Here's what I thought about some of the Mexican players and their performances in Wednesday's 2-0 loss to the US:
GOOD
Pavel Pardo: His set-piece ability is strong and it showed against the US. He wasn't active a lot going forward in the run of play but his presence was valuable.
Carlos Salcido: Another solid effort by Salcido. He's Mexico's best defender by the way. He is always in a good position, doesn't get beat easily and can add to the attack. And he doesn't lose his head; at least not on the soccer field.
Nery Castillo: Limited time on the field but he created the early chance that Dos Santos couldn't put away. I wonder how much his relative inactivity over the last year or so contributed to his injury.
Leandro Augusto: He did well to break up the American midfield. He didn't add much offensively but I'm not sure he was supposed to. He's also a set-piece specialist but with Pardo around he didn't have the chance to show that part of his game off. I'd say he's an upgrade over Gerardo Torrado because he's not a yellow card waiting to happen.
BAD
Rafael Marquez: I don't know about this guy. Marquez, the polished defender from one of the world's biggest clubs, makes a play that would be inexcusable from a 15-year-old. He begged for forgiveness right after the game but it's the same story with him. This is the third big red card of his career. If we haven't crossed it already, at what point does "El Kaiser" stop becoming and asset and start becoming a liability? And regarding his apology, I don't know if he apologized to Tim Howard or not. I wonder if he did. That's the least he could do.
Oswaldo Sanchez: He was actually having a decent game until the late error that cost Mexico a goal. Michael Bradley's shot had a lot on it, but "San Oswaldo" should have stopped it. Still, you can only do so much in a game like that if you are the goalkeeper. I don't think he had a bad enough game so where people will start to clamor for Guillermo Ochoa. This job should still be Sanchez's to lose, and he didn't lose it Wednesday.
Carlos Ochoa: Sven-Goran Eriksson has been a supporter of Ochoa's and has fielded him often, but Ochoa's leaves you wondering... why?
Giovani Dos Santos: I'm actually not going to be as hard on him as others because I thought he did a decent job. He dribbled past US defenders and was active at times during the match, but his early chance that he squandered was was mind-numbing.
Aaron Galindo: Jonny Magallon, where are you? Your club teammate struggled in this game, against a team you scored twice on last year. Yes, you committed a foul against this same team in the 2007 Gold Cup final, Galindo committed many more of those same types of fouls on Wednesday, only they weren't in the penalty area.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
9 comments:
After all this man has accomplished, he still loses his head like this.
He's human, but he's still immature.
Apologizes are nice, but only mean something when you apologize to the offended.
He's lost his head too many times and this time it might have cost hos country the points.
I thought Giovanni was mediocre. He made one decent run in the second half, other than that, he was just filling out the numbers. If he's as fast as I remembered, and looked on that ONE run, he should have shown that pace more.
I thought Pardo had a poor game, and was surprised to see you have him listed as having had a good performance. Less precise than usual, and I really thought the U.S. put a lot of effort into pressuring him... and it worked.
i thought Gio and Nery were playing together very well. Once Nery got injured, Gio wasn't as effective. I also thought Pardo had a poor game. Leandro Augusto was pretty good I thought. The people that are bashing him don't understand that he was never meant to be an offensive threat, but more of a disruptive mid and I think he did that better than Torrado would have.
Did Villaluz make the roster for this game? I think he would have been a better option instead of Martinez on the left when Nery went off.
Wasn't that Salcido that hacked Jozy and then followed up with Donovan right before the last goal? If it was I'd say he lost his mind a little and was lucky to avoid a card.
Yeah that was Salcido, but I wouldn't call that dirty. That was a hard foul in the run of play, possibly over aggressive, could have been a yellow (I thought it should have been when it happened actually) but not dirty. Not like Marquez.
Luis
I have to disagree with you on the Salcido tackle on Jozy. If you look at the angle on the live feed then it looks like a yellow, but on the replay you can see that it is a two footed tackle with studs up from behind, with no intent to get the ball, and it occurs way after Jozy passed the ball. That was dirty and it should have been a red. Also Salcido's tackle on Frankie for the corner in the first half was pretty dirty.
JS
Still wondering who Martinez is...And Marquez played like a spoiled brat.
I disagree, Pardo and Augusto lost the mid field to Bradley. At times I forgot Pardo was playing, he presence in the midfield was not felt. How many turn overs did Augusto have, 7 or10? For now he's a downgrade to Torrado. Maybe when he fully recovers from injury he should start.
I also disagree with Ochoa, you may not like how he plays, but what other options were there? He fought well against a bigger man, and won some at times. Maybe when the midfield starts producing something for the forwards he will shine better.
Post a Comment