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Bostrom Writes:
Should we fear Ghana?

Like all World Cup hopefuls, Ghana talks about wanting to advance out of group play. They certainly have a bona fide superstar in Michael Essien. But as far as their recent results indicate, they have a long way to go before instilling fear on the international stage.

Watching Ghana take on Mexico in Wednesday night's friendly (my TiVo chose Scooby Doo instead of the U.S./Poland tilt so I reverted to plan B), the match came across as a lone friendly played on U.S. soil with Lamar Hunt in attendance. In other words, it was an awkward game that took a while to get going!

I know Mexico well. I've seen countless of their games, I have several friends who live for Mexican soccer and I even watch the Mexican league about once a month. About all I know about Ghana is that they would like to add Freddy Adu to complement Essien. I'm sure we'll all be learning more about Ghana as the weeks roll by.

And in the runup to the WC, group opponents usually look progressively stronger and stronger as the months creep by. But in the case of Ghana, there's little evidence to believe that's actually the case.

I can say this: Ghana defended fairly well. While the Mexican attack was missing it's usual spark, it was hard pressed to mount a sustained attack until the second half. Certainly Ghana has the capability of scoring goals, but one gets the sense that at a high level of international play, they will need more than the usual amount of luck to produce consistent results.

In other words, I believe Freddy Adu could start for this team today. (Truth in advertising: I also believe Freddy should see the field at some point in Germany for the U.S., but that's for another post.) Ghana could rightly use his ability to both take on defenders and distribute the ball through an attacking midfield position.

While the U.S.'s offense also struggled mightily in Germany this week, I don't foresee the situation changing for Ghana due to their lack of international success as a team. The Mexican defense held strong even though it was missing likely WC starters. Essien declared himself happy with the result. But Lamar Hunt left at halftime which is all you really need to know.

Ghana's Grade: Incomplete. I still very much respect this team. I just didn't see a competitive game that could give me many clues as to their ability to succeed in the WC. Thus, I was left with feeling that if they couldn't muster up much in this game, they'll need a whole lot more to get out of their WC group of death

George writes:

Some general thoughts on last night’s game:

- We’re really in a tough spot if McBride goes down. Twellman is just too small to hold a central defender off which is essential for a target man. The Polish defenders were able to just come right over him on anything played in the air.

- In goal, Keller had a relatively easy first half. He came off his line at the right times and probably had his toughest challenge from Twellman in defending a corner. Howard looked good, although he really scared me when he came out the box and had to play the ball with his feet. He didn’t really keep it in front of him, but was able to recover and clear.

- I thought the defense looked good overall. Even in the first half where we were somewhat disjointed, the Poles never really threatened and I don’t believe they had a scoring chance inside the box. Oneywu was solid, didn’t overcommit and didn’t allow the Poles to draw any cheap fouls on him. I thought Cherundolo was excellent. It seemed like he was everywhere and he really got forward well without shirking his defensive responsibilities. His first half free kick that just went wide of goal was well struck. Lewis defended well, but struggled with his free kicks and crosses in the first half, part of that may have had to do with the field. He was much better in the 2nd half. Berhalter played OK, it didn’t seem like he and Oneywu were not communicating very well as they got caught out of position a few times. I thought Boca played very well (aside from the silly yellow he took). He always seems to be in the right position and I think he did a very good job organizing the back four which is something they lacked in the first half.

- Midfield was very inconsistent in the first half, much better in the 2nd. I thought DMB had a subpar game for him, made some bad decisions with the ball and really only had one of his typical runs through the defense. Donovan had some good distribution from his central spot and took advantage of space when it presented itself. KZ never really got established and perhaps he needed to play with more of an attitude. When Mastroeni came in, everything changed. He was feisty, got stuck in on some tackles and let the Poles know that coming through the middle was going to be a problem.

The two guys that impressed me the most were Dempsey and Convey. Dempsey had some trouble early on because he was holding the ball too long and also just standing over it. After he realized that he wasn’t going to get that kind of time, he either continued to move the ball or just made a decisive & quick move to get by the defender. Once he started to do this, he drew a ton of fouls which is what you need to do in the WC so you can get your big guys into the box on set pieces.

Convey really made the most of his limited minutes. He had four great runs in a five minute span which was tremendous. He just took the ball and started to run at defenders who seemed to be on their heels when dealing with him. I still think that if you can move DMB to the right and have Convey on the left, that’s a lot of speed on the flanks. That could give a tired defense fits late in a game.

- Up front, I thought that Eddie Johnson struggled with the same thing that Dempsey did in hanging onto the ball too long. However, he took much longer to adjust and still tried to dance over the ball which wasn’t effective. Twellman had a quiet game. I know that his challenge on the keeper on the goal was essential, but overall, he couldn’t really do anything.

- Overall, a good showing on European soil. Even though they could have played better, I was encouraged with their second half play and the fact that they were able to scratch out a 1-0 win against an opponent who should make it out of the group stages in June.

- As an announcer, Dave O’Brien is horrible. He’s so bad that I’m wishing that Jack Edwards would come back and he wasn’t very good. O’Brien adds nothing to the telecasts (yes, we get it, it’s snowing, we can see that!) and makes so many fundamental mistakes. For example, he referred to the U.S.’s loss vs. Poland in 2002 as happening in the “consolation round”. Another example is that he referred to the Bundesliga as the professional league in Germany. It’s not the professional league, it’s the highest two leagues in a country where they have several pro leagues throughout. I had heard that he stipulated that he had to do the WC in his ESPN contract which is just galling since he obviously doesn’t know the game. If you want to make a name for yourself by doing a new sport, at least know the basics before you get behind the mike. I’m not asking you to know obscure facts, just be able to sound semi-intelligent and realize that there’s a larger soccer world out there and it’s bigger than the USMNT.

I also heard that he’s one of the three play-by-play guys for the WC, along with Rob Stone and JP Dellacamera. Why no Derek Rae? He does such a great job on Champions League coverage that I can’t understand why he doesn’t have a spot in the booth. Right now, the only thing that ESPN has going for it is that their coverage is in high-definition. They don’t realize that most US soccer fans have become accustomed to watching WC matches on Telemundo or Univision and the language barrier isn’t that much of a problem.

- I haven’t looked at how the other teams in our group did yet, but heard that Italy crushed Germany in Florence. That will be an interesting benchmark for us when we play Germany later this month.