Cruizn, the cavalry has arrived.

"Dempsey] hasn't made [same expletive]. You play for Fulham? Yeah, so? Show me you can play for a Champions League team, and then you start on a Champions League team," Klinsmann said.

http://m.mlssoccer.com/news/article/...his-salty-talk


Lol USA

So rosters released for Wednesday. Looks like a maintaining of a diamond mf with three up top and demps dropping. i say... finally. about ****ing time. when you have a plethora of DMs and no real creative threat from MF this lineup makes the most sense. We don't have the wingers yet though some have shown promise. Still, it looks like this is what we're going to get:

-----------Tim-----------

Timmy--Boca--GC--Fabian

-------Danny/Mo---------

-------MB90----JJ----------

-----------Clint-------------
Herc-------------Jozy------

It makes personnel sense. Though I'm not sure it makes sense wrt the situation of playing a road qual @ San Pedro Sula against a team who had some real successes in previous qualifying rounds and has a game plan pretty well suited to success against our lineup, especially at their house.

HON will likely pound possession and our FBs are going to be asked to do a LOT, especially if JK wants them involved in the offense at all. CBs are going to be tested as well. I have a feeling HON will look to get somewhere above 55% possession if faced with this lineup. That scares me for our relatively inexperienced defense.

However, the main strength of this lineup we field will be going forward, especially in transition. It may be a return to a bit of Bob ball with trying to bink one albeit with a more aggressive stance on the pitch.

At least JK is still aggressive and showing a willingness to morph formations around in form players. Let's hope variance is on our side. I think We're about 75% to get a result and 40% to get a win

Yeah, this should be fun. It's amazing how far we've come at full back at least, who would have thought we would ever be pointing to that as such a strength?

I agree that the above seems like the most likely lineup, and I think it's fine. Would prefer Danny Williams at the base of midfield. I'd be perfectly fine if that's how we lined up...and yeah it asks a lot of our FBs, but we have the best FB pairing we've ever had starting out there, and they're both more than capable of that much running, so I don't mind.

Another option I would like if he doesn't want to go with the diamond would be something like this (which admittedly is quite similar):

--------------------------Tim----------------------------
Chandler---------GC------------Boca---------------Fabian
-----------------Williams--------JJ----------------------
Gomez--------------------MB-----------------------Dempsey
-------------------------Jozy-----------------------------

With obviously Dempsey and Gomez being pretty interchangeable. Although I might like this lineup better with a purer type winger to play on one side, which we don't exactly have as of right now. It does seem like the perfect game to have a Bradley in the #10 role as opposed to Deuce. So much so that I would even consider playing Dempsey up top and playing Bradley at the top of the midfield diamond if he still wants to go with a diamond.

I wouldn't be too concerned about Honduras out possessing us though, isn't the pitch supposed to be pretty terrible?

JJ needs to go away. That's all I have to add for now.

This is going to be on dumbass bein right?

Yep.

i imagine rivers won't be dry. i'll hopefully be around for it.

Meh, I'm not his biggest fan, and hopefully he won't even be on the roster in Brazil in 2014, but he still has some value...and this game is right at the top of the list in terms of games he'll be useful for.

Also, just eyeballing the list, looks like 9 starters in major European leagues (the big 4) on this roster. Not bad at all, considering it wasn't too long ago when it was a huge deal for one of our players to even be on a roster for in a big 4 league in Europe, let alone start. That's also not counting Landy, Cherundolo, Holden, or any of the guys in mid-tier leagues in Europe as well.

Pretty cool.

Yeah, I guess I agree that if he's useful at all, it's for these kinds of nasty road games. He's on his way out though.

This isn't USMNT news but it is pertinent to American soccer.

Gus Johnson groomed as voice of World Cup by Fox

Tilt tilt, tilt tilt tilt tilt, tilt tilt tilt tilt tilt tilt tilt.

what do you mean tilt? gus is goat in basketball/football. I'm worried he'll be awful, but he could be great.

I love Gus Johnson in American sports. There is almost no chance of him being great.

Americans that know soccer tend to be still be ****ing horrible, because a) they all love the sound of their own voice (and Gus is even worse in this regard) b) Ian Darke is 10x more eloquent than all of them. This is why, after the abortion that was the 2006 World Cup, ESPN wised up and hired Brits. And, lo and behold, the 2010 World Cup was excellently commentated and analyzed and presented.

It's also a blatant gesture to the casual fan, and network gestures to casual fans tend to be exactly as condescending, idiotic, and misguided as one might suppose. Here's Dave O'Brien (baseball play-by-play guy, called into '06 WC to work w/Balboa) on his experience:

So Gus Johnson is not just Gus Johnson but also probably a sign that FOX is going to pander, pander, pander at every step, and fill in that boring crowd noise and atmosphere with human interest stories and yelling.

First time das boot has ever been in the wrong

(As a general note on these casualfan steps: I think America has taken significant steps towards embracing soccer. I think it's clear from the pattern of these steps that, when it comes to soccer (or anything, really), American consumers want the real, quality product. Look at the sudden rise of the EPL in the public consciousness, when the media myopically equivocated MLS success and the success of "Soccer in America" for so long.

ESPN, who are generally very competent and professional at broadcasting sports, recognized/s this, and has excellent soccer coverage for events to which they have rights. The 2010 World Cup got excellent ratings and excellent reviews from soccer fans and was generally a resounding success from a media POV.)

this post is completely nonsensical. I especially love the part where 'gus johnson' is used as something bad, the o'brien stuff used to slime gus johnson, and the silly anti-american generalizations.

Gus johnson could suck, but I love him everywhere else, so I'm willing to give him a shot.

The post isn't nonsensical and you're wrong. The NYT article I excerpted it from is pretty good at highlighting the issues with Americans commentating soccer in more detail. I'm not even really bothered by the American "full-of-sound-and-fury-signifying-nothing" approach in basketball or football the way this article is, but the points are still largely spot-on, and such an approach simply does not work in soccer.

And, even if you disagree with the themes addressed, there's still the hard facts: Americans are consistently awful when they call soccer, and the average Brit announcer you hear in America is many times better.

Boot,

Look, we loved the GOOOOOOOOOOOL guy here in the US even though we couldn't understand him. Was better listening to him do a spanish broadcast in the late 1990's/early 2000's than the english-speaking broadcasts. Gus is the GOOOOOOOOOOL guy only better. Look, he's a polarizing play by play guy, but it could be epic.

Has anyone heard any of the Earthquakes broadcasts he did? I assume he'd be pretty terrible out of the gate, but would be interesting to hear a review.

Will allow for the possibility that I'm being a little overly pessimistic.

Not gonna be long before Gus gets his first serious test, though. AND I'LL BE WATCHING.

@Clark below: yeah, part of my initial reaction was definitely due to finding out that Gus will be doing a bunch of important games over the rest of this season, not just the World Cup news.

Link to one of his first games

So, the play by play is terrible, maybe worse than terrible, but each call was better than the prior one. As his ability to anticipate gets better, he could be quite exciting to listen to. Given 6-years to prepare will he become good enough at the pbp? I don't know, but willing to let him try.

Haha, excited for Gus Johnson. He'll be bad to start but he'll get there and end up pretty good. Is he really going to call the Man U/RM game coming up? That's going to be awesome.

I mean, can you imagine if he was on the mic for Landon's goal? omg

Not that I necessarily disagree, but think it also bears mentioning that Darke's call of that goal was amazing and iconic in its own right. (Rewatched it just now. Goosebumps. Pretty sure it's the sporting moment of my lifetime so far.)

Maybe Gus hits a slightly higher note right as the goal goes in, but it's about so much more than that: the way Darke lets the buildup breathe, the excitement and intensity creeping in; then, immediately after the release of the goal, the way he steps back to let the moment stand on its own. Magnificence.

I highly doubt Gus can ever reach Darke's level for soccer, but I think he can do well. TBH I'd enjoy hearing him cast non US games and would prefer someone like Darke for our games, but that obviously isn't going to be the case.

Regardless, the true disaster here is the WC being on Fox. I continue to hope that ESPN eventually buys the rights anyway. Especially if some years down the road it appears at all likely that 2022 will be played here.

New uniforms. These are sweet.

what the **** the game is during the day?

.......

why