Boy did that feel good or what? Last night’s 2-0 (yes) win over Mexico helped me to excise some demons from last summer. It felt good to celebrate a goal again. Yes, there was that match against the Danes, but who cares about them. This was Mexico. And they brought their A game. Hugo Sanchez came in expecting to disrespect us on our own turf and I didn’t exactly go as planned.
I must say though, we are somewhat lucky that it did not go as planned. If the final score line had been 1-0 or 2-0 Mexico, would that have been entirely unjust? I think not, but in the end all that matters is the result, not how we arrived at it. And how did we arrive at that result? Strong defense throughout most of the game. Even if Jimmy Conrad does not score off the corner there is still an argument to be made for him as Man of the Match. The central defense combining him and Bocanegra was impressive. Blanco had a little bit too much space in the first half, but to no result. Borghetti was marked out early, but made his presence know in the closing stages of the game when the Mexicans had 15 forwards on the field. Howard looked a little uncertain in the first moments of the game, but when truly tested at the end he acquitted himself well.
The wing backs left something to be desired in the first half, Bornstein clearly showing some nerves and inexpiernce and Chris Albright, well, was Chris Albright. Bornstein’s second half was strong, very solid, defended on and off the ball better and was a threat going forward. If he continues to play for the National Team as he did in the second half he’ll be the man to beat for the starting left back position in 2010 in South Africa. And as much as I like Josh Gros (seriously, he is probably my favorite MLS player), he looked out of his league, over committing on some balls, getting caught in the center too often. To be fair it must be a shock to the system for your first cap to be in the middle of a US-Mexico game just as Mexico is committing to an all out attack. I’d like to see how he performs in a lower intensity game such as Ecuador, and perhaps he can dial it up from there.
The weakest part of the US game last night was the attack, and that problem began in the midfield. Both Ricardo Clark and Pablo Mastroeni sat deep in the midfield, and with Dempsey and Convey tending towards the touchlines, there was a large whole in the formation between the midfield and the forwards. Personally I would prefer a diamond formation with Donovan as attacking midfielder so he can run at the defense and not worry about having to make runs off the ball. Then in his place you could insert EJ or TT. At any rate, not too sound too much like Eric Wynalda but I thought Rolfe was awful. I don’t know that Eddie Johnson was involved enough to say something either way.
Off the field, I must say that I am enjoying the Wynalda-Arena-Stone campaign to remove the interim tag from Bob Bradley and simply name him head coach. I whole heartedly agree with them Sunil Gulati sounded a little silly with his talk about waiting for the European season to be over so the coaches there would be free to sign on.
Dos a cero, bitches
Your thoughts?