the not so beautiful game

Ok so it’s the next day and my distain has tempered to merely disappointment. I didn’t get to watch the game live, I was relegated to following the action on ESPN’s live text update thing-a-ma-bob, and waiting until I got home to see the tivo’ed replay. Whoever was typing was underselling the US performance, though not by much. Having now watched the game…I’m a tad more optimistic in some ways, but also more confused in others.

There’s no doubt that the US players looked lackluster and out of sync. While most of that has to fall on them, you also have to say that Czech Rep. looked very good, very big, and very physical. Nedved was all over the place and causing tons of problems with his creativity. They will seriously test everyone they face. That pass for the third goal was fantastic, even if simple. I also think a significant amount falls on Bruce Arena! A coached main job is to find a formation that allows players to play to their strengths, and not expose their weaknesses! In that regard he failed.

Playing Donovan so far forward was a mistake. He’s a player who needs to have touches on the ball and create plays by running forward; he’s never been a target forward like McBride. I was surprised he was not placed in a forward midfield position (or as a hanging forward) where he could more often combine with Reyna. Forcing him to wait for service so far forward was a mistake and left him out of touch. The few times in the first half he came back and got involved he earned a free kick (and a yellow for the opposition) or created a scoring chance! And if it wasn’t Arena’s plan that he play that way, than Donovan really needed to step up.

Why the hell was Beasley on the right side!? You could see he was out of sorts from the beginning, cutting the ball to his left foot toward the inside of the field every time, completely stopping forward progress, rather than using his speed down the sideline as he would on the left. If Arena wanted to start strong and test the Czechs early, why not put him where his speed was going to be dangerous to them! Because he wasn’t taking the ball deep and making crosses to McBride running on goal, he was pulling up and playing long balls in to him when his back was to the goal, where he’s much more susceptible to defensive pressure. Just poor tactics.
And yeah, they looked lazy…with a style of play way to close to England and not enough like Argentina. There was very little of the midfielders and forwards checking to the ball, creating movement with passes, probing for weaknesses, etc. (Oh, how the game might have been different if Reyna’s shot had equalized…)

Here’s the good news as I see it. We have a history of poor games against strong, but unknown eastern European teams, but a much better history against established teams like Italy, Portugal, Brazil, and the like. We get ‘up’ for those much more frequently. And to go with that I think all the problems we had in game 1 are fixable, pretty quickly. Its not a matter of hitting the training grounds again, just changing attitudes and some tactics to mach what they should be used to! Italy will no doubt be tough, but they are not unbeatable, and a tie still keeps us alive.

Of course, I love the US…but it’s always been Forza Azzuri! for me. ;-)