So we lost. Who cares really? Well, I'll start off with the "I do" chant now. Man, the US looked absolutely horrid in this game. Yes, they've been training for all of what, 2-3 weeks. Still, it's like these guys had never played together before. Except for maybe the last minute, did the US even put together three consecutive passes in the attacking half? I don't know if the players just didn't care, weren't familiar with eachother, the formation, who knows. All I can really say is that it was a pathetic display of soccer.
Should we have beaten Morocco 5-0 so we could get ready to own the world? Obviously that would have been pretty cool, but no, I don't think that was a likely scoreline. At the very least however, I presumed that the US team would at least look relatively world class. The timing was nowhere near good enough, the backline looked indifferent for most of the match, and the midfield couldn't string passes together if it were literally on a string between their feets.
I'll only briefly mention Claudio "Glass" Reyna. All I can really say is thank God his name isn't Barbaro, or he would have been put down 12 years ago. Is it possible for him to go a month without an injury? It's like his hamstrings are made of limp spaghetti noodles or something. Now, I know that Morocco "barely" missed the cup, but still, a loss is a loss. Who knows, maybe this will wake the guys up a little, or maybe Arena just told everyone to quarter ass it.
1 positive: There was a pass that John O'Brien made that was simply brilliant. 10th minute. He's got it in the upper left corner just outside the box. I think he has Donovan square to the center of the field. Instead, he slots it between two Moroccans towards goal. Unfortunately, Wolff broke late and the keeper snapped it easily. Why do I care so much about a pass in the 10th minute? Because it was a world class pass that no one else on the team would have seen, let alone tried. 99.9% of the time the ball is played square to whoever is at the top of the box. The D is cheating that way, chances are it gets blocked. But that .1% of the time, something great could happen. The problem is, we don't have enough players who make that pass. As a result, we have even less players who make the run, let alone make the run on time. If the US can get to the point where those passes become routine and obvious, I think I'll be happy with the state of US soccer.
