Across the internet I see the panic button being pushed after this match. Sure both the performance and result were not encouraging, but the back line thought to be the weakness of this side when the squad was named over two weeks ago now looks like a rock at the back entering the Olympic Games.
In the opening forty five minutes, Sacha Kljestan and Stuart Holden were both poor out wide as was Michael Bradley in the middle and Jozy Altidore up top. For all the accolades Altidore has gotten his play with the U-23 team has now failed to live up to the level he established with the U-20, four of the last five times he’s dawned the US jersey. As for Bradley his summer of misery continued with poor passing, bad spacing and clumsy challenges. One such challenge conceded a spot kick which accounted for the only goal in the match. Bradley is becoming more and more dangerous to the US squad everytime he sees the field. This is a far cry from the confident player we saw on the national team level a year ago and the player who tore up the Dutch League this past season. With Bradley, Holden and Kljestan on the pitch the US’ spacing was poor and offensive flow did not exist.
The second half was better thanks to Freddy Adu and Benny Feilhaber. Charlie Davies also looked like he could add some spark either up top or on the right side. As always Brian McBride gave a workmanlike performance and actually may have drawn a penalty that the official ignored. Marvell Wynne, Mo Edu, Michael Parkhurst and Michael Orozco were all outstanding at the back as was both Brad Guzan and Chris Seitz.
Work is left to be done but based on the two friendlies this should be the US lineup.
——————–Guzan—————————-
Wynne———Edu———–Parkhurst————Orozco
——————-Feilhaber————————–
Szetela—————————————–Rogers
———————Adu—————————
————–Altidore——–McBride—————–
Thoughts?
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