Player Ratings v Latvia

May 30th, 2006 | by: Daryl |

As always, player ratings (on the now patented 5-10 scale) are up for debate:

Kasey Keller 7: quiet night, but made that late save when he was needed.

Steven Cherundolo 8: got forward, had the confidence to run at defenders and fed the strikers a steady stream of quality crosses. looked more like a right winger than DMB, and put in the defensive work as well.

Eddie Lewis 7: -pushed forward often, maybe too often. very effective going forward though.

Eddie Pope 7: -not much to do, but looked solid and composed making some well timed interceptions.

Jimmy Conrad 6: a couple of mistakes (like when he bought Verpakovski’s step-over in the area) and didn’t always look comfortable in possession, but formed a decent partnership with Pope.

Pablo Mastroeni 7: -nothing too flashy, but showed Olsen how it should be done, with plenty of smart defensive mid work. won the ball often and kickstarted attacks with sensible passing. looked exhausted towards the end, but that can be blamed on the flu he had this week.

Landon Donovan 7: -worked really hard to stay involved. came deep to receive the ball and made some determined runs inside Latvia’s half. on ocassion, he looked capable of dictating the game.

DaMarcus Beasley 5: -tucked in to allow Cherundolo to get forward, so deserves credit for being unselfish, but his touch was unsure, he looked scared to attack Latvian defenders, and lost possession too often for a player of his quality. noticeably favoured his left foot, which is understandable, but the result was the he constantly cut inside with his left when he could have gone to the outside with his right.

John O’Brien 6: -some excellent passes, including one perfect crossfield ball to present DMB with a scoring chance in the area but lost possession occasionally and not involved as often as we need a player of his quality to be. will be happy that he lasted 65 minutes though.

Eddie Johnson 7: -didn’t score, despite a multitude of chances and half-chances, but ran across Latvia’s back line, pulling them all over the place to create room and keeping them on the back foot with his pace. also drew more than his fair share of fouls and was unlucky with some questionable offside calls.

Brian McBride 8: -won balls in the air all night, and took his lumps (well, lump) like a man. held the ball up like the old pro that he is and headed home decisively. was the only player to consistently hit the target, and also did a goood job encouraging Johnson.

Subs:

Bobby Convey: 5: -had 30 minutes but never really settled. had one golden opportunity to score when the ball fell at his feet but either it took him by surprise or he panicked.

Brian Ching: -had less then ten minutes, did nothing wrong.

Michael Bradley: -had less than ten minutes, did nothing wrong.

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Karl

While the US played a great game, great performances don’t win games, goals win games. I think those numbers would be accurate if the US had won 3-0. I would take one-two points off each rating just for not getting in the back of the net more against a puch-over team.
http://usa.worldcupblog.org daryl

I’m not so sure. The ratings are for performance, so if players put in good performances they deserve good ratings to reflect that.

The US could have played a lot worse against Latvia, and walked away with a fortunate 2-0 or 3-0, but you wouldn’t give them better ratings just based on the score. Otherwise the ratings could be done without even watching the game.

To be honest, I think the US attacked pretty well all night and could easily have had a couple more if not for some decent keeping.
Cajun Nick

Daryl,

You’re right when you say that the US should have had more goals, except for some decent keeping.

Keep in mind, however, that the US will face two of the world’s best keepers in their group: Petr Cech (CZE) and Gianluigi Buffon (ITA).

If the American attack couldn’t convert chances against Latvia, I don’t know how they’ll do against much better defenses and world-class keeping.
Cajun Nick

Daryl,

Your comments along with the Player Ratings make it unfair for the posters on this board – you’ve already made the most insightful observations.

Let me just make a couple of other observations:

Cherundolo – Other than Convey and Gooch, he’s the player who’s stock has risen the most, IMHO. In the past few games, I’ve begun to develop a real confidence in him. Maybe I’m behind the times on this, but I’m starting to feel good at right fullback.

Beasley – The only thing this guy uses his right foot to do is press the accelerator on his car. He did draw the Latvian defenders, but Italian and Czech defenders won’t feel the need to double him up; so, Dolo won’t have quite so much room in Germany.

Johnson – I think that he’s the best pairing with McBride, if Bruce wants to go with two strikers. Leave Wolff on the bench.

McBride – This is Brian’s last World Cup. I expect him to play like he’s always played, that’s to say great – but with a little bit extra to go out in style. He’s easily the most giving player on the field.

Convey – Really should have scored. However, his problem a couple of nights ago is indicitave of what ails the whole team, so it’s a little unfair for me to single him out.
chuck

Meanwhile, in other Sunday night action, Morocco was defeated by MALI!

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/match?id=197686&cc=5901
http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/5646998
bossimo

Classic let down game for Morrocco. Plus, according to this month’s National Geographic article on “The World’s Game”, Mali is one of the few African nations with more than 50 people per 1,000 citizens. Of course for all I know they may have only a few thousand citizens…

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0606/feature1/index.html

Agree with Nick on the rankings. A pity both Convey and Beasley were not up to their game.
mcthingy2

I wonder if we should start pushing Donovan further forward. We can’t rely on Johnson and McBride to score — they are too streaky. And Johnson is on one of his non-goalscoring steaks. I think we should drop one of them and plonk Donovan up top. It used to work for the Quakes when they were a striker short.
Steve C

some astute obersvations made so i like those… Nick, I think you are somewhat behind the times on the dolo aspect but I also follow the bundesliga closely because I have family who play in it so I know dolo is actually a very impactful player in what I consider to be a nice league (with Ballack, whats not nice really?)

a few points on the game and players… on the lack of scoring, it amazes me with BA’s style that we cant find more than one forward with the skill and knowledge to play on the floor and combine up top— these crosses, they are 50/50 at best usually and as seen, we can cross it 1000 times and potentially get 1 goal, a REAL problem…

we need forwards to check back, make corresponding runs off each other and the attacking mid. its horrible to think that we will rely on crosses against the taller Czechs and the incredibly well-organized Italians…!

also, I’d like to say that a 4-5-1 or any variation there of is now more suitable in my mind… why waste space and a starting spot on a horrible set of forwards?! also, I was INCREDIBLY pleased with Mastroeni, enough to say that we NEED him at defensive mid, he slows attacks VERY well and covers space amazingly- better than any american def mid i’ve ever seen! and I’d like to see him start with Reyna and Donovan ahead of Reyna… I am not sure where that leaves JOB but, i thought he did pretty well outside myself?.
Gene

I disagree with some of the comments calling Latvia a pushover team. I’ve seen them in two other matches, and they are half-decent. They lack creativity and speed upfront, but the defense and goalkeeping is fairly solid.

I also think DMB’s rating should be upgrated a bit. I thought that while he did dribble himself into trouble a few times, he also had some decent runs and made some decent passes. He was o.k in the midfield, though his game closer to the goal could use a little improvement. At a minimum, I saw progress in his game between the Venezuela and the Latvia game.
Cajun Nick

Steve C,

I think I need to start watching the Bundesliga next season…although without Ballack (I really don’t Chelsea).

The midfield is a problem for the US, but a problem anybody’d like to have – too many options.

Mastroeni showed he’s more than up to the challenge in ‘02. But, as you noted, where does that leave JOB?

I think that we could use JOB to sub for Reyna at the 60 minute mark, getting some fresh legs out on the field, while keeping great offensive skills.
Scot

EJ has a lot of potential but I’m just not really impressed with his finishing yet. He makes a good sub along with Ching and Wolf. Mastroeni needs to start, he’s been playing great.

My lineup would be
Donovan, McBride
Beasley, Reyna, Mastroeni, OBrien
Lewis, Onyewu, Pope, Cherundolo
Keller

Subs most used would be
Convey, Dempsey, and Johnson.

While JOB is slightly out of position on the right, it works because Cherundolo will occasionally overlap and JOB is a great defender to cover for him. Further, since JOB probably wont go 90 minutes, it would be ideal to bring Dempsey in for him after 60 minutes or so (particularly if we need offense).

I wouldn’t mind seeing Bocanegra in place of Lewis on the left either depending on matchups. (obviously lewis more for speed and offense, Bocanegra against bigger more physical forwards).
matt

Scot, I agree with your line up. I doubt we will see Donovan up there though (too bad). As far as the player rankings, daryl, next time they should go from 5 (insert british accent here)all the way up to 11.
owen

interesting comments – didn’t see all the game but something resonated with me about the crossing comment. If the US is going to play like that they HAVE to have perfect delivery. Watching the England game yesterday made me realize how wrong everyone is to criticize and write of Backham – he made two of the three goals. He made about eight serious crosses in the game. two were poor, two were OK (the kind of cross the US players are delivering) and four were literally perfect. Of those four two resulted in great goals, one in a poorish header that still required a great reflex save and one was fluffed.

That’s two goals from eight crosses – and it should have been 3.

Anyway – I still think that the US’s strength is in quick diagonal through balls on the ground for any of the forwards or midfield to run onto – very fast very direct, no hesitation. They did that brilliantly in 2002. And if yolu soften the defenders up with that stuff they start to play off the forwards leaving them room to deal with arial crosses.

But I also trust BA to be on top of it – he’s a great manager. I do think that it’ll be tougher this time – never mind the group they are in – the rest of the world has improved faster than the US in the past four years.
Steve C

Cajun and Scot,

I would like to actually say that there was a report, I was trying to find it online here but I cant (sorry) that actually was saying that the lineup would have JOB on the outside left…

my ideal would be a 4-5-1 that looks like this

—-McBride—
——-Donovan—
JOB—-Reyna—-Beasley
—Mastroeni–
Lewis– Pope– Gooch– Dolo

I think that Convey would be a WONDERFUL sub for JOB due to the fact that if we are winning, he can provide some support up top and be dangerous to get another goal and if we are losing, he provides a fresh threat to challenge ANY right winger for even the best teams in the world (IMHO) to beat them and get deep behind the other teams wings and backs…

I mean there are so many options and talking like this, its almost silly now but I do it and read this constantly because I CANNOT WAIT for June 9th (well June 12th really)… I am curious if we will get any info at all out of the “closed-door” scrimmage with Angola such as who starts where and what formation or if it is strictly gaurded by BA due to the fact that it will resemble his plans for the Czechs?!
Cajun Nick

Steve C,

I can’t wait until June 9, too.

In fact, I got so excited that I already picked my Fantasy World Cup line-up; and then a couple of my players went and picked up injuries. I should have been patient.

If you’d like to play Fantasy World Cup (for free), here are a couple of links:

McDonald’s-FIFA World Cup Fantasy Game
Channel 4 Fantasy Football World Cup 2006
Cajun Nick

Oops.

I think that I accidentally linked to my Channel 4 Fantasy Team. That’s what I get for copying and pasting without checking for errors first.

That’s okay, you’ll just have to click “Register” and register yourself a new squad.
Cajun Nick

BTW, am I the only one having trouble with the “captcha” image next to the comment box? When the blog loads, I keep getting an empty space where the characters normally are. I’ve got to keep reloading the page.
bossimo

Right click an hit “show picture”

I think Steve has put up a pretty good lineup. It has all the crucial elements but one: Convey needs to start so that we have a chance at a lead to protect.
Cajun Nick

Bossimo,

Thanks!
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