Good evening folks. I’m coming to you from Reliant Stadium where we are little more than an hour away from kickoff of the USA-Mexico friendly. You will be able to follow along with the match here. I will do a running commentary and will encourage all SBI readers to share their thoughts on the game in the comments section. This is going to be a exciting game.
Enjoy the match and follow along after the jump
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That’s all for tonight. I’ll be heading down to the interviews and will try to post something later on. Thank you for following the match and check back in tomorrow (or late tonight) for some post-match reactions.
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What we learned tonight:
- Altidore is officially ready to be penciled in as a starting forward for the United States.
- Ramiro Corrales is NOT an international level left back.
- Drew Moor is NOT an international level right back.
- Tim Howard isn’t giving up the No. 1 shirt any time soon.
- Bocanegra and Onyewu are THE best center back tandem the Americans have. PERIOD.
- Giovani Dos Santos is going to cause major problems for the USA in the future (I know, Duh)
- Freddy Adu is a good second-half sub, but not ready to be a starter.
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FINAL- USA 2, Mexico 2. A fair result as neither team took over the match.
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90th minute– Edu fouls Dos Santos, who has looked good the past few minutes. He’s so deceptively quick.
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89th minute- Corrales fouls Dos Santos on the left edge and Mexico have a great chance here.
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84th minute– A 2-2 result would be a fair one tonight. Mexico had more stretches of good soccer but the Americans finished their chances tonight. The game has gone flat and I’m not sure there’s another goal here.
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79th minute– Maurice Edu in for Ricardo Clark.
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78th minute– Bocanegra has been solid tonight.
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74th minute– Not a bad match from Ricardo Clark today. Nothing spectacular, but steady.
And Freddy Adu to take a corner.
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72nd minute– Antonio Naelson came in for Adolfo Bautista and Dos Santos came in for Carlos Vela.
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71st minute– And Dos Santos is about to come into the match.
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70th minute– Another Mexico free kick after an Onyewu foul. Convey is out and Lewis is in. Convey was invisible tonight.
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68th minute– Mexico makes a sub but it isn’t Dos Santos.
Eddie Lewis is ready to come in.
Attendance tonight is 70,103. A sellout.
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66th minute– I wonder when we’ll see Giovani Dos Santos.
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65th minute- Marquez and Altidore have had a nice battle today. It’s easy to forget that he’s only 18.
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62nd minute- Bradley had an up and down game, he made some good plays and also turned the ball over in bad spots. Dempsey didn’t have a big impact aside from that great goal that was waived off.
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61st minute– Feilhaber and Adu in for Bradley and Dempsey.
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59th minute– It looks as if Antonio Denigris is playing the villain role for Mexico, between his dust-up with Tim Howard and his yapping with Oguchi Onyewu.
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58th minute– The U.S. team looks a bit lost and I’m trying to decide who has had a worse game, Drew Moor or Ramiro Corrales.
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56th minute- Things are getting REAL ugly, with DeNigris and Howard getting mixed up and Torrado wiping out Convey with an ugly challenge. This is the rivalry we know and love.
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47th minute- GOAL MEXICO. Drew Moor gets beaten again. Magallon scores his second of the match in identical fashion, ghosting into the back post. the U.S. team’s defending on set pieces has been horrific.
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HALFTIME– USA 2, Mexico 1. Altidore’s header was a thing of beauty and after a stagnant first 30 minutes the Americans look confident.
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44th minute– It didn’t count, but that Dempsey finish was clinical and you have to wonder if Mexico’s defense is feeling the pressure right now.
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42nd minute– Dempsey has a goal disallowed for offside. What an amazing finish. Still waiting on a replay. Apparently, the offside was called well before Dempsey shot.
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40th minute- GOAL USA- JOZY ALTIDORE. A beautiful header to finish off a perfect cross from Drew Moor. The future is now people.
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38th minute– Salcido with a yellow after an ugly foul on Donovan.
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36th minute– GOAL MEXICO. Jonny Magallon buries a Pavel Pardo free kick, beating Drew Moor to tie the score.
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34th minute– Ramiro Corrales is struggling big time tonight. Mexico gets another dangerous free kick.
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31st minute– GOAL USA. Oguchi Onyewu with a skying header off a Donovan pass. USA 1, Mexico 0.
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24th minute– Mexico is pouring it on but, as in so many of the past matches against the United States, they just can’t finish.
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22nd minute– Carlos Bocanegra looks okay after an ugly collision with Tim Howard.
Mexico has enjoyed the better stretches of possession and Salcido just dribbled past Michael Bradley.
Tim Howard with two saves in two minutes.
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13th minute– No good chances yet and we’re still waiting for Altidore or Donovan to make a mark.
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9th minute– Michael Bradley is all over the field for the U.S.
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5th minute– Mexico has the early possession and Adolfo Bautista looks like he’s going to be a handful tonight.
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1st minute– And we’re under way.
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8:24pm– The U.S. uniforms make the team look like England from way up here atop Reliant Stadium
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8:22pm- The anthems are over and the U.S. anthem had a good voice behind it. Jozy Altidore looks totally relaxed and Oguchi Onyewu looks like he’s ready to step into the Octagon and destroy somebody.
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8:19pm– The US team is wearing warm up tops in order to not show the new uniforms yet.
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8:18pm– The FIFA music is playing, which means the teams are taking the field.
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8:07pm– Jozy Altidore in the starting lineup has to have U.S. fans buzzing. He looked very good against Sweden and his size and speed combination is going to create problems for the Mexican central defense of Rafael Marquez and Jonny Magallon.
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7:49pm- An interesting tidbit regarding Jonathan Spector. USSF president Sunil Gulati revealed that US Soccer reached an agreement with West Ham to not call up Spector for tonight’s match in order to call Spector up for U.S. Under-23 Olympic Qualifying in March. The agreement was made before Steve Cherundolo’s injury for Hamburg, which explains how the squad wound up with just one legit right back on the roster.
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7:30pm (central time)- The teams have taken the field for warmups and the crowd roar just sent a chill up the spine. The place isn’t even half full yet but you can already feel the excitement.
Coach Bradley got lucky – very bad chemistry.
LESSONS:
DONOVAN will always creep inside.
ALTIODRE is ready
MOOR and CORRALES are MLS material.
dunno why GOOCH & BOCA are suddenly the answer for IVES.
CLARK is MLS, that’s it.
FEILHABER is better than you think.
BRADLEY can have a bad day, so can CONVEY.
by today’s standard’, here’s the next lineup.
_________________ALTIDORE___DONOVAN_________
_ADU________BRADLEY____FEILHABER_____DEMPSEY
_PEARCE_______GIBBS________DEMERIT_________DOLO
______________________HOWARD__________________
Nice. I had a feeling Jozy would get the start. Now I have a feeling he’ll score in the first half. Watch.
Posted by: Chad | February 06, 2008 at 08:47 PM
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Did I call it or did I call it!? 🙂
My personal player ratings:
Howard – 8. Unlucky on both goals because no defensive cover. Also, a seven because he found it hard to orchestrate his defense (set pieces, etc.) Again, bad defense that reflects poorly on Howard.
Corrales – 4. Didn’t impress at all.
Boca – 7. I thought he played rather solid. Mistakes here and there. Not bad though.
Gooch – 8. He had a great game. A goal never hurts, too. He was in the right place right time often.
Moor – 5. A five for the great cross to Altidore. His defensive efforts? He’s a boy playing on a field with men.
Convey – 4. Very poor showing. Almost non-existant. I was disappointed.
Clark – 5. I wasn’t impressed at all. Didn’t seem to connect anything.
Bradley – 6. Disappointing showing. I had high expectations too. So I think that hurt my judgment. Still promising though.
Donovan – 6. Great in first half. Not so great in second. Would have been 7 or 8 if just first half. Disappeared in second.
Dempsey – 7. Gassed no doubt. But clever and his non-goal was BEAUTIFUL. He had some great moves and some great skill. The intensity dropped dramatically when he left.
Altidore – 8. Beautiful start for him. He is going to be a tour-de-force. Extremely inspiring and hopeful for Americans.
subs:
Feilhaber – 4. I don’t know. It’s hard to come into a game like that. Plus he’s so not game ready. He did ok. But it’s hard to make your mark when the game isn’t flowing.
Adu – 5. Showed promise. Didn’t do a whole lot, but I think he can and will soon enough.
Edu – 4. I didn’t really see him do much either.
Oh yeah- one omre thing:
LD is TERRIBLE at freekicks/corners. I threw up in my mouth a little when Harkes stated how well LD take set pieces during the match. The corner that Ad played at the end actually looked like a dangerous ball. Every ball LD played in looked like he was actually trying to hit Mexican players. Doesn’t anyone else on that squad have the balls to tell hi mto stop taking them?
I’ll back Donovan for tonights game, not his best, and I hate that he disappears when put on the wing, but we were MUCH better when he was in the center and the game goes thru him. As yet, NOBODY ELSE has stepped up when we take the car keys from Landon. Until then, I like LD as the focus.
Come on Freddy, grow up and take it from him!
Why, oh why is Landon Donovan still taking free kicks? Will this madness ever stop?
I thought Convey could take free kicks? I thought Adu could take free kicks?
As for the players taking too many touches, Donovan needs to get a grip. He plays with speed and only speed and that’s something that Adu and Altidore will use once they beat a defender. Adu held the ball a bit long tonight, but he was playing with his back to goal half the time, something I’m sure he’s not used to.
As a usual Gooch hater, I will have to congratulate him on a very very fine performance this evening.
Convey was really really bad. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him perform well for the Nats. Corrales was bad. Moor was obviously terrible at marking. Otherwise, I think Clark and Bradley had a tough time communicating, making Convey and Donovan step inside some, which left Corrales and Convey exposed on an island to get burned. Just looked that way to me at times.
Ives – I’m going to play devils advocate here: Altidore shouldn’t be penciled in to start for the Nats just yet.
I think a lot of US fans want a true striker so badly that we overlook Altidore’s weaknesses. He made some good runs and had a great finish, but he really didn’t have that good of a game overall (same thing with Deuce). His touches were a little off, and he made some bad decisions.
I’m willing to be patient with him, but let’s not “crown” him after his first start.
If the reply is “who else is there?”, then I guess I understand. I think Ching should still be in the mix though and hopefully EJ comes along.
Ives- My thoughts:
1) Agreed 100% that Moor and Corrales are not what we need on the outside. At this point, I would have preferred you over Drew Moor at RB. He was just aweful! Regardless of his ability to serve decent balls, he is slow to react, is often out of position, and has no make-up speed when beat. This is a guy that should NEVER be called up again.
2) Donovan is better in the center when their is youth on the pitch. With vets like Reyna, etc., they knew to get him his touches and get him involved. With the youth on the field there were long stretchs where he didn’t get a sniff out on the flank. For us to be at our best, LD needs to get a lot of touches and get into the flow of the game.
3) Howard is a STUD. And Jozy is increasing his price tag.
4) Anyone who can figure out how best to use Bradley and Dempsey on this squad- please let Bob Bradley know. I’m not sure either were in their best positions tonight. Though MB did show some early flashes of being a Steven Gerrard like box to box midfielder in the early going. But is he best used like his club uses him? And what about Demps? Maybe LD should have been the withdran forward and Demps should have been wide. I’m jsut saying….
What did Jozy say to Marquez at the whistle that made him laugh? “See you in Spain in a few months?”
Ok, someone tell me Landon played well. Go for it. Really. Go for it. The man contributed NOTHING AGAIN! Seriously. He’s just so good at running straight. “No Mr. Zoolander, Landon is not an ambi-turner. If fact, I don’t think he’s ever stepped sideways in his life.” And how about finding a good pass, or not getting stripped on the sidelines? Thanks for being out leader. Man . . .
Drew Moor was terrible. Maybe he should consider playing RM for the rest of his life since defense doesn’t seem to be a priority.
Thought Gooch played real well. The card was bogus (as were most of them).
Good stuff from Deuce and Jozy.
Not good from Bradley. Far too many giveaways.
Ramiro – you are not the LB answer.
Good to see Convey, though I don’t feel like we really saw much from him.
Freddy had one sick play, so that gives hope. I was expecting something shocking, but I suppose miracles can’t happen every game or they wouldn’t be miracles.
Did Rafa Marquez play one play of defense? Seriously. I think he fell down every time an American attacker came near him . . . and got the call every time.
I feel like the goals were beautiful, but the defense was not. The tie actually feels disappointing though . . . and the lack of an attempt at the end to win. I dunno . . . good future for Jozy and Freddy and Deuce though. I feel like we have some flair.
Overall, a pretty poor performance from most players on the U.S. tonight. I missed the first 35 minutes of the game, but from what I saw Bradley was shocking and Rico was not any better. There were times when it looked like Clark didn’t want to be on the pitch. The left side was nonexistent, which is not surprising given Convey’s recent form at Reading. The defense was erratic and gave too much space at times, but Gooch and Boca made some good recoveries. They still make me nervous, though.
Donovan was anonymous for most of what I saw. The only real positives I took from tonight were Altidore’s goal and Benny’s play. Feilhaber was about 50 times better than Bradley and Clark — who would’ve ever thought that?
Beasley to Convey is a HUGE drop off…the guy was invisable the whole match
Did not like performances by Moor, Corrales and Convey. Also, Bradley did not have a great game.
Strong performances by Howard, Altidore, Donovan, Bocanegra, Onyewu, Dempsey and Feilhaber
Okay performance by Clark.
post game at USSOCCER.com and ESPN60
I think Carlos Vela looked really good. Gio was also impressive, but I think he can be defended by someone like Bornstien better. Overall, Jozy was great and Bradley played total football. Moor and Coralles were pretty poor and Mexico had a lot of room to run down the wings because of it.
The first half was some of the best USA/Mexico I have ever seen. The second half, er, not so much. To give credit where it’s due, Mexico outplayed USA in the second half, but only some of that was attractive. The rest was because Mexico can wonderfully sell a foul. I hate when the whistle blows 100 times a minute. It’s not the kind of soccer I want to watch. I can’t stand stop-go-stop-go-no-flow-whatsoever football. In other words, the refs were far more important in this game than either squads were (and that’s not a good thing to say).
However, the newbees were great to watch on both sides. This means a wonderful rivalry that will become even more skill-oriented and raise the temperature for years to come. Kids like Altidore, Adu, Bradley, Vela and Dos Santos (I know there are more but I’m too lazy to list them all) will make this series great to watch for a long time.
It will be great for the region too, because as the teams incorporate more young talent and better skill, both sides will benefit in other competitions, i.e. the world cup.
So all in all? I’d say it was a success for US soccer. Was it the greatest to watch? Nah. But it was good for us. A tie is fair I think. Mexico sure did look better than I can remember in a long time.
Now all we have to figure out is our, um, DEFENSE. lol.
Thanks for the commentary, Ives.
Landon just said that at this level, the young kids can’t take the time to take extra touches and play around with the ball. That’s only partially true. An approach like that means that players like Adu and Jozy with skill never break defenders down one on one, and that’s something that’s been sorely missing from the national team.
Adu had nice moves, but didn’t really take control. After Landon moved out wide, we weren’t cohesive moving forward. But d@mn I wish LD wouldn’t Completely disappear when everything isn’t flowing thru him
Yes, Gooch had a solid game. He and Bocanegra were the bright spots on defense.
Moor was absolutely atrocious. Every time the ball was passed to Vela, he was no where to be found.
Corrales and Convey were poor too.
I thought our passing was dismal.
Howard was brilliant and I’m sure he makes the English wish they had a decent keeper (poor Robbo).
Final thoughts:
1. Corrales and Moor – thanks for playing. Good luck on your MLS careers. Now please hand in your USMNT and move on…
2. M. Bradley – A little disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high. Some bad giveaways. Not much going forward. Odd.
3. Clark – Ugh. He, and M.B., never figured out how to work the central midfield and left acres of space for Mexico to counter . Didn’t add much going forward.
4. Altidore & Dempsey – Could we finally have an effective forward partnership. Nothing spectacular but well taken chances and some creative play.
5. Adu – Should have gotten more burn. Nice skill at the end
6. Gooch – If only he could play against Mexico every game. I thought he looked solid. Boca as well.
7. Convey -wait, he played? Are you sure…
8. Howard – It needs to be said, Howard is solid. The only no questions asked world class player we have
scott, i thought it wasn’t that poor from JP…harkes, it’s his first game in the booth…& i liked having gomez on the field getting an interview done w/ some the mexican players….i’ve seen alot worse televised us national team games
We need to get DeMerrit back into camp.
Friendly handshakes and shirt swapping? Quel surprise…
Gooch played very well against a team without a true target striker. A few people around here need to acknowledge that their Onyewu bashing was off the mark.
from espn i mean
Altidore was definitely the bright spot tonight. We need help at fullback and our young midfielders to get better.
ok everyone who has anything to do with soccer in the US should be shown the same door wynalda was
all i got to say is the ref ruined this game. he called so many fouls that never happened. and only gave yellows to the usa.
I will take this one. It is a miracle we escaped with a draw, consdering Moor and Corrales played a full 90
HAHAHA, enjoy your moral victory. That a tie is a win for Mex? Now THAT is a win for us!
are the usmnt not granting interviews
Well I hope Bradley has learned who NOT to play at left and right back.
first of many goals for altidore tonight
A draw in this series feels like a loss… especially when you think you scored one more goal…
I would have loved to see the US beat Mexico tonight. I understand this is just a friendly and a great game for the young players to get experience under their belt against a very good team like Mexico. I hate to say it but Mexico was the better team tonight.
Fair result. LD needs to STOP taking free kicks!
Sorry JP, that was not “thrilling.” That was a piss poor showing.
god I miss ‘Dolo and Bornstein/Pearce. Corrales and Moor aren’t in the same class.
Corrales sucks
Goddamn, Adu is good
Corrales sucks.
i agree it does not make any sense as to why he cant get on the field. what does bradley have against parkhurst, and why does he love eddie lewis?
Benny doesn’t run enough for the EPL IMHO. You can’t lope around when you’re at the bottom of the bench of the team at the bottom of the league.
England is a bad league for Benny. Italy or Spain would be better. He likes to play the ball on the ground and slows it down a bit.
The Mexicans have been playing for a draw for a while now. There were big headlines today in Mexico “for revenge,” but it looks like they’re more than happy to let the unbeaten run against them continue.
Corrales – Good bye
Seriously Scott, between Benny and Convey, who would you think is starting frequently, and who can’t even get listed as a sub?
Watch Drew Moor give up yet another one.
Stupid ass comment by Harkes. His throw is as good as a corner…..so he has to run back..I think he can handle it.