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UmlSA 5 : 0 Norway
Well, that was fun. After mocking Taylor Twellman for his inability to finish in the Canada game, he grabs the hat trick. ESPN-2's coverage was decent, the Home Depot Center was well groomed, and the US primed to attack. While the competition may not have seemed like much, it is important to remember a few things: First, this is primarily our C-Squad, trying to fill out the bottom 3rd of the lineup. Second, this same Norway team was edged by Mexico only 2-1. For those that saw that game, Mexico was having difficulty with Norway's physicality and Noway's counter was much more effective. The UmlS Defense was much stronger, contained Norway the entire game, even against tough players like Arst (whose goal against Mexico saw him brilliantly fight through a tackle before sending a ball to the near post.)
From the DCU perspective, it seems difficult to see any player making the World Cup squad. Santino Quaranta subbed into the game and promptly disppeared in a game where pretty much everyone else was getting their number called. He then managed a professional foul yellow card, and overall it was the kind of performance that lends ammunition to Quaranta's critics. Ben Olsen played an excellent, urgent game despite being a second half sub. His name may not end up in the scoring table, but the US's fifth goal (!!) was set up on some nifty play he had from the midfield all the way to the Norweigan goal line. It was a good performance for him, but may be lost in the general strong play that the UmlSA demonstrated. Which is a problem for all of DCU's players that didn't play, in that the rest of the team clicked fairly well.
If this doesn't seem like a big deal, recall the histrionics after the nil-nil draw against Canada, where various amateur commentators thought proved that the MLS players were clearly inferiour to anything in the world. Now that's clearly not true, provided that the rest of the world is playing a U-23 team. Still, that's progress.
Your updated odds of DCU campers going to Germany:
- Santino Quaranta (Odds - 5:1, prevously 3:1)
- Ben Olsen (Odds - 5:1, previously 6:1)
- Brian Carroll (Odds - 10:1, previously 8:1)
- Freddy Adu (Odds - 30:1, previously 20:1)
- Bobby Boswell (Odds - 45:1, previously 25:1)
posted by D @ 7:11 PM
3 Comments:
I really liked the way Dempsey played on the wing...but does he have the workrate? He can really dice people up...cross and score. We need someone dangerous out there.
There are some real good young US players...I didn't realize that Twellman was that young(McBride's eventual replacement?)...and others looked good also.
Man..what a total ass whooping... I've never seen the USMNT dominate a match so easily.
What the hell was up with Mexico then? Yes Marquez, Borgetti and the Chivas players didn't play but dude...Norway was TERRIBLE...it's shocking that Mexico didn't beat them easily.
Just one more time that one up Mexico....it's fun.
That was just embarrassing for Norway. Great for the US, but man, every time they scored- it was like, how much worse can Norway get? Fun game though.
Matt: Dempsey did good things, one of which was running a lot. If he can keep that up, he's got a shot. And if Twellman can score, perhaps he can come in for McBride. As for Mexico, yeah, they didn't have their best (neither did we) but I think there were a few things going on: 1 - Their back line was capabable, but not efficient. 2 - They really let the fouling by Norway get under their skin. Arst got the goal for Norway (Valencia, who started, was shut down pretty effectively). The thing was that Norway just seemed to be able to move through the midfield when countering with surprising ease.
DCSportsChick: It was fun, wasn't it? I can't remember a time when I felt sorry for a team to have to play the US in a friendly. Yay!
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