Soccer: USA vs. Japan
 

The game is 8 PM PST tonight in San Francisco. And I am going!!!

This will be the first time I have attended a US men's national team game. I hope we play some or majority of our A-squad tonight just because I'm selfish and want to see the best we have.

I'm so very jealous.

Enjoy the game. :D

Nope. Here's the roster for the game.

Goalkeepers (3): Kevin Hartman (Los Angeles Galaxy), Matt Reis (New England Revolution), Zach Wells (Houston 1836)

Defenders (5): Bobby Boswell (D.C. United), Jimmy Conrad (Kansas City Wizards), Todd Dunivant (Los Angeles Galaxy), Heath Pearce (FC Nordsjælland), Eddie Pope (Real Salt Lake)

Midfielders (6): Brian Carroll (D.C. United), Clint Dempsey (New England Revolution), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy), Chris Klein (Real Salt Lake), Ben Olsen (D.C. United), Kerry Zavagnin (Kansas City Wizards)

Forwards (6): Brian Ching (Houston 1836), Eddie Johnson (FC Dallas), Pat Noonan (New England Revolution), Chris Rolfe (Chicago Fire), Taylor Twellman (New England Revolution), Josh Wolff (Kansas City Wizards)

Have a good time. I had the opportunity to go to US/England last year and it was a lot of fun.

I'm looking forward to seeing Eddie Johnson back in action.

It's not TOO bad of a lineup, with one maybe defender on the WC roster (Pope), two definite middies (Donovan & Dempsey), two borderlines (Klein & Zavs), and potentially 4 forwards (Rolfe, Twellman, Wolff, Johnson).

I'd love to see Rolfe play w/ Johnson for at least 60 minutes tonight.

I hope Twellman made his case in the last friendly to keep around for Germany, I like the way he works hard and of course he's a New England boy.

3-6-1 for Japan?? that's a new look. should provide a nice challenge for these USA midfielders/defenders

Well I've found my new Hattrick formation, the 3-6-1. Say what? :)

Japan is playing a 3-6-1. Interesting.


US starting 11

Early thoughts (20 mins gone)...


Klein: Terrible
Donovan: Very good
Wolff: Better than usual
Conrad: Don't trust him with the ball
Pope: Not very good

klein=not consistent enough with his passes
wolff=always a step behind, or just barely failing to keep control
donovan=spot on

dola

impressive possession spell by USA though.

haha. beautiful knockdown header by Twellman. and a goal for Pope!

More thoughts...Japan's wore themselves out with their pressing defense about 13 minutes in.

The 3-6-1 is arse.

That was a heck of a play by Twellman. When Dunivant hit that ball I thought for sure the keeper would be all over it.

Lando + Confidence = wow

yeah i don't think japan has the defensive talent to play the 3-6-1 successfully. or the midfield defensive talent even

What's interesting (and encouraging?) about this game is that Japan is a very similar team to us. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, yadda yadda.

And we are smoking them, with them having more of an A-team out there than we do.

nice D by noonan there, coming back to cut that off.

i'm not THAT familiar with Japan's players, but they aren't playing any of their overseas players in this match, and they have at least as many overseas players that start for the national team as we do. so I don't know how much more of an A-team this is for them. but like i said, i'm far from an expert.

I thought they had fewer overseas guys than we do?

well that was totally an educated guess by me. but the announcers did say they had "plenty" earlier.

What a goal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

That was sweet.

Twellman >= McBride ???

at this point i almost want to say that, but then again we have to keep in mind we havn't seen mcbride in a while.

but yes, twellman is on fire. and dempsey+noonan+twellman work so well together, which enhances that. whereas mcbride+reyna+donovan work so well together which enhances mcbride.

the homer in me wants to say twellman > mcbride, but it's too early

dola. that goal was beautiful though. laid off so well by twellman

The three guys I'd love to see get a lot of time:

Johnson, Rolfe, and Pearce

Also remember that McBride is tied for 8th in the EPL in goal scoring (though lower when you count cup games), and only 1 goal in the Prem behind Rooney.

I think it is way too easy to count Twellman as better than McBride from a couple meaningless friendlies.

I don't think so, personally -- McBride has been lighting up the EPL this season with Fulham. Either one of Twellman's assists is certainly in Brian's repertoire.

exactly. i didn't know that mcbride was tied for 8th in the EPL. but the point is very true, it's easy to say that about twellman right now as the "flavor of the month" especially as we havn't seen mcbride in a USA jersey in a while now. but mcbride definately has the track record.

Goal.

TWELLLLMANNNNNN

I'll take the "flavor of the month", as long as it's in June. :)

gah. why does balboa want wolff in germany? wolff is no good! grrr

I have a feeling that Italy, Czech Republic, and Ghana are going to be a good deal better than Japan... and won't be playing a 3-6-1 ;).

Then who's the 4th forward? Not like the 4th forward is really going to see much playing time anyway though.

I get frustrated with Bruce's decisions as much and as fast as anyone, anywhere.

But I just think I'll give up questioning him. He is an amazing international manager.

So is Landon Donovan's last name really pronounced Done-ovan?

This play-by-play guy insists on pronouncing it that way.

Of course im most impressed with Twellman.... i hope he continues to improve.

Also, Lando is just such a stud. Dam fun watching him create chance after chance and his passes/Free Kicks are so freaking accurate.

That's the left-back, Done-i-vint. (Dunivant)

Donovan is Don-uh-vinn, or as I prefer, Don-oh-vinn. :)

I've always wondered why anyone bothered questioning Arena in the first place. What? You want to back to Sampson?

Ahhh...my bad. I'm not familiar with the other dude.

well if that's the case why not give it to Rossi? (sarcasm). or shit...adu (less sarcasm but not serious).

you're right...the 4th forward isn't going to see much if any playing time, but you might as well make it a productive spot.

then again...In Bruce We Trust

Eddie Johnson in the game now... if he can stay healthy i see no reason why he shouldn't be playing somewhere in Europe.

After a slow start, Noonan has realy found a groove up and down that left flank tonight.

BAD! BAD DEFENSE! BAD!

Klein pretty much wore out his (albeit slim) WC chances tonight. Worst performance by a U.S. player this calander year, IMO.

I think Adu needs to learn some humility, IMO. He's a great talent, but sometimes he just seems to drift out of games. Let him know that we expect a full 90 minutes from him.

And I'd rather have Wolff than Ching, I think.

This defense is starting to look pitiful.

i really dont like ching...god help us if he ever plays in the WC

He actually got a $5 million transfer offer (well, the MLS did) from one of the top Portugal teams. He'll likely go after the WC. I got a feeling the MLS wants to build up his value in the Cup.

why bring in pearce in the 90th?....i dont get that

dola, but i like the 1-2 minutes he did play

I love Balboa doing commentary.

PBP dude - "He's got a bright future."
Balboa - "No he doesn't."

It was hilarious, but i agreed. The kid had a nice rookie season in the MLS, but why does that make him a future USA star? It was funny, but true...he explained it perfectly

piss poor defending in the latter part of the 2nd half there by the USA, but a bunch of that can be attributed to all the changes. and the fact that it was our B-/C+ defense and probably at this point our C goalkeeper means that i'm not THAT worried about that.

Just got home from the game and here are a few things I noticed. We started slow (first 10 minutes or so) and finished poor as well (last 12-15 minutes).

Hartman looked awful. Wolfe was nowhere to be seen.

Donovan played very solid and had some very nice corners tonight. Taylor freaking Twellman just dominated Japan. He seemingly won every ball in the air inside the 18. Eddie Pope also played well.

As far as the subs go, only Johnson seemed to do anything positive.