The Rapids have blanketed the heart of downtown Denver with burgundy and sky blue. It was a beautiful sight to see banners on Denver’s famous 16th Street Mall of Colin Clark, Conor Casey, Pablo Mastroeni, and Omar Cummings.
The banners said April 3rd, and we are all hoping that doesn’t turn out to be false prophecy.
Pat is one of my favorite dudes to interview. Great guy. Homes needs a haircut though.
The US played…”nice” for 85 minutes. “Safe.” You’d feel comfortable letting your daughter go out with that team. They even looked spiffy in their new blue kit with the white sash.
The team that played the last 5 minutes was lock your doors dangerous. If not beautiful, at least brutally effective.
Basics
For 85 minutes we never looked dangerous in the attack, save one shot. Torres made a nice turn and put a shot on goal that drew an “oooh” from the crow, the only time in the first 85′ our offense elicited such a response for the Dutch masses.
Beasley turned the tide with a glorious free kick that Bocanegra did not waste, putting it the back of the net. This unleashed some slightly crazy but very fun play by the US that saw them nearly equalize several times.
The US capitalized on uncharacteristic poor ball control by the Dutch defense in the 89th minute. Pedoya played an excellent give and go with Bradley and earned a penalty just outside the box. Beasley’s ensuing free kick left something to be desired.
To be fair, we are missing Dempsey and Davies, two key components of our attack. Altidore is not yet a player who can create all on his own. He needs to collaborate, and Findley was floundering before being replaced in the second half. Nonetheless some good play from our subs found us a goal and several good chances at equalizing, including another great effort by Altidore in the waning moments of the game.
Bummer
The refereeing was bizarre, especially in the first half. At times in the first half it seemed if the US came inside a 1 meter bubble of a Dutchman we were blown for disturbing personal space. Then we got the gift of a no-call for a blatant Bornstein handball in the box. Then a severe, late tackle that ended Stuart Holden’s night didn’t garner the much-deserved yellow card.
We can’t complain too much about the PK called on Bornstein with today’s football climate. However, the brilliant Wesley Sneijder made the most of it and easily could’ve completed the play. I sure get tired of all the flopping in European Football.
Stock went down:
Bonus
Sans Bornstein we were solid in defense. His needless PK gave up the first goal, then he was unlucky to have the 2nd deflect off his torso and go past a wrong-footed Howard. If we can get Gooch back in the center, shift Spector to the left, and leave Bornstein on the bench where he belongs, we have a solid defense.
If Gooch doesn’t get better…I have visions of Bornstein pulling down Torres or Tevez in the box.
Beasley put out a good showing and in my opinion earned himself at least a spot on the World Cup side.
Stock went up:
Backtalk
1. What did the US show you today? Did their energy at the end indicate positive things to come, or was it the last gasp of a disjointed team?
2. Whose stock went up, and whose went down?
International Soccer, Major League Soccer (MLS), US National Team
An email to season ticket holders from the Rapids confirms they have sent goalkeeper Preston Burpo, defender Cory Gibbs, allocation money and their natural third round 2011 MLS SuperDraft pick to New England. In exchange the Rapids acquired the rights to midfielder Jeff Larentowicz and midfielder Wells Thompson in a trade with the New England Revolution, the club announced today.
Great move by our beloved Rapids. Check out the Rapids website for the upcoming press release.
According to Bmer916, and Kyle McCarthy, the Rapids are finalizing a deal to send Preston Burpo and Cory Gibbs to the New England Revolution in exchange for Jeff Larentowicz (M/D) and Wells Thompson (M).
On first glance this seems to be an excellent trade. Larentowicz shared the midfield with Shalrie Joseph, though he appears to be more of a defensive midfielder (I’m still hoping for a Xavi clone). Thompson is called a “two-footed, wide midfielder” on the Revs website, and might address the need for wingers as I posted earlier.
Gibbs has struggled with injury and keeping his place in the starting XI with the addition of Baudet and Moor. Burpo is a great backup, but with a healthy Matt Pickens and young Steward Ceus in the wings, this is a trade that needs to happen.
To the puzzlement of this Rapids fans, and apparently to some Toronto FC fans, the Rapids have traded Jacob Peterson. From the Rapids PR, Colorado received “allocation money in exchange for midfielder Jacob Peterson. Per club and league policies, financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.”
From a great writer to the north, The 24th Minute:
This is a bit of a head scratcher. Peterson is a wing player, which we all know Toronto needs, but he’s a wing player that blew his knee out in the final month of the 2009 season. In Colorado it was expected that he might not be ready to play until August.
For me this is a head scratcher as well. As I discuss in relation to my interview with Gary Smith, the loss of Peterson as our final healthy winger had profound implications on our tactics. After losing Clark and Peterson, we were de-clawed. If I’m not mistaken, we didn’t score a non-PK goal after September 12th, or at least we scored very few. How can trading away one of our wingers do anything but hurt an already susceptible role.
HOWEVER. El Capitan Gary Smith is undoubtedly aware of this, and in his interview discussed the affect of losing wingers. I can only assume this money will go towards acquiring another winger, of an ever greater quality. My hope is we will also pick up a solid backup, a true winger perhaps later in their career. Training Kimura on the job, late in the season, to be a winger was not effective.
This is a tough one to swallow. Just 6 weeks ago we looked like winning the West was still an option. But injuries to our wingers left us unable to generate any kind of offense. We went from one of the most powerful to one of the dullest offenses in a matter of weeks, almost completely unable to score if you take out penalty kicks.
I’m sure others will write effective breakdowns of what went wrong, but I’m just a fan with a blog and I’m major bummed. It wasn’t supposed to end like this, and now the task is to make sure that next year it doesn’t happen for the fourth straight year.
Dear fellow Soccer/Football/Footy lover,
Isn’t it an amazing time to be a fan of the USMNT? A thrilling win Saturday booked our tickets to South Africa for the World Cup. May I gently point out that all 3 goals were scored by perhaps the 2 best players in the MLS.
Now before the nasty MLS hating comments pore in, let me address some of the types of MLS Haters
THE EUROSNOB
“The MLS is inferior to EPL and La Liga.” No kidding. We aren’t up to the level of a Russian or Belgian league either. For that reason, I’m glad we have TV so I can cheer on the Toffees or catch Barcelona’s beautiful interpretation of the beautiful game.
But may I gently point out that we do in fact live in the US of A. There is competitive soccer happening on the pitch every Saturday right here.
THE PRO-USMNT BUT ANTI-MLS FAN
“I still support our American players, but when they are in real leagues over in Europe” (this fan is closely related to the Eurosnob).
I too support Tim Howard (my favorite player in the world), Onyewu, and Davies on their European sides. However, it is an undeniable fact that the success of the USMNT is directly tied to the success of the MLS. Two reasons:
THE DON GARBER & MLS CRITIC
“_Insert your own rant against the leadership of MLS here._”
Does the MLS have issues? Yes. Of course. Are some of them frustrating? Again, of course. But two things
THE PERPETUAL COMPLAINER
If you are angry at the world for soccer not being as big or as good here, I get that. However, there are two ways to make a change. Top/Down or Bottom/Up. Whether the change is social, religious, athletic, or otherwise, changes that are bottom up ALWAYS have greater effect and a longer life.
MY REQUEST TO YOU
On that note (with apologies to Ghandi), be the change you want to see in the MLS. I’m asking all MLS hating soccer fans in the US to go to 3 MLS games a year. That will cost you less than a quality soccer ball, you will see competitive soccer, you will be part of bringing educated soccer fans to the pitch, and you will invest in the future of Soccer in America.
STOP THE HATING AND GET TO THE PITCH
(One Caveat: I am not as familiar with the USL or other leagues in the US, if someone would like to address this topic from their perspective contact me).
Major League Soccer (MLS), Rapids News and Analysis, US National Team
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