The U.S. men's national team begins the new year tonight by taking on South American side Chile at Home Depot Center (10pm, Telefutura/ESPN3.com).
Bob Bradley will be fielding a very young squad against a Chile team that also has plenty of new faces. Neither team will feature it's best players, but the chance to impress their coaches should have both teams in attack mode.
SBI will be providing live commentary throughout the night so please feel free to join us. As always, you are welcome to share your own thoughts and opinions in the comments section below.
Enjoy the action (Commentary is after the jump):
Didn’t see much of Sam’s Army. It was pretty much all American Outlaws out there behind the goal in the US Supporters section. I’d say 90-10 percentage for American Outlaws to Sam’s Army.
Agudela, Teal, Mix and Ream all real have a future with the Nats the rest are just camp and fill-in players.
Lloyd was the best for me, and I know that everyones in love with Agudelo, I for one was not impressed, but I do think he should’ve had more playing time. Bunbury was better than him.
That guy Diska-whatever was brutal to watch…Talk about weak on the ball. Where did they find this kid?
Not with Diggerud or whaterver his name is!
Mix? Turnover machine
lol, opinions are awesome.
That shouldn’t have been a penalty against Chile…But USA gets credit for making things happen in the 2nd Half.
Not enough for a captain in central midfield. He needs to push the ball forward into the attack instead of looking for the outlet. I think Bradley’s coaching style has something to do with this.
I agree…Lloyd played well. Bedoya and Shea are still raw, but their tenacity was impressive.
I thought Zack Loyd did pretty well for himself concidering this is first call, excellent speed, recovers well. We may have a diamond in the rough with this kid. I liked the Teal/Juan combo, I wished they had more minutes, lots of flair in their play.
What league does Diskerud play in? He is simply awful…
Who was this guy Diskerud? He put in one of the worst performances I have ever see in a National Team game. And he stayed in the whole game! He needs a lot more seasoning before ever being called up again.
McCarty had a couple of nice moments, but he does play too defensivley. It’s the same old story with Bradley. No offensive production from the middle. Larentowicz was bad. Other than that, the others showed promise. They only score because Omar left. Wynne is not a Center Back.
Enjoy your high horse.
Bunbury and Juan are clearly the players going forward from this group.
Huh?
How was that embarrassing? We had sloppy moments and things that we potentially could have done better, but remember that this is the second (or even third) string of the NT. Embarrassing in soccer is losing buy a bunch of goals, not tying a decent international side.
Agree with the bright spots, though.
People need to calm down.
This was not the World Cup. It wasn’t even the Gold Cup. It was a January friendly on a non-FIFA International Friendly date. It was purely meant as an exercise in which the coaching staff could find some potential amongst a crop of MLS players with little-to-no NT experience. Did we have problems? Heck yes (defense: they’re called POSITIONS for a reason). But the game accomplished what it needed to–we definitely saw the talent that Agudelo and Burnbury have to offer, and I thought that Bedoya had a pretty good game too. I thought that Bradley did a decent job with what he had, to be honest.
Regarding the predictable defense of Altidore (at the end of the commentary above) against the mythical abuse he must ensdure from fans:
One somewhat negative comment on Altidore amongst 100 relatively positive comments about Altidore is enough to send SBI on a tirade against this alleged Altidore-persecution that people seem convinced permeates SBI and US soccer fandom. Calm down people. Almost everyone loves Jozy and is relatively positive and realistic in their appraisals. I don’t know why people are so hell bent on seeing otherwise. It’s great to jump to guys’ defense and be “the voice of reason”….but people here are just imagining things at this point. It’s just….weird.
(SBI-Second time in four days you felt the need to come with this same argument? If you really think there isn’t a collection of fans who are already throwing dirt on Altidore like he’s finished then you’re really not paying attention. Don’t see the hate? Good for you. Unfortunately, the hate, actually the quick dismissing of Altidore, is legitimate and unfortunate. Not saying most fans think that way, but far more than should think that way.)
Man of the match? Definitely Captain Dax McCarty!
He was consistently aggressive, passed beautifall balls up the line & never let up!
Dax is a force! Way to go, Dax!
THANK YOU.
This was a match to figure out who has talent/potential. People need to calm down and realize that.