Cheney, Bocanegra Come Up Big for USA

by Herodotus on Mar 3, 2010 6:24 PM PST

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

The US men's soccer team lost to the Netherlands 2-1 in Amsterdam today, but Bruin alum Carlos Bocanegra scored the only goal for the US on a pretty header. On the downside, Bruin Jonathan Bornstein gave up a penalty in the first half that resulted in the Dutchmen's first goal. Otherwise, Jon played his usual tough defense and attacked the left ~~right~~ side from his position as left ~~right~~ back. In addition to his goal, Carlos was solid in the central defense. Here are the highlights:

In the meantime, Lauren Cheney continued her assault on women's world soccer by scoring the winning goal, her fourth in the four-match Algarve Cup, to give the US a 3-2 victory over Germany. This may be considered Abby Wambach's team, but Lauren's emerging as the team's scorer. The Algarve Cup is the second-biggest tournament in women's soccer, behind only the women's World Cup.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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Bornstein was on the left, not right

and despite being a Bradley favorite, has yet to put a lock on that left back spot. His poor play continued again today. Boca was solid though and may end up playing left back at the World Cup because of Bornstein’s struggles. Assuming his injury is not worse than it appears to be, we should see Benny Feilhaber in South Africa too.

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by Ryan Rosenblatt on Mar 3, 2010 3:11 PM PST reply actions

yup

by impaulv on Mar 3, 2010 3:51 PM PST up reply actions

Right, sorry

But Jon ended up attacking on the right in the second half. Left back was a weak spot for the US and Jon’s to lose, and he may have lost it, though Kuyt is a hell of a player. The Dutch are one of the top teams in the world, and we played them very close.

by Herodotus on Mar 3, 2010 4:02 PM PST reply actions

The scoreline was very favorable to us

The Dutch were much better than us throughout the match and only when they made their subs did we really threaten. The match went just about how we should have expected it to. Those who we knew were problems (Bornstein, Findley) proved to be an issue for us and those we we’re pretty comfortable with (Bradley, Bocanegra, Holden pre-injury) did well. The thing that we can take solace in is that with the exception of the left back spot, all of the issues that hurt us most today should be shored up so long as Onyewu, Dempsey and Feilhaber get healthy and back in form by June.

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by Ryan Rosenblatt on Mar 3, 2010 4:17 PM PST up reply actions

Hate to say it about a Bruin, but...

…I hope that game showed to Bradley once and for all that Bornstein can’t cut it at the international level right now. Maybe just for the Gold Cup, but not against European competition. Hopefully he’ll improve, because we certainly don’t have a lot of leftbacks. But I’m glad we found that out now and not in South Africa.

I was a bit disappointed with Torres. Let’s hope Jermaine Jones is good and can step into that holding midfielder role.

by Westwood Wizard on Mar 4, 2010 2:01 PM PST up reply actions

Bornstein will be in South Africa

We just don’t have any other real left back candidates, but assuming Onyewu gets healthy, I can’t imagine Bocangera not starting at left back. The only other option would be moving Spector to left back. We’ve known about Bornstein’s problems for a while now, but we’re at over a decade without a quality left back so what are we to do?

I wouldn’t hold my breath on Jones. He still has to get healthy, then earn his spot back in the Schalke team (and they’re playing well) and then integrate into the team. A lot of work to be done. I liked what Mo Edu brought yesterday and think he’s probably the leader for a starting spot right now. He’s a true holding midfielder, allowing Bradley to push forward a bit and play in his natural box-to-box role.

Still three months to go though…

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by Ryan Rosenblatt on Mar 4, 2010 3:42 PM PST up reply actions