Comments on: El Salvador 2-2 USA: CONCACAF Personified

By: RF Interference

RF Interference — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:13:51 +0000

Right on, Jacques.

By: Jacques Strappe

Jacques Strappe — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:11:33 +0000

I agree with TFC, once countries get any good at anything they should be forced to relinquish their advantage. That’s why I currently support England, Italy and France being broken into several smaller teams while Sweden, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland should be added to the Portugal team. I mean, why should Spain be allowed to win Euro while their peninsulamate suffers from a lack of hardware? We all know it’s because Spain has roughly 4.5x the population of Portugal. Brazil, with ~200 million people, should be broken down into lesser countries while Argentina can merge with Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay…actually let’s just say all of South America outside of Brazil should unite as one team, since Brazil’s population is almost exactly half of the continent’s total population.

That first post that said that the US, if broken into four nations, would not be able to beat Mexico is absolutely right, partly because there would be no more United States of America in that scenario. But why stop there? If Mexico were broken into five or six different countries, they would no longer beat up on Canada, a country with only 1/3rd Mexico’s population, so why don’t we do this as well?

Basketball and gridiron are completely different situations and are not dominated because of population differences. USA dominates basketball because we played it for several decades before other countries even tried catching up to us–after many started trying, it wasn’t long before losses at the Olympics and Worlds started accumulating. Same thing happened to Canada’s hockey, and it would have happened even without the rise of the Soviet squad. Gridiron’s almost never played internationally, and until recently there had never even been a US side. Might as well complain about Australia dominating Australian rules football, or Afghanistan dominating Buzkashi. The reason a lot of Central American and Caribbean countries don’t keep up with our football team is because they’re playing baseball, oftentimes better than the United States plays it. I suppose this means that the US and Canada baseball teams should merge, perhaps also with the Dominican Republic and/or Puerto Rico, because it’s unfair how we lose most international competitions to Cuba, Japan and Korea. Or is it only “the right thing” to unite when it’s done to counter potential United States success?

By: Dennis

Dennis — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:28:32 +0000

Let’s face it, there were few players on the US side that had a decent game. Bocanegra, Beasley, Hedjuk, and Pierce combined to give away the goals. Donavon and Dempsey failed to see space to the outside and constantly tried to take the ball into 3 or 4 defenders. Klestian was just bad. Bradley at least made few errors defensively. Califf gave some anxious moments, but ElSalvador failed to capitalize. Ching did hold up the ball well (his job and he did it), but he failed to score when given the chance and his offside was a waste of a good chance. Hedjuk’s crosses were mostly not very good, but he finally placed one well. Altidore did well and Torres looked like the only real talent on the US side. I give Guzan a B, he saved those he should and made at least one decent save.
Bocanegra, Peirce, Beasley, Kleistian,and Donavon get F’s.
Califf, Dempsey get D’s
Bradley, Ching, Hedjuk get C’s
Flores, Altidore and Guzan get B’s

Coaching, D, Did not get players to attack wide (mostly I fault the players for not seeing this, but the coach should have taken things in hand at half-time).
Also Bradley should seen that Kleistian, Pearce and Beasley were having real bad days sooner than he did.

By: Joey Clams

Joey Clams — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:38:41 +0000

Bradley will make the comfortable choices and that fact will kill the team. Arena did the same thing AFTER learning that daringness is rewarded in the WC. Califf, a good guy, has never impressed me. Pearce is shaky. Boca really should be eased out.

Hey, Bob: You have talent. Use it. Surround it with veteran leadership. It’s what got you a point on Saturday, after all.

By: Samantha

Samantha — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:06:16 +0000

CONCACAF SUCKS PERIOD!!!! FIRST OFF LETS START OFF BY PRIOR THE WORLD CUP 06 WHEN THE USA DID GREAT IN THE QUALIFIER.. BUT WHEN IT CAME TO THE WORLD CUP THEY DID HORRIBLLEE.. THEN THEY PLAYED IN THE GOLD CUP (COPA DE ORO) AND THEY WON, BUT WHEN IT CAME TO PLAY IN THE CONMEBOL CONFERENCE (THE SOUTH AMERICAN CONFERENCE) THEY DIDNT EVEN WIN ONE GAME IN THE GROUP STAGE AND THEY DIDNT EVEN CALL UP THEIR BEST PLAYERS BECAUSE THEY KNEW THEY WERE GOING TO BE EMBARRASSED. SO MY POINT IS TO JUST ACCEPT THE FACT THAT EL SALVADOR IS ACTUALLY DOING PRETTY WELL, PRIOR TO LAST NIGHTS GAME THEY TIED WITH TRINIDAD AND TABAGO AND THE USA WAS NOT ALWAYS A POWER HOUSE. EL SALVADOR WAS READY TO PLAY, THEY WANTED IT MORE THAN THE U.S THE U.S WAS POINT BLANK OUT PLAYED BY EL SALVADOR.

By: LI Matt

LI Matt — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:22:46 +0000

Injuries happen. Maybe we don’t give up the first goal if Gooch is playing.

Claiming the US didn’t “deserve” a draw is pretty pointless to me. The result is in, let’s move on.

By: Kartik

Kartik — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:31:05 +0000

Question about those ads. Did USL pay for the uslsoccer.com ones or did Miami FC pay for those?

Miami FC/Traffic Sports took out all the ads. USL/UMBRO did not pay for any of them.

I’ll have more on Miami FC and Traffic in lieu of the splash they made last night later this week on the website and podcast.

By: Lance MSK

Lance MSK — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:07:20 +0000

Where do I even start?

No tactical sense

Guys bunched up

No spacing

Bad Giveaways

No one making creative run

No imagination

The look of fear in most of our guys eyes

PATHETIC!

Question about those ads. Did USL pay for the uslsoccer.com ones or did Miami FC pay for those?

By: Eric

Eric — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:35:48 +0000

To the people trashing El Salvador, world rankings and FIFA rankings don’t mean anything. The US was ranked 4th going into 2006 if I recall correctly. El Salvador is in the hex because they have a good team, beating Panama just to qualify for the 2nd round.
The facts are that the US is not Germany, and El Salvador is a good team. They came out excited and ready to go. If the US can get points on the road in the federation with the toughest for all the wrong reasons venues, then it is a victory.

By: Soccer Guru

Soccer Guru — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:14:05 +0000

It is much easier to play with a reserve keeper if you’ve known since Feb 11th that Guzan would have to play. El Salvador lost two points and we gained a point because of the keeper getting hurt.

We were pathetic. No linkup play at all. Pearce was better than many thought but because Beasley is so bad, and I mean so bad out wide, he couldn’t get into the game.

This team right now needs to integrate Adu and Torres immediately if we are going to play at any sort of respectable level next year in South Africa. Another failure in a World Cup will stifle the growth of the game in this country?

Another thing. I’d be curious to see how much the ratings for last night were cannabilized by MLS playing at the same time.

Nice Miami FC billboards. Point made- point taken. Miami FC is a club of the Americas. The Florida derby restarts next year with the Rowdies and Miami FC!