GC: Canada vs The USA - Sunday, July 18th, 5pm Eastern / 2pm Pacific - Kansas City

[JohnnyFranchise]

2 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

It was the more subtle homerism.  The Dan cole method, you remember... it would be deep into the 2nd period before you realized that the Habs werent playing the game by themselves.  Lafleur with an excellent rush, Belevieu is skating magnifcently, what a great block by Robinson, big save Dryden, Tremblay and Gainey are working so hard out there. Oh and the score is 2-0 for the black hawks.   

i don't even know who dan cole is 😆

but i don't mind homerism, as long as they are complimentary when the other team makes a good play, which i felt like the fox guys were today.

[JohnnyFranchise]

4 minutes ago, ag futbol said:

Nah, if you’re going to list who’s responsible for that it’s Fraser first for doing such a half assed job on his mark, Laryea second for pinching in and completely forgetting the wide player. 
 

With play shifting that fast and guys failing to make the play, defending that far post run was always going to be a challenge.

yah, as soon as fraser did the fly-by everything was keystone cops back there

[gator]

1 minute ago, JohnnyFranchise said:

yah, as soon as fraser did the fly-by everything was keystone cops back there

And as they said on the commentary "Piette usually comes out with that ball" !

[JohnnyFranchise]

2 minutes ago, gator said:

And as they said on the commentary "Piette usually comes out with that ball" !

yah, i was on him at first look but when i watched it again it was just a tough bounce for him, he made a good challenge.

[trc2014]

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that I think the US losing Zimmerman really hurt them.

[Floortom]

It has to be said that we showed a strong mentality after conceding within 20 seconds and being dominated for the subsequent 15 minutes. On the road, we could have easily collapsed like we did in Orlando in the 4-1 loss. Experience like that will be valuable in the Octagonal. Really hoping we can get (at least) another 2 matches against good opposition in this tourney.

[Cheeta]

47 minutes ago, JohnnyFranchise said:

miller is the kind of player we need in there to neutralize a guy like dike. he's got the speed advantage and the strength to battle with him for 90. i thought he handled him incredibly well today.

Give you that.  Miller is a long term project but he had his priority correct tonight.

[Kadenge]

Miller and Fraser both need lots of MLS minutes before they can start for us in the Ocho but this GC was partly to develop depth for our extended squad so..

[CanadaSantos]

1 hour ago, Kadenge said:

We were missing probably 7 starters but the US were without their starting 11. I don't care how we played in the 2nd half or after the goal you simply cannot give up a goal after 20+ seconds.....you know the pressure is coming for the first 10 mins you start with your wingbacks defending and holding the fort initially. It's time to go back to a back 4. We simply don't have 3 CBs that are good enough to all start but we now have lots of solid fullbacks and wingers

agreed. I absolutely hate this 5-3-2 formation because as you said, we don't have good cb's. So it either your wingbacks are to pushed up and leave the back 3 isolated with a lot of space to be exposed, or our wingbacks stay back defending and making it difficult to go forward with no width. This formation is only useful if you have good cb's and we don't have that. The game changed completely when we went to a 4-4-2 formation. I really hope herdman sees this and just sticks with this formation from now on, if we continue to go with 5 at the back i think we will continue to be exposed when going up against good teams.

[Ruud]

2 hours ago, dyslexic nam said:

I am curious what the homer commentators on Fox have to say about the way the game is going now. By any reasonable measure we have been the better team for a while now.  

 

1 hour ago, Atlantic said:

Maybe it’s a loser way of looking at it but USA are probably just as likely to win the Gold Cup as Mexico are and we played them pretty well the entire game albeit we didn’t do much in the final third to score besides a few chances. We needed to play a team that was going to push back at us before the knockout stage and we’ve got that experience in us now. 
 

Watch back the film, see what needs to change and prepare for the next opponent. 

Seeing this performance, Mexico should win the gold cup easily.  Maybe Another team in the finals!  US B team cannot reasonably beat Mexico !  On a similar note i would say B+ Canada cannot beat the Octo teams and will be very lucky to win next Saturday.  This long delay is a bit painful for guys like Larin wanting to get back to their pre season. 
 

[SoccMan]

1 hour ago, JohnnyFranchise said:

there is zero doubt in my mind fox told them they had to get the game in so it didn't interrrupt their network schedule. that would explain the non-use of VAR and the spare change injury time at the end of both halves.

Wow if that’s the case then and I can actually believe this , that would make this tournament a farce.

[Ruud]

Generally found little to disagree with from the Fox sports guys. Unlike the Fox News guys!  🥁.  They didn’t discount the fouls or chances of penalties and they complemented many of our guys including Ayo!

one goal for Canada would have really brought out the haters and boo birds - as it turned out they can always argue they bunkered down and got the result with only a few minor threats on their goal.  Oso’s chance disappointed me most. Such a nice build up.    

[Ruud]

1 minute ago, SoccMan said:

Wow if that’s the case then and I can actually believe this , that would make this tournament a farce.

Game finished pretty early on fox so hard to make that argument 

[JohnnyFranchise]

3 minutes ago, Ruud said:

Game finished pretty early on fox so hard to make that argument 

iirc their timeslot for the game was 2-4:30pm (pst), game ended not long before 4:30.

[costarg]

Aside from losing tonight and the injuries, my biggest regret is now we won't see if Mexico would've intentionally finished 2nd to face us instead of the US, or if they'd go all in regardless of the next opponent.

[Gian-Luca]

1 hour ago, ag futbol said:

Nah, if you’re going to list who’s responsible for that it’s Fraser first for doing such a half assed job on his mark, Laryea second for pinching in and completely forgetting the wide player. 
 

With play shifting that fast and guys failing to make the play, defending that far post run was always going to be a challenge.

Well Tajon himself disagrees with you since he took responsibility for the goal after the game and admitted he was asleep on the play. I don’t disagree that others on the team contributed to that goal - when a team is scored upon 20 seconds in there has to be a series of errors - my point is that all while is overall play continues to be super encouraging, he was culpable on the goal and will hopefully use it as a learning experience even for later in this tourney.

 

[DeRo_Is_King]

I will not criticize the team's performance tonight. Canada dominated this game. Extremely poor officiating is why we lost. 

[Ruud]

13 minutes ago, DeRo_Is_King said:

I will not criticize the team's performance tonight. Canada dominated this game. Extremely poor officiating is why we lost. 

Not finishing our chances is why we lost. With David and Davies and others, we make our own luck.  I think it’s fair to critique our finishing and our opening minute with this team.  4 or 5 big chances in front of goal against New England’s keeper.  Nuff said

[gigi riva]

Ya the reffing was not the greatest but at the same time we should have finished our chances we had 

[Floortom]

What chances are you guys referring to? At best we had a few half chances but certainly nothing clear.  I’m still waiting for the xG to come up but I’m going to guess it will be something like 0.8 USA to 0.4 CAN.

[Dr.Dre]

This sums up the refering from tonight.

[Stryker911]

Mls.com has some interesting player ratings. Fraser and Miller get top marks while Hoilett is the worst.

[narduch]

4 minutes ago, Stryker911 said:

Mls.com has some interesting player ratings. Fraser and Miller get top marks while Hoilett is the worst.

Fotmob has Fraser and Piette as our only players rated above 7.

[Floortom]

10 minutes ago, Floortom said:

What chances are you guys referring to? At best we had a few half chances but certainly nothing clear.  I’m still waiting for the xG to come up but I’m going to guess it will be something like 0.8 USA to 0.4 CAN.

Just found the xG and it was closer than I thought 

0.92 to 0.65

 

[An Observer]

3 minutes ago, Stryker911 said:

Mls.com has some interesting player ratings. Fraser and Miller get top marks while Hoilett is the worst.

I personally thought Miller had an exceptional match.  I was watching on Fox and didn't come on here until after the match ended was surprised at all the hate for him early on.   I think he is a great option behind Kennedy going forward.

I also a little surprised at the negativity of some of the posters here.  We played the #2 side in Concacaf off the park in their home park and that was after going down 1-0 on a brain fart the first 20 seconds which could have caused a lesser side to collapse.  We lost 2 players to injury up front in the process.  And we were missing 5 to 6 regulars who were are best players plus some other players like Millar and Adekugbe who could have seen the pitch.  Sure, they had a B- side but our B+ side was much better.  That bodes well for the future.

Yes, we didn't score and we need to improve in the final third to a quality team bunkering; and we need to not switch off like we did on comedy of errors.  But on most other days, we tie or win this match.  That is progress.

All that being said, wouldn't a Flores or Dias look good in the hole behind the strikers?  We really could use a creative no. 10 who could open defenses.  With Davies on the left and Buchanan on the right and David and Larin in the middle, that is the piece we are really still missing.  Hopefully, those two guys see that as with them on board in the next year or two once they develop some more, that would make a big difference.