The Autopsy
Perhaps 24 hours is enough time for us to have recovered from the crushing loss yesterday and to reflect on what went wrong: 1. I lay the blame squarely at the feet of Bob Bradley.
2. The tactics were all wrong. Spurred on by the unreasonable expectations after the Confederations Cup run, Bradley for the win at the Azteca.
3. We're not quite ready to take the Mexicans on and win in the Azteca. At most, we need to go there looking to keep it tight and perhaps grab a shock win.
4. 4-4-2 was a big mistake. At first I thought Bradley had got it right with a 4-5-1 but then I noticed that Ching was playing. That was about half an hour in.
5. Once Davies scored, Bradley should have made immediate changes in order to shore up the win. I would have gone for Feilhaber on and Ching off.
How about the rest of you - your thoughts, chaps?
posted by The Blue Devil @ 5:16 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Bob,
I'm very bitter about this loss, especially after the hosing we took in the Gold Cup. One of the things that I hope we learn from these two games is in any regional tournament where meeting the Mexicans is inevitable, we always select a squad where our best players are available. Sure, run out Luis Robles against Guadeloupe, but have Timmy chilling out on the bench ready when its time to face the Mexicans. I think the 5-0 did weigh on the squad for Wednesday's game. A 2-1 loss could have been laughed off, but 5-0 to your regional rival is devastating.
More pertentent to what happened Wednesday, we suffer in this squad because there's no leadership from the established and experienced players. I agree with you about Ching. But what about Dempsey? I hate to rip on Nagadotches Ice-Ice-Baby, but he was a statue for 90 minutes. No movement, no control on the ball, no ability to hit a ball to our players. And his shining moments in the Confederations Cup this summer only came about because he was shifted out of midfield where he was a liability to forward where he was opportunistic.
In fact, Mexico deserved to win that game if only because their players found each other on the pitch with their passes, and the player on the ball didn't immediately get dispossessed. Bob Bradley doesn't have players that simply hit the ball to each other. Ching, Dempsey, Clark, Bradley, Onyewu, DeMerrit, Boca, Cherundalo... all of them looked positively remedial and in need of teaching of movement, where to pass it, when to pass it. Soccer for Dummies if you will.
I leave Davies out of this list because when he had chances, he put Mexico under pressure. I still can't figure out how he didn't connect with either header, and his offside was level in my opinion. Props to Holden for being the only American capable of a decent cross.
Donovan I also leave out because he worked his socks off and was the victim of his immobile midfield. He overreached and responsible for the giveaway that led to the ball getting to Blanco and over to their first goalscorer, but I was much happier with Landon than I've been in a while.
And defensively, we simply have to have players who don't resort to chopping down the oppositions forwards. In the space of 10 minutes, 3/4s of our back line were on yellows. Boca and DeMerrit got easy treatment from the ref for their further transgressions too. Onyewu just didn't get close to anyone after his yellow.
I agree that tactically, Bradley should have shut the shop after our goal, but I don't agree that he had available options to protect the win.
Guadardo's crosses wreaked havoc, Dos Santos was rampant, the dispicable Blanco was his usual cheating diving maloderous presence, and when they brought on subs Vela, Castillo, and Saba, we brought on Fielhaber, Holden, and Altidore. That's a tremendous gulf in quality right there.
The only thing I can fault the ref for was that he didn't red card Torrado straight off for grabbing Fielhaber by the throat. And he needed to card any of the Mexicans that time and time again tried to wrestle the ball out of our players hands. He let the Azteca get to him and he let himself down.
I went into Wednesday thinking that Mexico were wounded, but they've recovered. Goalkeeper excepted, player for player, they're better than any of the guys that we can call upon. I'm very disappointed.
Gents,
I still haven't seen the match, but enjoyed reading each of your analyses.
Cheers!
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