USMNT Can't Handle the Pressure Once Again

The US once again played a weak second half and lost yet another big match. This to me was a big match because of the bragging rights and of course it's Mexico. Back in the days of living in Southern California I would have all the windows open on match day and I remember if Mexico scored you would hear fireworks and shotguns going off in the area. No so much the same in Overland Park, KS. I have been the only one in the neighborhood watching the match since it was on some unknown station called MUN2. I know that the rights to the Mexican matches are owned by Telemundo, but come one! Put the match on ESPN, FSC or one of the big 3. That was just silly putting it on a station I will never watch again. Even if they played every Mexican League match on the station, it wouldn't matter, because I hate the style they play and you spend half the match watching guys dive and hold their legs as if they were broken for five minutes then get up to a full sprint. Not my idea of a good match.

Now let's get to the match. The first mistake I think that was made was in the coaching by Bradley. He had two solid players in Altidore and Spector and they both sat on the bench to start. Seriously, what are you thinking. I'm really not sure personally, but that's why I still question Bradley's ability to run this program. Steve Cherundolo and Brian Ching may have experience plating, but they certainly didn't impress me this match and they should both have started on the bench.

Word came out that Landon Donovan has a touch of swine flu. Do you think he is using that as his excuse to why he played so poorly outside of one good pass to Davies. Donovan and Clint Dempsey both were rather dissappointing in this match. Dempsey was playing too far back and didn't help the offense at all.

When we did sub, we brought in Benny Feilhaber and Stuart Holden. I've always felt that if you are in a draw situation you need to beef up your offense in order to make a run at it. Instead, we play defensively and allow a second goal to get scored because we have no offensive push.

Top player of the match was Onyewu and Howard. That could easily been a 5-0 blowout if those guys didn't keep us in it with their strong play. Still having a strong defense isn't going to get you anything unless you have something on the other end to mount an attack.

Bob Bradley is the key to why the US lost to Mexico. I think there needs to be some serious consideration to the current coaching staff and maybe it's time for a change. We are less than a year from SA2010 and we are a shit team at the moment. There's no chance that what we came to the table with the other day has any chance of pulling off moving out of the first group stage. Where is our young talent and why are we not getting them out there now.