First of all, sending a lone true-forward, Jozy Altidore to the pitch to battle the tough, world-class, and experienced Argentine defenders, was very similar to Jay Demerit's description of what it was like to defend against two-time FIFA World Player of The Year Lionel Messi. The American said, "It was like being a 12-year-old boy playing tackle football against your 16 year-old brother and all his buddies." Jozy Altidore I think could relate. So, it was no wonder the American side was "thrown against the ropes" the entire first half. Every time Altidore had the ball, it took, but a matter of seconds for 3 Argentine defenders to be all over him. Every time. And why not, if they had no other American player to worry about.
Bradley must have seen the same thing, because he sent in 18 year-old Juan Agudelo to replace midfielder Jones from the beginning of the second half. Obviously, this gave the American team a much deeper penetration up front, and a bigger headache to the Argentine defense. Agudelo was only making his third appearance as a substitute with the US National Team, and would eventually score the tying goal, and his second wearing the US jersey. I am not afraid to anticipate we are watching an American scoring machine in the making here.
Second of all, when you play against a world-class team like Argentina, and your head coach does not "know" they are going to come at you with fury, given the type of players they have on their line-up, I believe that coach does not deserve to be sitting on the sidelines. Granted these are friendly games, coach Bradley has been experimenting for way too long with a 4-5-1 line-up which has not produced winning results. And that's exactly what Argentina did. They attacked at will for the first 45 minutes, and if the score did not reflect the abysmal difference on the pitch was because of Tim Howard; without a doubt, the Man-of-The-Match. It was too obvious that in order to deflect the Argentine attack, the US team had to pressure their exit out of their own 18, but that was too much to ask of Bradley.
The second half, as I said, had Agudelo in for Jones, and Chandler -debuting with the US National Team- replacing Spector. Spector had done a decent job on the right-back side, but Chandler provided a fast, projecting right-side attacker who has a very good, lethal cross. That's how the US goal was born. The US had a few more chances which were mostly created from Chandler's side. That was good to see. However, Argentina created a lot more opportunities by having faster, younger and more skilled players than our aging, slower defensive line in the likes of Bocanegra and Onyewu, both of whom had a real tough night in New Jersey. Again, Argentina was kept to only one goal because of the superb performance of American keeper Tim Howard, who denied Messi and company on a few point-blank shots to the goal.
Next for the US National Team is Paraguay in Nashville, TN on Tuesday. The Paraguayan team was unrecognizable on Saturday against Mexico in Oakland, and succumbed 3-1. They will certainly be looking to revert that debacle, and believe me, they have the players to do so. Again, it will be very interesting to see what Bob Bradley has learned from playing against South American teams like Argentina, Brazil and Chile in their last few games, where the US has not won any of those matches.
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