Top Stories

USMNT 4, Bosnia & Herzegovina 3: Match Reaction

Anthony Brooks, Eddie Johnson, Geoff Cameron

Photo by ISIphotos.com

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzzhla_rGVY?feature=player_detailpage]

Comments

  1. Brad Evans has done a stand up job. I can take nothing away from him, except that I’m about to. I’m just not convinced he is a high enough quality player to compete in a competition like the WC and play with a consistent high level. Is Timmy Chandler the answer? Who knows, I guess we’ll see how he does at Nuremburg this season. Can Cherundolo be the guy? I definitely think so, just a matter of his health. Here’s the starting XI I would like to see play the first WC match.

    Howard

    Cherundolo-Gonzalez-Besler-Beasley

    Jones

    Dempsey – Bradley – Donovan

    Altidore – Johanssen

    Reply
  2. My Depth Charts:

    Anyone listed I think could make the WC roster.

    4-4-2/ 4-4-1-1
    LB: Beasley, Castillo, FJ, Besler
    LCB : Besler, Brooks, Cameron, Gonzalez, Goodson, Edu
    RCB: Gonzalez, Goodson, Cameron, OF, Brooks, Besler, Edu
    RB: Evans, Cameron, Parkhurst, Chandler (Dolo to move up when healthy)
    LM: Donovan, Dempsey, FJ, Torres, Beasley, EJ, Shea
    DM: Bradley, Cameron, Beckerman, Jones, Edu, DW
    AM: Bradley, Klejstan, Mix, Corona, Donovan, Dempsey, Torres, Zusi (Stuart Holden you’re in our hearts)
    RM: Donovan, Dempsey, Zusi, Bedoya, Corona, Klejstan, DW, Evans
    CF: Altidore, AJ, EJ, Wondowlowski, Boyd, Gomez, Agudelo
    WF: Dempsey, Donovan, AJ, EJ, Gomez
    Wildcard: Shea
    4-2-3-1
    LB: Castillo, Beasley, FJ, Besler
    LCB : Besler, Brooks, Cameron, Gonzalez, Goodson, Edu
    RCB: Gonzalez, Goodson, Cameron, OF, Brooks, Besler, Edu
    RB: Evans, Cameron, Parkhurst, Chandler (Dolo to move up when healthy)
    LM: Donovan, Dempsey, FJ, Torres, Beasley, EJ, Shea
    LDM: Bradley, Cameron, Mix, Torres, Beckerman, Jones, Edu, DW
    RDM: Bradley, Cameron, Mix, Torres, Beckerman, Jones, Edu, DW
    AM: Bradley, Dempsey, Donovan, Klejstan, Mix, Corona, Zusi, Torres
    RM: Donovan, Dempsey, Zusi, Bedoya, Corona, Klejstan, DW, Evans
    CF: Altidore, AJ, EJ, Donovan, Dempsey, Wondowlowski, Boyd, Gomez, Agudelo
    Wildcard: Shea
    Notes:
    I don’t trust Jones. Klejstan left me with a positive impression which had him move up. AJ is the real deal. Dempsey is a gifted player who can be a selection headache. Shea is the wildcard.

    Reply
    • Jones has been good to very good over the course of two years. Kljestan has been indifferent to bad over the same time period. One game should not change the thinking.

      Reply
    • Agreed, and repeating myself: Clearly JK has a lot of hard choices to make. If you told me any player except Bradley, Altidore, Dempsey or Howard would lose his presumed starting spot I would not be surprised (but I’m not even all that sure about Howard and Dempsey). Things seem to be very dynamic right now and with relatively few games left, any player who has a bad couple of games could lose out to someone who steps in and performs well. (I just don’t see any players in the pool who have the capabilities of Altidore and Bradley so can’t see who would replace them.) There are lots of choices at nearly every position where good arguments can be made for more than one player being the preferred starter.

      Reply
  3. English is the second language of Iceland. Had a friend explain to me. “There are only 300,000 of us, we don’t expect anyone to learn icelandic.”

    They start learning english pretty young.

    Reply
    • Not to mention he lived in the US for a full year at age 16. That will teach English to anyone so long as the community they are in is an English speaking community.

      Reply
    • In countries like Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, English is the only common language available for most of the teams. I know he hasn’t mastered Dutch in 6 months…

      Reply
  4. DITTO THE WORDS ON WONDO!!

    It’s way too early, but we really don’t have a striker like AJ, huh? Outside of LANDON, we don’t have a quick, technical striker to play off of JA .. ..

    We’ll see, but a 2014 strikeforce of ALTIDORE/DEMPSEY/DONOVAN (or JOHANSSON) sounds kina interesting to me .. .. Like four weeks of interesting next summer!!!

    U-S-A!!

    Reply
  5. Remember a couple weeks ago when people were talking about Wondo being on the World Cup roster for Brazil? Hahaha! Thankfully the closest he’ll get to the World Cup is watching it on TV, just like the rest of us.

    Reply
    • I laughed when I saw certain pundits and the media predicting Wondo to be on the WC team. I have nothing against Wondo. Good player and good person, but he just isn’t dynamic enough at the international level.

      Reply
      • Cobi jones declared that wondo was a lock for brazil after his first half hat trick in the gold cup. I smiled knowingly.

  6. Great performances all-around. I think Brad Evans showed particularly well. I’m not a Seattle fan or anything like that, but he looked every bit as good as his right-side counter-parts who are all paid 10x what he makes.

    Reply
      • right on, he seemed more confident in his role, stepping on the ball and getting involved often. Not sure his wheels are up to the positon standard but his feel for the game is.

      • Temper those expectations. It is a useful exercise to conjure up names like John O’Brien, Charlie Davies, Danny Szetela, Marvell Wynne, Frank Simek, Kenny Cooper, Santino Quaranta, Conor Casey, Jonathan Bornstein, and my favorite…Freddy Adu.

        The only players who have truly lived up to the hype have been Jozy, MB, and Donovan. I exclude the likes of Dempsey and Howard because the hype wasn’t as potent in the early 2000s as it was for the other three.

        Lets give him 2+ years of eligibility before we annoint him with anything.

      • It’s pretty clear from 30 minutes of football that Johannsson is a more complete player than any of those players except maybe JOB. Obviously injury could derail him, but that could happen to anybody. Why should we let that stop us from dreaming?

      • Don’t think it’s the same thing. The hype around Szetela, Wynne, Simek, Cooper, Quaranta, Adu and Casey all came when those guys were youth players either with their club teams (Arsenal for Simek and Man U for Cooper) or youth national teams (and personally I never thought Casey was all that great even from a young age — never seemed all that technically gifted). On the club level, only Cooper did very exceptionally, while Quaranta, Adu and Casey showed glimpses. JOB and Davies don’t belong in this category because the hype was justified, and they only never panned out due to injury. I don’t recall anyone thinking Bornstein was a revelation.

        Johannsson is different because he isn’t some U-20 player banging goals against other kids, he is 22 and banging goals at the professional level both in Denmark and Holland. He isn’t about potential, he is actually already doing it and performing. Only thing we have to hope for is that he doesn’t develop chronic injuries or gets in a car crash. I feel very comfortable placing him among the top 5 US strikers for the foreseeable future.

      • I agree with most players you named except Adu,.. For the Nats, he’s been way above average than most who still get invited. Club you can make an argument, but NT wise. Absolutely not…

    • Even if he hadn’t spent a lot of time in the US, Icelanders, people in the Nordic countries and the Dutch, among others, all learn (mostly American) English, and they learn it well. Most Europeans know about 3 or 4 languages. I have a Dutch friend who lived mostly in Europe but speaks English without any accent.

      Reply
      • I noticed it too…I saw another longer interview with him on USSF and he said he visited the US almost every year for a ‘holiday’. Plus he picked up soccer after attending a week long academy in Florida that his parents took him to when he was younger. PLUS he went back to that academy for an entire semester.

        Everyone is acting like he was born here, left after three years and never returned. Even if that was the case he was BORN here. He could be PRESIDENT. He’s not a naturalized citizen. To my knowledge none of our players are naturalized citizens.

Leave a Reply to Alex Cancel reply