brinoch

I think you have to assume that Jay, StevieC, and Carlos are done. Gooch will still be young enough, but he was just bad this year after the injury. Maybe he comes back. Cameron and Gonzalez? Whoever though, you're right. Gotta start that soon. Castillo? I think you're looking at a starting pool of: Gooch Spector Bornstein Castillo Marshall Gonzalez Cameron Opara Ream Franklin I'm not that familiar with all of these guys just yet. I guess I'll have to watch more MLS and see how they are doing.

You could always add Goodson and have him man-mark Gyan while the rest of the defense stays in the flat four. That should end their offense. 9 behind the ball and man-mark the tired striker.

Our defenders are slow to react and positionally poor. They are also too slow to recover from a mistake. I really think we needed to try out other guys and see what they could do. Spector never had a real run-out. I know he's been in bad form, but still. Marshall and Goodson needed minutes. Even still... there's a problem there that just keeps happening. I sure as hell don't know what it is, though.

I also thought that the US took their foot off the pedal after the PK goal. Should have keep pushing. Ghana were on their heels. I would have preferred Holden over Beasley, mildly. Either one would work well. Jozy was gassed, but Gomez didn't do much -- and what he did well was track back into the midfield, thus strengthening your case for another midfielder. Who do you take off, though? Jozy is dead tired, but if you pull him, you lose the hold-up play. Edu is fine, as was Bradley. Dempsey or Donovan? I don't think you can do it. I think you have to take Jozy off and you compact the midfield and defense into a narrow 4-2-2-1-1 and dominate the middle. Edu should have stayed right in front of the defense, regardless of situation. Keep him covering.

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/06/26/ghana-2-1-united-states-tactics/ Great summary. And not only because it supports my previous analysis. BB really can make good adjustments in-game. I just wonder why he started Clark over Edu. The team played it's best four halves of soccer with him in the game. (2nd Slovenia, all Algeria (subbed at 60'), all of Ghana (subbed in at 30').

Howard was covering too much of the far post. Exactly so. He was a bit out of position, and I thought he reacted slowly (in slo-mo review, he's cheating to cover the far post). I have no problem criticizing Howard for that -- it's all the off his line garbage that irritates me. Go learn about angles and how to block shots. Altidore needed some help. I think he was just beat all to hell after that Algeria game. I really wish we'd have tried Holden out a bit more, or perhaps Feilhaber full time... I don't know. Despite our seeming inability to make it work, the Ghana game cried out for a 4-5-1 (actually a 4-2-3-1). Put Holden out on the wing, where Ghana prepared for Donovan, and move Landon to the left and to float inside and swap with Dempsey as needed. It would have moved our guys in the center of the field to a 3-3 parity at least, and probably a 4-3 central advantage with the strong side. The off wing can make the diagonal channel runs to open space for Jozy. I don't know, it seemed pretty clear to me. Edu cheats back as more of a destroyer while Bradley makes his late runs, and with Bornstein and Dolo overlapping to pressure their fullbacks, we can defend the counter since we would still have four players in position to cover defensively -- and always 3 in the middle with Edu there. It takes some work and communication, but it's not particularly tough stuff. The center back on the overlapping side takes the outside while Edu slots into the middle. -----------------Jozy---------------- Donovan----Dempsey------Holden ----------Edu--------Bradley-------- Bornstein--Boca---DeMerit---Dolo ---------------Howard--------------- Whatever. It's done. We lost.

Not really. Between Wolf, Jax and you I think our threads are generally better than their USMNT N&A section (which is allegedly heavily moderated). There are some really great posters there (the guy who does the translations from Gazzetta DelloSport or whatever in Italy comes to mind), but the level of knee-jerk reactionary guys over there makes some of our posters here in the game threads seem like Mensa members. That guy is really great. Voros, too. But, man, trying to find a cogent thought that isn't blinded by hatred of some player or another is pretty challenging. Player X has a bad day, bring on the next guy!! When Landon was man-marked out of the Algeria game -- obviously so if you, you know, WATCHED the game (for the love of God they started TWO left backs on that side) -- and Dempsey and Bradley step up big, there was basically no observation that the US midfield played what was given it and exploited the space extremely well. But for a bad offside call and our horrible finishing, that game wasn't even close. Algeria had like 3 chances. And Ghana... I've seen a ton of criticism of Clark, Bradley for starting him and a ton from idiots about Howard being off his line... blah blah blah (guys who never played keeper and know nothing about it), he was poorly positioned on the goal, but little condemnation of Findley for his horrible take. That should have been a goal. Has to be a goal. You just can't miss that shot -- it's not even that freaking tough. Howard should have made the save, but give credit where credit it due -- it was a great shot. I hate when people can't acknowledge that they other side played well. And they did. Ghana played a great game. In all seriousness, Michael Bradley is a stud. And the guys over there who can't/don't/won't recognize that are utterly blind. He's going to crack the ceiling and start for a top team soon.

Totally unrelated to anything... but BS is full of awful, awful posters. Is there a place to discuss soccer with intelligent people?

FYP.

Someone like Wolf can answer this much more completely and accurately, but the next real competition will be the Gold Cup, with friendlies interspersed before WC qualifying begins in (I think) late 2011 or 2012. As for club conflicts, there are typically scheduled dates where everyone is playing international competition so there aren't scheduled club dates. The Gold Cup is in the summer during the club off-season. If they win that, they win a spot in the Confederations Cup, which is Summer 2013 I believe. 2010 qualifying for CONCACAF started in February 2008 but the US had a bye in the first round and didn't start until June 2008. I assume the 2014 qualifying will be similar. CONCACAF is actually changing our qualifying format and getting rid of the Hex. I'll dig up the details later, but the gist of it is that we have to waste some more time playing Caribbean nations and there's a larger chance of a fluke knockout that before (i think). It's a little unclear, actually. It depends on how many spots we get. If we had 4 spots, it'd be much easier to come up with something interesting. Now, they are talking about some knockout rounds, followed by a 12 team round robin, followed by a hex or octagonal. Ugh. Simpler please. Give USA, Mexico, Honduras and Costa Rica (as the top 4 finishers) byes to the Semi-finals and seed them 1-4. Have 4 groups in semis... top 2 finishers advance to an Octagonal. It should give us something like US, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Canada, TT, Panama and Jamaica (El Salvador, Cuba, and Guatemala contending, too). Or, even better, bye the US and Mexico to the CONCACAF Final.

I doubt that CONMEBOL would like to add any teams. Their qualification tournament is fairly simple -- a 10 team round-robin.

Well, it's being held in June 2013, and if qualification/seeding is anything like this cycle, qualification will go through September at least, and seeding would take place in Nov/Dec 2013, so I would assume those matches would impact seedings. Can't remember if they use the world rankings or not but we should be getting a boost in the post-Cup rankings also. The 06 Cup is off our record and the 10 Cup is in while, as you said, we did better than Italy (5th), France (9th) and Greece (13th), while Croatia (10th), Russia (11th) and Egypt (12th) didn't even qualify. Making the Confederation's Cup and having a good showing there is a must if we want to have any sort of a shot at a seed. We'd also have to get lucky and have some of those European teams around us either not qualify or have a poor showing if they do. Yep, the rankings for seeding are the same as the World Ranking. FIFA will probably change the ranking system though, so who knows what will actually happen. Frankly, I think that Mexico and the USA should break off from CONCACAF and the Caribbean minnows to form a new Confederation or join another one. The CONCACAF penalty is devastating.

Yes, CC would impact seedings as a tournament. It would also help if FIFA changed the rating formula to get rid of the CONCACAF penalties, or at least to minimize them. It's fine to devalue a win against Barbados, but Central American nations at home are tough. Much, much tougher than people give credit for.

Thanks, Bukie. I'll update it. Have the points right on my sheet, but input them wrong!

So, the USMNT is going to finish ahead of South Korea, England, Mexico and Slovakia for sure. It looks like Chile will lose to Brazil (Brazil is up 3-0 right now), though the US will finish behind Chile. That leaves two games left in the Round of 16 for tomorrow, Portugal-Spain and Japan-Paraguay. The US cannot finish ahead of Japan or Spain based on points, and Portugal has a 7-0 GD, so we can't finish ahead of them unless Spain is truly the Roja Furia and simply kill the Portuguese team. Unlikely... so that doesn't matter for this calculation. Spain would finish in 9th (again) but they simply replace Portugal ahead of the US. Now, if Japan beats Paraguay by 2-0 or 3-1 (or by any larger differential), US finishes ahead of Paraguay. The worst the US can do is 12th and the best is 11th. So, I'm rooting for Japan tomorrow to get that last boost for a future seeding (yeah, right). Here are the standings 9-16 as they hopefully fall out (Spain over Portugal, 2-1 and Japan over Paraguay, 2-0): 9. Chile, 6 points (3 GF, 5 GA) 10. Portugal, 5 points (8 GF, 2 GA) 11. USA, 5 points (5 GF, 5 GA) 12. Paraguay, 5 points (3 GF, 3 GA) 13. England, 5 points (3 GF, 5 GA) 14. Mexico, 4 points (4 GF, 5 GA) 15. Slovakia, 4 points (5 GF, 7 GA) 16. South Korea, 4 points (7 GF, 7 GA) Here's where the wrongly disallowed goal against Slovenia really hurts. With it, we'd have finished in 9th.

Agreed.

They were gassed, totally. Still, you can't just hoof it and expect to get the ball. Poor tactics. Also, I'm so disappointed in the defense, Clark, Bradley for starting him, and Findley for missing what should have been a goal. Still, I'm very proud of our team.

Yeah -- I saw that on my rewatch of the game as well. I thought he was, and had to go back to double check.

Agreed on all fronts. PK takers (not necessarily in order): 1. Donovan 2. Dempsey 3. Bradley 4. Holden 5. Cherundolo I recollect that Clint isn't great at PK's, but I'm sure they know already.

Great deal for the Hawks. Great deal.

Dempsey, Bradley or Jozy are good picks. My next jersey is going to be a Mikey one. Bradley. He gets a ton of crap because he's the coach's son, but he's really excellent. If his last name was Smith, everyone would constantly rave about him. BTW, kudos to BB. A lot of people, including me, have railed on him. He coached an excellent game, and has really pushed the right buttons all tournament long. I'm a convert.

First, and this is a huge change, Ghana doesn't have Michael Essien. Second, we are a much, much better team through the midfield. In '06, Ghana basically won on a cheesy PK call given to Onyewu at the end of the first half. Even with that, we were close to equalizing several times in the second half.

Awww.... poor Subotic. Okay, not really.

So even in a situation that was unlikely at the time (England goes into a scoring slump), it's 75% that they go through without the tie (50% of it's 1-0, 100% if it's 2-1). I stand by it: That tie was unlikely at the time to make a difference in advancement out of the group stage. It's significant because the point is what allowed the US to win the group.

I also post sometimes on Big Soccer -- which is totally crashed. Freaking awesome.