Top Stories

USA 8, Barbados 0: A look back

Johnsonching_ap

It was a bloodbath worthy of a regional champion facing a minnow, but through all the goals and the domination by the U.S.national team in its 8-0 drubbing of Barbados on Sunday, we are still left trying to figure out exactly what we learned from the exercise.

Well, we learned that the Americans won’t be facing a humiliating upset in this round of World Cup qualifying. We also learned that Eddie Johnson can, in fact, still score against low-level CONCACAF teams. We learned that playing against the world’s best teams has helped sharpen the U.S. team from top to bottom and we were reminded of just how young the American team is, with youngsters Michael Bradley and Freddy Adu featuring on Sunday.

So here is the question for you. What do you feel you learned about the U.S. team on Sunday? Share your thoughts on the blowout, and the performance of the U.S. team in the comments section below.

Comments

  1. Ching looked slow and had poor touch. When I say slow, I don’t just mean straightline speed, but he was also slow to turn and pass, and slow to get to balls being crossed. I like to hold out that EJ will eventually find his touch because he has potential to be a quality option. Ching does not have that potential and, while he might help us win some games now, we really need to be looking toward the future when we’ll be playing real competition. EJ has the necessary speed, and often found himself in good places in the three friendlies leading up to yesterday. If he could ever learn to finish, I think we all agree he would be a very good asset. Ching? What he needs to be a quality international option is not teachable, and that is raw physical tools. We’re wasting our time with him up top. Separate from this argument entirely, I thought he was one of the worst players on the field yesterday.

    Reply
  2. -Beaz can be an effective central player.

    -EJ is not maturing as a professional.

    -Ching is a decent guy who should only feature in these kinds of games.

    -Freddy is uber talented but lacks discipline.

    -Dempsey might be better as a withdraw striker.

    -Pearce is still capable of bad days, but is learning how to recover.

    -Cervi did not impress.

    Reply
  3. Realistically, you don’t learn anything from a rout like that except perhaps some things about fitness and physical condition. e.g., Beasley’s ongoing return from his injury. That was essentially a practice session against an overmatched and, ultimately, uninterested side. For next Sunday, Bradley should send all the MLS guys back to their clubs and replace them with some of the European-based youngsters who deserve a shot.

    Reply
  4. I wouldn’t say people “hate” Ching. I think people want to see someone else, COOPER, get a shot in Ching’s place.

    Reply
  5. m-d0g- LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

    its not a friendly, its a WCQ… and if barbados are outclassed by such a play they have no right to progress anyhow…. this is why players stand 3 yrds from the ball, so that the ref is forced to stop the quick shot and move the wall back…. Barbados has learned a lesson and i thank Donovan for having the common sense to teach them it in order to strengthen the knowledge of this sport in our Qualifying group…

    Ching looked slow, and yet scored “2”… i would only say 1 tho b/c i feel for Pablo who’s shot was perfect regardless of the accidental deflection…. while ching played a role in our victory it was against Barbados… is he our best option?? perhaps for these early stages, but goals will be harder to come by in the later stages, and most likely through the hands of LD, Dempsey and other midfielders

    Reply
  6. If Chings role was to have a poor first touch, have no speed to beat mediocre defenders and make poorly timed runs then yeah he played his role well. I give him credit for his second goal, it was legitimate but Twellman or Wolff would have scored against Barbados too and I don’t want to see either of them in a Nat uniform again.

    Reply
  7. i learned that the EJ haters would still come out in full force. let’s face it, it was going to take a score like this for any of us to be satisfied. EJ starting and scoring 3 goals wouldn’t have proven anything, so who cares what he did?

    funny thing is, Ching is being praised for doing the things EJ did in a lot of those 3 friendlies. that is, they got in good positions and worked off the ball. EJ didn’t take guys on because he lacks any confidence, and Ching didn’t because he doesn’t have the speed or ability to. my problem with Ching is that blew multiple sitters because, well, he’s Bring Ching.

    so what does this all mean? our forwards stink. in other news, the sky is blue and the grass is green.

    Reply
  8. I also thought that Ching played well as a target forward. I thought he layed the ball off to others very well especially as the game went on and he got in better sync with the other US players.

    Ching played his roll well. Sometimes you need roll players to play their part for the rest of the team to be able to do their “thing”.

    Is Ching a McBride? No, but I will take him over EJ, the way these two are playing currently, any day.

    Reply
  9. sublicon – EJ scored with his head, and Ching and Dempsey only combined for four goals, but I agree. They complement each other well up top.

    I don’t get the Ching hate. He got into great positions and combined well in the attack. He’s also our most dangerous striker in the air. As for the lack of speed, no one ever picked Brian McBride to win a race, and yet he’s revered. A target striker doesn’t need to be fast.

    Reply
  10. m-d0g: this game was not a friendly, and at the time Donovan did that we hadn’t scored since the 20 minute point of the first half. If we go stale and end up only winning 3-0, the return leg is a little different. Now we can send our U-15 team, assuming they get notes from their Moms. Plus, that keeper played in the top division in ireland last year, he should have been on his toes.

    Reply
  11. Donovan showed class by not trying to tear Barbados apart and score a ton of goals, which he could have. He tried to be a playmaker instead. (response to m-d0g)

    Anyone using this game to promote Ching, or demerit (not the name) EJ is retarded. Ching played awful, and EJ was barely on the field.

    Adu got his shot against one of the worst teams in the world and didn’t look so brilliant. He did surprisingly look bigger and tougher, which has always been the problem with him in my eyes.

    We better not take the full team to the away leg.

    Reply
  12. @m-d0g – There was a lot of fervor over this when Henry did something similar in the EPL a couple years ago. Plain and simple, if the team wants to take it quickly they do not have to wait for the whistle or for the ref to line the wall up.

    This is why someone from Barbados should have been standing directly in front of the ball so that Donovan would have been forced to ask for the referee to back him up, which means the referee would have told Donovan to wait for the whistle before taking the free kick.

    Barbados fault dude, don’t blame Donovan.

    Reply
  13. Count me as a ching supporter… We know that Dempsey(and LD frankly) are best at a 2nd forward position, which means you need a target forward to hold up possession and be strong in the air. Fingers Crossed!! Jozy should be this very soon. Until then, we have Ching and Cooper, with Ching being the more experienced. Ching’s ball holding allowed for the rape of Barbados.

    Reply
  14. jdawg,

    I respectfully disagree. ching looked slow, had a poor first touch and I didn’t think he linked well with this teammates. I was shocked at how poorly he played. EJ is not the answer (or at least has not proved he is), but he is a better option than ching.

    Reply
  15. Per the comment above, the match was a WC qualifier and not a friendly so I have no problem trying to score as much as possible and get goals any way we can.

    As far as setting up the wall, I think that’s the ref’s decision as far as how much time they get; besides, in any EPL or La Liga game you would see the same thing. If Ronaldo got the go-ahead to fire away against Chelsea or Liverpool, I have no doubt in my mind he would do it even if Reina or Cech wasn’t ready.

    Reply
  16. @jdawg – One deflected off of his back so he only has one goal that counts. We know what we get when Ching is on the field – not much, IMO.

    Reply
  17. Michael Bradley doesn’t look comfortable attacking.

    Most goals he scored with Heerenveen were just finishes, not playmaking or dribbling. I actually don’t think he’s an attacking midfielder.

    Reply
  18. It was not clear to me before this game that this team was actually capable of playing with precision and speed in the attack. I did not know whether our players had the ability to put together quick passing combinations and make smart runs. That is now confirmed. There are certain skills that good teams simply must have, regardless of the opposition. Now we know that the US possesses a modicum of attacking skill. They do need to learn how to translate that to games against stronger opponents. But at least there is something to translate. This is not insignificant.

    Reply
  19. We learned that Michael Bradly is much more effective going forward, as he plays for his club team. In that role, he reminds me of Phil Esposito of the NHL in the early 70’s, hanging just off the box and knocking in loose balls – a “grabage collector” of sorts.

    With an 8-0 lead, my lineup for the return leg in Barbados is as follows:

    Wambach —– Tarpley

    Chalupny — Boxx — O’Reilly — Osborne

    Rampone — Whitehill — Dalmy — Mitts

    Solo

    Sunny Barbados. Maybe we can get a few paparrazzi shots of Hope Solo in a bikini. That’s soccer entertainment.

    Reply
  20. I’m worried Dempsey is beginning to reach his ceiling as a player or at least as an attacking player. More every game, with both Fulham and the US, he seems to be a player good for two or three sequences a game but completely irrelevant otherwise. He doesn’t have great pace, his first touch can be iffy, he’s never shown much of an ability to make a good pass, he has no real position that he can function in for the whole 90 minutes. He’s great if those two or three flashy moments turn into something, but if not, he’s essentially useless other than as a set-piece target. To his credit, when he feels like it and he’s in the right place at the right time, he can be a solid high-playing ballwinner and is a great finisher of easy chances (something to be prized on this national team).

    When one keeps all these factors in mind, why not play him as a free-roaming attacker behind the striker(s) where he can pop up all over the place to create chances?

    Reply
  21. Does anyone else thing donovan’s free kick did not show good sportsmanship? The Barbados defensive wall hardly had any time to get set and the game was a friendly in which the US was already up 3-0 and completely in control. Perhaps I should be pleased with the killer instinct but I just thought it showed a lack of class on his part.

    Reply
  22. to all the Ching haters out there: he scored 2 goals and was involved in the buildup for almost every goal. Is he world class? No, but he is certainly worthy of more looks as qualifying continues.

    Reply
  23. I don’t think we learned much other than we are way better than Barbados. FIFA rankings may be a big joke but a difference of 100 spots is signficant.

    Reply
  24. Dominghosa- yes i know we dont play it all the time…. hence y i said “anytime the US gets possession and actually pass out the back, MB is capable of attacking”

    heres a prime example of what usually happens…. the US is back on defense… midfield as a whole, and solo EJ up top…. a defender ends up winning it and lays off a 60 yard ball to EJ, attempting either a fast break or to control… neither occur and MB (with the rest of the team) is in the our own half… OR, Ej controls it for a few seconds and then loses it and we are on the defense again

    i stated before that the US doesnt always do it, and when we get control and possess it MB is capable of moving forward… its happened before and it’ll happen again… he was able to do it in spain and recently against barbados… b/c there were players capable of holding onto the ball for more then a few seconds (ie Adu and LD)

    i dont see MB as a defensive midfielder… i see him as a center midfielder always being forced to play defense b/c of lack of control (in previous games)….

    Reply
  25. No offense guys, this is jut my personal opinion. But I think we learned a big fat nothing.

    In the same way that it was pointless to analyze what lineup we should use against Barbados, any and all analysis of this game is also pointless.

    I hope EJ gains some personal confidence from his goal. Other than that, anyone taking anything away from this game (positive or negative) doesn’t know all that much about CONCACAF.

    Having said that…it’s still awesome and still a world cup qualifier, and after all, we aren’t going to lose 9-0 next week. So it is certainly a GOOD thing, don’t get me wrong. But it’s a good thing that is absolutely meaningless in terms of any and all analysis.

    Reply
  26. Ching was sloooow. He will not beat any Concacrap defenders in the hex.

    Kenny Cooper would have scored a hat trick.

    Eddie Johnson doesn’t deserve the reward of another cap, let alone a “goal.”

    Brad Guzan probably battled gnats more than anything yesterday.

    Heath Pearce got nutmegged by a guy who probably brings you room service at the Barbados Intercontinental Hotel.

    We learned nothing, just that twelve thousand people have no European team affiliation in Los Angeles.

    Reply
  27. We learned absolutely nothing from that game. I still don’t think Ching can play at that level. Johnson needs to find his stride and he could still have something. I saw signs of him coming to life against Spain, but Barbados give me a break. Scoring a goal against them means nothing. It’d be like them beating my high school team.

    Reply
  28. The U.S. defenders don’t play boom ball all the time.

    M. Bradley is supposed to be this “box-to-box midfielder,” yet there are very few times when he seems like he is.

    I’ll chalk that up to the two defensive mid lineup.

    Reply
  29. I thought Ching looked awful out there. I know he got a few goals, but he should have had 5. His touch was terrible, and his speed of play was incredibly slow.

    Reply
  30. Dominghosa- this 2 def. mid arguement is stale

    ill repost my thoughts on it…. anyone else think that in BB’s 4-4-2 that he’s playing simply 2 center mids?? while the list looks like a 4-5-1, the “adu or LD” position is truely a 2nd forward….

    anyhow, when it was MB and Feilhaber, it wasnt deeemed as a 2 def. mid formation, but when MB is paired with the likes of Pablo or Edu it is?? why?? everyone complains about if only MB would get up in the attack, blah blah blah…. anyone ever think that maybe MB is given the chance to attack, but when he gets back on defense and the defenders try a 60 yrd pass to our forwards that perhaps JUST PERHAPS, MB cant make the 60 yrd run to help before we lose the ball?? perhaps MB is in fact an Center Mid with free reign to attack??

    i blame it on the constant Boom Ball our defense tends to play…. anytime the US gets possession and actually pass out the back, MB is capable of attacking…. FACT!

    Reply
  31. soccer is the beautiful game….

    witness..

    “Then, on Sunday, there occurred an event that even the most hard-hearted of sports editors surely would not have denied their reporters a chance to witness — a six-a-side game along the shores of the Danube between two teams of topless women.

    Yes, you read that correctly.

    Actually, the players were more than topless. They wore thongs — and body paint in the national team colors of Austria and Germany — and not much else.

    The match was a prelude — or pre-lewd — of sorts. The two countries will play each other in Vienna on Monday night in a very real and very meaningful Euro 2008 match, with a spot in the quarterfinals at stake.”

    Reply
  32. I think games like that should be shown to people who complain that there is not enough scoring in soccer. Because IMO, games like that are more boring than your average 0-0 draw. I certainly don’t want to watch Brazil score 4,000 goals against my High School JV squad. It just wouldn’t be entertaining.

    Reply
  33. I disagree, respectfully, that we learned that Eddie Johnson can still score against low-level CONCACAF teams. I don’t think his goals should even count to prove that– not only because Barabados is about as “low-level” as you can find (okay, I’m sure worse could be found, but you know what I mean…) but because the game was well past the point of being in “garbage time” at that point. Way, way past it… and finally, it seemed to me that at least the header goal (#7, I think, but it’s all a blur) would probably have easily been saved by a less demoralized, slightly more talented keeper.

    On the positive side: Dempsey does have truly excellent touch at times (a few really nice balls yesterday), Beasley will be as active as ever despite the long injury layoff, and Freddy Adu is way, way above the level of 95% of the defenders he’s going to face in CONCACAF qualifying.

    That said… I just think we didn’t learn much at all, sadly. It’s hard to think anything after the first 10 minutes yesterday could mean much of anything, one way or the other. It’s not a good state of affairs– it’s the reason why Bradley has to schedule such a brutal slate of “friendlies.” Oh well.

    Reply
  34. we learned that if the US were to play teams of weak caliber consistantly we would have obtained too many bad habits…

    you could see that our players were used to playing against Euro teams (as well as Arg.) by everytime they got the ball they played it half expecting someone to be raping them from behind… this is good that we are getting to the point to playing the game at a fast pace, but as the game went on there were more and more mistakes being made by putting forth less effort… lazy passes, lazy runs, etc…

    i stand by with what the announcers said, in where teams of the US and Mexico’s caliber should get a bye through this stage…. it is very very VERY unlikely that there will be an upset in our (mexico and US) games at this stage…. perhaps in the group stage, but these 2 legs are so weak its a waste of time….

    —–x—-x–x–x-x-x-x-x-x—-x—–

    we learned that our forwards have no problems scoring against these weak of teams but struggle against any real competition…. we need to develope forwards of class and fast

    Reply
  35. We learned that no matter who the opponent, Bob Bradley like his two defensive mid lineup.

    That good things happen when M. Bradley is allowed to sneak into the offensive third.

    That the masses will cry foul if Cooper, Rogers, Parkhurst, DeMerit, Alvarez, Rolfe and the like are not called up to face Barbados in the away second leg.

    Reply
  36. We learned that Dempsey is going to be a father? (Or at least that I what took out of his goal celebration)

    Reply
  37. I learned that the Goalkeeper for Barbados is actually not that bad….Even though 8 goals were scored on him, the blame is put on a team that is just not good at all. He should get a try in the MLS….Even as a second string.

    Reply
  38. I’ll agree with steve in that we learned Dempsey is most effective as a target forward or withdrawn forward. It would be interesting to see if he and Jozy might develop into a strong tandem up top.

    Other than that, we learned that… the US can handedly defeat a bottom-tier soccer team? Truly ground-breaking.

    Reply
  39. Nice comment “Mikemike”. As far as US Soccer, there is nothing to learn from this game. I’m just glad they took care of business so that they can give their “tired” players a break next Sunday

    Reply
  40. We learned that we have progressed considerably as a soccer nation. The game was a laugher, but it wasn’t all that long ago that we’d have struggled to score half as many goals, let along create all those chances, no matter the level of the opposition.

    I began to feel sorry for the opponents; a feeling I’m not accustomed to having during WCQs.

    Freddy Adu is becoming more and more comfortable on bigger stages. He brings a vision and calmness that not many other players have. He still tends to fade in and out of games, but that will improve with experience.

    We seem to be finding our answers at outside defenders. It’s the center that still concerns me.

    I’m glad Eddie Johnson scored a goal. Sure, it was against weak opposition, but at least he scored. If it gives him any confidence at all against the next higher tier of opponents, then that game was worthwhile.

    Reply
  41. I agree with steve. I’ve always felt Dempsey should be played up top and not on the wing. Plus with the amount of quality midfielders and the lack of quality forwards it seems like that decision should be a no-brainer.

    Reply
  42. I learned that Eddie Johnson can kick a ball, and it can go in the back of the net and count as a goal, all while wearing a shirt that doesn’t say WIZARDS on it . . it’s a beautiful thing.

    Ching needs to get more starts with Dempsey. I love them together. I didn’t see the game so I’m not sure how they did together yesterday (i mean, they scored 5 goals combined), but I think they synchronize well.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to HomeyBoehme Cancel reply