They've won a couple of decent games here...Bosnia is very good, nice run so far...Jurgen hiring is looking better. Jozy has turned it around and if they can get another solid striker and fix that defense the US can be a top 20 world team
Yes he did, actually looked like there was a chance he was going to score a goal. 2 shots on goal. BTW Bradley is a fucking awesome midfielder. His vision is ridiculous and amazing what some coaching can do.
Maybe the shock of the day in the only game that actually mattered but Russia goes to Belfast and loses to Northern Ireland. The Russians still in decent shape as they still have another game before they've played the same amount as Portugal but if they go to the playoff they might look back at today and regret not at least getting a point.
I've gone through this with him at least 3 other times and have explained to him that Bayern Munich winning the Bundesliga is the same as the Red Sox winning the World Series. Regardless of what they do in the Cup, Champions League or any other tournament they play. Winning the cup does not count toward the League Championship nor do they count it when adding up the amount of Bundesliga they have won which is 23 BTW and 22 of them since the 1968/69 season. The only thing that counts towards winning the league is finishing 1st. It's arguable that no team in the world has dominated their league the way Bayern has over the last 3 decades.
The 2nd goal and the free kick were world class, the US is very dangerous in a 4-4-2 but it seems we will always be limited by our backs. I'm hoping this new German kid can finally be the stud defender we have been waiting for. If we can ever find that guy we always seem to have guys that can score and good goalies.
How good is Bosnia? Game was on at work. I see Bosnia is 13th in the nation, and I know Dzeko played, but I don't know enough about BIH to know if they played their A-team or not. Just impressed they could come back from 2-0 down against a good team without Dempsey. Altidore's free kick was fantastic.
It sounds silly, but I try to learn about formations by just changing them around in FIFA the game.. It helps me understand how it's supposed to look/work at a much slower pace than a real life soccer game haha. The 4-4-2 is very popular these days right? Or am I thinking of another formation
Bosnia is pretty good, in all honestly had they not made the subs that did at the time they did they probably would have won the game. To be fair outside of Jozy we played a lot of subs in the 2nd half as well and we didn't have Landon, or Dempsey and were misisng other "regulars" in Zusi and Omar Gonzalez. The first goal by Bosnia was a created by a major mistake by Eddie Johnson and poor defending after Howard deflected the shot. Mix Diskurud probably should have been given a penalty after he was taken down in the box by a Bosnian defender and their 2nd goal the guy was probably offsides and pushed to gain seperation. Bosnia also appeared to get away with a handball in the penalty box.
4-4-2 is pretty much the base formation for most leagues these days, and has been for a long time. You find different permutations - midfield diamonds allow attacking full backs to get forward more with the deep lying midfielder dropping into the defensive line when they're out of position upfield, playmakers like Messi and Totti have made the 4-3-1-2 a popular formation if you have the right personnel, and 4-5-1/4-3-3 has been effective in recent times with the one out and out striker being a bigger, more powerful player whose job it is to provide an attacking fulcrum around which the midfield can interchangeably support, but they're all variations on the same theme.
Looking forward to seeing Jozy in the Premier League this year. He and Sessegnon could be a nice strike force.
It's weird but American soccer players tend to get better with age, I expect Jozy to succeed this go around. Wish he was with the Toon though, Sunderland sucks.
That seems to be true, I almost wonder if it has to do with the way our youth sports are set up. If you think about it in the States outside of basketball a good majority of the athletes don't hit their primes till they are about 24/25. Throw in instead of joining youth teams supported by the clubs our players play high school and don't really get too much international exposure against the best competition until they get out of high school and maybe even college. It's possible they might play for a really good local team but the chances of them playing against the type of players they are likely to see in a top league are small. I have a friend who played with the Club America Youth team until he tore up his knee and he played with and against some of the best players in Mexico whereas in the states our kids don't really get that exposure. Maybe I'm off completely but there is some validity to what you are saying. That's the reason why this move by Dempsy pisses me off, I get you want to be closer to family but I'm sorry, you shouldn't walk away from the best league on the planet because you want to be comfortable. Sure it's great for MLS but I want our players playing against the best players whether it be in Italy, Germany, France, Holland, England or Portugal which are all leaps and bounds ahead of MLS. The guy is in the prime of his career and he decided to jump down multiple steps in competition. Who cares if he scores 40 goals in MLS? I'd rather see him score 15 in the BPL.
I'm not as down on the Dempsey move mainly because he is one of those guys that will be alot like Donovan. Play in MLS, produce there and play at a high level in international competition. He also helps build more fans for MLS...But if he could had the chance to play regularly for one of these top teams again that would have been great...But he got paid, like really paid. No one would have given him that
I agree and at his age, he is not going to develop any more then he is. Playing with Eddie Johnson regularly could really pay dividends for the USMNT
