Hell of a 2nd half from Brazil. Impressive. The American's just weren't the same in the 2nd. Ok. That's all my soccer watching until next summer. That was fun!
yeah turtling is like a 125 6'5 guy trying to swing a 25 pound sledge hammer to impress a girl but ends up losing it it goes flying he knocks into her with his elbow then the big guy next door comes out and goes wtf did i say you could use my sledge hammer and the guy just curls up in a ball beating not to be hit.....its pathetic...we were winning we were agressive WE stopped being the aggressive team and turtled. Turtling: bad passing, giving the ball away too easy, no communication, players giving the other team too much space....gee yah way to motivate the TEAM....BRADLY! Brazil isnt that impressive....the US team got lazy nothing more too it they got lax and let basil back into the game oh yeah we went to playing like the clippers instead of the mavs or blazers.....the us team is better than they play....talented and should be low level elite team but we play like scrubs most of the time.....
I'll fault Bradley for not bringing on subs sooner, but other than that.... it's Brazil, for fucks sake, what do you expect. The US ran out of gas and stopped closing down as well as they had in the first half, especially on the wings. That and the fact that the forwards couldn't keep control of the ball. There's nothing wrong with sitting back against Brazil, but you have to be able to retain the ball up front.
*sigh* Defense was non existent that 2nd half.. I still like to tip my hat to Howard, there is only so much you can do when being attacked is so many waves.
Josy shut it down and went lazy on us he should have been subbed in the 68th..he could have made plays but would stop way way early....
sit back is why we have lost so much to basil...0-3 and 2-3 now.....you sit back and allow them to control the back guess what you lose...simple. When Brasil loses its when they are the ones turtling and having to react...
there were no decent subs to bring on. i would have rather him just stuck with the guys on the field. taking feilhaber off was dumb. i'd have pulled either davies or altidore for either klestjan or bornstein, pushed dempsey up top, and left it at that.
no, all out attack and you create an open game, favoring the more talented team. The problem was that we stopped being able to counter-attack in the 2nd half, because Altidore especially couldn't retain the ball up front. For me, fresh legs would've made a bigger difference than talent, there was too much space on the wings. I agree with pushing Dempsey up front, maybe bring Pearce (ex-UofP) on the left and DaBeasley on the right and Klestjan in the middle.
did you see beasley at all in this tournament? he was the worst player on the field at all times. the first half in the first game against brazil, basically every time he touched the ball was a turnover. the problem was that with bradley suspended, guys like ching, edu, and cherundolo being injured, and guys like adu and torres not having been given any time thus far is that there really weren't any good subs out there. fresh legs are nice, but if they can't do anything with the ball other than give it right back to the other team, they aren't going to help.
I think the problem was that the USA has no depth. Brazil has lots of players coming off the bench and they don't lose anything. Our bench guys pretty much suck.
Got to give credit to Brazil. They had chances in the first half and the US players were playing phenomenal. I was wondering why we didn't sub earlier, but eh, guess when you are playing on that big of a stage you have to go with the guys who got you there.
Sometimes when you play those huge teams you need a moment of brilliance to score. USA had two of these moments and really should of held on to their lead. The experience of the Brazil squad really showed today but the passion from the US team was superb.
i agree. there were some decent offensive options off the bench(adu and torres) that bradley refused to use, but that was it. at this point the US needs a fully healthy team to really have depth. hopefully a year from now, they'll have at least a few more guys they can rely on to make decent contributions whether it's starting or off the bench.
I wonder what the possession time was in the second half? It had to have been at least 60/40 for Brazil. looks like Kevin Love is a soccer fan... http://twitter.com/kevin_love
Wasn't a huge difference from the Spain game, except that Brazil took advantage of their dominance over ball possession. USA put up a helluva fight in this tournament, but the disparity in talent between them and their competition was inevitably going to catch up to them.
