USA vs Honduras Tonight

[OumaFan]

Bocanegra and Dempsey are both very good at set pieces though.

I think Bradley doesn't like the fact that as big as he is Cooper plays more like a small guy. Ching's more of a target forward even though he's shorter. I don't know much about Casey, I only saw him play for about five minutes last night.

[OumaFan]

Oh yeah I forgot, LOL at Mexico. What the fuck is wrong with them. They'll still probably make it but they're 1-0-3 through four games.

[El Kabong]

I was never sold on Ching, I have never seen him do much. Cooper would be a big litteral and figurative presance on the pitch.

I think Dempsey plays striker better than midfield, he makes short passes well, he can finish, and he can use his footwork better when he has a little space rather than in a congested midfield. If they put Donovan at striker, then putting Dempsey at CAM would be another option, I just think he's too slow to play the wing and I think Donovan is our best box to box player.

We haven't seen much of Eddie Johnson lately...I like his speed on the pitch as well, but he's like Beasley when he's hot he's hot and when he's cold it's like he has never played soccer before.

[VictorCharlie]

is it just me or do we depend on set pieces for too many goals? It seems we rarely work the ball up through the midfield or on fast breaks to create good shots on goal..or when we do we miss bigger than Dallas. Something that stuck out about this team to me was a decreased level of athleticism compared to say the 2002 team. The past two world cup teams weren't flashy but they played solid defense, controlled the ball, didn't make many mistakes and matched up well athletically (speed, size, strength etc) with other teams.

[El Kabong]

Yeah, we aren't using our athleticism, I don't know what has changed about our team but we have seen a lack of chemistry recently.

I think the guys who played on our U23 team have good chemistry: Adu, Altidore, Bradley, Feilhaber, Kljiestan, et al. ... like any fan I want crisp clean passes, good ball handling, and I want us to set our attack up and not just get free kicks. We need to look prettier is what it boils down to, we have looked like crap in our past two games.

We need Rafa to coach us

[OumaFan]

I don't really know the guy but Jermaine Jones, holding midfielder from Schalke who was born and has lived in Germany but whose dad was in the U.S. Army in Germany wants to play for us now. He had three call ups to the German national team but they were all friendlies so he's eligible. Was rated by one German mag as the 4th best midfielder in the bundesliga last year and is one of their best holding mids. A position we have a fair amount of guys at but he apparently will pretty much walk into the team. Bit of a mercenary but so was Thomas Dooley. I don't like the idea of it, unless you're really good

[OumaFan]

He and Bradley are both two way mids (he's apparently light years above Mastro for what's that worth) so maybe we could go 4-4-2

Howard

Cherundolo---Gooch----Bocanegra----?

Dempsey-----Jones-------Bradley-----Donovan

Altidore---?

[HattonTheHammer]

I don't really know the guy but Jermaine Jones, holding midfielder from Schalke who was born and has lived in Germany but whose dad was in the U.S. Army in Germany wants to play for us now. He had three call ups to the German national team but they were all friendlies so he's eligible. Was rated by one German mag as the 4th best midfielder in the bundesliga last year and is one of their best holding mids. A position we have a fair amount of guys at but he apparently will pretty much walk into the team. Bit of a mercenary but so was Thomas Dooley. I don't like the idea of it, unless you're really good

ive seen jones play a few times and he looks a pretty good player.

Good passer of the ball and dont mind getting stuck in when needs be.

[OumaFan]

yeah so I've heard, I don't want to make a habit of this, we need to develop home grown talent, but since we don't have any other of these types (unless you count Adu and I don't really) its fine with me.

[El Kabong]

Well you have to have Frankie Hejduk or John Spector at right back and I would guess for the other striker you would want to start Eddie Johnson and then have a guy like Kenny Cooper off the bench. Freddy Adu played striker for our U-23 team....he did it pretty well.

I hope we have a good showing for the Confederations Cup!

[OumaFan]

apparently generally Germans thought he should be called up even if he wasn't a starter and when the coach refused again to call him up, this time for an Asian tour, he had enough.

Apparently his Dad wasn't around a whole lot and he's always thought of himself as German so I'm sure there will be those that will make noise about him not playing out of loyalty to the country and all that but he's welcome IMO, if he plays hard that's fine with me.

[HattonTheHammer]

yeah so I've heard, I don't want to make a habit of this, we need to develop home grown talent, but since we don't have any other of these types (unless you count Adu and I don't really) its fine with me.

the likes of ireland, scotland, wales primarily have players that are english but because of blood relatives end up going on to represent those countrys.

USA wont be winning or seriously competing for world cups anytime soon but success like you had in 2002 can only be a positive and helpful for the progression of the sport stateside. If america was to properly embrase the sport (wont happen) ive no doubt in my mind by at least 2040 you could have world champions.

We in England build our hopes up and the country completely shuts down when we play a world cup game and we never win sod all so dont feel so bad about it

[OumaFan]

Well you have to have Frankie Hejduk or John Spector at right back and I would guess for the other striker you would want to start Eddie Johnson and then have a guy like Kenny Cooper off the bench. Freddy Adu played striker for our U-23 team....he did it pretty well.

I hope we have a good showing for the Confederations Cup!

hmm, I like Cherundolo over either assuming he comes back fine from his injury. Spector isn't bad though. Hejduk, meh.

And I don't like Eddie either. Well I like him fine but he's not very good and I don't like an Eddie-Jozy partnership. And Cooper's a non-starter, he's a "soft" player and Bradley has no interest in him.

As boring as it sounds it will probably be Ching-Altidore with Ching providing the physical target man type role.

[OumaFan]

England on paper looks great but when they actually play they remind me of a better version of us, kind of boring and plodding.