USA vs Ghana

Cut and pasted directly from an e-mail I sent after the game. Viva Australia!



Oh that was horrible.
Bad call or no bad call, what the F**K was Bocanegra doing on the play leading up to the penalty. All he has to do is knock it into touch and have the US regroup for the throw in. Instead he skies it and heads his own ball into the penalty area. Reyna's error on the first goal was also stupid; he should have slammed the ball up the field. Those were rec league defending errors.
In general, I thought the selction was totally wussy. In a game where you need service and you need a win, why do you put out that lineup? Why do we wait until the 60th minute for a second striker? If Arena didn't trust Johnson, go with Wolff who has speed, experience and some nice touches. Why have Bocanegra on the back line in the first place when you've trained Lewis as a left back? Start Lewis behind Beasley, let Beas go forward on runs and draw defenders and let Lewis serve the ball to two targets. Sure it's a riskier lineup, but you know, we _needed to win_.
And the frustrating thing was that Ghana was nervous as f**k in the beginning. If we had played a high pressure game in that first half, we'd have never let them get into a rhythm. Arena used to tell his teams to do that... what happened?
And the other frustrating thing is that Italy won! 1-0 would have sent us through!
So bad coaching and bad playing. Dempsey did well in this cup and so did Convey, Cherundolo and Conrad, but that's about it.
My suspicion is that Arena is out, with the candidates to replace him being Jurgen Klinsmann, Steve Nicol, and whoever gets fired in the next week or so.