July 20, 2009
After beating Panama in overtime, the U.S. team said its conditioning paid off down the stretch, though Beckerman admitted some fatigue heading into Thursday's semifinal against Honduras.
"This definitely took a lot out of us, and I don't think many of us have played an overtime match in a while," Beckerman said. "We're going to have to really recover quick and get right back to preparing for what will be a really tough game against a team looking for revenge."
"They play hard and have a good group of players," U.S. coach Bob Bradley said. " We expect a hard game. In the first game in D.C., we had a good finish to the match after a tough 65 or 70 minutes. That says a lot about their organization and their discipline, and we'd expect another difficult game."
Panama seemed content to play rough, with 20 fouls to just three shots. Honduras, third behind Costa Rica and the USA in World Cup qualifying, should pose more of an offensive threat.
"They've got a good attacking team," defender Jay Heaps said. "They've got some big guys up top, and they like to get the ball up top and move. They don't mess around. They play direct and really get after it."
Given the busy schedule for the USA, which reached the Confederations Cup final last month, the team was allowed to name several alternates. So far, the alternates have been little-used, even as several players have left the tournament squad to rejoin their European teams for the preseason (Charlie Davies, Freddy Adu, Steve Cherundolo, Michael Parkhurst and Benny Feilhaber).
Bradley said Conrad's injury could force him to call in another player. Jonathan Bornstein was the only defender named among the seven alternates.
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