USA vs. Barbados (second leg): Your Running Commentary

The U.S. national team will look to move one step closer to World Cup 2010 in South Africa today by beating Barbados and winning its home-and-home series to advance to the third round of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying.

The task is a simple one. Hold on to its 8-0 lead from the first game and the Americans advance to the next round (stop laughing). The U.S. team will be fielding an inexperienced squad, with key stars such as Tim Howard, Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey being left out of today's match in Barbados.

We could see several young faces in the mix today. Whether it's Danny Szetela, Drew Moor, Chris Seitz or Sacha Kljestan, U.S. coach Bob Bradley will have a chance to look at several players who might not otherwise get a chance to play in a World Cup qualifier at this stage in their careers.

Here is the USA lineup for today:

----------Adu--------Beasley------------

Lewis----Bradley--Szetela--------Kljestan

Pearce---Califf----DeMerit--------Moor

---------------Guzan----------------------

Szetela gets his first U.S. national team start in a midfield that could be three-fourths of the midfield we'll see the U.S. Olympic team field in Beijing later this summer.

If you are watching today's match (ESPN Classic), and will be near a computer, please feel free to follow the match here. You're welcome to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play on the action in the comments section below.

Enjoy the match.

Comments

[Cindy]

anyone have a streaming link?

[Ed Ho]

I love this lineup. Can't wait to see the speed of Beasely paired with Adu up top. It shoudl allow Freddy to play a slightly more withdrawn role and interchange with Beasely. we'll just have to see if those two can get on the end of Lewis' service.

[JB]

The game is being shown on ESPN360.com

[Jeffrey]

Not only Szetela's first start it is only his second game.

[Ives]

Talk about a sparse crowd for this game. I feel like I'm watching a college game.

[Christopher]

The Adu Beasley partnership is not a good one, especially when you consider that they'll be matched up with two very large center backs for Barbados.

Why am I not watching the Euros? What is wrong with me?

[AM]

anyone know where i can catch the game online? i don't get classic or 360 where i live.

[Jeffrey]

The picture is particularly bad on ESPN360. Is the video poor on ESPN Classic?

[DougInHouston]

Ives - Would you go to this game if it was here in the states? Especially with Spain-Italy in the Euro Quarters. I love watching the 'Nats, but there's no way I'd be there.

[Jonathan]

ESPN needs to stop updating the Euro game on the bottom. I want to be able to watch it on delay after the US game!!

[Lee]

Brek Shea on the bench, he must be impressing both BB and Man U if he is getting the call. Granted its against Barbados but still impressive for the youngster.

[Ives]

Hey, Shep Messing and JP Dellacamera. Nice Red Bulls broadcast team reunion.

[Jonathan]

Check out that gigantic TV on the far side of the US half.

[Ives]

As I wrote last night, Brek Shea got called in because A) he wasn't traveling to New York with FC Dallas anyway and B) he's an Olympic team candidate so they got a chance to look at him in training.

[eric]

Flipped to Classic as a Spanish player rolls around, picture keeps going out

Goal Lewis! From a nice feed from Adu, 1-0

[DL]

5 hole. Great ball by Freddy

[Ives]

Nice pass by Adu on the goal by Lewis, although he did get a nice deflection to put it right in Lewis' path.

[John]

The video quality of this broadcast is awful. It looks as if they purchased a video camera at Best Buy before the game and just asked a tall fan on the sideline to film it...

[ricecloudnine]

Jonathan- Masking tape across the bottom of the TV screen is a good way of covering the scores... Depending on your TV, maybe not even have the tape touching the screen if the housing sticks out far enough

[DL]

This is pathetic.

[Ives]

This game is about as ugly as we'd expect it to be.

[Jeffrey]

They are not showing scores on ESPN360. They are not even showing the score or time in the US game. No ticker, no score box.

[Ives]

What a terrible offside call against the USA. that should have been Beasley in on goal.

[Mark]

Pathetic first half. All 11 US players on the field should be ashamed of themselves for looking so lax and poor against a bunch of amateurs. Absolutely Pathetic!!

[DL]

It's a good thing that the Euros are on. At least I can watch some good soccer this afternoon.

[PanchoMiguelMoralesdeConejo]

Hey Mafia, I'm "stuck" in Argentina, and now stream appears other than the espn360.
JB, would you mind sharing your zip code so I can tell the ESPN360 server that I am 'eligible' to receive the stream?

[PanchoMiguelMoralesdeConejo]

"ESPN360 is not offered in your area, contact your cable provider, which is my Cox cable" in my case

[JB]

DL--if you call the garbage that Spain and Italy are playing real soccer. This is the worst game of the tournament since France-Romania.

[ManicMessiah]

95th minute- Di Natale takes a cross from the right and heads it at Casillas, who makes a reaction save!!!

Before that Toni got a cross put into a dangerous position, but the defender put in a saving touch. Italy threatened.

[g-loff]

Anything happening in the US match?

[KC]

The US looked way below average. Absolutely boring game to watch. Oh well..a win is a win I guess. YAWN

[legalbuzz]

I think Bradley just sort of told the troops to score a goal and not run it up on the hosts since there was no need to further embarass them. Had it been Mexico or someone like that I am sure we would have run it up.

Time to rest the troops before August. For once the CONCACAF Semi-Final round will be interesting...at least in the Group of Death (Mexico, Canada, Jamaica, Honduras). Any word on whether the State Department will let any of us go to Cuba should they advance?

[KC]

I think you are giving Bradley and the players too much credit. Maybe they were complacent or maybe they thought allowed their egos to get the best of them based on last weeks result. Several players had an opportunity to make a name for themselves and nobody stepped up and took charge.

[legalbuzz]

Perhaps I am KC. I was hoping to see some goals from different sources but alas we did not. I won't take much nor criticize much from an aggregate 9-0 victory but I would have thought we would have scored 3-4 goals today. That is why I was wondering if they just shut it down on purpose.

[Horacio]

I'm sure Ives and the BB patrol will spin this their way...

[Mario in SJ]

What a godawful match. The TV production set the stage. It was unwatchable and the palyers were terrible. The refereeing was not too far behind.

The only excuse I can give the team is that they have not spent much time together in practice. What a wasted couple of hours!

[kpugs]

A combination of unreadiness for real international competition and lack of practice might be the reason, but that's no excuse for only winning 1-0. We average something like 5 to 6 goals against them, even a younger team without much practice together should have scored at least 3.

[Dannyc58]

Why was anyone watching this over Spain vs Italy?

[rocky]

i like the szatela, bradley partnership a lot in the middle, and klejstin should def. get more looks, he looks like hes getting better

[wally]

rocky - not sure what match you were watching.

i thought szetela and klejstan did little to positively impact the match. they looked competent out there, no more, which is not impressive considering the competition. szetela was nearly invisible and kjestan played with little speed, crispness or creativity. the midfield, as a whole, was unable to breakdown the defense and create chances, as they did last week.

we now know that beasley is badly out of position playing up top. he needs room to run up the wings, and should not be playing with his back to the net.

good to know that we have dempsey, donovan and other hardened internationals for the games that count.

[Lloyd Heilbrunn]

The quality of this match was aptly demonstrated by the USL signage and the gopher level camera work...

Bob, don't be afraid to call up a center forward next time, OK??

[Landycakes]

Lloyd hit the nail on the head; kind of difficult to score a number of goals when your starting winger, measuring in at 5 foot nothing and 120 pounds soaking wet, is playing as an out and out striker against a Barbados back line where each player cracks 6' and 170 bills. I don't understand why BB decided to take it so easy on Barbados. He obviously knew that the US wasn't going to pour them on with the lineup he put out there, and that is a classy tactic if the country you're coaching is not in desperate need of a consistent striker. But obviously we are, so why not give some potential 2010 bench players a chance to show they can head a ball into a 14-foot wide net from six yards out? He gave Eddy Johnson about 180 minutes to show that; Barrett et al deserve at least 30. WTF

Hopefully Jozy will learn from la liga and be good to go in SA like the young ruskies are in the euros. (Just looked to find Arshavin's age. Homeboy looks about 19 on TV but is actually 27)

[MARTHA]

Ugly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[brett]

overall a poorly played game.... but didnt expect as much....personally i would have prefered lewis to sit out and beasley to go back out left.... mind you i know Lewis scored but in all honesty we know what he's capable of... if we are going to play beasley to get him back in form, then play him in the right spot....

start rolfe and adu up top and bring in Brek Shea.... i was truely hoping to see him play some... kid impressed me in the france tourny, id like to see him get some weak level intl' exp... But i would expect him to get a crack at the starting XI of the underperforming FCD soon...

overall, im glad Guzan got another cap.... outside of that i wasnt overly impressed with any action