[WORLD CUP 2014 CONTDOWN] Goals by Fabian Johnson and Clint Dempsey gave the USA a2-1 win over Turkey in their friendly at sold-out Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J.
The USA beat Turkey by the same score four years ago in its send-off series before the 2010 World Cup.Jurgen Klinsmann‘s team concludes its warm-up series with a match against Nigeria Saturday in Jacksonville, Fla.
June 1 in Harrison,N.J.
USA 2 Turkey 1. Goals: Johnson 29, Dempsey 49; Inan pen. 90.
USA — Howard (Guzan 46); Johnson(Yedlin 64), Cameron, Besler (Brooks 46), Chandler; Zusi (Diskerud 70), Jones (Beckerman 46), Bradley, Davis (Green 64); Altidore, Dempsey.
Turkey — Kivrak, Balta (Demirok 83),Dogan (Ozek 46), Gonul, Inan, Erdinc (Kisa 80), Sahin (Calhanoglu 70), Ozyakup (Adin 66), Tufan, Erkin, Camdal (Pektemek 64)
Att.: 26,762.
Dempsey, altidore, Cameron, zusi, and Johnson had good games, the defensive gaps on the counter from turkey were dangerous. When we play a diamond against a 4-5-1 that turns into a 4-3-3, the gaps between Besler and Cameron are apparent and the lack of midfield tracking was evident from jones and Bradley. Chandler, Brooks, and green should be replace by Donovan, Johnson, and Goodson.
I don’t know why everyone continues to coddle Altidore. He is horrible. Bring in Johannssen now. Bradley was amazing. The second half defense was worst than the first. No chance of Donovan making it. He pissed off Klinsman in 2009 when Donovan got Klinsi fired from Bayern Munich so it is payback time Hunden.
Altidore’s ability to hold the ball under pressure relieves pressure and attracts defenders, which gives Bradley and Dempsey space. Holding off defenders and giving others chances is part of being a good forward, especially when he is not scoring consistently. Johannson is not a target forward, he is a run off forward. In a 4-4-2 diamond, the secondary forward makes diagonal runs and the target is altidore.
At the 64th minute of our practice game against Turkey with U.S. leading 2-0, USMNT special assistant Berti Vogts in Mönchengladbach saw a 0-0 game of GER v. Cameroon with occasionally sloppy German defense and a lack of creativeness in offense. That game eventually ended in a 2-2 tie. [I was watching on ESPN3.com in parallel to the US game – and wished our ESPN would provide us with similar-quality match commentators for the WC!] What does this mean? Not much. But I believe GER has a better chance of straightening out their defense than Klinsmann has with ours. –After a brief but again unimpressive appearance by Green, I agree with some comments here that Klinsmann wants to cap-tie him for future competitions. Again, some here are better qualified analyzing our team’s performance. However, I’d like to make [a last, hopefully] appeal to all here, as well as the Soccer America staff and Ian Drake and others at ESPN that we drop the whining about Donovan failing to convince the USMNT coaching staff that he should be on the team! He had the best contract offer of any other US player years ago from Leverkusen but could not cope with Bundesliga soccer and went home after the first season. Bayern Munich did not even offer him a contract when Klinsmann gave him another chance more recently. With a couple of brief stints in the EPL, where he scored two goals in 17 games [according to Wikipedia] he still has NOT reached the consistent international game experience level as did: Lalas, Harkes, Ramos, Cherundolo, Keller, Friedel, Howard, Dempsey, Guzan and Bradley (Sorry if I forgot somebody). I should include other players with US roots such as Subotic, Ibisovic and Rossi, home-grown talents that our previous soccer development “system” could not retain for the USMNT. While I was a fan of Donovan in past USMNT games and in (internationally, at best the second-division quality) MLS, I thought it was a good idea to remind ourselves. — Perhaps we should concentrate our energy on improving the match (not necessarily the pregame and halftime) commentating at ESPN?! It sucks.
Green would have been cap tied with the Mexico match and the first two warm up matches had Klinsi held off on naming the team. I think the Green deal was more back room dealing than that. Klinsi made a deal to include him on the WC Roster if he switched. So he sucked up a space that somebody better could have had needlessly.
Thanks Mark. I agree, he should have stayed in Munich.