USA England review

Many of the reviews, particularly by foreign commentators, on the 1-1 draw between the USA and England have focused on England keeper Robert Green's mishandling of a Clint Dempsey shot.  But there was a lot more going on than just a simple keeper error, for one thing, the error wouldn't even have mattered if we had not held England to one early goal. Here are some other ways to look at the game:

* The balls used in the World Cup are unlike any we play with.  The way they are stitched and grooved makes them incredibly responsive.  A bend bends more, a bounce can cause an unpredictable movement, a poorly struck ball looks even worse than it would with a store-bought ball.  Clint Dempsey said after the game, "These balls move so much, you just hit them on goal, you have a chance." Keepers have it particularly tough at the World Cup, and in the last week Howard and others have grumbled about how the balls for this Cup are tough to predict.

* Wayne Rooney didn't touch the ball for the first 17 minutes and didn't touch it in the box until the 70th minute. I think this should be seen as the big news from this game.  Cheers to Bob Bradley's coaching and the US defenders for basically taking this top striker out of the game.

* In recent World Cups, when the USA has gone down a goal early, they have kind of fallen apart.  England scored in the 4th minute.  In the 29th minute, Howard took a cleat in the chest, and was clearly in a lot of pain and might have to come out.  How did we respond?  We scored in the 40th minute, and increased our pressure, coming close a few times to scoring a go-ahead goal.  Cheers to the US team's determination to believe in themselves and play hard the full 90 minutes.

* Back to the US defenders.  Steve Cherundolo shut down attacking-midfielder James Milner in the opening 30 minutes and then shut down his sub Shaun Wright-Phillips. Cherundolo also drew several fouls in the first half as he made fast runs forward.

* The US starting defenders were, from left to right:  Bocanegra, Onyewu, DeMerit, Cherundolo.  All had solid games, DeMerit may have had the most costly lapse.  The England goal by Steven Gerrard occurred when Gerrard made a run in the box and US midfielder Ricardo Clark lost his mark on him.  US defender Jay DeMerit allowed his mark, Emile Heskey, to complete the through pass to set up Gerrard's goal by not getting pressure on him sooner.

* Both teams played a 4-4-2 (four defenders, four midfielders, and 2 forwards/strikers).  The next US opponent, Slovenia, also played a 4-4-2 in their 1-0 win over Algeria today.  Slovenia and Algeria are the other two teams in our group, so Slovenia now leads our group of four teams with 3 points from their win today.  The USA will play Slovenia this Friday, June 18 at 10am.  Getting a win would hold Slovenia at a total of 3 points, and would give the USA 4 points total (a win plus a draw).  It is likely that England will win their Friday match versus Algeria which will give them 4 points. The top two teams of the four in our group advance, so after Friday, we will have one more game each.  Best to enter that third and final group game in at least second place and in a position to advance!

DID YOU SEE:  When the U.S. had a couple of corner kicks, the ESPN cameras showed the battle to get position in front of the goal between Altidore and Rooney. It was fun to watch.  It was also interesting that they brought Rooney back to mark Altidore because of Altidore's strong physical presence.

AN AREA FOR CONCERN: The U.S. passing accuracy was 66.8 percent, its second-lowest total since the stat was first tracked in 1966. Since 1966, only seven teams won a World Cup match with a passing accuracy lower than 67 percent. In the 2nd half, England's passing accuracy was 82 percent and the US passing accuracy was 62 percent.

This post was written by Brian Herbert