2014 World Cup

Jim Craig has to be relieved the U.S. got knocked out. If they had won that game, Howard could have really eaten into his earnings on the motivational speaker's circuit.

 

And Al Micheals would have been supplanted by a British accent.

 

Yeah, I was in the process of becoming a Dynamo fan when I was in Houston. Would at least watch their games on TV. But ended up moving to WI and I feel a bit back to square 1. Don't see any Dynamo games up here, and the Fire seem too far away to adopt. For Euro ball, I don't even know how to go about adopting a league to root in, let along a team. All my rooting interests have generally centered around places I lived. Now, if Milwaukee or Madison got an MLS team, I'd be all set.

 

Wondo was a roll of the dice by Klinsmann, who had to know that we would eventually break in extra time. Wondo is a garbage collector - he finds the ball around the box and puts it in. Klinsmann gambled that he would find an opportunity in regulation, which he did. He just couldn't convert.

 

Can some of the soccer experts explain why there was so much extra time
in both of yesterdays match ups? In the prelims it seemed like there
was perhaps 5- 7 minutes of extra time at most in the games I watched.

In the knock out round is it custom to allow more extra time?

 

You might be getting terms mixed up. There is no extra time in the group stages. Extra time is akin to overtime. When the score is tied after 90 minutes, there is two 15 minute extra time periods. There is also a thing called stoppage time which is time tacked on to the end of each half to make up for the fact that the clock never stops. So of you have an injury and play is stopped, you don't get to play the full 45-minute half. The stoppage time is meant to accommodate for that.

 

Got it and I did mix terms up. Thx for clarifying

 

My lengthy postmortem:

- We deserved to go out yesterday. That game could have been 4-0 if Howard didn't stand on his head. Other than the last 15 minutes, when Belgium was content to sit back, the field was tilted completely in their favor.
- Jozy getting hurt screwed up the team, and part of that is on Klinsmann for not having a backup plan. Everything changes with Jozy out. The holdup play and release valve are basically out the window. Dempsey's creative duties fall to Bradley, which draws him up the field. And you have to start one of the uninspiring wing players (Zusi, Bedoya, Davis) in his place. I wish we could have seen how it would have turned out with a healthy Jozy, but Klinsmann should be questioned as to why none of the other forwards he brought were realistic starting options.
- Bradley had a bad tournament, but he had to do too much. Klinsmann wanted him to be pulling the strings offensively with Jones and Beckerman cleaning up, but too many defensive duties fell to Bradley. He's extremely fit and his commitment is never in question, but it's naive to think a never-ending series of 70-yard sprints from box to box (from a player who was already a bit miscast as the creative engine) wouldn't have a negative effect.
- Our defensive and possession weaknesses prevent us from getting our creative attacking players on the field. Any time we turned over possession yesterday, Belgium had acres of space as our drawn-forward wingbacks and DMs had to sprint back to try to break up the attack. We have to play this reactive, defensive game because our players aren't sure enough with the ball in tight spaces against elite teams. When we get drawn up into the attack, any of the teams we're going to play is going to be incredibly dangerous running at us. We have finesse, possession players in Mix and Johannsson, but Klinsmann clearly didn't trust them sufficiently to do the physical and defensive roles required of the forward and AM roles in our formation.
- Furthermore on that point, our backline players are decent, solid guys, but our center backs are slow and awkward with players running at them. (This is not a problem that is remotely unique to the U.S.) We need more athleticism, foot speed and quality on the back line and better possession from our midfielders to unlock the formation and not have to sell out on defense.
- We have promise, but we're basically where we were four years ago. Klinsmann said a lot of things about changing the mentality and the way we play, and the player pool is larger, but we mostly played the same way we played in 2002, 2006 and 2010. Sit back, absorb pressure, ride an elite keeper and break quickly or score on set pieces. We still can't maintain possession against elite opposition or mount concerted attacks, and we allow way too many chances, particularly early in games. It's unreasonable to expect a sea change in three years, but Klinsmann set the standard himself. Klinsmann was also tasked with overhauling the youth system, and the jury is obviously still out on that, but is it a good sign that our most promising young players (Yedlin aside) are products of another country's youth setup? There are obviously going to be major changes before 2018, with Howard, Dempsey, Jones, Beasley and Beckerman probably gone. I want to give Klinsmann another cycle to finish the job he started, but it's going to be a tall task.

I'm sad it's over for us. It's great to see the way the country backed the team, and making it to consecutive knockout rounds is a major accomplishment for us. But there's a lot left to do. Hopefully we can get a good result in the expanded Copa America in 2016, which will probably be the highest-level non-World Cup tournament we've ever played in.

Shoutouts to:
- Tim Howard, who nearly dragged a broken-down defense past the finish line yesterday and never had that positional error that has dogged him in big tournaments for the U.S. If he ever buys a drink again stateside, someone has fucked up.
- DaMarcus Beasley, who played the game of his life yesterday while playing out of position. He's the best left back we've seen in a U.S. shirt in years.
- Jermaine Jones, who became the player we all hoped he could be. I wish he was a few years younger and we could get another cycle out of him.
- DeAndre Yedlin, who showed us a bright future at right back.
- Fabian Johnson, who was a pretty damn good present at the same position. Our right side appears to be locked in for Russia.
- Deuce, because Deuce. The man came within a foot of scoring with his dick against Portugal. He wasn't at his best yesterday, but he's been a warrior for three cycles. We may never see another player quite like him.

 

I think the biggest mistake was not playing Dempsey further back. Bedoya and Zusi are not of the class required at this level and Wondo or the Nordic Messi could not have been less effective than Dempsey as a target striker.

Bradley was just asked to do too much and he is better box to box than the part of his job which required that he go more forward. I don't think he and Dempsey link well together, but Dempsey needed to be in a position to run at people.

DMB had guts, but he was beaten far too much for my liking. Also, unlike Yedlin, his crosses were universally poor.

 

It's going to be tough to phase out Dempsey and Howard. Russia is four years away, but qualifying starts in just over a year. I think the Copa America should be Dempsey's swan song, ideally not as a 90-minute player.

Klinsmann and Gulati will need to powwow with Howard to plot out his endgame. We're pretty loaded at keeper - Guzan is capable and even Rimando is better than at least half the keepers at the World Cup, and that's not even factoring in guys like Johnson and Hamid. But Howard has earned the right to go out on his terms.

 

I think that Howard will know when to hang it up. I don't think he will do it yet, but Everton will replace him if he dips and that would be a sign. I'd be just find with Guzan.

Dempsey is tough. He'll be 35 in 2018, which is old for a striker/attacking midfielder, but he's got at least a couple of prime years left in him.

 

Belgium only completed 454 passes in match yesterday. I would
have thought that the number would have been a lot higher
given their dominance.