Wednesday, March 28, 2007

US v Guatemala starting lineup

US MNT vs. Guatemala
Tonight, 9pm ET
TV: ESPN2

The starting lineup for tonight's US match is out and here it is:

GK: Kasey Keller
D: Jonathan Spector, Jimmy Conrad, Jay DeMerit, Frank Simek
M: Clint Dempsey, Benny Feihaber, Michael Bradley, Justin Mapp
F: Eddie Johnson, Landon Donovan

Both DeMerit and Simek are getting their first caps.

My guess was way off in the middle and I got both forwards wrong. I'm surprised that Mapp got the start over Beasley, but it is fully justified. Bees came to life towards the end of his time in Sunday's match, but overall, it was not a good afternoon for him. Giving Mapp a chance is a great move by Bob Bradley.

I'm a little surprised that Cooper did not get a start, but I guess Bob wants to see if Johnson can continue to improve with Donovan as his partner and with Michael Bradley and Feihaber giving him support.

Here is Guatemala's lineup:
GK: Ricardo Trigueno
D: Pable Melgar, Henry Medina, Gustavo Cabrera, Claudio Albizuris
M: Jose Contreras, Carlos Figueroa, Freddy Thompson, Carlos Quinonez, Leonel Noriega
F: Carlos Ruiz

Not unexpected for Guatemala. Ruiz will have a difficult task ahead of him tonight.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Pitch to Pub said...

Went to the match tonight. Poorly officiated to say the least. The Guatemala faithful were elated with a draw. Go figure!

I'll give thumbs up to Landon, Clint, Mapp, Conrad and Keller. To be honest, the starting 4 defensemen played well together in my opinion. Not sure if it was more them, Keller, or Guatemala's conservative play, but an improvement over last weekend.

Eddie Johnson had the worst first touches I have ever seen. Every ball he played off his chest went 5+ feet off of him. Horrible. His star has completely faded in my book.

You would think after seeing Landon play in Germany, versus last weekend, that Bradley would have learned not to put Landon up top as a forward. When Cooper came in and Feilhaber went out moving Landon back to his attacking mid position, opportunities started to present themselves despite Guat with 10 men back.

It stunk not to see any scoring, but it was an entertaining nil nil match, if ever there was such a thing.

Out.

11:16 PM  
Blogger Mike H said...

Pub,

I'm guessing Landon only started up top because of the late scratch of Twellman. I'm still not sure why he didn't put Cooper in as a starter. Maybe Bradley didn't think he was game fit or maybe he wanted a option for later in the game.

Thanks for your take on things.

12:45 PM  

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