Last night the USA played a World Cup Qualifier against Costa Rica at their place. Now, it is well known that our qualifying region has a reputation for being a tough place to win on the road. Each team (even ours) always seems to have a great advantage playing on their home pitches and in front of their own fans. So no one would have been surprised that USA lost last night 3-1, but what was surprising is the way they lost. It was perhaps one of the worst road performances in our last few World Cup qualifying campaigns.
I have never seen USA come out for a qualifier and just look completely unprepared for the task at hand. They were slow to balls, gave the Costa Ricans too much space on the ball, and never really strung together a decent attack. In fact, the score would have been 3-0 had it now been for a pity PK given to Landon "Five Head" Donovan. It was just a terrible performance that received many boos as I sat and watched.
Now USA must play Honduras on Saturday, which just became a must win. A loss would drop us out of the Top 3, with only 2 more home qualifiers remaining. We can not afford to lose any points at home as we will continue to struggle on the road.
My Recommendations for Honduras Game
- Start Freddy Adu and Jose Francisco Torres in the middle of a true 4-4-2 line up with Donovan and Altidore up top.
- Sit Beasley down. In fact, send him home. He is truly worthless at this point as he is not playing with any sort of confidence or much skill.
- Try Spector at left back. I know he normally plays on the right, but Beasley cannot play in the back and I will punch my TV if I see Heath Pierce or Bornstein at left back again.
- At about the 75th minute, insert Charlie Davies in the game to let his speed burn up Honduras. We really need to get away from trying to use a forward to simply hodl the ball up top. We need a more fluid way of playing because we are not creating chances in the run of play.
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