Photo by John Todd/ISIphotos.com
By AVI CREDITOR
LANDOVER, Md. — In the middle of his post-game comments following Wednesday night's 4-1 loss to Brazil, Jurgen Klinsmann let slip what has been speculated for some time: That the U.S. men's national team will play Mexico and Russia in friendlies in August and November, respectively.
When talking about developing the team's overall attitude and growth and doing so against the world's more talented teams, Klinsmann alluded to both matches, which have yet to be officially announced and confirmed by U.S. Soccer.
"With these games against Italy, against France, against Brazil, we get those experiences and how to deal with them," Klinsmann said. "In August with Mexico, later on in the year we play Russia in Russia. Those are the benchmarks.
"We want to play the big nations. Out of those games we learn a lot. We got a lot out of this (Brazil) game."
Here are a few more notes from the United States' loss to Brazil:
ONYEWU DISPUTES PENALTY CALL
Oguchi Onyewu's return to the U.S. men's national team's starting lineup was one of the more scrutinized aspects of Wednesday's loss, and for fair reason. Onyewu's night got started off on the wrong foot, with him being whistled for a 12th-minute penalty for handling Leandro Damiao's shot in the area. In Onyewu's eyes, referee Jeffery Calderon's call was harsh.
"I watched the replay, and I'm actually amazed that he would even call the penalty, one, that early in the game, and two, seeing that it wasn't intentional, my arms were inside my body," Onyewu said. "By no means was my arm spread out to block the shot. I was shocked, but you have to be prepared for this, this might be what we see in the qualification process. You have to accept it and move on to the next one."
Onyewu was not alone in his assessment of the play, as Klinsmann was also highly critical of Calderon's call. Klinsmann said he was "furious" and that it "kind of pisses me off, to be honest" with both the penalty call and the final Brazil goal, in which replays showed that Onyewu played Alexandre Pato onside despite Klinsmann's contention that Pato was "two yards offside."
JOHNSON EARNS RAVE REVIEWS
One player to emerge with passing grades from the two opening friendlies of this five-game stretch is left back Fabian Johnson. The versatile German-American displayed his quality against Brazil, most notably in his forays forward and providing width to the U.S. attack.
Johnson assisted on Herculez Gomez' goal with a trademark run into the box and cross toward the goal mouth, and he had a hand in setting up a few other chances as well. He inspired a strong fan reaction with his second-half move to fake out Danilo and create space for a cross to Gomez that was headed across goal toward Clint Dempsey before being put out of play.
"He's a player now that gives us high quality, international-level quality," Klinsmann said. "He knows what he's doing with the ball, he can time the runs, he can play killer balls into the space."
Johnson, who was making just his fifth appearance for the national team, has asserted himself as the top-choice left back and has won over his new teammates in a rather brief time.
"His ability to read the right times to get forward and use his quickness and agility to find space out wide in behind the other team's outside back, he's done really well for us," said Michael Bradley, who played Johnson through down the left for his cross that led to Gomez' goal. "He's somebody who, going forward, I think is going to be an important guy for us."
Johnson was subbed off for Edgar Castillo in the 80th minute because of a minor calf issue, according to Klinsmann, but the substitution was more preventative than anything else, and Johnson is expected to be fine for Sunday's match against Canada.
DEMPSEY RETURNS TO ACTION
Dempsey made his return from a groin injury, entering as a 56th-minute substitute for Jose Francisco Torres to finally appear on the field at the same time as Landon Donovan under Klinsmann. After returning to full training on Monday, the match against Brazil came a bit too soon to insert Dempsey in the starting lineup.
"We hope for every day of training of progress from Clint," Klinsmann said. "Certainly a fully fit Clint Dempsey makes a difference in our team, there's no doubt about it."
Dempsey was involved with a couple of scoring chances for the United States. His ball over the top toward Gomez led to two shots that were saved expertly by standout Brazilian goalkeeper Rafael, and he also had the chance at the goalmouth that was cut out at the last second by Thiago Silva. With 34 minutes under his belt and a couple of days to build more fitness leading up to Sunday's match, Dempsey could supplant Torres in the starting XI in Toronto.
"We had to deal with his groin injury, we had to build him," Klinsmann said. "We couldn't play him against Scotland. He's not 100 percent yet, so we said, 'Let's bring you on in the second half.'" Hopefully now every day we see an improvement, every day we see more sharpness. He needs to be confident, he needs to believe in his body that everything is fine. We'll try to catch up as fast as we can, and hopefully he's available from the start against Canada."
true.
yeah, him and boca were not doing anything. and i agree, bradley had a great game other than this play.
ok, i went back to watch the highlights. i still don’t think he is the one i would put most the blame on.
goal 2:
– yes, he did not clear it well despite it being a simple ball. and that sucks, but that does not mean the goal was his fault.
– yeah, that is true. but the way i see it, gooch would have had to run through jones to get to him. jones was right there, he had to change directions for sure, but he didn’t realize the run until too late. it was in his space. but, that is certainly a failure of communication on all parties.
goal 3:
– pause at 4:48 on the highlights posted earlier. he is marking marcelo who boca at that point had.
– at 4:49, neymar has it and dolo is pressing him and gooch is in the crossing lane waiting for it. bradley, who is leaning back (aka jogging/slowing down from sprinting), does appear to be pressing (with no hustle, and leaving marcelo) at 4:49
– then at 4:50 & 4:51 you can clearly see him notice marcelo wide open in the middle and jogs that way. neymar crosses it right then, which was also when gooch starts rushing neymar to help dolo.
– back at 4:49-4:50, you’ll also notice boca pointing to johnson to cover his guy out wide. at this point he loses marcelo and is marking no one and by 4:51 boca is inside the goal box also noticing marcelo wide open behind him.
to me, i just can’t put goal 3 on him. bradley and boca were both not marking anyone but were right there, especially boca. for goal 2, i still don’t put it on him completely, but i do understand what you are saying in regards to jones not originally being on silva.
as for gooch as a player, i agree with you. he was absolutely playing well and it was this last injury that killed his playing time at the end of the season. that and the fact he got a red card with only two games left in his first game back from said injury. clearly, he was rusty then and apparently he is still rusty. i would have thought JK would have noticed that for sure. i’m not saying he should start at the moment, but the people freaking out and saying he is done and terrible just annoyed me.
Based on the huge pro-USA turnout in Jacksonville, perhaps we should consider that venue as well?
I see ’em trollin’, they hatin’…
Why do I need to think of Gooch’s performance at Sporting not ‘Porto’ I believe, when I can see his current play. He didn’t have the energy or quickness to step up on numerous occasions. He handled a harmless shot in the box. He screwed another harmless ball over the endline for a corner, and may have lost his mark on two goals (it’s not clear to me how Klinsmann’s marking on these attacks). Both Gooch and Landon have always been my favorites, but sport is always what are you doing now, and both cost the USA this game, more than anything else.
i totally forgot to share this story. the best part of my night yesterday at the game! my buddy and i leave the stadium and start heading towards the metro. anyone who has been to FedEx knows the metro is like a 15 minute walk. anyway, about half way there, we realize the development that was on our left walking in was not there. we soon realized we went the wrong way. so we start heading back to the stadium prepared for a 30 minute walk to the metro.
as we are going pass the stadium, we see two buses with their interior lights on and cops on bikes in front of them. there was also some barriers and about 50ish people. we both looked at each other and realized those were the team buses and they were about to get on them. holy #%^@!!!
sure enough, Boyd, Jones, Pato, and Luiz come out first. Pato and Luiz, I could see, but they were near their bus talking to fans and I wanted to be next to the USA bus. Boyd and Jones came right up to where I was (and many others, but i was right in front) and shook hands, signed autographs, took pictures, etc. so awesome. they both looked pretty mad about the loss, but were still really nice to the fans.
after that, Bradley, LD, Gooch, Boca, Dempsey, Parkhurst, Johnson, Beckerman, Edu, and Klinsmann came up to the fans and did the same thing. we actually had a conversation with Dempsey (guy joked that he wanted to buy Clint’s shoes and Clint was like, “hell nah, i love these!”), Bradley and Klinsmann. it was awesome. you could tell they were all bummed about the game, but were still talkative and so nice. i love this team.
the only player from the US who came out and didn’t talk to fans was Howard. he acknowledge everyone and waved, but he clearly wasn’t in a talking mood. which was too bad, but i get it. it was weird though because i never saw any of the players who didn’t make the bench get on the bus and i did not see Torres, Castillo, Corona, Dolo, Gomez, Rimando, and Goodson. maybe they snuck on.
all i know is that im 27 and i probably looked like a middle school girl at a justin bieber concert. hahaha
the brazil players were lame and only Pato and Luiz really talked to the fans. when their bus left Pato was waving through the window which was cool. klinsmann did the same thing and dempsey was texting.
“The biggest take away’s from last nights match is the need for some speed and youth in the back”
They have been saying that since 2009. Speed and youth is not enough. Castillo is fast and he is young.
The truth is you either need smarter, better defenders (Chandler for one), or you need to have a more regular rotation where everyone knows each other and can anticpate moves better.
As the man said ” The faster player is the one who starts running first”
Last night was the first time Gooch and Boca had played as a unit in a very long time. If Boca is going to be a fixture, then they need to settle on his partner and not change him. Either play Cameron all the way through from now on or play Gooch.
But do not go back and forth. Not now with qualifiers only days away.
Bryan is splitting hairs on the words ‘main culprits’ and forgetting Landon’s involvement completely. Why defend someone who was horrible by saying he only contributed to some goals? OK I accept that, but so what.
You can hang Marcelo’s goal squarely on Michael Bradley’s shoulders and no one else. It marred an excellent game for him otherwise.
It’s interesting to compare American message boards to for example, UK message boards.
Granted, I’m just one person but it seems to me that they focus much more on how “we” lost, the team lost, the manager had everyone playing poorly. Perhaps it is a reflection of a more socialized society but over there when England fails (As they always do) every player gets the Bornstein treatment. It’s more of team thing.
People here just love to search for scapegoats after very loss whether it’s Gooch, Donovan, JB, Sacha, Rico, Edu, Dempsey ( yes and not that long ago), etc.
I expect to see hundreds of posts demonizing Gooch until the Canada game when, if the result is bad, there will be another victim for the boards to hound half way to hell.
You’d thought Gooch was an axe murderer.
As for the notion that this was so shameful because it was “only” Brazil’s Olympic team, that is just horse poop.
For one thing Brazil takes the Olympics more seriously that most soccer nations.
For another, take that team last night, give them a decent draw in Euro 2012 and I think they would be just fine.
Disagree. If your assessment was correct there would have been no need for their goalies heroics. As it was, he was called into play quite a lot.
You are discounting the althleticism of these players. It’s not just tactics and skill. There is speed there as well. You don’t think Villa and Torres are fast?
Jose Enrique was a sprinter in Spain. Ramires who plays for Chelsea and Brazil blew past Enrique a couple of times in the FA Cup final. These guys are top athletes in addition to their skill.
If it was only a technical skill gap we would have caught up with athleticism. There isn’t an athleticism gap. These guys are top athletes in addition to their technical skills. Tactically I don’t buy into us not understanding how to play the game.
Judging from the previous final 4 teams in most World Cup tourneys, those teams tend to have strong backline including GK. one defensive enforcer, and one playmaker. Forwards cannot function to the maximum if it don’t have those key ingredients. USA:
GK: checked
LB: checked
2 CBs: not checked as we are still looking. Boca is too old as he will be 34 in 2014
RB: not checked despite that Chandler may decide to join us after all. If he do, then consider it checked. Imagine both RB and LB shutting the best attackers on the wings down.
D-Mid: checked (Jones)
Wingers: Checked ( loaded at those positions)
Central midfielder: not checked.
So we need to work on two areas: CBs and central playmaker ( the true #10)
You are just applying old stereotypes of Brazil’s glory days into the modern context. Apart from Hulk’s backheel pass, I saw little or no Jogo Bonito yesterday. They simply had bigger and faster horses in the race and that’s why they won. There were at least 5 situations where this was blatantly obvious to even the casual obeserver. Whether it was their pressing up in the attacking third, charging out of their own end, or body checking Donovan and Boca off the ball, they were beasts and that is why they won. The only real skill was shown in the final third with Pato’s clinical finish. Otherwise, they just out hustled and out muscled us.
I don’t agree with it as an absolute argument either. However, to imply it has no impact and anyone who mentions it needs to go to the “uneducated” boards goes to far in my opinion.
I think your right though athletcism is not what were lacking. We need to develop our own, unique soccer culture and instill it in our best young soccer talents. Then refine our soccer style/culture and find better ways to teach that style/culture. All this takes time, hard work and commitment.
One thing I will note about the best players play sport X in America and not soccer argument is there is more than athleticism in our best athletes, there is a mental toughness, work ethic and passion for the sport they play that is tough to replicate.
That said I think its wrong to focus on surpassing MLB, NBA, NHL … MLS and US Soccer just need to focus on what they can do to improve the quality of the league and style of play.
+100
lets talk about michael bradley…he is athletic…good first touch…but when he ball watches like a U10 rec player as Brazil is burying another ball in our net…what cures that….?
Klinsmann needs to step up his game. The selections and tactics were poor. Yes, Landon and Gooch were very disappointing, but his job is to give them help or take them out. The officiating was not bad. He can and better plan for much worst in qualifying games.
Ratings:
Gooch 3
Landon 4
Klinsmann 3.5
I think he has to take some, if not most, of the responsibility for goals 2 and 3 as well.
On goal 2:
– he had a mishit that led to a corner
– on the corner, it looks like Gooch originally had thiago, who moves away from him, and then Jones tried to take him, but thiago was wide open for the header
On goal 3:
– Dolo had 2 guys on his side, one with the ball and the other even more wide; Gooch is behind Dolo with M.Bradley is coming over to help
I would have expected Gooch to either tell Dolo to take the wide guy and Gooch take the guy with the ball OR Gooch to slide over to take the wide guy.
– The ball is sent wide, the wide guy take is to the end line and then crosses back to Marcelo in front of the goal
When the ball goes to the end line, Gooch drops back to the point he’s almost even with Timmy, but Marcelo is wide open
I’m a Gooch fan, but he’s back at the point where he was after his 1st serious knee injury. He’s very rusty. Before his most recent injury, he was playing quite well, both for club and country. Right now, I think he’s not ready to play, at least at a high level.
me five!
agree. it seemed to me last night it was penalty and then after the game Klinsmann complaining it was an awful call I thought maybe I saw it wrong. but, as you say, seeing the replay today it appears that Gooch is clearly moving his arm up to stop the ball. it was a good call by the referee.
it’s kind of weird that Klinsmann is protesting so loudly about the PK and the lack of an offsides call, when replays show that Pato was clearly onsides because of Gooch’s mistake. But I can kind of understand Klinsmann why Klinsmann was doing it. Right after the final whistle, when the camera focused on him, he looked devastated at the loss like I had never seen him before. I see that as a good sign, showing how competitive he is and how badly he wanted the win to build on the Scotland momentum.
Spank and David JS, I’m not opposed to that and it would probably work well.
I guess my only concern would be having enough width. As good as Johnson is, to rely on him exclusively (Dolo would need to hold his ground a bit more) to provide width would be a lot on his shoulders.
But, he is a stud, so I wouldn’t put it past him. He created one goal (with MB’s help last night) and nearly created a second. Like I said, we are VERY LUCKY to have him.
I am reposting my comments which were removed about our biggest US weakness. I totally agree with your observations on the over the hill US defenders (Gooch, Boca & Dolo). If Klinsi wants success, he better get some new players so that they can get some experience. Presently, our midfielders have to play too much back & defensively to beat a top team like Brasil.
I think he was more suggesting saving our match ups against Mexico for more meaningful occasions, and getting different competition for friendlies. I could be wrong though
I like your line up but i’d rather play Jones as the single D-mid with Bradley on the right and Torres on the left just slightly above Jones. Basically the same thing just a simple adjustment.
agree with your assessment of Torres. I think a lineup that would allow our personnel to play to the best of their strengths would be a Christmas Tree:
————– Howard ————–
Dolo—-Goodson—Boca—-Johnson
—-Bradley—-Jones—-Torres—-
——-Donovan—-Dempsey——-
————–Jozy————–
This would let Bradley and Torres get into the flow of the game as they see fit (as far as getting forward to link up/playing deep and spraying balls) with Jones as a pure d-mid covering for them. Also it allows Donovan/Dempsey to tuck in and get width from the fullbacks.
agreed.
so what would you propose? FIFA make a new tourny so you don’t have to watch meaningless friendlies? this is not the same as meaningless summer friends between Euro club teams and MLS. this is our national team, it’s either friendlies or meaningful games in a toury/qualifying. and i think not having any games before those meaningful games could be the stupidest suggestion yet…if that is what you think should happen.
Whoops. Here is that back-line again.
Dolo–Cameron/Goodson–Boca–Johnson
totally agree. Edu just doesn’t seem comfortable making aggressive forward moving passes. Instead, if he gets the ball in the other team’s half, rather than probe for the creative forward move (like bradley), he usually rushes to get the ball off his feet by making an obvious sidways pass.
Hopefully, the experiment’s over.
seriously. gooch has been a beast for us. we certainly have to figure something out with our CBs if what happens last night happens over and over, but that seemed like an unusually bad defensive effort from our team. gooch deserves his criticism, but he does not deserve some of the comments. this is still a starting CB for Porto for crying out loud.
@DavidJS – Agreed. Edu was ineffective in that role and was simply out of his element. In my opinion and as you say, Edu (if he needs to play at all) can only be effective playing the classic #6.
@jon – Jones was not very good, a bit spastic to me. That’s why my only reference to his game was the tackle. Like Edu, I think Torres is being played out of position. He is not a natural “attacking player.” It’s a bit of a shame we can’t get him on the field at the same time as Dempsey in that formation (i.e. with Edu and Jones in the lineup). However, if we tried something, such as the following, with Jones playing the classic #6, I think Torres is better suited and would perform better.
————– Howard ——————-
Dolo —- Cameron/Goodson – Boca – Johnson
———–Jones —- Torres ———-
————— Bradley —————-
Donovan ——Altidore/Gomez —–Dempsey
And, I agree that Donovan looked tired. If the whole “Dempsey and Donovan” playing together thing wasn’t such a show, I would have liked to have seen Dempsey come on in place of Donovan rather than Torres.
he was most certainly not the main culprit on goal 2 and 3. the fact that he was on 1 and 4 isn’t good, that’s for sure. but seriously, jones left his mark on the 2nd goal. just because gooch gave up the corner doesn’t mean he is the main culprit. and for the third, at least gooch was trying to help dolo. bradley was jogging and ball watching without marking anyone (unusual for him) while boca was literally just standing in front of the goal not marking anyone.
trollin’, straight trollin’
ditto
Is this site getting too big now where we have Mexican trolls running around like on ESPN? I thought this was a safe zone.
nice post. 98% agree. But I dont’ think Jones was “good”, even with the badass tackle on neymar. Also, I thought torres and edu were notably inneffective. Donovan was dissapointing — looked a little tired to me, and was completely outclassed by Marcelo, who was AWESOME. Klinsy’s rant about nastyness/toughness was I think meant largely for donovan, who looked timid, like he didn’t believe he had a shot to get by tougher, nastier, savier marcelo (which was probably right).
+1. Playing important internationals at Livestrong = great idea
I would add to the bad: Edu playing an advanced midfield role. I don’t think it’s really his fault because it’s just not within his skill set. He is a more athletic Beckerman, if you will. If we want a midfielder that gets forward, we have plenty of other options to choose from (Bradley, Jones, Torres, Corona, Kljestan, etc). If Jurgen wants to play Edu, it has to be as a defensive mid.
Anyone mentioning the athleticism argument on this board…. Please leave and go back to the uneducated ESPN boards. Seriously…. leave
+1 on Steve.
It seemed when they attacked down his side, midfielders were often caught upfield (the Marcelo goal is a perfect example). His attack could have been better–his runs always ended up inside, where he didn’t get passes or shots off in time. He’s better wider playing crosses, but didn’t seem to find those opportunities. But, Johnson relieves a lot of pressure offensively, so his role in the attack is bound to be less than what we are used to.
Why was Edu playing closer to the attack than Bradley and Jones last night? Experimenting? I thought he played much better in front of the back four. Did not make that much sense to me.
You pretty much took my post right off my keyboard- agree 99%
The good:
Johnson – stud. We are VERY lucky to have him.
Bradley – stud. Wish he was deployed a bit higher, but still is capable of controlling the tempo.
Gomez – showed very well. Surprised me completely. I didn’t expect as much bite out of him as we saw.
Jones – his tackle on Neymar. Period.
The bad:
Onyewu was plain bad. I’ve never been a huge fan. Great in the air. Scary with his feet. In JK’s system, we need someone more comfortable on the ball.
Donovan – seemed to be playing timid/ scared/intimidated, etc., take your pick of adjectives. He was completely ineffective, although Marcelo played very well (I hate him to no end, but he was good).
The mediocre:
Everyone else.
Will be interesting to see if/how Altidore raises his energy level to compare with Gomez once he is in the lineup.
Absolutely right.
agree. bradley and jones can certainly handle the d-mid duties. keep torres on for his creativity and possession. a torres-dempsey-donovan trio looks pretty good
lil wayne
just kidding. RGIII. 2nd overall pick in the nfl draft. quarterback for the washington redskins.
yeah, i’ve never heard every athlete ever do that before.
Who’s that guy in the photo with Klinsmann?