Game vs USA February 5th, Carson, California

[Keegan]

If there's one thing I would like to see more of it's long range shots.  We always seem to fall short of the box, so why not mix it up and lay off a ball to Johnson, De Guzman or Larin?  All capable long range shots at high levels... even if it doesn't end up in the back of the net maybe you win a corner and you're still on track.

[canucklefan]

13 minutes ago, Acid-Tone said:

What?

He was talking about height.   Mexico do not have anyone as tall as Vitoria.

Sorry then. I misunderstood the message.

[Soccerpro]

Will people still be talking about Doneil Henry's potential in 5 years?

[Acid-Tone]

That might depend on whether or not people insist on playing him out of position in 5 years!

[gigi riva]

Maybe  I  am  in  the  minority  here,   but  the  game  went  the  way  I  expected .   If  we  need  to  win  games  we  have  to  create  more  chances   we  tend  to  loose  the  ball   transiton  .   But   this  is  a  friendly     and  we  did   have   a  weakened  line up.   The  positives  I  can  take  are  the  play  form  Crepeau,  Froese, and  Vitoria .   Henry  looked  awfull   but  he  has  nor  played  in  a  long  time.  I  still for  the  life  of  me  why  Floro   does  not  call   on  Osorio,   and  Tiebert.

[shermanator]

Okay so my thoughts from the match.

1. Crepeau was man of the match by far. Too early to say he's the keeper of the future, but he has my vote for more starts, and more camps.

2. Of the outfield players, I thought de Jong was great defensively but not great going forward; usually he's the opposite. Vitoria was terrible the first 10-15 but after that he was not bad. That will be the best thing I ever say about him.

3. Henry looked great on some plays and horrendous on others. Was hoping for a better 45 from him. Good to see him on the pitch, but otherwise I thought he struggled.

4. Issey and Bekker are not even camp poutine quality. Bye bye to both. And I'm someone who's been more of a Bekker supporter of late

5. This was clearly practice for Mexico in 6 weeks, where we need to throw 9 behind the ball and bunker down. I didn't enjoy the game at all, nor did I for a second think we would get a result, and I think that will continue in March. Very different from the Honduras match. Blech.

6. Larin > Morris.

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

1 hour ago, gigi riva said:

 and  Tiebert.

Tiebert is recovering from surgery. He would have been there otherwise. Floro would have called him.

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

9 minutes ago, shermanator said:

 Issey and Bekker are not even camp poutine quality. Bye bye to both. And I'm someone who's been more of a Bekker supporter of late

Ya,  I think when we have a full and healthy squad neither of those guys make the cut.

 

9 minutes ago, shermanator said:

I thought de Jong was great defensively but not great going forward;

I actually thought the opposite; I think he looked a step too slow on the defence; Crépeau made the saves when he couldn't contain his marks and they got chances.

 

9 minutes ago, shermanator said:

1. Crepeau was man of the match by far. Too early to say he's the keeper of the future, but he has my vote for more starts, and more camps.

Agreed. We were chanting his name at Gracies in Ottawa. He may have won the 3rd spot from Simon Thomas. If Leutwiler joins us then Milan may play in March but I would want to see Leutwiler in a June camp.

[Coramoor]

Couple of things:

I'm pretty sure Floro defends so deep on set pieces because he'd rather use our height and strength straight on the ball rather than try and track runners through the box, it's not a bad strategy against so many significantly smaller teams. Panama only has 2 defenders over 6' for example and I'd guess that El Salvador has none.

I have no idea why Bekker is receiving so much shit, he looked better than De Guzman did in the second half. He'll probably get a few solid looks with the Impact this year, hopefully he continues to get better, he also looked a lot faster than he used to.

Crepeau is insanely good and hopefully he finds somewhere to play after this season because while I'd love to have a Canadian starting keeper in MLS, I don't think he'll be able to displace Bush anytime soon.

[Coramoor]

3 hours ago, Soccerpro said:

Will people still be talking about Doneil Henry's potential in 5 years?

he's a 22 year old central defender... at least give it a few more years.

[baulderdash77]

Overall I don't think we can be disappointed very much with this result.

We played the US "A" team to a scoreless draw right up to the end.  If we had our 2 best players (Hoilett and Hutch) and this was a 3 sub game, we would have undoubtedly played an away draw vs a much better team.  That kind of play gets it into the Hex.

Then tactics to have to play vs a much better team we played and it worked quite well.  

This was a good time up and there's lots of positives for us here.  

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Keegan said:

3 matches in Central America so far (Panama, Belize, El Salvador)... 3 draws.  We'll take that all day.  If we can make it 4 against Honduras we're in the Hex.

2 draws against Belize and El Salvador B (in a half filled stadium) and you feel satisfied? The Central America excuse doesn't even apply to those games because our opponents were so shit.

[baulderdash77]

1 minute ago, canta15 said:

2 draws against Belize and El Salvador B (in a half filled stadium) and you feel satisfied? The Central America excuse doesn't even apply to those games because our opponents were so shit.

If we can get and away draw vs Hondouras and a home draw against Mexico then a home tie or win vs El Salvador puts us through. 

Im more confident of our chances after watching this than ever before.  Under Floro we will grind out some points and get just enough.

 

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, baulderdash77 said:

If we can get and away draw vs Hondouras and a home draw against Mexico then a home tie or win vs El Salvador puts us through. 

Im more confident of our chances after watching this than ever before.  Under Floro we will grind out some points and get just enough.

 

My point is if we got that easy win we wouldn't have to worry about getting a result against Mexico.

[TOcanadafan]

1 hour ago, baulderdash77 said:

 

We played the US "A" team to a scoreless draw right up to the end. 

That was nowhere near the US 'A' team - they didn't have any of their European based players either.

[aloyol]

3 hours ago, Coramoor said:

Couple of things:

I'm pretty sure Floro defends so deep on set pieces because he'd rather use our height and strength straight on the ball rather than try and track runners through the box, it's not a bad strategy against so many significantly smaller teams. Panama only has 2 defenders over 6' for example and I'd guess that El Salvador has none.

I have no idea why Bekker is receiving so much shit, he looked better than De Guzman did in the second half. He'll probably get a few solid looks with the Impact this year, hopefully he continues to get better, he also looked a lot faster than he used to.

Crepeau is insanely good and hopefully he finds somewhere to play after this season because while I'd love to have a Canadian starting keeper in MLS, I don't think he'll be able to displace Bush anytime soon.

Agree about Bekker. Not sure why he is being scapegoated like that. I felt he was often quicker at releasing the ball than Julian who was caught holding it too long a few times. 

Crepeau is really good but like you said, he needs to find playing time at the club level and better than Montreal FC.

DeJong is inconsistent, he makes some great plays and then get caught completely out of position exposing our left side. Against Mexico he'll need to cut down on that or we might pay for it.

Anyways, it wasn't a bad game for us against a stronger opponent and let's not forget it's really early in the season for most of the players. We should be better in March!

 

[El Hombre]

1 hour ago, canta15 said:

My point is if we got that easy win we wouldn't have to worry about getting a result against Mexico.

There is no such thing as an "easy win" in Central America at this stage.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, El Hombre said:

There is no such thing as an "easy win" in Central America at this stage.

Pardon me. I meant  we should have taken advantage of probably the easiest Central American game in this round we had in the last decade and a half.

[Floortom]

8 hours ago, Acid-Tone said:

LoL

Where do you think Bekker was playing?

Because there is more to the midfield than Bekker. Bekker was much better than JDG who was abysmal. What did anyone else in the midfield accomplish? Bekker looked to be the only one who could even complete a pass going forward. Again, Bekker has no business even being call d up to the team IMO, but was the least of our problems last night

[Califax]

I didnt think there was much difference between Bekker and JDG. Both played decent.

Except JDG did the grimey ball moving blue collar work and Bekker had stamina an a level of finesse in the final 20 mins I previously handt seen from bim9. Whoever said he looked faster is right.

Ill also echo that Issey did SFA. 

 

[rightback]

9 hours ago, Scorpion26 said:

Honestly Bekker wasn't bad and should not be diss like that overall. I do hope Bekker can get lots of minutes this season because his vision is there just gotta get games under his belt. With more games his passing will catch up with his vision because I saw attempt some good passes just wasn't connecting on them.  

I totally agree with this. I've always liked the pluses that Bekker can bring. There were two or three pass attempts that showed very nice vision that just managed to be cut off by defenders or aren't anticipated by the forward. He's pretty good on a deadball and comfortable in possession. Unfortunately, his defensive abilities are poor, his ambitious passes rarely come off, and doesn't get enough shots on target. I think he would have really been a lot better off in a lower league where he could develop with regular playing time because I don't see him improving sitting on the bench. I also think this of Henry. These two have been playing professionally for years but they aren't getting better. A shame really.

[yomurphy1]

Am I the only one who hates watching Larin up top? He's a good finisher, but he just so nonchalant for 90% of the game. Watching Hume come in made me immediately happier.

[Keegan]

5 minutes ago, yomurphy1 said:

Am I the only one who hates watching Larin up top? He's a good finisher, but he just so nonchalant for 90% of the game. Watching Hume come in made me immediately happier.

I actually thought his workrate was really good early on, he was chasing down a ton of balls... he obviously was tired though.  

[aloyol]

6 minutes ago, Keegan said:

I actually thought his workrate was really good early on, he was chasing down a ton of balls... he obviously was tired though.  

His workrate was indeed better but he's still not that strong at holding the ball. He's young and I'm not sure it's fair to expect too much from him despite his excellent first season in MLS. 

[Floortom]

4 minutes ago, aloyol said:

His workrate was indeed better but he's still not that strong at holding the ball. He's young and I'm not sure it's fair to expect too much from him despite his excellent first season in MLS. 

He's really just a pure finisher at this point, with a whole lot of weaknesses. The problem is that we can't provide with quality service most of the time so his strength is kind of wasted. I wouldn't mind seeing cavallini get a chance up top.