The Aftermath

Last night was not pretty.

Not only did we lose badly, even though the scoreline doesn't reflect it, but I proceeded to state (inaccurately mind you) that Onyewu had an OK night. Clearly, he did not. But let me defend myself a second before you too begin to jump down my throat. The context of that statement was relative - meaning that Onyewu, when compared to everyone else, was on par with them. Now, obviously from my statement above I hope you understand that it was all bad and every single player was poor. I certainly was not advocating for Gooch in any way.

Now to the real mess. What did we learn? First, the defensive picture is by no means set, but became much clearer after last night. Onyewu is out, Castillo is out, and Brooks is now likely out. This means the four center backs we take are Besler, Gonzalez, Cameron, and Goodson. Cameron at right back works in a pinch, but I'm personally more comfortable with Parkhurst there even though he stays home. That could be key against Portugal/Ronaldo since it could drop the odds of CR7 getting in behind our defense.

Perhaps the second most worrisome outcome from last night was the lack of offense and progressive possession. When we did have possession, we did nothing with it. Brooks had more touches than half our offense. Ukraine shut down the middle, rendering Kljestan ineffective and forcing Dempsey to drop deeper, thus separating him and Jozy, further breaking any type of link play between the two. Very rarely did anyone get high and wide which created congestion in front of Ukraine's goal and thus made it easier for the defense to close us out. This was somewhat surprising but true to form when Fabian Johnson starts on the wing. He is creative but he cuts inside on nearly all his runs instead of taking it higher and wider, which in this instance just created a mess since Bedoya did the same thing. Dempsey never really showed up, which was partly due to Ukraine's defense but Deuce didn't (couldn't?) help himself much by not getting into good positions either. His current slump is worrisome. It wasn't until the second half when Cameron started overlapping and pushing into the space behind that sparks on offense began to flare, but his crosses were ineffective. There was no building from the back - having your center back lob the ball up to the forward is not building from the back. For all his preaching, we truly have yet to see this from Klinsmann's side.

Lastly, Johannsson needs more time in the lineup - be it as a starter or a sub. Either way, we gain much more potency when he's sniffing around the box. He needs time to gel once more with Jozy and the rest of the crew. Come Brazil, Klinsmann simply cannot afford to put him in the game in the 85' and expect magic to happen.

It would have been nice to see more of Agudelo, Johannsson, and Danny Williams but that's gone like the wind. Win-less in 4 and we'll look to turn things around against Mexico next month. The start of good things to come!