USA v Cuba afterthoughts

The United States came out strong with Freddy Adu seeing his shot blast off the post within the first minute. About thirty seconds later, he sent in a good ball that was poorly handled by Charlie Davies. These two solid offensive opportunities suggested a match in which the US would dominate. And they did, at least for the first fifteen or so minutes. At the fourteenth minute mark, Adu shot from around the top corner and saw his shot skim past Charlie Davies, the opposing keeper, and eventually netted itself in the bottom corner of the goal. The beautiful play and time of posession were great indicators, it looked like this was getting set to be a rout.

Unfortunately, after the Yanks went up, complacency and lethargic play took over. Rather than stick to their simple game, they started to play overly complicated balls and were focusing very heavily on the air. Slowly, the momentum changed, and just before the half the Cuban fans on hand had something to cheer about. Roberto Linares just eeked through the backline and slotted it home right in front of Chris Seitz. The half would end level.

The second half proved to be an improvement from the last half hour or so of the first, with the US coming out with a bit more fire. Jozy Altidore would move to the bench for Sacha Klejstan, a surprising move considering the shocking performance Charlie Davies had. There was nothing to note from either side, save the sending off of Cuba's goalscorer, Linares, after receiving a pretty weak yellow card.

This brings us to the next point, the referee. While he got some calls dead-on (Davies diving), he made some very poor, potentially game-changing decisions, including a handball early that would have given the US a great free kick opportunity and the Linares red card. Overall, it wasn't that bad of a game from the Guatemalan referee, but he did seem to favor Cuba in spots. I don't think it was as one-sided as we've seen some referees' performances, but it was certainly a frustrating game from the sidelines.

In closing, I hope that Nowak makes some changes A) in his preparation for the next game, B) his actual lineup against Panama, and C) make the proper call-ups (read my previous post) for the tournament itself...that is if we qualify.