US Soccer 2009

Jermaine Jones, a midfielder for Shalke, has announced that he intends to play for the U.S. National team. He has previously appeared in some Youth teams and some friendlies for Germany but not in an official senior national competition which makes him eligible to switch. His father was an American serviceman and he already holds a U.S. passport.

Jones is one of the better midfielders in the Bundesliga and should be a starter for us pretty much immediately. He is a bit more of a defensive midfielder. CM is not the area of greatest need for the U.S. but every bit helps. Love to find a striker, attacking mid or a left back to switch (or even a right back with the injuries).

Jones is not guaranteed anything.

Adu come back to the MLS. This bench sitting is now just getting ridiculous.

Marcus Tracy. Put this man on the team!

Here is a story on Jones. Well, we will see. I think our USA team should go all out in the Confederations Cup.

I understand in the past, we played in the Copa de Las Americas but treated it as a second rate competition and got polished.

USA plays Italy on Monday. Brazil is also in our group and some teams start playing on Sunday.

Confederations Cup also, is a sort of rehearsal for the World Cup in that it is played in the country hosting the World Cup the following year.

USA up 1-0 at half against Italy but are down to 10-men. We are 45 minutes away from a rather nice victory so hopefully they can hold.

Damn, 2-1 now.

We've had some good play, Onyewu missed getting a piece of that ball to stop the goal.

USA USA USA!!!

Let's draw it back.

Have to admit, Altidore did well, Donovan has had moments...

Our red card was harsh, I had a good feeling about this game.

Let's come back boys!

Sounds like we should have been able to stop that 2nd goal.

we should have basically we got screened by our own defense

Bummer. good effort, 3-1.

Bring Arena back.

I am tired of this undisciplined defense.

Yes, I believe the USA played well. We ran out of gas towards the end some. It was a good effort and a few breaks went against us.

Egypt lost a heart breaker to Brazil earlier. Those will be our two remaining opponents.

Still, a good enough effort, that one shot by Kjalstan (spelling?) barely missed curling in. Tough loss but on to the next game.

There is no reason that they Rossi should have been able to walk off that field. He's a traitor and should have had his achilles snapped before he could even touch the ball. At least that’s what I would have done. I’d be ok with this result if he wasn’t the one who scored the tying goal.

Are you kidding me?? Bring Arena back?!?!! That's a horrible idea. Arena inherited an incredibly talented squad before the '02 cup and had success. He had 4 years to fine tune, prep and coach that talent for the '06 cup, and what did his great effort show??? WE LOST TO GHANA! Horrible.Bradley has something good going with this team, and today's score does not reflect their effort. Without that BS red card it would have been a totally different game.

sandwich wrote:

Bring Arena back.

I am tired of this undisciplined defense.

Seisamoiditis wrote:

There is no reason that they Rossi should have been able to walk off that field. He's a traitor and should have had his achilles snapped before he could even touch the ball. At least that’s what I would have done. I’d be ok with this result if he wasn’t the one who scored the tying goal.

People need to get over that. He was eligible to play for another country and he choose to play for them. That's all. He did not commit some personal offense to you. Sure, you can be disappointed that he didn't choose to play for the U.S. but this is really ridiculous.

If you had a chance to play for a team like Italy with tradition and talent, and possibly win a world cup, wouldn't you?

I didn't see the game, and the 3-1 scoreline is a little disheartening... did we get any solid pressure on them in the run of play? Or was it all just set pieces/PKs? That is the one thing that frustrates me the most about this team. We never look dangerous until we can tee up a set piece, or have Donovan take a PK. None of our attackers scares you with their long distance shot (Bradley is capable of shooting from range, but you rarely see it), and the midfield lacks the ability to set up our forwards with crisp passes that give them good opportunities on goal. Oh, and our crosses suck. We have great target players (i'll take Jozy over most centre backs), but can never, ever find them in the run of play. Donovan can get turn the corner on a fullback and get off a cross, but he pulls it back every time. Lets get dangerous for once.

U.S. just got their asses handed to them. Man that first goal by Rossi was a thing of beauty. Howard played well for the U.S. It could have easily been 5-1.

The Ref probably fixed the game in giving that red card. He aided the Sh! talians alright.

Game was fixed for Shitaly,

The game wasn't too bad for abut 55 minutes. Italy looked like Italy, i.e. lots of possession, defensive style, only occasionally coming forward, but Howard looked good when challenged. The US had two, maybe three runs into the box which just fell apart from a poor decision or mis-hit before the one where Altidore was taken down for the penalty. We had just gotten lucky before that in that Bornstein scored an own goal, but the nearest Italian was called for offsides. We still looked decent in the second half, but once Rossi scored it was over. Suddenly Italy started to string passes together and make brilliant moves, creating many coring chances. The USA didn't get its first corner until 89:30! That ball found Davies wide open who just headed up instead of down, which would have, at the time, tied it at 2. And Kljestan's late shot from outside the box was very close, by American standards. Howard made two great saves in stoppage time, but then of course the third goal ended all hope.

All three of Italy's goals were f***ing brilliant. The first two were from miles away. The third one, the wing spun away from our defender and made a chip into the box into what looked like a wide swatch of empty space. Suddenly from off-screen comes Rossi and one times it out of the air and into the back of the net.

That's the kind of thing we lack, is that instinct and sense of what our teammates will do next. The Italian assister (I forget who it was now...) just knew Rossi was gonna run in exactly like he did, so he just put it to where he figured Rossi was gonna be in like five seconds. Success.