HOLY CRAP WE ADVANCED

It should have been between USA and Egypt for the second spot anyway. After watching Italy play us in the first game, and seeing Egypt’s strong performance against Brazil, I knew Italy weren’t that strong. It is obvious Italy is overrated and has been for a long time.

USA advancing past them is no surprise to me.

Posted from  United States

It was an unbelievable outsome. I was at a bar in New Haven, CT, which is a traditional football pub (run by the fricking Irish…lol…Good place).

I’m telling my budy we have no shot. We shoulda sent Mexico in our place, blah, blah, blah.

Then the scoring starts: I’m cheering and rooting for Brasil and on my 3rd beer. The US scores and I’m starting to think to myself, “Could it be possible?” By half-time Brasil has gottent he tally they needed for us to get through. I’m fired up and asking for subs.

Well, Altidore drives one that hits the hand of the Egyptian. Shoulda been called and I am deflated. Then another buildup and Bradley scores. At this point the entire bar is going crazy. I am on my 5th beer and I screaming and yelling, going nutz in general. Good atmosphere.

Then Spector (beast!!!) swings one in to Dempsey and we have the result. I was watching both games at the same time since the Bar caters to the footy crowd. The results hold after a tense 10 minutes.

We advance! I continue to drink and get pretty sloppy in celebration of a momentus occasion.

An interesting tidbit: Having both games on at the same time made it difficult to focus on the US game b.c the Italy v Brasil games was mesmorizing, but I was able to maintain focus and follow our boys to victory.

I honestly believe that a new foreign coach would give us better stability and better consistency. That is the name of the game.

GLTTMNT!

Posted from  United States

Here’s my wish list against Spain… If we accomplish 3 out of 4, I’d be very happy.

a) We don’t get a red card. We need 11 on the field mentally and physically.
b) We don’t allow a goal in the first 30 minute. The longer the game goes without allowing a Spain goal, the more confidence the US will have.
c) We keep the game close for the entire game. Even if we lose, I would like to see a close game, no blow out please.
d) We score at least 2 goals. We cannot settle for the typical one goal against the great teams. This could get us a win.

Posted from  United States

Bottom line, if Bradley even puts out a line-up with a lone striker he should be fired on the spot. We can’t win with this conservative bs that we went through with bruce arena. A spain victory would be huge and who knows from there?

Posted from  United States

Do people really think we should fire a coach this close to the World Cup, though?

Posted from  United States

Kinda funny that Italy is in the same position we are in with a loyal fan base asking for a manager to go who continues to ignore youth. Both fan bases also realize that their respective managers aren’t going anywhere.

Posted from  United States

i know dempsey scored, but he loses the ball too much. he does not hustle back. play anyone else. i do not think we can beat spain, but anything is possible. i can not wait till kick off. “holy crap we advanced” is the pefect headline. great fathers day, cheering on brazil on espn 360 and watching our team playing better than we have in a while. i like tim howard in goal, but guzan looked preatty good. any change in goal?

Unless I missed somebodies comments, I think it’s amazing nobody has mentioned Davies. It has been PAINFULLY (yes all caps) obvious since Bob Bradley took over that he requires strength, patience and experience from his strikers, which in my opinion, is conservative to a fault. Players like Brian Ching and Conor Casey just do not have the ability to play on the world’s stage…and anybody that doesn’t realize this is ignorant or stupid. You need energy, speed and skill out of your strikers when playing international football. Just look what Davies has done in his limited minutes with the USMNT. He has 2 goals in 6 games and has been a sub in the majority of those games. I want to see Davies and Altidore in shape and playing 90 minutes in our games because they are the most dangerous strikers the US has in it’s pool of players. Yes they don’t do everything right…they aren’t exceptional at holding, they make some poor passes, they don’t have the experience a 31 year old Brian Ching has…but the risk reward is perfect for 2 players in their early 20’s…they’re only going to get better! We could have our strikers set for the next 10 years!! Why is this so hard for our coaches to realize?

Currently, on the confederations cup roster we have 2 goalies, 4 defenders, 6 midfielders and 3 strikers who are at or under the age of 26. Adu, Altidore and Davies are all 22 or younger. And here’s the kicker…the majority of them are arguably the best players at their position in the player pool. So why is there ever a question of thems tarting? If healthy/available, there is not a game in WCQ or in the 2010 world cup that we should not be starting spector, dempsey, bradley, adu/torres (one or the other IMHO), altidore and davies. And on the flip side there isn’t a game where Ching, Casey, Hejduk, Beasley, Mastroeni etc. should start. You don’t have to look much further than the Egypt beat down. No matter what anybody may think or believe Egypt is a VERY quality side and the fact that we went out there with nothing to win and handled them so well makes it obvious that is the type of line-up that needs to be on the field every single game.

Posted from  United States

Omaha Bhoy: Yes. There’s a year to go. That’s plenty of time.

GS: Point #2 in the post.

Sorry Brooks, I meant other people commenting on the post about Davies.

Posted from  United States

There are 4 things I’m looking at as we prepare for the world cup. Tactical development, technical development, team conditioning, and the teams mental toughness/preparedness. I see us doing well with team conditioning, and we have players with technical ability. However I believe we’re falling short in team tactics and mental toughness. The 4-5-1 didn’t work. We’re slow to attack, and with the exception of Donovan, we’re afraid to take on the defense 1 v 1. We’re making poor decisions on tackles and as a team we often appear to be playing timid or downright scared. It seems that these are primarily issues with the coaching. Once the pressure was off against Egypt (nobody actually believed we had a chance to advance) we loosened up, didn’t play scared, and got a result. Sure we advanced (by freak accident). It doesn’t change the fact that Bradley isn’t doing a good job getting the team tactically and mentally ready for matches. Bradley’s had a couple of years to right the ship and I’m not seeing anything better than what I saw during WC 2008. And if WCQ and Confederations Cup are any indication we seem to be going backwards a bit. Can anybody say that they’ve seen significant improvement in the team in the past few years. It’s time for Bradley to go.

Posted from  United States

I really don’t think so but my dad seems to think that Altidore plays lazy. I think its from the toe surgery, and the fact that he hasn’t played a season in a year.

Posted from  United States

I would just like to say I told you so. I said the US would advance on goal differential with Italy in third b/c they suck without Totti and play too defensive.

About Tim Howard, he was the one who missed safing the second Italy goal by de Rossi, wasn’t he? That one was savable if he had expected it, he reacted too late, probably because he didn’t expect it and didn’t see it coming quick enough.

Posted from  Netherlands

Onyewu shoulda had that goal, Sol.

Posted from  United States

@Brooks ~ 1 year is not enough time for a new coach to come in and develop his players for a World Cup and perform. If we switch out coaches now we won’t be acomplishing anything. I do think that USSF needs to be looking at other options to take BB’s place, but unless it is one of the greatest coaches in the world then a change shouldn’t be made.

@GS ~ I agree that young players should be playing, but I have seen enough of Adu failing at the senior level to not want him in my USMNT lineup. He couldn’t even make it onto the field in the MLS why should he be on the national team.

@Sol ~ Rossi’s first goal against the US was an amazing goal and not keeper would have saved it. With that said if Rossi shoots that ball 10 times he might make it once. Yes, Rossi is good, but that shot was amazing and not even the best players in the world could make that shot consistantly.

Personally, I think the US has improved the talent in the player pool a lot in the last 20 years. I think th US is headed in the right direction when it comes to developing younger players. And if you want my honest opinion of what is holding the US back in becoming a real contender outside of pool play in the World Cup… it is SUNIL GULATI. He is the reason that some of the top international coaches won’t come to the US. He puts restrictions on any manager, ask Arena, about what players he can select for a game. Arena once said that Sunil told him that half of his 18 man roster must include MLS players. This is the kind of things that hurt the US’s development more than help it.

It is absurd to believe one year isn’t enough time to replace a coach. The examples of this are too numerous to list. You could replace a coach two months out and do fine.

Posted from  United States

Can somebody please send prostitutes and tabloid reporters to the Spanish hotel tonight? Please?

Posted from  United States

@Laurie – I was thinking more like setting the hotel fire alarm off every 30 minutes. Sending prostitutes may already be part of their training regiment.

We could just send Mastroeni over to sneak into the hotel wearing a ski mask and slide-tackle them into submission. It wouldn’t be any more awkward than what he’s done on the field lately.

@Morpheus–I must be missing something…you saw Adu on the field?!? I had no idea. Well if that’s true and you can confirm that he’s failed before, especially at the “senior level,” we should probably just forget about using him ever again. Especially considering his age and lack of potential. I see your point: if a player’s not starting professionally by age 20 there’s likely no hope…might as well chop off his feet. We gave him until he was 18 in MLS. 93 appearances in 3+ years…what a joke. And now almost 2 years later he can’t even start in Europe!?!

Unacceptable.

Really? We have so many other players worth giving up on and you pick Adu?

The last time Freddy Adu started for the USMNT he scored a goal. Not a lot of other members of the squad can say that.

Posted from  Iceland

You’re right Marlon…I could have been a little less sarcastic. Let’s pretend I said what you said instead or ranting. Thanks.

I wish Laurie was my mom, prostitutes..the cause of and solution to, all lifes problems.

@Morpheus

I wasn’t talking about the first goal, I was talking about the second, the one by “DE Rossi”. LOL, I know it’s confusing those names but I thought I was reasonably accurate to avoid confusion in my post.

Holland once had twins in their line-up, now THAT’s confusing, not to mention they were identical twins. Till today I still wonder if they ever sneakily switched shirts or something. Allthough they did have their own destinct style of playing so it probably would have showed. But who knows, maybe they were fooling us all those years from the beginning, lol.

Frank de Boer and Ronald de Boer

Posted from  Netherlands

What a miraculous result and finale.

Posted from  United States