Jonathan Wilson: Mexico exploits porous U.S. defense

[Jonathan Wilson]

Breathless, frenetic, utterly absorbing: Mexico was a 4-2 winner in the Gold Cup final, a score line that didn't seem quite to reflect its superiority, yet so open was the game that the U.S. had enough chances to have itself won the game by a two-goal margin. This was thrillingly end-to-end, a game in which midfields barely existed, settled by the porousness of the USA's back four. In the end, it simply presented too many chances to Mexico.

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[Shay Given]

Brilliant game, one of the best I have seen in a long long time. Even worth f**king up my sleeping pattern for
Dos Santos Goals <3
You have to wonder how players like Dos Santos, Barrera and Juarez cant get games for there clubs but still but on performances like that.

 

[curtis290]

Brilliant game, one of the best I have seen in a long long time. Even worth f**king up my sleeping pattern for
Dos Santos Goals <3
You have to wonder how players like Dos Santos, Barrera and Juarez cant get games for there clubs but still but on performances like that.

Because we suck. Cherundolo is our best defender and when we lost him and put on Bornstein (maybe the worst player to don the US shirt the past decade but Bradley calls him up every time) that was the beginning of the end (3 of the 4 were partially his fault). Our defense is in transition. Cherundolo is old, Onyewu is now old and even slower than before due to injuries. Bocanegra is getting old. Demerit is old and ended up back in the MLS (although he's good enough to play for a lower-tier Premiership team). We have a few promising young defenders but none of them are quite ready yet. What's really scary is that Donovan and Dempsey are old now and probably won't be that good next world cup (especially Donovan, who relies a lot on his pace). We don't have any young players anywhere near their caliber. Altidore seems to be turning out to be a bust, and Adu just can't sort out his club situation. Losing Davies in that car accident was a tremendous blow because he's exactly what we need.

It was a typical US performance except with unusually terrible defending and a slightly better offense than normal (due in no small part to having a creative player like Adu on the field). Bradley and Jones in the middle were just awful and contributed nothing offensively or defensively. Thanks to pairing two box-to-box midfielders in the middle we never have the ability to maintain posession and we totally lack creativity and distribution in the midfield. We'd be such a better team of Bradley, Sr. would just for once bench his son, but we all know that will never happen. I know it sounds bad but for the good of the team I am praying Bradley, Jr. will get a bad injury and that some other guys will get a chance. But if that happened Bradley, Sr. would definitely prevent anyone auditioning from doing too well (probably not giving any one player consistent PT).