Montana Fan

Good run from Salah. There's that pace he's been missing so far in preseason.

I'm excited for this first look at the Matic and Fabregas partnership. How well they work together could be a real key this season.

Zouma coming up short on that cross reminded me a little of a certain Gary Cahill at the World Cup. Let's not overreact. He's 19 and it was a pre-season game. He's going to make some mistakes. I didn't think he did too badly overall. I only caught the 2nd half, and I think Romeu deserves a mention. He looked lively, good in possession and helped get us back on attack when he came on. Boga looks a heck of a player. His balance and strength on the ball look almost Messi-esque at times. John Terry is still class. He stood out above everyone else on the pitch. The team as a whole looked disjointed though. We struggled with the opposition's high pressing, weren't getting to the second balls, moved the ball slowly, and were just generally out of synch. I'm not too worried though. It's early days and we're still playing a lot of youth. If I were to criticize anyone, it would be Matic and Salah. Matic seems a touch off the pace and his passing was erratic at times. I expect more from him. Was he better in the first half? Salah keeps getting the ball in dangerous positions and doing nothing with it. He hasn't been able to beat the full-backs with his pace and tends to just cut inside and run the ball into the defense. He'll need to do better if he expects to break into the starting 11.

Courtois Azpilicueta, Cahill, JT, Luis Matic, Ramires Hazard, Fabregas, Schurrle Costa The midfield is really difficult to select. How can I leave out Oscar and Willian? Does Ramires deserve a spot? I don't 100% buy into the idea of Fabregas playing DM. He's primarily an attacker for me. That said, I'd like to see us try a more attacking line-up by starting Oscar, Willian or Fabregas in the DM role. At DM we've got Matic, Ramires, Mikel, VanGinkel, Romeu and maybe Ake and Chalobah. That's how I rank the group. Mikel takes third simply because VanGinkel and Romeu are Premier League unknowns. Either of them could realistically knock Ramires and Mikel out of their spots. But assuming a 4-2-3-1, I think Matic and Ramires are first choice. I only hope Ramires has a better season than last. With his pace, stamina, and experience he has the potential to dominate the midfield. He just needs to improve on the more mental aspects of his game, his temperament and his technical ability. How well Ramires plays is a key question for us this season (now watch us sell him). If he can work well with Matic and spur the attack, we could be dominant. Our attacking midfield is another challenging question. With Hazard, Oscar, Willian, Schurrle, Fabregas and Salah, we've got 6 guys who are all good enough to be in the starting 11. Salah is probably the bottom of the list but the other 5 are really difficult to rank. Selection will come down to current form, balance, and the differing qualities they each bring; sort of the "horses for courses" factor. There will surely be fierce competition for the starting 11 and that could be really good for us. It could also cause problems as so many of our players aren't going to be happy sitting on the bench for very long. We'll just have to make deep runs in all competitions to keep everyone happy. I'm really excited for this season and to have all these questions about the squad answered. We've got so much young talent. Our potential is through the roof and our depth should give us the flexibility to change formations and tactics like few other squads in the world. We're all listing different starting 11's but they all look fantastic. I'd love to see a 4-3-3 with Willian-Matic-Oscar and Hazard-Costa-Fabregas. If Jose can get the best out of the squad I really believe we can compete for every trophy.

I can't tell you how many times I've explained the group stage scoring, the offside rule, injury time, and the difference between club and international football in the last 2 weeks. Goal difference is a little too complicated for some. But people are genuinely interested, and not just in the USMNT. I think it helps that it's been an excellent tournament with lots of goals and close games. It is cute how naïve some are. I was watching with one gal who commented on the player's colorful shoes. I told her they call them boots and she thought it was just hilarious. The other element with American's interest is their lack of context. As far as many people know, we're just playing little old Belgium today. They don't know Hazard, Kompany or Courtois. In a way, I envy their innocence. I just can't get too excited about our chances when all our hopes rest on Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley, and Jozy Altidore coming back from injury. I'm too realistic. We've got a long shot to win today. We're playing well and I'll be rooting for us. I'm just not getting my hopes up. I predict 2-0 to Belgium. So I guess I don't believe that we will win. Sorry gang.

Give us a break. We're new to the idea of football chants. I agree it's cringeworthy but it's a step up from just chanting USA, USA, USA. Chants really aren't a part of US sports, except for the occasional "bull-sh*t" chant when the ref makes a bad call, or "aiiiiir-ball" at a basketball game. There's also "da da da d'daaah CHARGE!", "stomp stomp clap", and "D-Fence, stomp stomp, D-Fence". But that's really about it for sports chants in the US. At least we don't whistle constantly or shout homosexual and racist slurs at the opposition.

Not a penalty for me. Robben was looking for it, surrounded by defenders and going nowhere. Marquez barely touched him and he went down arms flailing. It was incredibly harsh on Mexico. I hate seeing matches decided on calls like that. Plus, it was inconsistent with the non-calls earlier in the match. If the Mexican attacker getting kicked in the head, or Robben being brought down earlier weren't fouls, I don't see how that penalty can be given.

Ann Coulter is miserable c**t of a woman. She represents the worst of the ultra-conservative shock jocks plaguing the country. Every other year she writes an offensive and likely racist book aimed at the lowest and most ignorant of Americans. Everything she does is intended only to shock and offend and draw attention to her disgusting self. Her comments aren't worthy of a response. Freddy Adu didn't make the US roster. His club career has gone poorly and few are surprised he didn't make the squad. I thought the US looked alright today. Germany were clearly the better side and deserved the win. But aside from early in the game when the Germans were rampant, the US didn't look out of their depth. They stayed organized, defended well and threatened on the counterattack. I think we can definitely challenge Russia, Algeria or Belgium. Klinsmann's doing a great job. Still, I wonder how we'd look with Donovan instead of Bradley. Bradley doesn't seem to be offering much.

Brilliant knock-on from Steven G... oh wait. Seriously, what was he doing!? He could've challenged Cavani for the header but he just stood there and the ball caromed off him straight to Saurez. Garbage defending.

I appreciate the response Ace. I discovered that Diskerud is on the roster, but that shows how little I know about the USMNT. Really I just wondered what others thought of some of the controversial roster choices. I still question the Goodson snub even though Brooks got the winner over Ghana. In the few qualifiers I watched, I thought Goodson looked to be our best defender by a good margin. However,the win over Ghana definitely earned a large amount of vindication for Klinsmann and Brooks. I feel rightly chastised by you and Robdog. I'll withhold judgment until we've faced Portugal and Germany. Anything can happen and I'm cautiously optimistic we can get a result against Portugal. I do think we need to be better all-around than we were against Ghana if we're going to get it done. Whatever happens, it will have been a good World Cup for the US. With a win over Ghana and a crack at Germany and Portugal, we can't feel too disappointed even if we end up dropping out.

I don't really follow the USMNT very closely, but I'm a bit surprised and concerned with the roster. Several players who did very well in qualifying were dropped for relative unknowns. Donovan is the obvious shocker. But now with Altidore going down injured, where's Eddie Johnson? Who is Aron Johansson? Where's Shea, Diskerud and Goodson? It seems like Klinsmann sacrificed our most experienced but older players for young and untested players, as if he's already looking ahead to 2018? Yeah, we got a good win tonight, and the defensive performance may have been influenced by us scoring so early. Personally, I thought we looked poor overall. We showed almost no attacking intent for large portions of the game. We struggled to retain possession and resorted mostly to long balls from Howard. Ghana looked shaky on defense but we really didn't put much pressure on them. We were defending deep but Ghana was still able to get in good crossing positions and find open men in the final third almost at will. The defense looked slow to react and only abysmal finishing from Ghana kept us in the game. We'll see what happens against Portugal and Germany, but after tonight, I'm fearful we're going to get blown off the pitch.

Wow, big win for the US! I can't say we deserved it. We looked second best throughout. Ghana were firing in crosses and getting into dangerous positions with ease. When they finally scored I thought they'd go on to win it. We got lucky Ghana forgot their shooting boots.

Does anyone know the answer to this question? Is a red card a one or two game suspension? That game went as well as possible from the USA perspective. Portugal will probably be without Pepe, Almeida and Coentrao on Sunday, and have a minus 4 goal differential. It's got my hopes up anyway. We just about have to beat Ghana this evening though. If FIFA knows what's good for them, they'll find a way to get the US over Ghana. I'm not saying I like that idea. But if they want the world's biggest economy interested in football, it would help if the US had a chance of getting out of the group stage. Look for some USA friendly refereeing this evening.

I respect Hockey. It's flashy as you say, action packed. Although, it seems they've also instituted some kind of TV timeout system. Despite my gripes, I'll watch American Football, baseball, hockey, basketball, etc. I'm a sports fan. I'm not judgemental. I just get riled up when insufferable twats insult soccer and me as a fan, while refusing to admit to the many flaws in the games they prefer. Anyway, sorry to drag us off topic here. Back to the Cup. Looks like the Aussie's are in trouble.

The boring criticism is the worst. An American Football game takes around 3 hours and contains a grand total of about 15 minutes of actual, live action. It's a mess of timeouts, injuries, penalties, players standing around, and advertisements, so many advertisement breaks. The level of competition in pro basketball is terrible these days. Games are slow and meaningless until the last 5 or 10 minutes of the 4th quarter. In college basketball, each team gets 4 timeouts per 20 minute half and there are 4 special "TV" timeouts each half to cram in more advertisements. That's a potential 16 timeouts per game! It's absolutely insulting to watch as it's more ads than game anymore, and it kills the flow of the game. The blatant commercialism of the big US sports is absurd and I think it's driving some of the increased interest in soccer. And I haven't even mentioned baseball, NASCAR, or golf. If you want to talk about boring sports...

I'll take that question on. One caveat, I live near the middle of nowhere in Montana so I don't really have my finger on the pulse of the nation. But I think the profile of the World Cup and soccer in general is growing pretty rapidly. All news programs I've seen lately have included coverage of the Cup. I see that McDonald's has a big World Cup promotion going on. Gatorade, Nike, Adidas, Pepsi and others all have ad campaigns focused on the cup. I've never seen so much coverage and exposure of Soccer. It's surprising to see ad's with the likes of Neymar, David Luiz, Bacary Sagna and others. Most folks I know have no idea who these players are. So I think the profile of the Cup in the US is bigger than it's ever been. It's still in fashion in the media and elsewhere to make fun of soccer: it's all diving, it's boring because they don't score very often, the referees control the outcomes, who cares and that type of garbage. It seems like many American football, baseball, and basketball fans feel somehow threatened by soccer and have a knee-jerk, negative reaction to it. There's also a nasty, jingoist, nationalist streak in the US that is resistant to anything foreign and especially European. Being a soccer fan is almost seen as anti-American by some. It's depressing, but I think those sentiments are starting to break down with younger generations being more exposed to international media through the internet, and growing multi-culturalism in general. The huge growth of the Hispanic population nation-wide is surely driving interest. Now if only the US team and MLS were any good...

I really like the way we've been going about our transfer business. There's no messing about, chasing unavailable players (aside from the Rooney saga). If we like a player and he's available we go after him. Liverpool messed around and we took Salah from under their nose. Tottenham messed around and we took Willian. We smartly pounced on Zouma and Matic mid-season to fill some holes. Fabregas only just became available and we locked him up before other clubs had a chance to hijack the deal. By all accounts we have Costa so nailed down his signing is merely a formality and other clubs aren't even bothering to show interest. At this rate, we'll have our squad sorted and settled long before pre-season starts. Other clubs will dilly-dally, end up paying big bucks at the last minute to complete their rosters and start the season unsettled. Hats off to Jose and the club.

It's rumored that we're taking Khedira from Madrid. Presumably that will give them space for Rakitic? Do we have a Khedira thread yet? I'd be happy if we signed Rakitic. He'd fit right in next to Matic. I haven't formed an opinion on a Khedira deal yet. I'm worried that a midfield signing will spell the end for Van Ginkel. I could see us loaning him out like we did with Romeu. Remember him, a young midfield prospect who picked up a bad knee injury and doesn't look like he'll make it back to the club?

Every time I watched Arsenal this season, I thought Sagna looked world class, damn near unbeatable. Arsenal looked pretty shambolic at times, but Sagna always stood out to me as solid. I'm surprised Arsenal would sell him. I think Man United will struggle to make the top four next season. Their only advantage, like Liverpool this season, is that they're not playing in Europe. I just can't see them fixing all of their problems with transfers. Their defense is crap. Their central midfield is crap. And their strikers are all aging, underperforming or crap. I saw a story today that Van Gaal rates only 4 players in the whole squad: Van Persie, Rooney, Mata and DeGea. I think that's just about right. Can they really sign 7+ top players, integrate them into the squad and clear out the deadwood in one window? I don't think so. Aren't they going to run into FFP problems? They're linked with just about everyone at the moment: Carvalho, Mangala, Hummels, Costa, Mandzukich, Fabregas, Reus, Kroos, Shaw, Robben, Muller, Xavi, Cavani, Vidal, etc. Surely many of these links are just media BS, but the consensus seems to be that United are going to buy their way back into contention. I find it annoying that people aren't questioning the feasibility or the respectability of that plan. Some are saying they'll possibly spend 200m in the summer window. If Chelsea were in a similar position we'd be trashed in the press for poor management and buying success. I guess it's okay if United do it? What happened to all the talk before this season about United doing things the right way? The reality of Moyes' failures sure put the lie to that idea. I've really enjoyed watching United flounder and struggle, long may it continue.

We need a striker. Sign Costa and bring back Lukaku and it's sorted. I know the consensus is that we need a midfielder to play next to Matic and a true left back. I agree with the consensus to a degree, but I don't think we really need to make those signings. As far as the midfield, we've already got Van Ginkel, Ramires, Luiz and Mikel to choose from. Also, I'd like to see Oscar and Willian tried in the role. In the last game against Cardiff, Oscar played as DM for about 10 minutes and I thought he looked fantastic. I know that cameo is little to go on but I really think he can do the job, especially against weaker opposition. We all keep talking about small crafty players like Modric, Koke, and even Fabregas for the role. Oscar and Willian are similar to them in many respects. We'd only need a bit more cover in the attacking midfield to allow them to drop deeper, and we've got Thorgan, Piazon, Marin, or Traore on the books that can give it to us. As for left back, Jose seems pretty set on Azpi and Ivan as the starting fullbacks and it's hard to argue with the best defense in the Premier League. Bertrand, Van Aanholt, Ake, Kalas, Zouma and Luiz can provide cover. I understand the desire for a new left back. I just don't think we necessarily need one.

It was a successful season in my book. Fighting to the wire for the title and 47 minutes from the Champion's League Final in Jose's first year back was more than I hoped for at the start of the season. Thrashing Arsenal, spoiling Liverpool's title, and beating Man City along the way were real nice touches. Getting past PSG in that dramatic, last-minute win was surely a moment to savor. We're a team with a lot of youth in key positions. Those youngsters are still developing and Jose is still learning their abilities. Mistakes were made but I think overall the squad is progressing toward a side that will be the envy of Europe within a season or two. Maybe a season without a trophy will be a blessing. It may add that bit of desire and ruthlessness we seemed to lack in a few of our disappointing performances. As far as Mourinho's mistakes, I don't include selling Mata among them. Long-term, it was the right move. He didn't fit Jose's tactics and we got a top price for him. Once Willian, Oscar, Schurrle and Salah settle-in, we'll wonder why it was ever a question. He'll just be that classy bloke, lacking pace, strength and stamina, struggling to fit into a "transitional" ManU squad. I think ManU will regret the big money they spent on him. Mourinho's biggest mistakes for me were his overly defensive tactics in certain games. Against weaker opposition we should have been more positive. Why not start two strikers or try Willian or Oscar as deep midfielders? With the best back line in the league we could afford to be a bit more adventurous. I hope he takes a few more risks next season. I'll also mention the 2nd leg against Atletico. I didn't mind the line up with Cole and Azpi at the start. It might have paid off if only Hazard and the defense hadn't fallen asleep at the end of the first half. But at 1-1 early in the 2nd half we really didn't need a 2nd striker. We could have brought on Schurrle for Cole or Azpi. We lost shape after that change, Eto'o gave up the penalty and we were finished. It's hard to say whether it really cost us the match. Maybe we lose either way. I just really didn't understand that change, and from reading this thread, it seems I'm not the only one.

It would be madness to let Lukaku go without giving him a season to prove himself. We're desperate to rebuild our striking corps and we have one of the top, young striker prospects in the world already on our books. We have to give him a chance. We can't promise him the number one spot but he should definitely be given the chance to fight for it, or the number two spot. If that isn't good enough for him, he can go lead the line for some sh*te side like Tottenham. I don't think Etoo is staying, and I don't want him to stay. He's still crafty and a good finisher, but he's too old and injury prone. He's injured again at the moment. Demba Ba is a decent 3rd choice, but I think he lacks the stamina needed to lead the line for 90 minutes. I think that's why he didn't get many starts this season. He was always a stop-gap and I think it's time to sell him on. All this leads me to the shocking conclusion that Fernando Torres should stay. That's right. Next season I'd have Costa(or whoever we get), Lukaku, and Torres. I think that's a top striking corps. The only problem with Torres as 3rd choice is his wages. But I think there's some truth to the argument that the guy sells shirts. As an admitted JCL yank, I can vouch that FT is one of the most recognizable footballers in the world. Having him in the squad raises the international profile of the club, and that fact must go some way toward offsetting his stupid wages for a 3rd choice. Sure he goes missing at times and can't ever seem to find the goal. But there's no doubting his work-rate and his link up play. The job he did away at Atletico was heroic. I think he's a good 3rd choice as he's capable of starting and playing 90 minutes if we need him, and he's good as a 2nd striker or as a late sub. If the question is do we keep Etoo, Ba or Torres? It's Torres for me. Sorry guys. I don't think we've seen the last of Torres yet.

Count this JCL Yank' as one who isn't surprised by the lineup. I like it. The 4-3-3 we've been playing has been really solid. Cole could be a dangerous player working from the left midfield. He brings a load of experience to the side as well and could make the difference. I can see it staying goalless deep into the 2nd half. The question for me in that case is, will Jose bring Schurrle or Ba/Etoo on late to try to knick a win, or will he be happy to stay defensive and play for penalties? My head is spinning with these tactical questions. It's surely a defensive lineup. Can we get a foothold in the game or will we be defending for our lives like the first leg? One goal may be all we need. COYB!

I predict it will be Torres up front. I also think Jose may surprise us and start with Hazard or Oscar on the bench to make room for one of Cole, Van Ginkel or Ake in the midfield to play 4-3-3. We'll find out soon enough.

What do we think the tactics will be tomorrow? The 4-3-3 we played in the first leg and against Liverpool was damn-near impenetrable. But with Mikel and Lampard suspended we don't have 3 defensive midfielders unless Van Ginkel or Ake come in, or Willian or Oscar play deeper. I could see Jose throwing Van Ginkel in, like he did with Kalas, if he wants to continue with the defend and counter strategy. I think our other option is to have a go at them, like when we thrashed Arsenal. Play the high pressing 4-2-3-1 from the offing, take the initiative, try to dominate the game and go for a 2 goal lead. Then make defensive subs, park the bus and hold out for the win. We're at home and we rested much of the side on the weekend while Atletico played most of their first 11. I think we can take it to them. Of course, this tactic could play right into Atletico's hands as they prefer to defend and counter-attack. This is a fascinating tie. I can't wait to see what Jose has up his sleeve. I'm confident we'll do the job 2-0, and it's on to Lisbon. COYB!