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Originally Posted by EEich
Group of Death? Are you kidding me? The US lost to Ghana. We would have got our asses kicked in the Group of Congestion and Sore Throat.
Landon Donovan = Bode Miller minus the booze.
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I agree about Landon--he can't play a damn outside of MLS. But I thought Clint Dempsey looked good. That was a great goal. He'll be in Europe soon, IMO.
Yeah, we lost to Ghana(have you seen Essien play at Chelsea? I don't think we have anyone that good on the field...). Ghana beat us AND the Czechs. We tied Italy. The Czechs beat us. Italy beat the Czechs and Ghana. The point is
all 4 teams we're good. No Iran or Saudi Arabia, no Togo. Compare our group to Mexico's-they got through beating Iran and tying Angola. The other group that looked like the group of death had Argentina and Holland, but only those two teams played ball. Our group went down to the wire, and could have had other teams going through. So it goes.
We obviously need to replace Reyna and O'Brien in midefield, Pope in the back, and McBride up front. We really need more size and toughness all over the field. BUt I think there are good young players coming up--Jonathan Specter is one; Freddy Adu is another, and Clint, Beasley, Donovan (if he can get some balls out there!) and Eddie Johnson are young. And Tim Howard is the real deal. We have 4 years to build--hopefully a lot of guys will go to Europe to get some seasoning, and the MLS will continue to improve. I thought maybe Arena could have gone younger this time, but I can't see taking McBride off the pitch, and Reyna, when he healthy, can control a game. It would have been nice to pull this one out, but it would have been short lived: For their reward, Ghana get to play Brazil. BUt, hey, you never know in the knockout stages. What an upset that would be.