England vs. USA recap

I’m late with this and don’t have much to say about this piece of shit game.

The US lost 2-0 and it was a deserved result given a few factors that I would like to talk about.

1) Bradley calling in a team with 1 decent striker (Donovan–even though he is more of an AM or SS than a striker if we are going to be honest) and 3 stiffs (Eddie Johnson, Josh Wolff & Nate Jaqua) Donovan was injured and unavailable and the results showed.

Wolff absolutely sucked and EJ had one good chance on goal and otherwise sucked. Jaqua came in for a cup of tea at the end of the match and had no real chance to ultimately suck like he would have.

2) These are combined: Employing the empty bucket formation (4-2-2-2) and playing Michael Bradley out of position.

Bob: enough with the fucking empty bucket. It’s a ridiculously defensive minded formation that is negative in every way possible. It opens up the team to counters and just sucks.

Compounding that madness, is Michael Bradley being asked to play as a D-mid when he is a center mid–and excelled in that role for Heerenveen. A lot of people think there is no difference between the two roles but there really is. Michael isn’t the world strongest defenders, he’s good but not great. He is great at getting into the attack, linking the midfield to the front line and yes, scoring some goals (he had what, 18 in all competitions this year? That’s a lot, Bob)

Of course, rather than use that attacking prowess, we use Michael in a way that accentuates his weak points and leaves his strong points in the shadows. Dumb, Bob. Dumb.

Also, regarding the formation, it’s a friendly. A FUCKING FRIENDLY. Experiment. You claim you were experimenting with new blood, which was bullshit. Why not experiment with the formation? It’s not like England wasn’t every beatable with the right personnel and attack minded formation. We have held our own against Brazil and Argentina the last year and both of those nations are light years ahead of England in terms of class. Sorry England fans, but it’s very true.

3) Bring on fucking Adu. Stop sitting him til the 80th minute. Start the fucking kid and lets see what he can do. This will require you to dump the bullshit empty bucket, but it could benefit us. He showed some flashes but had no real chance to impose his will on the match since it was over by the time he stepped on the field.

4) related to #1, call up Altidore. Fuck what Osorio says about worrying about Jozy wearing down. Who gives a fuck about RBNY? I don’t. I care about the USMNT playing well. I would say the same thing if Jozy was in Chicago. Hell, I’ve often advocated Rolfe getting another look and gladly would have relished seeing him against England, Spain and Argentina.

There are probably a ton more I could list but it’s making want to vomit. The roster for the Spain friendly came out and it’s basically the same old bullshit. I will comment on that in another post.