There's Your Karma, Ripe As Peaches

Look at the hands and how he's leanin. Look at all that exposure. Any fighter worth his salt would have connected with his chin on any one of his "moves" and that'd be all she wrote.

The kid's not bad but he aint polished enough to square up in a real match not built for hype (even with Angelo in his corner). That amateur record, with no Golden Gloves titles says it all. I know you know that. Youre a chick that knows her boxing. Why you pimp the video without pointing out any of the obvious flaws is confusing to me.

Not to nitpick, but this was Gooch's first World Cup game. He's only been on the national team for a little more than a year. Not exactly a veteran.

Nitpicking might make you feel better, Andrew but Gooch still played like he didn't know what day it was for 90 straight minutes. He's been playing international football for nearly four years and has been a key member in World Cups in U17 and U20 since 1998. He's not free of criticism. This isn't a guy fresh out of college and new to the stage. He's been in Europe since 2002.

I was the most disappointed in Damarcus Beasley. He is a player that has seen the semifinals of the Champions League - how could he not have been prepared for yesterday's stage? Like the rest, he was listless and uninspired, but I really expected so much more from him. Even when things started out poorly, I believed Beasley would prove his worth. I guess he left his game and his heart in Amsterdam.

I never meant to imply that I thought Gooch did a good job. It's pretty apparant that he sucked it up hardcore. Gooch might play in Europe, but I can't imagine the Belgian Jupiler League providing the same challenges as the World Cup. I'm in agreement with Rafa's thoughts on Beasley. He's probably the fasted guy on the team, and not once did he try to untilize his speed.

What's sad about Gooch is 90 minutes of passionless football likely cost him a few million in green. He'd become the most feared defender in the Jupiler, which isn't very impressive on the surface, but he'd played well enough to catch the eyes of the big boys. Until yesterday, he was the subject of rumors involving Manchester United, Charlton, and Middlesbrough - all teams looking for him to show a little defensive prowess on the world stage. But he shit the bed for 90 minutes and ran about like a scared little boy.

I'll not get into the poor performance of the US side cause much have made about the poor showing of the players in blogs and news sites everywhere. But people tend to overlook the coach, which baffles me greatly. He started off the game with a 4-5-1 formation which was he's attempt at choking the mid in order to slow the Czech's strength....hence asking Beasley to be more defensive. But that didn't work, so what did he at half-time, he switched to a 3-5-2 formation and in the process exposing the US major achillies heel - their defense.

Bruce Arena lacks tactical know-how and noticing/utilizing the strength and weakness of his players. So it is no surprise that the US has yet to win a game on European soil. He should take a page from the coaches of Aussies and S.Korea who made quality tactical changes/shifts that won them the games after being a goal down. If the US is to be a treat in world football, the States should start thinking about hiring an international coach.

And now can those football analyst hacks at ESPN, that's you Jolie Foudy (SP?) and Wynalda, can now stop with using the FIFA ranking as a means of stating how good a team is. Their doing so only shows how little they know about football as every football pundit and fan knows to ignore that ranking.

What's a bigger joke is that Julie Foudy was a key member of the US women's national team and she didn't have a goddamn clue.

Z25: No one is mentioning Arena (yet) because people just can't get past the shitty effort. Arena didn't do them any favors in strategy but he didn't stop them from playing inspired football either. But while I think the defense was bad, the midfield was the worst of all and that was our most talented part of the team and they laid the biggest egg. Reyna wasn't a factor, Beasley and Bobby Convey did absolutely nothing, Landon Donovan was non-existent until he made one effort when the game was out of reach. They had awful touch, passed like shit, never dreamed about moving into space, and dumped the ball back the ENTIRE GAME.

I can blame some of that on Arena but most of it, I blame on players. A coach can give you bad plays to run, bad formations, and bad tactics that set you up for failure. But you can at least go out there and say "let's try to make this happen anyway." They didn't even bother.

Gotta agree with that Dominic. The kid's just not that good but he's got himself a helluva promoter that's gonna rack him a lotta dough. You can't blame him for goin pro in a situation like his.

Tommy Z is a ND kid so I have to believe he's smart enough to understand that beating up on this "tomato can" as Flash so accurately described the guy [she was being very kind] is nothing to hang his hat on, or his professional career going forward. That guy was looking to go down faster than a Times Square hooker.....

Amen, Flash and other commenters. Never have I seen a team with so much to gain and so much to lose play with such a shithouse effort. I'm not upset that we lost - that's fine, but I'm devistated at the effort. I can understand losing to a better team - and Czech totally outclassed us. That heartless effort yesterday was inexcusable - Only an hour after Oz faught all the way back to 3 goals in the last 8 minutes.

What's worse is last night on the WWLiS's web site, there was a picture of Claudio with his hands pulling down his at shorts, scouring the ground for his pride and simulatenously above him was some "Beware" or "Don't Tread" or other such horseshit from Nike. Wound. Salt.

No way the US shows up for Italy. I'm calling a 4-1 smoking on Saturday - with Landon scoring a cheapie at 85 minutes to keep a lifeline on the myth.

As for Gooch, I hope he enjoys the Coca-Cola Championship League or the Bundesliga 2nd Division. He indeed cost himself millions with that exposure.

"Because Tomas Rosicky and the Czech Republic pissed all over this one." Now, that's not very nice! LOL I do like the coiled snake, but damn it is fairly pathetic that they were so dominated. I didn't catch much of the match, but I saw enough. :(

Thanks for taking the bad taste out of my mouth with a little boxing stuff though. Good times. :)

If he's not that good, then why is he playing pro? Just curious.

If by "he" you mean Gooch, it's not that he's not good, it's just that he had a really bad game, like everyone will eventually. Instead of just a bad game, though, it came against one of the best offenses in the tournament. He might have gotten by with one bad game against someone else, but a bad game against the Czeches makes him look like he had no idea what was going on.

What is it about playing on European soil that causes the U.S. team to suck so much ass?

Unless the U.S. actually wins a WC (or even make it to the finals) this country will never fall in love with soccer. Sure, every kid seems to play it, but they lose interest quickly. The game is too nuanced and too low scoring to keep an American's interest for long.

My suggestions:

1. Make diving a penalty (ala hockey). It really is pathetic.

2. Stop the guys from acting as if they just got shot when all they did was get tripped and fall down. All that does is make great athletes look like pansies. Americans like toughness.

3. Pump more $$ into MLS salaries -- the good U.S. players go to Europe for the dough and competition. The only way to increase competition stateside (and to get the interest of younger potential players) is to pay more. Maybe not MLB level, but more than the Arena-leauge like salaries most earn now.

4. If all that fails, maybe adding a few explosions during the game at random points on the field would at least get Americans' attention.

:-)

Just to be clear, I think that Gooch is a very good center back and belongs playing in an "A" leauge in Europe. It's just that that was the worst I had seen him play for our national team at a time when there are whispers about him getting a transfer to the Premiership (Middlesborough, Reading, maybe Fulham...).

I'm not even joking when I say that he looked hurt in that game. It's a shame because if he hasn't already signed a transfer and not announced it on the wishes of US Soccer, that game alone could have cost him his place.