Can Kennedy dribble or shoot with his boots? Maybe it's just because he's basically up there on his own, but he looked lost when the ball wasn't to his head.

Valeri looked great, whilst Grella was guilty of plenty of stupidity. The lack of strikers in the squad worries me though. Griffiths and McDonald should have been there, and maybe somebody with some creativity in the midfield.

On the plus side, having to actually chase a game seemed to do wonders for our attack. We only nabbed the one goal - but we created a lot more opportunities than I'd grown used to. Our defense was shocking, but at least we looked like we were trying to create goals rather than just sitting back and waiting to grab them on the counter.

A wake up call. Hopefully it's given Verbeek a better idea of who should start.


What do you think about the FourFourTwo article USA Defeat Socceroos?
AUSTRALIA'S preparations for the World Cup hit a snag after slumping to a 3-1 loss to the United States in Ruimsig.

Have your say.

Can't help but feel Australia seems toothless in attack. No plan B.

I didn't think we looked toothless at all. We were creating plenty of opportunities - we just weren't finishing them. As I said, I do worry that leaving McDonald and/or Griffiths at home will hurt us. Those guys are knocking in goals left and right at club level, and while Kennedy's doing that, he can't be our only outlet up front.

And plan A is shit.

3-1 incredibly flattering. To us. Men against boys in a football sense.

But it's the World Cup and anything can happen. We could even score twice!!

I agree, we weren't exactly toothless in attack. Plenty of chances missed (Granted USA had better chances that they missed). Overall a pretty good workout.

Our defense looked pretty poor in the first half by a hyper aggressive USA team.

ahhhhh help? we shouldve lost 5-1 at least and this usa. grella was pathetic, hope jedinak or Valeri start instead. I rkn kisnorbo is a bigger miss right now than kewell or emerton

nothing will change, he'll continue to play mates regardless of their obvious used by date i.e Grella, Moore

I think taking off Cahill was a mistake. He shouldve gone off for Holman at least. Anyway I think Valeri should take Grella's place. And Garcia doesnt offer much.

All this means is that Pim will just be ultra-defensive for all 3 games no matter what the situation. We could be 0-1 down chasing a win and he'll keep it defensive.

It's amazing Pim goes to 4-4-2 after he leaves our best striker at home](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

The defence was really embarrassing tbh. That 3rd goal was disgusting we were at 6s and 7s all day and we were lucky not to be embarrassed.

The US really should have scored 4 or 5 with the missed open goal and the disallowed goal(That should have been allowed)

flying over in 4 days time. I'm worried!

Germany would've scored 6.

We now know what Pim's plan B is. Put Richard "Less usefull than Holman" up alongside Kennedy, and Culina into the AMC role.

Good work. Shame Australia doesn't have any top class goal poachers, or a creative flair attacking midfielder that could work better in those roles.

what happened to the cockheads bragging about how superior we are to the US


what happened to Pim's "we should be at 90% efficiency" BS statement

are we really 10% off our potential heading in to the opening game vs. Germany? :lol:





Edited by cool_cat2007: 6/6/2010 12:49:37 AM

Valeri has certainly earned himself a start ahead of Grella. I almost gagged on my beer when I heard Harper describe his form as 'always improving'. Grella has been a thuggish liability of late. Moore's not a great deal better, but we don't have the luxury of being able to just sub him out.

I do worry that the omissions of Carle, Griffiths, and McDonald will come back to hurt us.



I assume this was meant to be ironic?

Edited by CWBush: 6/6/2010 12:46:21 AM

CWBush, kind of agree with you on a couple of your statements. Not sure I agree with you regarding bringing Griffiths to the WC. His ego would have got the better of him.

I do agree with you in regards to us creating opportunities tonight. Chippers made a lot of great runs on the left today and put in some awesome crosses, unfortunately no inspirational performance from Kennedy tonight to finish those crosses off. He looked out of sorts and out of his depth. Ruka had a good scoring opportunity in the 2nd half, powerful shot but excellent save by Hannemann.

Bring on the World Cup, 5 more days and two weeks of no sleep for me!

I thought Grella was poor, passing out from defence was rubbish, so many long balls to nowhere. Garcia ran, but didn't do much.. Defence was poor, especially chippers.. Overall I thought our shape was terrible in the second half.. If we have to chase a game god help us..

One point though was the pitch, it was terrible.

A good workout.

I think the USA played to our plan A continous play. We seemed to be between in the counter attacks all the time and in the DM area of the field. Moore and Neill played ok IMO,

By playing so defensive when we need to attack thos guys expose the DM area to much and so the back line gets hit easily on the counter.

Why we took AM of for a DM lost me at the time we where down?? Culina went forward...ok but we still replaced a AM with a DM?

Kennedy had a shite game tonight IMO. Garcia was nothing to be seen...again.

Still they had some good passing happening and hopefully PV learnt something.

If Pim learnt anything tonight, it probably reinforced his ultra-defensive mentality. It seems he can only manage a team in pure attack (with only one goal to show for it), or a team in full defensive-counter attack. No balance at all it seems.

UUUggghhhh!!! Obviously Pim has decided to only play 10 on the pitch from kick off....

Craig Moore is a fine defender for us against the smaller Asian teams but he is drowning on the International scene against real talent.

+ Culina was good
++ Cahil was dangerous
++ Bresciano looking 110% more composed and getting touch back quickly
+++ Ruka looked lively (hope he gets some game time)
++++ Chippers owned that left side - our MOTM

- Grellas gift of first goal (mind you this "light" ball seemed to race away unexpectadly)
-- Kennedy missing 2 sitters
-- Our numerous corners in 2nd half ALL wasted
--------------------------------------------------------------- (x1000000000000) Craig moore

Edited by macktheknife: 6/6/2010 12:49:09 AM

Edited by macktheknife: 6/6/2010 12:49:19 AM

1) Holman was not on the bench for this match.
2) Cahill going off at half-time indicates to me that Verbeek didn't treat this match that seriously.

garcia is useless.Defence was bad all round but it was a fun game.This will produce fortress Pim next game.It was a chance to test our attack and chippers was the only one who could cross.Kennedy is woeful mostly but he has that x factor that can win a game.Grella is a big risk... Wilkshire needs to time his tackles better and Neill makes Moore look good.

Defence was hopeless. At leat Moore showed pace on (one ?) occasion, admittedly chasing a man that just skinned him.
Agree Valeri>Grella. Also, without Cahill looked less dangerous.
I had thought, "at least we keep scraping through", i'm now worried.

=d> =d> I see what you did there. :lol:

Gotta admit though, the Americans took their chances and they passed their way forward to get into goal scoring positions. We pass forward, then sideways, then back, then sideways, then more sideways, then back to Schwarzer, who then pumps it long for Kennedy. Sounds a bit like A-League mentality. Maybe it's the style of play to expect from Australia now.

Edited by RedsUnited: 6/6/2010 12:53:06 AM

After watching the game tonight carefully and having spent some time considering and analysing everything I have come to a genius conclusion that might surprise a few people: We can't win this World Cup!!!

I think the USA are still under rated as a footballing nation.

Sad i missed this match stupid work.

verbeek sed it shouldn't have been 3-1 n that we were organized in the 1st half. at least aurelio vidmar would call us a pissant country or something haha

If Holman isn't injured than that definitely indicates that he didnt treat it seriously.

Besides long hopeful balls to Jesus in the middle it's hard to see where the goals are going to come from.

Ruka's shot was the only decent hit in the whole game and he's a sub.

Friggin hell!