By FRANCO PANIZO
Three days after settling for a 2-2 result versus Poland, the U.S. men's national team was held to scoreless draw against Colombia at PPL Park in Philadelphia on Tuesday night.
Head coach Bob Bradley deployed a 4-3-3 formation that looked more like a 4-1-4-1 to start the match, but it proved ineffective against a Colombian team that enjoyed much of the possession.
That changed after halftime as the Americans reverted to their usual 4-4-2 setup and made four substitutions to start the second half.
The change in formation allowed the United States to create chances, one of which was a header from Jozy Altidore that went straight to goalkeeper Faryd Mondragon in the 86th minute.
Two promising youngsters received their first caps in the match. FC Dallas winger Brek Shea started and played 45 minutes while Aston Villa defender Eric Lichaj played the second half after coming on for Jonathan Spector. Shea struggled to impose his will against the Colombians, but Lichaj performed well, even providing the service for Altidore's late header with a cross from the right flank.
Oguchi Onyewu started his second match since the World Cup and captained the Americans through the first 45 minutes before being replaced by Michael Parkhurst at halftime.
Jermaine Jones received his second cap for the United States. He started, went the distance and received a yellow card.
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What did you think of the match? Who impressed/disappointed you?
Share your thoughts below.
Jermaine Jones is a machine. Up and down the pitch. Unbelievable. He really makes our other midfielders really look bad.
I’m sorry to tell you, but absolutely NO ONE has said “no duh” since mary-kate and ashley left full house. Get with the program, these two are now anorexic billionaires. “You got it dude!”
+1 Deuce!
I just want to hear the question asked. Thats all. I’ve never heard Bob Sr. challenged yet in a press conf. Soccer reporters? Isn’t it your duty as a reporter to be non bias?
No. Every game should not be treated the same when the goal is to win. I dont think the object of these games is to win, its more to get a strategy in place and look long term. Playing players a full 90 is redic when the game doesn’t matter. Which is why no one was saying Sr. was wrong for making subs during Columbia. Well…except the one he should have made with Jr.
EDU did NOT have a worse half than Bradley Jr. This is more defending a player so you can save face. And for the record, I don’t think he is a bad player, but he’s been playing terrible as of late, and with that comes me being a critic of Sr.’s tactics.
As for BB knowing more about the game than me. AH I see. So since he’s the coach NO MATTER WHAT HES RIGHT! Makes perfect sense. Sorry. I’ll keep drinkin the kool-aid and never point out someone that can’t make mistakes cuz he’s the boss….
The game was absolutely tedious. No creativity both sides were flat on attack. Not a lot of shots. I am shocked USA has come to this we were looking bright, but now we are not anymore. Bradley needs to go fast.
OUTRAGE! And FIRE EVERYONE!
+1
im just tired about constant moaning about Jozy altidore, dempsey, or whoever. (not dempsey this time, but recent past). Listen, there are no better players in the pool than the starters. Plain and simple. Deal
I didn’t mean to infer anything about Michael needing to be part of every new formation, but it’s obvious that you can’t change out *everyone*…I think the experimentation may have disrupted our offensive rhythm more than how any one player contributed (MB included).
It will be curious to see how the events of these past two friendlies change thelineups for the November friendly.
EVERYBODY knows that 2-4-4 is the ‘MERICAN connotation (soccer anyone) and the 4-4-2 is the English way ( but as they are the “founders of football, they are adopted almost universally) . In the UK they drive on the left side and have their steering wheel on the left. They are backward. They use the metric system but still measure things by “leagues” and “stones” Hence from back to front. LOL They and (and those who support the 4-4-2) are, in effect, backassward. LOL
You’re using one friendly where a team was dominated to predict that the dominated team would easily beat our team (who wasn’t dominated nor even lost to a decent opponent)? The MMAth principle applied to soccer so to speak? Its dumb in that arena and its dumb in this case too.
I agree that our team is inconsistent. World soccer is a competitive game. Inconsistency isn’t an uncommon trait unless you’re Spain or Brazil, maybe a few others. What I’m saying is that people get hysterical over every friendly loss or win, hyping or deucing on players as the mood strikes them. The ultimate metric for judging a team has to be meaningful games (WC qualifiers, WC games, Copa America, the Euros, anytime US plays Mexico :)). There’s just too much difference between a friendly and a game where something’s at stake to judge a team based on how they look in an exhibition.
I’m not railing against the idea that there isn’t room for improvement, that there aren’t things that shouldn’t be changed, that the status quo might need to be reevaluated. But fan discussion is improved by a sense of perspective, objectivity and respect for the players and the game.
I’m just concerned by, in my point of view, the increase in the unrestrained Roman mob mentality that has plagued SBI since the World Cup brought in a bigger audience to the site.
I don’t know WHY Bob Bradley continues to start Michael every game and play him for 90 minutes, but he clearly needs to try something else. There are too many good options in the midfield for him to be stuck on Michael. Holden/Jones? Edu/Jones? All three of those players are strong and deserve a chance to be in central midfield without Michael.
This was one boring game…BOR…RING!
Man, I must have watched a different Jones. Sure he made some good tackles coming back, but to think that he is our midfield savior is completely wrong.
He turned the ball over numerous times in the midfield with either poor passes or a bad first touch. It was completely evident to me why he could never play with the German national team. Not to mention that he is a red card waiting to happen. Granted he’s no Rico Clark but I guarantee that at some point one of those flying in to save the day tackles goes as a red card and we play a man down.
Now, that said, he’s still in the mix for the defensive midfield role, still more talented than Benny, Bedoya, Clark, or the many others we have tried to play in the there, but let’s hold off on calling him our midfield savior.
One look I would like to see in the next 10 mos would be
——-Altidore——Dempsey
Donovan——————-Holden
———Jones——Bradley
Lichaj—Gooch——Boca—-Dolo
1. I know its a 4-4-2 and everyone hates that, but the 4-3-3 that looked liked a 4-3-2-1 last night was aweful. Let’s stick to what we know, for now. It could become a 4-2-3-1 if you move Holden into the middle and Dempsey to the outside right, but I don’t think Altidore is a lone striker kind of guy right now.
2. I know Lichaj is a right back, but I would like to see how he does at left.
3. I think this gets are best offensive players on the field, without making us too shaky defensively.
4. Defensively, in time I think you see Boca (and maybe Gooch) fade into the sunset and a guy like Parkhurst come in. I could even see Edu holding it down, or you could go with Goodson who has proven to be solid, if not spectacular.
Agreed. In the first half Jones wanted to play soccer and our young guys (and some older ones) wanted to make poor passes or backwards passes.
Hell he’s a better version of Michael Bradley. It seems the Jones’ haters can only bring up his age as a reason to why he shouldn’t be starting. Let me ask you what position does Jones play? Now how old is Landon Donovan and what position does he play? If a 32 year old (in 2014) Landon Donovan can continue to play on the wing, then a 32 year old Jones can play in center midfield
Really? You think it’s a good idea to just bring in all these kids?
Do you think this game helped Shea who clearly was waiting around to be told what to do?
Well no one has said it yet but it is time for Donovan and/or Dempsey up top. The reason we couldn’t do it before was that took them out of the middle game and created nothing from there. But with the calmness of Jones back there I think it is time to change them up top. Come on just experiment and see what we get this is my lineup.
—-Altidore——-Donovan—–
-Dempsey—-Bradley—-Holden–
————-Jones————-
Boca—Onyewu—-Edu—–Dolo–
I think the Defense still needs serious work but I would like to see this in the next friendly