The US boys put on quite a show these past few weeks.  First off they disappointed the fans with a very lackluster performance versus Italy and Brazil in the group stages.  Then they tore up the Egyptians, putting the US through to the semi-final round, and I was happy.  My expectations were met, and I had little hope for a win against the world’s number one team Spain.  But wait there’s more!!!  Holy *@#$, they won?  That’s right kids the underdogs came to win and they put the hurt on Spain with strong defense, and exceptional energy.  Now it was up to a rematch with Brazil, and this time I had hopes.  Brazil was set back on their heels after the US scored twice in the first half, again with strong defense and stronger energy.  The second half came and so did the US team from the early stages.  The team slacked off allowing open space in the midfield, and did not control possession of the ball well.

So, the question is obvious. What do we learn from this?  The answer is not so clear.  Obviously what worked for us was the pounding energy, and stifling defense.  What did not work?  perhaps the amount of running sapped the energy level late in the game.  Donovan, Dempsey, and Spector were among the top five players who covered the most distance.  The allowance of so many shots on goal, Howard did win the golden glove award.  How about not giving up so many yellow and red cards in the group stages.  I could go on and on, but the point is that the US needs to gain confidence in their performance and act like they deserve to be there.  Donovan said after the game that they weren’t looking for respect, they wanted to win.  I love that, and he played like he believed it, yet some of his teammates were a little to awe struck by the competition to be competent in their service.

Charlie Davis, Spector, and Demerit surprised me in their overall performance.  They seem to be fighting for their positions for next year.  Kljestan and Casey were less than spectacular, and need to make up for their performances.  Notable absences were Beasley, Adu, and Wynne.  With that kind of speed and fire power on the bench, the US must think highly of its other options.  The Gold Cup starts soon, and lets see if the US, with a largely different team, will take these adjustments into account.  Good Luck US Men’s Soccer!!!

Over the past several weeks I have had the opportunity to see several important games in different locations.  For example, I saw the UEFA Cup championship in an Irish pub, I regularly watch games from the couch, and I sat in the seats for a DC United match.

Hands down the in person viewing of football is the best in my opinion.  The crowd energy and enthusiasm is awesome, even if you don’t care for the teams playing.  You can’t help route for the home team, and DC’s fans are rabidly loyal to their team.  If you wear an enemy jersey to a DC United match, you might get pushed around the crowd.  I look forward to seeing Chelsea vs AC Milan, and DC United vs Real Madrid this summer.

Watching the UEFA Cup title match in an Irish bar with friends comes in second in my book.  The energy was great, and the food was cheaper, but it was missing the fan unity.  There were equal fan split in the bar, which made the cheers and jeers more contentious.  Due to the timing of some international games, I will be seeing more games at the bar down the street after work, than running home and missing the first half.

Now home viewing of games are by and large the format that is the cheapest, and most comfortable.  Yet, all the energy and spirit of the game is gone.  I have fallen asleep during more games lately than I’ve finished.  The MLS games that start at 10:00 est. are starting to bug me, but I get why they are on so late.  I have my DVR scheduled to record all of the US Men’s games in South Africa next week, and I’m still hoping to run out to a bar to watch the game.

Well fans, how do you want to watch the beautiful game?

I have a double-sided reaction to today’s performace by young American forward Jozy Altidore.  The first is “It’s about frickin’ time Bob!”  We’ve seen Jozy play well with the full national team whenever he’s been given the chance, and today he once again took advantage.  He has, I believe, 6 goals in 9 games now.  That’s a great strike rate.  It also seems to cast more mystery on his situation in Spain where he can’t even seem to make the bench.  Jozy is really showing himself to be someone who will be part of our plans going forward, and shurly part of the plan for South Africa.

My other reaction is more guarded.  Jozy’s not getting minutes in Spain, and although it’s great to see him utilize his time on the field well these performaces don’t mean that he’s finally arrived or that he’s the answer at forward right now.  I still think that Brian Ching has something to contribute, Kenny Cooper needs more looks, and we need to keep looking to bring in and develop more striking talent.  Look at Sasha Kljestan.  He puts away a hat trick, and has been pretty quiet since.  It’s certainly awesome to see, but it doesn’t take pressure off him to continue to earn his time.  On the contrary, it brings more pressure to continue this kind of production at the national level.

What I think this does mean is that Jozy needs to now be moved above some other folks in the pecking order for the time being.  He needs to stop sitting behind Ching, and the formations need to be adjusted to be sure he’s up top for now.  Give it some time, and then reevaluate.  He’s at least earned consideration when starting line-ups are being made.  Either  he’s growing, or this really is the beginning of the age of Jozy.  Either way it’s  good for him, and good for the US.

A note about my last post: I made the comment that I hoped the Sounders had the brass to “hang on” to Freddy Montero no matter what offers came in for him (right after I admitted that I didn’t know what the details of his contract was).  Well, it appears that I wasn’t just unaware of his contract details, I was completely wrong about him even having any kind of real contract with the Sounders.  Freddy Montero is on loan for the year from what I can gather from the news stories, blogs, and podcasts that abound in the footballing world.  So, in light of this new (to me) information I’d like to amend what I said.  Seattle needs to go shopping for a new DP tag from somewhere, maybe New York’s unused second one, and then launch a full out campaign to use it to SIGN Montero for all the reasons I already stated.  He’d be great for the long term future of the league, and then one day we’d be able to gain financially for him when his ambitions and the courting of Europe became just too much to ignore.

I just purchased my ticket to see Chelsea vs. AC Milan this summer in Baltimore, MD.  The World Football Challenge is on tour in the US staring the previously mentioned teams as well as Club America and Inter Milan.  All of these teams will be in preseason mode, yet the opportunity to see top level football is to much to pass up.  Many of these teams will also be taking on MLS teams while on tour including Seattle vs. Chelsea and AC Milan vs. LA Galaxy (as part of the Beckham return deal). Check out these dates, venues, and matches:

Sunday July 19th Club America v Inter Milan @ Stanford Stadium Palo Alto, CA

Tuesday July 21st Chelsea v Inter Milan @ Rose Bowl Pasadena, CA

Wednesday July 22nd AC Milan v Club America @ Georgia Dome Atlanta, GA

Friday July 24th Chelsea v AC Milan @ M&T Stadium Baltimore, MD (yeah!!!)

Sunday July 26th AC v Inter @ Gillette Stadium Foxborough, MA

Sunday July 26th Chelsea v Club America @ Cowboy Stadium Arlington, TX

Check out: www.worldfootballchallenge.com for tickets and info

Okay, okay, I get it.  The relationship between David Beckham and the MLS is strained.  His ability to truly be an ambassador and a force behind growing momentum for soccer in this country is quite possibly irrevocably tainted.  It’s sad to see it end up this way for him, but it is what it is.

Beckham’s talents in the MLS are underused and under appreciated because he’s the kind of player who works to make those around him better.  The Galaxy splashed cash on one or two positions, and then stranded those players.  The only thing you need to know to see how David’s abilities work with those around him is to see how effective he and Landon were despite the meager supporting staff.  I don’t blame him for expressing a desire to stay at Milan.  David’s a competitor and hates losing.  I’m sure it grates at him, but I don’t necessarily believe that he wants out of the MLS just because the level is so bad.  I think it comes down to the same thing it’s always come down to for him…England.  He’s enjoying his time in the third major world league he’s been a part of, but more importantly it’s helping his England chances…it’s keeping him in the picture for playing in Africa next year.  If you ask me, club soccer has been what Beckham does between international fixtures pretty much since he left United.  He bled United the way he bleeds England.  Since that divorce, he’s been all about country.  AC Milan has given him new life in England.

I hope the MLS stays strong and doesn’t back down now that they’ve trapped themselves in this corner.  I didn’t agree with the setting of the deadline so soon; I think it was a bit of a ploy that backfired on them and it shows that they don’t know a whole lot about dealing in the international market, but now that they’re here I hope they stand strong.  Will they lose money when David opts out of his contract at the end of the season (which, make no mistake, he will)?  Yes.  Will this probably make international players who are still young enough to truly be impact players shy away from the league for a number of years to come?  Yes.  But hopefully time will bring with it a little more savy-ness in dealing in international waters and sooth some of those wounds, and to back down now will only bring disrespect in the future.  Already AC Milan has basically demonstrated that they have complete disdain for for the MLS and the Galaxy by saying that they think the deadline was just a tactic.  They’re basically ignoring what’s been coming from the MLS because they seem to believe that they’ll get what they want by virtue of being the bigger club.  Don’t back down.

And don’t think for an instant that David Beckham will come back here and give anything less than 100% in a Galaxy uniform. Beckham may have expressed his desire to leave and tarnished his image here a bit, but he’s a competitor and a professional…one of the few truly professional players who have sustained that level under the spotlight.  Don’t forget, he was a want-away midfielder at Madrid who had already signed a contract with the MLS when Capello dumped him not only from the bench, but from the squad for a while.  All he had to do was sit in the stands and collect until his MLS payday.  But he busted his ass to get back into the lineup for the end of the season.  He worked that hard for a team he was leaving and to prove to himself and his critics that he wasn’t done.  He’ll do the same here, and then he’ll opt out at the end of the season, and Milan will reimburse him for his fees to do so.  Bet on it.

Beckham is going to leave the MLS, I really don’t think there’s any way to avoid that, but he’s coming back here first (if the MLS sticks to his guns), and he’ll probably have the best year of his MLS career just to show everyone that his time here wasn’t a waste.

So, in my post yesterday on the newly released US roster for the Cup qualifier on Wednesday against Mexico I stated that none of the inclusions or omissions surprised me because all of them related to problems I’ve had with the Nats since Bob Bradley took over. I wasn’t planning on writing this post so soon after saying that (I was planning on waiting until after the game to see if my complaints are even warranted), but I’ve been thinking about it since I said that and I’ve decided (or rather my impatience has decided) I just can’t wait.

My main problem around the Bob Bradley era version of the USMNT is actually a spill over from the Bruce Arena era, but it has been exacerbated by Bob. During the majority of Bruce Arena’s tenure he had Eddie Pope to call upon to play central defense. Pope proved on most occasions to be a smart, strong, speedy player who could hold our back line together as much with his brain as his brawn. He was a break from the long-standing mold of defenders produced in the United States that included Alexi Lalas, Marcelo Balboa, and Jeff Agoos, to name a few.  I hold Thomas Dooley to be an exception to this rule, but his memory went down in flames after he was asked to carry the world on his aged shoulders in the ‘98 debacle.  In 2006 Arena paired Pope with Oguchi Onyewu to create an interesting juxtaposition of playing styles in the middle of the field. It was an experiment that was never given time to adequately blossom. Teams took advantage of our weakness at outside back rather than play us down the middle, and Pope ended up red-carded for what ended up being out final game anyway. Pope’s retirement left us with some questions in the middle of the field…questions that fell to Bob Bradley to answer. Bob’s solution from the very beginning has been to use both Carlos Bocanegra and Oguchi Onyewu as the first choice pairing in all games of any consequence. Now, to be completely up front, I have no particular problem with either Boca or Gooch. They are both solid, gritty defenders who seem to lay it all out every time the step on the field. What I have a problem with is that they seem to be the exact same type of player. Both play in such a way that is more about strength and grit than reading the game, intelligence, or positioning. When I watch them play I see little finesse about our defense. Thank God for Tim Howard’s positioning genius and ability to play with intelligent reckless abandon. Just watch the Argentina friendly from a few months back to see how often he is forced to cover for them when their attempts to out-muscle leave them vulnerable to be split by a far more skilled player or players. These two are also largely responsible for the long-ball and counter-attack style that the US team plays. Instead of collecting the ball and being cool enough under pressure to give the midfielders a chance to check back, they tend to rid themselves of the ball with considerable gusto. This is a major reason why Brian McBride’s retirement was such a blow to the Nats, and why we continue to gripe about finding a player in his mold rather than developing a new system around the more ground-attacking minded squad we have. Our central defender’s tenancy to send the ball for a ride requires a forward who can collect long passes and hold the ball up long enough for the bypassed midfield to catch up.  Brian Ching, for all the flack he has caught for not being a major scoring threat since Bradley’s take over, is preferred by Bob for specifically these reasons, and is usually all alone when recieveing the ball.  This effectively takes him out of the attack on most plays because the defense has had time to organize and are usually keying on him because he’s the one holding the ball up to start the attack.

This is also part of our inability to use the wings to spread out another team.  Argentina spread us all over the field, as did England and Spain, as well as a host of other games I can think of in recent memory.  We have a few players who have come up through the system over the years who have been talented wingers, but wilted in long-run.  One of the reasons teams like England, Spain, the Netherlands, and even Mexico create such a broad pool of talented wide players is because they focus on that just as heavily as the center of the field.  The area you emphasize is the area that most readily develops.  What do we emphasize?  Defensive Midfielders.  What do we have a dearth of?  Exactly.  What does Brazil emphasize?  Attacking players.  Where have they always been vulnerable?  Defense and goalkeeping…it’s blindingly obvious.  Really, only DeMarcus Beasley has been a mainstay of the flank attack of the States with any kind of regularity, and even he has been in and out of form in long crests and troughs.  We simply don’t use the width of the field, and we rarely ever have.  Now we are resorting to using players who are not natural wide players to cover those positions, and get those players on the field (Donovan and Dempsey, anyone?).  But by puting these players who are vital cogs in our pool out there when we don’t use the wings, we are stranding skilled players away from the action and essentially taking them out of the game.  This all, of course, starts at the back.

(Wasted wide talent…)

The solution I’ve long been proposing has been bringing in and developing another group of central defenders that are cut from a different cloth.  Both Jay DeMerit and Michael Parkhurst are the type of players we should be looking at.  Michael, although often considered a bit undersized (despite his abundant success in face of the very physical play of the MLS), is a brilliant defender who makes his own success out of his ability to read the game, involve the midfield in the game, and his ability to position himself to break up the play before it happens.  DeMerit has had an up and down time with the Nats and with his current squad in the English Championship, but has been impressive in the few game situations he’s been asked to perform in.

And this leads into my third major gripe with the Bob Bradley version of the men’s national system.  Players who are seen as having “potential” are given very few chances to actually grow inside the system.  Most players called up on any regular basis have established themselves in one way or another.  Onyewu, Bocanegra, Cherundolo, Ching, Dempsey, Donovan, Howard, Beasley, and a small handful of others that have been given repeated call-ups paid their dues under Arena’s system.  The rest of the supporting cast has been called up on a somewhat rotational basis that makes only passing sense to anyone outside looking in.  If you believe the BB method, there is a huge talent pool in the United States, the second tier of which is either completely interchangable talent-wise or is so bad that we can’t seem to find adequate parts.  And whatever explanation you chose the general belief seems to be that they need to spend no time developing players at the national level.  Now, I don’t know about you, but the amount of actual playing time I see most of the fringe players (and some of our other regulars as well) in leagues outside of the MLS would suggest that their clubs aren’t spending too much time actually “developing” them.  I think that for the United States Soccer Federation to ignore internal development (which, let’s be honest, has kind of always been the policy…”Oh, let’s just let someone else worry about creating our players”) seems kind of blind and negligent. Freddy Adu and Jozy Altidore, along with Kenny Cooper, DeMerit, and Parkhurst have been the most glaringly obvious victims of this policy.

And this has been where the recent regeime has fallen down on us.  No one is going to develop our players for us.  Donald Rumsfeld once said you don’t go to war with the army you want, you go with the one you have.  Well, Donald and Bob are both thinking this way, and they are both wrong.  You go to war with the army you build.  Bob is playing, not with the team he inherited or the pool he’s got available to him, but with the one he’s building.  But he’s not conciously building one…and I believe it shows in the results.

With the real regional competition beginning this Wednesday for Africa, Bob Bradley and the USMNT’s every move will be analyzed and broken down from here to infinity until after that looming stage in ‘10.  Make no mistake about it, this is where the hard work starts…in a manner of speaking.  It was never really a question that the US would walk through to this point.  Any 12 year old in AYSO could tell you that the United States has at least advanced to a level where CONCACAF offers little to no resistance to the American’s attempts to qualify for for the quadrennial finals of the World Cup.  An honest observer would tell you that for a long time it has really been only Mexico that has offered any true challenge.  Now, let’s not get caught up in believing the US hype here and think this will be a walk for the Americans (who have dominated the series recently with an 9-2-2 in the last 13 meetings).  For whatever reasons you decide to believe, the US has had Mexico’s number recently.  But there is an electricity surrounding this game…it’s different from a lot of the meetings in recent past.

The rivalry had begun to feel a little stale due to the number of times the teams have played recently coupled with the fact that most all of these games have been played here in the States.  But this meeting is far from an also-ran.  There has been real fan pride lash-out on a lot of sites that are discussing the upcoming game.  Mexico seems to be on an upswing after a run of bad news.   And the US roster came out today after a long delay.

The roster looks like this:

GOALKEEPERS: Tim Howard, Brad Guzan

DEFENDERS: Oguchi Onyewu, Carlos Bocanegra, Frankie Hejduk, Heath Pearce, Dan Califf, Jonathan Bornstein, Marvell Wynne

MIDFIELDERS: DaMarcus Beasley, Michael Bradley, Sacha Kljestan, Jose Francisco Torres, Ricardo Clark, Robbie Rogers

FORWARDS: Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Brian Ching, Jozy Altidore, Charlie Davies

This roster will make up the game roster apart from two more omissions.  Of course, every time Jozy Altidore is included in a US roster these days the blogosphere explodes with people clamoring for him to start.  And the opposite holds true for Brian Ching, with his detractors coming out of the woodwork in spades.  It will be very interesting to see how Bradley chooses to deploy his troops this time.  I suspect the US will take the field looking something like this:

GK: T Howard

RB: F Hejduk         CB: O Onyewu            CB: C Bocanegra      LB: H Pearce

RM: L Donovan       CM: S Kljestan     CM: M Bradley        LM: D Beasley

ACM: C Dempsey

F: B Ching

This line-up will play in Bradley’s favored 4-5-1 with Dempsey pushing forward at times and Ching falling deep into the midfield to receive the ball at times.  The two spots that are difficult to call are the left back, the trouble spot in the roster, and the possible positions of Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan.  I believe Bradley will use Donovan on the right wing due to his use there at Bayern Munich as of late.  I could see Johnathon Bornstein being used at left back instead of Heath Pearce (Bradley shows an odd preference for him there), but Pearce has put in the most quality minutes there recently.  In a game of this caliber I just can’t see him giving the nod to Bornstein considering his recent length of time out of the National Team picture.

The issues I have with this roster are ones that I’ve had with the National Team rosters in general since Bradley took over (that’s for another post), so none of these inclusions or omissions come as a surprise.  I expect Robbie Rogers (due to his form against Sweden) and Charlie Davis to be the final victims of roster trimming before Wednesday.

I actually expect a close match due to the degree of competitiveness that the Mexican team is bringing on this particular occasion, combined with their close shaves in qualifying prior to this.  I think they’re out to prove something this time.  In the end however, I think the cold weather of Columbus and the cool preparation of Bob Bradley are going to have us in a position to win come late in the game.  I believe we will weather an initial storm early in the game after the Mexican’s get their legs warm, and then jump on them after half time.  We will probably own most of the second half, but we will surely drop off late in the game and be forced to bunker in.  I suspect Jozy Altidore will come on in near the 45 minute mark if we’re down or in a deadlock.  If we’re up late, I don’t expect to see him at all.  I just don’t see Bob Bradley having the confidence in him to give him the starting nod, but that also is the subject of another post.

My prediction – 2-1 US wins in a nail-biter by hanging on through the 96th minute (lots of fouls and lots of cards will give us a good hunk of stoppage time.)

When I originally envisioned this particular posting it was before the WC qualifiers had started.  I didn’t write it then because there were simply too many unknown quantities.  For instance, while I’m in complete support of bringing in players like Kenny Cooper, Jozy Altidore, and Freddy Adu into the mix of the first team because of the flashes they have shown when given the chance (or in Cooper’s case the sheer dominance he has displayed in his current goal-scoring form), but I hesitate to create a mental ‘best-case-scenario’ line up that includes them because we just don’t know.  The reality is that we as fans can only evaluate the effectiveness of players that Bradley Sr. actually chooses to play.  To assert otherwise is simply armchair arrogance.

What has prompted me to return to the idea of this article is my own internal need to comment on what I’ve been seeing happen in these initial stages of qualifying.   Wednesday night’s win against Trinidad and Tobago, and I’m not trying to take anything away from the T&T squad, but the win showed a level of play that I feel we should have been at MONTHS ago.  Our current attacking philosophy feels disjointed at best.  I think our reliance on the 4-5-1 type of formation doesn’t take advantage of the mindset that American players need to be groomed to have.  Our national team players are being drilled in a philosophy that, I think, is supposed to be defense-first and tactically sound, but instead is looking like conservatism-first.  Our players don’t seem to be playing with fire and determination.  Our players are picked apart on an individual basis because they don’t play with the fire of a combined unit.

I would advocate that the time has come for some tough love with players who only show ‘potential’.  Eddie Johnson, Brian Ching, Michael Bradley, and even Donovan, Bocanegra, and Beasley, and Dempsey need to be pulled out when their form is not good.  It hurts me to say that because I’ve always been a staunch supporter of allowing players to play through bad form.  But there’s an air of complacency that seems to have settled over the national team, which is ironic given the seeming hesitance of Bob Bradley to call up or field the same squad in repeated performances.

Landon Donovan was quoted after the Cuba game as saying, “”Something that gets overlooked is the goal is to win the game.  The goal is not to win the game 3-0 or 4-0, the goal is to win the game. Once you score a goal and if you’re winning in qualifying, the job then is to make sure the other team doesn’t score.  It’s not always as simple as, `Go attack, go attack, go attack.’  The goal is to win the game.”

In a way, he’s only half right.  The LARGER goal is to win the game.  And no, it doesn’t matter if the score is 1-0 or 10-0.  But this mentality ignores all the other things that go into the game…like focusing on maintaining position, possession, good shape, discipline, and playing with tangible grit.  If you take care of the game, the result will take care of itself.  Right now the USMNT is playing a reactive game.  This will not allow them to grow as a squad.

So what are my personal suggestions?  I would like to see the calm passing out of the back and good positioning of either Jay Demerit or Michael Parkhurst replace Carlos Bocanegra in the back-center of the park to offset the unquestionable physical and mental grit gifts of Oguchi Onyewu, who doesn’t truly provide those passing/positioning options. I would like to see us move away from the two-holding midfielder system OR (radical idea) play 3 across the back and add that extra to the attack while maintaining a duel-holding midfield presence.  I would like to see Bradley Sr. look at his playmaker options and develop that role within the US system.  I think it’s time to call up those I mentioned in the beginning of the article and allow them to develop IN the system rather than waiting until players appear to be the complete package.  I think it’s time to stop looking for a replacement to Brian McBride and start developing a coherent philosophy based around the players we have now.  We need to purposefully use the wings more and develop a true role for what we want those on the wings doing.  Given that we have very few true out-and-out wingers in the US national system (Beasley and Cherundolo are the only ones that come to mind) we need to create a clear idea of what our wingers do in the system because anyone we play out there is out of position and obviously no one has shown the instincts to play the position dangerously.

Just my two cents…