BearcatSA

Come the moment, come the man, so long as he concentrates on making the right decisions and trying not to do too much on his own.

I didn't see your comment before I replied but I tried to clarify my thoughts in a later post. You can feel that you are the stronger team but you're also not going to get yourself caught out when you know what guys like Buchanon and Laryea can do off the counter. They will be cognizant of that when they have possession, especially much closer to our p.a. Like any team, they will want to win this during game time but they don't want to be playing catch up because they tried to force the issue and got burned. They will try to create as many chances as they can from open and set plays and not simply "hope" for a counter.

I made a mistake in posting "parking a bus" because it was the wrong term. I think it is more of a cagey, counterattacking game we'll be seeing from them where they won't play a low block but won't be caught out for numbers on the defensive side, either. This will be an excellent test. Can't wait for the game. Cleared my sched to watch!

I guess we'll see what the architect of the 8-1 drubbing in Honduras nine years ago has planned: the vastly experienced Suarez will likely be pretty pragmatic in his approach.

They played a comfortable defensive shape here in Edmonton in 2013, sitting back and allowing us wonderful 20+ pass sequences that resulted in no scoring opportunities. And then they got a penalty and won. I don't see them opening it up: they would probably want to be compact in defence then expose us off the counter.

I hope so, too, but we need to be realistic here. The odds seem pretty high. That's the nature of knockout round tournament play. A problem emerges for us with Hoillet because I am not convinced he can go the full 90 and extra time and yet he is probably our best penalty taker.

I thought Hoillet looked pretty good out there vs the States and I hope that he can continue the pace in partnership with Cavallini up top. The Ticos have shown in the past that they can park a bus with the best of them (a run to the QF at the 2014 World Cup stands out) and I don't see anything different happening here because I think they are going to look to expose us on the counter and then settle for penalties. And with that, I am curious to see how our team has prepped for that scenario.

Gawd, that is a bad team.

For you people who value whoscored.com, Nerwinski (7.7)and Valentin (7.5), the respective RBs, were the only two players higher than 7.

He'll be playing like his hair is on fire for this one. I'm sure our resident memes specialist can come up with something featuring a huge chip on a shoulder.

Zzzzzzz Two teams with little craft. Hopefully things pick in the second half.

Watching his reaction immediately after the play brought back sad personal memories of two blown ACLs for me (each knee). Even though I could walk off the field with the second one like he did, I knew it was blown the moment it happened . He probably knew that immediately with his knee, too. I wish him a very speedy and full recovery.

Relying on the analytics without the context of watching the match makes for challenging assessment.

That was definitely a "clanger" pass on that one.

Lots of responsiblity to go around, for sure.