This is out of chronological order, but I hadn’t decided to do the US’ whole World Cup run when I started so just pretend you haven’t already read the Slovenia write up.

This was the US’ first game in Group C and it was the most difficult opponent. With games coming up against Slovenia and Algeria you had to figure any points out of this game means the US is in great shape. I know Slovenia was better than we thought and all, but this definitely wasn’t the group of death. A draw here was an excellent result.

The match against England was nowhere near as exciting as the Slovenia tie. This game reminded me a bit of the current team. They look decent, but it also never looks like they are going to threaten the goal consistently.

To be fair, England was a good team (probably the best team we faced in the tournament) and we played them even-ish. If xG had been a thing back then I’d guess it would have been something like .75-1.8 in England’s favor.

The player performances themselves were in the “pretty good” range as well – and when you factor in the stage and opponent (Adjusted Total) the performance looks that much more impressive. Anyhow, to the grades:

If you haven’t read one of these before click here for an explanation of the grading system.

Player Grades

How to Interpret the Totals

15+ Excellent game 9-14 Played well to very well 5-8 Solid 0-4 Not great, Bob Below 0 My expectations for Bill and Ted 3 (I’m 100% watching it though)

*The Adjusted Total uses the Elo formula to take into account opponent and competition factors.*

MOTM – Steve Cherundolo (+13/+28.6 adj.)

It slowed down a little bit in the second half, but Capello had to pull James Milner (the same Milner that’s a key part of Liverpool now btw) 32 minutes into the game because he was absolutely going to get a red card trying to deal with Dolo.

Part I – no yellow

Part II – yellow comes out this time and followed by Milner shortly thereafter

On top of the torture Cherundolo was putting Milner through, he also played excellent defense throughout the game. Capello put Shaun Wright-Phillips in for Milner during an injury break 32 minutes into the game, probably to be more of an offensive threat and keep Cherundolo pinned further back. It sort of worked. Cherundolo wasn’t as much of a threat going forward, but SWP was essentially a non-factor offensively.

For some reason three guys kept challenging Heskey for the ball – this time it goes out wide to Lennon, but Cherundolo is there to break it up

Totally stones SWP here

This is the performance I always think of when Cherundolo comes up. He was and remains one of the more underappreciated really good players in USMNT history.

Other Notable Good Performances

Jozy Altidore (+10/+22 adj.)

It’s that man again. He’s about to come out +10 (19.1 adj.) against Slovenia in a few days and he was a handful for England in this game as well. He held the ball up well, ran all day, and almost scored a worldie of a goal in the 64th minute. It’s good to remember that he was doing this all at 20 years old too. If we had a forward prospect this good doing this for the national team right now…we’d be doing backflips.

I mean look at this – he outruns/shrugs off Carragher and almost scores out of nothing.

It’s sad to think that this is the only World Cup Jozy has been able to play in. I think he’s got one more in him if his body will allow it. Light a candle and say some prayers for Mr. Altidore. When he goes into beast mode it’s a sight to behold and he’s still the best US forward in the pool by a wide margin.

Tim Howard (+8/+17.6 adj.)

Keepers don’t tend to get a lot of love from my scoring system. If they have a high score it tends to mean bad things for you as a team (unless their distribution is awesome). Tim came up with two really big saves (41′ and 52′) and two or three other decent ones.

As a sort of side note this seems like a good place to mention how off putting it is to watch the way keepers and defenders played only ten years ago. The number of times the ball got punted into midfield or even into the stands was amazing. Both teams too, not just the US. Back then it was “playing safe” I guess, but watching the game you’re just sitting there going, “Pass it to the open guy like 20 yards from you!” Crazy how much that has changed in not that long a time.

This was just a normal, “safe” play ten years ago

Michael Bradley (+8/+17.6 adj.)

Mike wasn’t as influential as he is about to be in the Slovenia game, but he was still good. In this game it was more keeping possession and spreading the ball around than the dynamic performance against Slovenia. There are 3-4 players on this USMNT that stick out skill-wise from their teammates and Bradley is definitely one of them. In addition though, Bradley stood out for his intelligence and fitness as well. Such a good player.

Moves into space, head up and picks out a threatening pass to Altidore

Room for Improvement

Ricardo Clark (-2/-0.9 adj.)

The team needed someone like Clark in there for the team to function, but it would be nice if we’d had someone with Clark’s athleticism that was also a little classier/more aware. Clark lost track of Gerrard on England’s goal and also turned the ball over in bad spots at least twice by my count. Again, his range allowed Bradley to roam more, but it’s tough to score positive events for playing a role in the team’s set up.

When you are the deepest midfielder that’s not a great spot to turn it over. Clark didn’t appear super comfortable with the ball.

Up Next

Since I’ve already done the Slovenia match the next one up is Algeria. It’s one of, if not the most, memorable USMNT match of my life as a fan. I remember being frustrated and angry for a long time before the jubilation at the end. I’m curious to see what the individual performances look like from that game. I’m also looking forward to watching the goal again about 100 more times. 😂 Until next week.

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PS – I have made it a goal (and I’ve stuck to it) to write something once a week since I started doing this about a year ago. If the Bundesliga follows through on their plan to resume playing “ghost games” on the first weekend in May…you only have to read four more of my articles until soccer is back. 🤞 Stay healthy and away from each other, my friends.