A reinvigorated Landon Donovan scored a hat-trick of beauties and caused the Ecuadorian defense a lot of hell. The lively and newly enrobed in blue pinstripes USMNT (not to be confused with TMNT) gave the pundits much to talk about in terms of Bob Bradley now being granted permanent status as well as a World Ranking of 30th for the team. Other than Donovan, not many real bright spots for the U.S. Beasley made some good runs and nice passes and Benny Feilhaber almost had his first tally for the red, white, and blue (I guess more the former these days). For Ecuador, I really liked Neicer Reasco and Edwin Tenorio. Overall, an average day but a decent win against a team "ahead of us" in the polls. Afterwards, Bob Bradley released Brian Carroll, Oguchi Onyewu, Carlos Bocanegra, and Timmy Howard to their respective clubs. They all have big games coming up within their leagues, Carroll with D.C. United who take on Chivas in the second leg of their CONCACAF Champions Cup semi-final.
Player Ratings:
GK: Tim Howard (7) - no real faults, but some real decent saves, average
DL: Carlos Bocanegra (6) - represents the mediocrity that was the back-line
DR: Steve Cherundolo (5.5) - didn't seem himself exactly, could be the new style
DC: Oguchi Onyewu (6) - bumbly, still intimidating as hell
DC: Jimmy Conrad (6) - couldn't keep up much with the speed of the Ecuadorians
ML: Damarcus Beasley (7) - saw some fleeting moments of his old self
MC: Landon Donovan (10) - his play wasn't flawless, but three goals deserves a 10
MC: Benny Feilhaber (6.5) - you can see the potential, has played better with HSV
MR: Clint Dempsey (6) - not much to applaud, the bench at Craven is getting to him
FC: Brian Ching (7) - ball-winner, troubled by quick Ecuadorian defense but coped
FC: Eddie Johnson (4.5) - getting to be dumb, hasn't played in '07 with intensity yet
Sub: Michael Bradley (6.5) on for Eddie Johnson in the 46th minute
Sub: Taylor Twellman (6) on for Brian Ching in the 73rd minute
Sub: Jonathan Spector (-) on for Steve Cherundolo in the 80th minute
Sub: Brian Mullan (-) on for Clint Dempsey in the 80th minute
Sub: Justin Mapp (-) on for Damarcus Beasley in the 83rd minute
Sub: Brian Carroll (-) on for Landon Donovan in injury time
Team Average: 6.46
Clearly the formation is off, but you get the jist.
Unused Subs: GK Kasey Keller
Other surprising results this weekend:
Israel 0, England 0
Steve McClaren's job got a little harder. His players, represented by the 'rift' with Wayne Rooney, are starting to lose some confidence in him. Actually, the truth is, they never really had too much as it has yet to even be developed. This string of bad results could cost McClaren the post. McClaren's response to Eurosport.com regarding the result was, "People in football who I respect have phoned me and said the only thing wrong with our performance on Saturday was that we didn't get a goal". Mr. McClaren, as a coach, your job is to make sure they play well enough to get a goal. Now possession-wise England did dominate, but quality chances weren't abundant despite the alarming disparity between England's 10 shots on goal to Israel's 1. England sits tied with Israel in third at 8 points from 5 matches.
Kazakhstan 2, Serbia 1
Borat must have played. This is an upset in its' entirety. The game even pushed ESPN Soccernet to report, "Borat joy at Serbia shock".
Germany 2, Czech Republic 1
Wish I could have watched this one.
Bosnia-Herzegovina 2, Norway 1
Another shock.
Ireland 1, Wales 0
Stephen Ireland's strike in the 39th minute gave the Irish a belated St. Patty's Day victory.
2 comments:
Germany vs. Czech Republic was a decent game, except that the germans won. Koller, the big oaf as he is, played a good game, but the head of that dude (I forget his name) with the pencil thin beard goatee going on, got to him.
You forgot the Les Bleus, who beat Lithuania, but barely and with no real impressive play. A dud of a game, with five lyon players not really helping to elevate the play.
Lucky am I, I saw Israel/England, France/Lithuania, AND Germany/Czech. God it's marvelous to live in Europe :)
yes - eric was telling me about your Euro 2008 qualifier marathon...
i chose not to include the France result mainly because a 1-0 win over Lithuania puts Domenech on the hot seat frankly, if Lithuaina pulled out a tie however?? you could expect it to be included...
hear that Ribery, Malouda, and Abidal are all talking quite a lot with the Arsenal Gunners????
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