Boston-Homer

Buzzword: Encouraging


I literally just finished watching the first game of the Jurgen Klinsmann's USA soccer career. I missed the first 20 minutes because ESPN decided to push the game to ESPNnews due to a Little League World Series game that went long. Please read that last sentence again. Little League Baseball had priority over a national team. Shows the priorities I guess...

There were some really good signs once I began watching the game, a few guys came off the bench and really impressed, the team's last half-hour was played at a break-neck pace that put the Mexican's on their heels, which was great to watch. How often have we watched the US Soccer team on their heels at the end of games, teams running at them? Ghana did it, Mexico did it last month.

Brek Shea, Juan Agudelo, and Robbie Rodgers combined to create the goal. Brek Shea was dynamite on the left wing and Rodgers also broke into space later on in the second half using his pace, he was  pulled down by Torrado as he blew by him, which should have been a red card. Alas, it wasn't.

Klinsmann is an energetic personality and the stadium was packed and the game had a larger feeling than a simple friendly in August. He seems like a guy the team wants to play for, and he also seems like who isn't going to play players just because he should.

The US got into the box in the second half after only creating one shot on goal in the first half. They had two near penalty kicks, I would hope one of those calls would be made in a game that had some more meaning.


Brek Shea folks...

Looking forward to the next year of US Soccer, I am in. I am excited to watch this team. Isn't that the most important thing? We watched the World Cup (Men's and Women's) because it was exciting, because it was worth watching. The good teams in the world have friendlies that are worth watching too, like the regular season in our domestic sports. The World Cup is the playoffs, unfortunately it only comes around every four years. Hopefully the excitement that was on the field tonight will carry over into the next 12 months and catapult this US team into some unknown territory.

The buzzword tomorrow will be "encouraging." The team was encouraging, the result was encouraging, the substitutes were encouraging, and Klinsmann was encouraged.

Here's hoping this team can encourage more and more people to care about them. I know they made me care more than I ever have. Hop on the bandwagon now, it's going to fill up soon.