Wow. Being a USA fan right now is a real emotional rollercoaster!
USA, playing with 10 men for the last 10+ minutes just scored at
94:45 (out of 4 minutes of stoppage
) to manage a come-from-behind 2-2 draw against Costa Rica with all sorts of World Cup implications.
A very, very gutsy performance from USA after going down early 2-0 in the match against a very motivated Costa Rican side. After the big win in Honduras and Charlie Davies' injury I expected USA to be motivated and push for a win, and to be fair we created a lot of chances but our finishing just was not there tonight. Very frustrating. My biggest criticism is shaky defending. Our wing backs looked decent going forward, but the whole back four looked slow in defense, giving Costa Rica far too much time and space on the ball. Onyewu looked very rusty....he's riding the bench too much at AC Milan, and it's hurting his match fitness. I was excited about the move when it happened, but frankly for USA it would have been better for him to be back at Standard Liege where he was starting.
Jozy Altidore (friend and roomate of the injured Davies) clearly wanted to score a goal badly for his hospitalized teammate; for much of the match he was almost wild, sprinting after every ball and taking on three or four defenders at once. He showed pace and strength but not enough composure. His efforts were rewarded with an early yellow. I thought his finishing was a little wild as well -maybe a rush of blood to the head of what is still a young player. Like Onyewu, he's not starting regularly so match fitness may be an issue - physically he's there but mentally off a bit (but maybe we can give him a pass here because of Davies). To be fair to Altidore, he pushed
hard the entire match and created some chances with good passes and deft touches that
should have led to goals. All in all, he had a good showing.
Oguchi Onyewu went down with what appears a major injury towards the end of the match (
EDIT: very bad news, it's a torn knee ligament, he'll be out for several months), so USA were left with 10 men searching for an equalizer (against a Costa Rican side who had emphatically parked the bus), and we got it literally at the death, with Jonathan Bornstein heading in Robbie Rogers' corner. Oh, what a finish!
Jose Torres looked very sharp on the ball once again. Why Bradley doesn't rate him is way beyond me. He is rather small, and I know Bradley prefers bigger players, but we need his creativity and he is getting regular playing time at Pachuca.
Gotta give a shout out to Columbus Crew's Robbie Rogers (who pulled on the No. 9 shirt vacated by Davies), who was subbed in in the second half and almost got an assist with his first touch, and looked dangerous for most of the rest of the match. He and Torres shared corner kick duties, and I believe it was was his delivery that Bornstein headed home for the equalizer. I think he has a bright future with USA.
The result means USA top CONCACAF in WC qualifying, and, heartbreakingly for Costa Rica, they will now have to face Uruguay in a two-legged playoff for a spot in the finals. Incidentally, Costa Rica's manager and assistant manager were both sent off later on, so I assume they will be serving a touchline ban for their critical match against Uruguay.
All in all, it's a mixed bag. USA tops the group and preserves an undefeated home record in qualifying, but we've just lost two key players to major injuries. Davies will pretty much certainly be out until after the World Cup (and one hopes that it will be no worse than that) and Onywu will miss much of the remaining Serie A season, where he was frustratingly riding the bench anyway. Just more proof (as if we needed it) that USA still have much work left to do in their World Cup campaign.
It was always going to be an odd one... with the early end of our World Cup group (and our failure to qualify) we don't have a competitive international match until October 2010!!! But with the Old Firm still involved in Europe there were about a team full of call-offs due to injuries so it was really a 'B' team. I didn't watch the match (which was live on domestic TV - sorry England) but I believe it was 0-0 until 86 minutes. I was surprised Japan's ranking was 10 lower than Scotland’s, thought they were much better than that.
From what I have seen of Japan they are a decent side. They are small physically but look good with the ball on the ground and have pace.
Congratulations! Looking for a team to play in a friendly as a warm up???
We've lined up a fixture with Denmark already but I'm sure we'll play other sides too...just give us a ring!
