USA in Gold Cup

The USA won 4-0 with its B-team against Grenada yesterday. No, the game was not in the same hemisphere as USA vs. Brazil or USA vs. Spain, but it was a good chance to work out some new players.

With the lot, I was well impressed with Robbie Rogers, who created the first 2 goals and capped his fine performance by scoring the 3rd. With his good looks, he has the potential to be promoted as US soccer's poster boy if he can hold down a starting position in the MNT.

I also enjoyed watching Kyle Beckerman and his long passes. He still made too many mistakes to be worth considered a starter, but our team can greatly benefit with a player like him.

A lot of players showed promises but it's hard to tell against such weak opponent. Freddy Adu, though with the opening goal, was quite disappointing. Our team can use somebody like him to break down defenses when our opponent decides to close it down, but he did not have the fitness nor the confidence yesterday.

The pairing of Adu and golden boy Charlie Davies was also a mismatch. I personally like our team to have a hard-nosed center-forward. Let's hope we can find one for the World Cup from this tournament.

Bradley Gave It Away

It was a devastating loss. It took me 3 days to recover, and I'm still not sure that I have. If you told me before the game that we would lose 2-3 in a back-and-forth hard-fought battle against Brazil, I would have gladly taken it. But, up 2-0 at half-time and lost, that was too painful. When I saw Dempsey crying after the game, I simply couldn't control myself.

To me, it was all our coach's fault. I was screaming for substitutions at around the 60th minute. Our men were too tired to fight in the midfield. I could see some of our players not have legs anymore. Why didn't he? We were not as skilful or technical as the Spaniards and the Brazilians, so we had to compensate by playing a scrappy style and fought for every ball. It was understandable that our players were spent much sooner.

When an inferior team was up by 2 goals in soccer, they should defend, defend, defend - putting 10, or even 11, men behind the ball. That is so elementary and why didn't coach know?

And what's with putting in Sacha Kljestan and Conor Casey. If coach didn't know that they were not up to national team standard before the tournament, then he should have known from the games they played in.

Our players worked hard to get us to 2-0, and our coach gave it away.

Our Earth Needs You

Go visit this site, watch the video (subtitles in multiple languages) and help spread the message.

Go USA!

Although Brazil are ranked lower, #5, by FIFA then Spain (#1), they can, in fact, be a tougher opponent for the USA. In the past, Brazil was known for its free-flowing attacks, but Spain has basically taken over that distinction. Under head coach Dunga, Brazil play a more defensive 4-4-2 with counter-attacks, very similar to the United States' recent two victories but with better personnel.

Brazil's one glaring weakness is on their left. If USA can figure out a way to keep attacking from their right, that should force Kaka or Robinho to drop back to help, thus taking away one or both of their major offensive threats. Onyewu or DeMerit should have no problem handling Luis Fabiano in the middle.

Their other offensive threat comes from their right-back, Maicon. How USA will cope with him and Ramires can be the deciding factor of the game. Then there are their set pieces. Here we hope USA will learn from their previous mistakes, ala their first goal conceded against Brazil in their last match.

Lucio will be a rock against Altidore. Thus it will be up to Charlie Davies, Dempsey and Donovan to expose the gaps. Losing Bradley, the son, is major for the USA because Feilhaber is not as good defensively in the midfield. I wonder if Coach Bradley, the father, will spring a surprise and put in José Francisco Torres who, by all accounts, is a pretty good defensive midfielder (although, I must admit, I have not seen him play). The fact that Torres hasn't gotten any minutes so far in the tournament probably gives the answer to my question already.

Whichever way the game goes, I am happy with silver as long as Team USA gives their 110%.

Go USA!

FIFA.com - Torres: Back to square one

Despite my celebration of the USA MNT's Greatest Victory, the current Spanish team remains one of my favorites. Their superstar players all spoke with grace, humility and determination to come back even stronger.


FIFA.com - Torres: Back to square one
Source: www.fifa.com
The Spanish striker told FIFA.com of his frustration at Wednesday evening's exit to USA but tipped Spain to bounce back from the disappointment.

FIFA.com - Xavi: We are hurting

The midfield maestro, who just helped his club Barcelona won the treble, spoke after Spain's painful loss.


FIFA.com - Xavi: We are hurting
Source: www.fifa.com
Xavi has said that the Spain team are hurting after failing to make the final of the FIFA Confederations Cup and surrendering their long unbeaten record.

The Greatest Victory

The stunning 2-0 victory by the USA over Spain in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup was the GREATEST victory by our Men's National Team.

Some pundits ranked this victory lower than some of our others (see below) because this was not a World Cup match, but they were plain wrong for the follwoing reasons:

• Spain is currecntly number 1 in the FIFA ranking.
  
• Spain is the current European Champions.
  
• Spain was on a 35-match unbeaten streak.
  
• Spain was on a 15-match winning streak.
  
• The tournament is an official FIFA tournament and the participants do take it seriously.
  
• The match was a semi-final elimination match.
  
• More importantly, Spain did not take this match lightly. They had no injuries or suspensions. They put out their stongest team and they played hard.
  
• Great athletes play to win. The Spanish players, most of them superstars in Europe, did not see this as not being the World Cup and put in a lesser effort. If you watched the match, you could see that Spain played to win.

Compared this to our other great soccer victories:

1950 FIFA World Cup Brazil
First Round - Group 2
29 June USA 1:0 England
- That was in a Group stage and not an elimination match.
- With that win, USA still ended up at the bottom of their group.
- That was not a good England team. Like the USA, they also ended up with one win and went home after the Group stage.

1998 Concacaf Gold Cup USA
Semifinals
02 October USA 1:0 Brazil
- The Gold Cup is a lesser tournament than the Confederations Cup.
- Gold Cup is always hosted by USA.
- Other than Romario, Brazil basically fielded their B-team.
- This year, for example, USA will play the Gold Cup immediately after the Confederations Cup with a weaker team.

2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan
First Round - Group D
05 June USA 3:2 Portugal
Round of 16
17 June Mexico 0:2 USA
- Portugal had better and more well-known players but the match was not an elimination match.
- It was extremely satisfying to eliminate our perennial opponent, Mexico, but they were not a highly-ranked team.

As you can see, this was indeed our Greatest Victory!