By FRANCO PANIZO
If there were any lingering questions about the health of Jermaine Jones, he answered them on Saturday.
Jones scored his first goal in over a year, netting the winner in Schalke 04's pre-season match against Hamburg SV in the Liga total! Cup 2010 semifinal. Jones took an ambitious shot from around 35 yards out, but was rewarded as goalkeeper Frank Rost misread it. Raul also made his debut for Schalke in the match, which consisted of two 30-minute halves.
Jones and Schalke will play Bayern Munich in the final on Aug. 7.
If you haven't seen it, here's the goal:
What do you think of Jones' goal? Hoping to see him called up against Brazil? Thinking Rost is a distant cousin of Robert Green?
Share your thoughts below.
Ulrich,
When is the next Metallica tour? Trujillo is okay but you should think about bringing back Jason Newsted.
There is another way to look at what you are describing about the US lineups; that we don’t have too many good players.
Any coach, even one as limited and stupid as you seem to think Bradley is, wants to write in the same 11 names for every game and forget about it. But, other than Donovan and Dempsey, the US players are largely anonymous and mediocre, as you pointed out. Plus, many were hurt or out of form
Over the course of qualifying you have time to try things out and be patient with players but in a short intense and physically demanding tournament like the World Cup, it’s now or never. If we had a lineup like Germany’s or Spain’s then you can go with a settled one but when you have as many new guys (Gomez, Buddle, Findley),recent returnees from the injury lists (Gooch, Holden, Clark, Boca,), guys who were out of form( DMB,Demerit) and are missing two of your best( Davies, Jones) as the USMNT had, juggling lineups on a frequent basis is practically mandatory.
In my view only Dolo, Donovan, Bradley and to a lesser extent, Dempsey, were consistently worthy starters throughout the four games. Even our supposedly bedrock reliable goalkeeping was erratic. Howard probably cost us the Ghana game.
Bradley did an excellent job juggling a pretty dodgy group.
It was poor technique by the keeper, but to be fair the ball clearly hits some kind of divot in the grass and hops over his arms.
Of course, if he gets in FRONT of the ball, it just hits him in the chest and no one’s there for the rebound… so, yeah, it was still poor technique.
Lots of volleyball players were wearing that stuff during the ’08 Olympics, including Kerri Walsh, if I’m not mistaken.
It’s the latest fad in sports medicine.
“Yea, there were multiple failures. But more damning than the giveaway was Clark’s response to the goal. He completely fell apart and picked up a quick and stupid yellow.”
Why was it more damning?
It’s the reason Bradley pulled him but the card didn’t result in any goals. Like he’s the only USMNT player to get a stupid card in this tournament. Dempsey should have been red carded in the first ten seconds of the Slovenia game for elbowing that Slovenian guy in the throat. If the ref had called that there might not have been a Ghana game. Demerit could easily have been red carded in any of these games for shirt pulling in the penalty area.
“he completely fell apart”
During Boateng’s run, Clark was trying to catch up but Demerit, who had a shot at Boateng, was running around like a chicken with his head cut off instead of defending the play. He didn’t get close enough to anyone to get a card.
As far as Bradley expecting a pass back from Clark, if you’re trying to absolve Bradley from any blame,it’s hard to understand why Bradley bothered to pass the ball at all. The area behind and to the left of Clark, where Bradley was headed, was clear of anyone and Clark was already too close to Bradley when he got the ball. Which is why I compared it to a botched handoff. If Bradley had to do it over again, I thnk he’d just dribble past the back of Clark. Why put Clark in the position of having to make a difficult pass?
“and Howard was oddly out of position”. Nothing odd about it, go back and watch the goals we conceded and Howard was more often than not out of position.
In terms of what is expected from him, Howard had a crap tournament. If we had Freidel there might not have been so many early goals. I hope Guzan is ready for 2014.
You guys won’t criticise Howard because it’s easier to blame Bradley for playing Clark, a handier scapegoat, than it is to blame Bradley for playing Howard, everyone’s fave.
Good stuff!
Yea, there were multiple failures. But more damning than the giveaway was Clark’s response to the goal. He completely fell apart and picked up a quick and stupid yellow.
As far as the pbp, Bradley ran around Clark expecting a pass back, Clark just tried to change direction to switch play and got caught out. Demerit backed way too much and Howard was oddly out of position.
Clark may yet improve, but that was as poor a game from him as any.
1) “Sticking with a World Cup coach for two consecutive World Cups rarely works, (as has been demonstrated by many) in part I think because it is good to bring in new blood. ”
Usually it’s about spilling the “old” blood.
In the rest of the World there are three kinds of guys who coach national teams.
· Club coaches who are between jobs and need something to maybe brighten up their resume a bit
· Unknowns, young or middle aged, hoping to make a name for themselves and then land a bigger, better paying gig. Or maybe they are being a little patriotic for a short while.
· Old, washed up guys looking at one last go around.
That is why you rarely see managers who get good runs out of the national teams sticking around. They have better things to do or are retiring. Besides none of them like the fact that they are slaves to a limited talent pool unlike a big club manager. And the politics are usually insane.
Don’t take my word for it, research it.
Here in the US our sporting culture is such that there are some people who actually think a stable coaching situation is a good thing. Bradley has coached something like 68 to 70 USMNT games. Do you know how many a guy like Hodgson or Benitez did in one season in the EPL? Probably close to what Bradley did in 4 years. Dempsey, even while missing many games with injury for Fulham last season, played in 44 games for them. As far as I’m concerned, Bradley has put in about one season and change with the USMNT
“2) Why not take the team to the next level? The US team is ready for a coach that has either coached some of the top players in the world or was a top notch player himself, or both. That is why we should get Klinsmann!”
What makes you think they are ready? Is it because the world is acknowledging our talent and so many of our top notch guys have been transferred to Champions league teams? Oh wait, we have only two guys on Champions league teams; Gooch who never plays and the other one is Sacha and you all want him executed for disgracing the uniform !
National team players get the vast bulk of their coaching at their clubs. The national team guy just gets them organized, fired up and puts them out there, something Bradley excels at. There is little time to do much else. In the 2 to 3 weeks per year or less Klinsi would spend with Jozy is he going to turn him into Klinsi, Part 2? Is Klinsman going to suddenly going to heal Davies injuries? Is he going to, in a couple of weeks a year, turn Gooch into a real Italian defender? That happens at their clubs or not at all.
Klinsman, who is no fool, won’t take this job if he doesn’t get a lot more power than Bob had. So I say give Jurgen Sunil’s job and keep Bob. That makes a lot more sense to me.