on the bright side at least we wont have to suffer from sub-standard yard care next week

Bradley being on the ball often is not a problem for me. I thought he was the best player we had all tournament, which quite frankly is disappointing, not because I don't like him (I do a lot), but there were plenty of guys who played a lot more often throughout their club seasons. Jones was also good. Agree with the rest though.

Meh, he still has the job. Getting to the Final was enough. It was always going to be tough versus Mexico so we can't fault him for the result. I am guessing right now that he will be our coach all throughout WCQ and the WC.

It was a home crowd. LA is Mexico.

Yeah, that doesn't tilt me at all (though JJ probably should've attacked the ball instead of marking the trailing guy).

GIF of Dempsey drilling the crossbar would work better. Figured it wasn't our day at that moment.

I have no idea what evidence you could use to support 'he can't control the team'

Bradley also did fairly well tactically in this tournament.... so yeah, I'm confused.

At this point, Mexico is just plain better. Coaches don't win matches. Players win matches. Mexico had better players. They scored more goals. They won. This isn't on Bradley. Hiddink, Mourinho and Sir Alex lose with USA today too.

I'm still encouraged though. I think Mexico is good enough where anything out before Quarterfinals at WC2014 is a failure and a semis birth isn't out of the question. I can see them getting 25+ points in the hex this cycle. As long as we take care of the Hondurases and T&Ts of the world we'll be fine. Getting out of the group is still the goal until we run across something special talentwise long-term.

Add in Chandler and Holden, 2 guys that are almost surely on the 2014 roster and this team ceratinly gets better.

Also time to watch the development of the guys in the back. Ream, Boss, Gonzalez, Opara (others?)... we simply NEED two of these guys to develop into solid CBs. Without good CBs we're going to get crushed by the Mexicos and Spains of the world. We beat Spain primarily because our keeper and 2 CBs played the match of their lives. We need to get to that level of quality consistently.

MF is still a serious pool of good quality that if one or two guys can make a leap could make us seriously dangerous in the future. Bedoya has improved immensely in the last 18 months or so since I started watching him, especially wrt work rate and defense. He's learning how to use his speed as a dangerous asset. I'm not ready to write off Mixx yet. He may be Feilhaber 2.0 when all is said and done but there's hope for more. And even if he is only that, that's still depth we can use in qualifying. Adu with confidence is dangerous. I wonder how special he can become. He just seems so ****ing little and not necessarily very fast. His positioning was the best we had all tourney in that AMF role though and he wasn't shy about running into space to provide outlets for MF connection to the front which we sorely needed.

Up top this is a crucial year for both Altidore and Davies. They both need a leap soon. The former to another level where he's consistently developing SOME kind of identity up front. The latter to keep working to get back to the level that made him so vital to our offense pre accident. As much as we love Agudelo this isn't his cycle. Kid is just too young. Love his toughness but he needs to start playing instead of sitting the bench and that's probably too much to ask of any 18 y/o American striker. Even for a team like NYRB. In fact, I think it's asking too much of Altidore and Davies to leap too. I just don't think they're committed enough in one case and healthy enough in the other. Interested to see if Bradley is comfortable using this 6MF thing with Donovan and Dempsey up front in the future. It certainly created a few chances tonight.

Lichaj and Bedoya were both revelations at this cup. Both of those guys are capable of starting on a winning CONCACAF qualifier side and being dangerous today. Overall, the same issues abound. We have trouble defending, especially from attacks on our flanks, and trouble finishing during the run of play. If we can get those areas from Ds to Bs we're going to be a solid top 20 team and capable of playing with the best on our good nights. Also a shot at competing to win the hex. And starting now that's what it's all about.

lol who is USA #13 and wtf is he doing?

I don't understand soccer that well, but my layman's take on the game from the stands was that Bedoya is a bitch, he seriously shakes palpably whenever the ball comes to him, obviously it was the biggest game he's played and he was nervous but watching him play was like watching Derrick Rose shoot free throws in the last minute. This isn't to say that he is going to be a bad player or anything, but he does have some growing up to do. Being nervous with the ball isn't something unheard of for us, unfortunately.

Jones was horrid. Beyond awful. I don't dispute that he had a good tournament, but he was absolute garbage for us yesterday.

Obviously was perturbed when Adu got the start, but wow was I wrong. Not sure I'm happy that Adu is a deserving starter at this point, because I don't think he's a great player, but he exceeded all expectations and surely is in contention for a squad spot now. He was working so hard, more to play for than others I suppose, but when he lost the ball late in the game and worked his butt off to get it back it was so impressive. Really sad to see him subbed at the end, no reason for him to go off while Jones' corpse was still in the game.

I don't think the US has gotten much worse, though we are severely lacking in depth, and if Bornstein isn't taken to the national team knackers I will cry, thanks for the surprisingly decent World Cup but he just can't hack it here. Mexico, however, is as good as I can recall, they have holes but they have so many quality players and I really think they're a full step ahead of the USA for the first time since the early 90s.

I meant it in the sense that he has to play with what we've got in the talent pool, not that his players do whatever they want.

Great game.

Shame we're losing Dos Santos.

From reading the last few pages ITT all I've learnt is Yanks really dislike Mex.

Oh, and you don't gain a sub for injured players

Well he doesn't have to play Bornstein. My brother is 30 with a busted knee but he played Division III college ball and I was asking Bradley if he could sub in as soon as I saw Bornstein get up.

Getting married in 100 minutes, hope it goes better than last night...

Don't particularly feel like reading through the whole thread.

Better team won though. And deserved their victory.

We were actually good going forward, even with Bedoya, Jones, and Bradley having poor games by their standards. So that was nice to see.

As we sort of predicted coming in to the tournament, we just weren't nearly good enough in the back, especially depthywise. Once Cherundolo came off we were dead. With him, we probably make the two goals stand up, but even then it's not assured, and extra time was probably a pretty likely result.

This more than any game, we needed a healthy Gooch (who was excellent in Azteca if you'll remember). Goodson and an old Boca just isn't going to cut it, especially when Mexico is smart enough to funnel every attack directly at Bornstein. Our only chance once Bornstein came on was for Howard to have a Spain/Argentina type performance, which he wasn't able to do. None of the goals were glaringly his fault but he'll be disappointed he didn't do better. It wasn't his best night, and some of those are saves he can make.

So we've identified the major problem for this cycle (although Lichaj looked good and obv Chandler is coming so all hope is not lost).

And there's actually some great things to take away from the tournament. The renaissance of Adu is really exciting. Bedoya and Agudelo got some great experience at the sharp end of a tournament (Ream too, and Lichaj etc). Jones had a great tournament (with the exception of a poor game last night) and should be ready to help us through qualifying. Bob Bradley was excellent all tournament, and I'm more confident than I've ever been with him coaching us going forward. We've finally found a system that works besides the antiquated 4-4-2. etc.

When's qualifying start again? I'm looking forward to it...

Meh, klinmann.

Unless someone volunteers to write a blank check or we fail to qualify for WC2014 Bradley is going nowhere.

(I just want this post somewhere that I can quote it about 3000 times until 2014)

I would prefer Bradley tbh. For the first time I feel like Bradley is going to do a great job for the whole cycle and I trust him.

After this cycle, regardless of the result, lets go find a top coach, I have no issues with that and Bradley can't stay forever (and I believe he wants to move to Europe).

Plus, it will make sense with the personnel we have, because 2014 will probably be the last WC for whoever is left of this current Donovan, Dempsey, Gooch, etc. generation (or at least the ones who make it that far). So let's let Bob get the best of that generation, while mixing in Lichaj, Adu, Bedoya, Agudelo, Chandler etc., and then let a new coach come in and start fresh with the younger guys.

kk done "trolling". This def felt like the type of game where Mexico could choke and they almost did, the USA just knew how to score with the couple chances they had. Excited to see where Mexico goes from here, dont expect much from "Copa America" tho.
Seriously dont worry guys, I mean yes there are a couple of old guys (you know who they are) who are pretty much dead weight atm. That being said come WCQ time you'll be fine

If USA wants to produce more players, they have to do something about all the foreigners on MLS teams. New York Red Bulls have 17 of its 29 players being foreigners. LA Galaxy has 10, Chicago Fire has 13. These are just ridiculous numbers. Cut the number down to something reasonable so more Americans get a chance to play on these teams.

Meh, I kind of agree with you Cruizin, but it's not that easy. If you put some protectionist thing in like X amount of players in the squad have to be American (or "homegrown" or whatever you want to call it) then I don't think you're helping much.

You're ensuring there are a lot of Americans on the bench, but clubs are still going to start their best players. Plus, you're weakening the product, and a strong MLS is good for American soccer.

The biggest move that needed to happen is the predominance of the Academy system. It's only just begun but it's by far the best reason for optimism. The college system is inefficient for producing top level talent (and I say this as a former college player and current college coach who loves college soccer), but now the best of the best of the best are getting high quality training in academies from a relatively young age (this needs to get even younger imo).

Nowadays, the most promising players are playing in academies, whereas when I grew up in the game (not so very long ago), that wasn't the case.

The elite among them can now skip the college route altogether and go directly to MLS (like Juan Agudelo), which is what needs to happen.

The Academy system will end up funneling a lot more American players into the league on its own, imo, it'll just take some time.

Instead of playing Bornstein why not put Onyewu in and shift Boca to the side? It's easy to suggest in hindsight of course, but I think you can make a pretty good argument that it was the better move knowing what we knew then.

silver lining: Adu might move somewhere that really develops him and gives him minutes against good competition.

The easier solution was just like for like with Spector.

That's kind of being results oriented though. Bornstein was fine in the World Cup, and Spector had been bad when he'd played RB previously. Pick your poison really, neither were good options. As it happened, he chose wrong but it's not like it was obvious at the time.

where would that move be though? he's still under contract to benfica. Hopefully he can push for a move to the dutch league or a lower side french team, but these two matches that he's played well in may not be enough to force a move

Bornstein is never the answer.

I even said at the time that I'd prefer Spector, so I'm with you, but I can see why he did it.

Also, that's a hell of a tough spot to throw Bornstein into having not played in the tournament and not been playing at all at club level. Sure, he had a nightmare, but it's not like it was unexpected.

He's just not an international quality player. I have nothing against him (like some fans seem to), it's just an indictment of the pool's lack of depth in the back that we were forced to rely on him.

stakman -- spector wasn't on the bench per ESPN during the game, so I was precluding that from the available options. And considering that Spector has been playing midfield most of the time that he actually got on the field for West Ham, I'm not sure it'd be a better call anyway. Boca plays on the side in France anyway, right? (edit: I believe Onyewu was mostly playing right back in Belgium this last season as well)

I'd be a bit worried about my defense's mobility with Boca, Goodson and Guch out there, but I would at least feel that I am playing the best defenders available.

KDawg -- i think Benfica would get rid of Adu pretty cheaply to anyone who made almost any offer. I have no idea where, but I feel like someone would have noticed him. Sure his value may have gone up a slight bit after this gold cup, but dude has failed to even get on the bench in greece, portugal and turkey.

The problem is Adu is making a decent salary at Benfica and nobody that will make an offer for him in the transfer window will offer Freddy a commensurate salary. Freddy is much better off financially sticking around Benfica and waiting to be loaned out while he still collects his bigger paycheck. This isn't the NBA. When a player is transfered he needs to agree to a new contract.