re: France v USA International Friendly 1:55pm CST ESPN2/espn3

Howard was exceptional today, and I thought Jozy was the second best player for us. Also happy with Dempsey, but the rest of the midfield was very average. Shea is not ready yet for the big time. He will be great in CONCACAF though.

Klinsman is in a tough situation with Holden and Torres out for a long time, and Donovan focusing on the MLS title. However, the midfield needs to stop playing so many longballs and taking pointless dribbles into crowded areas against good defenders I don't understand why he tried to call in Donovan though. No one would play in a meaningless friendly a few days before the title game.

Also, what does Klinsmann have against Michael Bradley? I understand trying new things, but he's been one of our most consistent players over the last four or so years.

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Also, what does Klinsmann have against Michael Bradley?

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He got lost in Beckerman's stoner dreads.

Danny Williams is not an outside mid, we need to not play him out there anymore. Michael Bradley is much better than Maurice Edu and Kyle Beckerman.





On a positive note, I got to meet the one and only SFP today.

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Does not compute.

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That's why I had "learned". Everything I posted, except the Danny Williams thing, was old. I was being Alexi Lalas.

Missed the match so watching the replay. First half thoughts:

-Besides Altidore and Howard, no one is play well yet we looked fairly comfortable at the back.

-Edu is playing out of place.

-Should we continue to play this formation without Torres or Stu? We don't seem to have the personnel to play this way at this moment in time.

My 2H observation so far 58 mins in: Tim Howard is a top 5 GK in the world. Holy shite he's good.

Menez is fun to watch.

59:49 - Brek Shea makes a nice turn and pass to Deuce. This is his first positive contribution to the match.

I thought Bocanegra played pretty well all game.


He had one bad clearance, but it wasn't an own goal or a disaster clearance.

He had a diving header stop, a slide tackle stop, he made up ground on an attacker that got loose because of Chandler.


I also thought Williams was all over the place first half. He disappeared like Mo Edu in the second.

Beckerman is too slow. Granted he had about 4 shots blocked because he stood in one place.

Dempsey has been diving like crazy lately.

No Bradley was disappointing.

Altidore is starting to use his body more which is great but he had a few runs in the box or lack of runs in the box which hurt the scoring opportunities, but for the most part .. I think he did well.

I think 'Dolo is starting to show signs of his oldness. I still think he is one of our better defenders still.

Jermaine Jones was our most technical player on the pitch and could be one of the most creative players today on the pitch. He had 1 play that was God awful and gave up possession on a break away and hit a ball too hard on the wing. Other than that, I thought he had a few crisp clean plays. I'd rather go out trying to make plays than to play ineffectively play short passes and lose possession. I also liked the fact that he faked a head injury so he wouldn't get a Yellow card.

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If Dempsey plays in Buddle in the 77th, we score.

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Instead he takes a dive. That is so fricking frustrating. I don't know if he is trying to hard or what. Between that, diving, and trying to walk a goal in during Gold Cup. . .frick.