USA vs. Canada Recap
The US men’s national team kicked off their Gold Cup campaign last night with a solid 2-0 victory over CONCACAF neighbors Canada. While the team looked comfortable for most of the match over a lesser opponent, there were was a lot to take away from the game, both good and not so good.
Jozy Altidore netted the first goal for the US on an assist from Landon Donovan 15 minutes in, to give the United States a 1-0 lead. After listening to the post game last night and hearing some other opinions this morning, it seems as if everyone is back to jump on the Jozy bandwagon again. Yes, he did play well and showed some good signs, but lets face it. His goal would have been saved by atleast 90% of any other international goalkeepers. But he did score, and that’s all that counts. Plus he did assist on Dempsey’s goal to give the US a 2-0 lead, and held possession with his back to the goal well for the time that he had the ball. In the end, he did produce, and that’s all we can ask from him.
Juan Agudelo didn’t show much, and was eventually replaced by Chris Wondolowski in the second half. He did have a couple of shots on target which was nice to see, but nothing spectacular.
The midfield played a strong game too, but at times they didn’t look interested in attacking. Instead of going forward, it looked like they were happier passing it around in the midfield with little 2 yard touch passes. Dempsey was very good, scoring the goal and always looking like an attacking threat. On another note, it will be interesting to see if Bob Bradley sticks with Jermaine Jones for the next game against Panama, or if he comes in with Maurice Edu to start. Jones didn’t get forward much in the game against Canada, and was eventually replaced by Edu.
As far as the defense goes, there is still a lot of work to be done. Bob Bradley gave the starting nod to the pairing of Clarence Goodson and Tim Ream as central defenders, preferring to leave veteran Oguchi Onyewu on the bench. From what I saw, there were still some gaps and holes in the middle of the defense, and against better teams, like we saw with Spain, those opportunities would have been taken advantage of. There were times when the Canadian forwards would dribble their way past the defense and cut in on net with a clean shot on target. The outside defenders Cherundolo and Bocanegra weren’t at their best either, but both were good enough not to allow any major mistakes to happen and not let the Canadians score.
Furthermore, the American defense was lucky to have Tim Howard in net after he made some great saves toward the end of the game to keep the clean sheet.
After all was said and done though, the US got the victory and moves on to the next match. After Mexico thrashed El Salvador 5-0, and Costa Rica beat Cuba 5-0, the USA only managed to beat Canada 2-0. Most American fans were probably expecting a rout of the Canadians, but with the style of play the Americans played, 2-0 was a good result.
