US v Sweden friendly

[mmbt0ne]

Starts at 11:30 pacific on FSC. Hopefully I'm not the only person bored and home here who is going to watch it.

US has 4 matches left this year, 3 of which are in Europe. I think that's a great move by Bradley to get the guys some experience over there.

Roster is:

Goalkeepers: Marcus Hahnemann (Reading, England), Tim Howard (Everton)

Defenders: Carlos Bocanegra (Fulham, England), Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover, Germany), Jay DeMerit (Watford, England), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard Liege, Belgium), Jonathan Spector (West Ham, England)

Midfielders: DaMarcus Beasley (Glasgow Rangers, Scotland), Michael Bradley (Heerenveen, Netherlands), Bobby Convey (Reading, England), Clint Dempsey (Fulham, England), Benny Feilhaber (Derby, England), Pablo Mastroeni (Colorado)

Forwards: Landon Donovan (Los Angeles), Charlie Davies (Hammarby, Sweden), Kamani Hill (Wolfsburg, Germany), Brian Ching (Houston), Sal Zizzo (Hannover, Germany)

[iamawesomer]

I totally tackled Kamani Hill about 6 years ago when he was playing for Berkeley High. It was sweet.

[Daysleeper]

GO SWEDEN!

We have a more or less complete squad lacking Ljungberg and Isakson(golie)

[TheRover]

Benny Feilhaber (Derby, England)

Wait, how the hell did I miss this happening?

[iron81]

Why is it noteworthy that you missed it?

[TheRover]

Because I shouldn't have...? What the hell kind of question is that.

[Spaderess]

[ QUOTE ]
GO SWEDEN!

We have a more or less complete squad lacking Ljungberg and Isakson(golie)

[/ QUOTE ]

and Alexandersson ... and Linderoth ... and Anders Svensson.

We're basically missing half the regular starting lineup.

Edit: Sweden have a very good team, but we lack depth on a couple of positions making us very dependant on a few key players.

[ThaSaltCracka]

only caught about 5 minutes. Hopefully the US gains some good experience from those 4 games and the 1 against Brazil. The results are meaningless IMO, experience is key. Sounds like Psycho Zlatan was a handful in the first half. Good to see Sweden get up for a big matchup with the US :P

[bpc009]

Hahnemann has really impressed me this year for Reading. He just amazing against ManU.

Thought about making the trip from Sthlm to Göteborg to see this match, but then I thought better of it. I meant what's the point really? Still, I would've liked to see the US team in action.

[mmbt0ne]

Some thoughts on the game

-Sweden was a very tough match for the US. We like to play an aerial game (not quite English long ball) because there really aren't the playmakers to do much else. Unfortunately that game plan doesn't work well against a team of giants.

-It's a shame we didn't get a result, but US played well enough to tie, and could've won with some luck.

-The young mids made a lot more mistakes than I thought they would. Bradley and Feilhaber both made some plays that I never saw them make in the Gold Cup or Copa America. I don't know if it was nerves, but both of them clearly need more practice at this level.

-The old guys, on the other hand, did pretty well. Beasley and Howard were top 2 easily, Dempsey had some great touches, Donovan played well in the flow but still is subpar on set pieces. Onyewu played very well also, especially considering his assignment.

-The young forwards looked pretty good in short time. They have a little of the ability to run at defenders and dribble around them, which is nice.

-I think Bobby Convey had his right foot amputated because he never used it once, no matter how awkward that made his pass.

-The big 3 things the US was missing on this team were: playmakers, long shot ability, and strong tall forwards who can finish. Considering the best 2 targets on set pieces are Boca and Gooch and they're the 2 central mids, that leaves the US wide open to counters. In the first half it was so bad since Mastroeni can play withdrawn mid and basically hang back, but when Benny was trying to play that role it was obvious trouble.

-Thankfully, those 3 gaps can all start to get filled with Adu, Altidore and Clark. By the way, why the hell wasn't Clark called up for this game? Was it really better to bring 5 forwards?