Debating going up for it, I love this Belgium team. You didn't even mention
Benteke
Witzel
De Bruyne
They are absolutely stacked.
Wear gaudy colors, or avoid display. Lay a million eggs or give birth to one. The fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live. Be like your ancestors or be different. We must repeat!
Bought my tickets today.
Wear gaudy colors, or avoid display. Lay a million eggs or give birth to one. The fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live. Be like your ancestors or be different. We must repeat!
Roster out for the next set of games.
I think leaving off Donovan is a huge mistake. Donovan isn't 100% yet, but he is already better than Brad Davis and some of the other mids. He is also one of the only mids that plays wide.
Rest of the roster looks to be fine. Holden's call up is more for the Gold Cup probably, but I hope he can make it back, he's one of my favorites.
You may be proven correct, but I'd say there's definitely a little value in the team learning to play without Donovan.
When/If he comes back to the US team, he should be a part of the team and not be responsible for all the responsibilities he has been forced to shoulder over the past 8+ years or so.
I've always thought part of the problem with the US is that Donovan was the best player. This isn't to diminish his skills, I believe that he'd be a starter on pretty much any national team(minus maybe the absolute top of the top) but when he's the best player on the team, it shows how far the US was behind. When he's not only the best player, but pretty much designated the sole playmaker, as he was too often in Bradley's tenure, then it becomes far too easy for good and elite squads to shut the US down.
The US just waffling out there.....
Pretty ugly and worse undisciplined from the US tonight. Didn't move the ball well. Didn't anticipate anything. Terrible to embarrassing defense at times. I know it's a friendly and they haven't played together for a while and some guys are missing, but ugh.
I caught about 20 minutes of the game. And granted my comparisons are the EPL as well as the most recent Champions League games. But the US team looked awful. They didn't control the ball well, they didn't possess the ball well, they didn't pass the ball well, they didn't move well without the ball. It looked like the first touch on a lot of the balls were poor and caused a loss of possession. Hopefully it will get better when they play more and get some of their better players in the lineup, but when guys like Altidore and Dempsey fail to make an impact your going to have problems.
The US has a lot of work to do if they want to challenge for a spot among the elite. The roster is extremely thin and the coaching is suspect.
Unfortunately, the only conclusion to this point is that the Klinsmann experiment has been a complete failure.
Apparently Low was the true genius, just like we all feared.
Klinsmann shows a poor eye towards tactics and an equally poor eye towards roster development and player selection.
A complete misfire.
Poor first touches and lack of possession-play has been a problem that has plagued the US side for decades throughout multiple regimes at the top.
At what point do you recognize that there's a deeper problem with how we develop talent in this country beyond just who is running the USMNT?
Cincinnati Reds: Farm System Champions 2022
Slyder (05-31-2013)
Slyder (05-31-2013)
That is certainly a long term need, but isn't going to help us for 2014.
I think a big issue now is that no one has any idea what the starting 11 is. It changes so often for a variety of reasons and there is very little consistency and I think that really showed on the field on Wednesday. The back four didn't have any idea what the others were doing and in the attack their were turnovers and hesitation for the same reason. Maybe that was just a first game back together thing and it will work itself out, but at this point I would hope there would be a better idea about who we are starting and what everyone's role is on the team.
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