Starting 11 has been announced

GK - Tim Howard

D - Albright
D - Onyewu
D - Conrad
D - Bocanegra

M - Dempsey
M - Olsen
M - Convey
M - Wolff

F - Ching
F - E. Johnson


Thoughts?

Great minds think alike. I think you beat me by one minute, so I guess we stay here.

.......EJ.......Ching
...........Wolff
Convey...............Dempsey
...........Olsen
Boca..Conrad..Gooch..Albright
..........Howard

http://www.ussoccer.com/articles/viewArticle.jsp_280994.html

Kickoff 6:00 p.m. Central.

Still haven't seen anything resembling our strongest squad. I'll be most interested to see how Bocanegra, EJ and Ching play given the problems we have at LB and F.

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"The rest of the world will be rooting for the U.S. to fall flat on its face. Tell your soccer-hating friends that if they couldn't care less about how the U.S. does in these games, they are right in line with the French."

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I like having Ching up there. I'd like him to step up and get some playing time in the Cup. Wish I could've seen him and McBride at the same time.

Who do you think the subs will be?

I'm guessing there will be a lot of subs. I like Clint and Convey as mid-wings. I wouldn't mind seeing how they would do on the same side, with Convey playing D (esp. with Gibbs out).

I'm calling it now...Convey has a break out world cup

anyone have any info regarding how good venezuela is supposed to be?

they've never made a world cup and they got 8th in their group in south american cup qualifying

which would make them better or worse than morocco?

worse. morocco almost made the cup

goal.

convey (i called it) to ching

you're right, convey is getting better as the game goes on

1-0 at half

if venezuela is worse than morocco its not by alot. Morocco almost qualified in africa where three of the top teams got put into one qualifying group(egypt, cameroon, ivory coast) causing a dilution of the rest of the groups. Venezuela plays in the Conmebol which is a much more difficult qualifying situation.

I think the overall difference is effort, we look like we are working way harder than the last game...

^^^^^^
Very true. It looks like we're playing with alot more effort

Does anyone have any predictions about how long Bruce Arena will stay on as manager. He's already been manager longer than any other manager on a world cup bound team. They keep interviewing and giving camera time to the assistant coach (Glen Myranick or something like that). Wonder if Bruce is setting him up for a promotion.

Sports Illustrated had a pretty lengthy article on Arena about a month ago. It said he would probably stay on for 2010 World Cup. After that, probably kicked upstairs to oversee US soccer. I'm parphrasing some bigwig when he said, "Bruce can stay mgr as long as he wants. He's earned it."

We've all heard that he has one cap as keeper. He was All-American in college. But he was attending college on lacrosse scholarship. He was also All-American in lacrosse. Neat article if you haven't read it.

2010 would be nice. I hope you're right.

Gooooooal. Dempsey header from EJ.

That was best buildup on USA goal in two years. I'll bet we had 15 passes in that series. Donovan made nice run to break thru and feed EJ. What a beauty!

EJ just got clobbered going up for header. I think each team has 4 yellow cards. Game is getting very physical. I'd think about using more of our subtitutes soon.

questionable 2nd yellow card on bocanegra.

Questionable 2nd? Hell, the first yellow was questionable. The second yellow (and consequent ejection) was completely uncalled for. Ref was on a power trip.

Overall, much better effort tonight, even if it was mostly the 2nd team. Convey, in particular, was awesome. I'm happy. We'll see how it goes on Sunday.

i think convey looks much better than beasley at this point...he may be close to earing a starting spot...that being said i was sure taylor twellman was going to be on the squad this year...arena is unpredictable

And what the heck was Bradley doing out there? That was crazy.

Ref handed out too many cards, but at the sametime never had solid control of the game. I said I liked Clint & Bobby at mid today and they got one goal and one assists. I also called the game 2-1 (close enough). I haven't been this accurate in predicting a USMNT game since Mexico in 02WC! Latvia will be 3-1, you heard it here first.

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Questionable 2nd? Hell, the first yellow was questionable. The second yellow (and consequent ejection) was completely uncalled for. Ref was on a power trip.

Overall, much better effort tonight, even if it was mostly the 2nd team. Convey, in particular, was awesome. I'm happy. We'll see how it goes on Sunday.

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I missed the first yellow but I had no problem with the 2nd. You lead with your elbow into a challenge and catch the guy in the jaw first with said elbow, you'll get a card. A Moroccan got a yellow for a similar challenge so at least he was consistent.

Overall though, was pleased with the game. Convey is playing his way in front of Beasely. It looks like Beasely isn't quite as confident as he has been and Convey is taking on defenders left and right. Albright proved to me why Cherundolo starts and Bocanegra didn't look right at LB. Please stay healthy Eddie Lewis and don't forget you do have to defend a bit more now.

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You lead with your elbow into a challenge and catch the guy in the jaw first with said elbow, you'll get a card. A Moroccan got a yellow for a similar challenge so at least he was consistent.

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From a former referee's perspective: Boca didn't lead with his elbow, he is just taller and jumped higher. He didn't do it intentionally. There's a big difference. It was a foul, sure, but very few refs would give a card for that. Especially a second card. That shouldn't make a difference but the unwritten rule is that it requires a little more for the second card. Since I don't even think that challenge warranted a yellow card in the first place, I think the ejection was out of line.

Albright wasn't great, but I don't expect much from him, anyway. Same thing with Conrad. Neither of them would be on the squad if I were in charge, but they both did ok tonight. I actually thought Boca looked fine on the left, but as I have said before, he is a much stronger center back. LB is just not his position, but we're really thin now, and I think he's a serviceable backup to Lewis.

Since Wolff is apparently incapable of scoring goals anyway, I don't see why we haven't tried him at the attacking mid position earlier. As I predicted, he was much more involved, if nothing else. Ching did a good job with Convey's ball that he put in the net, but he was out of position on a couple of other plays that could have been good chances. EJ was ok, but he's just never been the same since his injury. I wonder if he'll ever really be back.

[This message has been edited by tool (edited 5/26/2006 9:48p).]

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From a former referee's perspective: Boca didn't lead with his elbow, he is just taller and jumped higher. He didn't do it intentionally.

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I guess that's the difference. It looked to me like he did, but I've never reffed so what do I know. In any case, I guess we know who'll be playing 90 minutes at LB Sunday.

Well, maybe it was intentional, but I didn't see it that way. Of course, I was drinking in the pub at the time, so what do I know.

I also thought it was intentional. I think anytime your elbow is as high as shoulder, it's intentional. Regardless, we shouldn't be blaming the ref. It was a stupid play. To sum up...

Ref is giving out cards to everybody.
You already have a yellow.
You're team is winning 2-0 with 5 minutes left.
You're going for 50/50 ball at midfield.

Why bother giving the ref a chance to book you? It just wasn't smart. Same with Beasley. Balboa criticized Beasley for this.

i wholeheartedly agree with the comment on albright. i'm afraid if we get in position to have to use him against the teams in our group. i really think that game could have been close if venezuela had the talent to finish some of those opportunities we gave them due to defensive lapses. i also have been disappointed to not see beasley develop into the star that i thought he's had the potential to become. he's still playing sloppy, albeit probably partially due to playing with some speed, but i would have thought someone would have fed him and shown him the weightroom since the last WC.

i didn't think our LB looked all that bad aside from not being able to keep up with his man. he did manage to keep him outside for the most part at least.

Lets focus on what was right...Onyewu is a beast...he may get red carded during the world cup...but he is still a bad man

I was very pleased with Convey's play. I'm most excited about him this summer. He's grown up alot. He's not kicking every shot over the goal. And he's learned how to cross nicely.