Comments on: USA vs. Spain: Respect The Adumerica!

By: soccer goals

soccer goals — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:18:46 +0000

What a great performance.

By: Keeno

Keeno — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:35:49 +0000

Hello, Engalnd calling…

Great result the other night, and I’m sure that like most neutrals, I’ll be cheering the USA on to another famous victory in the final. I see a mention of ‘anti-football’ above, but I thought the USA played some great counter-attacking football and defensively they put up the best dispaly I’ve see all season. DeMerit and Onyewu especially, were world-class. That is not anti-football and shame on anyone who says it is. (I appreciate that is not what the poster above was suggesting).

I’ve written a short piece on the game on my blog, mainly focussed around Joan Capdevila’s pre-match dig at Jozy Altidore. If you guys can bear to take your eyes off the cup final, give it a quick glance at:

http://standingwithkeeno.blogspot.com/

Genuinely wishing you good luck for the final.

Keeno

By: ban vuvuzela

ban vuvuzela — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:13:54 +0000

The Vuvuzela is an annoying plastic trumpet also known as a stadium horn that is constantly blown at all soccer/football matches in South Africa. It sounds like a deafening mix of angry elephants trumpeting, a swarm of buzzing bees and a fog horn. What can we do? Go to http://www.banvuvuzela.com/ Register with your name, country and email and then vote. Tell your friends and family to do so too. It is our intention to submit these votes to the relevant authorities who can do something about it. Together we can make our 2010 World Cup the best experience for all.
http://www.banvuvuzela.com/

By: Doc Latin

Doc Latin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:54:05 +0000

Sol.I was being sarcastic about the 11-man thing.

The most over rated word in soccer is “anti-football”. The U.S. did what they had to do.

By: SP

SP — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:15:17 +0000

GS, i agree that bob needs to be a lot more consistent, but i think this whole argument a lot of times boiled down to comments about how we have no hope and how he’s incapable of leading us and my main defense of him after yesterday is that he is capable of leading us and is worth sticking with. i definitely agree with you about him being wrong a lot recently, but i think it’s still a work in progress. sure, a year away from WC2010, most people don’t want it to be a work in progress anymore, but considering we just beat the #1 team in the world by two goals from the run of play, i think maybe it’s not such a bad thing bc we’re progressing toward new highs.

By: GS

GS — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:44:04 +0000

I love all of the defensive comments about Bradley. He did what he was SUPPOSED to do against Spain. He played the players we all know should be playing and used the tactics that were obvious even to a casual viewer. The only thing this game did was show us Big Bob CAN do the right things to win games but the question of whether or not he will continue to do that is most definitely left un-answered.

If Bob reverts to playing old washed up guys against Brazil or in WCQ he’s still on the hot seat in my opinion. The Confederations Cup has made it painfully obvious that the only way the USA competes on a world stage is by playing their most talented, not their most experienced. You don’t have to look much further than the first two games of this cup and then the last two games…if you can’t see it…you’re BLIND.

By: Peter B

Peter B — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:04:28 +0000

@Sol.. Something is generally wrong with that rule for an automatic yellow card for taking off the jersey. For big goals especially, a striker does it just to get the yellow because the rule is wrong, they should be able to celebrate. It does not waste any more time then going to the corner flag and dancing around it.

Also, a straight red for the MB tackle did not seem appropriate. The ball was right at the defenders foot when he went in low. There was no intent to hurt the defender. It’s a yellow at best. I believe the refs were told to especially protect players Spain/Italy/Brazil (our three red cards). Only one of the challenges probably deserved a red card (Rico’s challenge was above the cleats). To me, this is a big turn off in a game giving the ref that much control. They must really strive to be consistent with these kinds of calls. I would vote for instant replay for the following: Goals, Red Cards, Penalty Kicks. The play stops anyway so it does not hurt the flow of the game.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:59:03 +0000

Let’s put this in some historical context: Was it the greatest win in U.S. soccer history?
http://bit.ly/X4xqN

By: Sol

Sol — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:40:35 +0000

What I’d like to know is why on earth did Altidore take his shirt of (which means a yellow card) after his goal?

Totally unnecessary that yellow card.

By: Sol

Sol — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:33:44 +0000

“Shame on them for not playing beautiful soccer and go after a third goal!”

That’s only common sense, especially at 2-0. At 1-0 against a strong attacking country like Spain I still wouldn’t feel comfortable and want to go for that second goal, but after that, it’s defense time (depending on your own qualities, Holland would have probably gone for a third, maybe if we still had vd Sar we could go for defense). If you’re up against a weak attacking nation (like Italy, Greece or Romania, nations that focus more on defense) I would risk playing defense at 1-0.

You saw in the Italy-Egypt game it’s not so hard keeping the 0 against Italy, which was totally unsurprising to me. What did surprise me was the way Italy scored 3 against USA, but I guess that had something to do with the 10 players on the field and especially the fact that USA didn’t really play defense at 1-1, they tried to win it with 10 players and took too many risks (more noticeable at 2-1).