Tim Howard - 7.0 - he made I think 2 good saves, one on a header from Silva maybe and the other on a quick shot from Torres. He did make one horrible play on a cross that he got away with that actually made me utter, "that's the worst play Tim Howard has ever made playing for the US." The worst mistake Howard's ever made not even resulting in a goal shows how lucky we are in terms of keepers. Contrast that to England - I can think of several high profile keeper blunders off the top of my head - Robinson missing a back-pass, letting it go in the goal, Seaman letting Ronaldinho's shot float over his head in WC02, Carson letting Kranjcar's shot directly at him deflect in (resulting in England missing the Euro) - and I don't even watch England that much.
Steve Cherundolo - 7.0 - like Howard, only played the first half where we pretty much played Spain's first team even. He hardly got forward at all but he did a fine job defensively, reinforcing my theory that he can play at a high level against technical teams but will struggle against more physical ones.
Oguchi Onyewu - 6.0 - was one of at least four people partially at fault for the goal (Bocanegra, Heyduk, and Bradley are the others) but played pretty well otherwise.
Carlos Bocanegra - 6.0 - same thing as Onyewu. The two combined to not give Spain many clear chances despite lots of good buildup and possession. But I can't give our central defenders too high a rating when the one goal scored was a guy literally waltzing through the center of our defense, past both centerbacks with neither even making a challenge. Horrendous defending on that play (though nice run by Xavi).
Heath Pearce - 7.0 - I'm starting to like Pearce. He played very well against Brazil last year, was solid in a horrible team performance against England, and again held his own against Spain. He doesn't stand out much but that isn't necessarily a bad thing for a defender. He also seems comfortable going forward.
Maurice Edu - 5.0 - he seemed nervous in the first 15 minutes, making several bad passes, but managed to settle down after that. We really need either him or Clark to step up and take over as the ball-winning midfielder. I like them both but neither have really grabbed that position. I would also feel better about their development if they made the move to Europe from the MLS sooner rather than later, though I honestly have no idea if there's any interest in them abroad.
Michael Bradley - 4.0 - he made one great saving tackle in the box after my boy Cesc (man of the match) sent Torres through which is counteracted in my book by the dumb slide tackle from behind that was an obvious foul on the edge of our box and allowed Xavi to hit the crossbar on a freekick. I'm still waiting to see this goal-scoring prowess he's shown for his club because for these two friendlies, he has been relatively invisible offensively.
Eddie Lewis - 3.0 - I've liked what he's done lately for the national team but he was pretty invisible this game. He did send in one great cross that Johnson was unable to convert, which was one of our best scoring opportunities of the game
Clint Dempsey - 2.0 - horrible, lazy performance by Clint. What the hell is wrong with him lately? Hopefully he's just worn out from a long club season, where he was one of the few Americans to actually play regularly in one of the top leagues in Europe. His performance against Spain was typified by the play where EJ worked hard and made a nice turn before having the ball knocked loose backwards towards Dempsey; Dempsey had the chance to either play a quick ball to his left to Adu where he could run at the defense and potentially cause problems or screw the pass and run at the defense himself. What does he do? He freaking acts like he has all the time in the world, lazily jogs towards the ball before chipping it in the general direction of Freddy, forcing him to run backwards at least 15 yards to retrieve the ball. Way to go Clint. Bad, bad game for him.
Freddy Adu - 9.0 - I thought he was brilliant, close to faultless. Every time he had the ball at his feet, I was excited like no other US player has ever had me excited before. He was effective both quickly finding the key pass to potentially lead to goal-scoring opportunities and when a quick pass wasn't on, running at the Spanish defense in an attempt to create an opening .
He made several nice small plays, but there were three 'big' plays that had me drooling. First was his turn in the box after a throw-in that left his defender in the dust; I wish he would've gone for goal here but instead he opted to unselfishly find a teammate (and came close to connecting). Next, he made the type of defense-splitting ball that no other US player could ever see, slotting it perfectly through to EJ, who cooly finished but was unfortunately half a step offside (I particularly liked this play because this is the type of ball Cesc regularly pulls off for Arsenal). And finally he made an inch-perfect 40 yard through ball on his first touch that allowed EJ to do what he does best - run. This play was particularly impressive because we went from defense to offense (and an actual goal-scoring opportunity as Johnson got a decent shot off after beating Puyol, forcing a corner) in one pass and about 5 seconds.
The difference between having Wolff against England and Freddy out there against Spain was startling. As Jeremy put it, it would probably be about the same as the difference between having me come out of retirement to play or let Josh Wolff play (Josh Wolff is about the same amount better than me as Freddy is than him, get it?). Bottom line, Freddy needs to be a regular starter for the national team, effective immediately.
Eddie Johnson - 7.0 - Johnson again gave a hard-working, energetic performance. He showed off his finishing ability on that one offside play and also did well to force Casillas into saves on two half-chances. He did blow a good chance when he missed a point-blank header on a great cross from Eddie Lewis. He still isn't a game-changing striker but given good service, he can be solid. I am confident he'll be able to get goals in WC qualifying against weak Concacaf competition but against the big boys, we might need the $10 million Villarreal man, Jozy Altidore to come through ... and how about Jozy? He's still only 18 and has now shattered the MLS transfer record and is going to a club that finished 2nd in Spain last year, 10 points ahead of Barcelona...not bad at all.
Subs
Brad Guzan - 6.0 - he did fine, couldn't do anything about the goal and handled everything else.
Frankie Heyduk - 3.0 - the Josh Wolff of the defense didn't have his best game. He was the last man to challenge Xavi on his goal-scoring run and Xavi literally shrugged him off like he was a rag-doll. This is particularly disconcerting because it's not like Xavi is some big powerful man, he's 5-7 and probably doesn't weigh more than 160 pounds. Other than not making a goal-saving tackle, Frankie did manage to not clear the first defender with a cross (shocking! though this one did at least result in a corner). Not Frankie's best day.
Josh Wolff - 5.0 - now on to the real Josh Wolff. He came on for the last 20 minutes and I was watching him intently waiting for him to screw up, but surprisingly he never did. He actually did an ok job which reinforces my opinion that if he must be used (though I obviously don't think he must be used) it should be as a late-game sub to bring energy to a tired team. I think he could be particularly effective (effective being a relative term in this case) in this role when we're already leading since he is admittedly a good defensive forward.
DaMarcus Beasley - 2.0 - DaMarcus came on for Freddy and boy the difference was striking. I'm still confident that Beasley poor performances in the last two games have more to do with his long injury layoff than anything else...
Pablo Mastroeni - no rating - courtesy cap for Mastro. I don't watch the MLS so I don't know what the hell has happened to him. As recently as a year ago, I would've considered Mastroeni a first-team player for the US and now he is at best 4th in the center midfield depth chart. I guess his run is over; if Edu or Clark can do a reasonable impression of him over the next 2 years, (minus the rash tackles please) I'll be happy.
In all, the US's performance against Spain was probably 10 times better than our performance against England. For the first half, without Donovan, Altidore, or Beasley, we held our own against one of the most talented teams in the world and even looked dangerous on several occasions, mostly thanks to Freddy Adu. Honestly, if this game does nothing else, I hope it proves to Bob Bradley that Adu is ready and he becomes an automatic first-team choice over the next few months. In my opinion, the key to setting ourselves up for any type of run in 2010 will be successfully incorporating Adu and Altidore into our attack, finding the right combination of Bradley, Clark, and Edu (or Feilhaber?) in central midfield, and praying our defense holds up (since we don't really have any promising new blood coming up here). Adu's performance was so obviously brilliant against Spain that I don't see how Bradley could ignore it, so he should be forced to give him more chances.
Up next Argentina on Sunday (who just spanked Mexico 4-1...I'll be happy if we can at least score a goal in this one) and then qualifying begins with what should be a walkover home and home series with Barbados.
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