US-Jamaica

Well that was all a bit crap wasn't it?

Arena's praise of the Jamaicans was well merited; they worked continually at disrupting the US flow, and overall they were very successful at doing so. In fact, the most dispiriting thing about the whole affair was our inability to find a rhythm at any point in the match. I couldn't hear the commentary (I was at a bar), but it seemed from the captions that Marcelo Balboa was going on about how the Americans had reassumed dominance in the midfield after a difficult opening period. Possessional dominance maybe, but the Jamaicans always controlled the tempo of the game; no one on the US side could slow the game down and work a creative build-up. The result was an frenetic, artless affair, full of sound and fury, but signifying (and producing) nothing.

Given these circumstances, it's really no surprise, therefore, that the player of the match should be Ben Olsen. Olsen did well because the Jamaican strategy suited his natural game: he was able to match them by running around, working hard, making some tackles and providing some energy. It was a nice performance, but what we really needed was a player to dictate the pace of the game and inject some creativity. And no one could do that on the US team tonight. The Jamaicans did a nice job keeping Noonan and the unlucky Ralston on a short leash.

The strikers were pretty forgettable, but then there was very little quality service. Sometimes Wolff or Johnson went out wide to receive passes, and I thought these moments were the most promising. Otherwise, Arena faces the same conundrum at forward that he's been facing for the last half a year. I suspect he's leaning towards moving Donovan up to partner McBride and bringing in an in-form midfielder--Dempsey or Convey-- to the starting XI.

Chris Albright looked good in the box--maybe some coach should try and convert him into a striker.... Actually, Albright did his roster chances a power of good simply by being a better Frankie Hejduk than Frankie Hejduk. Bearing in mind he's a wing back who can play in midfield or even up front, Albright may well make his way to that Cup roster after all.

Speaking of which, there was the strange decision to announce a provisional 35 man roster today, followed by the equally strange decision not to announce it after all. I haven't the foggiest what that was about, other than someone realized that provisional rosters are all a bit pointless.