Set piece service was so wasteful again. With fine margins you can’t afford that. I would have been ok with draw before such a promising first half. This is yet another lesson for a young squad to absorb. Wales finally displayed the maturity and experience that was their edge and it still took a terrible mistake from Zimmerman to lose the win.
1) One great half for the US that was mostly the result of Wales' passive tactics in the first half. One horrible half where the US seemed totally confused by Wales' tactical changes at half time.
2) Reyna must be injured? I can't imagine any other reason he didn't come on.
3) I thought we had "solutions" coming from the bench. Yedlin, Wright, Acosta, and Morris are not solutions. Aaronson is the only sub who made a positive impact.
And a bonus 4th thought - the referee. Oh my, that was bad.
Grant: Appreciate a timely article but this just spoiled the result for me. I’ll change my notifications or possibly unsubscribe, but you might want to consider at least a 10-minute delay.
Let's remember and celebrate our win against HIGHLY FAVORED England in the 1950 World Cup in Belo Horizonte 1 - 0, arguably the greatest upset in World Cup history alongside North Korea's win against Italy in 1966!!! Let's do it again!
You think the ghosts of history ( “no England team has ever “…) are in play here? If we play our absolute best on Friday, we still lose by a goal. I just don’t think we can score. The second half against Wales showed what this team is…..not good enough. If not for the Turner save on the Wales header, we lose this game 2-1. This team is just not a threat. We did score a beautiful goal, which shocked me. But we never came close a second time. I just have very little faith in this team. They played as though they were in a “defensive panic” the entire second half. And you think we have a chance to beat England? We don’t. And we are not getting out of the group.
If Pulisic is the best player to come thru in the last 10 years, we are in a world of hurt. I'm tired of him whining for calls. He must have served up 10 balls and they were all awful. Every one.
Why silly? What have you seen the US team do to suggest they can beat anyone? Saudia Arabia beat Argentina. Why can’t Iran beat us? You do recall that we qualified for the Olympics by losing to Costa Rica ( not by a wide enough goal differential to disqualify us ). Frankly, I was shocked that we scored against Wales. And if not fair Turners brilliant save, we lose to Wales 2-1. Are you overlooking that? The US is not a dangerous team. They are predictable, and easy to defend.
Have to disagree. Yes, the US took the lead. Yes, the US outplayed Wales in the first half. Yes, there were great sparks of very good soccer. But...
A match is played over the whole 90 minutes (or 105 minutes, in Qatar), adjustments are part of the game, and it's about how well you end, not how well you start. A draw is a very fair and complimentary result.
The worrying sign is how fragile the US was once Wales brought in Kiefer Moore and went long-ball. England, and more importantly, Iran, must have taken notice.
A draw is a decent result in the first match. Between 1998 and 2018 (the WC in the current format, with 2 teams qualifying from each group) - 17 times a group started with a win and a draw (3p, 1p, 1p, 0p):
- 21 of 34 (61.8%) teams with 1p qualified
- Only twice (2/17 = 11.8%) neither of the drawing teams qualified, these were the only occasions when the losing team qualified (bad news for Iran, Australia and... Argentina)
- 6 times (6/17 = 35.3%) both drawing teams qualified
- Of the 15 times (88.2%) times that at least one of the drawing teams qualified, 7 times a drawing team won the group (including the US in 2010).
The good news is that the either the US or Wales are likely to qualify. The meh news is that it's likely to be only one of them.
Christian's service, on crosses and set pieces alike have been pure trash.
Set piece service was so wasteful again. With fine margins you can’t afford that. I would have been ok with draw before such a promising first half. This is yet another lesson for a young squad to absorb. Wales finally displayed the maturity and experience that was their edge and it still took a terrible mistake from Zimmerman to lose the win.
It’s cliche but Yanks youth started to show 2nd half. Musah having to go off was a shame (seemed needed. He looked gassed).
Ugh. Would probably have take a 1-1 draw before the game started but disappointing the way it played out.
My 3 thoughts.
1) One great half for the US that was mostly the result of Wales' passive tactics in the first half. One horrible half where the US seemed totally confused by Wales' tactical changes at half time.
2) Reyna must be injured? I can't imagine any other reason he didn't come on.
3) I thought we had "solutions" coming from the bench. Yedlin, Wright, Acosta, and Morris are not solutions. Aaronson is the only sub who made a positive impact.
And a bonus 4th thought - the referee. Oh my, that was bad.
Overall, that was pretty ugly.
Grant: Appreciate a timely article but this just spoiled the result for me. I’ll change my notifications or possibly unsubscribe, but you might want to consider at least a 10-minute delay.
Let's remember and celebrate our win against HIGHLY FAVORED England in the 1950 World Cup in Belo Horizonte 1 - 0, arguably the greatest upset in World Cup history alongside North Korea's win against Italy in 1966!!! Let's do it again!
You think the ghosts of history ( “no England team has ever “…) are in play here? If we play our absolute best on Friday, we still lose by a goal. I just don’t think we can score. The second half against Wales showed what this team is…..not good enough. If not for the Turner save on the Wales header, we lose this game 2-1. This team is just not a threat. We did score a beautiful goal, which shocked me. But we never came close a second time. I just have very little faith in this team. They played as though they were in a “defensive panic” the entire second half. And you think we have a chance to beat England? We don’t. And we are not getting out of the group.
A draw is a fair result. Frustrating, though, given how the first half went. Wales bringing Moore on changed the game - put the U.S. on its heels.
Left points on the table due to a poor second half. Hope Reyna is okay. Disappointed we didn’t see him.
The U.S. didn’t create many chances. That hurt in the end. Stats (xG) prove it.
Thought Aaronson was great when he came on. Crossing into the box isn’t the way for this team, though.
My brief takeaways:
Highlights: Weah's runs, including the main goal. Turner's save. Adams' defensive midfield presence.
Lowlights: Zimmerman penalty, bad deliveries on set pieces and bad finishing on crosses.
Questions: Why didn't Reyna com on? Will there be this much cramping for every US game? Does this team have a killer instinct to keep pressing? N
I just don’t Get Zimmerman doing that. Bale had his back to the goal. Ughh.
If Pulisic is the best player to come thru in the last 10 years, we are in a world of hurt. I'm tired of him whining for calls. He must have served up 10 balls and they were all awful. Every one.
Too may yellow cards! It’s going to be a problem.
Point No. 4 is sobering
Why silly? What have you seen the US team do to suggest they can beat anyone? Saudia Arabia beat Argentina. Why can’t Iran beat us? You do recall that we qualified for the Olympics by losing to Costa Rica ( not by a wide enough goal differential to disqualify us ). Frankly, I was shocked that we scored against Wales. And if not fair Turners brilliant save, we lose to Wales 2-1. Are you overlooking that? The US is not a dangerous team. They are predictable, and easy to defend.
“ Blessed he is who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
Have to disagree. Yes, the US took the lead. Yes, the US outplayed Wales in the first half. Yes, there were great sparks of very good soccer. But...
A match is played over the whole 90 minutes (or 105 minutes, in Qatar), adjustments are part of the game, and it's about how well you end, not how well you start. A draw is a very fair and complimentary result.
The worrying sign is how fragile the US was once Wales brought in Kiefer Moore and went long-ball. England, and more importantly, Iran, must have taken notice.
A draw is a decent result in the first match. Between 1998 and 2018 (the WC in the current format, with 2 teams qualifying from each group) - 17 times a group started with a win and a draw (3p, 1p, 1p, 0p):
- 21 of 34 (61.8%) teams with 1p qualified
- Only twice (2/17 = 11.8%) neither of the drawing teams qualified, these were the only occasions when the losing team qualified (bad news for Iran, Australia and... Argentina)
- 6 times (6/17 = 35.3%) both drawing teams qualified
- Of the 15 times (88.2%) times that at least one of the drawing teams qualified, 7 times a drawing team won the group (including the US in 2010).
The good news is that the either the US or Wales are likely to qualify. The meh news is that it's likely to be only one of them.