Player Ratings versus Poland

March 1st, 2006 | by: Daryl |

Here’s how the players rated versus Poland. As a rough guide 1 is impossibly bad, 6 is average, 10 is Maradona in the ‘86 World Cup.

Keller: 8 -kept us in the game first half

Cherundolo: 7 -strong at the back and always keen to go forward and beat a man

Lewis: 7 -defensively sound, awful going forward first half but dangerous crosses second half

Berhalter: 6 -didn’t do a whole lot wrong

Onyewu: 9 -looked like the player Rio Ferdinand is supposed to be

Zavagnin: 6 -his dogged chasing was admirable but only added to the first half confusion

Donovan: 8 -some clever touches as usual, and grew in influence as the game went on

Dempsey: 8 -great timing for the goal (and nice celebration, saluting the mostly military crowd)

Beasley: 7 -Poland looked scared of him and was a constant threat without really catching fire

Twellman: 7 -though he didn’t know much about his assist, it was a brave leap between two Polish defenders and into the keeper

Johnson: 5 -probably the least impressive player, looked strangely nervous

subs:

Howard: 7 -didn’t have much to do thanks to some solid second half defending

Bocanegra: 6 -defended well but picked up a very silly booking for unsporting behaviour, kicking the ball against a player (Bruce won’t want that this summer)

Mastroeni: 8 -calmed the midfield down and helped us dictate the pace second half

Convey: 6 -only played 20 snow-filled minutes but had a few nice touches

Wolff and Klein: n/a- were only on the field for a few minutes

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Bob

Nice analysis and a nice win for the US. I agree that Onyewu looks like a world beater. Can we give a 1 to the ESPN announcers? I mean the weather was tough but that is all Dave Johnson talked about for 30 minutes.
joel

i mostly agree with ya. lewis seemed to adjust well to his new position, made some nice clearances and marked fairly well.

johnson just looked horrid. so so tight… like he was worried about being cut. played very impatiently and lost control of the ball a lot.

onyewu was physical, which this team REALLY needed against a polish side that was plenty physical themselves. this was a very good match for them to get some experience against a pretty organized defensive european team.
http://clusterchuck.blogspot.com/ Chuck

I’d subtract at least one from everyone’s score (and two for most people).

If a “10″ is Maradona at the 1986 World Cup, I don’t see how Onyewu gets a nine.

He will be good, but he still seems quite raw to me. Yah, he’s physical, but I wish he would be more discreet. I swear it seems that sometimes he gets the opposing forward in a half-nelson while he clears the ball away.

I’m afraid that’s going to catch-up to him in the form of an inopportune spot-kick.
daryl

Onyewu was rock solid. A superb central defensive performance. He was physical, and that may catch up with him in the future, but not today.

The ratings are all relative, meaning if Onyewu was Rio Ferdinand (£30 million price tag and all) then he wouldn’t be getting a nine, but for someone of his experience and in the context of a tight, physical game I stand by that rating.

Plus, if Maradona ‘86 tried to dribble past Onyewu ‘06 then Diego would be going down!
equals42

Nice look at the game. Johnson was tight and his first touches were horrible. Onyewu was impressive both physically and in controlling the air attack of the Pols. He will need to learn some discretion, but in Group E, I’ll take some chances with possible free kicks in return for muscling the Czechs and Italian strikers. The game seemed to return to US control with the entry of Mastroeni. He deserves top marks.
I was a big fan of Donovan but have really not been impressed by him over the last few years. He should have gone to Europe as his game has seemed to peak against MLS talent. He disappeared again tonight. Sure a couple of pretty touoches in the second half, but he was just as clumsy with his first touches when he came back to help in the first half as Johnson.
Good showing in the end for the US. I only wish Reyna were there tonight to see what we have to look forward to.
http://clusterchuck.blogspot.com/ Chuck

Lol at that last sentence you added, Daryl. What a visual!

They showed a brief montage of Gooch, and at the end of it, they showed him just trashing J.Borgetti. It still makes me chuckle, because Borgetti gets up and takes a couple of steps like he’s going to get in OO’s face, and then you can see him thinking better of it.