USA loss to Honduras reveals weaknesses for Klinsmann's side

"So what did we learn?" - the USMNT in Honduras. Photograph: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

The team doesn't always click even when Bradley keeps ticking

Looking for bright spots from the performance in Honduras, there was of course the Dempsey goal - Deuce timing a beautiful late run into the box to arrive and meet an equally exquisite chip from Jones. The latter must have been especially grateful to change what was becoming a worrying reputation as a destroyer/liability, whose yellow cards and free kick concessions too often threatened to undo his own team rather than unsettle his opponents defense.
So yes, that was a bright spot. Other than that, there wasn't much, though in glimmers there was a sense that if anything was going to come from the game, especially when the US fell behind, it was from Bradley's ability to act as a fulcrum in possession - when he's on his game he can switch the point of play, drive the tempo and generally marshall his side through different sequences of the game (often initiating them). After an opening fifteen minutes of Honduran pressing, in front of a hostile crowd, in blistering noon humidity, it was Bradley who sensed that the sting had been drawn and began to initiate the slow push upfield that would eventually reward the US with the opening goal.
And if his team mates were not always on the same page, Bradley persisted. Picking up the ball, moving it forward, stepping up for the return. The problem was that when his metronomic movement speeds up, it's rather dependent on others responding, or he's left constantly scrambling to recover ground, or hope that his wide men are tucking into cover. On more than one occasion neither happened and the US were left exposed on the counter. Yet Bradley kept moving forward and being at the heart of what few US attempts there were to change the storyline.

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