I can't imagine Brazil will be able to maintain such a pace. The Nats are under siege, but if they can hold on for a little longer, I think the pace favors them. They can't compare in terms of class, but when it comes to fitness, the U.S. has a reputation for being one of the best.
I expect Brazil to score, but think it's going to be key for it not to be a quick one to start the second half. If we can go the first 15-20 minutes keeping them scoreless, it will be a lot harder to turn the momentum. That said 2 goals for Brazil can happen pretty damn quick. wtf ! I totally missed the goal. well, ****. That was too quick
Kaka scored in the 61st minute, but they didn't count it. It went into the goal about 2 feet, but Howard knocked it out so fast they didn't count it. It absolutely should be 2-2.
Rough. 2-2. It's amazing how Brazil's players always seem to be in the right place to pick up every odd bounce and loose ball, and then just relentlessly out battle for possession.
Great match. Sucks to lose, especially after grabbing a 2-0 lead, but there was never any doubt which was the better team. Brazil was relentless. I thought they'd wear down, but they never did. Congrats to our nats for a great finish to the Confed Cup.
was there a tactical reason for not having a man on the post on that corner??? We did it in the first half
That was a heartbreaker. I like Donovan's comment about wanting wins not necessarily respect. They just couldn't keep enough possession in the second half to take some of the pressure off. I figured if the US kept letting Brazil bash away at the goal, they would find a way to tie or win. At least 3 of them were wearing their "I love Jesus"/ "I belong to Jesus" shirts. That was cool.
I hope the lesson that sinks in from this competition is KEEP 11 GUYS ON THE FIELD and you have a chance.
Anyone else notice that Beasley didn't ever put his medal on? As he was up to receive his, they were showing Bradley in the back and he was shaking his head in disappointment as Beasley was going through shaking the FIFA officials hands holding his. I wonder if he knows his days are done on the national team. Even on the team photo he is holding his and off to the side. I am sure he is disappointed in not playing the last couple games, and I would guess he knows he is not in the future mix for the team. I may be reading too much into this, but just wondering if anyone else saw this.
Can't really be upset at the result....if a little at the way it happened. Our guys looked gassed very early in the second half, especially the defense. I'm not really sure why there was so much space for the Brazilians to operate in the box after watching us absolutely shut down Egypt, Spain and Brazil (First Half) at the top of the box and further in. The one thing I am upset about are the timing of the substitutions. You could tell Jozy was gassed at least 10 minutes before he was replaced. I don't understand why Bradley, and a lot of soccer coaches, wait so long to put in substitutes. We ended up getting subs in right as Brazil scores...and thus destroying our goal scoring potential the rest of the game after it is tied. I liked seeing the emotion from Dempsey...Makes me proud of the team and my country (Something Rossi will never have btw). The looks on their faces just showed the utter disappointment. I hope they can take this loss as fuel for qualifying and especially next year. I felt it was pretty stupid of the interviewer after the game to ask Donovan what happened on his goal. If you win, of course you want to discuss things like that...But when you lose that's not the kind of thing you care about. I also liked the answers from both Bradley and Donovan to the question if this "improves our reputation in the world". You could tell...and I feel the same way...that they couldn't give a damn. I really don't care how the world views us. The only thing I care about is that results like this help grow the game in the USA.
Well said, Wolv. This result does absolutely nothing for U.S. soccer's international reputation. We gave Brazil a close match--so what? Even if we had defeated the Selecao, I don't think it would've mattered a great deal. Reputations aren't about what you've done once; they're about what you've done over time. The fact of the matter is U.S. soccer will be a "B-list" team until it can consistently compete with--and defeat--the world's elite. I don't see that happening soon, and I'm not certain it will ever happen unless the country's overall attitude toward the sport improves. How else is U.S. soccer going to lure the top-flight athletes it needs to compete in an international setting?
For sure the looks on the faces of our team was more than disappointment. There was hunger and maybe some anger. That is awesome. That salty taste in their mouth, that taste of defeat should fuel them. I like the moxie of this team that played today. With more depth and confidence in the players coming in off the bench we truly can beat anybody. Fantastic result and as I think Lalas said, if you told these guys they would medal and get 2nd place in this they would be stoked...just not the way it went down today. I am stoked for seeing what we do v. the Mexi's next month.
We got up early. But we got outplayed nearly the entire match. I thnk we got 2 shots on goal the final 20 minutes. One of them was outside the box on a hail merry. Brazil was able to put pressure on our defense when it was tied and get to the ball. They swarmed us. They had precise passes and just attacked. Meanwhile the US team kept making mistakes and seemed like they were content to get away with a tie if they got lucky. Once Brazil got their 3rd goal they changed it up and possessed the ball. We couldn't even come close to get the ball for stretches. We weren't attacked or swarming, we were waiting for them to kick it to us. Just really got outplayed on just about every level. Even though it was 3-2, it wasn't close.
Unfortunately, I missed the match as I was on a plane to Chicago for a funeral. Having read several articles on line this morning and the comments on this board it sounds like the USA made a good showing but was at the end outclassed by a superior squad. Having watched the group match against Brazil the fact that the USA scored once let alone two goals means tremendous improvement. A couple of the British writers have the US dominating the first half so its hard to gauge not having seen it myself. But that has to be encouraging. The USA is past the point of moral victories and that is good to see as well. In spite of the good week, I cant say that these three games have sold me on Bradley as the coach for next year. The clear US goal should be getting out of group play next year to the round of 16. The USA will be a 3 seed so that means needing to upset somebody and winning the game against the 4 (something we havent done in the last 3 WC's with losses to Iran, Poland and Ghana). Altidore will have another year of experience young Mr Edu may finally come of age but overall the talent will not be that much greater than what we put on the field yesterday. That means some coaching innovation and I am just not sold on Bradley to get us that. He absolutely saved his job with the past week's results but if they dont win the Gold Cup and/or go down to Azteca and lay an egg, then all it has been is one fluke week in the otherwise mediocre Bradley era.
I don't think that the U.S. took their foot off the gas as much as Brasil did it for us. They dictated the second half and there was very little we could do about it.
I disagree. The US had plenty of chances to establish possession, but, inexplicably, they made many unforced errant passes when they did have the ball. They also did not pressure Brazil at all in their end. They just sat back.
I felt that the US played the same defense that it had played against Spain, but the problem was that Brazil wasn't Spain. Brazil has LOTS of fast players and LOTS of tall players. Spain... not so much. Even though the US was giving it to them, Spain couldn't cross the ball in the air because they're a bunch of midgets save one or two players. Gooch & Demerit could control one or two guys. But Brazil has lots of tall players and so they crossed the ball all second half. The first goal was 100% Demerit's fault. (You're supposed to make yourself into a wall, there-by cutting down the amount of the goal the keeper has to cover, but Demerit blew it.) But after that, it was fast wingers with crosses all half long. My Argentine buddies were kidding me that the team played with a "cold heart" ("Pecho Frio"), meaning that they didn't care. I laughed as I told them that we are fine against midget teams like Spain and Argentina, it's just that Brazil was sleeping during the first half and woke up in the second. The game was 4-2 (really) and it should have been much worse. We had two shots in the first ~40 minutes and scored two goals. Hell, Dempsey's wasn't even a "shot". He whiffed on the ball to hit it near post and Julio Cesar went that way to stop the ball. But the ball skimmed off of Dempsey's left thigh and slid inside the far post. That's not really a shot. Landon was lucky that his first touch was so strong that Ramirez flew by where the ball should have been, but his finish was excellent. The US was also lucky that the temperatures for the games were so low that they could run all over the place, but they finally ran out of gas. (Not having Michael Bradley hurt there as well.) We played well, we got EXTREMELY LUCKY, and Tim Howard is probably the only goalie in Confederations Cup history to allow 9 (NINE) goals and still get the Golden Glove Award. I wish we had won. We didn't. That happens. Let's beat Mexico in Azteca.
If we get a win in Azteca the Mexi's will eat their young. That could be the final blow to them maybe not qualifying. I don't know who they still have to play but this could knock the wind out of them.
