Brazil vs. USA soccer not so friendly friendly.

[Adam West]

Tonight 8 pm Landover, MD. My 11 year and I will be at the game....should be a good one and show if we are starting to make some positive inroads into eventually becoming a top tier team.

Not that Scotland is a good team, but was surprised to see that they beat Scotland by such a large margin the other day and beat Italy's "A" team on Italian soil a few months ago.

We try to attend one really good soccer match per year as a family. Last year it was Barcelona vs. MANU, the year before A.C. Milan vs. Chelsea. We did have tickets for everyone, but my daughter has club tryouts this evening and my older son really isn't interested so just the two of us which will be fine since he is the only one of my kids who I haven't attended a professional soccer match with just one-on-one.

[Adam West]

4-1 loss. Brazil received a PK in the first 10 minutes over a supposed handball that I didn't see but I was watching it live and their last goal appeared offsides to me. With that said, Brazil is just an excellent team with much better touches and foot skills. Maybe just a culture difference, but I notice the U.S. plays soccer similar to England (spread the field of play, try to maintain possession, and force an attack). Brazil plays a tight defense and counter strikes very fast with players who can run at full speed doing crazy footskills. They compact themselves in offensively and one touch it quickly to on another very fast and take shots while catching U.S. defensive players (which are not very good with the exception of Tim Howard) flat footed.

[Adam West]

One other thing that was very apparent to me is as much as Italy is criticized for taking falls, Brazil does it as well. Maybe it isn't intentional but I never notice U.S. players go down as easily as players from other countries. Maybe it's all part of a game strategy that we simply don't do. I did not see one U.S. player take a fall that wasn't a hard hit but definitely saw Brazil players fall on soft challenges. Just a strange concept to me. I have been involved in soccer most of my life and it isn't anything that is even discussed with players.

[megomania]

Didn't Brazil bring their 2nd team? A bunch of 20-year olds? I flipped it on, saw it was 2-0and changed the channel. It's sad because I am a huge soccer fan but the U.S. National squad just is never any good.

Diving and taking falls is taught as a strategy in South America, Mexico, etc. We have a player from Argentina on the Sounders MLS team and all he does is consistently flop. He's admitted to the media that is the way he was taught to play soccer.

-Chris

[Adam West]

Many of them will be their "A" team. The exact same lineup beat Denmark 3-1 a few days ago (Denmark is ranked #10). I have seen U.S. players drag a foot here and there to try to draw a trip but honestly; it looked like Brazil players were purposely falling. Like I said; it was bad enough that the crowd booed the Brazilian players for their antics. On the plus side, there were close to 70,000 in attendance last night which I believe they said was the largest crowd to ever attend a non-World Cup U.S. soccer game in the USA.

[Hector]

Some consolation for me...Mexico beat Brazil 2-0...