Filed under: FIFA World Cup, U.S. Men’s National Team, England, United States
Anyone who watched England play Mexico on Monday could see the warning signs. Missing John Terry, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole, the English seemed ponderous and lacked cohesion. The Mexicans were superior technically, had far more dangerous possessions and created good scoring chances from the run of play.
And England won anyway, 3-1.
The reason was their dominance on set pieces. Easy first-half goals from Ledley King and the towering Peter Crouch, both from corner kicks, demonstrated that the physically imposing and well-coached English don’t have to dictate play in order to win. That should sound a few alarm bells in Hartford, where the U.S. will play the first of three World Cup warmups on Tuesday evening.
We won’t know how Bob Bradley is approaching the friendly against the Czech Republic (8 PM ET, ESPN) until his starting 11 lines up at Rentschler Field. Only he knows how much time he’ll use to prepare his first choice players for South Africa and how much time he’ll spend evaluating the guys on the bubble. We all have a decent idea of who falls into which camp.
But we do have an idea of what we’d like to see on Tuesday. With one eye toward Wednesday, when Bradley likely will select the 23 players bound for South Africa, and the other on June 12 and the opener against England, here’s our wish list for U.S.-Czech Republic:
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Tue, May 25, 2010
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