At Red Bulls games a few years ago I used to wait for the point in the match when Arena would see the light/give up on Claudio Reyna and sub in Clint. He was a game-changer.

Happy birthday! I check the site 2 sometimes 3 times a day. Keep up the great work.

Ives, you wrote "I would apply for the Red Bulls GM position but they don’t really like me over there." This is odd. When I went on the hard hat tour of Red Bull Arena in March I asked one of the people leading the tour in an off-hand way if you had been through yet, and they said pretty much that they didn't like you. Incredulous (I think your reporting is very good, the site as a whole incredibly valuable), I pressed the guy who said it. He responded kind of impotently that you scooped them on occasion. What gives?

A great game! Duka's goal was lovely. @ Aquaman: Tommy Hutchison was a left winger; Scottish Nat'l Team member who played his club soccer for Coventry City and later the old Seattle Sounders. He was pretty tall, I think (maybe not 6-3). Can't find the stats, though.

Great interview. Some of what Stover says is true. If the team starts playing well; if Red Bull Arena turns out to be half as good as it seems; if the Academy players start performing, the long-term approach taken by Red Bull will look brilliant.

One thing that hasn't been noted regarding the US play against Mexico is that our best play in the Confederations Cup came when we ran hard at the other team. We did not overwhelm with skill so much as we kept a full-court press on Egypt, Spain and Brazil. We tried against Italy, but couldn't sustain that level of leather-lunged running once we went a man down. The tactic has been to run harder than the opposition, to fight for every pass, to frustrate the opposition, take away their short passes, deny them the opportunity/ability to establish a rhythm. There are a number of criticisms to go around (with the poor midfield play being the most glaring), but I would argue that the conditions on the field at Azteca (particularly the altitude) contributed to the US downfall as much as if we had played a man down...as we did against Italy. The thin air took away our advantage and exposed a lack of skill on the ball--first touch is terrible for many of our players.

@ kingsnake--I keep hitting refresh to see if Osorio is gone yet. I brought my 9-year-old son to the W-Connection game...I think anything that gruesome should carry like an NC-17 rating

Thank you for this piece, Ives! You make some excellent points. I am also concerned about JPA, and his uncharacteristic lack of touch on Sunday was frustrating. Your point that "Hall has made more unrewarded runs than possibly anybody in MLS" is spot-on. I hadn't noticed that Ubi was missing him, too, but Richards's inability to see Hall (much less pass to him) nearly drove me insane. I thought that Ubi had quite a good game overall. His corner kicks aren't great, but he made some very good threatening runs, laid the ball off well and opened up space. There was much to like in this game...except the final score. If this had been our first game of the season, I would be VERY hopeful for 2009.