[You Dirty Rats]

It would be nice however for Team USA to actually score a goal on our own.

I have no problem with Arena's substitution pattern in the last game under the circumstances (except Pope should have been taken out -- that second yellow was inevitable), but I would like to see Eddie Johnson in there against Ghana for at least 30 minutes.

[kevkrom]

The only quibble I have with Arena's subs is that he still had one in hand against Italy. Take out one of the guys who played his heart out but was dead on his feet for some fresh legs in the last 10 minutes or so -- the Italians were vulnerable to counter-attack due to the well-executed strategy of making them run every inch of the field for the entire game. It would have been nice to have gotten a fresh midfielder in there to help control the ball and possibly get a counter-attack started.

Still, under the circumstances, a draw was an excellent result.

[kevkrom]

Thinking a little more about the "sub in hand", I could see an argument being made that the substitution not be used in case it was needed to replace an injured player (kind of like not using your backup catcher as a pinch hitter) -- there's no way Arena would want to be caught 10-on-8, even for a few minutes while a player got treatment.