Even the "bright spots" were merely average, but wonderful in comparison to the overall effort. As Thew said, someone should keep on reminding the US that they were wearing BLUE.
When I played a dead giveaway about the confidence of the opposing player was the length of his strides. The longer the stride, the more confident they were. Small strides and we knew lunch was served. When you watch the game on replay, look at the baby steps the US players took with the ball.
There is no sugar coating this. It was a disaster. Often, you can look at positives in defeat (or in the case of England, negatives in triumph), but I don't see any right now. The best I can hope for is a tremendous kick in the ass. All the basics were missing. They were tentative, the passing (even short passing) was awful, there was NO anticipation, no hustle, they did not play as a team.
At one point I am watching the game at a local bar (late lunch) and Beasley was dribbling down field. I am watching him and thinking, "oh, no don't make THAT pass." The guy down the bar says, "oh, no," at roughly the same time. Beasley does (maybe a 13 yarder) and it is picked off cleanly by the Czechs. If two guys in a bar can tell what Beasley is doing, how does he have any hope against pros on the field.
Arena went with a different game plan the I would have - much more defensively oriented. (I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I read we were going with a 5-4-1.) That would have been good, if we can play defense! I always felt the defense was our weakest point and we needed to press the offense.
We are not eliminated yet, but the Boyz need to show much, much more.
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