from the central mids. Having a more attacking minded player really made a difference in our ability to move the ball quickly and decisively. Bradley changed the point of attack pretty well, but still made a stupid giveaway that nearly resulted in a goal. Sascha...he was okay, nothing amazing, but just the attacking mentality and his positioning makes a difference, even if he didn't have a particularly great game. Hopefully Bradley saw this, and the pairing can continue, because it's a hell of a lot better than twin destroyers. -Dempsey is slowly starting to get his form back. His goal from the run of play was well-taken, and I thought he was pretty dangerous throughout. Until Adu and Altidore pass the good-person test, Clint remains the one 'Nat who is capable of creating a moment of magic on the pitch. -Donovan, I thought, played pretty well. It isn't his fault that Beasley and Ching suck. The Bad: -Beasley and Ching. Ching got a garbage goal and Beasley still doesn't have his touch back. Why we don't convert him into a left back, I have no idea. Ching tanks too many easy chances for a striker. -Eddie Johnson shoots like a high school freshman. Lines it up, plants his foot...slow as hell. He really, really sucks. I'm pretty happy with the result, since it all but guarantees a spot in the Hex. Now we really need to start bringing in the newer players to get them ready, because we WILL need them in the next round.

For those of you who have seen complaints about the structure of us soccers youth development but don't know exactly what were talking about , read the latest Dempsey entry at http://www.thisisamericansoccer.com and read about the struggles non-wealthy families have being involved. I would love to see that contrasted with like the Michael Bradley story. My parents were divorced and didn't make a lot of money. Try as they could, we could never afford half the crap that select teams want you to do. It's insane.

Kaplan gives me the heebie jeebies Kaplani s a jackass, and so is Lou for the bunt call.

Nice game, but sooner or later someone's going to put 8 in the box and make Orton throw. Plus, they won't have to go up against a completely rusty QB every game out. Nice win, nice performance, but I'd temper any expectations.

I think the underlying fear is that the crap stretch now will preclude the team from playing in October. Or at least preclude the team from setting up their rotation and resting guys before October. If this stretch continues after next week, then yeah, maybe it's time to get worried, but as long as the lead stays in the 3-5 game range there should be nothing precluding the rotation from being set properly..

Would you rather them go through a crap stretch in October or now?

Isn't this the thing, though? The USSF is happy with effort and results, but not process. They point to efforts like 2006 v Italy and say "See the heart?" when anyone with a fricking brain can look at that game and say, "gee, if we had a playmaker or a striker we win?". They point to 2002 v Germany and the effort there, and ignore that we had at least 3, maybe as many as 5 really, really, really good attacking players on the field, and it had jack to do with heart or effort or fighting and everything to do with form, tactics, and identity, and taking your game to the opponent. Edu was not great, but Beasley's crapfest (another missed open goal! WTF!?) overshadowed my opinion of anyone elses. I really did think Bradley was ok in the role he's been stuck with for the 'Nats. As long as Daddy won't let him play box-to-box we're stuck watching him play White Mastroeni. I also did count like 3 combination plays in the attacking third tonight, which was 3x the number of them we had in the last 2 games. So that's something. But again, players like Clint and Landon are going to look like quasi-crap without quality linking midfield play. We now have like a 5 point lead on qualifying for the Hex, and we have 3 home games left. There's no pressure in that. Jozy, Freddy, Sascha, Holden and Benny should be playing in every one of the home ties at least. EDIT: Bob Bradley created a nice excuse for himself over the summer. He could have featured Jozy, Freddy, et al in that trio of really useful friendlies and gotten them valuable experience against top competition. Instead, he can fall back on "it's a World Cup qualifier on the road in Latin America, we need to take the veterans who know how to win" and now when the F are these guys going to be ready and "good enough people" to feature? I hate Bob Bradley.

he is probably going to have pitched himself onto the playoff roster at this rate.

There were some good things that happened tonight: -Edu/Bradley controlled the midfield and held possession much better than Mastro/Bradley in Guatemala. -Dempsey showed some signs of life with a couple real nice runs, a couple real nice passes, and a couple shots (one of which being the goal). He still jogs too damn much lately, though, and his defensive workrate is hit or miss, and this is a knock coming from a devoted Deuce fan. There were a couple times he could have made a hard run and released himself into a very dangerous counterattacking position, but he didn't. I guess that's the tradeoff of having him on the wing instead of centrally. -Pearce and Hejduk were pretty good, and the defense didn't simply boot the ball away constantly. They actually built from the back, which is probably why Edu/Bradley had success-they were linking with the backs up to the wings. However, there were some infuriatingly irritating things, chief of which wore the #17 shirt and played awful. -Beasley was a horror show. Just bad. Yes, he's fast, and yes, he can make a good run. But then what? I'd venture to say he'd give EJ a run for his money at "Who Has The Worst First Touch?". There was a play where he had the ball deep on the touch line inside the 18, and the Cuban defender fell (and maybe handled the ball). All he had to do was cross it with his right foot. He took 3 extra touches to get the ball on his left and nothing came of it. He was the worst American player on the field. -Formation wise, it looked kind of like we were in a "Y", which is good, because it got old watching Ching surrounded by 6 Guatemalans trying to head cleared balls. However, why only make 2 subs, and why play Sascha out wide when he's a central player? -Donovan still isn't getting involved enough. Part of that is, as improved as our Bucket mids were, they still aren't really linking/creative players. The only player that consistently tried to give Landon service was Clint. Adu solves this. -Ching has a nice workrate for a guy who's supposed to score goals, but the man has no touch and little direct offensive ability. It's nice he helped set up Clint, but it was more luck than design. Jozy fixes this. It's nice to have 6 points from your first two games, especially being road games, but we're still not really playing well. Our lack of midfield distribution and linking ability is really hurting our offensive players. We're winning games 1-0 that we should win much more easily.

Historic day today, with the 'Nats playing in Cuba. I'll bet $50 EJ starts.

While I'd love the team at full strength so all could contribute, there isn't a single player who's health I wouldn't trade for a guaranteed title.

why even swing with a guy that wild?

i'm not all doom and gloom by any means but they really aren't playing well

Michale Bradley to Derby Cou-er, Boroussia Mogchenblachenakjdjhbebhf. I'm ok with the Bundesliga, but that side?

I don't get it at all, and when you combine this with the idiotic "Adu needs to be a good person" stuff Bradley spouted a few months back it makes my pockets hurt. EDIT: We now have 4 young attacking players pissed off at our coaches and our system. Cooper's been pissed off and biting his tougne, Davies took some veiled shots at Nowak, Adu's issues with both BB and PN are well documented, and now Jozy.