Thursday, June 24, 2010

Team USA keys to another win

With the fantastic win yesterday by Team USA, they don't have a lot of
time to celebrate. Saturday afternoon (Eastern Time of course), Team
USA will face their next challange: Ghana.

How the teams got here:
Ghana
- 1-0 win over Serbia
- 1-1 draw vs. Australia
- 1-0 loss vs. Germany (Group D winner)

U.S.A
- 1-1 draw vs. England
- 2-2 draw vs. Slovenia
- 1-0 win vs. Algeria


Keys to Team U.S Victory-
1) DO NOT LET GHANA score early. Early goals could have easily knocked
the USA out of the World Cup. England scored within the first 5
minutes, Slovenia scored in the first 15 minutes and twice in the
first half, and Algeria nearly scored 6 minutes into the game. Now
that the elimination rounds are set to begin, the USA needs to get on
the board first. In both the draws, the USA was fighting from behind.
An early USA goal would allow them to play at a more comfortable pace
for the remained of the game.

2)Tim Howard. Tim Howard has played fairly solid throughout the World
Cup thus far. He will need to keep up his level of play this weekend.
He has registerd 10 saves through 3 World Cup games. He was also key
in the late goal yesterday for the win. Due to his quick thinking, he
was able to outlet the ball very fast which allowed the USA to lead a
fast attack and score.

3) Set Pieces - Make sure everyone knows their role and stays onside.
Set pieces have not been very successful this year (Some say due to
the ball). The USA will need to take advantage of all set pieces. Both
goals that were overturned started with solid set pieces. The USA will
need to keep this up.

4) Tighten up the Defense. The USA defense needs to pay attention to
where they are on the field. There have been a couple plays where the
opposing team has caught the USA defenders out of position or too far
into the attacking position. If the defense does not play solid, Tim
Howard could face a considerable amount of shots.

5) Set the pace. Team USA has had 2 games in a row where they have
played very solid in the second half. Against Slovenia, the USA scored
3 goals (only 2 were allowed) in the 2nd half. Yesterday, USA had a
lot of quality attempts and 1 goal. If the USA can get the 2nd half
intensity into the first half, they could be a very tough team to
beat.

Entertaining Tweets pertaining to Team USA:
@ussoccer - President Clinteon visiting with the team in the locker
room said he was proud of the amazing effort and even led a #USA #USA
chant

@OGOchoCinco - Beautiful morning, where is everybody, watching USA
play Algeria and this is to close, they've missed two close goals, I'm
nervous as hell

59Z97KG3PENX

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