USA 3-2 Japan

The Norway game was easy, maybe a little too easy, so in many ways this was more satisfying. Essentially this was MLS v J-League as both teams were without their European based players, and MLS came out on top racing to a convincing 3-0 lead. Things fell apart a little in the last twenty minutes (with Arena taking a leaf out of Sven-Goran Eriksson’s book and overdoing the substitutions) but the starting eleven performed well. They were:

Hartman

Klein
Dunivant
Conrad
Pope

Dempsey
Noonan
Zavignan
Dempsey

Twellman
Wolff

Twellman was top man again with two assists and a goal. I’ll go as far as saying that a World Cup spot is now his to lose, at the very least he’ll be in the squad for the European friendly against Poland next month. Dempsey also impressed, scoring the second goal, though his celebration dance was a little questionable. Noonan put in some good work on the left and Zavignan did nothing wrong in the middle.

At the back, Dunivant did a decent if unspectacular job at left back, though he was beaten down the flank for the second goal. The real culprit was Chris Klein though, he looked uncomfortable defending in the box as his man headed home. Klein’s transformation to right back doesn’t convince me.

Eddie Johnson and Brian Ching came on up front, and though he was a little rusty it was encouraging to see Johnson finish the game uninjured. Ching made no impact and should expect to fall behind Twellman in the pecking order now.

A good night for many individuals then, even Klein wasn’t awful, just the least impressive of a good bunch. And now we can say that MLS is officially better than the J-League.