Diamond Dogs Open NCAA Regional by Dropping One-Run Decision to Creighton

. . . Oregon State overcame a 4-0 deficit to win, 7-4, so Georgia will face Arkansas-Little Rock at 4:00 tomorrow.

In addition, it’s one of Kyle’s favorite kinds of soccer games… a meaningless exhibition!

/ducks

Lihaj, Ream, Gooch, and Spector in back.
Rogers, Jones, Edu, and Bob Bradley’s apparent love-child Kljestan in the middle (how in the **** does Kljestan keep getting on the field).
Agudelo and Altidore up top.

Definitely not our best team. Other than the front 2, it’s a “b” team.

We’re going to get creamed.

Pique, Raul, Xabi Alonzo, Busquets, David Silva, David Villa, et al.

Good lord, this could get ugly.

Kickoff in about 30 seconds.

On a side note, it’s really nice to see that substantial portions of our crowd are pro-USA. That’s not always the case.

That would figure. We get the German who’s sloppy and inefficient. (Jones was born in Germany to parents who are US citizens.)

Of course, we have a track record for that kind of thing. We have a Brazilian, too… but he’s Benny Feilhaber.

… but it’s called back on a phantom offsides call. Still scoreless in the 10th minute.

This could get ugly.

… but somehow the ball manages to hit the post instead of going into the net after an(other) embarrassing failure by our “b” team defense.

Still scoreless, 14th minute.

… is kind of like watching Georgia play on the field against Boise State.

/trollgaze

Given the wide disparity in talent on the field, I didn’t figure we’d make it this long without surrendering a goal. It looks like it’s just a matter of time, though. They’re just leaning on us & waiting for us to make a mistake.

… but not really, since it was clearly just a matter of time.

Cazorla scores on a(nother) horrible embarrassing failure by the “B” team defense. Spain 1-0.

… a(nother) horrible embarrassing failure by the "B"ack line. Should be 4-0, but it’s actually just 2-0 to Spain.

Spain is clearly demonstrating that they’re the best team in the world, and we’re clearly demonstrating that we’re a good team with virtually no depth playing our “B” team. And that’s why we’re gettin’ our little behinds’ paddled. Real hard.

… Spain up 3-0. Cazorla ran through the defense completely unmarked. They just watched him like he was on their team.

Colorblind?

This is maddening. In college football parlance, this is like defending national champion Alabama playing a game against Boise State to start the season, and Boise says, “Ah, screw it, we have a challenging conference schedule coming up. We’ll just sit our starters and only play the second-string guys.”

Boise’s first string would have difficulting being Alabama’s second team. If you reversed it and put Boise’s second team against Alabama’s first team… it would look like Bama was playing Georgia State.

This is where we are. The USA is now playing the part of Georgia State.

He played as well as he possibly could, but his defense failed him on a Willie-Martinez-scale.

The US Soccer team looks good…. and then they play a team from UEFA. It’s at that point we realize what “Good” actually is….
Then again, playing our reserves against what’s essentially Spain’s starting lineup will do that too.

… here, and one of the SI guys just wrote the following:

To be honest, I’m lost for words in terms of analysis. The U.S. was massively deficient in every single capacity so beyond that, there isn’t much to add.

That pretty much says it all.

Michael Bradley, Steve Cherundolo, Clint Dempsey, Clarence Goodson and (?) Wondolowski on, Jones, Edu, Altidore, Rogers, and Gooch off.

It’s a start.

Spain is always going to be dominating, but our defense early in this half has been holding up much better.

but has Altidore done anything significant at all whatsoever since the Confederations Cup?

… thankfully. He had a 1:1 against Howard for a split second and failed to take a serious shot at all.

We did something!!!!!

… and it seems clear that Spain have finally decided to have mercy on us. Unless Torres can pull off some kind of magnificent individual effort, 3-0 will be your final score. 19 minutes left in the game.

Well, shit.

4-0 Spain. 74th minute.

… Sunil Gulati and Bob Bradley.

Gulati, who is the President of U.S. Soccer, is first to blame because he made the boneheaded decision to schedule an exhibition game against the World Cup Champions 3 days before the U.S. plays it’s first game in the Gold Cup, which is a tournament that actually matters.

Bob Bradley, the U.S. coach, is responsible because he chose a “B” team starting lineup against the World Cup champions, which led to such a demoralizing, humiliating first half that it could literally cause the team’s confidence and morale to be dragged down for the entire Gold cup tournament.

Make no mistake… if the U.S. fails to make it to the Gold Cup final, this game is the reason.

Final Score, Spain 4, Georgia State 0.

See my analysis 3 posts above this one.