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USA vs. Morocco


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i was not disappointed at all by o'brien. the best chances we had in the first half were all created by him. sure his touch was off a little, but that's to be expected. i would have to say the biggest disappointment was mcbride. he was invisible. wolff also should not have been in, but i think johnson will move into the starting lineup friday against venezuela. i was very impressed by convey, he brought a lot of energy to the team when he first entered.

 

the one thing no one is talking about on the goal...keller should have come to play it with his feet. cherundolo did screw it up no doubt, but keller needs to come clear that in that situation.

 

also, donovan plays better without reyna in the game. reyna gets far too much respect. he is not one of the 5 best players on the team, and we lose nothing when he is not in. even 4 years ago when he was younger and better physically, we beat portugal without him. now we need him even less than then. i hope he's not back for the cup. donovan plays better when he has the captain's band.

 

overall the result is disappointing, but not devastating. it doesn't matter one bit, and hopefully will serve as a wake-up call as the team goes forward from here.

 

for those of you who don't know, sportscenter all access is following the team, so there will be a feature about them on sportscenter every night for the next week at least.

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I'm just not impressed with Mastroeni. He has a keen sense for winning balls but his distribution is nowhere near that of Reyna's.

 

i completely agree with that.

 

another thing i meant to mention earlier was the quickness of play last night. our counters weren't too bad (when morocco actually add possession), but several times left or right backs were breaking into a ton of space and ball to space let them down, either allowing the a defender to race back or a simple poor pass.

 

seeing more of bocanegra in the lineup wouldn't bother me too much either.

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i completely agree with that.

 

another thing i meant to mention earlier was the quickness of play last night. our counters weren't too bad (when morocco actually add possession), but several times left or right backs were breaking into a ton of space and ball to space let them down, either allowing the a defender to race back or a simple poor pass.

 

seeing more of bocanegra in the lineup wouldn't bother me too much either.

 

I agree. Bocanegra brings a lot of exerience to the back line. I thought Gibbs performed pretty well last night, and can hopefully only get better coming back from injury. I'm still clueless as to why Berhalter didn't make the squad. His size could've helped us. Onyewu of course is a beast. I think Morocco's gameplan killed some of our space and didn't allow us to use our speed. Assuming the Czechs and Italians are more offensive minded, I think we can get a decent result against them.

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The main focus was not to play the best players the whole time and win the game by a lot. Rather, Arena said he'd rather watch players compete against their team mates and see who rises above the others. Getting people experience is the most important thing. My dad played lacrosse at UVA and was coached by Bruce Arena and offered this explanation post game.

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The main focus was not to play the best players the whole time and win the game by a lot. Rather, Arena said he'd rather watch players compete against their team mates and see who rises above the others. Getting people experience is the most important thing. My dad played lacrosse at UVA and was coached by Bruce Arena and offered this explanation post game.

 

 

I think most people understand that point. However, any player playing international soccer should be able to cross the ball with some accuracy. Morocco played a decent game, but we have to work on getting more shots on goal. Ghana will play a very similar style to the Moroccans, and we'll have to find a way to score. Considering the group we're in, we need all the goals we can get.

 

BTW, when I saw your username, I was watching Full House.

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The US trainer is my dad's physical therapist (James Hashimoto). He said that the game was about what he expected, because of how hard they have been going the last 2 weeks. Not that they are happy with the outcome, but it can be somewhat justified. I just hope they get their game together quickly.

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