Avoiding the Drop

At about 11:30 this morning I got a text message from my little brother informing me that the Brazil-Egypt game was awesome. I have that DVRed at home, so I watched the US play Italy this afternoon instead. Mostly because, quite honestly, that game had very little “awesome” potential.

Fortunately, this game lived up to every single sad ounce of underhype I tried to pay it in my mind.

To say that the offense of the United States Men’s National Team is “more impotent than a eunuch with a chastity belt on” is a disservice to eunuchs everywhere. And yes, I know, we were a man down. And that it’s hard to get some offense together when you’re down a guy. Fine.

But once again, the US failed to score from open play. Or, if you prefer, they failed to threaten from open play. Or failed to establish any sort of attacking threat in the final third. Or half. Or even the final three quarters of the field. The best strike of the day was a Dempsey shot around 80′ that Buffon handled with ease; past that, the US didn’t appear to threaten at any point. When they did start to threaten, they made sure they screwed it up at the end; just another pass, another player involved. If this were a play group, I’d congratulate them for being such good sharers. This isn’t a play group, though, and someone needs to be selfish just long enough to shoot the ball. Give everyone else credit in your speech later on.

Oh, of course, they threatened with penalty kicks. Jozy had a brilliant dive to get Donovan another goal, which probably prevented Donovan from getting a legitimate shot at a PK later on in the match.

That wasn’t the real shocker of the game, though. The real shocker: Tim Howard. I’m a Tim Howard fan, but today’s performance was awful. In fact, his last three games for the US have not been up to par for Howard; against Costa Rica and Honduras, though, you could blame defensive breakdowns for the goals.

Here, with the team down to 10 men, the defense actually didn’t fall apart. The first goal – a Giuseppe Rossi strike from outside the area – went over Tim Howard, who’d come too far forward off his line to make the save. The second – by de Rossi – was from just outside the center circle. Yes, Onewyu missed a clearance. That shouldn’t have mattered; the shot was far enough away that Howard could’ve tracked it. Even the third, in spite of being from point blank range, was saveable. These are saves I’ve seen Howard make, too; he’s capable. He just isn’t doing it right now, and on two of the three goals he looked more like the problem than the solution.

I haven’t seen Brazil-Egypt yet, so I’m not sure what we’ll be facing on Thursday. If it’s anything like this, though, than Spain is going to struggle to keep up with Brazil for the highest scoring team.