TWO AGAINST ONE?:

World Cup Qualifying Preview: United States vs. Trinidad and Tobago (Noah Davis, 9/07/09, Goal)

Who: United States vs. Trinidad and Tobago

What: CONCACAF World Cup 2010 Qualifying

When: Wednesday, September 9; 7 p.m. EST

Where: Hasley Crawford Stadium, Port of Spain, Trinidad

TV: ESPN Classic, TeleFutura [...]

Despite some inconsistent refereeing, none of the nine U.S. players -- Jozy Altidore, Bocanegra, Steve Cherundolo, Ricardo Clark, Jay DeMerit, Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, Benny Feilhaber, and Conor Casey -- carrying yellow cards into Saturday night's fixture picked up a second.

As a result, Bob Bradley will have his entire first-choice line up expect for an injured DeMerit. With the Watford captain missing, Bradley should slot Chad Marshall alongside Oguchi Onyewu, who returns from a one-match suspension, while Bocanegra can slide over to left back and replace Jonathan Bornstein, who struggled against El Salvador. (The American manager might also leave the team captain in the center, push Spector to the left, and put Cherundolo on the right.)

MORE:
The world expects Ronaldo to deliver (Andy Mitten, September 08. 2009, The National)

Lionel Messi’s Argentina were well beaten by Brazil on Saturday night in Rosario, leaving Diego Maradona’s side an uncertain fourth in the South American qualifying group.

More acute is the situation facing Portugal and their star player Cristiano Ronaldo. Despite Carlos Quieroz’s side’s sublime talents like Ronaldo, Ricardo Carvalho, Pepe, Deco and Simao, they could only draw 1-1 on Saturday against group leaders Denmark in Copenhagen. Having won just two of their seven group games, Portugal are also fourth in a group whose only guaranteed qualifier is the first-placed team.

The optimism which surrounded Quieroz’s appointment has evaporated and Portugal’s wretched home form has left them without a single home win. Instead, they have been defeated by Denmark and been held by Albania and Sweden, not the form expected of a side which dispatched England to reach the semi-final stage in the last World Cup.

Ronaldo cut a forlorn figure as he left Denmark’s national stadium on Saturday night. [...]

The Portuguese public are understandably vexed, though their media are more critical and accuse Ronaldo of not taking his national team duty seriously.

He's trying, he's just one-dimensional.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 8, 2009 6:47 AM