What a miserable slogan..
Well this group of death, even without Reus and a 100% Ronaldo, is still a group of death. This team cannot focus on skill to advance to the knockout stages. The team is in good form though, and if the team defends well as a collective unit then there is an opportunity to advance I think. I understand Klinsmann's ideas of playing attacking football, to "take the game to the other team," but this back four will get absolutely mauled by the viper attack of the Portuguese and the pure technical skill of the Germans if the 11 on the pitch don't focus on collective defense.
Some players that really stood out for me:
Finally Jozy Altidore was able to knock a couple in to help his confidence out.
Julian Green is not ready yet, and personally I don't feel he has warranted enough during the warm up friendlies to play more than a few minutes in the group stages. Even though he doesn't provide the same flair as Green, I would much rather see Fabian Johnson moved to the left wing and DeAndre Yedlin brought on at right back if a new LM/LW type replacement was needed.
I hope Aron Johannsson gets some solid minutes; he's been scoring boatloads of goals at AZ (then again, so was Jozy last year).
Chris Wondolowski is going to be a great option off the bench late in games.. he stretches the game well and gets into good spaces.. natural poacher with a good head on his shoulders.
Clint Dempsey better fix his body language once he's on the pitch against Ghana.. too many times I found him lazily dejectedly walking around when things were not going USA's way. Often times during these next three games, things will not be going our way, and he better find a way to channel his energy into a positive aura.
Alejandro Bedoya gave Graham Zusi a thing or two to think about the last couple weeks..
My best XI for Ghana...
------------------Altidore------------------
---Dempsey-------------------------------
-----------------Bradley------Zusi--------
----------Jones----------------------------
------------------Beckermann-------------
-Beasley--Besler--Cameron--Johnson-
Zusi's spot is probably the hottest in this starting lineup since Bedoya has played well in that position. If Zusi doesn't play well against Ghana, Bedoya takes that spots and keeps it. I personally think that Beckermann is an absolute necessity in this lineup. He is the most responsible defensive center mid on this team, and he allows Bradley an incredible amount of attacking freedom. I also think Dempsey has to play a slightly free role off of Altidore (rather than next to him). Altidore needs to take a lot more responsibility with his hold up play, as he can just about body up anybody in the world. However, he needs to cool his head and allow his teammates to get into the play, as the US will be defending for a majority of these games. He started to do this better against Nigeria as compared to Azerbaijan and Turkey, but he still has some distance to go if he's going to be influential in this side.
USA! USA! USA!