My Gold Cup Final Rant

[VivaFutbol 10]

(Note: I'm a die hard US supporter. I will never lose faith in our boys, nor turn my back to them.)

 

Where to start, where to start. Well, I guess I will start by saying congratulations to Mexico. Many teams would have pouted and such and not been able to rebound like you did. Also, tip of the hat to Gio Dos Santos, amazing chip and easily the goal of the tournament. So enough talk about Mexico winning, I can feel my stomach acid coming up my throat.

 

I'm honestly speechless right now (I know I'm contradicting myself, but it took me 5 minutes to write those 5 words). We have a DREAM start and go 2-0 up against the run of play. You couldn't have asked for a better start to a final of a major tournament. And then the entire freaking engine fell out of our team and Mexico goes on to score 4 straight en route to the Confederations Cup berth (which I'm more upset about than the silly game). It's not that we lost that makes me upset, I'm used to that by now being a die hard US national team supporter, it's the way we lost. 1st Mexican goal: horrible defending, 2nd Mexican goal: horrible defending, 3rd Mexican goal: horrible defending, 4th Mexican goal: horrible defending with a little bit of magic from Dos Santos. Bocanegra played his *** off for 90 minutes and the other three basically took the night off. Goodsen is too slow and can't defend for feces. Bornstien hasn't played all tournament and you throw him in 10 minutes into the game (however, Dolo did get hurt which was a huge loss for us). I'm hesitant to give Lichaj a pass because he moved over to right back, but he still played awful tonight. Like Lichaj, I'm also hesitant to give Tim Howard a pass, but he could have done better on three of the shots. Not saying it was his fault, but he's had better games.

 

On to the midfield, WHERE was Jermaine Jones at?!?!?!?! He is our best true midfielder. Virtually unnoticed tonight. I thought Bradley played well, along with Donovan both notched goals. Dempsey had a solid game as well. Freddy Adu, hat's off to you young man. Excellent two performances these past few games. He was never going to be the player we (excuse me, the media) thought he would be, but his a darned good footballer. Agudelo was a spectator and didn't do much in the second half.

 

There is a breakdown on the players, now onto the coach: Bob Bradley. I appreciate all that he has done for American soccer, but his time is up. He's done about as a good as a job as he could have done, and can't take this team to a higher level. It's been too inconsistent throughout his tenure, and it has been filled with joyous moments (win over Spain) and very low points (loss to Panama and today). He reached his peak in the 2009 Confederations Cup, and it has been a steady decline since then. You might say, "He got us into the Round of 16 at the World Cup" which is true, he did, but let's take a closer look. We were expected to get out of arguably the easiest group in the entire tournament, and we BARELY made it. It took a stoppage time goal against ALGERIA, to do it. Secondly, we had probably the easiest Semifinal draw in World Cup history (Ghana, Uruguay) and we couldn't do it. Let's not forget his decision to start Ricardo Clark in that game, only to take him out before the 40th minute. In his defense, he started the right lineup tonight; however, when Dolo went down, his sub with Bornstien completely turned the game around. It moved Lichaj to the right (not his natural position) and put our worst defender on the pitch. Why was Bornstien even on the bench? Why not put in a RB like Spector. Why not have Gooch on the bench! WHY BRING GOOCH TO THE SQUAD IF YOU AREN'T GOING TO PLAY HIM! I'm just so frustrated right now. He needs to go.

 

BUT, let's look on the bright side. Our youth looks extremely good in Adu, Agudelo, Lichaj, not to mention Chandler and Holden who were out of this tournament with rest and injury. Our holding midfield duo played pretty well overall. Dempsey and Donovan, will continue to be Dempsey and Donovan in Brazil. Now it is time to regroup as a whole, and begin the all important process of World Cup Qualification. It's not going to be easy, but we will be favorites to qualify for Brazil 2014, and that's the main goal.

 

END RANT

[_______________ 10]

I'm a pretty big US supporter myself. I went to the quarterfinal game in DC. Good stuff. Do you post on any other sites? I post on BigSoccer. There's a lot of US fans over there. Anyway I knew once Dolo came off and Bornstein came in it wouldn't be good. Bornstein is garbage. I've always thought that. Something is going on with Bob and Bornstein because he is utter garbage but gets called up to every squad. We shouldve moved Boca outside and put Tim Ream at center back. I think Mexico is just the better team. I've known that even when we would beat them. They controlled the whole game even when we went up 2-nil.

 

I agree with you I was more upset about not getting the confederations cup berth than the championship. I guess it is nice to win the Gold Cup while you're at it though. I think we would've been a better team with Timmy Chandler and Stuart Holden playing. I think they would've made a huge difference. We have no forwards. Agudelo will be good in time but for now is just an 18 year old kid. Altidore frankly is not that good. He's been on what four loan spells since he arrived at Villareal? Chris Wondolowski while a great MLS player hasn't done jack for the national team. Teal Bunbury looks promising. We have no prolific goalscorers at forward and Mexico kinda does.

 

Bob needs to go. It won't happen though. Sunil Gulati in the USSF are in love with the idea that we must have an American coach. Jurgen Klinnsmann would be great and now is the time just after the World Cup last year. I think we do have a bright future. One player that I had hoped would make the GC squad is Mix Diskerud. He's really crafty on the ball and has good footwork.

Edited June 26, 2011 by _______________

[VivaFutbol 10]

I was in DC for the quarterfinal as well. I was also in Boston for the thrashing at the hands of Spain. It's not that Mexico is better than us, we are pretty much even in terms of talent, but their speed against our inexperienced back line was the story of yesterday's match.