Quarter Final Game Against Gemany, July 25, 2013

Above is our Winning Team! We advance to the Medal Round or Semi Finals against Canada! USA, USA, USA!!!

Good afternoon to all our loyal followers of my blog. I hope everyone is doing well. Today's game was a very special game for us, because it allowed us to advance to the final four teams of the tournament and the Medal Round. We didn't just win, we destroyed them by the score of 7:0! Let's see how it all happened. As I had said after the Uruguay game, we were not going to make the same mistake twice in how we played our opponents tactically. Since that tactical change, we have scored 15 goals and allowed only 2. Now to the game. Our first goal came in the 3rd minute on a cross from the right flank by Ross Friedman to our attacking midfield player, David Abidor, who scored easily to make it 1:0. 6 minutes later, David Rosenthal played David Abidor through for his 2nd goal, to make the score 2:0 for the USA. Our 3rd goal came 16 minutes later in the 25th minute, again with David Rosenthal assisting this time Jake Pace to make it 3:0. Then in the 45th minute, Evin Nadaner assisted once again, David Abidor for his 3rd goal of the match, all in the first half. The half came to an end with the score, USA 4, Germany 0. I am not sure I understood Germany's tactics of playing 5 in the back, 2 in he midfield and 3 up top, as they only defended and had just 2 shots the entire game. But, that was how they won their group over Great Britain and South Africa, two really talented teams.

Oh well, let's continue into the 2nd half. I made 3 of my allowable 6 subs at the start of the half. In the 54th minute, Will Pleskow sent a great cross in, to you guessed it, David Abidor for his 4th goal of the match. That made the score 5:0 for the USA. At that point I made my other 3 allowable subs and 3 minutes later, in the 57th minute, once again Will from the right wing sent another great cross in for Matt Kadoch, who headed it in the goal for our 6th goal of the match. 8 minutes later, Matt Kadoch played the ball back to Drew Rosenberg, who finished a great goal from his attacking mid position, to make it 7:0. From that point on in the game, I instructed our team to play possession and not attack, unless it was a one on one situation. Otherwise, play no more than 3 touches and keep the ball in our possession. There was absolutely no reason to score more goals against them. It served no purpose, but I also wanted to keep the shutout for our goalkeeper, Jacob Lissek, who now has played in two of our four games and has not allowed a goal. We have been splitting games with both of our keepers. This was the kind of game where I wish we could have subbed all our players in, but the rules are only 6 can be subbed in, so three of our players could not play. I had argued this rule, like others I have mentioned, but to no avail. I just hated it for our guys who did not get into the game. They understood, because they are team players and unselfish, but that did not make me feel any better about it.

So, now we move on to play Canada, a very big, strong team, who beat Brazil today in their quarter final game 1:0. This will be an extremely tough game for us, as they are very talented and we are once again on the tiny field for the third time in this tournament. The field we played on today, was a long field in comparison to others at 110 yards long, but again, very narrow at 60 yards. Even with those dimensions, it played much wider for us and the surface was outstanding. I wish we were playing there on Sunday. The finals will be back on that field on Monday evening and hopefully, with a little more hard work, we can make that game a reality. The other semi final game is between Argentina and Mexico. So, all four teams in the semi finals came from only two groups, with Argentina and Canada being in one group and Mexico and us in the other group. That is pretty interesting.

In closing, I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of all our players and staff, for believing in our system and doing their best to perfect it, in such a short time. After our opening game loss to Uruguay, we have had our backs against the wall in every game, making them must wins in order to keep playing. I truly believe that loss was extremely important in the development of our team and it's success thus far. This is the most unselfish group of players anyone could ever ask to be associated with, driven only to make the "Team" the "Superstar". We set out on this journey with one principle in mind and that was to "Dare to dream the Impossible, in order to Achieve the Possible". Well, we are just about to do exactly that, Achieve the Possible from our Impossible Dream! Our game on Sunday, is at 9:00 am, as is the other semi final game. If we win, we would play for the Gold Medal on Monday evening at 6:30 pm. Stay tuned, as it is getting exciting...

To my wonderful wife and family, including our Goldens, I miss and love you all so very much.

Take care everyone,
Coach G from Israel