I see Stu Holden on Fox's pregame show. What's the latest with him? There's no remotely recent news on his status. I know he's still in contract with Bolton. He's still only 29. I'd love to have him back in Houston if healthy.
Kind of sloppy but improving as it goes on. Great reaction by Dempsey on the goal. That's a lot harder than it looked. Still too many long balls. Ref needs to get control of Honduras before someone gets hurt. He's allowing too much.
US plays better when the young guys come on and play loose. oh well. defensively they seem pretty solid!
Also, it looked like Bradley just let them walk in at least three times in that last 20. More effort please. But WIN!
Also, it looked like Bradley just let them walk it in like 3 times in the last 20. More Effort please. But Win!
He's played a lot lately. Think they should rest him & other heavily logged players like Brooks and Johnson against Haiti. Honduras is very physical and foul-prone. I can see why Mexico would get frustrated with their antics (especially after losing Chicharito with a broken collar bone against them).
No chance Bradley sits but I'm not against the idea. Sloppy win but getting 3 is all that matters. That was the hardest of the 3.
Good win, U.S.A. - although at the end it may have seemed like y'all ran out of gas and were letting the Catrachos win balls and beat you to the back lines. It was an entertaining game. What was the reason for playing Ventura instead of Gonzalez? Don't get me wrong I like to see América players in there, but... isn't Gonzalez better? FoxSports 1 I believe has all the games, and you can watch FREE up until July 15th's games with UnivisionDeportes.com in their page. Just look for "en vivo" (live) link to it. Can't believe y'all haven't gotten the idea to watch the Spanish channels yet.
Yedlin got destroyed this game. Speed completely neutralized. Altidore is a better target man than I thought he was. His through passes to the wings are horrendous though.
Ugly ugly game, but i'll take the 3 points. Honduras was the better team for many parts of the game. Alvarado is good playing with the ball but his defending leaves a lot to be desired. Yedlin might be better served as a super sub. We need Bedoya in the midfield, he's not a sexy pick but he helps us keep possession and is a crafty player. If he wasn't healthy enough to play in the group stage why did Jurgen include him in the original 23? Subs I would make for game 2 Gonzo for Alvarado Evans for Chandler Bedoya for Yedlin Diskerud for Zardes I know it's replacing two high attack speed guys outside with two more possession based midfielders in Bedoya and Mix, but from what I saw from Haiti we need to beat them through the ground with crisp passing instead of long balls to Yedlin/Zardes.
Only reason I could possibly think of would be to secure his cap-tie to the USA. Seems silly timing though considering it is the toughest group stage opponent they were going to face.
Haiti impressed me alot in their game. USA was lackluster IMO, credit to Honduras tho for putting up a fight. Also the way Honduras plays with the 'hacking' etc. Thats the way ALOT of the Central American countries play, even in their First Divisions it can get a little rough. Pulling for El Salvador today, hoping to see some good football, I was able to watch some of the international players when I went to El Salvador last summer, they have some good talents particularly Flores and their goalkeeper.
I think Yedlin, is one of our best players. Have to keep him out there. This team needs to focus on getting Bradley more touches in the mid field. Also was nice to see Altidore maintaining possession in the attacking half. Dempsey is more skillful than I realized. Has some great one on one play.
How did Altidore do? I only caught the last 20 minutes of the game and Wondolowski was on at the time. Chris was very average, hope Altidore was better than him.
2 totally different players. Wondo is a mop-up kind of forward. He's not particularly good facing the goal or back to the goal. He just scores. Jozy's best attribute is his strength in being able to hold off defenders and play with his back to goal...then moving off that for the 2nd pass. He wasn't good last night with his passes but he did well holding the play. He created the first goal with shear determination. He put the ball on goal off the corner and came back into play to take the shot that rebounded to Dempsey. When Wondo replaces him, it changes the play too much. I'd rather see Johannsson come in with a lead as he's much much better with the ball at his feet. Honduras did well to keep Bradley from being too involved by shutting down the spaces in the middle. They forced him to get rid of the ball earlier. They also forced Beckerman to stay deeper, keeping him from being an outlet and forcing the defense to play too many long balls. Yedlin did not have a good game and that's kind of on Klinsmann. They seemed not to notice that Yedlin couldn't just run past the Hondurans like he normally can. I, too, like him as a sub...especially in games where it's hot. He can come on fresh and run the lines against more tired players. He doesn't have the skill to do much more than kick-and-run which doesn't work against players that are at least close to being as fast as him. I think it also works better when he's making the runs from the back instead of the midfield. Honduras was able to simply keep an extra defender waiting for him to make his run. If he's coming out of the back, they can't commit as easily. Still, he has to do better with his decision making. He gave up the ball in dangerous areas too many times. Against better teams (CR and mexico, for example), things could have gone much worse.
Anyone else freak out when Zusi passed that ball back instead of sending it up to one of the streaking runners at the end of the game...what is it with our guys and terrible last second decisions when we have a lead.
