New drinking game: one shot for every bad decision

June 23st - Day 15

THIS IS RON. RON IS A BIG FAN OF BRUCE ARENA. Last night Ron had a drink for every bad decision that Bruce Arena made during this World Cup. Needless to say that Ron had A LOT of drinks and had to be carried up to his room by me and Baby Bruce. We didn’t rob him or smack him (even though we should have for skipping out on a tab he promised to pay).

Let’s review all the stupidity and come to our own conclusion as to whether or not Bruce should EVEN be CONSIDERED for another term.


>He played Eddie Lewis at left back in the first game even though Eddie Lewis is not a left back and IS the best left midfielder we have.

He then sat Eddie Lewis for the entire Italy game. Again, Eddie Lewis is the best left midfielder we have and he did NOT play against Italy.


Against Ghana, Eddie started and played in some beautiful crosses in the second half. He was then subbed out for Bobby Convey who came in and sucked.

DaMarcus Beasley played left midfielder in the first game and looked AWFUL. He then played a little bit against Italy and didn’t do much, but didn’t play awful either.


Then Bruce slotted the slightly built player who was struggling with his first touch into the center midfield slot against Ghana. So we had this little guy against a big, strong, physical team. Needless to say that Beasley didn’t do anything from that spot.

LANDON DONOVAN didn’t do anything in this World Cup except BADLY miss a very good opportunity in the first half against Ghana. Things were too hard for him. He couldn’t get his way. It is hard when you stroll around the midfield waiting for the ball to come to you or just hoping that the ref throws out three players so that the field will open up enough for you to do something.

DID BRUCE ARENA EVER SUB HIM?

NO.


The crowd was chanting for Eddie Johnson to get into the game yesterday, and he did. But it was too late and he should have been starting against a team like Ghana. Landon dropped deeper and deeper and when Ben Olsen came into the game, I almost ripped up my ticket and left.

Is anyone ever going to run off of Brian McBride’s flicks or should he just ALWAYS knock it back?


McBride worked his ass off the entire tournament and all anyone did was watch him go up to win a header and hope that he would knock it back to them. Bruce Arena has never used McBride correctly up front. We should have been driving balls into him all day with people flying into the spaces to run onto them.

That didn’t happen because everybody with the exception of Clint Dempsey didn’t know how to get forward.

I could go on for days…but here’s the most nagging part of this whole deal. Bruce Arena’s job is to put our players in the best spots on the field for the team to succeed. Having our best left midfielder at left back and on the bench for the majority of the tournament did not give us the opportunity to succeed.


Having a guy who couldn’t play at this level (LANDON) on the field for the entire tournament did not help us succeed.

Wasting Beasley at center midfield and right midfield and keeping Clint Dempsey off the field in first game because of it did not help us succeed.

Playing Josh Wolff at all and even having him on the team did not help us succeed.

Not playing Carlos Bocanegra (who does play in the EPL Bruce) in the first game did not help us succeed (by the way, Bruce said he was surprised by Boca’s performance). Surprised! There shouldn’t be any surprises at the World Cup, that’s why they give you FOUR years to get ready for it.

Let’s stop this “glass is half full” crap for one moment. We struggled big-time in this tournament to do anything. The team never looked settled, they never played really well. That is Bruce Arena’s fault. He was supposed to have us prepared for this and he DIDN’T. He just kept screwing around with things until it was too late.

And that was stupid.

Tomorrow: Who cares!...