Friendly: USA-Holland report card

Posted by Creaven on March 4, 2010 under United States, USMNT | 8 Comments to Read

In six months, the United States-Holland friendly on March 3 in Amsterdam will be remembered by U.S. fans for one of two reasons:

1. People will vaguely remember Jonathan Bornstein throwing away any chance of a starting spot at the World Cup and the national team resurrection of DaMarcus Beasley.

Or.

2. People will vividly remember it as the match Stuart Holden’s 2010 World Cup ended before it began.

I really hope it’s No. 1. Not only do I like Holden, but I think he’s a critical player for the U.S. If it was up to me, he would be the starting right midfielder against England even if everyone is healthy. But that’s assuming Nigel de Jong didn’t snap his shin in half (see the previous blog post).

When it comes to the team’s performance, I thought it was a mostly positive 2-1 defeat. To the grades…

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Nigel de Jong is an asshole

Posted by Creaven on March 3, 2010 under United States | 6 Comments to Read

I usually don’t write short blog posts, but the Nigel De Jong tackle on Stuart Holden has fired me up.

On a scale of 1-10, it was a 9.3 on the horrific scale. It was way worse than Ryan Shawcross’ tackle on Aaron Ramsey last weekend. I have no idea what De Jong was thinking, but watching the play a half dozen time it looks like he was trying to break Holden’s leg. How he got away with not getting a card goes far beyond unbelievable.

It’s halftime of the match right now and ESPN has said practically nothing about how terrible the tackle was. I should be amazed by that but I’m not. More on this later when I come out with the report card but I just hope Holden doesn’t have a broken shin.