Extremely disappointing display showing little progress in game management. Usmnt was chasing the ball all night. I'm tired of "heart" and "character". I want to see skilled, clinical possession. Losing faith in the domestic game. Geoff Cameron, Brad Guzan and Michael Bradley the exception.
I mean, we don't have anyone better to throw out there than 47 year old Demarcus Beasley?
Bah.
It was a dickpunch of a loss.
ANd sadly aside from the massively inconsistent Brek Shea, or the horribly out of position Tim Ream, no we don't when Chandler is out. THe only option would have been to put Cameron out wide right and Johnson to left back, but considering how beastly Cameron was yesterday (to me the Man of the Match for either side)
What really hurt was Beckerman and Beasley. Beckerman came on stronger later in the game. But he was totally terrible to start the game and basically entirely responsible for the first goal as he didn't track Chicharito or Aguilar (or whoever it was that had the assist) which left Guzan and Johnson on an island.
But Beasley hurt a lot. He was involved being out of position on basically every goal or leadup to every goal. Most notable being the last where if he didn't **** that one up he would have been in a position to block that shot.
Also shocked Dempsey really did nothing.
To me the headscratchers were Klinsmann's subs.
Yedlin for Gyasi didn't make sense when Jones looked gassed. Now in the end I'll chalk this up as a win for Klinsmann because Jones found a second wind and was fine, and was instrumental in many of our best attacking plays at the end of the game.
Wood for Jozy, I know Clint is a legend, but even legends have off days and for basically all of yesterday, he had an offday. HIs touches were bad, passes were bad, and many other **** ups. He was important on some plays, but overall he didn't provide coverage (I felt like I saw Jozy stepping into the pocket infront of the MF more than Dempsey) and he didn't provide too much of an attackign threat. Bradley looked to be our most dangerous going forward for most of the game. Unfortunately he forgot his shooting boots.
Evans for Johnson. I'm gonna assume this was done for PK reasons, or maybe Johnson was really winded (he was just hurt) but I would have pulled Beasley, he was bad all day. He had some good attacking spells but he looked lost defensively and Mexico generated most of their dangerous crossing plays from the right.
Overall I think Klinsmann had a sound strategy going into the game, but the execution by the players sucked and I don't think he adapted well enough. Beckerman needed to be better in that game. Wither 3 forward players, the defensive mid has to be better, because of his struggles Bradley was basically pulled back as were Jones and Gyasi and instead of a 4-4-2 diamond ran basically 2 waves of 4 defending.
On an unrelated note. I had a bad feeling about the match, because Mexico seemed to have a horseshoe up their ass. Every deflection and bounce went in their favor. They'd jump in the way of a clearance or tackle or get tackled and the ball always went right ot a mexican player. It was insane.
What sucks overall abotu the match was that it was Mexico. if we lost this match to another team it would be rough, but now we have to deal with 4 more years of Mexican fan arrogance.I thought we were getting away from that with us having to bail them out of WC qualifying, but sadly this year undid most of that.
Really have to give Mexico credit, they played a great game. They took everything we threw at them and got the goals they needed to.
The dumb things that people will harp on unfortunately
Klinsmann - I'm sure the fire Klinsmann crowd who were annoying before will be even more annoying now. Even if Klinsmann has clearly been the best US manager since at least Bruce Arena (though in reality, Arena had the golden generation of US Soccer players, he sucked as a manager) they will **** talk him every step of the way and any screwup he makes will be more fodder. THis will add more even though Klinsmann basically did what everyone asked for him to do, which was play it safe.
Bradley - People will harp on Bradley for his scuffed shots. What they won't realize is that us needing to use Bradley in that way is a bad sign. Dempsey had pretty much no scoring chances. Jozy was held (largely because he didn't ever seemingly get a chance with the ball in the 18), the wide mids provided basically nothing on the attack. Bradley was the lone threat.
THings hopefully people will remember.
Cameron is a stud and Stoke ****ed us by not letting him play in the Gold Cup. Watching him play yesterday, that was what we missed the most. You can point at offense. But if we had Cameron and Brooks instead of Brooks and Alvarado, we win that whole thing. We're better than Mexico if we have Chandler and Johnson at full health like they were in the Summer and Dempsey in that form.
US Should have done things differently, IMO.
Should have had a MF with Bradley paired with Williams in the middle, and Zusi and Zardes out wide. Then bring Yedlin in for Zardes or Zusi and Jones in for Williams.
US had a lot of opportunities for improvement after this, I think first thing on Klinsmann's list for Russia is sorting out the midfield. I think overall we have a generally clear picture of defense. Have some strong players, some promising kids, and overall some talent. Up top you have a lot of talent. It's figuring out how many strikers, and how to play th emidfield. I don't envy that task. He has only one easy call for Russia, Bradley is there and he's not a CDM.
I'm hoping what we see is more a 4-3-3, with Bradley, Mix/Hyndman/Bedoya/etc. as mids, then up top you have your striker and 2 wingers. I see a lot of guys who could be effective wingers for various reasons, Zardes, Green, Gyau, and so many other guys who aren't true strikers or really traditional mids who could find a lot of success in the wings. I'd add Morris to that as well, he's a striker, but I could see him having great success on the left wing.
Still a lot to be excited about for the future. Even with yesterday being truly a catastrophic day for USMNT.
