Well, the big day has arrived and the time is nigh. I'll be back in a moment with my view of the impending CONCACAF World Cup qualifier between the U.S. and arch nemesis Mexico in a few. For now, the Red, White & Blue line-up that will try to break the Azteca jinx:
Howard; Cherundolo, Demerit, Onyewu, Bocanegra, Bradley, Clark, Dempsey, Donovan, Davies, Ching
I'm little surprised to see 'Dolo over Spector, but the rest is exactly as I figured.
Mexico's line-up:
Ochoa; Magallon, Salcido, Osorio, Juarez, Torrado, Castro, Blanco, Guardado, Dos Santos, Franco
--
Oh, my head.
There's too many variables at play. The smog, the altitude, the Azteca. The Americans arriving with the odd combo of brewing confidence and revenge thoughts for a 5-0 home beating that most didn't dress for. Mexico enter both chuffed from said beating and fragile under intense pressure.
The first 15 minutes could go a long way in telling the tale. The U.S. might need to hang on for dear life early, as if they were the early '90's St. Louis Blues heading into the Chicago Stadium cauldron.
If they can keep their feet and their heads, coach Bob Bradley's boys will have the best chance a USMNT has ever had to open this particular win account. Mexico, too, can be shaken - even at Azteca in mid-afternoon.
And what if the 'Nats manage a lead with the final whistle looming? Bar the doors, Katie, because the opening 15 minutes will be tame compared to the closing 15.
And what if they trail? Watch those ankles because the sickles will be out.
And what if it's all tied up? Well... all of you will share something special will your El Tri brethren: nerves that feel as though they might just pack up and leave you for good this time.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Because this is the United States versus Mexico and this is a World Cup qualifier at Azteca. Who could miss this for all the pee in their pants?
My prediction? The 'Nats make it through the early stages fairly well, but fall behind anyway. Early in the second half, they equalize and the teams beat each other senseless the rest of the way without a goal. A 1-1 draw. It's not our first win, but a sign of progress in fortitude.
Back shortly with the action...
--
As always, you can follow along with stats at the USMNT Match Tracker.
--
FIRST HALF
1'
Game on...
5'
Both teams are sticking early jabs, but no major drama.
10'
Donovan leads Davies with a great ball and the forward curls home a cool finish on the run! 1-0 USA!
15'
Mexico fail on a couple of corner kicks. Azetca is eerily quiet.
19'
After Mexico finally start gaining some quality possession, Castro fires home a perfect drive from nearly 25, his first international goal. 1-1.
27'
Onyewu booked at midfield. He misses the El Salvador tilt.
37'
Blogger went down for several minutes, sorry. Both Gooch and DeMerit have seen yellow.
45'
Bocanegra booked near midfield. The home cooking smells great!
HALFTIME
The U.S. has looked very solid apart from a couple of incidents and it took a perfect shot to beat Howard. In defense, Gooch is the marshal. In attack, Davies looks like a frickin' shark with a laser beam on his head. El Tri would do well to deny him the ball. Despite the tie game, the U.S. would do very well to work some early possession. Mexico are beginning to own the ball a bit too much.
--
SECOND HALF
46'
Here we go again...
52'
A nice corner kick pick play tees up Franco for the volley from 15, but he hits it over.
56'
Vela on for Mr. White. We seem to have settled into a counterattacking posture, which I find to be a poor idea in this altitude and pollution.
58'
Holden and Feilhaber on for Ching and Clark. Deuce pushed up to forward.
Howard stands up to a Dos Santos drive from an angle, then stops him again on the ensuing corner kick.
70'
Lost Blogger again. Urgh. Great timing, eh?
Still 1-1, the officials are still cooking Mexico's stew.
71'
Davies juuuuuuuust misses a deep Holden cross on the dive. Castillo in for El Tri.
Seconds later, Davies is a nose offside to kill a breakaway chance.
75'
A scuffle nearly breaks out when El Tri players to drag an injured Davies to his feet. Feilhaber comes in with a shove and gets a throat grab in return. Torrado see yellow for that.
Altidore on for Davies.
Dempsey and Bradley whiff on restart clearances, but Howard scoops the loose ball.
80'
Sabah on for El Tri, who waste two corners.
83'
After Donovan and Bocanegra are split into the area, DeMerit's fine tackle takes an unhappy bounce to the feet of Sabah, who puts Mexico ahead for the first time. 2-1.
87'
With cups pelting him, Donovan takes a corner that is cleared easily.
90+1'
Three minutes added...
FULL TIME 2-1 Mexico
--
Bummer. I'll have all of my thoughts on the loss in tomorrow's U.S. Player Ratings at S365. Here at NSC, look for the highlights and reaction clips in a new post.
Try to enjoy your evening... even though I know you won't.
- Greg Seltzer
Posts
11 comments:
Davies totally changes the way people play the U.S. Mexico is afraid of the speed and has to sit back on him, just like Spain did. Opens up the midfield for us.
Nice goal, too.
I know BB loves him for his hold up ability, but for me, Ching jus doesnt do it..He is too predictable and doesnt offer much as a scoring threat..Please, play Jozy so we can attack
Would also love to see Torres/Feilhaber get in there for Clark and spread the ball around, quicken the pace, and keep possession..Go US!
I'm not buying what you're selling right now Greg. I thought that was a very subpar performance from the Nats.
Donovan, Dempsey, Ching, Cherundolo, and Clark have largely been abysmal.
Donovan played 1 good pass, and has since decided he's CR7 at his worst - all whining and little effort.
This is just poorly coached soccer from the US.
Poor decisions all around from Bradley.
i have to agree bhamawker. what angers me the most about this match is not that we lost, but the way we lost it.
we seemed to be completely content to play long ball after long ball, without working any type of possession through the midfield. or clearances were rushed and too often found a mexico team ready to re-engage the attack because we continually allowed them to walk the ball up to the midfield line.
our defensive mids gave no high pressure throughout the match, and in essence we decided after the opening goal that we weren't going to lose this game, instead of going out and trying to win it. really just a gutless performance all around.
@ Bham: Everything was generally under control til about the 35th minute or so. At that point, letting Mexico control about 10 minutes of a half at Azteca is not "sub-par" to me.
From then on, however, it was almost all chase-ball. The U.S. never snapped out of it.
Can't surrender that much of the ball and so much space to a team like Mexico. We sat way too deep at times.
Awful that we ruined a dream start like that. Aside from Davies, Howard and Gooch, not much to brag about today.
Greg,
I felt like we were never in the game, even with the early goal. We came out with no intention of pressuring the ball, which is exactly what killed the "C\D\F" squad in the Gold Cup.
We scored after 10 minutes of reasonable play, but then we just shrunk into a shell and watched the game. Our wings, as they did against Italy, Brazil, etc. just refused to put out any effort whatsoever, and that's something that has to eventually fall at our coach's feet. We get into these reasonably tough, but certainly winnable contests, and we come out with no energy or apparent game plan.
At some point, we deserve better from our coach - better decisions, better tactics, better everything.
Losing like this should be unacceptable, but unfortunately I have a feeling that too many of the writers like Grany Wahl, Ives Galarcep, Jen Chang, etc. will all brush this aside and say "Oh, but it was in Azteca", as if it's some insurmountable castle wall. We had the talent to go into Azteca and win this game. Mexico struggled to break us down, even with the 125% possession they seemed to have, yet we weren't a threat to them after the 10th minute.
Lastly, can we put the Brian Ching magical "hold-up" play to rest now? My god, I've seen U-12 strikers with more touch than him, and he was unable to hold the ball up even once against a pretty average set of Mexican defenders.
It is absolutely impossible to deny the Azteca conditions, which makes it all the more important not to sit back and chase for an hour.
I disagree with the "never in the game" bit, and even as is, we lost 2-1 on a late goal. The sky did not fall in 90 minutes, we simply got what we asked for by not being assertive enough.
As for Ching, he was certainly not alone today. Apart from Davies, no attacker showed good regular touches. That being said, I've argued for a while now that an in-form Jozy should start every game over Ching.
What did you think of the Clark-Bradley pairing? I thought Clark looked well out of his depth and got turned around over and over and over by the Mexican midfield.
I'm just not sure why Feilhaber wasn't in there from the start.
And Beckenbauer said the US will be a force to reckon with in the 2010 World Cup? First, lets get us a tactical savvy coach. What do you say, Franz?
Post a Comment