Post
by aTm » Mon Jun 23, 2014 10:39 am
It's the kind of play a confident player makes and one who isn't as confident can miss. Bradley has been a bit below his normal level, combined with the fact that we were down a goal adding pressure to the shot, and he's just keeping his eye on the ball and getting the ball on frame. Someone who was feeling confidence or buoyed by the confidence of being ahead in the game might have looked around, saw the defender coming and had the confidence to put it away either side of the defender.
Dempsey's goal was similar, someone too eager to think "go, go, go we've got to score here, Ive got to put this in" probably gets overeager and drawn offside but he's more confident, already scored in the tournament and we had already equalized in the game and he took his time and knew the last Portugal defender was slow getting up, and he even peeks back at him to time his run before getting it perfect and chesting the ball in.
Bradley is mostly getting killed because of his turnover (a turnover 70 yards away from the goal) at the end of the game, but it really wasn't a mental mistake there, as much as a physical one. He didn't dally on the ball, he actually has a physical error, a bad first touch when he tries to trap the ball and it gets away from him instead of settling at his feet in space. Then when he finally got back to the ball he arrives only just as the Portuguese player did and got dispossessed. In the 95th minute that thing can happen, he just didn't get a clean touch on it. If he made a mental mistake it was being a little naïve when shielding the ball. A player from most other countries would've fallen down right when the Portuguese player got to him while shielding the ball. I think its better than 50/50 he gets a foul call by flopping and the game is killed off.
Sure, I could have stayed in the past. I could have even been king. But in my own way, I am king.
