USA vs. Ghana Open Thread
I BELIEVE!
As the starters has been announced I thought it time to start the thread.
Altidore---------Dempsey
Jones-------Beckerman------Bradley------Bedoya
Beasley-----Cameron-----Besler-----Johnson
Howard
(No they don't use a true 4-4-2 but it isn't a true 4-3-3 either...but these are your starters)
Edit-Being listed as a diamond w Bradley attacking & Beckerman defensive/holding
Also notable exclusions for Ghana starters are Boateng and Essian
Go USA!!!!
I saw Dempsey say it was broken in a postgame interview on the field, but I hope it's just cartilage damage without any broken bones.
On one hand, the 3 points was probably not deserved based on how we played the entire game. On the other hand, we just won a game when our best field player (Bradley) had one of the worst games of his life. Big game against Portugal. Let's do it!!
I don't start him, see if we can get a lead again and get the game without him. If we can, then don't play him vs. Germany either when you're already through to the knockout stage.
Huge IF...but one, as a fan, I can mention from a laptop knowing I'll never have to make the call.
I thought the win was very much deserved. In the only five minutes of the game that we were trying to play offense, we scored two goals. We played defense for 85 minutes and didn't allow a goal until Fab J was caught sleeping. Possibly poor strategy on our part, but it worked for Argentina against BH the other day, and it almost worked for us. Not pretty on the field, but 3 points are beautiful in the books.
We were clearly the better team. Going into the game, we knew that Ghana had a very tough time generating goals through possession - especially possessions where they couldn't come through the middle. They're a counterattacking team. I don't really have a problem with trying to play prevent for 90 minutes when a team is so dependent on the counter as Ghana. They were stymied. Even in the end, it was a poor play by us, not anything great by them, that got them the goal.
Yeah, I wish we would have had more of the ball. But with Bradley a) dropping all the way to the trunk on the Christmas tree after Dempsey's score and not looking to push forward much at all, and b) just not playing great even at that, I'm not surprised we had no possession. If you said that Jozy and Besler would go out injured and Bradley would have mediocre game at best, I would have doubted we'd win. But everyone else came through one way or another. Definitely deserved.
Yeah, got to get better with possession. No doubt. But I don't think we were as awful as people are saying. Just rather poor. Our Christmas tree defensive shape wasn't designed for optimal possession.
I hope that Portugal is smelling blood because they're a bunch of head-cases and if they come in overconfident, their frustration is going to be that much worse.
only to the iran-nigeria game. our style reverted back to the usa style of old--ie high school kick it up and hope that the forward controls it.
Iran-Nigeria featured tons of possession by NIgeria. Not sure what you're looking for.
Go back and read Brian's own preview. He talks about how booting it upfield in this game could be forgiven because of Ghana's weaknesses and our strengths.
Now, yes. We should have had much more of the ball. No doubt. But we dropped our field general to the back line one minute into the game. We were intentionally playing a prevent defense, for better or worse. Just need to get better at it.
Second-worst display of soccer? Did you see Portugal? And no way this looked like a high school game. High school is Claudio Reyna in 2006 trying to play possession stupidly on the backline and giving up the critical goal when he got wtfpwnd by a tackle he thought wasn't coming. Major room for improvement on the US's part, but 3 points is 3 points.
after, the part you're probably looking for happens at the end of page 5.
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