The Morning After: Thoughts on USA-England

Ladies and gents, it’s the morning after the USA and England fought it out to a 1-1 draw, and well, there’s probably a few things that happened in that game that are worth talking about. While it was clear that the goal for both teams was to pick up three points, both had to settle for the tie, which was certainly more disappointing for the England side. But we’ve plenty to discuss, so let’s get right to it!

– Let’s start at the start. When Ricardo Clark allowed Steven Gerrard to get behind him early, and score within the first four minutes of the game, it looked like we were about to see a rout of mass proportions. The biggest fear for U.S. fans was getting down early. This happened, but luckily, there wasn’t much negative after this.

– There’s no doubt that the game completely changed on the goal by Clint Dempsey. If a goaltender misses a ball the rest of this tournament (or decade), it will be known as a “Robert Green.” On what looked like the simplest of plays, England gave all the momentum to the USA. But as I said during the live blog yesterday, England was probably saved by the fact that this occurred late in the half. Had it been one of those things that happened early, there may have been another goal or two scored. Green was able to regroup shortly after that during the halftime break, which didn’t make it as bad as it possibly could have been.

– Not much to complain about offensively for the USA. They had their chances, and more impressively, they created their chances. We all know that this is a team that has relied on mostly set pieces in the past, but now we’re seeing Jozy Altidore create a whole lot more, which in turn is allowing other guys to create some great opportunities as well. Altidore fuels this offense and will continue to do so throughout this tournament. I had no problem with the choice of Robbie Findley to start the game, as I thought he brought some good things to the table in terms of using his speed to try and make something happen, but maybe in hindsight, Edson Buddle might have been the better choice.

– In going back to the defensive side of things, it wasn’t perfect by any means. It was improved though (after the fourth minute)…..or maybe it just looked that way because of the outstanding performance by Tim Howard. There’s simply no doubt that Howard put this team on his back, and carried them after that first miscue from Clark. He’s proving that he’s one of the best in the game right now, but there will be times where this team’s defensive letdown may be too much for him to handle by himself. I hope it doesn’t get to that point, as hopefully this defense can continue to improve throughout the next few games.

– The player I was most surprised with yesterday was Oguchi Onyewu. While Gooch wasn’t at the highest level we’ve seen him at in the past, he was much improved from the friendlies against the Czech Republic and Turkey. He was moving at a better pace, and was much more efficient in his challenges. This was a much-needed boost for the U.S. team, as when he’s healthy, he’s the best defensive player they have. He showed that yesterday, and while he’s probably a little sore today, I expect him to keep anchoring that defensive unit the rest of the time in South Africa.

– I was also pleased with the performance of Steve Cherundolo, who seemed to be absolutely everywhere. He made solid plays throughout the game, and honestly, coming into this game, I wasn’t sure how effective he would be. He’s definitely earned his place now though after a job well done yesterday.

– And now that Slovenia has picked up three points against Algeria, we’ve got a pretty big matchup on Friday. I don’t want to go worst-case scenario here, but a loss against Slovenia, and either the U.S. or England isn’t advancing to the knockout stage. But in watching the game this morning, it looked like one bad team getting the better of another bad team. Overall, the United States has the better team, and they must find a way to pick up three points. Anything less, and we’ve got a mess.

What did you think of yesterday’s game?