Here's a few thoughts from being at the game on some things I didn't think would really translate to TV well and on the game in general. FYI, I got to the game with about 15 minutes left in the first half, so I can only give my synopsis from there.
First, the players:
Our defense played very well. I liked what I saw from everyone, but Onyewu scares me a bit. The end result was good in that he shut down the Polish attackers, but it seems like he gets frustrated when he's getting shielded off the ball and tries to go right through the attacker which leads to a lot of fouls. Also, I now have a lot more faith in Lewis as a LB.
Midfield: It looked like our outside midfielders were pinching in a lot and weren't really using the width of the field that well. That might have been in an effort to support a quick passing ground game, but, to me, there looked to be a lot of space on the wings that wasn't taken advantage of. Having said that, I thought Dempsey played well, he dissappeared at times, but his passing, dribbling ability and ability to be in the right place at the right time puts him as a starter on my list. Beasley didn't have a good game, but it looked like the Polish team knew what his game was all about and took his speed away from him. I didn't see much of Zavagnin, but he was making bad passes, as usual, and the Polish guys behind me were laughing there asses off about him being out there. Mastro did OK, but he was caught too far forward a few times and the Polish took advantage of that. Donovan, I thought played really well. There were a lot of times in the second half when he got the ball and you were expecting him to make an easy pass and he makes the pass that no one in the stadium sees but him to a wide open player or a player streaking behind a defender. That's one of the things I didn't think would really translate to TV. I thought his second half was excellent and a model of what you want out of a midfielder that is distributing the ball for the team and getting into attack. I don't know how we're going to do it, but I'd like to see Convey starting. I think he did benefit from running at tired defenders, but he was electrifying doing it. He might be the supersub for the World Cup.
The forwards didn't really do well, but I think you have to credit the Polish defense for that. They were very organized in the back and shut down almost everything. I'd say their defense tonight was about equal to ours.
Now for the experience: We got to the game late, because we thought we'd eat before the game at Ramstein at one of the only Chili's in Europe and that took way too long. Trust me, I was ready to get out of there without eating, but my pregnant wife was with me and we had to feed Grayson so he'll be strong enough to play in a game like this one day. After that there was a shuttle to the game from the base, so we headed over there and left with a packed bus. The stadium blocked the wind and snow and was warm enough, so that wasn't really a problem. The stadium really went nuts when the snow started to fall. It was like somebody dropping buckets of snow on the field. The weather report said K-town got 5 inches of snow over 2 hours. I was a little dissappointed with the crowd with the attendance only being 13,000, but it was probably 75/25 pro-US, which was very cool to see in a venue outside of the country. After the game we really didn't stick around that long and drove straight home in a ton of snow. What sucks is that the Germans don't clear the roads that well, so we drove about 25-45 mph most of the way home and made the drive, which is usually a little over an hour, two and a half hours of pure terror. Damn I hate driving in that much snow. Anyways, that was it, I had a very good time, but what made it better was that I took my wife to her first game(she's not a sports fan at all) and she really enjoyed it, not just the atmosphere, she got so excited that she jumped out of her seat a few times when our players were making some nice runs. Hopefully, in June/July, when I'm watching the World Cup all day for a month straight she won't want me to get off the couch and will sit down with me for a few games.
