Friday, September 28, 2007

Um, not the same

Just a quick post in response to an email about how Bob Bradley used two goalkeepers in the recent Gold Cup and Copa America. That's true.

However, that's not the same as what Greg Ryan did. In the men's game, all the keepers Bradley picked from were game sharp because they played regularly for their club teams.


It doesn't matter how much one plays in practice, the stress and pressure of games is different. Tim Howard, Kasey Keller and Brad Guzan were prepared for that.

Briana Scurry was not. Nothing can duplicate the environment of an actual match, except playing actual matches.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

gold cup/copa america are also not as important as a semifinal world cup game

A.C. said...

Very true.

Anonymous said...

Hugo Sanchez rotated goalkeepers during Copa America. In fact, both keepers were awesome, Memo Ochoa and Oswaldo were terrific, each played every other game.

I was dumbfounded when Hugo skipped the rotation which belonged to Memo right before the Argentina game were Mexico were eliminated. Allegedly he informed Memo Ochoa a few hours before the game he was not playing that day with no previous warning. Oswaldo had a howler of a game against Argentina. In my estimation he cost them 2 goals, and the rest is history. Check my past postings.

Mexico haters and Argentina fans said it was an excuse to blame the keeper switch but it does unsettle chemistry to do so secretively for arbitrary gut reasons.

It was a little different than the US WNT situation but the lack of communicaion from these supposedly great coaches really irritates me.

L.B. said...

anonymous, you have a lot of past postings!

Yes, you make a good parallel between this and Mexico's Copa America though of course as you said each situation is unique. A little communication can certainly go a long way, and good coaches are also good managers and good communicators, not just strategists.