Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Valentin Plays 90

Galaxy defender Julian Valentin started and played the full 90 minutes in central defense as the U.S. Under-23s fell to Turkey 3-2 this morning at the Toulon International Tournament in France.

The LA rookie almost helped earn a share of the points late on as his long ball picked out Brek Shea who got himself into a dangerous position, only to be pulled back by a Turkish defender. However, the referee did not see it that way and the Turks were able to hold on for a win in the tournament opener for both sides.

Bryan Jordan and Michael Gavin were both on the bench for the match but were not used by head coach Peter Nowak.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Valentin was by miles the best defender of a shambolic US Defense.

Why is he wearing that headprotection thing btw ?

charlesj27 said...

In the first half, the Turkish U-23 team was the more harder / dominant team. The Turkish team kept putting our US U-23 players under constant pressure (both in the 1st & 2nd Half). Julian was doing a good, steady job at spanning across the defensive back-line (left, center, and right) to act as ball defelctor and ball winner, at times. I think he had to do this to allow more defensive linesmen (like Jonathen Leathers & Tony Beltran) to take part in the wing-side attack. But, where US U-23 came up short was the midfield posession and penetration into the Turkish last third of the field. It seemed that Kamani Hill was way over-worked - he was the one doing so much controlling and winning in the midfield. I also that Sammy Ochoa played some good aggressive soccer as well. I really hope that Peter Nowak and his assistants tooka away some very good performance notes and gaps. Because, it's only going to get more fast-paced. US was indeed quite lucky to come away from it with a score of 3 - 2. Play hard, guys - Love this sport!!!