SoccerAmerica - Ramos: Good moments weren't enough 02/19/2013

[REACTION: USA-Haiti] The USA scraped out a 2-1 win over Haiti in the opening game of the Concacaf Under-20 Championship Monday night in Puebla, Mexico. At the postgame press conference, Coach Tab Ramos admitted his U.S. team needed to play better.

“I think we have to play better,” he said. “There were some good moments for us, but we have to maintain that for a longer period of time if we are going to be successful in this tournament.”

Luis Gil and Daniel Cuevas scored to put the Americans ahead 2-0 after 25 minutes, but they struggled for much of the evening in Puebla and were very lucky to escape with a win.

Wilberne Augusmat pulled a goal back in the 49th minute, and Haiti pressed for the equalizer. It finished with a 12-7 edge in shots and 10-4 edge in corner kicks and was the better team throughout.

“Right after they scored the goal, there was about a 10-minute period where we really struggled to get the ball out the back,” said Ramos. “I think when we made a couple of substitutions [Mikey Lopez for Jose Villarreal and Jerome Kiesewetter for Gil] the game changed a little bit.”

3 comments

Kerry Solomon

commented on: February 19, 2013 at 10:07 a.m.

It's getting to be a habit with all US Men's teams...they always try the difficult pass or move instead of keeping it simple. They also lack a sense of commitment and toughness, something that was very evident when Ramos played.

Ric Fonseca

commented on: February 19, 2013 at 1:06 p.m.

Kerry, I completely agree with you! Though I don't remember seeing much of Ramos' play, I was very disappointed at our form, shape, and lack of definitive commitment from all the players that took the field. We are definitely not in top match-fit condition, our FBs were constantly beat to the ball, the Haitians obviously wanted the game more than we did, and to "parrot" what the announcers were saying, any team that faces the USMNT at any level is out to beat the pants out of us, no matter the composition-make up of the team. And I wonder if the viewers heard the crowd when Haiti scored? And how about when our GK took a goals kick or punted the ball? Our players also felt that by just wearing the US team jersey the opposition would shrink away, how many times did our players try to juke a defender only to be thwarted by not one but at times three defenders? Simple soccer will win games, and Ramos needs to whip the players into the right mentality and fitness.

Eric Dibella

commented on: February 20, 2013 at 10:21 a.m.

I thought we got dominated in the second half. It seemed like the Haitians were having fun moving the ball around so easy. It was driving me nuts. Was that guy on the left ever covered? Every ball that got switched from right to left went to the open guy on the wing who made our right back look severely lacking.

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