Let the second guessing begin. The fact, is the USA is not that good. We lost to a better team. The officiating was bad but it cut both ways. Eddie Johnson was wasted, Landon Donovan looked pathetic with his corners and passes. We got a few good looks in with some late headers from McBride and Gooch but it was not enough. Appiah and Essien looked much sharper with their passing and the Ghana attack was much quicker. The Dramani goal was a great piece of hustle with Reyna slow to react.
We really need to get quality players to play for the MNT, otherwise we will get disappoint again and again. As Tilam suggests we have to play better teams then the ones in the CONCACAF.
9 comments on “It’s over: Plain and simple, the USA is just not that good”
At least the US are improving their play over the years. The more popular the game becomes, the better they get. Face it, they have 250 million potential football players. I think that in the future, I am going to have to watch my words whenever I say that the US shouldn’t play football 🙂
Mayk
The Netherlands
At least the US are improving their play over the years. The more popular the game becomes, the better they get. Face it, they have 250 million potential football players. I think that in the future, I am going to have to watch my words whenever I say that the US shouldn’t play football 🙂
Mayk
The Netherlands
The game was not that much of a disaster. Reyna made a HUGE mistake and the penalty kick was an awful piece of refereeing.
That said, I really do not know what Arena was thinking. It is time for some new blood. Klinsmann anyone?
We underestimated the Czech team and the Czech team underestimated the Ghana team. Both the US and the Czech Republic are out. The bottomline: We should play to our expectations.
I actually think that the US had a chance once Reyna went out, they looked much sharper. Convey created some openings. Olson hustled more than Reyna did.
The US just was too erratic. Ghana looked great even in their loss to Italy at the start.
We have good players, we just have no cohesiveness. We also refused to play attacking soccer, relying on the MLS strategy of “passing the ball back towards your own goal is always a good play”.
Hopefully the next coach will alter this mindset and create a team capable of taking advantage of our many strikers and continuously push the ball forward. And of course, we won’t have Reyna to slow us down.
Reyna looked out of it. He has been injured too many times. Arena has gone with him everytime. It’s the same with Sven and Owen Hargreaves, no one knows what he sees in Hargreaves.
I said earlier about this over-reliance on Reyna. Reyna is not that good as a central midfielder. He was a big bottleneck in US’s play. US needs few more creative players, not players like Reyna. Arena is poor tactically and should not be a coach in the world cup games.
Angshuman
Amen! Reyna is not versatile. He plays with one speed. It was remarkable how the US opened up after he left the game. Suddenly there were different points of attack. Aren has been great at the college level but he is not World Cup standard.