Shame On You, On-ye-wu
// June 18th, 2010 // Uncategorized
Heroic performance by the USA today. I usually only leap out of my seat to celebrate Uruguay goals, but I was up and at ‘em when Michael Bradley finished nicely from that terrific Jozy knock-down (what a perfect header). For those that say the USA should have won 3-2, they’re wrong: it should have been 3-0. The USA was dominant today, except for one man: Oguchi Onyewu. If they don’t advance to the second round, they’ll have him to blame. Let’s review.
First goal (see above). Birsa starts from inside the US box and drifts into midfield. The US midfielders, Bradley and Torres, have their backs to him — they know nothing about it. The other centerback, Jay Demerit, is covering someone else. Onyewu should follow Birsa, at least until one of his midfielders hears his calls to pick him up. (Hard with all those vuvzelas.) But Oguchi does nothing, and watches as Birsa drifts in, receives, turns and shoots. Watch the first replay from the bird’s eye view: Oguchi is caught napping.
Second goal (see above): about 15 minutes before the second goal, I emailed someone that Onyewu seemed shaken by the first goal, and was losing concentration. Namely, he wasn’t following the rest of the defensive line when they pulled up in the offsides trap. Now watch the second goal: Onyewu is an unforgiveable 10-15 yards behind the rest of the defensive line, blatantly leaving Ljuijankic onsides. Just horrible, horrible defending.
Sadly, the guy that paid for Onyewu’s mistakes was Jose Torres, who I thought had played well. Coach Bradley will look like a genius for pulling him off. Granted, Maurice Edu did play very well (and scored what should have been the game-winner), but Torres deserved better.
Regardless, what a couple days of action. Ever since Uruguay-South Africa kicked off the second round of games, things have been awesome. Mexico-France was terrific, and this morning Germany-Serbia was one of the most oddly fascinating games ever (in which the Germans played like Serbians, and the Serbians like Germans). Let’s hope the thrills continue.
Posted by Lazar
16 Responses to “Shame On You, On-ye-wu”
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I though that was a fantastic game. I was off of my seat and crossing the fingers for USA to not score the third goal. While I do think that the US deserved to win but was canceled by that horrific goal. You have to admit, in the first half, Slovenia was fantastic. The US got sucker punched and the first goal was great. However I have one question, a lot of people are giving me crap about not supporting the US even though I live here, I really don’t think that’s fair because I can support whoever I want to.
“Let’s hope the thrills continue.”
personally, i’m hoping the thrills continue to take a breather for the next 45 minutes. it’s half in the england/algeria game, and if both teams continue to play as poorly and the game ends in a 0-0 tie, i wouldn’t be too broken up about it.
Interesting, DAN. You can support whoever you want to. I didn’t support the US team for years. However, I do now, and it’s great. What turned me around is that the team became a lot more like the USA I know (people from all sorts of background, with funny names, etc.), and not just a bunch of rich kids from California. This new team is a lot more likeable.
ab, I’m with you. A draw would definitely help the USA (although I haven’t run this group’s possbilities yet). But what about Algeria? Not bad!
England really really disappointing, I don’t think England even deserves to play in the World Cup. At this point, I must admit that the best teams in the group are in order: USA, Slovenia, Algeria, and England. Absolutely disgusting.
Lazar, I agree with you too. I really can’t connect with the US team because there’s no one player I can really support. Brian Ching and Lee Nguyen are of asian descent but neither of them are in the squad and Nguyen is playing in my home country Vietnam. But I do respect the players like Dempsey and Tim Howard, who rise and play great football.
yay! 45 more minutes of unthrilling football compliments of england. it’s like a dream come true!
i’m really curious to see how this group shakes out… no one seems willing/able to take control. one the other hand, it’s nice that both of the final games will matter.
It’s amazing how bad England were. I want to give Algeria some credit, because they were great for about 65 minutes, but England… come on, now.
By the way, how AWESOME is the World Cup?
Great, this is the Tournament of Upsets, I must say. Suprisingly, the best team out of the tourney is freaking Argentina. Let’s just hope the Netherlands can pull that off too.
england are obviously total headcases at this point. they did great in their qualifying and had reason to be optimistic. then they were a little shaky in their friendlies leading up to the cup and, apparently, that’s all it took. there’s certainly a little bit of an air of inevitability about the way things have gone for them. i’m not sure if capello deserves blame or sympathy for how things have gone (though i’m leaning towards sympathy).
I must, I will, I shall come to the defence of the England team.
That was with out doubt the most brilliant Soccer display the 2010 World Cup has seen so far, Algeria out-witted by the magnificent Limey insightfulness.
I’ll have to go now as Doctor Rooney has brought me my hourly medication.
And before you think about it, yes he’s the one who you don’t know is actually there.
I just had this strange dream that England will draw vs Slovenia and USA will beat Algeria in the third game. Slovenia and USA qualify relieving at the same time a football nation who doesn’t really want to get rid of the legendary ghosts of 66.
And Algeria did look a bit dangerous in the 2nd half…
Yes, its an interesting World Cup. England must win, Germany, after beating the hopeless Aussies, met disaster in the second game vs the always unpredictable Serbs, ‘France are checking their return ticket and wait till Italy plays another match where they ‘re gonna create only two dangerous situations in front of the opponent keeper in 90 minutes.
And imagine that, as a AC Milan fan, i was actually thrilled when we signed Onyewu….
@Dan-Horrific goal? NO! Legitimate goal is what it was. If Slovenia had scored it I would have said the same. I am half German (and support the team as much as the US) and was horrified (sic) by the poor decisons by the referee, but Germany didn’t deserve a better fate due to the missed PK. Whoever is giving you crap is an idiot. In New York we have people from all over the world and it would take an imbecil to go into, say, a Chilean bar and challenge people because they don’t support the US. Need to find less stupid people to hang out with. Why can’t you support certain players? It is your choice, so you choose to not support players for some reason or other. I choose to support the US regardless of the backgroud of the players, rather based on their skill, effort, etc. Those who say you can’t choose to support who you want to are wrong. Your argument is what I would categorize as a red herring. It sounds as if you were actively rooting against the US, which is fine, you have every right, but so what. For me, I hope for just outcomes based on the play and refereeing, i.e. last World Cup the US got what they deserved. What was your question by the way?
Edit: horrified by the decision in the Germany-Serbia game (in my bracket I picked Serbia to win 2-1). Pardon the omission.
I spent most of the qualification cycle wishing Torres would get a look. For two decades now I’ve been waiting for us to produce players with the sort of vision and range of passing he brings.
But he did not exactly seize his chance. And he may well be through for this World Cup — Costa Rica deja vu.
Oh. Onyewu!
Interesting analysis here also lays the blame for the England goal in the first game on Onyewu:
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/06/13/england-1-1-usa-tactic/
You get the feeling he was reprimanded for being too far up the pitch in the first game, and then overcompensated in the second. Shows a real lack of tactical awareness. Unfortunate, because I really want to like the guy.
Maybe he’ll learn something in that extra year at Milan (It’ll have to be on the training ground, because he won’t be getting any playing time), and eventually we’ll have ourselves a genuine centerback.
on the second goal i largely believe bradley is to blame. look how he completely over commits and is left trailing the play because he gets over excited trying to recover the ball. the slovenians then shred our midfield with tons of now open passing lanes bradley and torres should be clogging and then onyewu puts the topping on the cake.