Monday, June 12, 2006

Red, White, and Blues

Well, that was an unmitigated disaster. Our play in the first half was nothing short of pathetic. I'm okay with that second-half goal - that's what happens when you push forward a lot. But the first two were just... crap. (Though Rosicky's shot on the second goal was pretty sweet.) And why can't we score a goal? Or even take a shot? Anyone who has seen the U.S. attack, please e-mail Bruce Arena at wesuck@ussoccer.net.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

well we were a total of 2 inches away from having two goals ourselves. An inch right on Renya's shot in the first half would have been a goal off the bar instead of a miss and the cross Eddie Johnson missed(I think it was Johnson) if he was an inch closer with his foot that would've been a goal instead of a easy scoop up by Buffaon. Fact is we sucked because we got beat by one of the best teams in the world(ranked 2 and coming out of europe its tough to be ranked so high due to tougher schedules, we're only ranked 5th because of where we play)This should wake them up and make them play well against Italy who we're 0-2-2 since 87(0-3-2 all time but I'm not counting a game we played agains them from 1934. In those 4 games the scores were 0-1, 1-1, 0-1, and 0-0. We play them tough. For those that are curious we lost 7-3 or 7-1 I can't remember in 1934.

Does anyone else think it sucks though that we have to play who many many believe to be the 2 best goalies in the world in Chechs and Buffaon. That really isn't fair.

Anonymous said...

oh and I typed Buffaon instead of Chechs when I was talking about the game. Buffaon(or however the heck you spell) it is on Italy. Doesn't really matter though, they're pretty much the same goalkeeper.

Mike said...

I'm trying to decide what is more amusing - the fact that the Czech goalie is named "Chechs" (~Czech) or the fact that the Italian goalie is named "Buffaon" (~Buffoon).

But yeah, today sucked for us.

Jeff said...

Meat - yeah, we did get beat by the best team in Europe, but still... 3-0? And only three good scoring chances all day? Sure, Cech is a great keeper, but a purple goldfish could have been in goal for the Czechs and it wouldn't have mattered.

The problem with the result is that it means we'll pretty much have to beat Italy to advance (unless we can thrash Ghana and Czech Rep. mashes Italy - then we can tie). We could have at least kept it close so we could get four points and advance on goal differential like '02...

Anonymous said...

most soccer games you only get three good chances to score. We didn't get any goals. Eh, whatever. If we can tie or pull the upset against Italy and have a good game against Ghana(to show the game before it wasn't a fluke) then we would do more for US soccer then if we had beat Czechs, lost to Italy got through and lost in the first game or two of the knockout. The game against Italy is KEY to show we can play. Though the Czechs are better right now then the Italians and that is up for debate, beating one of the big four(Arg, Germ, Italy, Brasil) in the world cup is bigger then anything short of the SemiFinals. The US soccer federations goal is for a Champ Ship in 2010. Beating Italy would be HUGE. When we beat England 2-0 in 1993 that let us know we could play with the big boys and it gave them the boost they needed to get to the second round. A win against Italy would let the world know we can play and we can win on the big stage. That would open the doors for more of our top players to have a chance to play in Europe, more importantly play in England, Italy, and Germany giving them the experiance they need to make a run in 2010.

Before you say say something about the quarterfinals from the last one, we didn't really get more players over to europe because of it. Why? Because we "only" beat Mexico and pulled an upset against a middle class euro team. The big 4 is key key key. I could care less if we could go far, we're not winning it all this year, so lets plan for the next one.

Now, after I said all that. The selfish part of me says damn all that, I want to watch as much of them as I can. Screw the future, I want something now.

Oh and don't worry about the 3-0 spanking. Germany got beat by Italy 4-0 a month or two ago. Stuff happens.